On Chinese Classical Poetry Translation In The Light Of Hermeneutics

Chinese classical poetry translation plays an important role in spreadingancient Chinese culture and enriching global culture. In the last few decades,abundant Chinese classical poems have been translated into several languages andtransmitted to the outside world. Still, there are problems and deficiencies.Most of the Chinese classical poems are translated under the guidance ofsource-text-centered traditional translation theories. Translator alwaysoveremphasizes the faithfulness and equivalence of the translated poems to theoriginal ones, neglecting the multiple interpretations to the original poems and theexertion of translator’s subjectivity.Hermeneutics is a science about the understanding and interpretation of textualmeaning. Hermeneutics, especially Gadamer’s modern philosophical hermeneutics,provides an efficient perspective for the research on translator’s subjectivity intranslation process.The present thesis intends to examine the English translation of Chineseclassical poetry in the light of certain relevant theories of hermeneutics with thetranslation of Tao Yuanming’s poems as the case study. Through a comprehensiveand systematic analysis of Wang Rongpei’s translation of Tao Yuanming’s poetry aswell as a comparative study of Wang Rongpei’s version with those of othertranslators, the author points out that the English translation of Chinese classicalpoetry is actually a process of fusion of horizons and the exertion of translator’ssubjectivity is indispensable for the fusion process. The author holds that onlywhen a translator fully exerts his subjectivity and creativity, can the quality of theEnglish translation of Chinese classical poetry be promoted and the purpose oftranslation be achieved.