Xu Yuanchong as a Touchstone for Ezra Pound`s Translation of Tang Poetry

Abstract

This study attempts to compare and contrast Pound’s Chinese-English translation with the translation rendered by Xu Yuanchong (1921-), winner of the “Aurora Borealis” Outstanding Literary Translation Award. This study endeavors not just to cast light on the dialectic nature of poetry translation, but it seeks to reveal what has been lost and what has been gained in the Poundian rendition. The new contribution of the current study lies, therefore, in its novel undertaking that employs Xu Yuanchong as a touchstone to examine the loss and gain in Pound’s literary translation, and Pound as another to sieve whatever sievable inasmuch as the esthetic essence of Tang poetry is concerned. It strives to unveil the cross-cultural esthetic transmigration of Tang poets in lending their lifetime character alchemy, a Chinese alchemy in which image rhymes with music, to the forging of the new in American Imagism during the era of Ezra Pound.

本研究试图比较庞德的汉英翻译与许渊冲 (1921-) 的翻译, 后者是“北极光”杰出文学翻译奖的获奖者。本研究不仅试图揭示诗歌翻译的辩证性, 而且还试图揭示庞德诗歌翻译中所喪失与获得的華夏美學要素。因此, 本研究的新贡献在于, 其以许渊冲为试金石, 考察庞德文学翻译的得與失, 并以唐诗美学本质为切入点, 以筛选出任何可筛选的得與失。本文力图揭示唐代诗人的跨文化审美轮回, 探索一种以意象与音乐押韵的中国炼金术, 如何滋涵龐德創造新時代的美學, 賦予美國意象主義嶄新的境界。