Studies On The Common Images In Classical Chinese Poetry And Their Translation

Classical Chinese poetry works its magic by using words to evoke images, which are loaded with cultural messages. It is the cultural implications attached to the poetic images that make poetry translation difficult.This thesis is a research on the translation of some common images in classical Chinese poetry into English. It first divides images into four categories, namely, images of the vegetable kingdom, images of the animal kingdom, images of the mineral kingdom and human images. For each category, some typical images and their translations are discussed to reveal their cultural differences and strategies that can be employed in their translation. With all the difficulties, however, it is still possible to translate into English culturally-loaded images in classical Chinese poetry, and retain their maximum implication. Suggested in this thesis include strategies as preservation, substitution, omission, addition and annotating.The author holds that the one hundred percent transference of culture-specific images is impossible in many cases, but still translators should and can reduce the loss of cultural implication to a minimum.