Confrontation And Coherence

Kenneth Rexroth (1905-1982), an American poet stamped with characters ofChinese culture, has made a great contribution to the translation and spread of theClassical Chinese poetry in the western world. He is a translator, as well as a poet. Heholds his Chinese rule to successfully achieve the exchange between the most distinctand contradictory languages—Chinese and English while retaining the authenticspirit of the original poetry. His translations are full of creative treason, and they allexemplify a high degree of imaginative identification with the originals. They areconsidered as the classical translation of the Chinese ancient poetry. This thesischooses the translations of eleven poems of OuYangxiu from One Hundred Poemsfrom the Chinese as the objects to study how Rexroth molds a vivid poetic image inhis translation which is not only in accord with English language customs but alsoadherent to the essence of Ou’s poetry.This thesis includes three parts: introduction, body and conclusion. In the firstpart, it introduces the research background of Kenneth Rexroth’s Classical Chinesepoetry translation at home and abroad, pointing out the study is far from enough andthere is in need of an expansion in the study of the translation of OuYangxiu’spoetry.The body has three chapters: Chapter One analyzes the predestined relationshipbetween Kenneth Rexroth and OuYangxiu, finding out the reason of the successfulrealization of the exotic essence of the originals in Rexroth’s translations. ChapterTwo concentrates on the text analysis of the creative treason in Rexroth’s translation.Linguistic and cultural differences are presented with examples in order to prove thetranslators’ subjective endeavors the confrontation in the process of ClassicalChinese-English Poetry translation. Chapter Three talks about the most authentic andmoving part of Rexroth’s translations-the essential identification of the originals. Theconclusion comes with a summery that all the confrontation and creative treason inRexroth’s translations are the underlay of the realization of the authentic spirit ofOuYangxiu’s poems. And that’s the most successful and shinning point of Rexroth’s translations.