摘 要

古典文学名著《红楼梦》是中国传统文化的集大成者，被誉为中国封建社会的百科全书。在《红楼梦》一书中，林黛玉在花冢吟诵的古体诗《葬花吟》是其生命理念和人生价值的真实写照，整首诗具有强烈的艺术感染力，被奉为经典，有很高的研究价值。

刘宓庆师承于著名美学家朱光潜，致力于在继承中国传统美学的基础上发展翻译美学理论，力倡“翻译学回归美学研究”。翻译家许渊冲被誉为“诗译英法唯一人”，在翻译美学方面做出了巨大贡献。汉学家大卫•霍克斯的《红楼梦》英译本，在翻译界同样举足轻重。论文介绍了《红楼梦》与翻译美学的研究背景，借鉴刘宓庆翻译美学理论，从语言结构美、超文本语言美、形式美三个方面对比分析许渊冲和大卫•霍克斯的《葬花吟》英文译本，指出两种译本的审美再现及各自优缺点，为《葬花吟》的译本研究提供参考。

关键词：翻译美学；葬花吟；审美再现；许渊冲；大卫•霍克斯

Abstract

A Dream of the Red Chamber, a masterpiece of Chinese traditional culture, is praised as the encyclopedia of Chinese feudal society. In this novel, the heroine, Daiyu, intones the well-known poem The Song of the Burial of Flowers beside the flower mound, which is regarded as classic. The poem, full of strong artistic appeal, is a mirror of Daiyu’s life and her psychological reflection on life, which endows itself high research value.

Liu Miqing, the student of the famous Chinese aesthetician Zhu Guangqian, is always sparing efforts on the development of translation aesthetics based on the inheritance of Chinese traditional aesthetics. He advocates that translation study should return to aesthetics research. Xu Yuanchong, known as the unparalleled Chinese translator who translates Chinese ancient poetry into English and French, also makes great contributions to translation aesthetics study. David Hawkes, an illustrious sinologist, has completed the first English version of A Dream of the Red Chamber and has always been a dominant figure in the translation field. The paper first introduces the research background of A Dream of the Red Chamber and translation aesthetics. And then with the guidance of the translation aesthetics of Liu Miqing, the paper proceeds to analyze the two renditions of The Song of the Burial of Flowers of Xu Yuanchong and David Hawkes from the perspective of beauty in language structure, beauty in extra-text and language and the beauty in style. The paper also discusses the aesthetic reproduction of the translation and provides reference for the translation research of The Song of the Burial of Flowers.

Key Words: translation aesthetics; The Song of the Burial of Flowers; aesthetic reproduction; Xu Yuanchong; David Hawkes

Contents

1. Introduction 1

1.1 Introduction of The Song of the Burial of Flowers 1

1.2 Introduction of Translation Aesthetics on Poetry Translation 2

1.3 Significance of the Research 3

1.4 Research Questions and Methodology 3

1.5 Organization of the Paper 4

2. Literature Review 5

2.1 Overseas Research on Translation Aesthetics 5

2.2 Domestic Research on Translation Aesthetics 6

3. Aesthetic Reproduction of The Song of the Burial of Flowers 7

3.1 Introduction of Xu Yuanchong and David Hawkes 7

3.2 Aesthetic Reproduction Analysis from Aesthetic Scanning 7

3.2.1 Beauty in Language Structure 8

3.2.2 Beauty in Extra-text and Language 9

3.2.3 Beauty in Style 11

4. Conclusion 14

References 15

Acknowledgments 16

Comparative Studies of the Two Renditions of The Song of the Burial of Flowers from the Perspective of Translation Aesthetics

1 Introduction

1.1 Introduction of The Song of the Burial of Flowers

It is without any doubt that A Dream of the Red Chamber is one of the most significant and magnificent literary works in Chinese literature. This illustrious novel, wrote by Cao Xueqin in Qing dynasty, gives the readers a detailed description of the ebb and flow of the four big families, Jia, Shi, Wang and Xue. And in this novel, the writer put forward some democratic ideas and criticized some archaic traditional systems such as the imperial examination system, marriage system, slave system and so on. Additionally, the writer used many sentences to describe the scenery, the architecture, the apparel, the jewelry, etc. Thus this book is also regarded as the encyclopedia of Chinese feudal society.

For there are so many lovely girls, among them the Twelve Beauties are the most beautiful. Meanwhile, Cao created some handsome young men in the novel. Therefore, love story seems to be certain to happen under such a romantic environment. Although the love story between those boys and girls only takes up a small part in this novel since the writer paid more attention to the vicissitude of the environment and characters’ fates under the changes of the setting. Different characteristics of various characters are well arranged in these romantic plots. The protagonist, Baoyu, fell in love with his cousin (the daughter of his father’s young sister) as well as the heroine, Daiyu, but the seniority in Baoyu’s family thought that it was more beneficial for Baoyu to marry another girl, Baochai, who also came from a notable family. Hence in the end of the novel, being cheated by his seniority, Baoyu married Baochai. And at the exact night when they got married, Daiyu died. Therefore the author of the paper harbors the idea that this story is truly a tragedy. Most of the excellent girls in this novel came from literary families, and they are well educated. And most of the poems they made are of high literary value, among which The Song of the Burial of Flowers is one of the most outstanding one. It was written by the heroine, Daiyu, who also ranked first among the Twelve Beauties for her talent and beauty. In this poem, Daiyu gave vent to the anxiety of living under others’ roof and her confusion and hesitation about the relationship between herself and Baoyu. Through the analogy between flower and beauty, the gloomy mood of the heroine was well expressed.

1.2 Introduction of Translation Aesthetics on Poetry Translation

Liu Miqing is one of the most authoritative researchers in the field of translation aesthetics. In his book, Translation Studies: An Aesthetics Perspective, which is written in collaboration with Zhang Yan, he put forward the opinion that the ontological affiliation of translation should be aesthetics instead of linguistics. Since linguistics is only an indispensable tool for translator to cognize every word as well as every sentence, and linguistics can neither solve the actual problems occurring in the process of translation nor provide solutions to the theoretical questions of the translation theory. If it is necessary to define the relationship between translation and linguistics, the latter should be a good friend and competent assistant of the former. Thus the outdated opinion that translation is only an appendage of linguistics and can only serve as a “small fellow” in the fundamental English teaching and learning is completely wrong and should be casted away as soon as possible.

If one wants to have a detailed acquaintance of translation aesthetics, at first he has to know aesthetics. So, what is aesthetics? Generally speaking, aesthetics belongs to humanities. It is a subject discussing the sense of beauty, aesthetic perception, the creation of beauty and the regular pattern of aesthetic education. And it is not mysterious at all in that it has a bearing on everyone’s life. The emotion, which attracts much attention from those aesthetics researchers, is shared by all the human beings. Thus every person with emotion is concerned with aesthetics. Likewise, as a subject discussing translation from the perspective of aesthetics, translation aesthetics also has a close bearing on every individual who is involved in the research of translation theory and translation practice.

The term “translation aesthetics” was first put forward by Zhu Guangqian, who is the teacher of Liu Miqing. Additionally, he also presented the opinion that translation cannot bypass aesthetics, and many famous translators agree with this opinion. For instance, Fu Lei, a distinguished translator, thinks that if one wants to be a good translator, he must possess the awareness of high artistic culture, a sensitive spirit, enthusiastic sympathy, the ability to appreciate things, social experience and abundant general knowledge. In this statement, high artistic culture refers to the aesthetic ability and the deposit of aesthetic experience. In addition, only people with the sensitive spirit can feel beauty; only people with enthusiastic sympathy can reproduce beauty; only people with the ability to appreciate things can transform the objective beauty existing in the text to aesthetic object; only people with enough social experience and abundant general knowledge can gain ample aesthetic experiences and convert them into artistic culture. We can see that the statements of Zhu Guangqian and Fu Lei in fact indicate the same gist through different means: the process of translation is also the process of aesthetics.