The English Translations Of Mao Zedong's Poetry From An Intertextual Perspective

Mao Zedong, as a great poet, plays a significant role in both the history of Chinese poetry, and of the world literature. Up to now, Mao's personal charm and influence have brought numerous wonderful translations of his poetry of various languages, which enjoy great popularity all over the world. However, although there are more than ten English versions, the studies on them are limited. So in this thesis, intertextuality, a totally fresh field, would be opened to the translation studies of Mao's poetry.Intertextuality is a literary term first put forward in 1969 by Kristeva, a French symbolist and demonstrationist, who managed to combine the theories of Swiss linguist Saussure and the Russian literary theorist Bakhtin. She posited that a literary writing is not only the product of a single author, but of its relationship to other texts and to the social context. And she argues that no text can ever be completely "free" of other texts. In her own words, "every text is constructed as a mosaic citations; every text is an absorption and transformation of other texts."From the perspective of intertextuality, Mao's poetry is also an intertext of former literary works and of the social context, rich in Chinese intertextual signals. So to translate them, the translation of intertextual signals is of vital significance and difficulty, of which some common ways include: translating with intertextual signals similar in both languages, translating with the source intertextual signals, and translating with the target intertextual signals. All of these translations have their purposes, benefits, and weaknesses, either better at awakening the intertextual memory of the target readers, or at enriching their intertextual knowledge of the source language. Therefore, there is not so-called best translation version, which is in accordance to the openness and dynamics of the theory of intertextuality.