Comparative Studies On Different English Versions Of Libai's Poems From Aesthetitc Perspectivethe

Translation has been long connected to Aesthetics both in theory and practice. However poetry is the highest form of the art of language. And poetry translation consists in conveying the original artistic concept in another language and enabling the reader to be enlightened and moved, and to undergo aesthetic experience in the process of reading the version just as he reads the original. Poetry translation is a special branch of art, similar to literature creation, but poetry translation has its own particular aesthetic principle. The writer in this thesis believes that it is significant to apply aesthetic theory to the poetry translation, because it is helpful for us to understand the translation activity. There are three main parts in this thesis. In the first part, the author reviews the poetry translation theory both in western countries and in Chinese translation traditions, then the author finds that the criteria of poetry translation are inseparable to the aesthetic theory through comparing between them. In the second part, the author introduces some elements of Aesthetics including aesthetic subjects and aesthetic objects. The translator is the aesthetic subject of the original text and the translator should reproduce the aesthetic value of the original in another language through exploring the aesthetic features in the original text. The reader is the aesthetic subject of the translated text. The aesthetic value of the translated text can only be concretized in the reading of target language readers. The Aesthetic Reception theory will help us to understand the role of the readers in the translation activity. In this thesis, the aesthetic objects are Li Bai's some poems and Xu Yuanchong's translated poems. Then, the author proposes three translation criteria from aesthetic perspective: source text-oriented, to convey the beauty of the source text and to be accepted by TL readers. In the third part, the author applies these three criteria to the comparative study of different English versions of Li Bai's poems. As we know that the form and content are inseparable in a poem. In Chinese classical poetry, the form includes phonology and syntax. Phonological feature includes rhyme, rhythm, alliteration and so on; syntactic feature refers whether this poem is a lyric, a regular verse or a quatrain. At the same time, the images in poetry are created by concise language and all kinds of figures of speech. Therefore, the author in this thesis analyzes the different translations of Li Bai's poems just from these two aspects: form and content. By comparing study, the author thinks that the poetry translation should obey the law of aesthetic equivalence and the harmony of form and content. â…±Poetry translation from the aesthetic perspective, in essence, is to reproduce the aesthetic values of the source language so that the target reader could be inspired, moved and aesthetically entertained in substantially the same manner as one reads the original. Nevertheless, a gifted translator can always find a way to achieve equal aesthetic effect or to arouse similar aesthetic feelings among target language readers.