A Comparison of English Translations of Su Shi's Song Ci Poetry under the "Truth-Seeking-Beauty-Attaining" Translator Behavior Continuum–Xu's and Watson's translations as examples

Abstract

Based on the theory of translator behavior criticism, this paper takes the English translation of Su Shi's Song ci poetry as the object of study and compares Xu Yuanchong's translation with that of Burton Watson. With the help of seven poetry translation strategies (phonemic translation, literal translation, metrical translation, poetry into prose, rhymed translation, blank verse translation and interpretation) as summarized by André Lefevere, a "truth-seeking-beauty-attaining" continuum evaluation model is established to compare and analyze the translators' tendency to choose translation strategies in order to reproduce the scenes and emotions in Song ci poetry. By applying the theory of translator behavior criticism to the choice of translator, we point out that the translation of Song ci poetry should not only express the meaning of the original text but, more importantly, reflect the cultural meaning and beauty of the poems.