A Study Of Classical Chinese Poetry Translation From The Perspective Of Hermeneutics

Over the past decades outstanding achievements have been attained on translations of classical Chinese poetry from Chinese into English. However, there still exist some problems and flaws in poetry translation theory, in which the translator's subjective role in the interpretation of the original and the reception of the readers have long been shadowed by the overemphasis upon the pursuit of fidelity and the beauty of poetry in the original. This will inevitably lead to one-sidedness and limitation in the theory in question by seeking a dream of the exact equivalence between the source text and its translated version.This thesis attempts to apply the basic notions of Hans-Georg Gadamer's philosophical hermeneutics --- historical interpretation, prejudice and fusion of horizons as well as of Reception Theory, to deal with the above problems and phenomena and to provide a basic theoretical guide for classical Chinese poetry translation, aiming at analyzing the theoretical significance of Hermeneutics in poetry translation study.Based on the hermeneutics and Reception Theory, this thesis, first, tries to analyze the influences the translator's"pre-understanding"and"prejudice"exert upon his translated version, proving the validity of the diversity of interpretations of a poem and its significance, and then, by applying Gadamer's"fusion of horizons", to discuss the significance of exploring the inter-subjectivity in poetry translation study, since over-emphasis on the translator's subjectivity may lead to obscuring other translation's subjectivities–the author and the target readers, and the topic on how to keep a harmonious and interactive relationship between the three parties remains to be worthy of further research eternally.