Translator's Subjectivity And English Translation Of Tang Poetry

Tang poems, valued as the gems in classical Chinese poetry, have always gained prominence and popularity in the 3000-year literary history. Noticeably, with the efforts of translators of both at home and abroad, Tang poems are successfully transplanted in English culture as well, thereby making the charm of Chinese culture visible to the West. The positive influence of Tang poems is so significant that even modern American poetry, especially Imagist Poetry, has benefited a lot. Many Imagist poets follow suit and regard it as the best mode of poetry writing. Robert Frost's remark that "poetry is what gets lost in translation" proves to be absolutely erroneous. Judging from Literary Aesthetics, poetry translation is kind of representation of the aesthetic nature and artistic charm of the original literary text, which is proved by much fruitful practice in the translation of classical Chinese poetry, including that of Tang poems.Admittedly, poetry translation is kind of art of choice. Therefore, the translating process is unavoidably subject to the translator's subjectivity, which is tangled with the process of transformation, semantic transmission or cultural transplantation. This thesis, starting from a brief account of the history and present situation of translating Tang Poems, proposes a hypothesis that poetry is translatable (Chapter One). In the following chapter a thorough analysis is made of the nature and criteria of poetry translation and the author further points out that there is no existence of an absolute criterion in poetry translation, in which the translator's subjectivity should be developed to the maximum. It goes on with a theoretic interpretation of the translator's subjectivity in literary translation and views Philosophical Hermeneutics as the theoretic basis of the translator's subjectivity (Chapter Three). Some notions from the Aesthetics of Reception and the like, such as pre-understanding, prejudice, fusion of horizons and indeterminacy, are put forward in this chapter. What follows is a discussion of how to develop the translator's subjectivity with some case studies of English translations of Li Shangyin's poems. It deals with the issue of indeterminacy in the poetic meaning and its interpretation(s) and emphasizes that the translator's subjectivity is the inner motivation of Tang poems' multi-versions of English. The author suggests that we should balance the orientation of the original literary text with the translator's creativity while translating classical Chinese poetry (Chapter Four). Further studies of the translation of Li Shangyin's poems disclose that polyvalence (or multivalence), as an innate feature of Li's poems, is also a crucial feature of Chinese poetical discourse.The enlightenment is as follows:While making researches into the translation of classical Chinese poetry, we should abandon a longstanding binary-antagonist concept that every version is either good or bad. We should be open-minded and willing to explore the motivation concealed in translating practice. Furthermore, we should cultivate more talented translators who will be devoted to C-E translation of classical Chinese poetry. The significance of such work is that, through translation, we can build a bridge of understanding between the Chinese and foreign mind. The splendid Chinese culture, including Tang poems, is therefore being further enhanced both at home and abroad.Mainly from the perspective of modern Philosophical Hermeneutics, this thesis makes a tentative study of the English translation of Tang poetry, with some case studies of the various translations of Li Shangyin's poems. It ends with a conclusion—poetry, including Tang poetry, is translatable, if translation is regarded as a purposeful act rather than a sterile irrational pursuit of exact duplication. Hopefully this thesis will help shed new light on C-E poetry translation.