1。1。2 A Summary of Chinese Translation Study of Shakespeare’s Sonnets

Translating Shakespeare’s sonnets into Chinese has always been an indispensable and important study。 A great number of translators had tried to translate them in their own perspective。 According to statistics, there are now more than a dozen complete Chinese versions of Shakespeare’s sonnets。 For us non-native English speakers, it’s hard to appreciate all the poetic beauty and get command of everything the poet wants to express。 Therefore, through the translation process, different translators adopted different strategies and standards or criteria, focused on accuracy or acceptability。 Zhou Qifu made some subjective comments on Liang Zongdai’s and Tu An’s versions, proposing some specific improvements in linguistic details。 Cao Minglun issued two papers on some major problems in the Chinese translation of Shakespeare’s sonnets, emphasizing the importance of historical and cultural context in treating some culture-specific items。 There are two master’s dissertations that conduct comparatively deep research on Chinese translation of Shakespeare’s sonnets: Liu Jia (2007) analyzes translation of imageries in the sonnets from the perspective of Palmer’s cultural linguistics; Guo Shanshan (2007) makes a comparison among the three Chinese versions (by Liang Zongdai, Tu An, and Gu Zhengkun) of Shakespeare’s sonnets in terms of the aesthetic transplantation。 Other sporadic essays are mostly empirical comments on the different versions of one or two of the 154 sonnets。 

Therefore, this dissertation does not try to make an exhaustive study of translations of Shakespeare’s sonnets。 Rather, it aims to analyze the features of several typical Chinese versions, including Gu Zhengkun’s, Liang Zongdai’s, Tu An’s, etc, from the perspective of images。

1。2 Research Purpose

Shakespeare’s Sonnets are full of imageries。 As scholar Tom Grey once said: “Every word in Shakespeare’s works just likes a picture。” Even though it may sound like exaggerated, when we go deep into the Shakespeare’s sonnets, we will understand the reasons underlying that statement。

Image depends on words for existence, but it is different from the character of abundance and abstraction。 Imagery is an important-perhaps the most important object used to express the emotional feelings of poet in poetry, and at the same time, the most obstacle to the translation of poems。 Since poetry is shorter than other forms of literature such as novels or documentaries。 The poet must tell all of his or her feelings in 14 sentences, and therefore imagery is perhaps the best way to make a long story short。 There are endless possible uses for symbolism and imagery in poetry, and a talented poet can use a single image to make many different statements。 

The combination of cultural imagery and delicate rhythm in sonnets are really attractive and worth finding underlying reasons of why they are used in certain places。 The utility of imagery in the sonnets is not mechanical expression; the imagery is the flux of Shakespeare’s various inner states。 He uses vivid and various images to transfer his love and appreciation to his friend, and mourn the cruelty of time。 Meanwhile, these images are deeply influenced by cultural background and social conditions of Elizabethan England。 They are the direct and veritable reflect and picture of that time。 It is these images that set up an invisible bridge, filling up the gap of time, thereby linking us contemporary readers who live centuries of years afterwards and the poet himself。 And it is these images that the readers and scholars can make full use of to dig into the inner world of Shakespeare and feel his emotions and experience。

Due to the development of modern media, we can get to know ancient and contemporary cultures much more easily, at the same time combine them together to study much more conveniently。 Since it is necessary to spread and communicate different cultures, each culture should inevitably learn from the good aspects of other culture。 With the full-fledged and effective translation study of Shakespeare’s sonnets, the Chinese poetry can borrow availably on the good points of it, and service for the flowering of world poetry。文献综述