In this thesis, firstly,the theoretical basis will be presented.The writer will make an introduction about Xu Yuanchong and his theory of three beauties and introduce Bai Juyi and his poem The Everlasting Regret. Then, the three beauties in the The Everlasting Regret will be analyzed. At last, we will make an conclusion of this thesis and reiterates the importance of applying Three-beauty Pricople in translating Classic Chinese poetry.
2. Literature Review
2.1 A brief introduction of Xu Yuanchong and his poetic translation theories
Xu Yuanchong was born in Nanchang on April 18,1921.His mother was educated and was good at drawing ,which made him love beauty; and his uncle Xiong Shiyi who was also a translator so Xu was interested in English when he was very young and he Set the ambition to learn English well. In 1938,he was admitted to Southwest Associated University. In the university, many excellent professors such as Wu Mi, Qian Zhongshu, Wen Yiduo, Zhu Guangqian and Bian Zhilin, had an important influence on him. When he was in Grade 1,he translated Don't cast away (by Lin Huiyin) into English. In his autobiography Vanished Spring ,he realized Chinese verse is “open to different interpretations and may be retranslated”, he was encouraged to see old things from a new visual angle which forged his predominant thought of poetry translation, he named it Three Beauties Principle.
As an excellent translator , Xu published twenty works before he retired and after that he published forty works including The Songs of The South, the Book of Poetry, 300 Tang poems.300 Song Lyrics, Selected Songs of Li Bai, The Romance of the Western bower and many so on. In 1999,he was nominated for the Nobel Prize in literature. He has been proclaimed as the only expert in the world who can translate Chinese poetry into English and French rhyme.
Three Beauties Principle is a very important poetry translation theory raised by Xu Yuanchong. It contains the beauty in sense, beauty in sound and beauty in form.. The theory was initially put forward by Lu Xun in the essay From Language to Article in the book The Compendium of Chinese Literature History. In this essay, he said: “beauty in three aspects should be considered while learning Chinese characters, in sense appealing to the heart, in sound appealing to the ear and in form appealing to the eye”.(许渊冲 2003) .At first ,Lu Xun 's statement on “three beauties” is only replied to language learning but Xu extended it to poetry translation. He put forward this principle for the first time in 1979. Later, he published some books such as Art of Translation(《翻译的艺术》)（1984）, Literature and Translation(《文学与翻译》)（1998）. In these books the theory of Three Beauties Principle became more and more mature.
According to Xu Yuanchong, beauty in sense means that the translation version should convey the beauty of association and artistic conception and contained in the original content. Mr Xu held the view that the beauty in sense sometimes was caused by history or culture, when you translate it into another language, owing to the different cultural and historical backgrounds, it is difficult for translators to associate when they are translating. So when we are translating, expressing the surface meaning of content is important ,but the most important thing is to express the artistic conception of the original content.
Beauty in sound means that the translator will choose the rhyme which was similar to the original content when they are translating. Also, they often use onomatopoeia, repetition, alliteration to express the beauty in sound. However, pursing beauty in sound deliberately is inadvisable, it can be discarded if it’s difficult to achieve,
The last one is beauty in form, Mr. Xu hold the view that the length of the sentences of poem and the parallelism should be similar to original content. He paid much attention to the beauty in sound and form as he insisted that the translation version should keep the rhythm and structure of poem源:自*优尔`%论,文'网·www.youerw.com/ 许渊冲的三美角度论《长恨歌》的翻译(2):http://www.youerw.com/yingyu/lunwen_68624.html