Abstract: Li Qingzhao was a famous poetess in Chinese history, and she was called the most outstanding ci-poet. So her ci-poems was translated by many translators many times. Hermeneutics is a kind of theory or philosophy of understanding or interpretation. It has close relationship with translation. This paper attempts to analyse Li qingzhao’s ci-poems under the philosophy basis “hermeneutics” by meticulously selecting three translated ci-poems as examples, And then come to a conclusion that no matter the translated version is perfect or not, the first important thing for a translator is to make the reproduced images in his version matched with the original one’s. This research is of profound meaning for later translators.
Key words: H Ci- Translation
李清照词英译研究
摘要：,“”,“”,
关键词：阐释学；词；翻译
Introduction
Song ci, also mentioned as Song lyrics or ci poems is a special form of literature, it can express what poetry cannot express, and it can not totally express what poetry can express. It occupies the most important position in the history of Chinese classical literature. Compared with Tang poems, it enjoys a more flexible form and can express more refined, more delicate, more subtle feelings. There exist two different styles of ci-poetry, the "heroic abandon", and the "delicate restraint" style. Li Qingzhao belongs to the latter[1]. With her unique style, unique sight and subtle feelings, Li Qingzhao is the famous poetess in the literally history of song dynasty and the whole china, and has attracted many translator, and a lot of research both at home and abroad.
In this paper the author will analysis different translated versions of Li Qingzhao’s several ci-poems under the philosophy basis “hermeneutics”.
Scripture, it developed into a general theory of human understanding through the work of Friedrich Schleiermacher, Wilhelm Dilthey, Martin Heidegger, Hans-Georg Gadamer, Paul Ricoeur, and Jacques Derrida. Hermeneutics proved to be much bigger than theology or legal theory. The comprehension o.
Hermeneutics has long been connected with translation studies. It focuses on the issue of how to understand what is being said in a literary text and it sheds new light on the interaction process between literary texts and receptors[2].
Hermeneutics as an independent discipline can be dated back to as early as the 16th century, which is based on the principles of biblical interpretation. Later it came to be regarded as a general theory of interpretation that could be applicable to all types of texts. In the 20th century, thanks to Heidegger's efforts, hermeneutics took on a new feature of philosophical ontology. And Gadamer, the founder of philosophical hermeneutics, emphasizing the significance of readers and bringing about the boom of reader-oriented theories, argues that the historical and temporal situation of an interpreter can never be excluded from hermeneutics. Besides, he also insists that the perceiver is not passive but active in the process of understanding. In this sense, the role of translator as reader is not a passive recipient of meaning but an active and creative agent in the making of meaning. However, it is George Steiner who combines philosophical hermeneutics with translation studies and forms a systematic hermeneutic translation theory, putting forward the famous hermeneutic motion of translation practice which divides translation into four stages, namely trust, aggression, incorporation and restitution.
From the study on Li Qingzhao’s ci-poems, we can see that translating literary works is, perhaps, always more difficult than translating other types of text because literary works have specific values called the aesthetic and expressive values. The aesthetic function of the work shall emphasize the beauty of the words (diction), figurative language, metaphors, etc. While the expressive function shall put forwards the writer's thought (or process of thought), emotion, etc. And the translator should try, at his best, to transfer these specific values into the target language (TL). As one genre of literature, poetry has something special compared to the others. In a poem, the beauty is not only achieved with the choice of words and figurative language like in novels and short stories, but also with the creation of rhythm, rhyme, meter, and specific expressions and structures that may not conform to the ones of the daily language. We translators should try our best to reach this point.
1 &Brief introduction of Li Qingzhao and her ci-poems
Li Qingzhao was the most famous female writer in the history of Chinese literaturewho was called the ancestor of the delicate restraint style by people. she is as same excellent as any other most excellent poet during her same period when compared with personal brilliant, depth of thought, emotion expression and art accomplish. Like many famous scholars, Li Qingzhao’s fate is not smooth, besides the stable and cozy of early life, the rest of her life is full of accident and change. Almost most of her life is spent in a loneliness and sadness situation.
1.1 An introduction of Li Qingzhao
Li Qingzhao (), alias Yi An, the Lay Buddhist, was born into a family of scholars and officials, in Jinan, Shandong Province. East China in 1084, her father, Li Gefei, was a professor at the Imperial Academy and a noted prose writer, her mother had some reputation as a writer of poetry. Brought up in such a favorable environment and devoted to her studies, she acquired a deep knowledge of literature and the classics in her teens. Even as a young girl, she took to writing delightful little lyrics on her excursions to the suburbs and nearby beauty spots.
The access to a large number of books and many poems in her childhood paved a solid road for her later writing. At eighteen, she married Zhao Mingcheng, a student in the Imperial Academy. The union was an ideal one, for they shared the same passion for poetry and the classics, ancient bronze and stone inscriptions and objetsdtart, painting and calligraphy. Many were the hours they passed happily together composing poems to rhyme with each other's, and delving into points of nicety in the classics. They enjoyed touring the city and its environs and even out-of-the-way places in quest of favorite antiques and rare editions of ancient books. As a result, her poetic style became more quiet and refined. The exquisited-poems she wrote during this period expressed deep love for her husband as well as her loneliness whenever he happened to be away from home. The couple lived peacefully and happily during this time, But unfortunately this married happiness proved to be only temporary. Shortly after their harmonious marriage life, the northern barbarous Jin-invaders occupied most part of the northern land of China, and the Emperor carried out a compromise policy, willingly moving to the southern part of China. So Li Qingzhao experienced the pain of seeing the country invaded and being driven down south of the Long River (the Yangtze River) and living a life of separation with her husband. And in 1129, came the greatest catastrophe in Li Qingzhao's life : her husband died of typhoid enroute to an offcial post. She was left an outcast to wander aimlessly for years from one place to another. Jin’s invasion ended her sweet life and made her suffer a lot. She felt lonely and hopeless. She was in great pain and no way but writing poems to release her unhappiness. The theme of her poetry changed from love and nature to the description of the poor Chinese people’s miserable life at that time, which also revealed her great passion and worry for the mother country. Very little is recorded about the time of her death, but it is generally believed that she lived to about the age of seventy-one. &&
1.2 An introduction of Li Qingzhao’s ci-poems
Li qingzhao’s ci-poem can be divided into two periods which is distinguished by the year 1129.
1, Light sadness of ci-poems in the former period
& Signing with the emotion in the boudoir and express the feeling about depart is the main content in her former period, the ci-poems in this period is mostly the description of her nice and happy life in her early life. In general, the emotion is bright and happiness. However most of the poems which sing the praises of nature and life, express the idealism and pursue of love all show slight sadness. The ci-poems of her early period can be divided into the following aspects from the different angles which express sadness:
One is the description of young girl’s treasuring and signing about spring which show young girl’s tactful and slender feeling, for example “Rumengling chunwan”() in this ci-poem, the poetess carved a young girl’s slight feeling about loving and treasuring flowers, and created a bright and elegant art figure. the other is the description of the poetess’s sign with beauty’s easy vanish and the hardship of the time, such as “Yulouchun” which is a poem singing the praise of plum, but it is not a poem just sing the praise of plum, it aims to express the poetess’s noble inner heart and her limitless sadness, and the wish to drive herself from sadness, and to forget it. Another kind of ci-poem is the description of complaining about the departure of her husband, which occupies a great proportion. The content of this kind of poems is true and health but narrow. Emotion is deep and real but tender and weak, rhyme is tactful and slight but tangle. However, from the perspective of expressing the sadness about her husbands left, this kind of poems is the most excellent.
Li Qingzhao married Zhao Mingcheng. They have the same interest, they shared the same passion for poetry and the classics, ancient bronze and stone inscriptions and objetsdtart, painting and calligraphy. Their loving life is nice and happiness, but more happiness when they are together, more sadness she will feel when they depart. Her husband’s left to work brings her great sadness. The ci-poem which show sadness about depart is based on that.
2The later Li Qingzhao’s ci-poems period, compared with the former period, showed a qualitative change. This change can mainly saw from the sadness about the ruined home and country from time to time. The feeling showed in the works was not any melancholy more. But closely linked to the fate of the people, it is just because the poetess has experienced the painful of seeing home and country being destroyed that her thoughts and feelings changed qualitatively. Therefore, the light and fresh style of her works changed into a miserable style. Breakup is the first painful blow to Li Qingzhao. Since then, the melancholy feeling in her ci-poems turned into a tune of sorrow. The broken up of the mother country, the loneliness and wandering life experience, both made the later Li Qingzhao’s ci-poems period revealed a limitless sorrow and resentment. In the history of the ci-world, Li Qingzhao is the second distinguished poet after Su Shi to devoted herself into ci-poems. Therefore, from the signing with herself’s misery fate and suffering, from the expressing of unlucky sadnesss and sorrowful, her later period ci-poems not only strongly reflect the upheaval of the times, social unrest and a profound tragedy of the nation, but also reflects the aspirations of the nation.& Although the theme sources of Qingzhao is not wide, but in her hand can reveal different atmospheres, which shows that the poetess’s inner feelings are very rich. Words which praise human beauty in her ci-poem showed the progress of anti-feudal. The "melancholy" in her ci-poem was not simply self-pity, she is very worried about country and people and feels pain in her heart, and she expressed it through her whole creative process of ci-poem, thus her ci-poem is full of sociality.
Hermeneutics and its relationship with translation
Hermeneutics is a discipline that studies understanding and interpretation of textual meaning, there is no translation without understanding and interpreting texts, which is the initial step in any kinds of translation including literary translation of course. Therefore, it has intrinsic relations with translation.
2.1 Hermeneutics
and , hermeneutics is the study of
theory, and can be either the art of interpretation, or the theory and practice of interpretation. Traditional hermeneutics ― which includes
― refers to the study of the interpretation of written texts, especially texts in the areas of literature, religion and law. Contemporary, or modern, hermeneutics encompasses not only issues involving the written text, but everything in the interpretative process. This includes verbal and nonverbal forms of communication as well as prior aspects that affect communication, such as presuppositions, pre-understandings, the meaning and , and . Philosophical hermeneutics refers primarily to 's theory of knowledge as developed in , and sometimes to . Hermeneutic consistency refers to analysis of texts for coherent explanation. A hermeneutic (singular) refers to one particular method or strand of interpretation.It can briefly, can be defined as the science and methodology of interpreting texts.
and hermeneutics are sometimes used interchangeably because exegesis focuses primarily on the written text. Hermeneutics however is a more widely defined discipline of interpretation theory including the entire framework of the interpretive process and, encompassing all forms of communic written, verbal, artistic, geo-political, physiological, sociological etc.
The philosophical background on which hermeneutics is based is demonstrated by the forerunners in this area such as Gadamer. According to Gadamer, words, that is, talk, conversation, dialogue, question and answer, produce worlds[3]. In contrast to a traditional, Aristotelian view of language where spoken words represent mental images and written words are symbols for spoken words, Gadamerian perspective on linguistics emphasizes a fundamental unity between language and human existence. Interpretation can never be divorced from language or objectified. Because language comes to humans with meaning, interpretations and understandings of the world can never be prejudice-free. As human beings, one cannot step outside of language and look at language or the world from some objective standpoint. Language is not a tool which human beings manipulate to represent a meaning- rather, language forms human reality.
Another important figure in this sphere is Schleiermacher whose concept of understanding includes empathy as well as intuitive linguistic analysis. He believed that understanding is not merely the decoding of encoded information, interpretation is built upon understanding, and it has a grammatical, as well as a psychological moment. The grammatical thrust places the text within a particular literature (or language) and reciprocally uses the text to redefine the character of that literature. The psychological thrust is more naive and linear. In it, the interpreter reconstructs and explicates the subject's motives and implicit assumptions. Thus Schleiermacher claimed that a successful interpreter could understand the author as well as or even better than, the author understood himself because the interpretation highlights hidden motives and strategists.
Dilthey, initially a follower of Schleiermacher, went further. He began to emphasize that text and actions were as much products of their times as expressions of individuals, and their meanings were consequently constrained by both an orientation to values of their period and a place in the web of their authors' plans and experiences. Therefore meanings are delineated by the author's world-view reflecting a historical period and social context. Understanding (verstehen), the basis for methodological hermeneutics, involves tracing a circle from text to the author's biography and immediate historical circumstances and back again. Interpretation, or the systematic application of understanding to the text, reconstructs the world in which the text was produced and places the text in that world.&&&&&
Since Dilthey, the discipline of hermeneutics has detached itself from this central task and broadened its spectrum to all texts, including
and to understanding the bases of meaning. In the 20th century, 's philosophical hermeneutics shifted the focus from interpretation to existential understanding, which was treated more as a direct, non-mediated, thus in a sense more authentic way of being in the world than simply as a way of knowing.
Modern ideas on hermeneutics hold that the writer may be an editor or a redactor and that he may have used sources. In considering this aspect of discourse one must take into account the writer's purpose in writing as well as his cultural milieu. Secondly, one must consider the narrator in the writing who is usually different from the writer. Sometimes he is a real person, sometimes fictional. One must determine his purpose in speaking and his cultural milieu, taking into consideration the fact that he may be omnipresent and omniscient. One must also take into consideration the narra, tee within the story and how he hears. But even then one is not finished. One must reckon with the person or persons to whom the
the reader, not always the same as the one to whom the
and later readers. Thirdly, one must consider the setting of writing, the genre (whether , narrative, prophecy, etc.), t the devices used, and, finally, the plot.
2.2 Hermeneutic and translation&
Translation, according to Nida (1984) consists in reproducing in the receptor language the closest natural equivalent of the source language massage, first in terms of meaning and secondly in terms of style. The Chinese cihai (unabridged dictionary) defines translation as: expressing in another language the meaning carried in the original language (my translation from Chinese). Here meaning is apparently in the limelight of translation, which is why adequate understanding and interpretation is always an iron criterion in judging whether a piece of translation succeeds or fails. &
Throughout history, scholars in the translation circle at home and abroad have long held various and sometimes opposite views on the subject of translation, particularly when illustrating their translation theories. However, no matter how different their translation theories may be, all of them, without exception, will face the issue of how to validly understand the textual meaning. Further to this, their translation ideas and principles, more or less, have to touch on and even answer the following questions: Does the textual meaning exist? If the textual meaning does exist, can it be determined? Finally, how to properly determine the textual meaning? In fact, it is because of the different understandings of the textual meaning and various approaches to reaching the textual meaning that allow translation theorists and practitioners to form different schools. Hence, a probe into the understanding of textual meaning hermeneutic will be significant to translation studies.
There are two major developing stages of hermeneutics. One is general hermeneutics and the other is philosophical hermeneutics. In general hermeneutics, the major representatives Schleiermacher and Dilthey think that understanding is a process of subjective reconstruction of the object. The readers should overcome their subjective restrictions to reconstruct the historical, social and personal context of the author and, in this way, to re-experience the author’s psychological process and grasp his intention, thus reaching the textual meaning.& the thoughts applied to translation mean that the translators should restrict their views and thoughts about the text, and make efforts to expand their background knowledge about the text and the textual author to access the textual meaning. On the one hand, both Schleiermacher and Dilthey ignore translators’ historicality and subjectivity. On the other hand, they advise translators, though subconsciously, to modify their fore-understanding and to re-adjust it to the text, thus attaining the textual meaning in a more objective manner. In philosophical hermeneutics, the major representatives Heidegger and Gadamer illustrate understanding from the perspective of ontology. Heidegger and Gadamer propose that understanding is not a humans’ cognitive activity, but merely the mode of their being-in-the-world. Gadamer asserts that understanding is a historical existence[4], and it is the process of the fusion of the horizons between the text and the reader. the thoughts applied to translation will means that individual translator hence it is justified for them to have different understandings of the same text. In this sense, the subjectivity of individual translators is highlighted. Also, the gaps among a translator’s horizon, the text’s horizon and the target context’s horizon entail that translating is interpreting. Yet translating is not free interpreting. It is controlled by the text’s horizon and a translator’s shared horizon. A translator’s shared horizon refers to the knowledge he or she shares with other members in both the source context and the target context. A translator’s understanding is the process that he or she constantly controls his or her unique horizon and expands his or her shared horizon to make it fuse with both the text’s horizon and the target context’s horizon as much as possible. In light of this, translation criteria also undergo some changes. Translation should not only be faithful to the source text but also to the target context. In addition, Gadamer’s thoughts on the hermeneutic circle, the temporal distance and the fusion of horizons also justify the existence of re-translation. Despite this, the relativism in philosophical hermeneutics also imposes an unfavorable influence on translation.
Analysis of translation of Li Qingzhao’s several ci-poems
In Li Qingzhao’s ci-poem, three pieces of her works are focused in this paper respectively, they are “Hunanxisha”, “Shengshengman” ”Rumengling” because they more widely translated for their perfect &high artistic value. From hermeneutic, we can see that the same original text will have different translated versions because different translators hold different culture and education background, even personal experience. Therefore, different understanding about the original text will produced. The following are the study of different versions.
Original text:
Translated text:
In my narrow room, I throw
Wide the window, and let in
The profound lasciviousness
Of Spring. Confused shadows
Flicker on the half drawn curtains
Hidden in the pavilion, wordlessly,
I strum the rose jade harp.
Far away a rocky cliff
Falls from the mountain in the
Early twilight. A gentle breeze
Blows the mist like a shadow
Across my curtain. O bright pods
Of the pepper plant, you do not
Need to bow and beg pardon,
I know you cannot hold back
The passing day
&&The poetic situation in ci-poems was conveyed through component of different images in the poetry. The change of it will directly influence the reader’s feeling about the whole poetry. This version was translated by Rexroth.
This ci-poem is a ci-poem written for cherishing spring, it is in the late spring, the pear flower’s coming fading inspires the subtle sadness of the poetess, there are no bright color in the ci-poem, the scenery showing to readers is a scenery of sadness about the fading of late spring. While, when reading Rexroth’s translated poems, we can hardly have such a feeling. The reason is that Rexroth changed the original ci-poem’s image a lot. So the poetic situation of the original poem also changed.
First, Rexroth changed some abstract image into concrete image. The description of “”,””in the first sentence is very abstract that readers can only sense it by imaging. “Spring is deep outside the window, but the curtains didn’t roll” should be the reason for the poetess’s unwilling to see the scenery of the leaving of the spring. But the poetess in Rexroth’s poems is very passion about spring, she opened the window and let the spring in. To the scenery of spring in the small courtyard, the original poem is the quiet description of it, but ‘I’ in the translated poems expressed her desiring for spring in concrete acts. “’’ in the second sentence was translated into the concrete object “half drawn curtains”. To “”, the description is extremely abstract, while the translated ci-poem described the dynamic image that piles of piles shadow float through the curtain with adjective word “confused” and verb “flicker”. Pavilion was added the image of rose. Rose was a metaphor word with strong emotionally feeling, red flowers symbolizes beautiful love which is much inconsistent with the image of original ci-poem. “” refers to mountain in far away. The former two sentences in the next half of the ci-poem are to describe the change of the climate. When clouds appear, shadow gather, rain reach, cold rise, its aim is to carve the poetry image between mountain and light dusk outstanding, Rexroth altered the time description of “clouds rise, dusk reach” into the space description, simplified the complex relationship between mountain, cloud, and dusk, and placed mountain and dusk in the same flat to highlights the mountain under the background of thin cloud. But “cloud” in the original poem with the “wind” and “rain” in the following sentence meticulously conveyed the poetess’s sensitive feeling about spring’s fading and her cherish about it. While, the translator canceled “cloud”, Canceling cloud means cancelling the expressing of part of poetic situation of the ci-poem. The image “pear flower” in the last sentence was totally changed. White pear was turned into bright pepper plant. The bright pepper plant with the red rose in the translated poems seems to convey a passion for spring to readers which is contrast to the sadness image about the time fleeing in the original poem.
In the translation of Li Qingzhao’s poems, Rexroth often changes the artistic conception of the original poems in different kind of ways. Sometimes, he specific the abstract images in the original poems, sometimes, he may oriented the images and not translate them, while the most situation is the translator mixes himself’s images and exertion, and create a new image.
Kenneth is the poet as translator. Literal exactness has never been his goal. This source texts by and large only serve as a departure point from which his imagination soars freely. The power and the beauty of his translation often lie in the passages which he rendered most freely and which bear little resemblance to the Chinese texts.
Kenneth Rexroth’s view on poetry is that, he thinks that Chinese poetry has had more influence on him than any other kind of poetry. And he wrote poetry mostly according to a kind of Chinese rule, what he meant by “a kind of Chinese rule” is the presentation of concrete scene and action, and the creation of “poetic situation” &he thus further explained the concept of ”poetic situation”. “It is a certain place, at a certain time… a going sounds far off among the pines: it is a monastery in the mountains. What this does is to put the reader in a poetic situation. It puts him in a place, just like putting him on the stage, makes him one of the actors…this is the fundamental technique of Chinese poetry”. [5]
&But translate china’s ancient poems, we should try our best to be loyal to original poems. If the original ci-poems is a mere launch pad for their own rockets. They can do whatever to the original poems, why don’t they create a ci-poem of their own.
Above all, this version totally changed the poetic situation of this ci-poem, even let alone to say it matches with the poetic situation of the original ci-poem. Rexroth translated this ci-poem like this because of his different view on poetry and education background, because he had never taken any formal lessons in the Chinese language. When translating ci-poem, the first and most important step for a translator is to understand the poetic situation of the original text appropriately.
3.2 Analysis of the translation of “Shengshengman”()
Original text: 寻寻觅觅, 冷冷清清, 凄凄惨惨戚戚。
Version 4:
So dim, so dark
So dense, so dull,
So damp, so dank, so dead!
Version 5:
Seek-seek, search-search, cold-cold, quiet-quiet, sad-sad, sorrowful-sorrowful, grieved-grieved
Version 6:
I’ve a sense of something missing I must seek
Everything about me looks dismal and bleak
Nothing that gives me pleasure. I can find.
is translated by professor Xu Yuanchongversion is translated by American translator version is translated by American translator
version 4 is translated by professor Ling Yutang, version 5 is translated by professor Liu James J.Y. and version 6 is translated by professor Xu Zhongjie. First let’s discuss the former three versions. The former three versions all expressed the loneliness image of the original ci-poem appropriately Version 1 has changed the rule of reduplicated words of the original ci-poem, and has added the subject and object of the sentence. Version 2 is translated by an American, althoughthe first line “ and
and the second line “ and Version 3 use the continuously repeat of the long vowels
and consonants to express the poetess’s bewildered embarrassment and limitless sadness and endless sorrow, Besides use rhymes , by using words, such as groping-moping, glare-stare, peak-seek, pink-peak wander-wonder, stare-start, linger-languish to present the gloom and dull atmosphere and to show the music character of the original ci-poemof the oblique regular of the original ci-poem. The classical ci-poem of our china pay much attention to the rhymes at the end of any sentence, Xu Yuanchong’s translation. While, . Version but it better expressed the beauty of English poems . So. Version 1’s antithesis is neatversion
had made up the shortcomings of the former two versions
, Lin uses double sound words “fourteen words” to translate the fourteen words of the original ci-poem. There exist seven pairs of reduplicated words in the original ci-poem, and the translated versions continuously use seven “so”, “so” is continuously repeat in every two words to create a repetitive effect which make the poetic situation of the ci-poem deeper and deeper. The other words which matched with “so” are all use “d” as their first letter, and the pronunciation of “d” is dull, the dull sound appears repeatedly can help to reproduce the low atmosphere of the original ci-poem. And the last word “dead” represented the heaviest atmosphere, it vividly expressed the poetess’s deep sadness after search and seek.
Version 5 is translated by Liu, James J. Y. Liu was very admired for the poetess’s consummate in manipulating auditory effects. She used the continuously repeat of the dissyllabic compounds, with their reiterated short vowels and aspirate affricates, such as ‘Seek-seek, search-search, cold-cold, quiet-quiet, sad-sad, sorrowful-sorrowful, grieved-grieved”, [6] to intensify the feelings of coldness and agitation by suggesting shivering and clenched teeth. She originality use the substitute of syllables such as “g”, “k”, “r” to express the lonely and obscurity in Li Qingzhao’s inner heart. “s” is a hissao letterits sound can remind people of many other words which resembles with, for example the sound of wind and rain. The pronunciation of “g”, “k”, “r” is rough and hard that can symbolizes any object and unlucky thing which brings noise. Put the three sounds together, can help to represent the nervous and unhappy atmosphere, though ,beside this, just as the translator herself says, the auditory effect of the original ci-poem is totally lost.
Version 6 is translated by professor Xu Zhongjie, Xu’s translation contains too much ration thought and self analysis. He uses some symbols of sound in his translation, for example, the continuously uses of six syllables “s” in the first lines , and “l”, “k”, “m” in the other two lines. In the original ci-poem, the poetess unconsciously go to the outside word to seek and search because of extremely painful and sorrowful in her inner heart, but the translated ci-poem clearly showed about what the poetess was searching and looking for. This shows that the translator didn’t grasp the poetic situation of the original ci-poem very well.
A translator should do is to put emphasis on striving to put across the poetic thoughts, sentiments, feelings and situations, along with the overtones, undertones, and nuances, as best one can[7].
3.3 Analysis of the translation of Rumengling()
Original text:&
Version 1:
Last night was windy with intermittent rain
I’ve slept around, but the effects of drink remain
I ask how the flowers are of the curtain-drawers
She says, ‘Begonis are e’er as before’
‘don’t you recongnize
Now leaves shoud be large and flowers should be small?’
Version 2:
It hardly rained
But the wind blew like crazy
Last night
I feel the wine this morning
Although my sleep was dreamless
Now the maid comes in
And I questioned her
As she rolls the window shade
She says the crabapples
Are the same as yesterday
I say well is that a fact
You ought to know
They should look much greener now
And a lot less red.
Version 3:
Tune: ‘like a dream’
Last night the wind blew hard and rain was fine
Sound deep did not dispel the aftertaste of wine
I ask the maid rolling up the screen.
‘the same crab-apple tree’ she says, ’is seen’
‘but don’t you know,
O don’t you know
The red should languish and the green must grow’
Xu Zhongjie’s translated poem has lost the oral character in large degree, the reason can be divided into two aspects, one is that the oral language has been substituted by book language. Such as intermittent, recognize and so on. The second is that long and short sentence doesn’t match with each other. The question sentence of the original poem only use two short words, and what’s more, it has described the urgent feeling of the one who ask questions, but the translated poems used a long sentence, what’s more ,the tune is very calmjust like to tell a story. And professor Wang Shouyi even canceled the dialogue form of ask and answer, the translated ci-poem quoted the talk content between “me” and maid, bring the reader a feeling of the passage of time. Especially in the sentence of “”the poet uses “well”, which make the tune too calm to express the urgent feeling in the poetess’s inner heart’s, her treasuring and loving flower, her signing about herself. What’s more, the “you” in the translated ci-poem will be understood as another listener as if he is listening to the poetess’s statement.
Version 3 is translated by professor Xu Yuanchong. As for Xu, he thinks that Rumengling‘s aim is to convey the feeling of treasuring spring by describing the scenery of “haitang”. The “green” in the last sentence represents green leaf, while the “red” refers to red flowers, this is to use color to represent object. “fat” and “thin” is the adjective word being used on a person, here “flower” and “leaf” is personified. “thin flowers” symbolizes the poetess’s becoming thin and slim attributed to depart between she and her husband. He thinks that Xu Zhongjie’s translation on this sentence is easy to understand, but is just the object description, too personification, thus cannot show the vivid and ingenuity character of original poem. Depend on this reason, he use the personified words “languish” to instead.
Version 4 is translated by professor Ye Weilian. Ye’s translated ci-poem is very like the form of china ancient poems. He translate Chinese ancient poetry with the theory of “scenery directional stacked” which directly express images when translating Chinese poetry through its unique pattern in language structure and poetry expression. The poems being translated was through the following steps, namely get a word for word translation.
& &&& &&& &&&& &&&
last &night &rain &sparse &wind &sudden
&& &&&&& && &&&&& &&&&
&&deep &slumber& not& dispel& remaining& wine,
try& ask roll-blind& person
&& && &&&&& &&&&&&&&
but& say& begonia-& remain-& the& same,
&&know? .&& Know?
&&&&& & && && &&
Should& be- green& fat& red& thin.
Second, in order to keep independent, the words of each will be organized, the first sentence is isolated by images,. The second sentence, “does” is oriented, add “s” after the verb “abate” directly. And the third and forth sentence, the translator didn’t translate and orient the subject word “” “” in order to reach the same state of “without myself’’ as the original poems. The sentence “” is especially loyal to the original poems. From the three steps above, we can see that the “” also appears in the translated poems, but it is not the maid which ordinary people think, is he. Placing a maid in a women’s purdah is obvioursly a big mistake.
From the study on translation of Li Qingzhao’s ci-poems, we can see that it is utterly impossible to duplicate the original meaning in the target text, because translation involves the translator’s as well as the reader’s interpretation of the target text. Any translation, to some extent, will reflect translators' own mental outlook and their idiosyncratic features despite the impartial intention.
To translate ci-poems successfully, one must try to make his translated poem’s poetic situation matches with the original ci-poem’s. Each translator has different personal life and experience, world view, and culture education background, thus will influence his or her understanding. So the same original poem will appear different translation versions. No matter the translation is good or not, the first important step the translator should follow is to make his translated poem’s poetic situation loyal to the original poem’s.
So, we translators should try to reproduce the poetic situation of the original ci-poem. &The analysis of several different versions of Li Qingzhao’s ci-poem can in some degree give the later readers a little experience and thoughts.
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