A Contrastive Study On The English Translations Of Classical Chinese Poetry By Ezra Pound And Xu Yuanchong From The Perspective Of Rewriting Theory

The classical Chinese poetry is a valuable treasure in Chinese literature, as well as a great contribution to the world literature. It is a carrier of Chinese culture, so the translation of the classical Chinese poetry is a way of introducing traditional Chinese philosophy. For the last one and a half centuries, scholars both at home and abroad have made significant efforts in the translation practices of the classical Chinese poetry. Lots of them have not only produced excellent versions but also insightful views on the verse translation theories.In the history of translating Chinese poetry into English, there are two giants having made great contributions to introduce this unique Chinese literature to the world. Ezra Pound (1885-1972) is undoubtedly one of them, his translation occupying a crucial position. His translation collection Cathay was published in1915and got a big welcome. He found images in Chinese poems, and took advantage of this feature of the classical Chinese poetry to promote his idea of Imagism. Cathay is not only a successful translation, but also considered as Pound’s most enduring contribution to the English poetry.In contemporary Chinese literary translation, Xu Yuanchong is a well-known one. His English translation of the classical Chinese poetry is widely accepted by the readers in China and also spread abroad. His theory of metrical verse translation,"Three Beauties"(namely beauty in sense, beauty in sound and beauty in form), attracts quite a few of scholars to criticize on.This thesis will adopt the Rewriting Theory by Andre Lefevere to make a contrastive study on these two literary giants’different versions of12classical Chinese poems. The theory’s core idea is"Translation is, of course, a rewriting of an original text"(Bassnett&Lefevere,2004:vii). By putting forward three concepts and defining them—patronage, ideology and poetics, Lefevere described their influences in the process of rewriting. As a new approach, Rewriting Theory has greatly widened the scope of translation studies. Its significance is embodied in the following aspects:to revolutionize the traditional model of translation studies; to give prominence to translator’s subjectivity:to provide a stage for the dialogue between translation theory and practice. This thesis will have a contrastive study on the two different translated versions of the12classical Chinese poems respectively by Ezra Pound and Xu Yuanchong, from the perspective of the three constraints—patronage, ideology, and poetics in Rewriting Theory, and make a summary of the two translators’translation strategies in the end.This thesis consists of six parts. Chapter One introduces the purpose and significance of the study. Chapter Two is literature review, introducing the Rewriting Theory, as well as the translations of the classical Chinese poetry by Ezra Pound and Xu Yuanchong respectively. Chapter Three tells readers how the author collects the data and which research method is applied. Chapter Four is the main body of this thesis, analyzing the examples from the perspective of three constraints. Chapter Five summarizes the translation strategies adopted by Pound and Xu respectively in verse translation. Chapter Six is conclusion, revealing the findings as well as the limitation in the study. The author finds out that Pound adopted various translation strategies to fit in the ideology of war time and his poetics—Imagism. He was inspired by the ways of directly presenting images in the classical Chinese poetry through translation. Xu Yuanchong chose some different strategies to deal with the original. Under the dominance of the ideology and poetics, Xu insisted on metrical translation, even regardless of sacrificing images and meanings to keep the end rhyme, which is criticized by many scholars both at home and abroad.