A Study Of The English Translations Of Mao Zedong's Poems From The Perspective Of Translation Aesthetics

The poems of Mao Zedong have a unique place in the Chinese literature, not only because the poet is a great leader of the People's Republic of China, but also because the content and form of the poems fly their own colour in the Chinese literature history. The translation of Mao Zedong's poems is a bridge to introduce the great leader and poet as well as Chinese poems and culture to the foreign readers. Classical Chinese poetry is characterized by its terseness in language, abstruseness in meaning, richness in imagery, sharpness in emotion, and distinctiveness in rhyme and rhythm. Mao's poems have these features and moreover, they are based on the modern history of China, so the translation of Mao's poems is really challenging. This thesis analyses the English translations of Mao's poems on the basis of the theory of translation aesthetics. The poetry proper is an aesthetic entity embodying aesthetic elements, and the translation of poetry involves the maintenance of the original beauty of the poetry which is a difficult task for the translators. Studies of poetry translation from the perspective of translation aesthetics may shed some light on the translation strategies of poetry. This thesis adopts the theory of translation aesthetics to analyze the two English versions of Mao Zedong's poems. Translation aesthetics hold that in the process of translation, two essential elements are involved, i.e. aesthetic subject and aesthetic object. In the thesis, both aesthetic subject and aesthetic object are examined and through comparison, the merits and flaws of the two English versions are displayed and possible improvements and suggestions on the translation of Mao Zedong's poems have been given to help the poems be translated better. Through analysis, it can be seen that to maintain the beauty of the original texts, the aesthetic subject plays a key role and the aesthetic quality of the translation is determined not only by the aesthetic ability of the translators, but also by the outer environment which may lead the translation to conforming to some required standard.