Whitman In Translation Course

Walt Whitman(1819~1892)was the first American poet of considerable renownoutside the United States. Although his unique works Leaves of Grass did not havean impressive beginning, it is almost universally recognized as one of themasterpiece of world literature. It has been more than 80 years since Tihan firstintroduced Whitman into China during "New Culture Movement". Based onMedio-Translatology, this thesis describes the 80-year history of Whitman and hisworks in China and tries to analyze the different cultural features in different periodsas well as his influence in the development of Chinese new poem. The introduction tries to explore the value of the thesis. It stressed theimportance of studying the translation history, of analyzing Whitman indevelopment in Chinese poem from the historical and cultural perspective, for it willgive us an acute insight into actual translation. The thesis deals with the subject by three parts: Chapter One representsretrospects of translations and studies of Walt Whitman, which lays the foundationof the sequent discussion. Chapter Two aims at analyzing acculturation process intranslation, criticism, together with the Chinese New Culture Movement fromdiachronic and synchronic aspect. As Lefevere said more than once, translations arenever produced in a vacuum, and they are also never accepted in a vacuum. Theacceptance of Whitman is based on the motivations/constrains of certain ideologicaland poetics currents. This Chapter shows this very acculturation process. ChapterThree reveals translation strategies in different periods from the prospective ofcultural studies by focusing on three aspects: types of chosen works; the role oftranslator, readers, patron; and translation strategies. This chapter elaborates itsdifferent study methods from the traditional translation studies which are largely 3confined to the technical and subjective evaluations of various Chinese versions. The conclusion summarizes the whole thesis. Through the analysis above, wecan see the canonization is not eternal as well as the form of the literature.Challenged by the sub-canons, poem, as one of the major literature form in the past,has moved from center to periphery. Therefore, the thesis put forward theexpectation of literature improvement.