On The Translation Of The Chinese Classical Poems From The Perspectives Of Text Typology And Context

The traditional Chinese opera The Peony Pavilion was one of the masterpieces writtenby the famous playwright Tang Xianzhu. Under the title of A Revival after Death at thePeony Pavillion, this drama was based on the novel The Revival of Du Liliangwritten in theMing Dynasty. Words in it are elegant and luxuriant, and the dialogues and expressions arewitty and entertaining. This great drama has combined characteristics of dramas and musicin both southern and northern China. Lu Tiancheng in the Ming Dynasty once praised thedrama, saying the plot and the scenes of the story are suspenseful and moving that itsurpassed all the legends of the past ages. Since the book was published, it has been soldabroad. Until now, there have been three English versions for this drama. The earliestversion was translated by Professor Cyril Birch at Berkeley University in the United Statesand published by Indiana University Press. The second English version was translated byZhang Guangqian, a professor at the University of Science and Technology of China andpublished by the Tourism Education Press in1994. The last and the most popular versionnow was translated by professor Wang Rongpei at Dalian University of Foreign Languagesand published by Shanghai Foreign Language Education Press in2000.With the Chinese culture and arts being spread all over the world and the revitalizationof the traditional Chinese opera, more and more researchers are now paying attention to theEnglish versions of the Peony Pavilion. Some researchers may choose to study and analyzeone chapter or one version, some may compare two or more different versions, and somemay even analyze its different versions in details from a certain perspective. However, amore systematic study on the translation of the envois in the Peony Pavilion has neverbeen attempted. Katharina Reiss has always thought that it is the premise for a translator to analyze thetypology of a text before choosing the best strategy to translate it. And it is also the startingpoint for a translation critic to appreciate the translated works comprehensively andobjectively. Based on Karl Buhler’s division of three kinds of texts, Reiss divided textsinto four types, namely expressive texts, informative texts, operative texts and audio-visualtexts. Peter Newmark and Jacobson also proposed their own theoretical classificationsfrom the perspective of communicative functions.Based on the text-typology theory, this paper makes a study on the rhyme, culturalimages and expression of meaning by making a comparison between the two Englishversions translated respectively by Cyril Birch and Wang Rongpei. The focus in this essayis put on the phenomenon of similarities and differences of the two versions and thereasons why these differences occur. However, in the process of analysis, the author of thethesis found that although the theory of text typology did come into play in translation ofthe envois, it could not give powerful explanation for the differences between the twoversions. After bringing in the theory of context, all problems get reasonable explanations.Therefore, it can be concluded that the translator should not decide on his/hertranslation strategies simply and indiscriminately based on the text-typology theory. Theposition, function as well as the context of the poems should also be taken into account forthe purpose of giving useful suggestions for translators in translating poems in traditionalChinese operas.