Thetranslationofculturalimagesinpoetry.doc

The Translation of Cultural Images in Poetry IntroductionPoetry is always considered as an unconquerable fortress in translation. The romantic charm and artistic conception, all of these things, which just make poetry to be poetry, can not be interpreted in another language. To be brief, poetry is untranslatable because of the great difficulties in conveying the image, especially the images under special cultural background. The definition of image and its importance in poetry Image is a mental picture of something that the sense organ of the writer felt, and underwent some kind of fabrication and creation, and then distills from the life reality to art reality.江城子 乙卯正月二十日夜记梦十年生死两茫茫。不思量，自难忘。千里孤坟，无处话凄凉。纵使相逢应不识，尘满面，鬓如霜。 夜来幽梦忽还乡。小轩窗，正梳妆。相顾无言，惟有泪千行。料得年年肠断处，明月夜，短松冈。In the poem, we can imagine: looking through the window, the poet sees his lover who is decorating herself. Its so close, yet so distant. Nothing can be done besides tears. Not only Chinese literary men devote much attention to the image in poetry, but also the Western critics attach great importance to image.Here is an English poem wonderful in image, which is Evening by the English poet Richard Aldington4Evening The chimneys, rank on rank,Cut the clear sky; The moon, With a rag of gauze about he loins, Press among them, an awkward Venus; And here am I looking wantonly at her Over the kitchen sink The artistic conception of this poem is that the chimneys make the moon lose its romantic tinges, even the goddess of beauty Venus becomes “awkward”, and “I” could just “look wantonly”. Chimneys, rank, clear sky, moon, a ray of gauze, awkward Venus, kitchen sink, all of these images composed to the prospect of the poem. A general survey of image translationHow to convey the images of the primary poem accurately becomes the question that every poetic translator need to think seriously. We may say that whether we can recur the images of the original poem directly matters the conveying of the sense beauty of the poem. Languages in our daily life only need to be able to express our ideas, but this is not enough in poetry. Poetic words need to describe the circumstances, while express the poets feelings, and initiate the readers imagination. Take the fourteen starting words of Li Qingzhaos声声慢as an example. “寻寻觅觅,冷冷清清,凄凄惨惨戚戚”. How to translate it? Some people ever translated it like this:Seek, seek; search, search; Cold, cold; bare, bare; Grief, grief; cruel, cruel grief.Comparing with the translation above, the following ones all exert their own superb points. Translation 1 Searching, seeking, endlessly, Alone, lonely, Moody, gloomy. -by Zhu Chunshen Translation 2 I look for what I miss, I dont know what it is. I feel so sad, so dreary, So lonely, without cheer. How hard is it To keep me fit In its lingering cold! -by Xu Yuanchong In Zhus translation, there repeatedly occur long vowel and nasal consonant and some rhyme, which make the translation beautiful in sound, and strengthen its artistic appeal. While, Xus translation shows his unique ingenuity. The translation not only recurs the first person “I”, but also uses parallel structure, which all recur the word repetition of the original work.Then, how the artistic conception of a poem is produced? The answer would include its rhyme, form, and whats more, its images. Its no doubt that image is the basic element of artistic conception. But different cultural background would endow different perception on the same thing. Cultural images and the techniques of their translation Cultural images are images which contain profound national cultural color, only with which, readers can understand the spirit and artistic conception the poem conveyed by relating them with their own culture.In the process of translating, we can always find some expressions in the source language which are equivalent to that of the target language, and we often use literal translation in these cases, so literal translation becomes the commonest method in translation. The using of proper nouns is very common in Chinese poetry. Those proper nouns in poetry not only can add a few touches to poems, but also process their particular meaning sometimes. They can not only express the unique meaning of the poem, but also recall its readers of those similar memories in the depth of their hearts. Offering direct annotation is the most common way of managing cultural images. In a sense, annotations meet the need for the unification of form and content. Meanwhile, it fulfills the purpose of conveying the cultural information. And this means fits for those images with deep cultural color and important for the understanding of the poem. Seeing from the view of cultural exchange, the way to give annotation is a means without other means. Although we advocate that annotation should be short, we should also accept some length explanatory notes, because our ultimate purpose is to convey the meaning of the original poem thoroughly and clearly.Professor Xie Tianzhen ever put forward his view that we should try our best to keep the cultural images of the source language when translating to fulfill the purpose of cultural exchange. Then in the process of translating poems, should the replacement of cultural images be admitted? The answer should be affirmative. If we do it well, we can certainly keep the briefness of the original poem, and effectively convey the artistic conception and emotion of it. In fact, even the native readers are not familiar with some of the cultural images. So comparing with the transmission of the content, the conveying of emotions and connation is more important. Some of the cultural images are not the key words for the understanding of the poem. On the other hand, they were just used to refer some extensive meaning. So we neednt state them very clearly in translation. Sometimes, if we do so, it would lead misunderstanding in the minds of readers on the contrary. Also, too much explanation would break the form beauty of poems. So it is unnecessary to translate those images with weak cultural tinges too clearly.ConclusionGenerally speaking, translators should recur the images of the original poem faithfully, instead of changing, augmenting or deleting them on our own will. However, under some particular situation, because of different ways of idea expressing, different cultural customs, and different habits of appreciating, its very difficult to retain the image of the original work immutably, also, its unnecessary.In the practice of translation, we always need to adopt the image of the original poem flexibly, or replace the original images that did exist originally, or delete the original image that the readers of translation may not understand.Image translation doesnt merely mean translating images. Beside images, we should have a comprehensive, correct understanding and control over the whole poem. Sometimes, we even need to have a clear inquiry for a particular poet or a certain type of poems. At the same time, translators should possess the qualities of scholars. We need to know the epochal backgrounds under which the poem was created; also we should have a deep understanding for the aesthetic appreciation and writing style of the poet. Translators, as scholars, must possess at least two qualities: bilingual abilities and bil-cultural abilities. Besides, translators also need to be able to synthesize those factors, which devoted to the artistic conception of the poems, such as rhythm, formthings like that, because these factors are not isolated from each other, but are complementary to each other.When translating, interpreters must give consideration to the intentions of the original work and its writer, and of the translation as well as its creator. Then translators should try to use all the techniques comprehensively, and recur the images appropriately. Keep the image when it is necessary, and change it when it disturbs the whole effect of the tra