Abstract:Classical poetry plays an incomparable role in Chinese traditional literature, and there is no doubt about its brilliant artistic achievement. In order to improve its international popularity, the translation of the such charming literary treasure is particularly important. However, it is not an easy work to keep the artistic conception and sense of beauty of the original work.

Tune Tian Jing Sha---Autumn Thoughts, one of the most outstanding Yuan Qu, was written by Ma Zhiyuan. The author took an advantage of the scene to express his emotion and was praised as the father of autumn thoughts. For this work, there are different styles of English versions because of the translators’ different understandings towards the artistic conception of the original work. This thesis focuses on analyzing the three English versions of Wen Xianliang, Professor Ding Zuxin & Professor Burton Raffel of University of Denver, and Shi Wenlin to probe into the process of reproduction of artistic conception in poetry translation.

Artistic conception is of great significance in literary translation. The reproduction of artistic conception is one of the major tasks in literary translation, especially when translating Chinese ancient poetry. Through an analysis of three English versions of Tune Tian Jing Sha---Autumn Thoughts, we can find the components of the reproduction of artistic conception: the transmission of interest and the formation of aesthetic significance.

Keywords: artistic conception, image, interest, aesthetic significance

Contents

中文摘要

Abstract

Chapter 1 Introduction-1

1.1 The Position of the Classical Poetry-1

1.2 The Importance of Poetry Translation-1

1.3 The Difficulty in Poetry Translation-2

Chapter 2 A Descriptive Analysis of Tune Tian Jing Sha---Autumn Thoughts-3

2.1 From the Perspective of the Images-3

2.2 From the Perspective of Rhetoric-3

Chapter 3 The Three English Versions of Tune Tian Jing Sha---Autumn Thoughts-5

3.1 Three English Versions-5

3.2 An Analysis of the Three English Versions-6

3.3 Aesthetic Images-9

Chapter 4 Reproduction of Artistic Conception in Literary Translation-11

4.1. The Artistic Conception and the Poetry Translation-11

4.2 The Process and the Way of Artistic Interpretation-11

4.2.1 The Transmission of Interest-12

4.2.2 The Formation of Aesthetic Significance-13

Chapter 5 Conclusion-15

References-17

Acknowledgements-18