Three Beauties Principle: An Approach To Chinese Classical Poetry Translation

Chinese classical poetry is a gem in Chinese culture, which is famous for its beautiful images and rhymes. Lots of scholars, both at home and abroad, devote themselves to the translation of this treasure in order that more people could appreciate it. However, since Chinese and English belong to different language systems, there are too many differences in historical, cultural and linguistic backgrounds. Hence the translation of Chinese classical poetry is an arduous task.Different translators adopt different strategies in poetry translation, so different schools of poetry translation come into being. In china, there are three major schools on poetry translation from Chinese to English: metrical verse school, free verse school and prose school. The core proposition of metrical verse school is translating verse in verse. The free verse school insists that attention should be paid to the conveyance of original meaning while the rhyme can be abandoned and lines can be changed. The prose school insists that spirit of the original is the most important element of a poem rather than the form. The three schools have their own advantages and disadvantages respectively. As the divergence between them is hard to settle, we may study poetry translation from another perspective. Since beauty is one of the most important features of poetry, poetry translation can be regarded as a process to transform the beauty of original poems. Therefore, we may as well study poetry translation from aesthetic perspective.Professor Xu Yuanchong, combining his own translation practice with traditional translation theory, put forward his Three Beauties Principle for poetry translation, which means beauty in sense, sound and form. Beauty in sense refers to the representation of original spirit; beauty in sound means the rendition should be rhymed and pleasing to ear; and beauty in form refers to that the form of the rendition should be trim or similar to the original. Since this principle emphasizes beauty rather than traditional faithfulness, conflicts come out. Many scholars encourage it while some resist it.This thesis mainly analyzes the feasibility of Three Beauties Principle applied to poetry translation. The author makes a comparative study between Chinese and English poetry first, and discusses the difficulties as well as requirements of poetry translation. The author then discusses different views of several schools. Based on these, the author proposes the solution of aesthetical conveyance. In the following parts, the author introduces the origin, content and methodology of Three Beauties Principle, and then discusses further the feasibility of Three Beauties Principle for reproducing the original beauty on the basis of case study. The author points out some disadvantages of Three Beauties Principle at the end of the thesis.After the analysis of Three Beauties Principle combining with Xu's practice, the author concludes that it is feasible to apply Three Beauties Principle to Chinese classical poetry translation, though there are some deficiencies. Therefore, we should deal with it dialectically in poetry translation.