Studies On Ezra Pound's Translation

Ezra Pound (1885-1972) is one of the most influential persons in English and American literary field in the 20^th century. He was engaged in study of many fields like poetry, criticism, visual arts, music, politics and economics, to even translation. He is entitled the pioneer of Imagist and Vortisist, the inventor of Chinese classic poetry and the preacher of Chinese Confucianism. And he is most known for his poetry, poetic views and the poetry movement, which invite him a great deal of controversies and studies. Though the western studies on Pound are relatively mature and abundant, studies on his translation are still very limited, just in its beginning. But, as a matter of fact, his translation and poetry are paralleled.Pound did a lot of work and truly gained great success in translation, but it is hard to be recognized and studied. The major reasons for this are: first, his translation can hardly be separated from his literature, especially, his poetry; second, his unique translation method makes his renderings divergent from "faithfulness"; last, he is affected by both subjective and objective conditions like misreading and misunderstanding because of lack of knowledge of Chinese language and culture, trust in Fenollosa's materials, as well as pursuit for the backup for his poetry and poetics. Under the help of the posthumous manuscripts of Ernest Fenollosa, Pound got the information of Chinese written characters and Chinese classic poetry, through which he found the essential agreement between Chinese classic poetry and the imagist poetics. And it is easy to see the promotion and influence between the two in terms of the imagist poetic propositions and the translation of Chinese classic poems.He did a lot of work on studies and popularization of Chinese cultures, particularly, Chinese classic poetry and Confucianism, which are well embodied in his Cathay(《华夏集》), the Confucian translations and The Cantos(《诗章》). He opened up the era of creative English rendering of Chinese classic poems and had Chinese literature spread over the European continent and America. Through Cathay, we can see his practice of creative translation views and techniques, and through his Confucian translations and The Cantos, we can see his understanding of Chinese Confucianism and his ideal for the world order and harmony.This thesis aims to introduce Pound's translation achievements and his poetry especially with reference to Chinese literature and culture, and to highlight some of the most salient features of his involvement with translation in relation to his fundamental concerns as a modern poet, and at the same time, discuss his translation views and techniques. And it carries on a logical combing of the research findings on Pound's translation with the relationship to poetry and China, puts forward some new findings, and at the same time provides the personal opinions on some of the existing views over his translation. The writer contributes more to the discussion of Pound's practice, views and techniques of translation based on Chinese classic poems, his understanding as well as misreading of Chinese Confucianism and the writer's comprehension over Pound's unique translation.In his capacity as both a theorist and a practitioner of translation, Ezra Pound has contributed significantly to the growth of the worldwide translation; translation plays a very important part in his literary career and provides considerable impetus to the development of modernist poetry. Accordingly, it is very worthwhile to make closer and further studies on his translation practice and views.