Hu Shi’s Translation Of English Poems And Its Influence On His Poetry Creation

The new culture movement was an ideological enlightenment in Chinese modern history,and was of great history significance. During the movement, a large amount of westernliterary works were translated by Chinese intellectuals who expected to employ the culture ofadvanced western bourgeois to enlighten the Chinese people. They tried to create newChinese literature through translation, thus translation climax was formed in the history onceagain, among which poetry translation abounded. From the historical perspective, there is acertain relationship between the climax of poetry translation and the transformation ofChinese literature-the renovation of works of vernacular new poems.As one of warriors in the new culture movement, Hu Shi was one of the importantcharacters we study in poetry translation of May Fourth Movement. In order to build China’snew culture, Hu Shi actively claimed the abolition of the writings in classical style, advocatedthe vernacular, and tried to make the vernacular as the literary language of Chinese newliterature. Hu Shi was the first person to use vernacular in Chinese poetry translation. Hispoetry translation and creation had experienced a similar change in themes and verse. Thethemes of Hu Shi’s poetry translation have gone through the changes including theenlightenment, national salvation, and patriotic struggle, to humanity and humane care,philosophical speculations, even to love. The verses of poetry translation has gone throughfrom five characters, seven characters, Lisao, archaic prose, to the vernacular language, sohas Hu Shi’s poetry creation. His poetry translation and creation has realized the change from traditional poem to modern one. Since then, the vernacular poetry appeared constantly, andwas used the mark language at that time.There are some theses taking Hu Shi’s poetry translation as a case study to analyze, butthe angle in slight difference. The main aspects generally can be divided into two categories:one is from poetic view, the other from literature. This thesis will also take the case study onHu Shi’s poetry translation, and the material will be focus on his24translation poems andpoem creation in Changshi Ji. The author will be out of the traditional translation studyframework of value judgment, and neither from the view of poetics, nor the view of literatureto analyze it, and the more broad perspective on descriptive study will be rendered in thisthesis. What’s more, the difference between this thesis and others is that Hu Shi’s poetrytranslation and poetry creation are taken as the research object at the same time, and thepoetry translation will be linked with poetry creation. That whether there is a relationshipbetween the translation and his creation will be focused on.The main body of the thesis covers three stages of Hu Shi’s poetry translation includingthe poetry theme, style, his individual translation and creation of each stage. One poem ineach stage is selected for textual analysis and the comparison between the original poem andthe translated texts is carried forward from four aspects: theme, style and individualtranslation. In the first period, the theme of his poetry translation was about war; the style infive and seven characters. His creation in the first period was not obvious. In the secondperiod, the theme of humanistic care was rendered and style in Lisao. The influence of histranslation on creation was the theme of philosophy. In the third period, the theme of hispoetry translation was changed to the love, and the Baihua language appeared to the public.The impact of his translation on creation covers the monologue, the theme of love and therhythm.The present thesis discovered the following findings through the analysis of thereferences in hand: Firstly, the transformation of translator’s life environment will affect thetranslator’s translating strategies and contents to some extent, which could be seen from thestages of Hu Shi’s poetry translation. Secondly, in terms of the faithfulness, Hu Shi is afaithful translator though he inputted the current society background into his translationversion. Thirdly, the hypothesis proposed in this thesis is verified. His poetry translation activities affect his poetry creation, which could be seen from the time, the form and thetheme of them. In the end, due to author’s the limited personal ability, she hopes to see moredetailed and systematic analysis of Hu Shi’s poetry translation and his creation.