Fuzziness In Translation Of Classical Chinese Poetry

Poetry is the upmost form in the literature. Classical Chinese Poetry has attracted millions of readers at home and abroad with polished languages, profound contents, plentiful imagery, intense emotions and vivid rhythms and meters. However, there are always existing two different views in the circle of translation: translatability and untranslatability of poems because of different cultures and customs between East and West.It is very difficult to translate Chinese literary works into English and much more difficult to render classical Chinese poetry into English. However, there are numerous good English translations of Chinese literary works including classical Chinese poetry. We learn to know Classical Chinese poetry is characterized by fuzziness as is pointed out in the books such as Fuzzy Linguistics (Wu Tieping, 1999) and Translational Plurolism (Zhou Fangzhu, 2004); thus, we think translators can obtain translated versions of high fidelity and at the same time demonstrate the translatability of classical Chinese poetry by a fuzzy means. But any coin has two sides, some scholars and translators insist that they can solve the problems of fuzziness in translation of classical Chinese poetry by a concrete means in different contexts. Professor Jin Yuanpu ( Literary Hermeneutic ) and some foreign scholars such as Iser(The Act of Reading, A Theory of Aesthetic Response) and Jauss(Toward an Aesthetic of Reception) put forward the theory of semantic uncertainty, gaps and fuzziness to demonstrate the translatability of classical Chinese poetry indirectly. At the same time many papers on poetical fuzziness and fuzzy translation in different magazines and treatises also demonstrate the translatability of classical Chinese poetry.The creativity of this paper is to point out that classical Chinese poetry can be translated into English by a fuzzy means (using a concrete means when necessary) and expounds and demonstrates fuzziness in translation of classical Chinese poetry. In particular, the author makes a study of poetical translation by these means of image fuzziness, artistic conceptional fuzziness, and semantic uncertainty and gaps so as to make the poetry translation loyal to the original as much as possible.This paper intends to accumulate and analyze a mass of materials by the method of fuzzy theory elucidation, and also studies different translation versions by qualitative approaches so that the author transfers fuzzy beauty in poetical translation to English by comparisons to demonstrate translatability of classical Chinese poetry.The first chapter introduces the origin, significance, objective and organization of study. Chinese poetical culture is so glorious and brilliant that we have the responsibility to transfer them into other languages, especially English to make the whole world know China and make some contributions to the construction of world cultural mansion.Chapter two is a literature review, which summarizes the research achievements so far attained in this field. In this chapter, the author will explore the difficulties in English translation of classical Chinese poetry and then give a general overview of aesthetic principles that have been put forward.Chapter three mainly expounds fuzziness and fuzzy beauty of classical Chinese poetry. This part interprets the characteristics of fuzziness and fuzzy beauty, the classification of literary fuzziness and the characteristics of fuzzy beauty of classical Chinese poetry. On the basis of this study, the author introduces the theory of fuzziness into poetical translations, and explains in details the definition of fuzziness, fuzzy beauty and what the characteristics and classifications of fuzziness are. Also the author expounds the fundamental characteristics of poetical languages---fuzziness.Chapter four explains the fuzzy causes of classical Chinese poetry. The author presents them from these four aspects: syntactic fuzziness, fuzziness of imagery, semantic uncertainty and gaps and vacancy of artistic conception, which expounds them completely step by step.Chapter five analyzes the translatability of fuzziness of poetry. In this part, fuzziness of poetry and fuzziness in translation are analyzed in details here. Also two important features of classical Chinese poetry are explained---translatability of imagery and style. At last the author illustrates fuzzy beauty of poetical translation with Xu Yuanchong's successful translated versions.Chapter six is the concluding part. The author will point out that the major findings the implications and limitations and suggestions of the study.The author hopes to find a new way to solve the problem in translating classical Chinese poetry into English.