Aesth App EN 3

3 邱婷婷(On Xu Yuanchong’s poetry translation from “Three-Beauty” Theory -- Taking Three Hundred Tang Poems as an example) Aesth_App_EN_3

Abstract

Chinese classical poetry has a long history and is full of romance. Its language is concise, its content is rich and diverse, its form is harmonious and unified, and its rhythm is beautiful, which makes it interesting to read. Poetry, as the highest form of expression in literature, has always been the best way for the literati to express their feelings, so the translation of poetry also puts forward higher requirements for the translator. Xu Yuanchong's theory of three principles provides a new direction and new thinking for the translation of poetry, which has a great guiding role in the practice of poetry translation.The Tang Dynasty was the most prosperous period of Chinese culture, and its poets created a large number of masterpieces with different styles and rich emotions. Three Hundred Tang Poems translated into English by Xu Yuanchong expressed the content and emotion of the poem vividly. This paper will analyze the “beauty” in Xu’s poetry translation from the three perspectives of “beauty of meaning”, “beauty of sound” and “beauty of form”.

Key words

“three-beauty”theory; beauty in sense; beauty in sound; beauty in form

题目

从“三美论”浅析许渊冲的诗歌翻译—以《唐诗三百首》为例

摘要

中国古典诗歌历史悠久且颇具浪漫气息，其语言凝练，内容丰富多样，形式和谐统一，韵律优美，阅读中耐人寻味。诗歌，文学的最高表达形式之一，长久以来一直是文人抒发情感的最佳方式，因此对于诗歌的翻译,对翻译者也提出了更高的要求。许渊冲的三原则理论给诗歌的翻译提供了新的方向，新的思维，对于诗歌的翻译实践活动有很大的指导作用。唐朝是中国文化最为繁荣昌盛的时期，唐代诗人创作了大量风格迥异，情感丰富的名篇佳作。许渊冲英译的《唐诗三百首》，将诗中的内容、情感传神地表达了出来。本文将从许渊冲提出的“三美论”，即“意美”、“音美”、“形美”这三个角度来赏析其诗歌翻译中的“美”。

关键词

“三美”理论；意美；音美；形美

1. Introduction

Xu Yuanchong (April 18, 1921 -- June 17, 2021), was born in Nanchang, Jiangxi Province. He graduated from the Department of Foreign Languages of Southwest Associated University in his early years. He has been engaged in literary translation for more than 60 years, covering Chinese, English, French and other languages, focusing on the translation of ancient Chinese poetry into English, forming the method and theory of rhyming style translation of poetry, known as “the only person to translate poetry into English and French”. As an outstanding translator in contemporary China, he plays an important role in promoting Chinese cultural works and letting them be known by so many foreigners. In 2010, Xu won the “Lifetime Achievement Award of Chinese Translation Culture”. On August 2, 2014, Xu Yuanchong was awarded the “Northern Lights” Outstanding Literary Translation Award, one of the highest awards in the international translation field, and was the first Asian translator to receive this award (Zhou Rongrong,2020:129). Mr.Xu Yuanchong plays an important role in Chinese translation circle, not only for his numerous translation masterpieces but also for his translation theory, which has a great influence in latter translators. Most current translations, versions , and imitations of poetry have two main features in common:they both expand and compress the source text. Compression is mainly achieved through the use of compound-words or paraphrase and frequently camouflaged as “explanation,” “interpretation,” or even “improvement.” Expansion is achieved through the use of exaggeration, explicitness, and padding, and camouflaged in much the same way(André, 1975:384). And to some extent, the original beauty would be decreased by such methods without an orderly theory. The translation theory of “three-beauty” determines that Xu Yuanchong be consistent with the principle of “pursuing beauty” over “expressing faithfully” in his translation practice, attaches importance to the “beauty”of poetry and gives full play to his creativity. Xu once said that “The main purpose of poetry translation is not to make reputation of the poet letting him being remembered by the people of future generations, but to enable people to share the poet’s graceful feelings”; “I think translating poems should be ingenious and creative, he added.(He Xiaoli, 2019:117)

Three Hundred Tang Poems is a very popular anthology of Tang poetry. The Period of the Tang Dynasty (618-907) was the golden age of Chinese poetry, with a large number of famous poets and more than 50,000 poems. Three Hundred Tang Poems (in both Chinese and English) completed by Xu Yuanchong is a book published by China International Translation Press in 2007. And the theory of “three- beauty” was well used in the translation of Three Hundred Tang Poems. Therefore, the study of Xu Yuanchong’s translation of Three Hundred Tang Poems, form the perspective of his translation theory “three-beauty” has high practical valve. This paper studies and appreciates the translation of Three Hundred Tang Poems under the “three-beauty” principles, and it is mainly divided into four parts: some explanation of the “three-beauty” theory, appreciation from the scope of the beauty of meaning, appreciation from the scope of the beauty of sound, appreciation from the scope of the beauty of form.

2.“Three-Beauty” Theory

The theory of “three-beauty” was first put forward by Xu Yuanchong in his letter to the aesthetician Zhu Guangqian(a famous Chinese Modern and contemporary aesthetician, literary theorist, educator, translator) in 1979, and has been continuously applied in subsequent translation practices. Xu Yuanchong once said:“Western translation stresses equivalence, advocating word for word translation, almost 90% of their written vocabulary is equivalent. Chinese is different from other languages in that only 50% of words are equivalent to words. Although equivalence does not violate objective regularity, it does not give play to subjective initiative. Without distorting the author's meaning, translation must reflect the connotation, essence and soul of a national culture”(Zhou Rongrong,2020:131). It is known to all that Xu won his national reputation mainly from his poetry translation practice and his initiation of the principle of “ three-beauty”(which refers to beauty in sense, sound and form). It’s of great significance to the practice of poetry translation, and might be assumed as a milestone in the field of poetry translation(Guo Zhuzhang,1997).

Actually the principle of “ three-beauty” was initially put forward in the essay “From Language to Artical”by Lu Xun( the great writer, thinker and revolutionary in China). He stated “in learning a Chinese character, three aspects should be taken into consideration, namely, ‘the sense, the sound and the form’,as to article writing, beauty in three aspects should likewise be taken into account: for one thing, to achieve beauty in sense to move reader’s heart; the second, to achieve beauty in sound to suffice reader’s ears; finally, to achieve beauty in form to appeal to reader’s eyes(Guo Zhuzhang,1997). As the principles were only applied in language and character, Xu employed it to poetry translation after having a comprehend understanding and analysis of the original principles. What’s more, Xu published a series of articles to further expound the principle of “three-beauty”.

“with regard to ‘three-beauty’, beauty in sense is of the greatest significance, therefore should be put in the first position; beauty in sound is of less important and hence is placed in the second place; whereas beauty in form is of the least magnitude and ought to laid in the third place.” “We should exert ourselves to convey the beauty in sound of the original work under the provision of faithful reproduction of the original beauty in sense; furthermore, we should try our utmost to convey the beauty in form of the source text under the provision of both the reproduction of the original beauty in sense and in sound; in a word, we should ake the greatest endeavor to reproduce the original beauty in sense, in sound and in form comprehensively”(Xu Yuanchong, 1997).

This is the situation that you can handle the three aspects simultaneously, however there are a host of texts that are very complicated and you can not make it work. So under this circumstance, Xu further sates that:“If ‘three-beauty’ cannot be achieved simultaneously, the resemblance in form can be ignored, so is the resemblance in sound; nevertheless, the conveyance of original beauty in sense and in sound should be retained in whatever circumstance (Xu Yuanchong,1997).

According to his statement, we can draw a conclusion that when we are translating something especially poetry, we should pay attention to the three aspects: sense, sound and form. And the beauty of sense occupies the first place, sound the second, form the third. In other words, the meaning of the poetry is the most important thing that we can not violate it in order to achieve other effects. On the condition that we do not affect the meaning, we can take the sound into consideration. As very different from other genres of articles, poetry pays much attention to the rhythm which can be read in a catchy and graceful way, making people easy to experience the feeling of the poets. And the form, after considering the sense and sound, the form is also important.

As we know, poetry translation is a creative translation. Only the translator have grasped the content and the spirit of the original works and find the most appropriate reflection in his own mind, can it be possible for him to have a good translation. Therefore, in Xu’s opinion, literary translation, especially poetry translation is to use the best words to achieve aesthetic effect. Due to the linguistic differences, there must be some loss in various aspects, but by using the best words, the original beauty can be recreated, so the loss can be compensated.(Xu Xiufeng, 2006)

3.Beauty in Sense

Mr. Xu Yuanchong believes that beauty in sense is the most important task in poetry translation and it is also the core of the “three-beauty” theory. As mentioned before, when we are doing poetry translation, we have to pay our attention to the sense of the poem at first, because it is the most fundamental aspect. In sense translation, it is not only a simple and direct translation of the meaning of the poem, but also the deep meaning that the poet wants to express while conveying the surface meaning. And for the deep meaning, the deep meaning of a poetry is much difficult to express succinctly, since there are many images in a poetry. As poetry is a literary form that conveys the poet’s thoughts and feelings, its content is mostly abstract, so in this case, translation will encounter great difficulties. Beauty in sense, in short, means that the translated poem should be faithful in content, smooth in language expression, and deeply convey the beauty of the artistic conception of the original poem, so that the readers of the translated poem can have the same spiritual shock and touching as the readers of the original poem (He Xiaoli, 2019:116) . Therefore, it is very important for the translator to retain the artistic conception of the original poem. Take professor Xu’s English translation of tang dynasty poem “Out of the Great Wall”, written by Wang Zhihuan as an example:

黄河远上白云间，一片孤城万仞山。

羌笛何须怨杨柳，春风不度玉门关。（Xu Yuanchong, 2011:438）

The Yellow River rises to the white cloud;

The lonely town is lost amid the mountains proud.

Why should the Mongol flute complain no willows grow?

Beyond the Gate of Jade no vernal wind will blow. (Xu Yuanchong, 2011:64)

This poem was written at the time when the poet first arrived in Liang Zhou( ancient northwest capital of China), facing the Yellow River and the vast scenery of the border city, at the same time, hearing the song “Snapping Willows” and was inspired to write this poem, which expresses the feeling of missing home of those soldiers who guard the frontier of their country. The first two lines of the poem describe the vast scenery in the northwest. Mr. Xu used “rise” to present the “远上”, although it describes the Yellow River flowing away into the distance, as if towards the sky, the word “rise” can also describe the magnificent sight of the Yellow River surging forward.

Then he described “the lonely town ‘is lost amid’ the mountains ‘proud’ ”. Actually in the original poem, the poet only listed the lonely town and the high mountains. Actually, “仞” is an unit of length in ancient Chinese, and “万仞” shows the amazing height of the mountains.In Xu Yuanchong’s translation, both the lonely town and the high mountains are personified. The lonely town is lost in the proud and high mountains like human being. On the basis of accurately conveying the surface meaning of the original poem, the translator also vividly expresses the poet’s emotion by means of personifying the image. To some extent, this translated sentence is even better than the original poem. Since the “lonely town” in this poem is the image of those soldiers, they were like the lonely town, lost in the high mountains in the northwest China.

As for the third sentence, “羌笛何须怨杨柳” shows the meaning that against the backdrop of this desolate environment, the Qiang Flute, in the meantime, played to the tune of “Picking up a Willow Branch”, made soldiers on the border feel homesick(Huang Bingxiang, 1991:65). In this sentence, “羌笛” refers to a musical instrument, a kind of flute popular in the frontier in ancient times and being called Qiang Flute because it rooted in the Qiang ethnic minority. And “怨” translated into “complain” is very appropriate and it can exactly express the feeling of the poet. Because the Chinese word for “willow” (柳) sounds similar to the word for “stay” (留) in Chinese, ancient Chinese people often gave a gift of willow as a token of remembrance when parting. While hearing the plaintive song with melancholy, those solders were so upset and the poet did not know how to comfort them, instead he can only complain that why the Qiang Flute always play sorrowful musics.

In the last sentence, “春风不度玉门关” shows that vernal wind will never reach the Gate of Jade. And in Mr.Xu’ translation, he completely conveys the meaning of the original poem. And “vernal wind” is an image of the emperor at that time, because the emperor’s care could not reach there, outside the Gate of Jade in such a dangerous and terrible environment. The poet expressed his complaints that the emperor did not care about the life and death of the frontier soldiers guarding the Gate of Jade and couldn’t sympathize with them(Sheng Dalin, 2020:52).

In this translation, the translator have conveyed not only the surface meaning, but also the deep feeling of the poet by using some methods, such as personification. With this, those foreigners can have a better understanding about this poem, about the hard life of those frontier soldiers. Through this translation, we can see the terrible environment of the frontier, soldiers’ longing for home, and the poet’s helpless and complaints about the emperor.

4.Beauty in Sound

One of the reasons for the great artistic charm of Chinese Poetry in the Tang Dynasty is that it pursues the beauty of sound and rhyme, pays attention to the level and oblique tones (The tones in ancient Chinese are divided into four tones: “Level tone” refers to the flatness of the four tones; “Oblique tone” refers to the other three tones), and makes good use of reduplication of words. However, the translation of cross-cultural literary works involves two completely different linguistic symbol systems and phonological combinations. For example, in poetry, one of the compatible combinations of some thoughts and artistic conception in the culture of China is a rhyme, which is a kind of well-arranged prose with musical beauty. However, when the combination of language symbols in the English culture is transformed, its arrangement loses all the rhythmic and music aesthetic feelings in the original text, thus resulting in the loss of cultural aesthetic of rhyme (Bao Tongfa, 2003:55).

In the English translation of Tang poetry, if we also pursue the beauty of rhyme, it will add another layer of difficulty to the poetry translation. So some translators advocated that there is no need to focus on the sound beauty in poetry translation and it will be suffice that if we entirely convey the meaning of the poem. But professor Xu insisted that the poem should be as beautiful in sound as possible, if we just drop this kind of beauty, there will be losing a lot of aesthetic beauty in Tang poetry (Jiang Mingyu, 2020:138). He tried to make the translation as harmonious and aesthetic as the original poem with strict meter, sentence number and so on. Thus, it is necessary for the translator to retain the “sound beauty” of the original poem for translating Tang poems into English. Take professor Xu’s English translation of tang dynasty poem “To The Riverside Willow”, written by Yong Yuzhi as an example:

袅袅古堤边，青青一树烟。

若为丝不断，留取系郎船。（Xu Yuanchong, 2011:525）

Your long, long branches wave by riverside,

Your green, green leaves like wreaths of smoke afloat.

“Make ropes unbreakable of them,” she sighed,

“To tie up my beloved one’s parting boat!”(Xu Yuanchong, 2011:211)

This is a poem of four line with each containing five characters, and it is named as “五言绝句” in Chinese. This kind form of poem “ five-character quatrain” was not the creation of poets in the Tang Dynasty, but originated from the yuefu poems of the Han and Wei dynasties. Due to the limitation of the number of words, compared with other poetic genres, the “five-character quatrain”should be more concise and generalized in terms of its language and expression techniques, which makes it more difficult to create. Therefore, this kind of poem naturally become the most brilliant pearl in the poetry of Tang Dynasty and is also the essence of that time. (Wang Quan, 2015:125)

The poem in Chinese the first two sentences rhyme with “an” as “边” and “烟” , and the last two sentences rhyme with “ uan” as “断” and “船”. And each sentence of them is composed with five characters, making the whole poem very catchy, rhythmic and melodious when we read it. In the translation version, Professor Xu Yuanchong uses intersentence rhyming, the first and third sentences rhyme with “aɪd” as “riverside” and “sighed” while the second and the fourth sentence rhyme with “oʊt” as “afloat” and “boat”. For “an” and “aɪd”sounds, we just have to open our mouth slightly, but for the other two sounds we have to keep our mouth wide. Taking into account the similarity of rhyme in translation can make the translated poem closer to the original poem in terms of rhyme and retain the beauty of the original poem as much as possible.

The first two sentences describe a scene that on both sides of the old embankments, there are green willows dancing with the wind. Actually the poet didn’t mentioned the willow directly but made a metaphor. In the wind, the bountiful branches of willows dance in the wind which are just like a wisp of smoke. In the poem, the poet uses the reduplication “袅袅” and “青青” and in the translation Professor Xu focuses on reproducing the rhythmic beauty of the original poem, by using the reduplication “long, long” and “green, green” making the two sentences very rhythmic. In the last two sentences, in poet shows the psychological activities of the heroine, but in the translation, these two sentences are directly expressed as the sigh of the heroine. In all, this translation greatly retains the rhythmic beauty of the original poem, making it also reads rhythmically.

5.Beauty in Form

Tang poetry is famous for the metrical, neat antithesis, the length of the former sentences and the latter ones being the same, and scattered well. Form beauty mainly refers to the consistency of lines and stanzas between the translated poem and the original poem. When translating, the translator should try to make the target language readers read the translation with the same effect. If the translated poem and the original poem have the same number of lines, the same number of sections, and the same form in terms of sentence length and antithesis, the beauty of the form of the original poem is basically reflected (Jiang Mingyu, 2020:139). Actually, translation is a kind of imitation, we should do our best to keep the original entity be transformed into the thing that can be as similar as possible, and it doesn’t simply depend on one side but on the whole aspects which it will be seen. However, in the process of translation, we should not blindly pursue the same form, because this rigid correspondence is likely to cause great changes in other aspects of the poem, resulting in great loss to the meaning and sound of the original poem. So according to professor Xu’ “three-beauty” theory, it would be better for those translators to adjust the formal features of the poem to make it consistent with the original poem to the greatest extent without compromising the meaning and rhythm of the original poem. Personally, a certain degree of innovation in the form is not undesirable.Take Professor Xu’s English translation of Tang Dynasty poem “Song Of The Pating Son” as an example:

慈母手中线，游子身上衣。

临行密密缝，意恐迟迟归。

谁言寸草心，报得三春晖？（Xu Yuanchong, 2011:522）

From the threads a mother’s hands weaves,

A gown for parting son is made.

Sewn stitch by stitch before he leaves,

For fear his return be delayed.

Such kindness as young grass receives,

From the warm sun can be repaid? (Xu Yuanchong, 2011:208)

This poem, composed of six lines and thirty characters, expresses the poet’s respect, love and gratitude to his mother, which has resonated with countless people from ancient times till now. The first two sentences describe a scene in which the mother, holding a needle and thread, makes new clothes for her child, which shows the mother’s love in profile. The third and fourth sentences describe the mother’s actions and psychological feelings respectively.

The beauty of form in poetry also has antithesis, that is, a pair of sentences with basically the same or similar grammatical structure and exactly the same number of syllables, to express a opposite or relative meaning. Chinese classical poetry pays much attention to antithesis. In the original poem, “慈母” and “游子”、 “手中线” and “身上衣”、 “密密缝” and “迟迟归”、 “寸草心”and “三春晖” all respectively form antitheses, making the structure of the poem very neat. “慈母” refers to a loving mother and “游子” means sons and daughters who are far away from their parents being the subjects of this sentences. While for “手中线”and “身上衣”, “手”and “身” are both the organ of people’s body, “中” and “上” are both directional nouns, and “线”and “衣” are both nouns, in addition clothes are made of thread. Then “密密”and “迟迟” use the reduplication to embellish the following verbs “逢”and “归”. As for“寸草心”and “三春晖”, they respectively refer to children’s gratitude to their parents and mother’s love.

In the translation, professor Xu didn’t translate directly in the order of the original text but instead translated the first, fourth and last sentence, by putting the preposition at the beginning and the second and fifth sentences use the form of “article + noun” to start the sentences. What’s more, the verb of each sentence is placed at the end of the sentence, and the preposition “from” is used as the beginning of the first and last sentence, which makes the whole poem echo of fore and aft in structure and makes the poem look more complete. In addition, professor Xu adopted the expression of one line and one sentence conforming to the form of English poetry, and translated each clause in the original poem into one line, with each line having eight to ten syllables.

Through his superb translation skills, by adjusting the original order of the poem, Xu Yuanchong presents the very concise meaning of the original poem to the readers well. As I have mentioned before, it’s very hard for translators to show one hundred percent of the beauty of the original poem. But in fact, in the process of translation, the three aspects of beauty should be considered together. They are not the difference in order, but the difference in the main degree.

6.Conclusion

As a translation standard, the proposal of “three-beauties” has a very positive significance. It is Xu Yuanchong’s contribution to poetry translation theory. His creativity can be described as a link between the past and the future. It can be said that Mr. Xu Yuanchong’s originality (Pu Hongying, 2010:101). The “three-beauty” theory promoted by Xu Yuanchong, and used in the process of poem translation, is a translation theory of great reference value. In the process of poetry translation, we should follow the “three-beauty” theory. First of all, we should have a relatively rich background knowledge, enough to support our understanding of the meaning of the original poem at all levels. Secondly, in the process of translation, we do not consider meaning beauty first and then the other two aspects, but consider the three aspects at the same time, and put the beauty of sense in a more important position, followed by sound and form. It will help translators a lot in poetry translation by using the “three-beauty” theory. Wellek and Warren, as far back as in 1942, said that “Meanings, context, and ‘tone’ are needed to turn linguistic sounds into artistic facts.” This claim is based on the idea that poetry is a series of sounds out of which arises a meaning. Sounds are arranged according to stress and pitch, recurrence, position of rhythmical units and other elements that together furnish what has misleadingly been called the “musicality” of a poem (Marta, 1998:24). There are still some similarities between Chinese and English poem translation, both focusing on meaning and sound.

But at the same time, there are of course some limitations in the “three-beauty” theory. According to cognitive linguistics, we can know that every language is based on the reality, and then through our cognitive pattern, we can form the language we actually use. What makes sense is that we human beings of different country, we have different cognitive patterns and even every individual has a special way to know the world. As for every language is according to the characteristic of the elements such as phonetics, grammar and vocabulary, according to the characteristic of the structure of a set of complete system, so the Chinese and English two languages in pronunciation, vocabulary, grammar, discourse, pragmatics have significant differences in various aspects (Pu Hongying, 2010:101). So the “three-beauty” theory which we focus on in Chinese poetry is not necessarily the same “three-beauty” of the poetry in English. As a result, it seems impossible to achieve the “three-beauty” standard entirely in concrete practice.

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