On Gu Zhengkun's Translation Poetics From His Translation Of Mao Zedong's Poems

As an important translator in contemporary China,Professor Gu Zhengkun has a good knowledge of the disparity between Chinese and western culture and has made remarkable achievements in translation theory and practice.Gu's translation practice includes poetry,novels and Chinese classical literary works which are influential at home and abroad,including Poems of Mao Zedong,The Book of Tao and Teh,150 Masterpieces in Yuan Qu-poetry,etc.and Chinese translations of The Art of Worldly Wisdom(???),The Road Ahead(????),Shakespeare's Sonnets,etc.Based on his abundant translation practice,he proposed a multiple-layered translation theory system,which can deepen the researches on poetry from theory,practice,appreciation and comparison and form poetic system.According to Andre Levefere's manipulation theory,poetics is one of the three elements manipulating translation,which includes dominant social poetics and translator's individual poetics.Levefere considered that poetics is another name of literature concept.On the one hand it refers to the literary technique,genre,themes,prototypical characters,scenes and symbols;on the other it refers to a concept of what the role of literature is,or should be,in the social system as a whole.The former represents the function of literature.And the latter decides the impact of literary works.In the preface of The World Poetics Dictionary,Professor Yue Daiyun defines poetics as the abstract theoretical study of literature.As the name implies,translation poetics refers to theoretical studies on translation.It tends to show a comprehensive thinking and overall constructive views beyond the information of translated text and reflect the metaphysical theoretical thinking of literary translation,especially poetry translation.Levefere's translation poetics highlights the rewriting and manipulation of translation to the works in source language on the cultural level as well as the influence of ideology and poetics on literary translation.Henry Meschonnic believes that poetics is a more comprehensive and profound theoretical system than linguistics and that translation theory should belong to poetics.In translation,no matter which kind of poetics dominates the translator's practice,it will be reflected by the translated works.Particularly,the individual poetics plays an important role in the translation practice since it will influence the translator's selection of potential translation works and translation strategies in the process of translation.Starting from the perspective of translation poetics and combining the characteristics and translation strategies in Gu Zhengkun's translation of Mao Zedong's poems,this thesis is set to elaborate how Professor Gu fulfills and demonstrates his translation poetics in his practice.The content of the thesis is mainly divided into three parts,including the introduction,the main body and the conclusion.The introduction part presents the research background,purpose,methods,difficulties and contents.The main body includes four chapters.The first chapter introduces the literature review which explains the current research situation of translation poetics,Gu Zhengkun's translation activities and the translation of Mao Zedong's poems at home and aboard.The second chapter presents Gu's views concerning poetry translation based on his abundant practice.The third chapter gives an introduction to the characteristics of Mao Zedong's poems and Gu's version of Mao Zedong's poems and Chapter Four analyzes the embodiment of Gu's translation poetics in his translation of Mao's Poems,which can be summarized as holism,pluralism,complementation and the preservation of aesthetic features of sense,sound and form.The conclusion part sums up that through analyzing Gu's translation poetics and his translation practice,more and more researchers will realize the translator's poetics' influence on his translation practice.As Ye Jiaying ever said that every poem has an integrated life.The life of translated text closely relates with the translator.Thus poetics can provide a holistic perspective for translation research.