Abstract

Xu Yuanchong and Ezra Pound, two great masters of literature, have both made tremendous contributions to the translation of Chinese Poetry. Xu’s works not only maintain the writer’s original idea, but also present a sense of enjoyment both visually and vocally. His Three Beauties Principle has already been regarded as the utmost principle of Chinese classical literature translation. In order to realize the modernization and nationalization of poetry, Ezra Pound put forward the Hermeneutic Translation Theory. He thinks that translation is the translator’s own understanding and comprehension of the original text and a translator should reproduce this kind of comprehension according to the target language. This paper tries to find out the differences between the two versions of Separation on the River Kiang by analyzing Xu’s Three Beauties Principle and Pound’s Hermeneutic Translation Theory. To draw a conclusion, different translation theories have an important influence on versions. In the process of evaluation of translation, the faithfulness is of great importance but the translator’s translation theory and purpose should also be taken into consideration. Only in this way can we make an objective and fair evaluation of the translated works.  

Keywords: translation theories; translation purposes; translation comparison

Contents

Abstract

摘要

1.Introduction1

1.1 A brief introduction to Xu Yuanchong and Ezra Pound.1

1.2 A brief introduction to Separation on the River Kiang..1

2.Literature Review1

2.1 Previous studies on the English version by Xu1

2.2 Previous studies on the English version by Pound.2

3.Theoretical Basis ...3

3.1 Three Beauties Principle by Xu Yuanchong .3

3.1.1 Beauty in meaning...3

3.1.2 Beauty in sound...4

3.1.3 Beauty in form...4

3.2 Hermeneutic translation theory by Ezra Pound..5

4.A Comparative Analysis of the two translations.5

4.1 Analysis of Xu’s version5

4.2 Analysis of Pound’s version...8

4.3 Comparison of translation purposes of Xu’s and Pound’s9

5. Conclusion..10

Works Cited...11