Cultural Images of Silkworm and Mulberry in The Book of Songs and Their English Translation

Abstract：The Book of Songs is one of the oldest collections of poems in the world, it brings together 305 poems from the early years of the Western Zhou Dynasty to the middle of the Spring and Autumn Period, which is undoubtedly the treasure of Chinese literature. Image is an intrinsic concept in Chinese literature, and it is the soul of Chinese classical poetry and the aesthetic significance of classical poetry. Images in The Book of Songs originate from the life of Chinese ancestors.

The study of The Book of Songs has been done for a long period with great achievements. However, among all the researches on translation, image translation, especially the specific image and its translation has been paid much less attention and its development lag far behind. This thesis is circumscribed its discussion on the cultural images of silkworm and mulberry and its translation in The Book of Songs. The silkworm and mulberry image carries the spiritual connotation of ancestors in the pre-Qin period, and the silkworm and mulberry poetries also have high aesthetic values. Therefore, this thesis is designed to start from the cultural images, with the purpose to carry out a comprehensive analysis of silkworm and mulberry, and show its unique cultural connotation. By means of comparative study, literature research, case study and text analysis, the author intends to conduct a detailed study of silkworm and mulberry images and their translation.

In order to thoroughly analyze the cultural images of silkworm and mulberry and their English translation, a comprehensive list of silkworm and mulberry articles involved in The Book of Songs is made first, and two poems of different styles and themes are selected. With the detailed analysis of the differences among the whole translated versions, we choose three translators’ as representatives, that is the works written by Xu Yuanchong, Yang Hsien-yi and Ezra Pound. Based on the text and discourse-oriented approaches and comparisons of the various translations, the thesis has revealed the distinguishing characteristics of translators, which can lead to the conclusion that it’s mainly because of translators’ subjectivity that influences the style of translation.

Keywords: The Book of Songs; cultural images; silkworm and mulberry; translation

《诗经》中的蚕桑文化意象及其英译研究 摘要

《诗经》是世界上最古老的诗歌总集之一，它汇集了从西周初年到春秋中叶， 约五百多年间的诗歌 305 篇，无疑是中国文学的瑰宝。意象是文学表达的重要方 式，是中国古典诗歌的灵魂，亦是作为古典诗歌的美学意义所在，而《诗经》的 意象更是其意象系统的发轫。 

对《诗经》的研究，现今前人在翻译领域已取得一定的成果。但是，在意象 研究领域，大多数的研究对象仍然较为宽泛，缺乏对某一特定的意象及其翻译的 研究，而且其发展程度远远落后于其他形式的意象研究。本文拟从《诗经》中的 蚕桑诗歌文化意象及其英译入手。一方面，运用语言和文化分析方法，阐明蚕桑 意象在英译中变迁与流失；另一方面，通过文献查阅、比较研究、文本分析、个 案比对等方法，力求对蚕桑意象进行详尽的研究。 

为了能够透彻地分析蚕桑文化意象及其英译的问题，本文首先对《诗经》中 所涉及的蚕桑篇目采取了全面的列举整理，并选取风格迥异的蚕诗、桑歌各一首 进行分析；在详细分析各个译者译文的基础上，本文拟选取许渊冲、杨宪益的英 译本为主要研究对象，并辅之以庞德译本作对比。通过比较分析得出，蚕桑诗歌 意象的翻译主要会受到译者这一主体的影响，由于译者翻译的目的、以及所采取 方法、策略等的差异，使得译文的风格也会随之变化。