Translation Of "Chinese Imagist Poetry"-Comparative Studies On "the Tune Tian Jing Sha: Autumn Thoughts"

Classical Chinese poetry is renowned for rich images and deep artistic conception. In the early 20^th century, Ezra Pound, the leader of Imagism claimed that he absorbed the essence of Chinese poetry. Western Imagist poetry bares high similarities with a certain sort of classical Chinese poetry, like the Yuan Song "The Tune Tian Jing Sha: Autumn Thoughts". The writing skills and poetic features of that song and some other classical Chinese poems are consistent to Imagists' principles. The author coins the notion of "Chinese Imagist poetry", therefore, so as to conduct a study on the translation of some classical Chinese poetry. Based on six translated versions of "The Tune Tian Jing Sha: Autumn Thoughts", and comparative studies between the poem and Western Imagist poetry, this paper is aimed at providing some perspectives on the translation of Chinese Imagist poetry. The author holds out three principles: First is to translate images directly and concisely. Second is to apply a flexible form. And the third is to realize the poetic beauty especially fuzzy beauty, visual beauty and musical beauty in the target work.