Foreign Poetry and its Chinese translations handout by Ban Haoyang

Foreign Poetry and its Chinese translations 外国诗歌和它的中文翻译 16励耘（文学） 班皓阳 201611940229 Part1. Foreign Poetry The history of foreign poetry has been so long. The first poetry which was written down is “The book of Dead” from Egypt in 3500 B.C. “The Epic of Gilgamesh” was the oldest surviving narrative poem and was the foundation of world literature.When in Ancient Geek and Rome, the flourished civilization also comprised a lot of famous poem, like Odyssey, Iliad, etc. And at that time, the great poet called Homer provided so many masterpiece that the time period he lived in was called “Homeric age”. In the Middle Age, biblical poetry played an important role. After that, from 17th century to 18th century, classicism age came and poets like Voltaire and Milton created many famous work. Romanticism came just after that, ranging from 18th century to 19th century. Goethe from Germany, Wordsworth, Byron and Shelley from British, Whitman from America, and so many other poets from different parts of the world made great contribution to this poetic style. Finally, from 19th century until now, different styles came out together, like aestheticism (art for art’s sake), symbolism (real world is painful but ideal world is wonderful), etc. Also, different cultures interflowing together make poetry more colorful and aesthetic. Part2. The Chinese translation of foreign poetry 2.1 History of Chinese translation of foreign literature The history of Chinese translation of foreign literature is about 120 years long. The earliest translation of foreign poetry can be dated back to 1898. The first phase is from 1898 to 1917, which is a time period that the translation of English poetry in China hadn’t flourished, compared to novel and drama translation at that time. From 1917 to 1949, the second period is the transition of translation from traditionalism to modernism. Since many oversea Chinese students came back to China due to World War and authority decided to encourage people to translate foreign poetry, poetry translation has been thrived. Ranging from 1949 to 1966 are the 3rd period of foreign poetry translation. Poems, either political, or social or aesthetical are introduced on a larger scale. Many experts and scholars in this field appeared in this period. Translation theory has been invented and treasured. These reflect a high degree of popularity of poets among their Chinese readers, but also the close relationship between other countries and China in cultural, ideological, and literary exchanges.(Miao, 2003) 2.2 Example of western poetry translation----translation of Wordsworth’s poetry Wordsworth is one of the famous British Lakers in the late 18th century who wrote tons of beautiful poetries and is very popular in China. The Chinese translation version helps his poetry became widely spreading in China but still had a few problems which are difficult to concur. The first one is about refinement. The language of Wordsworth’s poetry is easy to understand and sometimes really colloquial, and his rhythm are always full of changes but still in some rules. For example, he’s fond of the rhyme “ababcc”. But in Chinese, these two characteristics are difficult to match together. When translator choose to match the rhyme, it’s hard for them to use some simple daily words to present the original artistic conception of the poetry. For example, in the famous poetry called ‘The Daffodils’, there is one line “Tossing their heads in sprightly dance”, Chinese translator Sun Liang translated it into a line “随风偃仰舞兴浓”, which words are very elegant and beautiful but the feeling of this poem has been changed. Although his translation version kept the rhyme “ababcc” in a very good way, he can no longer keep the artistic conception. Also, the rhyme of Chinese traditional poetry are like “aaba” or the same rhyme from the first line till the last, when Chinese translators do the translation, they’ll always get involved in a wrong rhyme, which will change the whole atmosphere of the poem. So when it comes to the poem translation, the barrier of language is really difficult to pass and there’s still a long way to go in this field. (Xu, 2003) Reference 1. 徐莉华《文辞雅化和音律变形——评华兹华斯诗歌的中文翻译》西南民族学院学报哲学社会科学版 1--3（2003年第5期） 2. 苗林《1864—1966：中国英美诗歌翻译百年回顾》27,47,48,67,68（2003）