Hermeneutics In English Translation Of Wang Wei’s Poems

Wang Wei is one of the most famous poets in the Tang dynasty，whose works are mainlycomposed of pastoral poems. They are pure, fresh and refined, bringing readers differentfeelings and reactions. Wang Wei’s poetry is beautiful and musical, especially characterizedwith richness in sprit of Zen.Hermeneutics is a kind of theory researching the meaning of interpretation andunderstanding which is nowadays widely adopted in the translation studies. The Hermeneuticstheory mainly covers three aspects: pre-understanding, fusion of horizons, and historicalinterpretation. This thesis attempts to apply Hermeneutics theory to discuss the significance ofthe theory in the translations of Wang Wei’s poetry. Apart from Introduction and Conclusion,this thesis consists of three chapters.Chapter One deals with the influences of pre-understandings on the translations, andwith different English versions of Wang Wei’s poems from the aspects of vocabulary, tense,and rhythms. It is found out that if the translator’s pre-understanding is consistent with thepoet, his/her translation can better reflect the original text, and vice versa.Chapter Two analyses the relationship between the fusion of horizons in Hermeneuticstheory and the translations. Several findings have been made: firstly, the deviation of thetranslator’s horizons from that of the original author’s will lead to insufficient information inthe interpretation; secondly, the fusion of the translator and the original author’s will result intranslation of the high poetic value; thirdly, the translator’s refusing to enter into the author’shistorical fusion will lead to excessive interpretation in translation.Chapter Three discusses the influences of the historical interpretation on translation.Through comparative analysis of different versions of the translation of Wang Wei’s poems, itis found that the historicity of understanding may lead to misreading, and thatmisunderstanding is not always negative, but sometimes creative.