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英语硕士论文:从接受美学角度看陶渊明田园诗歌的不同英译本

时间:2021-10-24 来源:未知 编辑:梦想论文 阅读:
Contents
 
Abstract ...........................................................................................................................................i
 
摘要............................................................................................................................................iii
 
Introduction ...................................................................................................................................1
 
Chapter One Literature Review ..................................................................................................4
 
1.1
Study of Chinese Pastoral Poetry .......................................................................................4
 
1.2
Study of Western Pastoral Poetry .......................................................................................5
 
1.3 A Brief Introduction of Tao Yuanming ...............................................................................5
 
1.4
Tao Yuanming’s Pastoral Poetry .........................................................................................8
 
1.4.1 A Natural Depiction of the Idyllic Picture ................................................................8
 
1.4.2 A True Description of Farming Life .........................................................................8
 
1.4.3 A Narrative of the Sincere and Honest Friendship ...................................................9
 
1.4.4 The Performance of Peasants’ Poverty .....................................................................9
 
Chapter Two Translation Standards and Theory Applied ......................................................10
 
2.1
Translation Standards of Classical Poetry both at Home and Abroad ..............................10
 
2.2 Application of Reception Aesthetics in Poetry Translation ..............................................10
 
2.3 A Brief Introduction About English Versions of Tao’s Poems .........................................12
 
Chapter Three A General Introduction of Reception Aesthetics ............................................13
 
3.1
The Origin and Development of Reception Aesthetics ....................................................13
 
3.2
Jauss and “Horizon of Expectation” .................................................................................15
 
3.3
Iser’s “Appealing Structure” and “Implied Reader” ........................................................17
 
Chapter Four The Analysis of Tao Yuanming’s Pastoral Poetry from the Perspective of
 
Reception Aesthetics ...................................................................................................................19
 
4.1
Reader’s Role and Status ..................................................................................................19
 
4.2
An Introduction of Three Translation Versions Adopted in the Paper ............................19
 
4.3
Three Translators’ Translation Standards from the Perspective of Reception Aesthetics..............................................................................................20
 
4.4
Three Translators’ Translation Strategies from the Perspective of Reception Aesthetics..................................................22
 
4.4.1 An Analysis of Wang Rongpei’s Translation Strategies 22
 
4.4.2 An Analysis of Yang Xianyi and Gladys’ Translation Strategies 23
 
4.4.3 An Analysis of David Hinton’s Translation Strategies 24
 
4.5  The  Case  Study  of  Tao’s  Translation  Versions  from  the  Perspective  of  Reception
 
Aesthetics 25
 
4.5.1 Translation Versions of Back to Country Life (Ⅱ) from the Perspective of
 
Reception Aesthetics 25
 
4.5.2 The Translation of the Special Language Points in Tao’s Pastoral Poems 29
 
4.6 Summary 40
 
Chapter Five Conclusion 41
 
5.1 Research Achievement 41
 
5.2 Research Significance 41
 
5.3 Limitations and Implications for Future Research 42
 
5.3.1 Limitations 42
 
5.3.2 Implications for Future Research 43
 
Bibliography 44
 
Appendix 47
 
Acknowledgments 73
 
Publication 错误!未定义书签。
 
山东师范大学硕士学位论文
 
 
Abstract
 
Wei Jin vigor of style has always been the consistent theme that Chinese scholars concern and Tao Yuanming is the representative character and has made great contributions for the creation of pastoral poems. Although the researches on his poems are abundant at present,most of them concentrate on the literature field. From this point we can find that Tao Yuanming’s poetry translation lacks the corresponding theoretical support and research.
 
How to transmit the culture which is expressed by the form of poetry effectively to foreign readers is a hot issue in translation field. Reception aesthetics is introduced to this field because of the sameness in searching objects and range. Based on the theory, the paper analyses Tao’s different translation versions of the pastoral poem in detail. Reception aesthetics supports the theory that the work itself is an “appealing structure” which contains many “indeterminacies” and “gaps” and waits readers to complete the understanding and reconstruction of the work with their own “horizon of expectations”. Reception aesthetics turns the attention to the interaction between text and reader and emphasizes the subjective initiative of readers (including translators).
 
In Tao’s pastoral poetries, the natural and pure styles, rich images, beautiful artistic realms, flexible verves, profound cultural connotations are all the “indeterminacies”. How to translate the aesthetic effect to make the readers’ “horizon of expectations” interact with those of the original and finally achieve the fusion is the leading significance of reception aesthetics.
 
This paper is divided into six parts. The first part briefly introduces the research statement, background, objective, outline and theory applied. The second part is literature review, which includes a brief introduction of Chinese and western pastoral poems, and then discusses Tao Yuanming and his pastoral poems. The third part of the research is translation strategies and English versions of Tao’s pastoral poetries. Chapter three is theoretical framework. This chapter elaborates on the reception aesthetics and discusses two important concepts which are “horizon of expectations” and “indeterminacies” (or “gaps”). Chapter four is the central part of the paper and is also the specific process of research and analysis. It mainly selects Yang Xianyi, Wang Rongpei and David Hintons’ translation versions and discusses their translation standards, strategies and translation versions in detail from the perspective of reception aesthetics. Yang
 
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山东师范大学硕士学位论文
 
 
Xianyi translated parts of Tao Yuanming’s poems in Poetry and Prose of the Han, Wei and JinDynasty while the other two translators translated most of his poems in their works. The last partis the conclusion.
 
Through the exploration of the relationship between translation versions of Tao Yuanming’s pastoral poetry and reception aesthetics, the paper gets the inspiration or enlightenment for the translation. First, readers’ role and status should be paid much attention to and meanwhile cannot be over-exaggerated during the translation process. The traditional translation standards should not be denied as well. Second, individual differences of “horizon of expectations” bring enough room of imagination for the translators. Appropriate creation should be encouraged and the flexible strategies should be adopted for the translation of Tao Yuanming’s pastoral poetry, especially for the translation of reduplications, images and culture-loaded words. Third, pay attention to the reader's times and cultural background and takes readers’ reception into full consideration. It is necessary to meet the readers’ aesthetic needs and also to expand their “horizon of expectations”.
 
Key words: Tao Yuanming’s pastoral poetry; reception aesthetics; horizon of expectation;indeterminacies; translation strategies
 
Category code: H315.9
 
 
 
 
 
 
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山东师范大学硕士学位论文
 
 
 
魏晋风骨一直是中国文人所关心的主题,而陶渊明则是代表人物,为田园诗歌创作做出了卓越贡献。目前关于陶渊明诗歌的研究不少,但大多集中于文学探究,从中可以看出对其诗歌翻译还缺乏相应的理论支撑和研究。
 
如何把这种以诗歌形式所传达的文化有效地传递给外国读者一直是翻译界探寻的问题。接受美学因其研究对象和范围的交叉性被引入了这一领域。本论文以接受美学作为理论基础对陶渊明田园诗歌的不同英译本进行了详细分析。接受美学是文学研究中一种新的范式和方法,接受理论认为作品本身是一个召唤结构,其中蕴藏着许多的不定点和意义空白等待读者以自己的期待视野与之进行积极的对话交流最终共同完成对作品的理解重构。接受理论把目光转向文本和读者的互动关系上,强调读者(包括译者)的主观能动性。
 
陶渊明田园诗歌中自然纯美的诗风,丰富的意象,唯美的意境,灵动的神韵,深厚的文化底蕴便是作品本身的不定点。如何译出其中的审美效果,使读者的期待视野与原作积极互动形成视域融合,便是接受美学理论的指导意义之所在。
 
本文共由六部分构成。第一部分为引言部分,简要概述本研究的研究现状,研究目的和背景以及本论文的整体框架和应用理论。第二部分为文献综述,主要对中西方田园诗歌进行了简要概述,然后介绍了陶渊明及其田园诗歌的思想内涵。第三部分介绍了中西方翻译标准问题并列出了陶渊明田园诗歌的翻译版本。第三章为理论框架,本章对接受美学理论进行了详细阐述并对接受美学中两个重要术语即“期待视野”和“不定点”(或“意义空白”)展开论述。第四章为论文的中心部分,为具体的研究分析过程,主要选取杨宪益,汪榕培和戴维•亨顿的陶渊明诗歌英译本从接受美学的角度对三位的翻译思想,翻译策略和翻译版本进行详细探讨。其中杨宪益的《汉魏六朝诗文选》为选译,汪榕培和戴维•亨顿为全译本。第六章为结论。
 
本论文对陶渊明田园诗歌翻译进行分析,探讨陶渊明田园诗歌的主要译本中采用的翻译策略和接受美学理论之间的关系,并提出了自己对于翻译方法的建议。(1)要重视读者在翻译过程中的地位和作用,但是又不能过分夸大读者作用,不能够否定传统翻译标准。
 
(2)期待视野个人差异性给翻译带来了发挥的想象空间,鼓励译者适当的创造性,鼓励译者运用灵活的翻译策略去翻译陶渊明田园诗歌,尤其是对叠词,意象和文化词语的翻译。
 
(3)要注意读者的时代背景,充分考虑读者的接受程度,既要满足读者的审美需要,又要扩大其期待视野。
 
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山东师范大学硕士学位论文
 
 
关键词:陶渊明田园诗歌,接受美学,期待视野,不定点,翻译策略
 
分类号:H315.9
 
 
 
 
 
 
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山东师范大学硕士学位论文
 
 
Introduction
 
Statement of the Study
 
The study of Chinese poetry translation mainly focuses on objective textual analysis. The leading roles that the readers (including the translators) have played under the process of the poem translation have not been paid much attention to. Reader’s active reception is also rarely mentioned. Reception aesthetics emphasizes the status of readers and encourages the translators to use their own “horizon of expectations” to concretize the original and also leave enough artistic distance for the target language readers to interpret the “indeterminacies” and “gaps” in the translation. However, few researches combine reception theory with Chinese ancient poetry translation. Therefore, this paper attempts to study the English translations of Tao Yuanming’s pastoral poems from the perspective of reception aesthetics.
 
Research Background
 
Poetry is a great treasure in China. Robert Payne mentioned that “poetry is the most beautiful flower in Chinese culture” (Kong Huiyi, 1999: 91). Tao Yuanming, the founder of Chinese pastoral poetry, enjoys a great reputation both at home and abroad. The abundant images, natural style, beautiful artistic realm, profound cultural connotations in his pastoral poems have inspired numerous scholars to appreciate and translate the poems and also carry out the related research. However, the problem is that few people do research on Chinese ancient poetry translation from the angle of reception aesthetics, let alone the translation versions of Tao Yuanming’s pastoral poems.
 
Therefore, this paper selects the well-known translation versions of Wang Rongpei, Yang Xianyi and David Hinton and illustrates their translation ideas and concrete strategies from the perspective of reception aesthetics. At the same time, the paper will attempt to give some suggestions on how to deal with the reduplications, images, style and cultural factors during the translation of Tao Yuanming’s pastoral poems on the basis of reception theory.
 
Theory Applied
 
Reception aesthetics originates from the theory of post-structuralism translation study and the hermeneutics theory and is one of the most influential literary theories which have a great impact on the development of translation studies. The representatives are Hans Robert Jauss,
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山东师范大学硕士学位论文
 
 
(1921 - ) and Wolfgang Iser (1926 - ). Jauss’ research thoughts mainly focus on the work of Toward an Aesthetic of Reception, Aesthetic Experience and Literary Hermeneutics, etc. He maintains that every reader has his “horizon of expectation” or “pre-understanding”. The work itself hides a lot of “indeterminacies” and “gaps” which need the readers to concretize or interpret them. Iser put forward the concept of “appealing structure”. This “appealing structure” which is made up of the “indeterminacies” will naturally make the readers give rise to different understandings for the same work because of the differences of readers’ knowledge structures and the ambiguities or uncertainties of the texts. Poetry, as the highest artistic form, inevitably contains a lot of “indeterminacies” and “gaps”. As for Tao Yuanming’s pastoral poem, the “indeterminacies” and “gaps” refer to its style, images, artistic concepts, cultural connotations, etc. In addition, reception aesthetics is about the reader’s reception theory. Reception aesthetics insists that literature is not the objective activity which aims at the material world, but the activity which deals with the interpersonal communication of thinking, feeling and understanding among people. Therefore, the essence of literature is its interpersonal nature. This nature decides that literature can not exist without the observer independently.
 
Literature creation and spreading should be seen as a “dialogue process”. The dialogue participants, both authors and readers, are equal partners. They are both equally important and indispensable. Creation and reception process of literature include two basic aspects: the writers’ works and readers. The work is not finalized after the creative process. Only by the reception activities of readers can the work finish the process. Authors write works for people to read and the only object is reader. From this point of view, reception aesthetics confirms that the literary and artistic works become the aesthetic objects only after the readers’ reception. When the work’s potential meaning and aesthetic awareness interact with each other and are perceived by the recipients and cause a reaction, this potential information is finally transferred into the concrete images and meanings. It was also continuously improved by the change of time, place and reception awareness. That is also why there exist so many translation versions of Tao Yuanming’s pastoral poems.
 
All of the above concepts of reception theory make people study poetry translation from a completely new perspective. The reception theory is used into translation for improving the translation theory. Meanwhile, the theory make the translators pay much attention to the target
 
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山东师范大学硕士学位论文
 
 
readers’ status and roles and encourage them to use the flexible translation strategies with their own “horizon of expectations” to meet the readers’ artistic needs at different times.
 
Research Objective
 
The primary concern of this paper is to introduce the important concept of reception theory into translation study. Then this paper mainly interprets three different translation versions of Tao’s pastoral poems under the theoretical support of the theory. By collecting English translation versions of Wang Rongpei, Yang Xianyi and David Hinton and using the comparative study, this paper does the utmost to analyze their translation ideas and put forward the suggestions on the translation methods of poetry.
 
Outline of the Paper
 
This paper is divided into six parts. The first part briefly introduces the research statement, background, objective, outline and theory applied. The second part is literature review, which includes a brief introduction of Chinese and western pastoral poems, and then discusses Tao Yuanming and his pastoral poems. The third part of the research is translation strategies and English versions of Tao’s pastoral poetries. The fourth part is theoretical framework. This chapter elaborates on the reception aesthetics and discusses two important concepts which are “horizon of expectation” and “indeterminacies” (or “gaps”). Chapter four is the central part of the paper and is also the specific process of research and analysis. It mainly selects Yang Xianyi, Wang Rongpei and David Hintons’ translation versions and discusses their translation standards, strategies and translation versions themselves in detail from the perspective of reception aesthetics. Yang Xianyi translated parts of Tao Yuanming’s poems in Poetry and Prose of theHan, Wei and Jin Dynasty while the other two translators translated all of his poems in theirworks. The last part is the conclusion, pointing out the significance, suggestion, limitation, and further study in this field.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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山东师范大学硕士学位论文
 
 
Chapter One Literature Review
 
1.1 Study of Chinese Pastoral Poetry
 
Pastoral poetry is closely related to the ancient folk songs. We can easily find the evidence from “Book of Songs” and the idyllic poetry of the Han dynasty. First, the formation of ancient poets’ pastoral complex and emotions are decided by socio-economic realities of the times. Agriculture (basically refers to crops) is the economic basis of the feudal society and determines the peace and prosperity of the feudal ruling. Therefore, the feudal rulers of every dynasty value agriculture very much.
 
Secondly, most of the intellectuals come from peasant families. Even many children of officials live in rural areas and also some intellectuals who ever live in the city deliberately hide in the countryside or the mountains when they meet the career barriers. Because of the natural connection between them, the intellectuals form a conscious concern to the Chinese rural areas.
 
It is this complex of villages that make the ancient poets reflect the realities and emotions of peasant, praise the hard-working farmers and describe the natural sceneries of the countryside. All of these promote the emergence and development of China’s ancient pastoral poetry.
 
Of course, the emergence and development of pastoral poetry have a close relationship with the extreme darkness of the officialdom in feudal society. The exclusion and nepotism of the feudal bureaucracy make part of the officials especially some upright feudal intellectuals can not stand the darkness and corruption of the officialdom and retreat to the rural areas or mountains as a recluse. In contrast with the flattery and intrigue, what they feel in the countryside are the kindness and sincerity of the peasants and the freshness and charming of nature. China's first-known ancient pastoral poet, Tao Yuanming, is the most typical representative.
 
In terms of the subject or the content of China’s traditional pastoral poetry, it mainly includes three aspects: the depiction of the rural pastoral landscape; the praise of their simple character and industrious working life; the lament and indignation to the exploitation, oppression and disaster.
 
Realism has always been the main writing style in the creation of China's pastoral poetry. That is, it is a true reflection of the two thousand years ancient social reality. There is still great aesthetic value in modern society.
 
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1.2 Study of Western Pastoral Poetry
 
Pastoral poetry or idyllic poem, by definition, is to describe their love, thoughts, place of residence and other beautiful natural scenery of the shepherds. The representative is Theokritos (忒奥克里托斯) who wrote a total of thirty pastoral poems (line 2701). Most of them survived and had a great influence on western poetry. Virgil, Spencer, Milton, Tennyson, Arnold and other major poets keep creating the poems. Like the spreading of the pastoral poetry in Chinese literature from generation to generation, idyllic poem has become one kind of immortal in western literary field.
 
For thousands of years, whenever they meet the setbacks or sufferings in real life, or crave for escaping the palace and the city to breathe the air of rural areas, the western people will derive the inspiration from the poetry of Theokritos and Virgil; It is the same with China where people seek comfort to obtain the quietness of mind from the works of Tao Yuanming, Wang Wei or Meng Haoran. Under their pens, the shepherds have elegant style of conversation. Meanwhile, they can sing beautiful songs and the life is full of poetic and artistic prospect. Therefore, the critics of the later generations could not help wondering: how can the vulgar herders have so fine language and delicate feelings? But we know that it is just the working people who create the beautiful country ballads. Only with such rich imagination can they create the poetries which are vivid in image, wonderful in rhythm. This is an indisputable fact.
 
Theokritos is undoubtedly the most outstanding pastoral poet in western literary fields. Under the blue sky in Sicily, those herders graze on the green hills, singing their sweet songs, playing mellow flute. This carefree and picturesque life inspired his creative inspiration. He absorbed all sorts of nourishment from this true and beautiful life and wrote the pastoral poetry which won the high praise.
 
In all, both the Chinese and western pastory poems have great impacts on the literature. They create the charming world which attracts all of us to pursue the purity and simplicity of our soul. The difference is that western pastoral poetry is based on the ideal while the Chinese pastoral poetry is on the basis of reality. The former describes the ideal pastoral life and expresses the nostalgic mood and the love for peace while the latter mainly depicts the natural sceneries of the rural areas and reflects the sufferings and happiness of the common people.
 
1.3 A Brief Introduction of Tao Yuanming
 
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山东师范大学硕士学位论文
 
 
Tao Yuanming, styled Yuanliang, alias Tao Qian during his last part of life, was one of the most distinguished poets in literary history of China. He was born at the end of the East Jin dynasty, in Caisang of Xunyang (to the southwest of Jiujiang city, Jiangxi province, PRC). Tao Yuanming becomes a widely-known name mainly because of the creation of the pastoral poems which are full of flavor of the fields, feelings of sincerity and simplicity in nature. Sometimes it also shows the belief of escapism or the Taoism’s optimistic attitudes. His reclusive style and deep love for the simple life have greatly influenced Chinese literati from generation to generation. And even the whole Chinese culture is heavily influenced by him.
 
The education of the family and the influence of the times attributes to the development of Tao Yuanmig’s uninhibited character. Firstly, Tao Kan, his great-grandfather made great contributions for the establishment of the East Jin dynasty and his rank is only inferior to the emperor. Furthermore, his grandfather Men Jia was a very famous scholar at that time who showed great interest in Taoism and Confucianism which exerted much influence on Tao Yuanming. He provided him with a lot of books such as Tao Te Ching (老子), Zhuagzi(庄子) and myths, etc to let him learn the history and the ancient thoughts. His father acted as Tai Shou (太守), an eparchy magistrate. Tao Yuanming was pround of his family and hoped sincerely that he can also succeed to achieve his political aspiration in his youth. However, Tao Yuanming did not go through much family prosperity. His father died when he was only eight years old and four years later his mother passed away. Tao Yuanming hovered between officialdom and reclusion during this stage. At that time, the Confucianism thought “An excellent scholar should be an official” (“学而优则仕”) is very prevalent. That is to say, it is a criterion to evaluate someone is successful or not. So nearly all of the literati want to get the government positions to achieve their political ideals. At the age of 29, he did minor official which was called Ji Jiu (祭酒), but soon he decided to resign because of his straightforward and impartial traits. However, he had to work for the government by the force of hard life at his middle age. When he acted as the magistrate of Peng Ze (彭泽) county, the last position of his officialdom, he did not want to see the governor, saying, “I’m not bowing down to some clodhopper for a measly bushel of rice.” and then resigned. The thirteen-year official life is the process of trying, disappointment and finally despair for the realization of his great aspiration. His Fu (赋) of Homeward Ho! (归去来兮辞) embodied the determination to break with the upper ruling class. From then on he
 
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山东师范大学硕士学位论文
 
 
never left his village. His second wife lady Zhai Shi has the same mind and pursuit with him. They worked together, enjoying the poverty and humility. The end of the Eastern Jin Dynasty was chaos. The popularity of Buddhism promoted the appearance of the pastoral poet of Tao Yuanming who lived beyond the secular.
 
It can be seen from his deeds that he is a man who loves nature and hates binding. For example:
 
Back to Country Life (I)
 
I've loathed the madding crowd since I was a boy
 
While hills and mountains have filled me with joy.
 
By mistake I sought mundane careers
 
And got entrapped in them for thirty years.
 
Birds in the cage would long for wooded hills;
 
Fish in the pond would yearn for flowing rills.
 
…….
 
(Tr. by Wang Rongpei)
 
 
 
It must be very uncomfortable to let such a straightforward man bear the darkness and boring of the officialdom. When he really abandoned the so-called“fame and fortune”, he got a real world with infinite space. From his poems, we can see that his spiritual world moved towards a higher level. The readers will yearn for the picturesque scenery, the simple life and also his spiritual world.
 
Many of the great poets since the Tang dynasty, like Li Bai, Du Fu, Bai Juyi, Su Shi, Lu You, respected Tao Yuanming very much. Furthermore, Tao Yuanming’s poetry had a tremendous impact on their art creation and life attitudes. His poetry represents “awakening of humanity”. That is, people not only should have a material life and the spiritual life is also very important. When we read the sentences “I pluck hedge-side chrysanthemums with pleasure, and see the tranquil Southern Mount in leisure.” (Drinking Wine) again, we will feel the freedom and stretch of our soul.
 
Influenced by zeitgeist and family environment, he accepted the thoughts of Confucianism and Taoism which develop his two different inclinations of “And hills became my natural
 
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山东师范大学硕士学位论文
 
 
compeers(性本爱丘山)” and “with aims to ride the seas and seize the star(猛志逸四海)”.
 
Tao is a distinguished poet in the history of Chinese literature, who created a new artistic realm of pastoral poetry and made the pastoral poetry become an important form in the Tang and Song dynasty. Tao’s work follows the flavor of Wei Jin poetry and enters into a more pure and mature situation. The mellow and profound mood, the simple and natural diction constitute a new and beautiful type of Chinese poetry. It is inseparable with his abundant rural life experience. In a word, Tao laid a monumental position in the history of Chinese literature.
 
1.4 Tao Yuanming’s Pastoral Poetry
 
Tao Yuanming brings the subject of idyllic life into poetry, creating a new field of literary—pastoral poetry. All of them come from reality. He is not just a spectator of the rural life but one of them. So he can open up a new field. The content mainly has four aspects.
 
1.4.1 A Natural Depiction of the Idyllic Picture
 
The pastoral scenery and the farming life which Tao wrote are fully integrated with each other. He does not extol the mountain and forest in a wide perspective but portray the rural life to show its beauty, prosperity and peacefulness. For example, Back to Country Life (I) describes the enjoyable pastoral life after the author returns to his hometown and shows the hatred of official life and also expresses the happiness when he exposes himself to the nature again. Here, the poet does not praise the rural life directly. Through the “line drawing” (白描) of the hut, cottage, elm, willow, peach, plum, smoking, crowing, barking and faraway village, the author shows the heartfelt love and deep attachment to the rural scenery.
 
1.4.2 A True Description of Farming Life
 
Tao prefers to farm rather than associate with people in officialdom. We are impressed by his calm and optimistic life attitudes.
 
The poem Early Crops in the West Fields in Mid-September speaks out his life values. It expresses the author’s attitude and understanding of farming life at the beginning of the poem. “If I am not engaged in tasks like these, How can I to rest in peace and ease?” tells us that getting without any labor or idling away our time can not reach the quietness of our soul. The poet holds that only working can get the basic needs of life. Although it is hard, it can dispense with the
 
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psychological burden of the spirit.
 
1.4.3 A Narrative of the Sincere and Honest Friendship
 
The poet involves in farming work in person and is close to the working people. He is deeply aware of the hardships of farmers and at the same time has great sympathy for the plight of farmers. Through the regular contacts with peasants, they established a sincere friendship. Such as Moving Houses (Ⅱ). The seemingly plain verse painted the harmonious picture of “乐数晨夕” with the literati and farmers after he moved to the South village. At spare time, everyone dresses and visits each other, chatting and drinking together. When the farming time comes they talks about the growing conditions of the crops like mulberry and hemp. The emotions with the villagers naturally develop from the common self-sufficient life.
 
1.4.4 The Performance of Peasants’ Poverty
 
Through the description of Tao Yuanming’s poem, we can realize that not all the country life are pleasant and not all the rural scenes are delightful. Many farmers have fled to the mountains because of the heavy corvee and harsh taxes. Tao himself suffered natural disasters a lot and had met with much man-made misfortune. Therefore, he not only witnessed the depressed rural scene, but also tasted the bitterness of poverty. The typical examples are A Poem of Sorrow Dedicatedto Secretaries Pang and Deng and Caught in Fire in Mid-June.
 
Although the poet here pours out his own bitterness of his own poor life, it is not difficult to imagine a more miserable situation of other farmers.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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Chapter Two Translation Standards and Theory Applied
 
2.1 Translation Standards of Classical Poetry both at Home and Abroad
 
Translation, by nature, is a cross-language, cross-cultural communication activities which transfer the meaning one language carried to another language. Translation, the cultural exchange activity, is mainly done by the medium of language. Human language, as a tool to exchange ideas, has its unique features. The function of language and meaning should be reflected in the translation standard. Translation activities are related to the translators, authors, texts, text readers, translation versions, and many other factors.
 
The issue of translation standards has always been a central topic in translation study. The researchers have put forward many criteria, the most influential theory in China is Yan Fu's “faithfulness, expressiveness and elegance” (“信、达、雅”). Fu Lei’s “similarity in spirit” (“神似”)and Qian Zhongshu’s “sublimation”(“化境”) also have the great impact on translation.Cheng Fangwu insists that the translation poem should be faithful to the original. Wen Yiduo holds the idea that the translation should keep the beauty of music, painting and architecture. He also emphasizes that the translator should not abuse his liberty to damage the flavor of the original work. Xu Yuanchong is a very famous translation practitioner and theorist and is well-known for “three beauty principles” which includes beauty in sound, beauty in meaning and beauty in form and his numerous distinguished translation works. Chen Hongwei adopts “similarity in function and correspondence in meaning” “(功能相似, 意义相符”). Furthermore, she puts forward seven functions in translation. The concrete function can be determined by the type of text. Poetry belongs to literary texts, so the main function involves the information function, aesthetic function and expressive functions as well.
 
In the west, the most popular translation standard is “equivalent value”, “equivalent effect”, “functional equivalence”. The representatives are Tytler and Nida.
 
Currently the translation standard of poetry adds the following two new ideas: First, translation standard of poetry is decided by the poetic imagery implication and aesthetic value. The image has become the soul of poetry translation. The image is shown by the outsider objects. Second, multiple complementary translation standard theory appears.
 
2.2 Application of Reception Aesthetics in Poetry Translation
 
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Translation is a very complex issue and the translation of poetry is even harder. The translator deals with the individual words but what he faces is two cultures. Translator must be, in the true sense, a real intellectual.
 
If we discuss poetry action from reception aesthetics perspective, it is a re-creation. The translator fills the “blanks” of the poem with his understanding and knowledge during the process of continuous exchange with the original and finally builds the aesthetic significance of the text. But in fact, the translator is not able to write down all interpretations, imaginations and meanings which he understands according to the original truthfully and completely. He must leave full imagination for his readers and let readers dialogue with the text. Therefore, the translation process is actually also a process of blank comprehension and reproduction. In other words, the translator uses their own imagination to achieve different degrees of “fusion of horizons” through the aesthetic experience. He provides the uncertain nature of the text with different meanings, making the potential significance concretize. Of course, during the process of concretizing the “indeterminacies” and “gaps” of the “appealing structure” in the original, the translator should consider that the readers also look forward to playing their initiative role. So the translator should avoid damaging the inherent ambiguity and the subtle beauty of the original as possible as he can and leave enough room for imagination. And also poetry translation shoulders the task of spreading two cultures and their interaction. Translator must pay attention to the cultural differences which are embodied from the texts during the translation process. From reception aesthetics, it requires the translator to pay attention to the differences between the two cultures and take the reader’s position and role into consideration. A good translator should accurately convey covered cultural information of the original to achieve the purpose of cultural exchange.
 
As we know, one good poem translation calls for the beauty in form, sound and meaning. Translation not only needs mere transmission of the thoughts in the original, but the full reproduction of the original spirit and beauty. It is impossible and unnecessary to translate the original poems word for word because of the differences of languages themselves and the various aesthetic standards. So the paper will analyze how different translation versions come about and how they do their utmost to translate Tao’s pomes to achieve the original beauty. It is closely related to the first reader’s (translator) own expectation and the second reader’s reception.
 
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So the theory of reception aesthetics must be used.
 
2.3 A Brief Introduction about English Versions of Tao’s poems
 
There are many translation versions of Tao’s poems for the great literary status both at home and abroad. Wang Rongpei lists six of them in A Comparative Study of Tao Yuanming’s Poetry: William Acker’s version, T’ao the Hermit: Sixty Poem by Tao Ch’ien (1952); Lily Pao-hu Chang’s version, The Poems of T’ao Ch’ien (1953); James Robert Hightower’s version, ThePoetry of T’ao Ch’ien (1970);A. R. Davis’s version, T’ao Yuan-ming, His Work and Their Meaning (1983); Ronald Fang’s (方重) version, Gleanings from Tao Yuanming (《陶渊明诗文选译》)(1984); and Tan Shilin’s (谭时霖) version, The Complete Work of Tao Yuanming《(陶渊明诗文英译》) (1993) (汪榕培,2000:47). In addition, there are also another two important versions. The Selected poems of T’ao Ch’ien translated by the American translator David Hinton, Poetry and Prose of the Han, Wei and Jin Dynasty translated by Yang Xianyi and Gladys Yang.
 
 
 
 
 
 
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Chapter Three A General Introduction of Reception Aesthetics
 
3.1 The Origin and Development of Reception Aesthetics
 
Research situation both at home and abroad: reception aesthetics was born at Germany in the late 1960s and the main representatives of the theory are Hans Robert Jauss and Wolfgang Iser. They believe that the meaning of one work comes from two aspects: First, the text itself. Second, the readers’ own understanding. Literary work is a system which contains thoughts and feelings and also a kind of “appealing structure” which has its inner life and vitality. It has many “uncertainties” (“indeterminacies”) and “gap” for the readers to fill.
 
Therefore, the meaning of a text depends on the readers’ creativity and imagination to fill the so-called “gaps” in the text. That is, there is something which is not mentioned in the text and needs to be filled. Therefore, the excellent work itself should be an unfinished multi-level structure which is full of “indeterminacies” and “gaps”. These “indeterminacies” and “gaps” are understood according to the readers’ own experience and knowledge structure which is also named “horizon of expectations”.
 
Reception aesthetics is directly affected by post-structuralism translation study and the hermeneutics theory. In early 20th century, focus of literary research gradually changed. That is the change from the writer-centered research to the work-centered research. They believe that the text study is the focus of literary study. The article has nothing to do with the author and reality. With the rise of Gadamer new hermeneutics in 1960s, people have been increasingly noticing that the theory of work-centered research is obviously incomplete. They go to the extreme and simply catch one aspect of the total literary activity. This dynamic continuous process of the literary activities (work–writer-reader) is interpreted into static, closed and incompatible one, ignoring the issues of people’s living literary exchange and the effect of social acceptance.
 
Over the past years, western historians have been limited in the circle of the author and his literary work. Such as the study of Shakespeare, we either analyze Shakespeare’s life experience or the concrete discussion of the scripts and others; few do research on Shakespeare from the perspective of the reader and the comparison of contemporary literature art. In recent years, with the wide spread of contemporary western aesthetic theory in the academic community, people are increasingly inclined to study literature research from the perspective of writer’s creative
 
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activities to the field of literary reception and then explore the relationship between the literature creation and acceptance, the work and the reader. Furthermore, they evaluate the position and role of recipient in the literary activities. It is gradually more eager to attach great importance to the study of reception and the effect among the readers Therefore literature jumps out of the narrow scope and enters a wider area. There is no doubt that the reception aesthetics regard the readers as the participants of literary creation, which itself is a bold challenge to the traditional artistic concept.
 
They challenge the aesthetic ideas which focus on the inner research of the work, refute the text-center theory and therefore establish the reader-center aesthetic theory which achieve the fundamental change of literary studies. The reception process of readers must be considered if one wants to do research on the literature and its history. Focusing on the dialogue between the reader and the text, they carry out their own new study dimension. The main thoughts are as follows:
 
First, reception aesthetics stresses the importance and objectivity of readers. Its theorists put the reader study into a high position and solemnly point out that the study of literary theory which does not consider readers is not a sound science. The writer who does not pay attention to the readers is not a good writer and also the literary historian who does not care about the reader, is not a comprehensive expert of literary history study as well. Readers are the direct supporters of one work and the forms of expression and the image of work depend on the readers. Therefore, the reader himself is an integral part of literature then it is quite necessary for us to study the nature of literary readers.
 
Second, reception aesthetics also does the study of the reader’s aesthetics experience and other basic conditions. Before the readers go through the work, his mind is not completely blank but full of a series of consciously or unconsciously preparation such as aesthetic experience, life experience, cultural level, appreciative ability and so on. Recreational aestheticians insist that aesthetic experience has created a potential reflection of the aesthetic attitude. For example, the reader is quite familiar with events, characters and environment which are mentioned in the work. If the work provides the false information, the readers will naturally produce a resistance to the reception and gives their own views which are in confrontation with the work. Another example, because of the differences of the readers’ aesthetic experiences and reading conditions, they will
 
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produce different evaluation even for the same work.
 
Third, reception aesthetics is very concerned about the study of literary history and put forward the reception literary historical views. The so-called reception literary historical views, is to study the literary history from the perspective of reception theory. This point has been neglected in the past.
 
In the late 1980s, the theory of reception aesthetics enters the vision of Chinese translation studies. The initial introduction of the reception aesthetics can be traced back to 1983. Han Chunfeng gave the first description of reception aesthetics in Wenyililunyanjiu (《文艺理论研究》)(No.3 1983). Zhang Longxi further illustrated the relationship between the theory and the Chinese translation principle through his article The Benevolent see benevolent and the wise seewisdom in Dushu (No.3 1984). Zhang Guofeng described the major scholars, Jauss and Isers’reception theories in 1985 and 1987. Zhou Ning and Jin Yuanpu provided Chinese readers with the chance to read the original theorists’ works. In the year 1987, they translated Toward anAesthetics of Reception written by Hans Robert Jauss and Reception Theory: A critical Introduction written by Robert C. Holub into English.
 
In order to study the reception literary history, we must find the complex reactions of readers at that time from historical documents and then explore the reason why different readers at different times have various views to the same work. The researchers also need to point out the influence of the readers such as the expectation psychology, aesthetic taste, and the impact on the creation of literary work at different times under different environments.
 
3.2 Jauss and “Horizon of Expectation”
 
Hans Robert Jauss, (1921 - ) is one of the founders of Constance School and also the most famous representative of reception aesthetics. His research accomplishments mainly focus on the works of Toward an Aesthetic of Reception, Aesthetic Experience and Literary Hermeneutics, etc. Jauss holds that literary history is the reader’s reception history. During the communication among the writers, works and their readers, the readers do not simply react but actively create the works. Before the reader exposes one work, he has his own “horizon of expectations” or “pre-understandings”. That is, the reader’s potential aesthetic expectations. He also believes that only through the reader’s reading process can the work comes to its life and can get new significance of the work. Jauss conceives that the preceding writers and literary theories only
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focus on the author and his work. The readers’ reception and influence to the literature are ignored. The readers are never the optional factors in the overall author-work-reader relationship. The literature work focuses on the recreation of the reader and meanwhile reader is the active part of the main literary activities. Once readers go through the work, the work has become an aesthetic object. It is no longer an isolated existence but the regenerative art image and emotions after the readers’ perception, interpretation and fusion. The emotion and image are difficult to be recognized because parts of them belong to the art itself while parts of them come from the recreation of reader.
 
Thinking highly of “horizon of expectations” and “aesthetic distance” is a major feature of reception aesthetics; Jauss put forward “horizon of expectations” to show the initiative of readers. In fact, “horizon of expectation” is not firstly presented by Jauss. Heidegger, the representative of modern hermeneutics theorists calls it “pre-understanding”, stressing the importance of cultural accumulation, affirming the crucial role of each person’s cultural traditions in understanding the new object. Then, Gadamer inherits Heidegger's point of view and puts forward the concept of “legitimate prejudice” and “fusion of horizons”. He believes that the bias in understanding is “legal” because everyone lives in a certain era, the specific historical and cultural atmosphere and inevitably holds different era and personal prejudices. The work and the recipient have their own “visions” because the former is created by a particular person under a specific historical period while the latter are people who live in a particular historical environment.
 
 
Jauss believes that the authors would feel that his work lack new ideas and stimulation if and readers’ feelings are in complete accordance with their “horizon of expectations”. On the contrary, we would feel excited if the work is beyond our “horizon of expectations”. This new experience will enrich and expand our “horizon of expectations”. Aesthetic experience has a mechanism which can stimulate the potential aesthetic attitude. That is, as the aesthetic object, literary work has many “indeterminacies” and “gaps” which wait the readers to fill, determine its meaning and re-create with their understanding during the reading process.
 
So the meaning of one work comes from two aspects: the work itself and readers. Readers must fill and specify the “indeterminacies” and “gaps” of the work. Therefore, Jauss insists that it is not enough to do research on the theme of the work only from the perspective of author. The
 
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deeper it does, the more confused it will be. Jauss believes that we are not studying the work. It is a process of concretizing all the factors of the readers or researchers into the work. In other words, the meaning comes from the endowment of the readers.
 
Reception aesthetics holds that his minds can never be blank before he accepts any kinds of literary work. Once he enters the process of acceptance, the previous literature that he once read is bound to participate in its acceptance. Furthermore, the reader’s own cultural awareness, educational level, intelligence, knowledge, intentions and other personal characteristics which are the potential energies will influence his evaluation as well. That is the important role of pre-understanding in the process of art reception. If the “pre-understanding” constitutes the reader’s “known points”, then, every moment of reading constitutes the so-called “unknown point”. In this case, the reader’s “horizon of expectation” will always point to the “unknown point”. The readers make a choice of the work by their own “horizon of expectations” during the process of acceptance. With the improvement of reading level, readers’ original “horizon of expectations” are broken and expanded, creating new “horizon of expectations” which bring new demands on literature creation. This feedback will promote the writer to widen artistic distance and create innovative work to integrate with the reader’s “horizon of expectation”.
 
3.3 Iser’s “Appealing Structure” and “Implied Reader”
 
Wolfgang Iser (1926 -),together with Jauss, creates the theory of reception aesthetics with their pioneering theoretical insights. The theoretical points of view mainly focus on the work of dark implicit reader (or translated as implicit in the reader), reading activities - aesthetic response theory, etc.
 
Iser takes phenomenology as the basis for his study. He insists that literature, as the aesthetical object, is built up in reading process. “Literary work” is a product produced by interaction between the text and the readers. The work can be only regarded as the print from the physical level after the creation of the author. Only by the reading process can the work achieve its value. Iser puts forward the concept of “appealing structure” which is an essential supplement to Jauss’ theory.
 
From the perspective of reception aesthetics, reader is a very important concept. It puts the reader to the primary status while the text to the secondary position. Iser proposes the term of “implied reader”. In his view, “implied reader” is neither a real reader nor an ideal reader but a
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potential reader. Such readers not only reflect the pre-composition of text meaning, but reflect the reader’s potential realization during the reading process. The pre-composition of text is called “appealing structure”. Iser insists that literature has the appealing property. It originates from the “indeterminacies” and “gaps” of the text. The psychological “gap” which is caused by the difference between the expectation vision and text constitutes the “appealing structure”. There is no doubt that it would arouse the reader’s creative impulse to concretize the potential meaning. The reader’s subjectivity is shown finally. This “appealing structure” will naturally make the readers give rise to different or approximate understanding about the text. For the same work, different people have different views. From the perspective of reception aesthetics, it is just the reader’s knowledge structure and the ambiguity or uncertainty of the aesthetic object itself that lead to the difference.
 
One thousand readers create one thousand Hamlets. In fact, it is the “indeterminacies” and “gaps” in Hamlet that implicate different readers with various opinions. The so-called “gap” is the part which is not written specifically and clearly in the article. It refers to the implications which exist in all the good work structure. Therefore the readers should not regard the “gap” as nothing. Its existence and potential encourage the reader to “fill” the text so that the meaning of work can be fully reflected. We can re-create a complete and vivid art image. Therefore, the “gap” not only attracts the reader to read the text but also provides readers with reading mechanism which ensures the orderly and effective reading.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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Chapter Four The Analysis of Tao Yuanming’s Pastoral Poetry from the Perspective of Reception Aesthetics
 
4.1 Reader’s Role and Status
 
Reception theory holds that the readers’ reading activities and reception have the decisive influence to the text meaning, values and the historical status. The value of the literary work cannot be realized without the readers’ participation and creation. The biggest feature of the literary work, especially the feature of Chinese ancient poetry is that it contains a lot of “meaning of vacancies”. Only through readers can the lost or potential meaning of the text be realized and concretized. Readers at different times may have their own understanding because of the difference of the “horizon of expectations”. The fact demonstrates that every work has its historical life and effect.
 
Tao Yuanming was known as a recluse from his death to the following two hundred years. Then his poetries began to get the attention of the scholars in the Tang dynasty. In the Song dynasty, he was regarded as the greatest poet both in art and personality. This phenomenon shows us that reception, to a large extent, is decided by the readers although it is also related to the work itself. The uncertainty of the meaning interpretation endows the infinite vitality to the work. So this point affirms the importance of the reader from the angle of historical life and literature value. The very famous scholar Wang Rongpei has mentioned the acceptance of English readers in the preamble of many translation books. That is, the translator should believe the ability of readers and try not to deny their rights of getting fun or enlightenment from the text. Reception theorists also insist that the “uncertainty” and “vacancy of meaning” which exist in the work itself need readers to supplement and also expect the readers to restore the blurred images clearly.
 
4.2 An Introduction of Three Translation Versions Adopted in the Paper
 
This paper mainly selects Wang Rongpei, Yang Xianyi, Gladys and David Hintons’ translation versions of Tao Yuanming’s pastoral poetry to appreciate and analyze. The reasons are as follows: First, as the first generation scholars of new China, Professor Wang Rongpei is a well-known contemporary educator and translator. He once successfully translated Tao Te Ching (《老子》)、Zhuang Zi (《庄子》)、The Book of Change (《易经》)、The Book of Poetry (《诗
 
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经》)、300 Early Chinese Poems《(汉魏六朝诗 300 首》)、The Complete Poems of Tao Yuanming (《陶渊明集》)、The Peony Pavilion (《牡丹亭》)、The Handan Dream (《邯郸记》)etc. into English.
 
In order to deepen the understanding of Tao’s living environment, he went to Tao's hometown Jiu Jiang, inspected Tao’s original tomb and talked with Tao’s descendants. When he engaged in the translation, he not only read Tao’s poetries and the existing English translation versions in detail, but also managed to read the relevant academic books and research papers as much as possible.
 
Yang Xianyi (1915.11-2009.11) is a famous translator, expert in foreign literature and poet.
 
He, together with his Britain wife Gladys was known as “persons who translate the whole
 
China”. Their translation categories range from Chinese classical literature to modern literature.
 
The cooperation of Chinese and western make the translation more convincing.
 
David Hinton is the first American scholar who translates four famous ancient Chinese philosophy books (The Analects of Confucius, Mencius, TAO TE CHIP and Zhuang Zi) into English alone in 20th century. Using the popular, natural, fresh and simple language, Hinton brings the essence of the classical Chinese poetry to common western readers and open a window for the contemporaries to understand traditional Chinese culture better.
 
However, first, very few people do research on the translation version of Yang Xianyi and David Hinton. Most of them focus on the translation of Wang Rongpei, William Acker, A. R. Davis and Ronald Fang. Second, from the view of reception aesthetics, the reading activities are the positive occupation to the work and inevitably have individual attitudes, understandings, and judgments which are also called the “horizon of expectations”. At the same time, the reader’s “horizon of expectation” develops all the time. The same work may have different historical status and roles at different eras. Readers at different ages and occasions even those at same times would have different interpretations for the same work. In addition, translators from different countries have their own histories, cultural backgrounds and aesthetic orientations. Therefore, these three translators’ versions can give us a relatively comprehensive and objective interpretation to reception theory.
 
4.3 Three Translators’ Translation Standards from the Perspective of
 
Reception Aesthetics
 
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We’ve mentioned that each reader has his own personal history, cultural background and social experience. Now that the translation is for the readers, only after their reading, reception and feedback can the whole translation process complete. The readers have a strong influence to the final results during the translation process, which, to some extent, forces the translator to adopt certain translation ideas. The three translators have formed their own translation ideas and skills in practice which is very worthy of our study.
 
Wang Rongpei’s translation ideas can be simply summarized as “传神达意”.“传神” is to convey the original’s “look” which includes the form, tone, image, figures of speech, etc; “达意” is to express the original meaning correctly, especially the deep meaning and try to take thesurface meaning into account as well (Wang Rongpei, 1997:119). He recently further elaborated on the standard of “传神达意”. First, “达意” is the starting point of translation. We should try to accurately reflect our own understanding and interpretation of the poetry and also show our understanding process to the contents in the translation. This point of view has many similarities with the reception theory which emphasizes the reader’s (including translator) acceptance and subjectivity. Our translation of the poem is to show our interpretation of the content. Secondly, only “达意” is not enough. It should be vividly expressed because “传神” is the soul of literary translation, especially the translation of poetry. (Wang Rongpei, 2007:33-34)
 
Yang Xianyi believes that the translator should be faithful to the original author’s thoughts and feelings, respect their creative work. The translator’s job is to convey the original author’s idea faithfully as much as possible. Under the premise of faithfulness, the translation should also be fluent so that the target language readers can understand the article easily. He believes that the general principle of translation can be easily summarized as “faithfulness” “expressiveness” and “elegance” which were put forward by Yan Fu. It is not allowed to omit or add the content of the original (Jiang Zhiwen & Wen Jun, 1999:287). From this point we can see that Yang regard “faithfulness” as the prerequisite translation standard. Translation can not make too much explanation. Translator should be faithful to the original image without exaggeration or anything else.
 
As a well-known American translator, David Hinton formed his own translation style. Use the popular, simple sometimes colloquial words. For the words with cultural allusions, he is inclined to use the literal translation plus annotation.
 
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4.4 Three Translators’ Translation Strategies from the Perspective of
 
Reception Aesthetics
 
The translator needs to consider the readers’ “horizon of expectations” to make the translated work alive; furthermore, the translator would adjust his translation strategies to accord with the specific aesthetic judgment of target language in specific time (Jiang Qiuxia, 2009).
 
According to the reception theory, translation is a process in which two receptions involves. At first, the translator reads,understands and interprets the original text. The translator takes reader’s “horizon of expectation” into consideration and communicates with the readers. Second, the translator begins to his translation practice with certain strategies.
 
4.4.1 An Analysis of Wang Rongpei’s Translation Strategies
 
After a lot of translation practice, Wang Rongpei supports the idea of Basil Hatim and Ian Mason that translator should believe in the readers’ reception ability. “The translator’s task should be to preserve, as far as possible, range of possible responses; In other words, not to reduce the dynamic role of the reader” (Basil Hatim & Ian Mason, 2001:11). Try to use literal translation if possible. It would be reasonable to adopt the flexible translation approaches when the literal translation can not fully convey the connotation or may cause misleading. Therefore, in addition to the combination of the literal translation and liberal translation, shift between the faithful translation and virtual translation, Mr. Wang also flexibly use the choice of synonyms, the correspondence of antonyms, the adoption of omitting structure and also the reasonable additions or deletions and so on.
 
Mr. Wang proves that poetry can be translated by practice. His ideas include the transmission of both the external form and inherent meaning. The inherent meaning or implication includes the background, content, tone and even the association and cohesion of the poem. For example, We can translate the famous sentences appeared in TaoYuanming’s poem Drinking Wine (Ⅴ)“结庐在人境,而无车马喧”according to the surface meaning or deepmeaning. Most translation versions adopt the literal translation by the surface meaning. Some translators use the sentence structure of “there is no …” and translate “车马喧” into clamor of carriages and horses, clatter of carriage or horse, din of carriages or horses, noise of house or coach, sounds of carriages or chariots or noise of wheels or trampling hoofs which become the
 
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declarative sentence describing a kind of state. All the above translations mean that there is no fury in the surrounding rather than the poet’s mind. So it can hardly convey the life attitudes of the poet who lives far away from the hubbub. Mr. Wang’s translation is “My house is built amid the world of men, yet little sound and fury do I ken. (Wang Rongpei, 2003:112)”. That is, use the liberal translation to demonstrate the “overtones” hidden under the words.
 
On the other hand, the external form of poetry includes verse, line, rhythm, rhythm, image, etc. Due to the language and cultural differences, the translation of poetry is bound to lose some of its original features. However, it can gain new life completely by way of compensation. Wang Rongpei has summed up a set of practical methods about it: the translation version adopts iambic pentameter to maintain the original poem’s form if the original poem is five-character poetry. Mr. Wang creats the unique beauty of poetry by the perfect transmission of the original’s rhyme, rhythm and artistic conception. For example, the sentences in the poem of Composed on My Wayto Assume the Office of Military Counselor (《始作镇军参军经曲阿作》):
 
眇眇孤舟逝,绵绵归思纡
 
The farther from home in my boat I go,
 
The stronger my thoughts for the country grow.
 
(Tr. by Wang Rongpei)
 
Wang uses the common sentence in the English language “the more, the more” to replace the original’s reduplication. This fresh translation skill not only preserves the rhetorical features of the original but also accommodates the reading habits of the western readers. Of course it is a win-win translation strategy.
 
4.4.2 An Analysis of Yang Xianyi and Gladys’ Translation Strategies
 
Yang Xianyi and Gladys persist in “faithfulness and clearness” translation style and are very good at using the target language to reproduce the original grammatical features and also the beauty of melody. The language of classical Chinese poetry is usually subtle and reserved, which is closely related to the ambiguity of the Chinese language. It embodies the thinking patterns, values and feelings of a nation. Moreover, there are quite a few characters and allusions in Chinese poetry. Mr.Yang uses the literal translation to preserve the original images if some characters do not affect the understanding of poetry and some allusions are self-evident.
 
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In addition, their intended readers are mainly foreigners. On one hand, these groups are eager to learn Chinese culture. On the other hand, most of them lack the relevant background knowledge about Chinese culture. Therefore, when it comes to the translation of the culture-loaded words, Yang is more inclined to adopt the foreignization.
 
Take the sentences of Thoughts on the Ancients Written in My Cottage(Ⅱ) (《癸卯岁始春怀古田舍二首》)(其二) for example:
 
先师有遗训,忧道不忧贫。
 
The Teachers of old* had a lesson to give to the world:
 
He cared for his work and not for his poverty. (*Confucius)
 
(Tr. by Yang Xianyi and Gladys Yang)
 
耕种有时息,行者无问津。
 
There comes a time when I rest from ploughing and planting,
 
But still no Traveler comes to ask me questions! **
 
(**Confucius went out of his way in his travels to meet two hermit farmers, Zhang Chu and Jie Yi, and ask them questions about their philosophy). (Tr. by Yang Xianyi and Gladys Yang)
 
He uses the literal translation plus the note to make the target language readers understand as much as possible. This will not only achieve the purpose to spread Chinese culture but also meet the cultural needs of readers.
 
4.4.3 An Analysis of David Hinton’s Translation Strategies
 
David Hinton’s translation strategies can be summarized as follows: First,use the plain, smooth and easy diction. Second, make up the lost subject, verb or other parts of the original to make the whole sentence appear to be more accommodating and more fluid.
 
for example,  “弱子戏我侧,学语未成音”in AFTER KUO CHU-PU’S POEMS (1).
 
Our son plays beside me. Too young to speak, he keeps trying new sounds.
 
(Tr. by David Hinton)
 
David Hinton gives up the original form and adopts the liberal translation. There are no complex words and sentence structure but the colloquial language. However, the simple verb with highly expressive power shows the child’s innocence and cheerfulness and also the father’s
 
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pleasure and carefree smoothly and completely.
 
Third, use the abbreviations to enhance the spoken tone. English abbreviations, such as I've, it's, isn 't, that' s, there 's, they' re, you 'll, you' re, etc. can be easily found in his translation.
 
Hinton’s popular language, simple style, sincere tone and unique narrative perspective not only provide us with a vivid example for the translation, but also enlighten us to think over the translation strategies and methods when we want to introduce our classics with Chinese traditional culture to the foreigners. Such kind of translation can be accepted naturally by the readers and leave enough aesthetic imagination to them.
 
4.5 The Case Study of Tao’s Translation Versions from the Perspective of
 
Reception Aesthetics
 
This paper tries to carry out the concrete analysis to interpret reception theory and also appreciate Tao’s pastoral poems more clearly. It includes the interpretation of Back to CountryLife (Ⅱ) and the translation of the special language points.
 
4.5.1 Translation Versions of Back to Country Life (Ⅱ) from the Perspective of Reception Aesthetics
 
The reader’s appreciation ability to the translation of literary work is highly subject to their own unique cultural backgrounds, and social experiences, etc. In order to make the readers obtain the original’s flavor and subject that the author wants to convey, the translator must manage to shift these two languages successfully, especially the shift of some cultural information.
 
Different people have different “horizon of expectations”. That’s why there are so many translation versions for one same work. The following are the concrete analysis of the poems from the perspective of the reception aesthetics. Take the translation versions of Back to CountryLife (Ⅱ) Which was done by the above three scholars for example.
 
归园田居五首(其二)
 
野外罕人至,穷巷寡轮鞅。白日掩荆扉,虚室绝尘想。
 
时复墟曲中,披草共来往。相见无杂言,但道桑麻长。
 
桑麻日已长,我土日已广。常恐霜霰至,零落同草莽。
 
 
 
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山东师范大学硕士学位论文
 
 
Back to Country Life (Ⅱ)
 
In contry lanes few men walk to and fro
 
While carts and horses rarely come and go.
 
I shut my wattled gate in broad daylight
 
And stay home without mundane chores in sight.
 
At times I walk along the paths by day
 
And meet the farmers on the bushy way.
 
When we meet, a few remarks will go:
 
How fast the hemp and mulberry leaves grow!
 
The hemp and mulberry are growing fast;
 
My ground, my garden plot is growing vast.
 
I’m oft afraid that there’ll be snow and frost
 
When my crops get damaged and are lost.
 
(Tr. by Wang Rongpei)
 
On Returning to Live in My Own Home in the Country (Ⅱ)
 
Nothing much happens out here in the wild.
 
Our lonely lane has scarcely seen a carriage.
 
All the day, our rustic doors are closed,
 
Queit room keeps us from thoughts of the world.
 
But time and again in the lane that leads to the village.
 
Parting the grass on our way, we meet with each other;
 
And when we meet, there’s no talk of frivolous matters,
 
We discuss the progress of our hemp and mulberry.
 
And every day our lands seem ever broader,
 
We are often afraid that if frost and sleet should fall
 
All will be withered away like weeds and grass.
 
(Tr. by Yang Xianyi and Gladys Yang)
 
HOME AGAIN AMONG GARDENS AND FIELDS (Ⅱ)
 
So little out here ever involves people.
 
Visitors to poor meager lane rare, my
 
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bramble gate closed all day, this empty
 
home cuts dust-filled thoughts short.
 
And day after day, coming and going
 
On overgrown paths, I meet neighbors
 
Without confusion: we only talk about
 
how the crops are doing, nothing more.
 
Mine grow taller each day, and my fields
 
grow larger, but I can’t stop worrying:
 
come frost or sleet, and it all falls
 
into tatters, like so much tangled brush.
 
(Tr. by David Hinton)
 
This poem itself portraits the natural and humanity environment of the country life and deepen the spiritual connotation of the pastoral poem. The general idea is as follows: The poet gets rid of the mundane trifles and finally gets the peacefulness from the bottom of heart. There is little social interaction among the fields so that carriage can rarely be seen in the remote alleys and even the door is closed in the daytime. Living in the empty house, he could never worry about the worldly chores. It is also a great joy to walk around the remote village, parting the roadside weeds and talking about the crops and harvest with the farmers. Hemp and mulberry are growing quickly day by day and the cultivated land is becoming broader as well. As a farmer, the only anxiety is the arrival of frost and sleet.
 
First, on the whole, David Hinton’s translation is more colloquial, understandable and fluent. Yang Xianyi adheres to the principle of “faithfulness” in the translation and employs the liberal translation to some special words. The most distinguished feature is to choose the appropriate dynamic words with abundant emotional colors to embody the mood and style of the original as much as possible. While Wang Rongpei is very good at using phrases to show the original’s beauty of rhyme and rhythm in the translation. The original poems follow the regular pre-tang form with five characters in each line and there are also some variations like antipaper among them. It possesses the exclusive beauty because of its neat pattern. In Chinese a character is a syllable and the distinct pictographic characteristic would present the neat, concise, exquisite effect. Then how can the translator succeed in conveying it? The key is to find the counterpart in
 
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the target language. Wang Rongpei skillfully uses the rhymed couplets by arranging equal number of syllables or its regular variation to recreate the beauty of sound. The overall structure is aabbccaabbbb, preserving the original’s beauty in form.
 
Specifically, the first two sentences “野外罕人事,穷巷寡轮鞅”. Here,“罕”and “寡” appeared in the middle of the sentence is very accurate both in the expression and the syllable. It vividly describes a fairly leisure man who separate himself from the officialdom. The translation of these two words are basically the same, with the negative words “rarely”, “few”, “little”, “rare”, “nothing” and “scarcely” to express. It is noteworthy that the “人事” here refers to secular social association rather than the person. Using the free translation, Yang conveys the ideas of the original which, in my opinion achieves “faithfulness” and “expressiveness”. Wang selects the balanced verb phrases “to and fro” and “come and go” to show the chaos of this earth. On one hand, such chaos can make a sharp contrast with the quietness of the mind. On the other hand, the phrases which appear at the end of the sentences constitute the rhyme and are full of the beauty of rhythm. Second, “穷巷”,Yang Xianyi translates it into “lonely lane” which is originally used to describe people’s internal feelings. Using the word “lonely” to modify “lane” can express the style of the work and the author’s state of mind vividly as well. David Hinton translates it into “meager lane”. Meager refers to something small in quantities and poor in qualities, which weaken such kind of effect.
 
Then next sentences “白日掩荆扉,虚室绝尘想”. As we know, in Chinese “荆” refers to something made very simply of rough wood or sticks woven together as a materials for fences, walls, etc. Such kind of door can be easily found even in today’s countryside in China. So it is quite natural for us to give rise to the semantic imagination when we see the word at first sight. Here Yang Xianyi and Wang Rongpei use “rustic” and “wattled” separately which are very accurate. Considering the reception of the foreigner readers, David Hinton chooses the word “bramble” which refers to a prickly wild bush on which blackberries grow instead of “荆”. Hinton’s translation of “荆” dilutes the original author’s background and mode of life and integrates with the translator's own aesthetic experience which enables the foreign readers to generate the semantic association and emotional resonance more naturally.
 
The first four sentences are used to write the static state. The poet utilizes “野外”“穷巷”“荆扉” “虚室” to emphasize his poverty again and again and imply the great determination
 
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of being one poor but virtuous recluse.
 
“时复墟曲中,披草共来往”The verb“披”means that the poet separates the luxuriantweeds and is very vivid. Yang Xianyi translates it into “parting” at the very beginning of the sentence to show the flourish of weeds. David Hinton chooses the world “overgrow” and attempt to use the prefix “over-” to express it. That is to say, sometimes we can shift the property of words and sequence of sentences if it is necessary. Wang Rongpei also follows Hinton’s translation ideas.
 
The seventh and eighth sentences “相见无杂言,但道桑麻长” shows us the leisure pastoral life by the description of the simple daily activities in the countryside. Such kind of conversation among peasants is plain but realistic and abundant because it is closely related to farming and harvest. The overall structure of these three translation versions is basically the same. As to the translation of “桑麻”, David Hinton still don’t translate it according to the surface meaning because hemp and mulberry is difficult to trigger the semantic association for the foreigner. So here he adopts the general and simple word “crop”. Hinton’s version of “桑麻” reflects his understanding of the original with his “horizon of expectation”. The language is simple and succinct in his version but the image and the cultural color are lost, which fails to promote the target language readers’ cultural understanding.
 
Then, “桑麻日已长,我土日已广” Tao Yuanming enjoys the happiness of creation from the land reclamation. All of the three translations use the balanced structures. It indicates that although life background and cultural differences would result in the diversities of “pre-understanding” and “horizon of expectations”, we still have much in common. Furthermore, the difference can also be made up by flexible translation strategies.
 
The last sentences “常恐霜霰至,零落同草莽”. It seems that he is afraid that the change of climate would damage the crops, while the true meaning may be hidden under the words. As is known to everyone, the biggest feature of Tao's poetry is simple and rustic. The sentence often lacks subject and sometimes even a lack of verb. The loss belongs to the semantic deficiency in the foreign readers’ eyes. Considering the readers’ reception, the three translators have added the subject “I” or “We”. Wang Rongpei uses “there be” to express a kind of psychological state while the other two translators select the dynamic words to show the concerns of his mind.
 
4.5.2 The Translation of the Special Language Points in Tao’s Pastoral Poems
 
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The translators must pay special attention to the difficult language points in translation if they want to reproduce the beauty of Tao’s poems. The problem is how to grasp the communicative clue and transfer the aesthetic effect perfectly? These special language points which imply the nation’s culture and language habits mainly include the reduplicative words, culture-loaded words, rhetorical sentences and images, etc. This paper will give a brief analysis about the translation of the reduplicative words, images and cultural factors appeared in Tao’s poems.
 
4.5.2.1 The Translation of Reduplication
 
In classical Chinese poetry, the poets always employ the reduplication to emphasize or reflect emotions and increase the beauty of poems; Rhythm is defined as “a cadence, a contour, a figure of periodicity, any sequence of events or objects perceptible as a distinct pattern capable of repetition and variation” (Preminger, A and T. V. F.Brogan, 1993:1066-1067). The repetition or reduplication refers to any wavelike recurrence of motion or sound. Mao Ronggui points out that the reduplicative words in Chinese make a great contribution to the beauty of its sound, form and meaning. And the beauty of meaning lies in its fuzziness which can be sensed but is difficult to make it precise,accurate,and capable of being logically analyzed (Mao Ronggui, 2005:252).
 
That is to say, there are much more “blanks” and “indeterminacies” of meaning about the reduplicative words. The best translation effect is to fill the “indeterminacies” and “blanks” and meanwhile leave enough room for the readers’ imagination. According to Chen Hongwei,the function of reduplication in Chinese is to stress the author’s thinking, emphasize his emotions, strengthen cadence and increase musicality (Chen Hongwei, 1998:107).
 
As a figure of speech, it can give rise to music effect, portray the natural scenes vividly to make the reader feel that they seem to be on the scene, show people’s psychological process or strong emotions and describe the images of things in detail. So the beauty of reduplication can never be ignored during the translation. Zhao Yanchun describes that the highest standard for the translation of reduplication is to use reduplications to translate its counterpart (Zhao Yanchun, 2005: 283). The problem is that sometimes the reduplication may have no fixed meaning and different scholars may have different explanations for the same reduplication. However, we should pay attention to the problem that reduplication is just a part of the whole poetry and must be subordinate to the overall context during the process of the translation. Only by the rigorous
 
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research can the translator obtain the deep and accurate meaning of reduplication. Tao uses a lot of reduplications to achieve the artistic effect. Of course, it is ideal if the translation can achieve the equivalence in the target language. The equivalence in translation can expand the “horizon of expectations” of the English readers (especially the readers who knows little about Chinese literary). If not, the liberal translation or free translation is preferable. Two classical examples are presented as follows: The translation of “迢迢新秋夕,亭亭月将圆”in Caught in Fire inMid-June (《戊申岁六月中遇火》):
 
Boundless- early autumn night boundlessly open,
 
an almost-full moon drifts perfectly alone.
 
(Tr. by David Hinton)
 
Long, long is this early autumn evening,
 
High, so high is the moon, and almost full.
 
(Tr. by Yang Xianyi and Gladys Yang)
 
At dusk in early autumn, in vast skies
 
Appears the distant moon, nearly full size.
 
(Tr. by Wang Rongpei)
 
David Hinton uses the word “boundless” to show the endless autumn night and infinitely distant sky. Meanwhile, add the verb “open” during the translation. Then the second sentence, use the translation method of addition as well and reverse the sentence order of the original poem to comply with English grammar habits and also the readers’ “horizon of expectations”. Here, the adoption of “drift” and “open” make the whole poem vivid. “Open” can make people feel the vast space and active mind while “drift” shows the gradual change or development from one situation to another. Yang Xianyi’s translation is literal and uses the “line drawing” technique to show the picture. The repetition makes the entire translation structure consistent and at the same time highlights the artistic conception of the original poem.
 
Wang Rongpei creatively transfers the reduplication which is previously at the beginning of the sentence to the end. But Wang only replace one of the reduplication and use the inversion to translate the other one. Wang’s translation proves that if the version can not correspond one by one in position, the flexible translation methods are necessary because of the need of alternative rhyme. That is to say, in translation, it is the task of the translator to restructure the form of the
 
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山东师范大学硕士学位论文
 
 
message so as to make it appropriate for the presumed audience (Nida, 1964:51).
 
Another example: The translation of “行行至斯里”in Begging Food《乞食》:
 
I walk and walk till I come to a door; (Tr. by Wang Rongpei)
 
On and on, till I came to this street; (Tr. by Yang Xianyi and Gladys Yang)
 
I went on and on, and coming to this village, (Tr. by David Hinton)
 
Halting at length before a village house, (Tr. by Tan Shi-lin)
 
Plodding, I came before a door; (Tr. by Ronald Fang)
 
We’ve discussed that reduplicative words have the beauty of sound, beauty of form and beauty of mood, so it is very hard to translate them into English without the complete loss of these three factors. Here the word “里”basically has three basic meanings. It refers to the neighborhood or village or the street in ancient time. Of course we should consider the concrete context to fix the translation. The three translators give their own interpretations about the word and it is lucky that it does not influence the whole understanding.
 
Looking through the translation of “行行”, we can find that Wang Rongpei, Yang Xianyi and David Hinton preserve the form and content of the original. But the translation of “walk and walk” and “go on and on” belongs to the daily English and cannot transmit the “Yi Jing”(意境) of the original. “Halting at length”, “plodding” are better in spiritual transmission in spite of the loss of the form. “Halting at length” conveys the poet’s subjective depression and hesitation in spirit; “plodding” transmits the poet’s objective tiredness and feeble condition. Thus, it is very hard to retain both the form and meaning of the original during the translation.
 
The reduplication palys an important role in constructing the aesthetic conception of Tao’s pastoral poems. The reduplication which appears alone in Tao’s poem is very easy to be recreated in the translation. It also applies to the translation of reduplication groups.
 
The third example:
 
“班班有翔鸟,寂寂无行迹” in drinking wine (XV) (《饮酒》十五):
 
The original meaning is that the poet only sees clusters of birds flying here and there but can not find any trail of human. The translations are as follows:
 
A lot of birds are soaring to the sky,
 
But seldom do I hear passengers go by.
 
(Tr. by Wang Rongpei)
 
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山东师范大学硕士学位论文
 
 
All silence, birds drifting clear skies and isolate silence,
 
There’s no sign of others.
 
(Tr. by David Hinton)
 
In clear order are the soaring birds,
 
Where I am silent and without a visitor.
 
(Tr. by Albert Richard Davis)
 
Guo Moruo’s translation idea “unifying the meaning, recasting new words” (统摄原意,另铸新词) has the tremendous significance to the translation practice. All the above translations convey the meaning of the original poem, but all of them use the liberal translation to recreate the reduplication. The so-called liberal translation of reduplication in poem is to embody the true meaning of those words vividly and integrate them with the whole mood of the poem. Here, the problem is that Hinton uses the very transcendental words which are free from vulgarity in the translation of “班班”. Davis misread the meaning of “寂寂”and translate it into “I am silent”.
 
In all, flexible translation methods should be adopted to meet the creative intention of Tao Yuanming. Meanwhile, the translation should live up to the English readers’ aesthetic expectations.
 
4.5.2.2 The Translation of Image
 
Image is regarded as the soul of poetry. Each image is the aesthetic element which is used to express the poet’s emotions and make the abstract thoughts concrete and sensuous. Tao Yuanming uses a large number of images to express his rich ideological content such as wind, sky, chrysanthemum, pine, wine, birds and whatever in a multitude of ways. “The emotions or associations loaded in single images are identical in both English and Chinese and therefore can be shared” (Zhou Yingli,2004:26). We can use the literal translation under this circumstance. But sometimes the connotative or the associative meaning of an image in the source culture has no counterpart in the target culture. “This is called semantically asymmetrical or non-correspondence in meaning caused by cultural differences. And the cultural differences between Chinese and English are vast because the two cultures are geographically and temporally dilatants from each other” (Zhou Yingli,2004:26). So the task for the translator is how to transfer the connotation of the images to the foreign readers.
 
Take the image of chrysanthemum for example. As is known to everyone, Tao is crazy
 
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about chrysanthemum. We know that chrysanthemum has a lot of similar character with him. Chrysanthemum is in full bloom in autumn when most of the flowers have withered and goes through the bitter frost and strong wind, which is the same with Tao’s life; Meanwhile, the lofty and pure chrysanthemum comes out lonely in fall and never competes with other flowers. Such quality coincides with the poet’s innocent spiritual realm.
 
The example is “芳菊开林耀, 青松冠岩列。怀此贞秀姿,卓为霜下杰”in Matching aPoem by Secretary Guo (Ⅱ) (《和郭主簿二首》) (Ⅱ)
 
Fragrant chrysanthemums ablaze in woodlands
 
blooming, green pines lining the clifftops:
 
Isn’t this the immaculate heart beauty,
 
this frost-deepened austerity?
 
(Tr. by David Hinton)
 
In verdant woods, chrysanthemum now glows;
 
On rocky slopes, green pine-trees line in rows.
 
Lofty are chrysanthemums and pines,
 
Which in the frosty weather show best signs.
 
(Tr. by Wang Rongpei)
 
Different cultures may lead to different aesthetic imaginations about the plants. It may be difficult for the foreign readers to understand the connotative meaning brought by the image of chrysanthemums and pines. Therefore the translator can keep the image by means of foreignization to expand their “horizon of expectations” and let the readers get the sufficient emotional associations by themselves through the communicative clues hidden in the context. Prof. Wang Rongpei adds the word “lofty” which means something with high moral quality before chrysanthemum and pines. Through the word we can feel the poet’s great ambitions and also give an indication to the foreigners that in Chinese “chrysanthemum and pines” represent something lofty. Here, in fact there appear the combined images of chrysanthemum and pines which strengthen the artistic flavor. “The combination of images, on the one hand, can confirm the function of these images and nail down their implied meaning; on the other hand, makes the theme or emotion in the original poem much clearer. In fact, the value of these combined images is much bigger than the adding of every separate image. Just like an aesthetician says, when a
 
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lemon is put beside an orange, they are not a lemon and an orange any more. They are fruit (Zhang Baohong,2005:54).
 
Another example:“秋菊有佳色, 裛露掇其英, 泛此忘忧物, 远我遗世情”in drinkingwine (Ⅶ) (《饮酒》七)
 
Colors infusing autumn chrysanthemums
 
exquisite, I pick dew-bathed petals,
 
Float them on that forfet-your-cares
 
stuff. Even my passion for living apart
 
soon grows distant.
 
(Tr. by David Hinton)
 
Lovely is the colour of the autumn chrysanthemum,
 
When you gather its flowers that are all wet with dew!
 
Let the Relieve of the Sorrow overflow,
 
And carry my feelings far away from the world.
 
(Tr. by Yang Xianyi and Gladys Yang)
 
With fair chrysanthemums in view,
 
I pluck their petals glistening with wet dew.
 
A sip of wine that carries these fair flowers
 
Will free my mind from all the worldly powers.
 
(Tr. by Wang Rongpei)
 
On the surface, the poet describes the leisure statement of his life. But it implies the deep sorrow. The first sentence “秋菊有佳色” is the high praise and appreciation from the bottom of heart. In translation, Wang Rongpei uses the word “lovely” at the very beginning of the sentence to imply Chinese artistic inclination. Also Yang Xianyi adds the word “fair” which means that person whose skin or hair is light in color to modify the chrysanthemum. We usually use fair to describe the westerners and it is more likely to give rise to the semantic association for the foreigner. “泛” here means drinking wine heartily. Drinking wine with the fresh chrysanthemum petals not only can strengthen our body, but also embody the lofty interest. The whole style and subject of the poem are show by the flower. “忘忧物” here refers to wine and it is also belongs to the image with the concrete cultural
 
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connotations. If there were no worry in his heart, he would not try to get rid of it. David Hinton and Yang Xianyi translate “忘忧物” into “forget-your-cares stuff” and “Relieve of the Sorrow” to express the poet’s feeling while Wang Rongpei adopts the liberal translation.
 
4.5.2.3 The Translation of Style
 
In order to make his translation worthy of appreciation, the translator must work hard at the closeness to the original style. But such a success can not be easily achieved. He must take the target text reader’s reception and aesthetic value into consideration. He has to adopt some special translation methods to meet the reader’s demands. The language form, content and style of the work are all dominated by the writer’s ethos. This is the so-called “风格即人”( The style is the man) and this artistic level is very easy to be ignored. The translator cannot grasp the style of the poem until he has a complete understanding of the writing style and thoughts of the poet. That is to say, only by holding the relevant knowledge of the poetry can the writer create the translation version which is faithful to the original.
 
The dominant art style of Tao’s poetry is simple and natural. At a time when Chinese poetry on the whole was marked by ornate diction and elaborate rhetorical devices, T’ao Yuanming chose to write in a relatively plain and simple style —in translation he may even sound rather flat on first reading (Watson ,1984 :124).
Let us have a look at the following example:
 
采菊东篱下, 悠然见南山。山气日夕佳,  飞鸟相与还。
 
此中有真意, 欲辫已无言。(《饮酒二十首》)其五
 
I pluck hedge-side chrysanthemums with pleasure
 
And see the tranquil Southern Mount in leisure.
 
The evening haze enshrouds it in fine weather,
 
While flocks of birds are flying home together.
 
This view provides some veritable truth.
 
But my defining words seem to me uncouth.
 
(Tr. by Wang Rongpei)
 
Picking chrysanthemums at my east fence,
 
Far off, I see South Mountain: mountain
 
Air lovely at dusk, birds in flight
 
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returning home. All this means something,
 
Something absolute. Whenever I start
 
explaining it, I’ve forgotten the words.
 
(Tr. by David Hinton)
 
The original Chinese version is five characters of pre-Tang poetry. Prof. Wang translates it into pentameter and rhymed couplets. The sentence structure is a a b b c c d d which successfully creates beauty in sound. “见” is the “eye” of “采菊东篱下, 悠然见南山”, conveying the leisure of seeing the south mountain unintentionally. Mr. Wang and Hinton translate it into “see” which can express such kind of feelings. If we translate it into “gaze afar”( William Aeker) or “look up”(Roland Fang), the flavor of the original would be completely lost.
 
Mr. Wang translates “飞鸟相与还” into “flocks of birds are flying home together” which leads us to an imagination that pairs of birds fly in the sky as the sun sets, thus it creates beauty in mood. David Hinton translates it into the form of free verse. Although he gives up the form of the poem, the simple and concise diction convey the mood of the original successfully and can be accepted and even recreated by the English readers. The last two sentences contain subtle and abundant life philosophy, conveying the realm of lofty thought. The connotation of “真意” is uncertain and requires the readers’ active participation to complete the enjoyment and resonance of its beauty. As reception theory considers readers’ realization of the literary text as one of the necessary components in literary work, it is necessary to regard readers’ reading as active innovative activity rather than passive reception like other literary theory (H.R. Jauss, 1987:5) . Wang Rongpei and David Hinton translate it into “some veritable truth” and “something” separately and don’t give the further interpretation about the philosophic words. That is, the meaning of the text is open to different readers who have different understanding on the same schema. The meaning of a text is defined by its readers’ receptions: readers, not authors, make meaning (Crosman, 1980).



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