2。 Literature Review

2。1 Research of poetry translation abroad论文网

The translation of poetry is thought to be the most difficult, demanding, and possibly rewarding form of translation, which has been controversial so far。 The majority of the discussion is concerned about a theoretical questioning of the possibility of poetry translation。 In terms of the possibility of translating poetry, it’s often suggested that, unlike other forms of literary translation, poetry translation must stand on its own as a poetic text。 Many scholars like Nabokov, Robert Browning, Roman Jacobson and Shelly hold the view that it is impossible to translate poetry because they recognize that it is impossible to account for all the factors involved and to convey all the features of the original in a style and form perfectly living up to the target language, especially the culture and tradition。 Approaches to the problems are pided into two basic categories: the pragmatic and the theoretical。 The former is supported by most practicing translators while people in favor of the latter are mainly linguists。 Practicing translators focus on specific problems they meet in translating a particular poem and the solutions they find。 They can’t provide formal strategies and hence be of great value to other translators。 However, most theoretical models can make up for it。 Nida presents a diagram of how a message in the source language is decoded by the receptor and re-encoded in the target language, which is adopted to compare one or more translations with some notional ideal translation。 Lefevere examines different translations of a poem and distinguishes seven strategies。 Beaugrande formulates a model of poetic translation based on text linguistics and strategies of textual equivalence。 A more empirical model is proposed by Jones, who suggests three stages: the understanding stage; the interpretation stage and the creation stage。 The problem has always been concerned about the relationship between theory and practice。 Few theories can make explanations for the complexities in translation。 Most scholars would agree with de Beaugrande that “certainly the very uneven quality of much translated poetry suggests the pressing need for more definite and regular procedures。”(Zhang Introduction 129)

2。2 Research of poetry translation at home

In China, the translation of English poems began in the late Qing Dynasty。 Opium War opened the era of translating English poetry in China。 John Milton’s sonnet On his Blindness is considered the first English poem translated into Chinese。 The translation of the English poetry from the classical metrical poetry to the vernacular metrical poetry has gone through three stages: in the first stage, the translation of Evolution and Ethics by Yan Fu-the New Culture Movement, poems were translated mainly into Chinese ancient poetry, attaching great importance to the content。 In the second stage, Literary Revolution in 1917- the founding of the People’s Republic of China, translators such as Guo Moruo, Wen Yiduo, Xu Zhimo, Liang Shiqiu and others made a great contribution to the translation of poetry。 Most poems were translated into vernacular Chinese rather than ancient poetry。 In the third stage, after the founding of New China, the form of translated poems has been greatly improved, mainly using modern free poetry or metrical poetry。 Since the reform and opening up, translation experts has proposed a lot of translating methods from different angles。 Liu Yingkai refuted Xu Yuanchong’s Three Beauties Principle which retains the sound beauty of poems, arguing that too much emphasis on phonology is the betrayal of the original poem, and will cause a series of problems, so it is of great importance for translators to perform their duty。 Xu Yuanchong holds the view that literary translation is a kind of art because literary translation is to translate not only words, but also meaning; not only meaning, but also style charm。” Yang Deyu stresses that translation should let the readers know what the original poem is and what the form of the original poem (including rhythm) is。 In the paper related to poetry translation, Jin Ti points out that “the equivalence in translation is comprehensive, not mechanically integrating linguistics, semantics, pragmatics, etc。, but overall thinking on all levels (Cao 183)。 Xiao Qian and Wang Zuoliang, masters of the translation field, talk about their feelings of translation from their own practice。 Mr。 Xiao believes that translators should be not only faithful to the text, but also loyal to the original feelings, so that Chinese readers can enter the artistic conception of the original poems。 Mr。 Wang Zuoliang emphasizes that the translator should have a profound understanding of the original feelings as well as the most subtle things and even it twists and turns (Cao 183)。 All of the famous translators and translation theorists, put forward measures and standards of poetry translation from their own point of view, greatly inspiring late-comers。