On The Coexistence Of Chinese Translation Methods Of English Metrical Poetry

The Chinese translation of English metrical poetry has a history of more than one hundred years, but there exists much controversy over how to translate English metrical verse into Chinese. Chinese translators have hitherto devised three methods to render English metrical poetry:sinolization, liberal translation, and poetic form transplantation. And according to their understanding of the relationship between spirit and form in poetry translation, translators fall into two groups, one in favor of spiritual resemblance, the other formal resemblance. Translators practicing the methods of sinolization and liberal translation belong to the group in favor of spiritual resemblance. From their perspective, it is just an ideal to reproduce both the spirit and form of the original in the Chinese version, and they are more concerned with the transference of spirit in their translation practice, thinking that, for the sake of transferring spirit, alteration to the form is justifiable. Translators who follow the method of poetic form transplantation belong to the group in favor of formal resemblance. In their opinion, formal resemblance is the premise of spiritual resemblance, for spiritual resemblance is based on formal resemblance. It is quite obvious that the two groups have disagreement on the translation standard or guiding principle. And they both want to establish a universal translation standard or method to guide the Chinese translation of English metrical verse. The translation standards of the two groups, if judged from the theory of Plural Complementarism of Translation Standards (PCTS), belong to the category of "concrete norms," which can coexist. And accordingly the translation methods under the guidance of these different translation standards can coexist.The paper first introduces the current situation of the Chinese translation of English metrical poetry, the reason for choosing the topic, and the research questions. Next, the characteristics of English metrical poetry, previous studies into the translatability of poetry and the difficulty of poetry translation, and arguments by Chinese translators over the poetry translation standard are reviewed in Chapter two. Chapter three investigates the development and characteristics of concrete Chinese translation methods of English metrical poetry, which are guided by different poetry translation standards. Chapter four first proposes evaluating the present Chinese translation methods and standards from a new perspective-Plural Complementarism of Translation Standards (PCTS), then argues, from the aspects of multiple functions of poetry and diverse human aesthetic interests, for the coexistence of these different translation methods; and points out that the multiple translation methods are to some extent complementary to each other, and that multiple complementary versions provide readers with more angles to approximate the original. The following case study in Chapter five compares nine Chinese versions of a short poem to show the strengths and weaknesses of the three Chinese translation methods; via such a case study, the argument proposed in this paper is empirically supported. And finally the paper reaches the conclusion that it is impractical and impossible to use one Chinese translation method or standard to guide the Chinese translation practice, and that the diverse Chinese translation methods of English metrical poetry can coexist in the foreseeable future.