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[Abstract]: Chinese ancient poetry is a marvelous treasure of Chinese literature that has been highly favored by literati, scholars and translators from home and abroad. However, translation of Chinese ancient poems is a relatively demanding and difficult task. This essay selects a typical Tang poem, Jingyesi (A Tranquil Night) which is a representative work of the famous Chinese poet, Libai, and its translation version by the prestigious translator, Xu Yuanchong as a case study to appreciate Chinese poetry translation.
[Key words]: Chinese ancient poetry translation; Jingyesi (A Tranquil Night); Style; Xu Yuanchong
摘 要：中国古诗词是中国文化之瑰宝，历来为世界文人、学者及翻译家所青睐。然而，古诗翻译是诸类文学翻译中要求较高也是难度较大的。本文选取著名诗人李白的代表作《静夜思》与翻译大师许渊冲先生的译本，从文体角度对两个文本进行分析，从而对中国古诗翻译略见一斑。
关键词:中国古诗翻译； 静夜思； 文体； 许渊冲
1. Introduction
Chinese ancient poetry, as the essence of Chinese literature which well portrays traditional oriental civilization of the old times, is a precious treasure and literal milestone that may not be exceeded by descendants. In order to enable people all over the world to have access to appreciate those Chinese masterpieces, translators have been dedicated to the translation of Chinese ancient poems. However, poetry translation is often regarded as a comparatively difficult and demanding form of literary translation due to the subtlety and delicacy in the language of poetry and the differences between the source language and the target language. Thus, translators are required to fathom the connotation of the original works to transmit the esthetic appreciation in both meanings and forms, and then make the readers feel as if they have relived the same experience. In this essay, a well-known Chinese ancient poem Jingyesi (《静夜思》) and its English translated version by Xu Yuanchong (许渊冲) is analyzed as a case study to appreciate Chinese ancient poem and its English translation.
2. Observations on Chinese Poetry Translation
Generally speaking, the aim of translating classical Chinese poetry is to spread the essence of the Chinese culture to the world.. Xu borrows a saying of Confucius, “comprehension is not as good as appreciation; appreciation is not as good as admiration”. If the translator does not make the target readers joyful in reading the translated poem, he may fail to transfer the beauty of the original poem. In poetic translation, Xu develops Yan Fu’s criteria “faithfulness, expressiveness, gracefulness” into “the preservation of the beauty in sense, sound and form”. Among the three kinds of beauty, the beauty in sense ranks first, the beauty in sound the second and the beauty in form the third (1984). However, the three elements cannot separately exist. In most cases, the beauty in sound and form constitute the beauty in sense. In addition to the beauty in sense, the translator must make possible efforts to reproduce the beauty in sound. Having achieving the beauty in sound, the translator is supposed to move on to the pursuit of the beauty in form. Xu uses the method of “paraphrase” to preserve the beauty in sense, “imitation” to preserve the beauty in sound, and “metaphrase” to preserve the beauty in form. In his opinion, it is of necessity to exploit the advantage of the target language to preserve the three kinds of “beauty” of the original text (1992).
3. Stylistic Analysis
静夜思
床前明月光，疑是地上霜。
举头望明月，低头思故乡。
A Tranquil Night
Abed, I see a silver light, I wonder if it’s frost aground.
Looking up, I find the moon bright;
Bowing, in homesickness I’m drowned.
3.1 Lexical Approach
Generally speaking, diction, which means the choice and use of words, is the essence of a poem’s style for the simple reason that words make up the poem. Different diction for the same theme may result in different styles. Jingyesi is widely marked by elegant simplicity and touching melancholy of homesickness in a direct manner. Moon, whose brightness and purity is a symbol of family reunion in Chinese culture, is the dominant image in this poem. It evokes the poet’s thought back to his beloved hometown. In the poem, Li wrote “举头望明月，低头思故乡”. Xu’s “drowned in homesickness” concretely expresses an outburst of nostalgia. It makes the text simple and easy to understand. In addition, he successfully duplicates the original stylistic feature with plain diction.
3.2 Syntactic Approach
Fu once pointed out that when doing translation, one should keep the original syntactic structure to the greatest degree (1979). Style cannot be attained except for keeping the original syntactic features. Xu also placed emphasis on syntax. He assumed that syntax is the most effective way for translators to get close to the original style (2003). In the original poem, all clauses are fairly simple with a certain similarity of structure, especially the last two clauses which are of a parallel structure. The three verbs, “疑”, “望” and “思”, well reflect the poet’s inner world in depth—he felt himself a lonely stranger in a foreign land, missing his dearest hometown from afar. A profound artistic conception is elicited through a simple and natural style worth aftertaste. Xu’s translation succeeds in keeping the original syntactic form. It almost moves the Chinese structure into an English version in a fairly natural and flexible way. The second clause is subordinate with a very simple structure, while the third and fourth lines are parallel that push the whole poem upon a relative climax and evoke readers’ deep thoughts. Therefore, in aspects of both syntactic features and artistic flavor, the translation successfully resembles the original poem.
3.3 Figurative Approach
Poetic language usually possesses a deeper implication that goes far beyond its ordinary literal meanings of words. Great importance is often attached to the way in which such kind of connotation is successfully expressed naturally and effectively. In this case, rhetorical methods are always applied. A metaphor is a way of describing something in which one refers to it as something else with similar qualities, or in other words, making contrast between two elements of similar features but different kinds, but the comparison is implied rather than directly stated through conjunctions, so it requires the readers’ greater efforts to perceive and produce the hidden association. In the first couplet of Jingyesi, Li compared the bright moonlight to white hoarfrost, which not only resembled the pale light in appearance, but also reflected his inner dreariness and desolation. Xu uses metaphor in his translation as well, and the subtlety is duplicated as the original.
3.4 Phonological Approach
It is obvious even to the most uninitiated reader that poetry makes greater use of the “music” of language. The poet, unlike the person who uses language to convey only information, chooses words for sound as well as for meaning, and uses the sound as a means of reinforcing meaning. The phonological character is a basic character of poetry language, which could form the unique stylistic beauty. Phonological features can be classifies into two parts: rhyme and rhythm.
The rhyme demonstrates the very uniqueness on the esthetic level of this special literary genre. Generally speaking, the rhyme of a poem mostly occurs at the end of the lines, especially the even lines. When it comes to poetry translation, a great fidelity to the rhyme is of particular importance as well as a high demanding task. In this poem, the poet adopted a traditional Chinese ancient poetry “aaba” rhyme scheme. The original verse ends with the sound /ang/, a sonorous voice, which is often used to express a strong feeling in Chinese literature tradition. Therefore, readers are inclined to sense the poet’s overwhelming homesickness. As for the translation text, Xu successfully preserves the rhyme scheme by changing “aaba” to “abab”. The rhythmic variation in the second couplet with both of the first words unstressed presents the change of emotion in the development of the theme. The harmonious blending of regular rhyme scheme and rhythmic pattern create a renewing esthetic experience to the target language readers. Furthermore, by coincidence, the vowel /au/ (the low vowel) in “ground” and “drowned” is assonant with the original text and makes both versions read alike. This resemblance in sound may help to reveal the poet’s feeling all the better.
Rhythm is indeed a sort of natural repetition, which refers to the wavelike recurrences of sounds. In Chinese poetry the basic metric unit is “dun” (顿), which refers to the little pauses in accordance with the semantic meanings or grammatical principles. The commonest forms of rhythmic patterns in Chinese prosody of Tang poetry mainly include “five words with three pauses”, just as “床前—明月—光，疑是—地上—霜” (二二一) or “举头—望—明月，低头—思—故乡” (二一二). In English poetry the metric unit is foot, which consists of one stressed syllable and one or more unstressed syllables. When rendering Tang poetry, the translator may arrange the number of metrical feet in each verse equal or approximate with the target test without respect to the exact number of characters per line in the original. Therefore, the original effect in rhythm will more or less be reproduced. Here is an example “床前—明月—光，疑是—地上—霜”. The rhythmic pattern in this couplet is “2-2-1”—five words with three pauses. Xu translates it into “A bed, | I see | a sil | ver light, I won | der if | it’s frost | a | ground.” In this version, the tetrameter of iambic foot has been roughly used as the substitute for the original “two-two-one” pattern, and a caesura is added behind “abed” to replace the original “dun” in the original poem. All may help to reproduce the harmonious effect of Chinese poetic rhythm.
[Key words]: Chinese ancient poetry translation; Jingyesi (A Tranquil Night); Style; Xu Yuanchong
摘 要：中国古诗词是中国文化之瑰宝，历来为世界文人、学者及翻译家所青睐。然而，古诗翻译是诸类文学翻译中要求较高也是难度较大的。本文选取著名诗人李白的代表作《静夜思》与翻译大师许渊冲先生的译本，从文体角度对两个文本进行分析，从而对中国古诗翻译略见一斑。
关键词:中国古诗翻译； 静夜思； 文体； 许渊冲
1. Introduction
Chinese ancient poetry, as the essence of Chinese literature which well portrays traditional oriental civilization of the old times, is a precious treasure and literal milestone that may not be exceeded by descendants. In order to enable people all over the world to have access to appreciate those Chinese masterpieces, translators have been dedicated to the translation of Chinese ancient poems. However, poetry translation is often regarded as a comparatively difficult and demanding form of literary translation due to the subtlety and delicacy in the language of poetry and the differences between the source language and the target language. Thus, translators are required to fathom the connotation of the original works to transmit the esthetic appreciation in both meanings and forms, and then make the readers feel as if they have relived the same experience. In this essay, a well-known Chinese ancient poem Jingyesi (《静夜思》) and its English translated version by Xu Yuanchong (许渊冲) is analyzed as a case study to appreciate Chinese ancient poem and its English translation.
2. Observations on Chinese Poetry Translation
Generally speaking, the aim of translating classical Chinese poetry is to spread the essence of the Chinese culture to the world.. Xu borrows a saying of Confucius, “comprehension is not as good as appreciation; appreciation is not as good as admiration”. If the translator does not make the target readers joyful in reading the translated poem, he may fail to transfer the beauty of the original poem. In poetic translation, Xu develops Yan Fu’s criteria “faithfulness, expressiveness, gracefulness” into “the preservation of the beauty in sense, sound and form”. Among the three kinds of beauty, the beauty in sense ranks first, the beauty in sound the second and the beauty in form the third (1984). However, the three elements cannot separately exist. In most cases, the beauty in sound and form constitute the beauty in sense. In addition to the beauty in sense, the translator must make possible efforts to reproduce the beauty in sound. Having achieving the beauty in sound, the translator is supposed to move on to the pursuit of the beauty in form. Xu uses the method of “paraphrase” to preserve the beauty in sense, “imitation” to preserve the beauty in sound, and “metaphrase” to preserve the beauty in form. In his opinion, it is of necessity to exploit the advantage of the target language to preserve the three kinds of “beauty” of the original text (1992).
3. Stylistic Analysis
静夜思
床前明月光，疑是地上霜。
举头望明月，低头思故乡。
A Tranquil Night
Abed, I see a silver light, I wonder if it’s frost aground.
Looking up, I find the moon bright;
Bowing, in homesickness I’m drowned.
3.1 Lexical Approach
Generally speaking, diction, which means the choice and use of words, is the essence of a poem’s style for the simple reason that words make up the poem. Different diction for the same theme may result in different styles. Jingyesi is widely marked by elegant simplicity and touching melancholy of homesickness in a direct manner. Moon, whose brightness and purity is a symbol of family reunion in Chinese culture, is the dominant image in this poem. It evokes the poet’s thought back to his beloved hometown. In the poem, Li wrote “举头望明月，低头思故乡”. Xu’s “drowned in homesickness” concretely expresses an outburst of nostalgia. It makes the text simple and easy to understand. In addition, he successfully duplicates the original stylistic feature with plain diction.
3.2 Syntactic Approach
Fu once pointed out that when doing translation, one should keep the original syntactic structure to the greatest degree (1979). Style cannot be attained except for keeping the original syntactic features. Xu also placed emphasis on syntax. He assumed that syntax is the most effective way for translators to get close to the original style (2003). In the original poem, all clauses are fairly simple with a certain similarity of structure, especially the last two clauses which are of a parallel structure. The three verbs, “疑”, “望” and “思”, well reflect the poet’s inner world in depth—he felt himself a lonely stranger in a foreign land, missing his dearest hometown from afar. A profound artistic conception is elicited through a simple and natural style worth aftertaste. Xu’s translation succeeds in keeping the original syntactic form. It almost moves the Chinese structure into an English version in a fairly natural and flexible way. The second clause is subordinate with a very simple structure, while the third and fourth lines are parallel that push the whole poem upon a relative climax and evoke readers’ deep thoughts. Therefore, in aspects of both syntactic features and artistic flavor, the translation successfully resembles the original poem.
3.3 Figurative Approach
Poetic language usually possesses a deeper implication that goes far beyond its ordinary literal meanings of words. Great importance is often attached to the way in which such kind of connotation is successfully expressed naturally and effectively. In this case, rhetorical methods are always applied. A metaphor is a way of describing something in which one refers to it as something else with similar qualities, or in other words, making contrast between two elements of similar features but different kinds, but the comparison is implied rather than directly stated through conjunctions, so it requires the readers’ greater efforts to perceive and produce the hidden association. In the first couplet of Jingyesi, Li compared the bright moonlight to white hoarfrost, which not only resembled the pale light in appearance, but also reflected his inner dreariness and desolation. Xu uses metaphor in his translation as well, and the subtlety is duplicated as the original.
3.4 Phonological Approach
It is obvious even to the most uninitiated reader that poetry makes greater use of the “music” of language. The poet, unlike the person who uses language to convey only information, chooses words for sound as well as for meaning, and uses the sound as a means of reinforcing meaning. The phonological character is a basic character of poetry language, which could form the unique stylistic beauty. Phonological features can be classifies into two parts: rhyme and rhythm.
The rhyme demonstrates the very uniqueness on the esthetic level of this special literary genre. Generally speaking, the rhyme of a poem mostly occurs at the end of the lines, especially the even lines. When it comes to poetry translation, a great fidelity to the rhyme is of particular importance as well as a high demanding task. In this poem, the poet adopted a traditional Chinese ancient poetry “aaba” rhyme scheme. The original verse ends with the sound /ang/, a sonorous voice, which is often used to express a strong feeling in Chinese literature tradition. Therefore, readers are inclined to sense the poet’s overwhelming homesickness. As for the translation text, Xu successfully preserves the rhyme scheme by changing “aaba” to “abab”. The rhythmic variation in the second couplet with both of the first words unstressed presents the change of emotion in the development of the theme. The harmonious blending of regular rhyme scheme and rhythmic pattern create a renewing esthetic experience to the target language readers. Furthermore, by coincidence, the vowel /au/ (the low vowel) in “ground” and “drowned” is assonant with the original text and makes both versions read alike. This resemblance in sound may help to reveal the poet’s feeling all the better.
Rhythm is indeed a sort of natural repetition, which refers to the wavelike recurrences of sounds. In Chinese poetry the basic metric unit is “dun” (顿), which refers to the little pauses in accordance with the semantic meanings or grammatical principles. The commonest forms of rhythmic patterns in Chinese prosody of Tang poetry mainly include “five words with three pauses”, just as “床前—明月—光，疑是—地上—霜” (二二一) or “举头—望—明月，低头—思—故乡” (二一二). In English poetry the metric unit is foot, which consists of one stressed syllable and one or more unstressed syllables. When rendering Tang poetry, the translator may arrange the number of metrical feet in each verse equal or approximate with the target test without respect to the exact number of characters per line in the original. Therefore, the original effect in rhythm will more or less be reproduced. Here is an example “床前—明月—光，疑是—地上—霜”. The rhythmic pattern in this couplet is “2-2-1”—five words with three pauses. Xu translates it into “A bed, | I see | a sil | ver light, I won | der if | it’s frost | a | ground.” In this version, the tetrameter of iambic foot has been roughly used as the substitute for the original “two-two-one” pattern, and a caesura is added behind “abed” to replace the original “dun” in the original poem. All may help to reproduce the harmonious effect of Chinese poetic rhythm.