On The English Translation Of Du Fu's Poems From The Aesthetic Perspective

Ancient Chinese poetry, with its high aesthetic values, is considered as the cream of Chinese literature. Poetry translation, for its condensed language, beautiful rhythms, rich images and complicated rhetoric, is regarded as the peak of Himalayas of literary translation. This vividly suggests the paramount skills needed for poetry translation. Because of this, numerous scholars have made arduous studies in poetry translation research, with impressive although, to some extent controversial results.Traditional translation theories related to poetry translation have been constructed mostly from a linguistic or cultural perspective, for example, Nida's "closest natural equivalence" (1964) and Venuti's "resistance" or the "foreignizing" strategy (1995). This thesis, by exploring the poetry translation from the aesthetic perspective, aims to break the deadlock by introducing the translation aesthetics and by raising the translation of poetry to the artistic creation level. At the same time, the author hopes that with the introduction of this new perspective, the poetry will be liberated from the tie of linguistics and cultures and new ways of thought and translation methods will be introduced into poetry translation.A detailed analysis of Du Fu's poems and their English translations from the aesthetic perspective will be covered in the thesis. The aspects covered are the aesthetic objects (the original text and the translated version) and the aesthetic subjects (the translator and the TL reader). Of these, the translator is the subject of the original text. He/she recreates and reproduces the original beauty by exploring the aesthetic features with complete understanding of the original form. The reader makes the original aesthetic constituents come into being by reading the translated text of the translator.Du Fu and his poems are the object of study in this thesis. As one of the most renowned Chinese poets, his poems present a type of unique beauty. Of all the verse forms he has used in his works, his five-character and seven-character regulated verses are the most famous. Among his 1400 poems handed down, about 85% are in these two forms; they represent the highest achievements of regulated verse in the Tang dynasty. Despite this, the whole collection of his poems has not been translated so far. And there is little research on translations of poems from the aesthetic perspective. Thus, this thesis, with its systematic exploration of his poems and their English translation, aims to act as lead-in for the future translation of this great poet's works.The first part of the thesis focuses mainly on the aesthetic values represented in Du's poems. Then, it discusses how these values or beauties are rendered, and to what degree they have been lost in translation. Due to the limited scope of this thesis, it is impossible to analyze the poems written by Du Fu one by one. Hence, two poems "Spring Outlook" and "Climb High" are chosen as typical examples. Different translated versions are provided to give some enlightenment on the form, rhythm and so on. After that, the important roles of translator and reader are introduced. And Iser's Reception Aesthetics is consulted to make the points clear here. By doing this, the author hopes that the readers here could learn something from what is discussed and apply what he or she learns to their future translation.