Hist Trans Theo EN 3

History of Translation Theories

An Overview of Contemporary American Translation Theory——The American Translation Workshop

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Chapter 3 An Overview of Contemporary American Translation Theory——The American Translation Workshop

当代美国翻译理论概述——美国翻译研讨班流派

Zhang Yang, 张扬，Hunan Normal University, China

Abstract

This paper discusses the relationship between translation workshops run in American Universities beginning in 1960s and Pound's practice and theory of translation, and their influences on and contributions to the development of literary translation in America. From the discussion of the emergence of the American translation workshop and the comparison with the thought of the writing workshop in the first part, the analysis of Pound--the representative of the translation workshop, his translation thought in the second part, and the analysis of the impact of the workshop on the translation academic community in the third part, we can get the enlightenment to future generations and what Chinese translators can learn from.

Key words

American Translation Theory, American Translation Workshop, Ezra Pound, Translation Ideas

摘要

本文主要论述美国60年代在大学里开办的翻译研讨班与庞德翻译实践和翻译思想的翻译所产生的影响和贡献。通过第一部分对美国翻译研讨班的出现的论述以及与写作研讨班的思想比较、第二部分对翻译研讨班的代表埃兹拉·庞德的翻译思想的分析和第三部分对研讨班对翻译学界的影响分析，得出对后世的启示以及中国译者可以借鉴的地方。

关键词

美国翻译理论，美国翻译研讨班，埃兹拉·庞德，翻译思想

Introduction

From the study of the history of western translation and its theory in the United States, translation theory can be said to be an ancient discipline. However, in the modern sense of the word "theory", translation theory can also be described as a brand new discipline. As for "ancient", it can be traced back to Cicero (106-43,B.C.) in ancient Rome; As for "brand new", it was not until 1983 that "translation theory" was listed separately as a branch discipline in the bibliography of the international modern language society. In fact, prior to this, modern translation theory can be traced back to the publication of The Summary of Translation Theory by A.V. Fedorov from former Soviet Union. Since the 1960s, literary translation has attracted more and more public and academic attention in the United States. A large number of foreign literary works had been translated into English, which has promoted the development of translation theory in the United States. The development is marked by the rise of translation workshops in American universities.

Development of the American Translation Workshop in American Universities

New Criticism and The Establishment of the Translation Workshop

In the early 1960s, there was no translation workshop in American universities. In the American university system, translation is not listed as a subject. The United States also has no Literary Translators Association and no special translation publications. In 1964, the director of the Writing Workshop from the University of Iowa Paul Engle initiated the translation workshop. He expanded his writing workshop and invited writers from other countries to participate. He also believes that creative activities have no national boundaries. This year, Engle hired a full-time director for the translation workshop and awarded credits for literary translation. The following year, the Ford Foundation funded the University of Texas at Austin to establish the American Translation Research Center. In the same year, the publication of poetry translation Modern Poetry in Translation was published around the United States. In 1968, the American Center for Translation Studies published the first issue of its official journal Delos, which aims to study the history of translation and translation aesthetics. From then on, literary translation began to occupy a small place in American culture.

In the 1970s, literary translation continued to be developed and recognized. Soon, famous institutions of higher education such as Yale, Princeton, Columbia, Texas and the State University of New York set up translation workshops and courses at various levels, and awarded high-level degrees to students engaged in literary translation, translation history and translation theory. The development of literary translation and research has promoted the establishment of professional organizations for translators. In the late 1970s, the American Literary Translators Association was established and published the academic magazine Translation. A school of thought surrounding the translation workshop came into being. In practice, the school does not talk about theory, but in fact, it consciously or unconsciously used Ivor Armstrong Richards'(1893-1979) reading workshop methods. In order to understand the theoretical guiding ideology followed by the American Translation Workshop, we have to talk about the new criticism, especially the literary theory of I.A. Richards, who is one of its representatives.(Gentzler,1993:136)

The term "New Criticism" usually refers to a literary theory and critical trend of thought, or a method of understanding and interpreting literature. Marked by the works of I.A. Richards and Thomas Stearns Eliot(1888-1965), it began in Britain before the Second World War and later developed in the United States from the 1940s to the 1960s. In 1941, John Crowe Ransom(1888-1974) published the book New Criticism. This monograph summarizes the "new" literary theory and critical thought since the 1920s, from which the term "New Criticism" was established and became popular. The new criticism school is not strictly a school. The writers and theorists known as the new criticism school have many differences in theory, but their common feature is that they oppose the traditional positivist historical and biographical criticism methods and "transfer their interest from poets to poetry". In other words, the new critics advocate paying attention to the text and texture of the works, that is, the words and various rhetorical devices, and making detailed analysis and annotation of literary works through close reading. New criticism has had a great impact on British and American literary criticism. Some people believe that the important contribution of the English world to literary theory almost depends on the new critical theory. Until recently, the new critical theory was still in the field of university teaching in the United States. It also has a great impact on the field of British literature teaching.

One of the founders of the new criticism is I.A. Richards. He is an English literary critic, linguist and poet who tudied at Cambridge University. After that, he successively taught at Cambridge University (1922-1929), Tsinghua University in China (1929-1930) and Harvard University in the United States (1931-1960). He has long been devoted to the study of the relationship between psychology, literature and semantics. His study of literary theory occupies an important position in the history of literary theory in Britain and the United States. His main works include Principles of Literary Criticism (1924) and Science and Poetry (1925), which are representative works of new critical theory. In the 1920s, Richards did a famous experiment at Cambridge University. He chose 13 poems without indicating the title and author, and asked the students to express their understanding and experience after reading them. In his book Practical Criticism (1929), he analyzes the students' errors in understanding and commenting, and tries to find out the causes of the errors. He believes that some errors come from the text itself, while others lie in the readers themselves. Richards' starting point is to separate poetry from the author, readers and society, and students should not have any transcendental influence before reading. He separated the students and the text from the society in order to confirm his view that the text has a "unified" meaning, which can be recognized, and there is also a unified evaluation system. With this system, readers can judge the value of "meaning". This method allows students to read and understand the poem itself.

Richards did this for three purposes. 1) In order to provide a new way to collect materials. 2) Provide a new reading method for those who want to experience poetry. 3) Provide a new educational method to analyze and judge what we hear and witness and develop our understanding ability. The analysis and interpretation methods of the new criticism to the works develop along the direction provided by Richards.

Relationships Between the Translation Workshop and the Writing Workshop

To find more thoughts about the translation workshop ,we need to find the relationships between the translation workshop and the writing workshop.

1)Both workshops provide a new way to collect materials for western culture. Later translation workshops followed the principles of Richards' reading workshop. For example, Jonas Zdanys, director of the translation workshop at the University of Iowa, claims that, like Richards's experiment, he is proud that he does not let students have any method or theoretical guidance in advance. This approach seems to try to get rid of any constraints in order to investigate the translation process "more genuinly". In this way, Richards tries to find some rules and principles of reading comprehension, so as to make communication more accurate and subtle. The only difference between the translation workshop and Richards' reading workshop is that the translation workshop should find not only the law of reading, but also the law of writing. But in fact, in colleges and universities, whether Richards' writing workshop or later translation workshop, students are allowed to form views consistent with the existing aesthetics and form those prejudices that control the literary mechanism.

2)The purpose of the two workshops is the same, which is to teach students how to appreciate, understand and interpret literary works. Richards emphasized that one should let himself discover the meaning of poetry. This seems to be quite tolerant and democratic. But there is a humanistic thought hidden in it. On the surface, Richards' method seems to allow multiple interpretations of the text. The processing method of reading is also open, personal, and potential anti existing system factors, but it can also strengthen the traditional interpretation. His purpose is to establish a new educational method so that students can "perfectly" understand the text and achieve a unified and correct response. In his workshop, Richards does not pursue different responses, but strives to obtain unified solutions to communication problems, summarizes some laws and principles, and follows them to enable students to form their own understanding and judgment. The starting point of this mode is that the experience of poetry, which can be conveyed accurately and completely to another person, provided that the person is properly educated. Similarly, you can judge poetry, but only if you are trained. After his training, students can appreciate, understand and judge poetry like him.

Jonas Zdanys, head of the Yale translation workshop, also emphasized his appreciation of poetry and student translation. He believes that translation can enable students to further understand poetry, language, aesthetics and interpretation. On the one hand, he hopes that this course can make students interested in theoretical issues in order to explore all aspects of poetry translation theory and practice. On the other hand, he also claimed that in his concluding article on The Curriculum Structure of Translation Teaching(1987), he pointed out that at the end of learning, students have a fuller understanding of the complexity of literature. This shows that he regards translation as a subjective activity and translation as a part of literary understanding and interpretation. This reflects his humanistic view on translation. Zdanys' views on teaching appreciation poetry are quite in tune with the views of the new critics.

Frederic Will is the director of the first translation workshop at the University of Iowa. He regards translation as a form of naming, novel creation and cognition. Although he believes that there is no same objective fact, it is possible to understand the essence, because, according to him, there is a "central common core" in human experience and feelings, which can overcome the fuzziness of language and expose the "external reality". He also believes that a literary work has its internal unified meaning, so it is possible to achieve a common understanding. This is entirely the discipline of the new critics.

Rainer Schulte is a member of the translation workshop at the University of Texas at Dallas. His view further affirmed the purpose of the translation workshop. In his article The Misery and the Splendor of Teaching Translation(1994), he believes that the main purpose of the translation workshop is not to train translators, but to read and understand literary works. He complained that in the past few decades, in the English Department, students did not read works, but read articles and books commenting on works. In this way, students cannot have direct contact with the literary works themselves. On the contrary, the practice of the translation workshop is to enable students to get back to the work itself through the discussion of the work. "Therefore, the translation workshop reactivated the art of interpretation... and reaffirmed the art of reading." He also said that if readers read from the perspective of the translator, they can put themselves in the works and interpret the works in their own mother tongue through the exploration of language. The translator is to transform the act of reading into the act of writing. Therefore, the translation workshop is a means for students to read literary works and find their meaning.

The basic point of understanding and interpreting literature is the exploration of meaning and the view of the essence of language and literature. In this regard, the guiding ideology of the American translation workshop is deeply influenced by the new critics. It can be seen that the purpose of the two workshops is the same, that is, to obtain the author's experience and re-express this experience, that is, to appreciate, understand and interpret poetry. The only difference is that the means of expressing this experience are different. The members of the translation workshop should express themselves in another language. Moreover, literary translation is often regarded as a form of "close reading" in the United States, while some people think it is the most detailed form of "close reading". The purpose of the formal translation workshop and Richards' writing workshop is to perfectly express the experience of this kind of poetry with perfect interpretation or translation. From the perspective of curriculum structure, the teaching method of translation workshop also adopts the method of Richards writing workshop in some aspects.

3）The impact of the translation workshop is consistent with that of the new critical trend of thought. New criticism is an anti-traditional method of interpreting literature. In the United States, translation is also regarded as an aspect of the anti existing system and anti-traditional cultural movement at that time. Many contemporary American poets actively translate foreign works as a means to oppose traditional literary norms, domestic and foreign policies against politics, and even against the whole western society. For a time, translation became popular in the United States, with a large number of people and great influence, forming a climax in the history of American translation.

Richards' Further Translation Teaching Activities

Richards is not only a pioneer in holding a writing workshop, but also a pioneer in holding a translation workshop. His translation teaching activities can be regarded as the continuation of his literary criticism activities.

Richards' exploration of meaning also goes deep into the field of translation. In other words, he tries to explain his theory of meaning through the study of translation. In 1953, he published an article entitled Towards a Theory of Translating. He deeply feels the complexity of meaning through the comparison between the original and the translation. He realized that understanding meaning involves too many aspects to be comprehensive. In Towards a Theory of Translating, he uses "purpose" to limit the level of understanding meaning. He proposed that if the translator has the same purpose, he can find an appropriate method to determine meaning. The essence of Richards' theory has not changed. He still wants to achieve the understanding of "unity" from the text. On the one hand, he stressed that "translation is perhaps the most complex event since the dawn of the world"; On the other hand, he believes that translators with appropriate education and practice can obtain appropriate methods to correctly understand the original work. Therefore, Richards' view of meaning has basically not changed, but he is more aware of the complexity of meaning. He insists that it is possible to achieve a consistent and correct understanding after appropriate training, which is the purpose of the translation workshop. Richards believes that translation theory is not only to make people who use different languages better understand each other, but also to better understand translation itself and understand meaning (translation serves to understand meaning). In other words, in the literary theory of new criticism, translation is only one aspect of understanding and interpretation. This is exactly the purpose of the translation workshop advocated by Zdanys.

In general, the members of the translation workshop openly claim to oppose the constraints of any theory and place one-sided emphasis on practice. Although they also talk about their feelings of literary appreciation and interpretation, as well as various views on translation, they are still some personal experience and experiences, and can not form any systematic theory. Their research methods basically remain within the scope of traditional language and literature. Therefore, they make little contribution to the construction of contemporary translation theory, but have a great impact on translation practice. This is also Ezra Pound's translation activities and his translation ideas.

Translations Thoughts of Ezra Pound——Leading Exponent of American Translation Workshop

Ezra Pound(1885-1972), an American poet, literary critic, and the main representative of new critical and Imagist poetry, has made an important contribution to the development of modern British and American literature. He was born in Idaho and studied at the University of Pennsylvania at the age of 16. He transferred to Hamilton University in 1903. He returned to the University of Pennsylvania in 1905 to study Roman language and literature. He received a master's degree in 1906 and has extensive language knowledge. In September 1908, he went to England, joined a small circle centered on the poet Yeats, met a group of writers and poets, and became the leader of London modernist poets. He called himself and his friends Imagist poets. In 1914, he compiled the first volume of Selected Poems of Imagism. Soon, he was keen on the activities of vortex school and broke away from Imagism. He helped Joyce, Eliot, Hemingway and other writers and had been living in Italy from 1924 to 1944. During the Second World War, he publicized fascism. After the war, he was accused of treason and sent to Washington for trial. Later, he was sent to a mental hospital because he was determined to be insane. At last, he was allowed to return to Italy in 1958.

Pound published Ecstasy and People in London in 1909. His speeches in London were also compiled into a collection, The Spirit of Romance, which was published in 1910. In 1915, he published an English translation of the ancient Chinese poem China (also translated as Huaxia). From 1916 to 1917, he translated Japanese drama. Pound's main poem is long, which was published in batches in the form of "chapters" from 1917 to 1959. In 1969, an unfinished fragment was published. In addition, he also published three translations of Chinese works such as Confucious: The Unwobbling Pivot and the Great Digest(1947), Confucian Analects(1951) and The Classic Anthology(1954).

Pound's most influential translation is Cathay, which is written in the annals of literary history as Pound's literary achievement. As soon as Cathay was published, it immediately set off a "China fever" in the West and was known as "one of the best ten poems in the United States in the 20th century". The publication of Cathay has also become a representative work of imagist poetry, which has greatly promoted the development of imagist poetry in the West.

Pound's poetry translation is highly praised by western scholars and readers, but it is often criticized by Chinese scholars. Although these interesting Poems were described: "The text is clear, the translation and the form is lovely. It seems that it is easier to understand and more vivid than the original text. Unfortunately, these works can not be regarded as strict translation works, because when we compare them with the original text, we will find that it has many unfaithfulness, inaccuracy, and even taking it for granted." In fact, all this has a great relationship with Pound's translation thought. In order to clarify his translation thought, we must first look at his poetic opinions.

As a translator, pound is first of all an outstanding poet, the founder and main representative of imagist poetry. Pound's poetics plays an important role in the development of modern British and American poetry. At the beginning of the 20th century, he made an impact on the traditional poetics through his support for Imagist poetry. His Several Prohibitions Proposed by an Imagist is the Manifesto of imagism, which puts forward that "1) in writing poetry, we should use "image" (hence comes the name of "Imagism"), be specific and accurate, and avoid abstraction. 2) Formally, we should create new rhythms to express new poetry. We believe that free poetry can better express the poet's personality, but we do not object to using other poetry. 3) It should be refined and concentrated without wasted words and modification. 4) Write clearly, not vaguely or ambiguously. 5) Use popular language, use accurate words, not decorative words. 6）The subject matter is completely free without any restrictions, and modern life can be included in poetry.

What is "image"? Pound said that an image should present people with a complex of emotion and reason in an instant, that is, the formation of image means that emotion and reason suddenly combine into a complex. When pound broke away from Imagism and became interested in whirlpool movement, he developed his view on image. He said that image is not a thought, but a luminous nodule, a vortex from which many thoughts constantly rise, sink or pass through. The interpretation of this special function of image has a great impact on the structure of modern poetry. Pound also found the basis and inspiration from the images presented in ancient Chinese poetry. His poetry translation theory is actually the extension and development of his Imagist poetics.

According to the requirements of imagist poetry, the translated poetry should also be condensed, concise and implicit, highlight the beauty of image, and grasp the rhythm of internal impulse when writing poetry. For Pound, there is no difference between an ideal poet and an ideal poetry translator. Only by going deep into the thoughts of the original poem author, drilling into his soul and reaching "divine harmony" with him, can poetry translators surpass the obstacles of culture and language and translate the spirit and effect of the original poem. Pound grasped the details and highlighted the images in his translated poems. In translation, he does not scrutinize words and sentences, but makes his feelings enter the role of the original poet, condenses and refines the way of thinking and feeling in the original work, and then transmits them to English. His translation is not words and sentences, but words and sentences lead him to the things and feelings expressed by the word itself.

Pound does not emphasize the "meaning" of the text or the meaning of individual words in his translation work. On the contrary, he emphasizes rhythm, word selection and the contextual and intertextual meaning of words, that is, the words he said are in motion. He believes that the meaning of works of art is not invariable. When the language changes, the meaning of the work changes. The association caused by words in the original work is different from that caused by new works reshaped in different times and cultures.

On the expression of meaning, Pound emphasizes "the vitality of language". According to Pound's interpretation, language vitality refers to the new relationship between words and other words in the structure at a specific place and time, so as to obtain new quality, which brings "vitality" to the language. He added that words can "transmit electricity", produce certain qualities with each other, and their position in the text can produce a dynamic combination. We believe that Pound is actually talking about the contextual meaning of words. The new combination of words will produce new meaning, which is the so-called "vitality" of language. Because words cannot exist without context, the translator must have context (plot) and expression (event) in his mind.

Pound also requires the translator to always remember the historical atmosphere of the use of words, so that in the process of translation, he can not only reveal the meaning of words, but also show their implied meanings. He believes that meaning is not an abstract thing, but a part of language and is always in the flow of history, that is, "atmosphere". To unlock the meaning in this atmosphere, we must understand history and reproduce the "atmosphere" or environment generated by meaning. He also emphasized the importance of cultural information in determining the implied meaning of words and the meaning of word games in the context. He said that three or four words standing side by side can radiate great potential vitality... Those words are full of special vitality. It's the power of tradition, the power of national consciousness for centuries. Here, Pound actually emphasizes the intertextual meaning of words.

Pound has a very clear idea of translatable and untranslatable factors in poetry. He believes that the musical sense of poetry is difficult to translate, but the visual sense can be translated completely. However, the original meaning of words and the contextual meaning of word games cannot be translated. The translator must understand the constraints of time, place and ideology of the text, and then integrate it into the time, emotion, atmosphere and the author's thinking process. Maybe he can, but maybe he can't find an equivalent way of expression. Here, the only translatable is "visual sense", which is what Pound calls "image". He said:"The part of the poem that can touch the reader's eyes and arouse imagination will not be lost in translating into a foreign language; while the part that appeals to the reader's ears can only be felt by those who read the original work."

Therefore, Pound is not interested in abstract concepts in translation. He pays attention to form, sporadic images and individual details. He believes that only in an instant can we "grasp the truth". In this way, Pound grasped sporadic images and individual details in translation and wrote a new poem in English. Because of this, these poems are loved by English readers. They go beyond the scope of translation works and become independent English literary works. In fact, Pound wrote a half-translated and half-created poem based on ancient Chinese poetry. Pound did so with a purpose. When he published Cathay in 1915, he was a complacent young poet who had long been tired of the sad poetic style of Victoria in the 19th century and was quite disgusted with the abstract sermons and old themes and poetic methods of his predecessors. He needs to reform and make poetry a new life. He wants to add new color to the new era and replace the lyric with solid and vivid images. He explored this. In the process of his exploration, he came into contact with Chinese classical poetry, and was very interested in it, and got a lot of inspiration from it. Pound regarded translation as a tool of cultural struggle, just like the translation in the United States in the 1960s and 1970s, it was also used to challenge the popular aesthetic and cultural concepts in the United States and even the whole western society, and brought impetus to the whole anticultural movement.(Zhou,1994:2)

In addition, it should be mentioned that Pound did not understand Chinese when translating Cathay. In 1913, he got a batch of Chinese literature materials left over from the death of Ernest Fenollosa, an American Orientalist. With the help of two Japanese scholars, Fenollosa made detailed English annotations to some ancient Chinese poems. Pound looked at Fenollosa's notes and treated them like treasure. At that time, Pound was exploring to write poetry with "image", and the writing method of Chinese classical poetry was in line with his ideas in many aspects. These Chinese poems gave him great enlightenment. He began to translate some ancient Chinese poems according to Fenollosa's notes. Therefore, some of his "mistranslations" come from his practice of his own poetics and translation theory. On the other hand, they may come from Fenollosa's misunderstanding. Of course, this is also the regrettable side of Pound's translation. However, his translation of Chinese classical poetry played a role in spreading Chinese culture in the West and made an important contribution to the communication between eastern and western cultures.

Influences of the American Translation Workshop and Ezra Pound

The practitioners of the translation workshop took Pound as an example and got rid of the shackles of literal translation. But they rarely face Pound's translation theory or any other aesthetic theory. This tendency to despise theory enables them to emphasize or highlight a certain aspect of the text according to their own needs in translation. The first thing that the translation workshop learned from Pound was Aesthetics - the translation language was popular, without modification, and poetry was translated in free style. Therefore, in terms of aesthetics, the revolutionary and innovative aesthetics in Pound's period has become the mainstream aesthetics today. A translator who does not understand the language and culture of the original text can also translate, and his translated works can also be published, as long as he has the sensitivity and good appreciation of poetry, and can write English poetry in popular terms without modification. If you don't know a foreign language, you can enter the translation workshop as long as you have the sensitivity of poetry and can write good English. Because they rely on other people's annotation and literal translation like Pound.

The translation workshop took Pound's translation method as their basis, but they did so not so much as translation as creation. It is said that the translation workshop has also done an experiment. They sent word to word literal translation, line to line literal translation and notes on the form, language, cultural background and legend of The Yellow Crane Tower by Cui Hao, a poet from the Tang Dynasty, to more than 20 British and American writers and translators for translation, most of whom are quite famous. The result is imaginable - these translations are quite different in semantic differences, syntactic changes, line arrangement, image changes, poetic forms and metaphors. It is undeniable that some of the poems are really well written, but they are also far from Pound's translation thought. Edwin Genzler believes that the theoretical basis of the translation workshop is not so much Pound's translation thought as Plato's language theory, although they use Pound's translation methods. For Angela Elston argued for this phenomenon in her article on this experiment in 1980 that meaning can be expressed in various ways. Elston even believes that if the translator understands the original text, he is bound to imitate some forms of the original text, such as style, tone, musical sense and phonetic repetition. If the translator does not understand the original text, he will not be bound by these formal features in translation. Edwin Genzler believes that Elston's statement is just opposite to pound's translation thought, as Pound's translation theory emphasizes these formal features.

As for Pound's contributions to literary translation, we can look at them from three aspects.

First, in poetry translation, he gave up the original and antique language of the Victorian era. That kind of archaic English is not the English of a specific era in ancient England, but a hodgepodge of ancient or medieval English in many times in the past. The purpose is to give readers an impression of "ancient" and "past". Pound advocated looking at the past from a modern point of view and seeing the past as vivid and complex as modern. Therefore, Pound advocated translating classical poetry in contemporary language. His views and translation practice have had a great impact on the translation of contemporary poetry.

Second, to him, translation is regarded as a form of literary criticism. Pound's thought of creative translation and various strategies applied in translation have had a great impact on modern translation thought. Victorian translators emphasized their loyalty to the original works and their accurate understanding of the original works; contemporary poets and translators highlight inspiration. They believe that from Fenollosa's notes, the poet can get inspiration and translate good poetry. This thought has something to do with Pound's method of translating ancient poems in Cathay. Therefore, "only poets can translate poetry" has become an accepted view. Taking Pound as an example, translation is no longer the equivalence of calculating syllables and looking for meaning, but the expression of the poets and translators' insight into the original poem in many aspects - the meaning, tone and style of the original poem, and then make a choice to express some characteristics of the original poem in the translation and reflect their own criticism of the original poem.(Apter,1984:68)

Third, he regards translation as creation. For Pound, translating a poem is to create a new poem. This view can be seen from two aspects. Firstly, as mentioned above, Pound sees the past as a living factor in changing the present. The poetry he chose to translate is the classical poetry that he believes is lacking and needed in contemporary poetry. This is especially reflected in the Chinese classical poetry in his poetry collection of Cathay. Secondly, Pound believes that translation can not only be an ancient poem, but an ancient poem from a modern point of view. Therefore, it is also a new poem. Dryden divides translation into word by word translation, imitation and free translation, while Pound advocates "creative translation". This creative translation can be said to be between fiction and free translation. Pound believes that translating a poem actually changes the original poem and the past. The translator looks at the past from the perspective of the 20th century and reproduces the poetry of the past with the experience and ideas of the 20th century. Pound opened up a new way for poetry translation - besides literal translation and free translation, creative translation can also be carried out. This is pound's greatest contribution to literary translation.

Conclusion

From the essay, we can conclude that the translation workshop has not made much contribution to literary translation theory. Their contribution is not in the concept of translation equivalence, but in semantic association, cognition and music, and in revealing the "black box" in the mind in the process of translation. On the latter hand, the American Translation Workshop opened a precedent, because before that, American translation research focused on translation, not on the process of translation. As for Ezra Pound, one of the greatest representatives of the workshop, from the great success of Cathay in the west, Chinese translators can get a lot of enlightenment: First, translate poetry with poetry. Second, find the spiritual fit between the translator and the original poet (such as Shelley's works translated by Guo Moruo). Third, Integrate translator's own feelings into the translated poetry, or when selecting the original works for translation, choose those works that are connected with the translator's own emotions. Fourth, attach importance to the similarity of spirit and light the similarity of form. Finally, fully consider whether the translation is suitable for the recipient's psychology and habits to the greatest extent.

References

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Written by--Zhang Yang (talk) 12:19, 13 December 2021 (UTC)

Corrected by--Zeng Junlin (talk) 11:36, 13 December 2021 (UTC)