A Comparative Study On The English Translations Of Tang Poetry By Xu Yuanchong And Stephen Owen

With the rapid development of cross-cultural communication between China and Western countries, more and more Chinese literary works which are rich in national culture have been introduced to the West. The essence of Chinese culture—classical Chinese literary works—is certainly its important part. And we should attach great importance to the translation of Tang poetry which is a treasure of the traditional culture. In this event of translating classical Chinese poetry, many cultural intermediaries have come forward with lots of great translations springing up. In China, some scholars with strong sense of cultural mission such as Yang Xianyi(杨宪益),Weng Xianliangi(翁显良)and Xu Yuanchong(许渊冲)set about studying Chinese poetry systematically and translating them into English in the nineteen seventies and produced many translations of high quality. In the West, some scholars who are attracted by Chinese culture also have introduced Tang poetry into the Occidental world, such as Ezra Pound(庞德),James Holmes(霍姆斯)and Stephen Owen(宇文所安).From the translations of Chinese poetry by translators both at home and abroad, we can see that their versions with regard to the same poems are different from each other and the translators can be classified into different schools. Among the contemporary translators, Xu Yuanchong and Stephen Owen are more typical. Their translation strategies adopted in their versions can represent the two trends in translating classical Chinese poetry from Chinese to English. So the versions by the two translators should be of the first importance to be studied.On the basis of a general introduction to the two great translators, this thesis gives a brief description about Xu's and Owen's notions in translating poetry and compares them with each other. Then it makes a comparative study of the two translators'versions of the same poems in terms of sense, sound, form, cultural imagery and translation style. Comparing the translations by the two translators, we can find that Xu's and Owen's versions are both successful while their styles are so different. Because of his pursuit of beauty since his youth and his enthusiasm for Chinese literature, especially classical Chinese poetry, Xu basically aims at introducing Chinese culture to the world and thus helping to enrich the world culture. Thus, on the one hand, Xu tries his best to reproduce beauty in three aspects—beauty in sense, in sound and in form. On the other hand, he has to sacrifice the cultural imagery in the original to keep his translation fluent and readable which will make his version accepted and enjoyed greatly by the Western readers. He also pays great attention to the representation of beautiful meaning and artistic conception value of the original and tries to make his version characterized by the style of "few words with infinite meaning". We can see that Xu renders verse into verse and he tends mainly to domesticate Tang poetry. Comparatively, Owen, as an American sinologist who majors in classical Chinese literature, tries to introduce Chinese culture to Americans and thus enrich America culture while managing to rebuild the history of Chinese literature by his translating classical Chinese poetry. Ignoring the characteristics resulting in beauty in sense and sound because of differences between Chinese and English, Owen manages to represent meanings of the original by interpretive method. He tries to find very flexible English forms that can recreate a set of differences to echo the basic formal differences of Chinese poetry and prefers to reproduce the cultural imagery which is rich in Chinese flavor so as to transmit the "indestructible" part of Chinese culture and literature. Generally speaking, Owen likes to convert the rhythm into free verse. He apparently tends to foreignize the classical Chinese poetry. Through analysis, the author of the thesis also realizes that translation is not a simple action of conversion between two languages, but a complex activity which is affected by many factors such as personal interest, notion in translating poetry, cultural viewpoint, translating purpose of a translator. In this complex activity, as a result of being affected by these factors, a translator will adopt some translation strategy which is distinguished from others＇and will produce a translation with unique style. Therefore, if we want to make an objective appraisal to a translation, we cannot evaluate it as good or bad simply from the perspective of the factors such as its translation strategy, content or point of emphasis. Any translation, which does not mean one that has no defect, so long as it can represent positive translation notion and cultural viewpoint of a translator and so long as it has fulfilled the translator's purpose and exerted certain influence upon the expected readers, should be regarded as a successful one.