The Manipulation Of Poetics: A Comparative Study Of Birch’s And Xu’s Versions Of The Peony Pavilion

The Peony Pavilion,a classic in the history of Chinese literature,a masterpiece written by Tang Xianzu,a famous dramatist in the Ming dynasty and known as “the Oriental Shakespeare”,marks the peak of Chinese classical literature.Up to now,there are several English versions of the play at home and abroad.Based on Andre Lefevere’s Manipulation of Poetics Theory,this thesis is an attempt to study the poetic translation of Cyril Birch’s and Xu Yuanchong & Xu Ming’s English versions.As one of the representatives of the Translation Studies of “cultural turn”,Andre Lefevere puts forward Manipulation Theory which translation research should be set in a broader socio-cultural context.Its core concept is “Translation is,of course,a rewriting of an original text”.Lefevere manages to construct his theoretical system of translation study by defining the factor—ideology,poetics and patronage and their roles in the process of Manipulation.This research mainly focus on the poetics factor.The thesis consists of six parts: introduction part makes a brief introduction to the whole thesis,and presents an overview of the background and significance of the research,researches on the translation of The Peony Pavilion,limitation of previous researches and necessities of this study,the objectives,methodologies of the research as well as structure of the thesis.Chapter One involves the introduction to the writer,Tang Xianzu and his poetics theories,The Peony Pavilion and its English versions of The Peony Pavilion.Chapter Two provides an introduction of manipulation theory,focusing on manipulation of poetics in translation.Chapter Three explores the Birch’s and Xu’s translation theories and poetic translation theories.Chapter Four compares manipulation of poetics in The Peony Pavilion between Birch and Xu from such aspects as image,rhythm and literary styles,etc.Finally,the conclusion of the thesis states the implications and limitations of the study.The author finds out that these two English versions of the play display great differences in many aspects.The style of Birch’s translation is more figurative and it is richer in images with his adoption of free verse,Xu insists on metrical translation,even regardless of sacrificing images and meanings to keep the end rhyme.Poetologically,Birch tries to make his translated versions more exotic and heterogeneous by imitating the lexicons,and the syntactic structure of the original play.Different from Birch,the language of Xu’s version is transparent and concise.Judged by manipulation of Poetics framework,the thesis draws a conclusion that the two English versions of The Peony Pavilion are rewritings under manipulation of poetics,and the manipulated translators adopt different translating methods in their rewriting processes.