[Abstract] Chinese poem translation is a difficult task. The success of translation of Chinese poems depends on whether it can approximately transmit artistic conception of Chinese poems and lead the readers into a space of imagination. It is difficult to translate the original meaning, the atmosphere and the charm completely. The English versions of many outstanding Chinese classical poems which are gently beautiful, vigorous and deep usually cannot present the original taste and flavor of the poetry. This thesis first points out that artistic conception is a kind of ideal artistic state, which can lead readers into the situation and emotion of a poem. It is impossible to express completely the primary taste and artistic conception of Chinese poetry to every reader. The reason is that the different historical culture connotations and different habits and customs as well as different thinking methods are formed in words and expressions. This thesis then takes the version of Bells Ringing in the Rain for example to analyze the difficulty of the conveyance of the poem briefly. In the point of the author’ view, artistic conception can be effectively transmitted to readers by the following three means: first, to express amorous feelings and ideas; second, to unearth images; finally, to stimulate imagination. The author narrates three ways through the comparison of the two versions of “bells ringing in the rain” and other examples for further explanation. At the end, the author points out that they are only three effective ways but not the absolute means.
[Key Words] Chinese poetry; artistic conception; Bells Ringing in the Rain; solution
【摘 要】 汉诗法译是否成功就在于能否成功的传达意境。要成功的传达意境是不容易的，许多好的汉语诗歌翻译成法语后总是会失去原作的艺术魅力、本文首先指出：意境是通过形象化的情景交融的艺术描写，能够把读者引入到一个想象的空间的艺术境界，意境传达的困难在于中西方存在着诸多异同，不同的历史文化，法语论文，风俗习惯和思维定势都使汉语诗歌的意境传达成为一个难题，本文以雨霖铃的译文为例，略论了这首诗歌意境传达的困难，接着通过雨霖铃的两种译文对比提出了意境传达的三种有效方式：传情达意，挖掘意象，激发联想。最后作者提出，这只是三种有效的方式，而不是绝对的方式。
【关键词】汉诗法译；意境；雨霖铃；方式
1. Introduction
"Poetry is a super art of language.”[1] A well-known statement is made by Robert Frost “Poetry is what gets lost in translation”. Poetry translation is a difficult task and it is especially true in the Chinese poetry translation. “Indeed, poetry translation is a creative task.” Burton Raffel says, “The translated poem should first be a new poem, a good one, and should be the favor of life, instead of lifeless academic accuracy.” The English versions of many outstanding Chinese classical poems which are gently beautiful, vigorous and deep usually cannot present the original taste and flavor of the poetry. Many famous sayings and beautiful lines, which enjoy great popularity during hundreds of years, make the Chinese readers have a deep sympathetic chord. But foreign readers cannot understand them actually, or they may even feel bewildered and the most important reason is that the translation of Chinese poetry is lack of the conveyance of artistic conception. The success of translation of Chinese poems depends on whether it can approximately transmit artistic conception of Chinese poems and lead the readers into a space of imagination. China’s poet as well as literary and theoreticians mostly think that the greatest achievement of poetry creation lies in artistic conception .It is the soul of poetry. Then what on earth is artistic conception of poetry?
1.1 The definition of artistic conception
Artistic conception is a kind of ideal artistic state, which can lead readers into the situation and emotion of a poem. The blend of situation and emotion is the basic component of artistic conception, which is involved in two aspects, one is the objective of images in life, the other is the ideal subjective creation of the poet, we call the former one as “jing”, and the later one as “yi”. Therefore, artistic conception is the unified entity of the two aspects.
Artistic conception is one of the most important aesthetic conceptions in ancient China, which can be traced back to Tang Dynasty. In his The Style of Poetry poet Wang Changlin firstly put forward artistic conception together with “物境”“情境” (two of three levels like artistic conception used to describe respectively the object and the circumstances of a poem). Although he proposed the three levels together, he didn’t point out the relationship. Jiaoran, a poet and a monk as well, once pointed out the relations between Yi (image) and Jing (situation). He thought that the feelings of a reader to a poem start from its situation. Liu Yuxi who carried on Jiaoran’s theory advanced that we can say in Tang Dynasty, the Aesthetic School---the leading school of poetry which analyzes poem with artistic conception, was formed. And in Qing Dynasty, Wang Guowei gave a deeper research on the connotation and creation of artistic conception. As he says in his “Comments on ci Poetry”, “Not only can literature motivate the writer himself, but also it can touch the hearts of others.” Mao Dun then thought the connotation of the literature translation is the transmission of the ideal condition .He said "the literature translation is to transmit the artistic ideal condition of the original work in another language and make reader be inspired equally, affected and get the beautiful feeling when they read the original work. [10]
1.2. The difficulties of the conveyance of artistic conception
For many years, lots of Chinese scholars as well as foreign researchers put their effort to do the arduous work to translate classical Chinese poems into English. And among their works, there is no lack of excellent translation. As a matter of fact, just through the wonderful translation of some excellent translator, a lot of famous classical Chinese poems have won their world reputation. However, as a kind of artistic appreciation, we usually have a little pity that the translation of Chinese poetry still cannot express artistic conception when we read as the Chinese readers, lots of Chinese classical poems have lost their original romantic charm, complete information, three-dimensional effect, and the state that can lead the readers into a indefinite imagination. It is not surprised to see that many scholars consider the translation of Chinese ancient styled poetry to be an unsuccessful field so far. We can see that even if some translations display the content of poetry, they fail to transmit, interpret the mood, the image, and the situation of poetry. Because of the huge divergence between the East and the West, it is impossible to express completely the primary taste and artistic conception of Chinese poetry to every reader.
The reason is that the different historical culture connotations and different habits and customs as well as different thinking methods are formed in the aspect of words and expressions.
The renowned translator Mr. Yang Xianyi has said:" There are many other factors constituting certain meanings in original text .It is simply not impossible to transmit these meanings for the persons under different cultures. [11] For example: the Chinese readers have some association spontaneously with weeping willow in a Chinese poetry, it is impossible to cause this kind of association naturally if it is translated into another language. In many poems the terminology (poem language) often has their cultural historical background causing the reader to associate sufficiently. [12] There is no final translation for any translation is partial since it is hardly possible for any translator to seek balance between various requirement.[13] Of course it contains the conveyance of artistic conception.
2. The analysis of Bells Ringing in the Rain
Here, the author will probe how to transmit artistic conception in the translation of Chinese poetry by the English version of Bells Ringing In The Rain.
2.1 The comment of Bells Ringing In The Rain
LiuYong’ poems are good at description of details, and written in a pithy style . This poem expresses the parting feelings and describes the scene of parting and the painful mood. The emotion is also very sentimental. This poem is of Liu Yong’s representative works. The first stanza describes the parting scene, the author describes the cicada chillily, and two loves were parting in the roadside shelter. The boat was urging. They were reluctant to part, hand in hand with tearful eyes, sobbing without a word. The misty waves in the great distance and the distant sky also appeared so heavy. In the second stanza, the author sighed woefully: parting lets the human be sad since the old times. The longer they part, the sadder they feel. Even if there is bright days and beautiful scenery, the poet still cannot cheer up.
“The cicada”, “the roadside shelter”, “the sudden downpour”, “the national capital” “the boat”, “the misty wave” and “the southern sky”----- these images composed the departure picture of gloomy color, brim with the thick deep sorrow. The Chinese reader can feel the author‘s sad mood after they read and produce the sympathetic chord, but as a result of the cultural environment and the background difference, foreign readers may not have similar feeling, nor can they induce to this dignified atmosphere. the Chinese reader could carry on the very natural association to above these images, form a series of pictures in the brains, but the foreign reader possibly can not be able to understand this completely. In the second stanza, what is the relation between “多情” and “自古”? How to translate “晓风残月”? what is“良辰好景虚设” on earth? It is very difficult to describe the painful mood and the deep sorrow faithfully to the foreigners.
2.2 The difficulties of the conveyance of artistic conception of Bells Ringing in the Rain
It is not completely possible to translate the original poem, the mood and the atmosphere，which is also an extremely big difficult problem, such as:
Firstly, It is difficult to convey the emotion in the poem: the emotion here is not presented explicitly but implied in the description of the images. It is hard to convey the connotation and association significance of images to the foreigners. In addition, the Chinese poems usually consist of several images, the poet can display some pictures in front of the readers through the depiction of the images. In Bells Ringing in the Rain, “ the pavilion” “evening clouds” “willow trees” “waning moon”---these images constitute a scene of sorrow departure in dreary Autumn. It is not easy to select proper words to convey the images as well as suitable words to connect them in the process of translation. Finally, In Bells Ringing in the Rain, Chinese readers can associate the waving willow trees and waning moon to the reluctance of departure. It is hard to bring the similar fantasy to readers in English version, because some image cannot arouse the same association to the foreigners. There is also one point that we should notice: the conveyance of artistic conception is a common problem, sometimes even if the version embodies the charm of the original poem, the foreigners may not understand it completely because of the cultural differences. Just as the foreigners cannot understand the love of Liang Shanbo and ZhuYingtai, Here, the author only would like to discuss the ways to convey artistic conception.
3. Three strategies to convey artistic conception
To be exact, Zhao Zecheng’s artistic conception includes three aspects: Qing (emotion), Jing (situation), and imagination. To counter these three aspects, artistic conception can be effectively transmitted to readers by the following three means: first, to express amorous feelings and ideas; second, to unearth images; finally, to stimulate imagination. [14]
3.1 Express feelings and ideas
When doing the translation of Chinese poems, we should firstly make clear the main idea of the original poem, the situation set in the poem and ideas and feelings that the author wants to express, otherwise, we do not translate but create poetry.
In ancient China, there are the sayings like “ideal can be conveyed by poetry, and ‘poetry is stemmed from emotions.”[15] Wang Guowei, an aesthete in modern times, indicates that ‘only when a poet is able to reflect the real life and express his real feelings by his poem has he reached a higher level of poetry creation.’[16] In his opinion, the simple natural scenery, such as birds’ singing, flowing water, flowers’ blossom and drifting clouds cannot consist of ‘Artistic conception’ by their poems. The famous literary theoretician in Qing Dynasty, Ye Xie thought that emotion from the bottom of heart is one of the indispensable conditions in the creation of artistic conception, and whether artistic conception can be conveyed successfully by the translations or not depends on whether the translator is able to transmit the feelings between the lines, and understand poet’ mind. [17] As Eveing says in his ‘Translation and Sentiment’, translator should not only translate the ‘tears’, the ‘laughter’, the ‘anger’, the readiness to give life on the battlefield and the visible things, but also the grief, the happiness, the indignation, the utter devotion and the invisible sentiment. [18] For instance, here is several verses of Bells Ringing In The Rain. A is translated by Rewi Alley, and B is translated by Xu Yuanchong.
“都门帐饮无绪”
A We drink to each other
B Can we care for drinking before we part
“饮”“无绪”the two words add anxiety to the parting, people usually would drink wine when parting in ancient time. The poet was so sad that he would not like to drink at all. ‘Drink to each other’ in Alley’s translations does not show this kind of mood. Xu Yuanchong translates the words into ‘Can we care for drinking before we part’ reflect a kind of disconsolateness，So, XuYuangchong’ s translation is better. If the poem embodies the poet’ emotion, the version should indicate it. Let us look at another verse:
执手相看泪眼，法语论文，竟无语凝噎
A we clasp hands, faces wet
with tears; unable to say anything
B Hand in hand we gaze at each other’s tearful eyes
And burst into sobs with words congealed on our lip
To translate the emotion in these two verses，we must grasp the psychological condition of the poet. Looking at each other ‘s tearful eyes with hand connecting, they would like to say something, yet speechless for sobbing finally. “执手”“相看”“泪眼”“无语凝噎” are a succession of words describing the hero’s sorrow and the grief, Xu Yuanchong uses‘gaze at’and‘tearful eyes’to describe the mood, and transmit the emotion, ‘burst into’ indicates the eruption of his preserved sentiment, ‘congealed’ vividly manifest the sadness. Obviously, in version A ‘wet with tears’ greatly weakens the emotion and cannot transmit artistic conception of the original poem. Obviously, it is inadequate to only display the content, we also should express the feelings between the lines properly. For example:
多情自古伤离别，更那堪、冷落清秋节
That is to say, people always feel sad when parting since the ancient times. How does a lonely person live in this chilly autumn? Here the poet is displaying a kind of disconsolate mood.
A ever have people hated
leaving there friends, and now
the cold autumn with its sadness
on top of it all;
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