Study On The Intertextuality Of English Translations Of Shijing ·Guo Feng

It is well-known that translation consists of the transformation between two languages and between two texts. During the transforming process, two different cultures must be considered so that the translation can be accepted by the readers. When translators take the cultures into consideration, they must learn from other texts. This process is exactly an intertextual activity, namely, translating is an intertextual process. The intertextuality theory is applied into the classical Chinese poetry translation, Shijing·Guo Feng, aiming at the promotion of poetry interpretation and the expansion of research perspectives of poetry translation.The author studies on the English versions of James Legge, Wang Rongpei and Yang Xianyi and Gladys Yang from the perspective of extratextuality and intratextuality, pointing out that some elements that exist in different poems form the extratextuality while some elements within a poem form the intratextuality. By comparative analysis, the intertextuality is found from many perspectives, such as appellation, folklore, astrology, syntax and sound. By researching on the words, phrases, sentences, poetry structure, rhyme and so on, differences between the three versions are found: James Legge?s version is completed with the help of literal translation and he tries to convey the original meaning accurately and faithfully. However, he ignores the cultural differences and intertextual relationship, which leads to the culture loss. Wang Rongpei?s version is interpreted in the liberal translation and he notices the intertextuality between the original poem and the target poem. Beside, his selection of the intertextual elements and his flexibility in dealing with these elements reflect his reading, interpreting and rewriting in intertextual translation.The ways of literal translation and annotation are applied by Yang Xianyi and his wife Gladys Yang, which builds a cultural bridge between the source text and the target text. Chinese traditional culture is successfully delivered by them and a better understanding of the target text can be gotten by readers. However, the implicit and concision of classical Chinese poetry are broken more or less. Besides, the increasing workload and high requirements are given to the translators. In conclusion, Wang Rongpei version makes a good example to recall the intertextual relationship between Chinese culture and western culture.