David Knechtges's Rhapsody On The Panpipes In The Wen Xuan

The fu in the Wen xuan translated by David Knetchges represents the highest achievement in the studies of fu by Western scholars in the 20th century.As fu is highly musical,it poses great difficulties to translators.An examination of how to translate the musical features of the fu is meaningful for the translation of ancient Chinese literature.Focusing on the Rhapsody on the Panpipes,a typical piece of fu on music,this empirical research makes a textual analysis of how Knetchges copes with the musicality in the ST in terms of rhyme and tempo,and tests the qualitative analysis with a quantitative survey.The paper also explores the implications of these translation strategies.The paper begins with a history of the translation of fu in the Wen xuan into western languages and a literature review of relevant research;then the author summarizes the musicality of fu and points out the importance of musicality in the expression of meanings;then a review is made on the difficulties in the translation of musicality and possible coping strategies.An analysis of Knetchges 's translation of the Rhapsody on the Panpipes reveals the following strategies:(1)the translator uses a high proportion of fricatives,which,according to sound symbolism,are linked with the sounds of wind associated with the meaning of panpipes;(2)for the descriptive binomes and other sound patterns,the translator mainly uses alliteration,supplemented by assonance,consonance,reverse rhyme,pararhyme and rhyme;(3)the translation reproduces the original structural iconicity at syntactic,semantic and textual levels.The number of stressed syllables in one line highly corresponds to the number of notional words in the original;this shows the uniqueness of this genre because some previous poem translators like Arthur Waley proposed the correspondence of the number of stressed syllables to the number of words in the original.At the semantic level,the ST consists of run-on lines,and usually two or three lines form a complete meaning.The translator adopts corresponding run-on lines so that the tempo is retained.At the textual level,for each section,the number of lines corresponds to the original,thus retaining the overall form.Parallel structures are also used to reproduce the original iconicity;(4)importantly,as his translation is targeted at professional readers,the translator has achieved the above formal effects on the premises of philological accuracy.Examples are analyzed through exegesis and etymological methods to demonstrate the precision of the translation.Inter-textual analyses and comparisons show that the above strategies are used in other fu pieces too.On the basis of the results of textual analysis,a reading test is performed,which quantitatively demonstrates that the translation of the Rhapsody of Panpipes can reproduce in the readers the musical effect of the original-the continuous,winding,graceful,comforting features of the panpipes,and the Confucian and Taoist ideas embodied in the musical descriptions.Knechtges's strategy for reproducing fu's musicality shows his insights into this genre and his understanding of the compiler Xiao Tong's standards of work selection.The strategy also highlights fu's formal artistic significance that is usually neglected by scholars.Knechtges's translation of fu pursues both artistic and philological consistencies;three case studies of improper criticisms on his translation demonstrate that there is much room for the study of his translation.We should explore and promote David Knechtges's translation methods in order to guide future work on the translation of fu and other classics and facilitate the development of sinology and the going global of Chinese culture.