Contents
1 Introduction................................................................................................. 1 2 Literature Review ....................................................................................... 2
2.1 The Brief Survey of the English Version of Jiu Ge ................................ 2 3 Translator’s Subjectivity and the Presentence in two English Versions 4
3.1 Translator’s Subjectivity ......................................................................... 4 3.1.1 The Subject of Translation ................................................................... 4 3.1.2 Definition of the Translator’s Subjectivity .......................................... 5 3.2 Translator’s Subjectivity in Two English Versions ................................. 5 3.2.1 Cultural Attitude .................................................................................. 6 3.2.2 Motivation of translation ..................................................................... 7 3.2.3 Aesthetic Inclination ............................................................................ 7 4 Comparison on English Versions of Jiu Ge .............................................. 8
4.1 Reproduction of Meaning ....................................................................... 8 4.2 Translation of Some Cultural-loaded Items in Jiu Ge ............................ 9
4.2.1 Translation of Plant Names ............................................................ 9 4.2.2 Translation of Mythological Image .............................................. 10 4.3Translation Style .................................................................................... 12
4.3.1 Translation Styles in Two English Versions ................................. 12 4.3.2 The Choice of Words .................................................................... 13 4.4 Translation Strategies ............................................................................ 14 5 Conclusion ................................................................................................. 14 Bibliography ................................................................................................... 15 Acknowledgements ........................................................................................ 16
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浙江农林大学本科生毕业论文
1 Introduction
1.1 Research Objectives
Chu Ci, the resource of Chinese romantic poetry, is said to be the earliest collections of romantic poems has an irreplaceable position in Chinese literature. Moreover, Chu Ci has created the romantic tradition of the Chinese classical works through its extravagant diction, fantastic imagination as well as violent emotions. Therefore, it has been of vital significance to Chinese poetry. And something worth mentioning is the patriotism in the work, which is perhaps one reason to be enduring and lasting in the Chinese history. In the early 19th century, the publication of the English translation of Li Sao in The China Review has aroused great interests among scholars at home and abroad, giving rise to a booming tendency for studying the Chinese culture, particularly the classical poetry. However, the main attention is put on the English translation of Li Sao rather than Jiu Ge, even though there are many English versions of Li Sao, they cannot be optimal, because there are many mistranslations. But in any case, the mistranslation is understandable due to the apparent distinctions among translations, such as their cultural background, motivation for translation, aesthetic inclination, even the influence of religion and so on. Furthermore, we all know that Jiu Ge is a kind of poem full of images and symbolization with abundantly but obscurely cultural meanings. Therefore, translators are prone to deal with those “troubles” on their own way, that’s what we called the translator’s subjectivity. All that makes it hard to translate those classics correctly and accurately.
This paper aims to probe into the influence of the translator’s subjectivity on the translation through the comparison of the two English versions of Jiu Ge. The study will provide some useful and beneficial advice to the English translation of classical works and also be helpful to the spread of the Chinese culture, which provides an opportunity to show the world the extensiveness of traditional culture. So I choose two significantly different versions of Sun Dayu and Arthur Waley, serving the thorough study.
1.2 The Poet and Jiu Ge
Definitely Qu Yuan is among the greatest of Chinese poets, but his death is remembered more than his life, and his sufferings are remembered more than his rare moments of happiness (Robert Payne, 1945:78). Qu Yuan, who was born in 340 BC and died in 278 BC at the age of 62, is a patriotic poet of the Warring States period. As the minister of King Huai of Chu, the title of which was the “minister of patriarchal affairs”
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浙江农林大学本科生毕业论文
(“三闾大夫”). Although he was a member of the royal, he didn’t realize his aspiration and ambition in politics due to the jealousy as well as the conspiracy of treacherous court officials. To the end, he chose to drown himself in the Miluo River, after that, the Dragon Boat Festival was established to commemorate him with activities of eating Tzung Tzu, holding dragon boat race, drinking realgar wine and so on. Although failed in politics, Qu Yuan received great fame and reputation in Chinese literary history as a great poet, who made tremendous contribution to Chinese poetry.
The world-renowned masterpiece of Qu Yuan is Li Sao, which has attracted great attention of people interested in the Chinese poems. Besides Li Sao, he also had other well-known works such as Jiu Ge（《九歌》）, Tian Wen（《天问》）, Jiu Zhang（《九章》） and so on. Jiu Ge was one work of Qu Yuan’s revised version of folk songs for offering some sacrifices to gods, consisting of 11 poems of Dong Huang Tai Yi（《东皇太一》）, Yun Zhong Jun（《云中君》）, Xiang Jun（《湘君》）, Xiang Fu Ren（《湘夫人》）, Da Si Ming《(大司命》), Shao Si Ming(《少司命》), Dong Jun（《东君》）, He Bo（《河伯》）, Shan Gui（《山鬼》）, Guo Shang（《国殇》）, Li Hun（《礼魂》） respectively. Guo Shang was written to mourn and sing for those soldiers, others tended to express his deep thought and sentimentality through the love story of gods. Wang Yi of the Eastern Han Dynasty believed that Qu Yuan created Jiu Ge to express his sufferings in politics when he was expelled from Chu kingdom.
The works of Qu Yuan have been widely read and appreciated, even in today, not only admiring for the poem but also the patriotism of Qu Yuan in it. It’s well acknowledged that a poem without sincere feelings cannot be a good poem.
1.3 Research Methodology
This paper will adopt the comparative method to analyze the differences of two English versions of Jiu Ge. In order to make the comparative result more comprehensive and convincing, I will use some diagrams, in this way, the specific features of two versions might be more distinct and apparent. Therefore, we may find the influence of the translator’s subjectivity through those differences in two English translations.
2 Literature Review
2.1 The Brief Survey of the English Version of Jiu Ge
Many western scholars have aroused great interests in the translation of Jiu Ge like
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浙江农林大学本科生毕业论文
Arthur Waley, David Hawkes, E.H.Parks, and J.Legge, E.Erkes and so on. E.H.Parker published his English translation of Li Sao in 1879 in China Review, which has made Li Sao known by the west. And professor David Hawkes of Oxford said, “It is really more a paraphrase than a translation, and its bouncing Victorian verse could have been written by a clever schoolboy (David Hawkes, 1957:215). Honestly speaking, it is understandable about David’s comments, because traditional Chinese culture was totally new to the west at that time, and few people have access to learn it. All they can do is to translate it with their own understanding; therefore, there are some mistakes in the translation process. In 1895, James Legge published The Li Sao Poems and Its Author on Journal Asiatic Society. Hawkes has said that his translation is a little accurate than Parker’s, and the James’s purpose of translating this work is that Li Sao is deemed an significant literary work in the Chinese history. So it may be beautiful in form but without the enthusiasm involved in the poem. (David Hawkes, 1957:215) Another German Scholar, E.Erkes, translated the Great Requiem in Asia Major in 1923, which was totally literal translation, then the Great Lord of Fate and The Young Goddess of Fate in the God of Death in Ancient China in 1939. Hawkes remarks his literal translation making reading and understanding painstaking and arduously, though, it provides a chance for the west to learn something about Chinese literature. (David Hawkes, 1957:215) However, things have changed since the publication of Waley’s essay, Jiu Ge: the study of Shamanism in Ancient China, giving a general description of the Chu Kingdom from the geographical conditions to some cultural images. And then he translated the translation of Jiu Ge, but there still is vague in the translation of some sentences or words. After that, his pupil, David Hawkes, continued to study the Chinese classics, especially engaged in Chu Ci. In 1959, Chu Ci, The Songs of The South: An Ancient Chinese Anthology by the Oxford University, which was translated according to the 18 chapters of Chu Ci like Li Sao, Jiu Ge, Tian Wen, all of which was compiled by Wang Yi of the Eastern Han Dynasty. Generally speaking, David’s translation is successful to some extent with the efforts of so many excellent scholars.
Except the scholars from the west, some domestic translators are not willing to lag behind and try their best to be dedicated to the study. For example, Ling Wenqing is said to be the first Chinese who translated Chu Ci in 1920s, while Yang Xianyi and his wife, Gladys Yang, translated Li Sao and Other Poems of Qu Yuan and published in 1953, which was seen as a meaningful moment. Then, Sun Dayu, a well-known Chinese literature translator, translated most poems of Chu Ci, and he was devoted to probing into the cultural
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浙江农林大学本科生毕业论文
aspect of Chu Ci, which provided an access to the western readers to learn the oriental culture. Another scholar, Xu Yuanchong, translate Chu Ci, Elegies of the South (许渊冲,2009), in the meantime, he proposed his translation theory, the theory of\Three Beauties\which really did matter to the field of translation, to the development of the translation theory researchers. Of course, there are other translators like Zhuo Zhenying, The Verse of Chu Ci was published in 2006 (卓振英,2006). Just as I have mentioned before, Chu Ci gained less attention and there were few essays or papers on it, let alone the study about Jiu Ge.
3 Translator’s Subjectivity and the Presentence in two English Versions
3.1 Translator’s Subjectivity
Translation has undergone a great change since the emergence of the “cultural turn” in 1970s, especially the rapid development of the translation theories such as the Manipulation theory, deconstruction theory and so on, all of which provided a support for translation study. However, the appearance of the cultural turn has aroused scholars’ interest in the disparity of the English versions because of various cultures. And a noteworthy factor leading to cultural disparity must be the translator whose cultural background, motivation for translation even their religious are of vital importance in the translation process. In fact, there is no activity without purpose, and translation is a kind of activity, so it has its own purpose. (Hans-Venneer, 1989:221-232) we are inspired to comprehend translation from the perspective of culture: any translation is done out of a certain cultural purpose. To some extent, translators will translate the source text based on their cultural background which can be considered as a kind negotiation of two cultures. 3.1.1 The Subject of Translation
In fact, when we referred to the question: who is on earth the subject in the translation process? Answers to this question varied greatly. Nobody who deals with the issue of subjectivity can elaborate his/her views without defining the subject in the beginning. (李德顺, 1990:3) some believed that translator was the subject, some thought that translator and author of the target text were, while others argued that translator, author and reader served as the subject in the translation process. As a matter of fact, Yang Zijian drew that conclusion that there are eight main factors that must be deemed as the object of translation
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