| Ancient Chinese poetry translation is the most difficult part of literary translation. For hundreds of years many translators home and abroad have contributed a lot to it and summed up many theories and criteria for it.The study of ancient poetry translation does benefit to cultural exchange and mutual communication between different countries and languages. For a long time, the translators all over the world have translated a lot of ancient poems into different languages, and then people can share the cultural beauties of other countries.As has proved by the practice and study of poetry translation, the comparison and analysis of different versions of ancient poems is an effective and quick way to carry out research on poetry translation. It does not only mean the comparison between the original version and a translated version, but also among different translated versions. The former may help us find where the problems of the translated version lie; while the latter may even enable us to find the factors that may lead to a successful version. Moreover, the theories of poetry translation will be perfected continuously and our level of appreciating and translating will be improved through these efforts.In the thesis, twenty-two versions of"Thoughts in Tranquil Night"are commented and analyzed in detail under the guidance of the theories of functional equivalence, the optimal approximate degree and the principles of three beauties. After commenting and analyzing the versions, a tentative conclusion is made that the music, form and words all should be suitable to the sense of the poem. In other words, they all work for the same purpose of pursuing"sense". Therefore, the process of translating an ancient Chinese poem can be deemed as a process of pursuing"sense". Thus some points about ancient Chinese poetry translation are brought forward in the end.In Chapter One, a brief introduction of ancient Chinese poetry is presented, which focuses on its characteristics, its beauty of sense and the inner meaning of the sense. In Chapter Two, theories and criteria relative to the translation of poetry are systematically introduced to serve as tools for textual analysis in later chapters. In Chapter Three, a general survey is made on the original version, especially on the artistic conception of the original poem and the author's psychological mood at that time. In Chapter Four, a comparative study about the twenty-two translated versions of"Thoughts in Tranquil Night"is carried out in detail under four aspects. Moreover, the main factors that influence the"sense"are dug out. The last part of the paper is a conclusion on poetry translation. That is, on the pursuit of"sense", and then some suggestions on poetry translation are presented there. |
