Specifics of Translation of Classical Chinese Poetry

Abstract

The article studies interlingual and intercultural complications that arise in the translation of the classical Chinese poetry by comparing Russian versions with the Chinese poem Viewing the Waterfall at Lushan by Li Bai. The complex analysis covers such structural, typological, figurative, and cognitive aspects of the Chinese original as rhythm, rhyme, semantic, pragmatic, stylistic, and other features correlated with the Chinese culture and translatability into Russian to be perceived in the Russian cultural environment. We have chosen three most popular Russian translations by A. Gitovich, S. Toroptsev and K. Ismaev. The analysis is based on the following: the identification of phonic-semantic strategies in translation versions; the semiopsychological reconstruction of poetical realia at different levels of context; the evaluation of the degree of reproducibility for cultural constants according to their associative potential in both source and target cultures. The reconstruction of the source symbolism inherent in classical Chinese poetry (often with the use of educational commentary) is considered one of the main specific problems of poetic translation whose mission is to develop and enrich linguistic, literary, and cultural processes. Li Bai’s poetic original written in the Tang era presupposes an utmost number of associations to, probably, every word of this succinct quatrain with its historical, geographical, aesthetic, and religious background that may seem vague even to present-day Chinese readers, let alone present-day Russian readers. The three Russian versions of the Waterfall at Lushan distinctly show different translation approaches that determine different translation solutions and outcomes, resulting in the variability of the information perceived by the target audience.