A Contrastive Study Of The Translation Of Du Fu's Poems From The Perspective Of The Translator's Subjectivity

Du Fu is praised as “the Poem Saint”.And his poems are cherished as the treasure of Chinese culture,many of which are still remembered and chanted by modern Chinese.The reason for his lasting popularity lies in his concern about the destiny of his country and people's sufferings,abundant cultural connotations,individual images,elegant and precise rhythm,and refined language in his poems.For a long time in the past,Du Fu's poems have been translated into many languages like German,French,Korean,and so on,but mainly into English.In the traditional studies of translation,the researchers focus on the text and the source text,its author,and the translated text become the center of their concern,but the translator is often neglected.With “Cultural Turn”,however,the researcher has turned the focus to translators in the translation research because the translator is the creator of the translated text and the quality of translation is closely related to the translator's identity,status,experience,literary accomplishment.The research on the subject of translators is an important part of translation studies.So this thesis conducts a contrastive study of Xu Yuanchong's and Witter Bynner's translation of Du Fu's poems from the perspective of translator's subjectivity,intending to explore the differences of the manifestations of the two translators' subjectivity in the process of translation and how the translators give play to their subjectivity in the process of the translation of Chinese poems.The qualitative study and the contrastive analysis are applied in this thesis.Through the study,the following conclusions are drawn by the author.Firstly,in thestage of preparation,two translators' different experiences,interests,cultural backgrounds,and abilities of the language not only affect the selection of the source text but impact on their translation purposes.Xu Yuanchong is a Chinese native translator and a graduate of Southwest Associated University.He has ever served the American volunteer army in Kunming as an interpreter.And then he studied in France.As a translator with the profound literary foundation,Xu's purpose of translation is to spread Chinese culture and to make the world know more about China.However,Bynner,an American poet,fell in love with the classical Chinese poetry after his trip to Asia.His purpose of translating Chinese poetry is to express the meaning and charm with the Oriental colors in the form of free verse by borrowing the images of classical Chinese poems.Secondly,in the stage of comprehension,Xu Yuanchong's profound literary foundation makes his understanding of the original meaning more accurate,while Bynner's understanding of the original text is based on the explanation of his partner Jiang Hanghu.Thirdly,in the stage of reproduction,the two translators make their own efforts to give full play to their subjectivity so as to present the exquisite translated text.And the main achievements are as follows: 1.Concerning the translation of proper nouns,cultural terms,and natural elements,Xu Yuanchong's translation is closer to the expression of the native language so he uses foreignization,while Bynner's version is more inclined to the expression of the target language so he adopts domestication.2.Concerning the reproduction of emotion,Xu Yuanzhong was more restrained in the emotion of the original text but Bynner adopts the rather free way to reproduce the emotion.3.Concerning the reproduction of beauty,Xu Yuanchong uses the metrical pattern but Bynner adopts the free pattern when translating Du Fu's poems.Although the two versions have their own strengths,they also possess their respective defects.For example,although Xu Yuanchong's translation preserves the original rhythm and neat antithesis,it seems unnatural in English poetry.And though Bynner's version is fluent,it loses all the rhyme and rhythm of the source text.In view of the respective shortcomings of the two versions in the exertion of subjectivity,this thesis offers the following suggestions: 1.The translator should both understandthe literal meaning and excavate the deep connotation through consulting various literatures to understand the original writer's life,experiences,hobbies,social background and so on so as to avoid the mistranslation.2.The translator should constantly improve the bilingual ability and have a deep comprehension of poetic aesthetic rules of the source language and target language in order to present the translation of both reproducing the sense of beauty of the original poems and being accepted by the target readers.The author expects to provide the translation study of classical Chinese poems with a new perspective based on the translator's subjectivity by the elaborate study.