On The English Translations Of Mao Zedong’s Poetry In The Light Of Medio-translatology

Mao Zedong’s poetry combines politics and art.It not only retains the forms of Chinese classical poetry,but also adds the revolutionary theme in the content of the poems.Its language style is “boldness” overall,and “subtleness” occasionally.It is rich in visual forms,auditory forms,Chinese imagery and cultural elements,reflecting Mao’s brilliant ideas and revolutionary romanticism.As a result,Mao Zedong’s poems are popular with readers both at home and abroad.Around the Cultural Revolution,the English versions of Mao Zedong’s poetry were widely published in Britain and the United States,thus promoting the process of oversea spreading and reception of Mao’s poetry.At present,the studies on the English translations of Mao Zedong’s poetry at home and abroad present different orientations.The focuses of the foreign scholars are on the analysis of Mao’s poetry itself,rarely discussing the translation strategies of Mao’s poems.In contrast,the studies on the translation of Mao Zedong’s poetry in China are more specific and comprehensive.But in general,the previous studies on the English translations of Mao Zedong’s poems adopt the traditional prescriptive approach,which are concerned with the comparative analysis of different translations of Mao Zedong’s poetry and the translation equivalence between the original poems and translated versions.Few studies are in the light of “Medio-Translatology”.Therefore,the author has selected four English versions of Mao Zedong’s poetry published oversea around the Cultural Revolution,aiming to explore the oversea spreading and reception of Mao Zedong’s poetry in that period and hoping to provide valuable new perspective for the translation studies on Mao Zedong’s poetry.This thesis mainly contains four parts:Firstly,it summarizes the research background,the research significance,the research subjects,the theoretical basis,and the thesis structure;Secondly,this paper outlines the present researches on the English translations ofMao Zedong’s poems at home and abroad;In the main part of this thesis,the author discusses the four English versions of Mao Zedong’s poetry from the perspective of the oversea reception: translators’ reception and readers’ reception.The translators’ reception is reflected in the preface and postscript written by the translators,and the foreign readers’ reception is reflected from their evaluations of the translations.“Creative treason” could be found in the forms,imageries,and cultural elements.During the discussion,the author tries to illustrate how the forms,the imagery and cultural elements are achieved in the translation.Apart from the translation itself,this thesis analyzes the three manipulation factors that affect the four English versions.Finally,the author summaries the findings of this thesis.The four English versions of Mao Zedong’s poems are the products of “rewriting”.The “creative treason” and “rewriting” should not be regarded as “mistranslation”.On the contrary,this thesis attempts to appeal to the researchers to rediscover the intrinsic value of the translation.Therefore,this study emphasizes the reconstruction value of the literary translations by presenting the pervading “creative treason” in the four English translations of Mao Zedong’s poems.