The key is that there are many original texts, so I took out a part and found the full text.
Five Chinese versions of Emily Dickinson's poems
Zhou Jianxin
(School of Foreign Languages, Henan University, Kaifeng, Henan 47500 1)
This paper briefly summarizes the research on Emily Dickinson's poems in China, and comments on five Chinese versions of Emily Dickinson's poems, pointing out their respective characteristics, namely, Jiang's translation is concise, Pu's translation is fluent, Sun's translation is lyrical and beautiful, Wu's translation is popular and clean, and Wang's translation is popular and elegant.
Key words: Emily Dickinson; Poetry; Chinese translation
China Library Classification Number: IO46 Document Identification Number: A Document Number:1009-1750 (2004) 01-0095-04.
First, the influence and position of Emily Dickinson's poetry.
Emily Dickinson (1830 ~ 1886), an American poet, died in obscurity. Her first book of poetry was published in 1890, which caused a sensation and was reprinted seven times during the year. The second book was published in 189 1, reprinted five times in two years, and the third book of poetry was published in 1896. After the First World War, modernist literature, especially the imagists in Britain and America regarded Dickinson as a pioneer, and Dickinson once again attracted attention. The large-scale research on her began in the 265438+60s, with Thomas Johnson as the representative.
Take the opportunity of editing and publishing Emily Dickinson's Poems (1955) and Emily Dickinson's Letters (1958). Since then, various research monographs and readers have emerged one after another. Today, Emily Dickinson has been comprehensively and deeply studied, affecting more than a dozen countries. Emily Dickinson International Association often holds international seminars and publishes the semi-annual Emily Dickinson Magazine. Emily Dickinson Poetry Competition is held every year, and this year has reached the eighth. Emily Dickinson's poems were accompanied by music, recorded as CDs and tapes, and distributed together with her recitation tapes. The artist paints according to her poems. On August 28th, the US Postal Service 197 1 issued a commemorative stamp with a face value of 8 cents, and she was even put on the stage. From kindergarten to middle school to university, there are names named after her, and her poetry readings and online forums abound.
Second, the research status of China
In contrast, China's research on Emily Dickinson is lacking.
For decades, although various foreign literature history and books published in Chinese mainland have repeatedly mentioned Emily Dickinson's important position, most of them are limited to a rough introduction and lack of research depth. So far, Chinese mainland has not published Emily Dickinson's monographs or collections with high academic value. Only Professor Wang from the Institute of American Literature of Shandong University published a study on the classification and phonology of Emily Dickinson's poems in 2000. However, this book is limited to rough classification and superficial research, lacking corresponding depth and breadth, and its academic value seems to be unsatisfactory. In fact, for decades, Chinese mainland scholars mainly introduced Emily Dickinson, not studied her. Since 1994, nearly 50 articles about Emily Dickinson have been published on the periodical website.
Except for a few articles about Emily Dickinson's comparison with China's poets, most of the other articles are repeating or summarizing the research results of foreign scholars (whether the author realized it at that time or not), and few people express their original opinions. These articles are not all about Emily Dickinson published in Chinese mainland, but considering that before the end of the Cultural Revolution, the academic circles in Chinese mainland mainly paid attention to the introduction and study of established international great writers, and there was no upsurge of introducing and studying Emily Dickinson afterwards, these figures should perhaps explain the problem. Among the 56 Emily Dickinson research experts from 16 countries announced by Emily Dickinson International Society on July 23rd, 2003,
China scholars didn't make the list, which certainly doesn't mean that China doesn't have experts who study Emily Dickinson. However, the quantity and level of China's research on Emily Dickinson are not satisfactory, which should be a fact.
Three to five Chinese versions
This is the case with research, so how popular is it? It can be seen from the number and sales of readers and Chinese translations. At present, Emily Dickinson is rarely mentioned in domestic Internet forums, with limited participants and relatively stable members. For example, there are many posts discussing her in the reading community of Superstar Digital Library. Most of them admire Emily Dickinson, and even have addicts. However, comments are limited to appreciation, and often no new posts have been published for a long time. On the other hand, the discussion about her in foreign forums is much more popular, including exchanging reading experience, discussing research results, and often having big debates. Ordinary readers, college students, scholars, etc. All joined the melee. However, in today's relatively shrinking poetry, it should not be a depressing phenomenon that a foreign poetess's "incomprehensible" poetry can attract these readers to discuss. Up to now, China has published the Chinese version of 10, including 1 0 in Hong Kong and Taiwan and 8 in Chinese mainland. According to the author's investigation, five of the eight published versions can be bought in bookstores or publishing houses, namely, Jiang Feng's translation (hereinafter referred to as Jiang's translation), translation, translation (hereinafter referred to as Wu's translation), Sun Liang's translation (hereinafter referred to as Sun's translation), translation (hereinafter referred to as Wang's translation) and translation by Pu Long (hereinafter referred to as Pu Long's translation). In the eight versions, there are many repetitions in the translated poems. Except for the 243 poems in Wang's edition, all the poems in this book are generally below 150. The print run of each book generally does not exceed 2000 copies. Wang's translation (5,000 volumes), Pu's translation (6,000 volumes) and Jiang's translation are printed frequently. Jiang Feng's translation was first published in 1984, which is the first translation of Dickinson's poems in Chinese mainland. Three publishing houses have published three versions of Jiang Feng, which have been reprinted one after another. Only the second edition of Emily Dickinson's Lyrics published by Hunan Literature and Art Publishing House printed 8500 copies. This shows that the Chinese translation of Dickinson's poems still has many readers. In order to facilitate scholars' research and provide reference for readers' purchase, this paper makes a brief comment on the five versions currently on the market.
Jiang Feng's translation appeared the earliest, with the largest number of translations (three versions), the largest number of reprints, the largest circulation and the greatest influence. Its translation quality enjoys a high reputation among ordinary readers and research colleagues. Mr. Jiang is a senior poetry translator with unique attainments in poetry translation, and has always advocated that poetry translation should be similar in form and spirit. Dickinson's poems are short and pithy, concise in expression and simple in style. Mr. Jiang's translation embodies the principle of poetry translation that he has always advocated, and is as concise as possible in form and word selection. He seldom misreads the original text, so his best translation can be very vivid, and his worst translation, even if it is too simple and sometimes blunt and mechanical, or has a misunderstanding of individual words in the original poem, will generally not have a great impact on the understanding and expression of the whole poem. In this way, the translation of ginger has maintained a relatively stable quality on the whole. I'm afraid this is an important reason why his translation has won widespread praise. Please see the translation example:
(328)
A bird flew along the path-a bird flew along the path-he didn't know I saw it-he didn't know I was watching him-he bit a horned worm in half. He pecked an earthworm in half, ate the guy alive, and then ate the guy alive.
Then he drank a drop of dew, then swallowed a dew from a nearby blade of grass, then looked at the wall, jumped sideways to let a beetle pass-made way for a beetle-he glanced around with his fast eyes-he looked around with those frightened beads-round eyes-I think they looked like frightened beads-and looked back and forth in a hurry-
I gave him a crumb. I gave him some bread crumbs, and he spread his feathers, but he spread his wings and paddled his sofa to fly home, and then the paddle gently separated the ocean. It is better than paddling a crack in the silvery sea-there is no crack in the silvery light-or a butterfly on the shore at noon, and it is better than the butterfly jumping off the shore at noon and swimming without splashing.
The translation is basically consistent with the original poem in rhyme and concise in expression. After the second quarter, the two sentences "Jump sideways to the wall again/make way for a beetle-"are even more vivid. The narrative order of the third and fourth sections is different from the original, but the semantics are close. In the last line of the third, fourth and fifth sections, "Be careful", "lightness" and "swimming" are separated by commas.
It makes reading a bit dull and stiff, but it is also wonderful.
Like Mr. Jiang, Pu Long is an expert on Dickinson. Jiang's translation is bilingual in English and Chinese, and each poem is named after the number of Dickinson's Poems edited by Johnson (version 1955), which is very convenient for readers to find and compare. Pu's translation is only in Chinese, and the translated poems of 7 1 in the book are numbered with Arabic numerals from small to large, which is not convenient for readers to check the original text. The symmetry between Pu's translation form and the original form is more rigorous. If Mr. Jiang Feng often makes some slight adjustments to the punctuation and expression order of translated poems (as shown in the above example), then in all the 7 1 translated poems, Pu Long not only makes few adjustments to punctuation and rhyme, but also rarely makes the expression order of translated poems different from the original poems. Malone studied Dickinson at Harvard University and in Dickinson's hometown of America, and he had a deep understanding of his poems, less misreading than Mr. Jiang. Although the translation is not as concise as Jiang's, it is more fluent. Compared with the two, if Jiang's translation gains brevity and loses rigidity, then Pu's translation gains fluency and loses brevity. Of course, this means the whole. Compare the following Pu translation with the above Jiang translation:
(328)
A bird fell into a secluded path-he was as careful as an adventurer.
I didn't know I was looking at him-I gave him a little skin, and he pecked an earthworm in half, but he spread his wings, swallowed him alive and paddled home gently-and then he dropped the grass lighter than the sculls that separated the sea.
Drinking a dewdrop-a piece of seamless silver light-and jumping on the wall is lighter than jumping off the beach at noon and letting a beetle climb over it-when swimming, there is no splash. He glanced around with his eyes-like a frightened bead, I think-and turned his furry head. From the punctuation point of view, there are six inconsistencies in the translation: in the fourth line of the first section, three of them (the third line of the second section and the third line of the fourth section) put commas between the lines, which makes "jumping", "paddling" and "lightness" independent between the lines, which is not in the original text. Although adding commas does not change the semantics, it can play an emphasis role, but it not only has nothing in the original text, but also affects the fluency of reading. In contrast, Pu's translation is inconsistent with the original punctuation in four places: the fourth line of the first section, the first line of the fourth section and the third and fourth lines of the fifth section. In fact, four of the five in-line commas in the original text have been removed from the translation, leaving only one in-line comma in the whole translation.
The translator didn't add a punctuation mark, so there are fewer places that may be paused or emphasized in the translation, and the semantics have not changed, but it is much smoother than Jiang's translation. There are five commas (indicating pause or emphasis) in the original text, and four of them have been removed from Pu's translation, but in the fourth line of the first section, "swallowing life" is used to obtain the pair of "lives" obtained by commas before the original word.
The point is, it saved a little loss. In Jiang's translation, three commas were removed from the original five lines and four commas were added, so the punctuation in the translation is more than that in the original, which makes it difficult to translate smoothly. In terms of rhyme, both versions are the same as the original, but Jiang's version is the same as the original. Pu's version rhymes where the original does not rhyme, but the original does not rhyme. In the order of expression, Jiang's translation is inconsistent with the original in the third and fourth sections, and the "Ithought" in the third line of the third section has not been translated. Pu's translation is consistent with the original.
There are 1 16 poems translated by Sun Liang. This text is in Chinese and English. There is no title, no number and no number in the catalogue. Only the first line of each translation and its page number are listed. The most prominent feature of this translation is its beautiful lyricism and the style of China's contemporary lyric poetry. The translation form is basically according to the original text, but it does not follow the rules. The expression is not as simple as the original text, but it is implicit and smooth, and often lyrical.
It has the flavor of literary translation and is more in line with the reading habits of ordinary readers. For example:
She accepted his request-to give up, she responded to his call, left it-the plaything in her life game, and engaged in glorious work, thus becoming a woman's servant. There is also the amplitude of wife-glorious woman, and wife-if you miss her on her new day, if she misses anything in this brand-new year-or awe-that huge, broad-or initial longing-or the initial desire of gold, such as the gradual fading of gold in the process of use and sharpening-it lies without motivation-just like the sea.
But only for him-known but only known to himself-what they abide by is unfathomable-how deep they are buried-the punctuation and rhyme of the translation are handled flexibly, and the sentence translation is not strictly linguistic translation, but has the characteristics of literary translation. The requirements, playthings, awe and foresight of the original text are all regarded as literature to varying degrees, and the translation has a lyrical beauty. Similar literary treatment can be found in other translations.
Online information, hope to adopt.