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Abstract Poetry has special formal pattern requirement. How to achieveunity of form and spirit in poetry translation has long been the focus ofargument. Different people have different opinions about the issue. Some peoplethink it is impossible to achieve unity of form and spirit and some think it ispossible but hard to reach the standard. In this paper, I make an analysis of sixtranslation versions of the Chinese poem “Autumn Thoughts” and draw aconclusion that literal translation is the primary method translators used toretain the form of the original poem and the poem translator often has tocompromise between retaining the form and the content of the poems. copyright paper51.com
Keywords: form; spirit; unity;Chinese poem; translation paper51.com 摘 要 内容来自论文无忧网 www.paper51.com 诗歌有特殊的形式要求。关于诗歌翻译的形神统一，人们有很多不同的观点。有人认为诗歌的形神不可能统一，也有人认为虽然难但有可能。本文分析了古诗《天净沙.秋思》的六篇译文，发现译者主要靠直译保持原文的形但常常不得不在传达原文的意和保持原文的形之间折中。 copyright paper51.com
关键词：形式；神韵；统一；中国诗歌；翻译 内容来自论文无忧网 www.paper51.com
Contents 内容来自论文无忧网 www.paper51.com
创性声明... i http://www.paper51.com
Acknowledgments. ii 内容来自www.paper51.com Abstract iii 内容来自www.paper51.com
摘 要... iv copyright paper51.com 1. Introduction. 1 paper51.com
2. Translation of poetry. 2 copyright paper51.com
2.1 Literal translation. 2 http://www.paper51.com 2.2 Free translation. 3 paper51.com 3. The analysis of Chinese poem“Autumn Thoughts”. 4 paper51.com 3.1 Content 4 paper51.com 3.2 Theme and tone. 5 内容来自论文无忧网 www.paper51.com
3.3 Form.. 6 内容来自论文无忧网 www.paper51.com 4. Comparison of the six Englishversions. 7 http://www.paper51.com 4.1 Definition of form.. 7 paper51.com 4 .1.1 Syntax. 8 内容来自论文无忧网 www.paper51.com 4.1.2 Vision Form.. 9 内容来自www.paper51.com 4.1.3 Parallel structure. 10 内容来自论文无忧网 www.paper51.com
4.1.4 Punctuation marks. 11 内容来自www.paper51.com 4.2 Spirit 12 内容来自论文无忧网 www.paper51.com 4.2.1 Diction. 12 http://www.paper51.com 4.2.2 Content and tone. 14 copyright paper51.com 4.2.3 Ambiguity. 15 内容来自www.paper51.com 5. Conclusion. 16 http://www.paper51.com References. 19 copyright paper51.com
内容来自www.paper51.com 1. Introduction http://www.paper51.com Before any detailed discussion is made about the translation of Chinesepoems, it is necessary to clarify the origin of Chinese verses. China has along-standing culture and is called the country of poetry (樊篱,1990). The poem is one of the oldest literary styles (张春柏,2003). Poems are believed to stem from people’swork and life. To express their emotion and feelings people sometimes croonedsomething. The things people crooned are called ballad or folk song which isregarded as oral literary of poems. Later, poems are developed into a specialliterary genre. http://www.paper51.com However,what is poem? There are numerous definitions, but none of them seems to beperfect. Generally speaking, poem can be defined as a meaningful group of wordsthat express people’s mind and the feature of certain period. It has thecharacteristics of refined language, plentiful content, profound significanceand special language combination. Poets try their best to choose poem’s form,language and setting in order to stimulate readers’ imagination. Because ofthese features, it is difficult for us to translate poetry. But it is alsobecause of these features that to certain extent, people can understand acountry, a people and an epoch by studying its various poems. Chinese poetry isthe symbol of China.Therefore, it is unavoidable to translate them into English in order to developour culture. 内容来自论文无忧网 www.paper51.com
Then how can we translate Chinese poems successfully?There are many different opinions about the translation of poetry. Some peoplehold that poetry is untranslatable, but others believe that it is translatable.And the argument about translatability has much to do with the form and spiritof the poem. In this paper, I choose six versions of “Autumn Thoughts” for ananalysis, trying to find out the possibility of reaching unity of form andspirit. 内容来自论文无忧网 www.paper51.com 2. Translation of poetry http://www.paper51.com
Sofar as the translation of poetry is concerned, the aim of the translator is tomaintain the beauty of the original poem in form, sound, and meaning. Amongthose who advocate the translatability of poems, there are still disputes abouthow to reproduce the original satisfactorily and successfully. copyright paper51.com InA Textbook of English-Chinese Chinese-English Translation, Zhang Chunbo(张春柏,2003) sets forward that the translatorshould keep the form of poem. That means a poem should be translated into apoem, not other literary forms such as prose. The content should be lined. The correspondingpunctuation should be used to maintain the original word and line units.Moreover, the translator should make every effort to reserve the pattern of theoriginal. Finally, he holds that the poem should retain sound beauty of theoriginal. paper51.com
2.1 Literal translation 内容来自www.paper51.com Literaltranslation strives to reproduce both the ideological content and style of theentire literary work and retain as much as possible the figures of speech andmain sentence structures or patterns such as, SV, SVO, SVC, SVA, SVOO, SVOC,SVOA formulated by Randolph Quirk. (Liu Zhongde，1991). As for the literaltranslation of the poem, I hold that translator should translate the originalwork not only word- for- word but also sentence- for –sentence. Here is anexample of literal translation of poem: 内容来自论文无忧网 www.paper51.com |