A Study On Classical Chinese Poetry Translation From The Perspective Of Reception Aesthetics

Classical Chinese poetry is one of the most brilliant and fabulous culture branch ofChina, which deeply attracts scholars both at home and abroad. Meanwhile, theimplicative features of classical Chinese poetry lead to the phenomenon that evenconfront the same piece of poem, different people have different appreciation, just asthe saying that “One thousand readers make one thousand Hamlets”. Till now, manyscholars have done the translation work of classical Chinese poetry, but no matter onthe aspects of style, content, or the transferring of artistic ideorealm, they differ fromeach other greatly. However, traditional translation studies focused mainly on theanalysis of linguistic conversion and put great emphasis on “faithfulness”, whileneglected the reception differences of readers.Reception Aesthetics, which mainly based on the Hermeneutics andphenomenology, appeared in1960’s and represented by Hans Robert Jauss andWolfgang Iser. It completed the belletristic center with perfecting the research of“author---work---reader” system. And it provided some important terms like “horizon ofexpectation”,“the invoking structure”, and “reader’s status and role”, and so on. As atheory of literary criticism, Reception Aesthetics stresses on the dynamic role oftranslator, who first of all is the reader of the original text in the process of translation,then is the author and creator of the text. This thesis tries to study the question that whytranslators could have totally different understandings and appreciations whenconfronting with classical Chinese poetry’s translation under the perspective ofReception Aesthetics, and to explore why different translators could finally make outdifferent translation towards the same literary text.The significance of this thesis is to provide some hints to the study of Chun Xiao,make the application of Reception Aesthetics multiple, and be instructive to translationstudies. When doing, analyzing and criticizing the translation works, reader’s roleshould be considered, especially the special reader---the translator of the original text.Though the quantity of classical Chinese poetry is numerous, this thesis only picks out Chun Xiao and its five translation versions as the example. As is widely known,Chun Xiao is one of the most popular and familiar Tang poems which generation aftergeneration has been learned by heart. Although short and brief, it attracts readers withits fresh and natural features for hundreds years. Translators, both at home and abroad,have translated this poem into different languages and created different versions. As tothe five versions that chosen in this thesis, three of which were translated by Chinesetranslators, while the other two were given by foreigners. Both the three Chinese andthe other two foreign translators rank among the best and the most influential ones intranslation field, which is the reason why their translation versions were chosen.The study of this thesis includes the analysis of the different translation of rhyme,image and artistic ideorealm of the five versions under the perspective of ReceptionAesthetics, from which to reveal that with different “horizon of expectation”, whenconfronting “gaps and indeterminacy” in the poems, translators greatly play theirsubjectivity and activity to fill up these “invoking structures”, which finally make outthe appearance of different translations.From the analysis of this thesis, a conclusion will be drawn that ReceptionAesthetics endows readers’ subjective initiative unprecedented rights and status. Anytranslation version’s generation tightly links to translator’s cultural precipitation,aesthetic appeal, emotional attitude, and so on. As a special reader, translator activelytakes part in the recreation of the source literary text. However, while translating,translators shouldn’t just play their creative role, but have to focus on the determinacy,being faithful to the source text.