Poetic Image And Translation

Classical Chinese poetry is the most condensed and compact literary form. Its highly figurative and expressive power lies not only in its ideas, but also in its vivid images. However, image, which constitutes the core to the creation and serves as a key to the appreciation of the classical Chinese poetry, also poses great obstacle to its translation.Based on the view that image reconstruction plays the key role in the rendering of the whole poem, this thesis sets out to make a systematic study on image reconstruction in the translation of the classical Chinese poetry, which is approached mainly from the perspectives of traditional Chinese poetics, Hermeneutics and modern translation theories.This thesis consists of six chapters besides an introduction and a conclusion. Chapter One is a brief review of study on image reconstruction in the translation of the classical Chinese poetry. Some unanswered questions in that field are put forward, which require answers in the following chapters.Chapter Two presents a rather comprehensive introduction to the theory of image, which includes its origin and development in the classical Chinese literature, definition, essence and categories. It is pointed out that image is the fusion of the objective phenomena and the poet's subjective emotions. The essence of image lies in its determinate structure with indeterminacies.Chapter Three is an introduction to Hermeneutics and its relations to translation studies. Hermeneutics provides a profound source that has shed much light on translation studies. It was George Steiner who firstly and systematically applied hermeneutical principles to translation studies and has made much achievement in that field. In this chapter, major effort is distributed to the discussion of some hermeneutical translation theories proposed by George Steiner, such as understanding as translating, original repetition and the hermeneutic motion (trust, aggression, incorporation and restitution), which, the author of this thesis believes, provide a theoretic guidance and...