History of English Translation of Song of Eternal Sorrow -2

Song of Eternal Sorrow is the most famous love poem in the history of China literature. With the Anshi Rebellion as the background, it describes the love story between Li Longji and Yang Guifei in the style of Han Yuefu. It entered the historical stage of poetry with a new artistic appearance, marking the new development of China's ancient narrative poetry, and its historical value and practical significance can not be ignored.

As early as the early 1920s, many foreign scholars began to translate Song of Eternal Sorrow into English.

The first English version of Song of Eternal Sorrow was published by Zhai Lisi, a famous British sinologist, and then many different versions appeared, such as W.J., Fletcher's poetry translation, British scholar Herbert A. Giles's prose translation, and American scholar winter Bainer's prose translation.

Among the domestic translators' translations, the joint translation by Yang and He and the translation by Xu Yuanchong are the most famous.

Although these translations have promoted the English translation of China's classical poems and made great contributions to China's culture going abroad, their translations have not achieved the unity of the three beauties.

Xu Yuanchong's English translation of Song of Eternal Sorrow reproduces the beauty of meaning, form and sound of the original poem, which is a classic and provides some reference methods for future poetry translation.