Recently, “An Appointment with Tutors” -- Afternoon Tea for Postgraduate Teachers and Students -- organized by the Graduate Work Department of the Party Committee and undertaken by the Academic Department of the Graduate Association of the College of Foreign Languages was held in the college. This event invited Professor Zhang Zhizhong, Director of the Translation Department of the College of Foreign Languages, to give a lecture on “English Translation of Ancient Poems and Chinese Culture Going Global”, focusing on the analysis of “Wang Hongyin’s Principles of English Translation of Chinese Poems”. More than 30 graduate students attended the lecture.
Mr. Wang Hongyin was the deceased famous translation expert of Chinese and foreign cultural classics and the former president of the Chinese Classics Translation Research Association. In the lecture, Zhang Zhizhong first introduced the six principles of the English translation of Chinese poems proposed by Wang Hongyin. First of all, the English translation of Chinese poems needs to be natural and authentic. The translation should be natural and not artificial. The translation should be natural and fluent, as close to the original style as possible, and avoid the appearance of “translationese”. Zhang Zhizhong emphasized that literary language should draw nourishment and sublimation from daily life. Literal translation and the free translation should be combined. Literal translation needs to take advantage of the original language, and free translation needs to take advantage of the target language. Secondly, if a sentence becomes a famous aphorism, the translation will better show the original effect, and the translator may also make his own contribution to the target language. Thirdly, poetry needs cultural tension. The more creative the translation, the greater the distance between it and the original, but it still retains a certain similarity. The translation should retain the spiritual “closeness” and the formal “distance” of the original poem. In addition, as far as literary translation is concerned, Zhang Zhizhong and Wang Hongyin share the same view, that the translator must have a personality in order to give a creative translation. He pointed out that, in essence, Chinese poetry is untranslatable, so if the translator breaks away from creative translation, the translation is doomed to be pale and invalid, leading to failure. Fifthly, facing the problem of uneven quality of translations in the translation and publishing market, translators must adhere to professional conscience and correct translation attitudes. Sixthly, before translation, translators need to establish a clear reader view. Translators should focus on readers who cannot read the original text. They should not only focus on language conversion and ignore the tasks and goals of translation. After that, Zhang Zhizhong cited an example of the English translation of “Cicadas in Prison” and gave the English translations of Xu Yuanchong, Yu-Wen Suo’an, and Wang Hongyin, as well as Zhu Mo’s back translations. He deeply commented on and compared the principles of Wang Hongyin’s Chinese poetry translation and their applications in detail.
At the end of the explanation session, Zhang Zhizhong analyzed the five classifications of Wang Hongyin’s translation of ancient poems into English: word-for-sentence translation pattern for teaching or research purposes, metric translation of early sinologists, popular double-line rhyming styles in China, non-rhyme styles commonly seen abroad and free translation poetry style with the nature of modern poetry. Among them, Zhang Zhizhong cited the English translation of Ye Weilian of “Mooring on the River at Jiande” by Meng Haoran, the English translation of Fletche’s “Cloth of Gold”, the English translation of Bynner’s “River Snow”, and the English translation of “Ascending the Leyou Height” translated by Qiu Xiaolong, Xu Yuanchong and himself. He explained the first, second, third and fifth classifications respectively, which deepened the audience’s understanding and made the students greatly beneficial.
During the questioning session, Zhang Zhizhong kindly answered the questions raised by the students. He emphasized that human creativity is still unique, and translators should constantly improve themselves and enhance their self-confidence. At the same time, translators should regard translation as creation, and constantly enrich themselves through communication and collision. Facing the culture and phenomenon with Chinese characteristics, the translator reasonably weighs compromise, but this loss does not mean that it is not beautiful. Perhaps the translator’s efforts can achieve another kind of beauty.
