Qiu's translations rescued us from the flatness of some translations said by Mona Van Duan, a U。S。 Poet Laureate。 His work make it enjoyable to read Chinese poems, yet that doesn't mean they are perfect。 In this thesis, the critical comments will be made based on his poem translations to see how his work is。
2。 Literature Review
2。1 Archaic Chinese Poems
The earliest Chinese poems showed around 3000 years ago which were collected by The Book of Songs。 It includes the poems about love, marriage, war, custom etc。 It is taken as the original source of poems and until now people are still familiar with it。 Most Chinese can recite the first two lines of Guan Ju easily。
With the time past, people are not using archaic Chinese anymore and since it is acknowledged that the words in poems are carefully picked for their beauty and sounds and also the ideas they suggest (Landau, 2010。 Sinclair, 2008), even Chinese cannot understand some archaic poems well。 However, it's still pleasant to read them because of the strict rules of the poems。 According to the kind of the poems, there are different rules for it。 The basic two rules are that: Firstly, some specific lines should rhyme at the end and secondary, the tunes of every characters should be different in two close lines。 In this way, poems are designed to listen and speak enjoyably, and in the old time, they can even be sung。
Archaic Chinese poets love to express their own emotions by scenes。 Wallace Steven once said the poet is the one who makes silk dresses out of worms。 (Brown, Wijland, 2015) Kenneth Rexroth also said that poetry is vision。 It is a sensual communion and pure deep thought。 (郑燕虹, 2010) According to philosopher Husserl, noema is thing themselves and noesis is the way to look at it。 And the process is Noetic。 For example, there's a tree on the ground, then the tree is noema。 people might look at it directly, or imagine it or dream it。 In their mind, it might not be just a tree anymore。 It might mean life, hope, pollution and etc。 The way they see the tree is Noesis and the whole procedure is controlled by their mind, so it is noetic。 In another word, their opinions towards the tree is logical。 It is influenced a lot by what they learnt from book or somewhere。 And there's another word called noematic。 Different from noetic, in noematic procedure, the tree is tree itself again。 It might still remind the people other things, but the tree just means tree for them again。 It is effected by noetic activity less。 (叶维廉, 1992) And noematic is the state that most Chinese poets have when they wrote poems。 In this way, they will influence the reader the less when they read poems and also leave them more space to imagine by themselves。来自优Y尔L论W文Q网wWw.YouERw.com 加QQ7520~18766
It is the most important feature of archaic Chinese poems。 Poets try to show readers the scenery that they've see before all their emotions and thoughts come。 In another word, they prefer to show not guide people。 They don't explain or analyze the scenery。 (叶维廉, 1992) e。g。 “红裙明月夜，碧殿早秋时。"If translate it directly then it would be "Red dress bright moon evening, green palace early autumn time"。 It doesn't say the girl in red dress is attractive or active, and doesn't judge the palace good or bad, either。 It shows the images what the poet saw and leave the reader to feel it by themselves。 In this way, it is hard to translate or explain the archaic poems, the reason will be discussed in 2。2。4 mainly。
Wang Guowei once said all descriptions of scenery, in fact, are descriptions of emotions。 Though poets try not to lead readers when they describe scenes, it can't be denied that they didn't show the reader everything。 They pick up and write what touch them and also these things'/persons' the most typical features in their mind。 Poems are written not just for recording scenery。 Poets try to record their dreams or what they feel at that time。 However, Chinese poets don't like to say that out directly because apparently, people don't admire that beauty。 In ancient time, people like to express them in reserved way and think that is beautiful。 It influences Chinese poems a lot and it's also the beauty of Chinese poems, in fact。 And Monk Chun in Tang Dynasty take dreams and emotions as the goals of poems but they should be expressed in a reserved way。 In his opinion, the successful poems never say high directly when they want to compliment something is high。 Highness hides behind the words and when readers read it, they will find it by themselves。 (丛滋杭, 2014) Hence, in this way, poets also won't sing their dreams or emotions directly in their poems。 e。g。 "忍把浮名，换了浅斟低唱", This line was written by Liu Yong after he failed Chinese imperial examinations for selecting government officials the first time。 It means I’d rather to drink and sing than having useless flame。 He didn't sigh I failed or yield that I don't care about the exam。 He just said I exchange the useless fame with drinks and songs。 Readers can develop their imagination by themselves。 This is the beauty of archaic poetry。论文网 关于裘小龙先生英译诗的一二见解(3):http://www.youerw.com/yingyu/lunwen_195978.html