A Comparative Study On Chinese-english Translation Of Classical Chinese Poetry Under "Three Beauty" Theory

Classical Chinese poetry is an important part of traditional Chinese culture, andalso a splendid chapter in the long history of Chinese civilization. Considering thevarious differences between the Chinese and English languages, and the uniquecharacteristics of poetry, there still remains a big challenge for translators andtranslation theorists to transfer Chinese poetry into English so that English-speakingreaders can understand and enjoy Chinese poetry.Xu Yuanchong is a master in classical Chinese poetry translation, who has putforward a comprehensive system of poetry translation concepts, which has made greatcontributions to classical Chinese poetry translation. Under the guidance of XuYuanchong’s “Three Beauty” theory, this thesis takes some different English versionsof Li Bai’《s长干行》, Bai Juyi’《s长恨歌》，and Li Qingzhao’s《声声慢》as examples,to discover the realization of “Three Beauty” theory in different English versions aswell as the similarities and differences between the methods applied in translation byadopting descriptive comparison, and then to discuss in further the instructivesignificance and applicability of the theory in translation practice.It has been discovered that,“Three Beauty” theory plays an important role in fullreproduction of the “Three Beauty”(beauty in sound, form and sense) in the originalpoetry. Xu Yuanchong pays much attention to beauty in sound and conveys this kindof beauty mainly by full rhymes in addition to put beauty in sense in the first place.Compared to the free verse style adopted by Pound and some other translators, theapplication of rhyming helps reproduce certain degree of beauty in sound of theoriginal poem. In some cases, Xu Yuanchong even flexibly adds some words just forthe purpose of rhyming on the premise that the content and artistic conception of theoriginal poem are successfully reproduced. Besides, Xu Yuanchong’s versions alsoattach importance to preserve beauty in form of the original poem. His translatedversions always keep the same or similar numbers of lines as the original poems, andall lines have almost the same number of syllables, thus conveying certain degree ofbeauty in form of the original poems.Based on the results of the study, this thesis then propose some suggestions onpoetry translations and believes that when not every principle can be taken intoaccount the focus should be on the translation of the artistic conception. In addition,from the point view of “going global” strategy for Chinese culture, this thesis alsosuggests that: while reproducing “Three Beauty” in the process of poetry translation,“Chinese flavors” in the poetry should be retained as far as possible, so as to maketarget readers have a further knowledge of traditional Chinese history and culture when they enjoy the beauty of Chinese poetry.