Poet-Translator and Personalized Rebellion: On the Translation Strategies of Kenneth Rexroth's English Translation of Du Fu

XU Yi-fan

doi:10.19857/j.cnki.ICL.20214104

Volume 4 Issue 1

Mar. 2021

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XU Yi-fan. Poet-Translator and Personalized Rebellion: On the Translation Strategies of Kenneth Rexroth's English Translation of Du Fu[J]. International Comparative Literature, 2021, 4(1): 56-82. doi: 10.19857/j.cnki.ICL.20214104

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XU Yi-fan. Poet-Translator and Personalized Rebellion: On the Translation Strategies of Kenneth Rexroth's English Translation of Du Fu[J]. International Comparative Literature, 2021, 4(1): 56-82. doi: 10.19857/j.cnki.ICL.20214104

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Poet-Translator and Personalized Rebellion: On the Translation Strategies of Kenneth Rexroth's English Translation of Du Fu

doi: 10.19857/j.cnki.ICL.20214104

XU Yi-fan^,

Fudan University

Received Date: 2020-07-18
Rev Recd Date: 2020-09-16

Abstract

Abstract

In 1956,Kenneth Rexroth published his first anthology of translated Chinese poems,One Hundred Poems from the Chinese,which included thirty-five English translations of Du Fu poems.Not only is this work regarded as an excellent translation of ancient Chinese poetry,but also as a classic of modern American poetry.Rexroth played both roles-as a poet and a translator-in translation activities,so this essay will be based on the duality of identity,in order to discuss how Rexroth challenged the impersonal theory proposed by T.S.Eliot,a major poetic figure at that time,with the translation of Chinese poems in the context of the development of American poetry in the first half of the twentieth century.The core of his rebellion is the subversion of the Western traditional values behind this theory.Through technical analysis in close reading and theoretical interpretation in translation studies,the essay will explore the translation strategies adopted by Rexroth under specific goals and positions.We will further discuss the aesthetic reflections Rexroth projected in these translation strategies,especially the problems he contemplated,such as the relationship between man and world,the universality and individuality of emotion,and the significance of tradition and individuality.Through these special strategies,Rexroth introduced different aesthetic values of a foreign civilization to the native culture,which helped initiate the renewal and activation of English expression as well as promote his adjustment of individual aesthetic ideas and values.At the intersection of translation history,translation theory,and aesthetic theory,this article discusses how Rexroth's English translations of Du Fu poems have called back the first person to the text and have liberated the individual emotions in the process of integrating heterogeneity and local value,thus completing a poet-translator's rebellion against native poetics by the personalized interpretation of these poems.
- Kenneth Rexroth,
- translation of Du Fu poems,
- poet-translator,
- translation strategy,
- One Hundred Poems from the Chinese

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References(75)

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