A Study On Pound's Rewriting Of Cathay

Ezra Pound is one of the most influential figures in modern American history. He is generally considered as a great poet mostly responsible for defining and promoting Imagism in poetry; and he also shows his greatness in translating the classical Chinese poetry. Since its first appearance in 1915, Cathay has received floods of praise and condemnation as well. American critic and poet T.S.Eliot has praised Ezra Pound's translation of Chinese poems and called him"the inventor of Chinese poetry"of the 20th century. However, some Chinese scholars criticized Pound's translations for violating the principle of faithfulness and misreading the original works. In fact, from the perspective of cultural exchange, the mistakes Pound makes in his translations can be understood. Misreading is inevitable when cultural exchange is made between heterogeneous cultures. This thesis intends to revalue Pound's translation strategies in Cathay through the interpretation of it.This thesis holds that the remaining of"Poetic quality"of the original text in translation is one of the most important factors of a successful translation. We should evaluate creative translation, and the gain and loss of the translation correctly. To analyze and study the root of the mistranslation in the version, we should probe deeply into the reasons behind the mistranslation, such as history, culture, society and psychology, etc, and take tolerant attitude to them. This thesis adopts descriptive translation studies to reproduce the truth of the translation of Cathay by Pound.This thesis contains 6 parts. The introduction part gives a brief account of background of Pound and Cathay, and the structure of the thesis as well. The main parts of this thesis mainly consist of 4 chapters, analyzing creative rewriting and mistranslations in Cathay through the analysis of Pound's translation text. In fact, Pound succeeds in transmitting the poetic quality embodied in the poems with any possible and suitable translation strategies. Images reproduction and images juxtaposition are highlighted to radiate maximum energy; precise and colloquial in language and free style are also used widely in translation. Besides, concerning the mistranslations in Cathay, they are mainly due to Fenollosa's notes, and Pound's lack of Chinese culture. From perspective of cultural exchanges, the mistakes Pound makes in his translations can be understood. Then, this thesis also explains the factors that govern the creative rewriting and mistranslation in Cathay from Skopos theory and rewriting theory. Finally, it comes to its conclusion.To sum up, Cathay is an anthology of successfully translated poems. Its adequacy to Pound's translation brief, consistency with the ideology and poetics of that time and the warm reception by the western readers also prove the success of Cathay.