Translation Of Chinese Poetry Research Articles

Moral Education and Heaven–Human Relationship in Jesuit Translations of Chinese Poetry (17th–18th Centuries)

The 17th and 18th centuries were a period of extensive cultural interaction between China and the West, and also the beginning of Chinese poetry translation in the West. Jesuit missionaries were pioneers in introducing Chinese poetry to Europe. Influenced by the Confucian poetic thought of Siwuxie 思無邪 (no depraved thoughts) and Ricci’s accommodation strategy, the Jesuits translated poems from the Shangshu 尚書, the Shijing 詩經, and the Emperor Qianlong’s Imperial Odes on Shengjing 禦制盛京賦, as well as works by Fan Zhongyan 范仲淹, Du Fu 杜甫, Shao Yong 绍雍, and even the poems in the exhortations of the Ming and Qing dynasties into European languages. These poems predominantly dealt with themes of moral education, the image of virtuous monarchs, and the Chinese concept of the Heaven–human relationship. Through intentional omissions and rewriting, the Jesuits incorporated their religious and political views into the Chinese poetry. Their translated works not only enriched European knowledge of Chinese culture but also demonstrated the complexity of Chinese–Western cultural exchange.

Poetic Rhythm and Translation of Chinese Poetry

Poetic Rhythm and Translation of Chinese Poetry

Living for Translation: An Interview with Professor Zhang Zhizhong

In his rich career as a translator, Professor Zhang Zhizhong has formed a unique aesthetics on translation based on his own experience: spirit over form, prose enjambment to rewrite Chinese poetry into sterling English poetry. In Professor Zhang’s opinion, the English translation of Chinese poetry, broadly speaking, is divided into two schools: metrical school and liberal school, and there are poems translated in metrical style and liberal style, mixed with both good and bad ones. Being poetic, or poetry itself, is the most important point. In the interview, Professor Zhang expressed his hope to be friends with the students majoring in translation and make joint efforts in the globalization of Chinese culture and literature. It is his belief that the English translation of Chinese poems shall be poems themselves, and excellent poems in the English world, which, ideally, are published by the prestigious publishing houses in Western countries, hopefully, to exert influences on the readers. This is the ultimate goal of the globalization of Chinese culture and literature.

Translation and analogical reasoning

AbstractThis article argues that the dissemination of literatures across historical and cultural divides follow partly random analogical pathways, not least pushed by translations. By contrast, within traditional comparative literature hierarchical centre/periphery models for literary transmissions were to a large extent based on the idea of a unilateral influence moving from dominant source cultures and their canonical writers and texts to other cultures. With the aim of revising this model I will as necessary suggest analogical reasoning, understood as a bi‐directional and non‐hierarchical approach to literary dissemination as it is embedded in translatory, aesthetic and performative practices across languages and cultures. My examples are two: an early nineteenth‐century direct Danish translation from 1805 of William Shakespeare's Hamlet; and an early twentieth‐century case of cross‐media use of an indirect German translation of Chinese poetry in Gustav Mahler's symphonic work Das Lied von der Erde (1908–1909).

A Comparative Study of the English Translation Versions of Yu Meiren from the Perspective of the Skopos Theory

Yu Meiren is a wonderful work of classical Chinese poetry because of the poet’s inexhaustible sadness for the destruction of his country, which is just like a torrent of water. Due to the unique cultural symbols, Chinese poetry has also been given much attention in the study of foreign translations of Chinese culture. With the frequent cultural exchanges between China and other foreign countries, translators for Chinese poetry translation are also becoming more than before. However, the translation of the same poem may have different characteristics because of the different translation views and purposes of translators. Under the guidance of the Skopos Theory, this paper will analyze different versions of translations of Yu Meiren and discuss the translation strategies that should be adopted in the translation of Chinese poems. Thus, the translation of Chinese poetry will be more in line with the reading habits of the target readers and promote the foreign dissemination of China’s excellent traditional culture.

A Study of Robert Morrison’s Translation of Chinese Poetry

A Study of Robert Morrison’s Translation of Chinese Poetry

Points of View and Readers' Immersion in Translation: A Neurocognitive Interpretation of Poetic Translatability.

There have been few attempts at applying cultural neuroscience and psychology to the discussion of poetic translatability. This study employs cultural neuroscience and psychology methodologies and forms of evidence to explore the neurocognitive mechanisms by which cross-cultural variations in perspectives during the translation process influence poetic reception in the target culture. The English translation of Chinese poetry is often tasked with the supplement of perspectives and accompanied by cross-cultural variations of immersion. These changes have been substantially discussed from literary and poetic perspectives but remain understudied in terms of their neurocognitive and psychological implications. Through textual analysis of first-person points of view, this study attempts to apply neuroscience to the interpretation of the impact of differences in cross-cultural perspectives in poetry translation. Our findings suggest that a general tendency toward the supplement of first-person perspectives could boost the immersive experience by activating mirror neurons and the temporal parietal junction. These neuroscientific mechanisms underlying the observable cultural phenomenon offer implications for the translation of Chinese poetry in a way that generates brain responses and neurotransmitters similar to the source text. This study demonstrates how research in neuroscience can illuminate findings in cross-cultural communication.

On the Loss of Poetic Image in English Translation of Chinese Poetry

On the Loss of Poetic Image in English Translation of Chinese Poetry

On the Translation Enrichment of Chinese Poetry into English Based on the Adaptation Theory

Pragmatics is closely related to translation. It emphasizes the correct understanding or derivation of communicative information and the effective and appropriate transmission of information. In this paper, based on Verschueren’s theory of language adaptation theory framework, by comparing different translators on the translation of Chinese poetry and analysis, we explore how to adapt to readers’ cognitive hypothesis, choose the appropriate language translation form, fill a vacancy empty point or breakpoint primitive information, communicate to the target language context (mental world and physical world, social world) and language context information of vacancy and pragmatic enrichment, so as to realize the target language the pragmatic functions of equivalence with the original language.

A Study on Kim Sowol s Translation of Chinese poetry

김소월의 시세계는 크게 비극의식과 허무의식으로 나타나는데 이는 유년시절에 목격한 아버지의 실성이 주요 원인이다. 한편 숙모인 계희영이 들려주었던 민요·민담·설화 등은 그의 시편에 드러나는 여성적 정한이나 민요조 율격으로 표출되어 사람들의 공감을 얻을 수 있는 기반이 되었다. ‘님’이 떠나 한이 맺힌 여인, 길 잃음, 고향 잃음, 삼수갑산, 무덤 등을 통해 현세적이고 절망적인 허무주의 의식을 표출하였다. 김소월은 유고시를 포함하여 총 16편의 한시를 번역하였는데 전반적인 시세계는 창작시와 유사하다. 번역시의 내용은 대부분 ‘님’과의 이별과 사별로 인한 그리움, 고향 상살로 인한 허무함을 노래하고 있다. 그는 한시를 번역함에 있어서 창작시의 형식을 고수하여 원시를 한국의 언어와 리듬으로 새롭게 탄생시켰다. 본고는 김소월 번역시의 전반적인 번역 양상을 살펴본 후 그의 번역시가 어떠한 번역 방법으로 이루어졌는지 탐구하고자 한다.

A Study on Kim Sowol s Translation of Chinese poetry

김소월의 시세계는 크게 비극의식과 허무의식으로 나타나는데 이는 유년시절에 목격한 아버지의 실성이 주요 원인이다. 한편 숙모인 계희영이 들려주었던 민요·민담·설화 등은 그의 시편에 드러나는 여성적 정한이나 민요조 율격으로 표출되어 사람들의 공감을 얻을 수 있는 기반이 되었다. ‘님’이 떠나 한이 맺힌 여인, 길 잃음, 고향 잃음, 삼수갑산, 무덤 등을 통해 현세적이고 절망적인 허무주의 의식을 표출하였다. 김소월은 유고시를 포함하여 총 16편의 한시를 번역하였는데 전반적인 시세계는 창작시와 유사하다. 번역시의 내용은 대부분 ‘님’과의 이별과 사별로 인한 그리움, 고향 상살로 인한 허무함을 노래하고 있다. 그는 한시를 번역함에 있어서 창작시의 형식을 고수하여 원시를 한국의 언어와 리듬으로 새롭게 탄생시켰다. 본고는 김소월 번역시의 전반적인 번역 양상을 살펴본 후 그의 번역시가 어떠한 번역 방법으로 이루어졌는지 탐구하고자 한다.

Rhythm Reproduction in English Translation of Chinese Poetry: A Contrastive Analysis of Li Bai's “GUAN SHAN YUE”（关山月）and its English Version

This paper contrasts the rhythm of Li Bai's “GUAN SHAN YUE”（关山月）and that of Fletcher's English version “The MOON OVER The PASS” and finds out the functional equivalence between the Ping (平) and Ze (仄) (level and oblique tones) of Chinese poetry and the lightly stressed and heavily stressed syllables of English poetry, the number of Yan (言) (the number of characters) and the number of feet, and the rhymes. To promote the realization of musical beauty, formal beauty and emotional expression in the translation of Chinese poetry and reproduce the rhythm of ancient Chinese poetry, five-character and seven-character poem with regular line can be translated into iambic pentameter; pre-Tang poem and Song Ci with irregular line can be translated according to the analogy of character and syllable, and the feet of the translated poem can mainly be iambs; the rhyme of the translated poem can be couplet rhyme, cross rhyme or alternate rhyme. Based on this strategy, the author translates her self-created poem “MAN JIANG HONG ZHAN YI”（满江红·战疫）into English to prove the feasibility of the rhythm reproduction strategy of the English translation of ancient Chinese poetry.

A Comparative Study on the Tang Poetry Translation in the Perspective of ‘Harmony-Guided Three-Level Poetry Translation Criteria’—A Case Study of Li Bai's Invitation to Wine

There are many English versions of poems on the market with different styles, but the quality of the translated poems is quite different. This paper mainly makes a comparative analysis of English translations of Li Bai's "Invitation to Wine" by using Dr Wang Feng's "Harmony-Guided Three-Level Poetry Translation Criteria" and concludes that when translating poems into English, we should not only achieve harmony at the macro level, and the similar style and artistic conception at the meso-level, but pay attention to the representation of various beauties at the micro-level. Through the analysis, the authors hope to verify the guiding role of "Harmony-Guided Three-Level Poetry Translation Criteria" in poetry translation and promote the English translation of Chinese poetry.

On the Interplay between Poets’ and Philologists’ Translations of Chinese Poetry into German

‘[I]t has unfortunately become a fashion that people who obviously cannot claim to have any legitimation or any understanding in the field of sinology […], take hold of the sinological works of others and exploit them merely for business reasons’, complains the sinologist Leopold Woitsch in 1924, referring to Albert Ehrenstein's newest translations of Chinese poetry. The debate on who could authoritatively translate Chinese poetry was fiercely contested in German modernist circles and still rages to this day. Most scholars still contrast ‘poetical’ and ‘scholarly’ translations of Chinese poetry, either claiming that the former in an intuitive way come closer to the original, or criticizing the work of the poets who did not possess the linguistic and cultural background knowledge to dare approach Chinese poetry. However, it is exactly the interaction between the two modes that shaped the German reception of Chinese poetry in the twentieth century. Referring to a number of examples from the early-twentieth-century adaptations of Tang poetry, this article offers a more differentiated perspective on the cooperative and competitive relations between poets’ and scholars’ translations of Chinese poetry. Against the background of controversies surrounding ‘legitimate’ translations which shaped literary modernism in the early twentieth century, I show how the poetic and scholarly approaches were (and remain) closely interconnected, and discuss the thematic and aesthetic implications of this interrelationship.

To “Face the Powder” or “Powder the Face”? Contemporary Metaphor Theory and the Art of Chinese to English Translation

ABSTRACT In this article, we examine how cognitive metaphor theories might contribute to the theory and practice of poetry translation. We focus on translations from Chinese to English by Xu Yuanchong, both because he is regarded as one of China’s premier translators and because he has published a detailed theoretical framework and justification for his translations. We argue that Xu’s theory and practice of translation is based on a traditional approach to figurative language in which metaphor is regarded as purely decorative, adding no independent meaning. By identifying underlying conceptual metaphors and potential perceptual simulations in both the original Chinese and Xu’s translations, we show that the metaphors Xu substitutes for those in the original poem (often in place of sparser, more ambiguous language), changes and limits potential meanings in ways that are sometimes subtle but in other cases quite striking. We argue that contemporary cognitive linguistics theories, particularly Conceptual Metaphor Theory, and Perceptual Simulation Theory, can contribute in important ways both to creating and to evaluating translations of Chinese poetry into English.

Teaching Classical Chinese Poetry through Reception Studies

This paper discusses the contribution reception studies can make to the pedagogy of Chinese poetry. It introduces the major theoretical concepts of reception studies, and then demonstrates how those concepts can be applied in and incorporated into courses on Chinese poetry, using examples of “poetry of fields and garden” and “poems on history” drawn from the author’s own experience teaching courses in Chinese poetry in the U.S. and Canada. Finally, it provides a selected bibliography of works on reception studies, translations of Chinese poetry, and scholarship which uses reception studies to research Chinese poetry and culture. Teaching classical Chinese poetry through reception studies helps students better understand the way the significance of Chinese poetry changes over time. It also aids students to further develop their critical thinking and analytical writing skills as they work to compare the reception of certain poems or poets in different periods.

The Poetry of Du Fu trans. by Stephen Owen, ed. by Stephen Owen, Paul W. Kroll, and Ding Xiang Warner

Reviewed by: The Poetry of Du Fu trans. by Stephen Owen, ed. by Stephen Owen, Paul W. Kroll, and Ding Xiang Warner David McCraw The Poetry of Du Fu translated by Stephen Owen, edited by Stephen Owen, Paul W. Kroll, and Ding Xiang Warner. 6 vols. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2016. $210.00 cloth, open access e-book. In Jin Yong's 金庸 novel The Eagleslayer (Shediao yingxiong zhuan 射雕英雄傳), chef Huang Rong 黃蓉 keeps a valued martial arts instructor by offering to cook him stir-fried cabbage and steamed doufu 豆腐 (tofu).1 Huang knows the master appreciates that Huang's consummate art can appear most purely when it leavens the most modest and humdrum of tasks. Given all the fancy things a literary critic and scholar can do—think of Stephen Owen's accomplishments in the history of Tang poetry, his writings on Chinese literary thought, or his interpretations in works such as Traditional Chinese Poetry and Poetics: Omen of the World (hereafter Omen of the World)—one marvels that his latest magnum opus spends 2,700 pages humbly translating every known poem by one poet.2 Pared of ascents into literary history, theory, or elegant [End Page 378] interpretive explorations—stripped of the usual spices we associate with Owen's work—what does the great chef have to offer in so humble a genre? Humility might seem an odd word to describe the most ambitious translation of Chinese poetry yet completed under one title: Owen translates more than 1,400 shi 詩 (poems), plus some grueling fu 賦 (poetic expositions), by Du Fu 杜甫 (712–770), generally considered China's greatest poet. But Owen eschews any excurse on Du Fu's style: he refrains from offering the piquant diversions and delightful hermeneutic rambles we know he can offer. Instead, Owen gives each poem an unadorned, literal, and unpretentious English equivalent. When necessary, he adds a note to explain allusions and usages that would defeat most English-language readers. Otherwise, he just moves on to the next poem, offering a vast banquet of stir-fried cabbage and steamed doufu. Owen's achievement in this massive enterprise attests to his peerless culinary powers as well as his remarkable endurance and indefatigable perseverance. You might come up with a handful of scholars who have the stamina to attempt so daunting a feat; but can you think of one so well versed in the language of Tang poetry? This enormous effort deserves our highest praise, not least because the loftiest scholar in the field stoops low to produce a sturdy translation pony for students of Tang poetry. Moreover, Owen provides a searchable Du Fu database for students who have not yet mastered Chinese. One facet of this toil can illustrate how intelligently and productively Owen has approached the task. Not only does his tautly constructed, cogent list of allusions economically introduce you to lore essential for understanding Du Fu, his index of allusions allows you a quick purview of most relevant examples. For example, say you want to know how Du Fu deploys the third-century poet Wang Can 王粲 (177–217) in writing verse. By perusing Owen's index, you can immediately learn that Du Fu utilizes five different strains of Wang Can material: "giving books, leaving the capital, seven sorrows, well in Xiangyang 襄陽, gazing from a tower" (v. 1, p. 430). You can also see from the fourteen listed examples that only after fleeing to Sichuan does Du Fu get fascinated by Wang Can's lot as exile. Most of Du Fu's examples do not use Wang's full name, so you can appreciate how useful Owen's index can become. Incidentally, by my count Du Fu refers to Wang Can a [End Page 379] total of twenty-one times, so do not assume Owen's index always gives a complete total. As translation ponies go, Owen offers much more of a workhorse, almost nothing of a show pony. You can verify this modesty by comparing versions from The Poetry of Du Fu (hereafter PoDF) with earlier, more adventurous versions from Owen's vast oeuvre. For example, in his 1985 Omen of the World, Owen tackles the poem "Broken Boat" ("Pochuan" 破船) and, after providing a bare-bones...

Review of Tarlinskaya, M. and Akimova, M., eds. (2017). M. L. Gasparov. About him. For him. Moscow: NLO. 720 pages.

The collected articles are divided into sections Publications, Memoirs and Essays, Personalia, and Articles, although not always logically distinguished. A special focus is on M. Gasparov’s encyclopaedic entries, M. Lotman’s publications, and articles by M. Vakhtel, S. Zolyan, and T. Smolyarova. The critic points out deficiencies in A. Zholkovsky’s works. The collection completes their depiction of M. Gasparov with observations that are predominantly private, yet interesting due to the scale and unconventionality of his character. The book also features a wide selection of Gasparov’s entries for the Mandelstam Encyclopaedia, as well as his hitherto unpublished translations of Chinese poetry and reminiscences about his youth. Articles on his favorite subjects are written by like-minded philologists.

Contrastive Research on Attitudinal Resources in English Translation of Li Bai’s Poems Based on Appraisal Theory

<p><em>In order to promote the translation of Chinese poetry, this paper studies the differences of attitudinal resources between Li Bai’s eight poems and the English translation poems of both Xu Yuanchong and Lowell based on Appraisal Theory, and it finds out that the quality of the translation poems can be improved by adjusting appraisal strategies.</em></p>

Judith Gautier, Vers Libre, and the Faux East

ABSTRACTJudith Gautier (1845–1917) is best known as muse to Victor Hugo and Richard Wagner. More recently, critics have started crediting her for bringing Asian culture to Parnassian-era Paris in her 1867 translations of Chinese poetry, Le Livre de jade. In most of her translations, Gautier adapted Chinese texts to suit personal and contemporary French poetic ideals, which were in turn appropriated by readers as models of Chinese ideals. Her poetic creations reveal an early modernist style, which is at once disorienting and familiarizing. This article reconsiders Gautier's translations to show how and why these adaptations replaced original Chinese sources for subsequent generations of modernist poets, including Stéphane Mallarmé, Ezra Pound, and Kenneth Rexroth. Orientalist tendencies in these eminent poets are products of Gautier's subjective, gendered, and inventive interpretation of the East, shaped not only by the translations themselves but also by Gautier's ways of understanding.