A Comparative Study On Translating Images Of Lin Daiyu's Poems In The Three English Versions Of Hongloumeng:From The Perspective Of Image-G Actualization

Bearing diversified and distinctive images,Lin Daiyu's poems are of the highest artistic value in Hongloumeng,since the artistic value and essence of poems mainly consist in their images.As for the renditions,there are three complete English versions of Hongloumeng,of which the two complete versions by Yang Xianyi&Gladys Yang and David Hawkes&John Minford are put great attention to,while the first complete but unpublished version by the Rev.Bramwell Seaton Bonsall has been long neglected.Based on the comparative analysis of such three versions,the thesis focuses mainly on the images in Lin Daiyu's poems.Mary Snell-Homby highlights holistic quality of Gestalt Psychology to delve into literary translation.Echo with her insight,this essay probes into the image-G actualization in Lin Daiyu's poems from the perspective of the gestalt image actualization proposed by Jiang Qiuxia.Qualitative and quantitative methods and comparative approach are applied in it.Out of varied sorts of poetic images,this thesis delves into abstract images,numeral images and images of names,because such three kinds of images are rarely studied,despite that the reproduction of these images is indispensable for successful poetry translation.Then the mental and linguistic actualization of the three kinds of images is explored.As for abstract images and numeral images,it can be found that translators employ more literal translations than other strategies,such as free translation,omission,substitution.Bonsall mostly adopts literal translation and Yang makes more use of literal translations than Hawkes.With respect to the images of names,it can be seen that Bonsall all employs transliteration,as Yang and Hawkes both adopt transliteration and semantic translation.Besides,the essay makes a tentative study of harmony from linguistic level,aesthetic level,and parts and whole.With regard to the reproduction of harmony at the linguistic level,Hawkes and Yang outdo Bonsall in actualizing the original rhythm and achieving the linguistic harmony.As for aesthetic level,Yang does better in actualizing the aesthetic harmony of image-G,keeping more intact of gestalt qualities and enabling the target readers to experience the aesthetic enjoyment of the original poems than Hawkes and Bonsall do.Concerning parts and whole,three versions endeavor to reproduce the holistic image in their renditions,achieve proper integration of parts into the whole,rather than the simple equivalence of linguistic items.Each rendition has advantages and disadvantages.As far as imaginative faculty and accommodative faculty are concerned,compared with Yang and Bonsall,Hawkes excels in giving the rein to his imagination to bridge the gaps and modifying the existing schema to harmoniously and consistently blend into the original.The tentative study may supply suggestions for poetry translators to reproduce the aesthetic effect and it would be applied in other poetry translation study to evaluate other translations from the perspective of image-G actualization.