从陶诗英译看方重的翻译美学思想

A Glimpse of Fang Zhong’s Translation Aesthetic Conceptions in Gleanings from Tao Yuanming

Abstract: Chinese ancient poetry is one of the most complex literary works to render into other languages. Tao Yuanming, a great pastoral poet in the Chinese history, left behind him a rich legacy of essays and poems. His poems have even won readers and researchers from abroad thanks to the efforts of many literary translators, among whom Fang Zhong is an influential figure that must be remembered. He spent more than 40 years to revise and modify his work Gleanings from Tao Yuanming – the first systematic translation of Tao Yuanming’s works. This study will apply Liu Miqing’s translation aesthetic theory to the analysis of Fang Zhong’s translation aesthetic thoughts based on his translation of Tao Yuanming’s poetry and prose. Liu Miqing introduces two important translation aesthetic concepts: Translation Aesthetic Object (TAO), which is further divided into formal and non-formal systems, and Translation Aesthetic Subject (TAS), which includes the translator’s aesthetic feelings, knowledge, capability and tenacity. The aesthetic value of Tao Yuanming’s poetry and prose, as the TAO of Fang Zhong’s translation, is analyzed first. It is found that the formal beauty of Tao Yuanming’s works is reflected in his use of word order, rhythm and diction, and that their non-formal beauty derives from the poet’s sincere feelings and pastoral ideals. Fang Zhong, as the TAS of Tao’s prose and poetry, is analyzed in the respects of aesthetic feelings, tenacity, knowledge and capability. It is found that Fang Zhong had a deep love for poetry and great empathy with Tao Yuanming's aesthetic feelings. Besides, he attached great importance and passion to this translation activity and had a large knowledge accumulation in both English and Chinese languages and cultures. His aesthetic feelings, great tenacity and profound knowledge enabled him to manoeuvre his capability in translation. Fang Zhong endeavored to maintain both the formal beauty and non-formal beauty of Tao Yuanming’s poetry and prose in his translation, but due to his strong sense of responsibility and meticulous attitude to scholarship, he paid more attention to the preservation of non-formal beauty and chose to sacrifice the beauty of form to be alike in spirit.

Key Words: Translation aesthetics; Fang Zhong; Gleanings from Tao Yuanming