1.1 Xu Yuanchong’s translation of Guanju

Xu Yuanchong is a great translator in China, and he is also the only person to translate poetry into both English and French. He has devoted most of his time in his life to translation career and has left us with many wonderful masterpieces. His translation style is characterized by favoring domesticating translation. Xu introduced the Creation for Loss, and the three-beauty-concept to translation theory: the idea that a translation should be as beautiful as the original in three ways, that is: message beauty, prosodic beauty and image beauty.

Xu holds the view that the classics, classical poetry in particular, are best words in the best order. But in translation, the equivalent may not be the best word in the target language. In that case, the translator should not use the equivalent, but the best expressions in the target language, so that the translated version may appeal to the heart and mind, eyes and ears of the reader. He may adopt three methods, that is, generalization, equalization or particularization to make his version faithful, beautiful and delightful. [8]Moreover, he agrees that literary translation equals to creation, for that translation theory comes from practice and meanwhile is examined by practice.[7] And sometimes, in order to keep the beauty of the poem, translator could take measures such as changing words, adding words, deleting some words and so on. In other words, a literary translator should exploit the advantage of the target language, that is to say, make the fullest possible use of the best expressions of the target language in order to make the reader understand, enjoy and delight in the translated text. A creative translator should do his work as if he were the author of the original writing in the target language, and try his best to convey the beauty of the poem, which comes first in poetry translation compared with equivalence.

Depending on his theory, his version of Guanju is as following:

Cooing and Wooing

By riverside a pair

Of turtledoves are cooing;

There’s a good maiden fair

Whom a young man is wooing.

Water flows left and right

Of cress long here, short there;

The youth yearns day and night

For the good maiden fair.

His yearning grows so strong,

He cannot fall asleep,

But tosses all night long,

So deep in love, so deep!

Now gather left and right

Cress long or short and tender!

O lute, play music light

For the fiancée so slender!

Feast friends at left and right

On cresses cooked tender!

O bells and drums, delight

The bride so sweet and slender!

1.2. Ezra Pound’s Version of Guanju

Ezra Weston Loomis Pound was an expatriate American poet and critic who was a major figure of the early modernist movement. His contribution to poetry began with his development of Imagism, a movement derived from classical Chinese and Japanese poetry, stressing clarity, precision and economy of language.