A Choice of Literary Forms in Translating
Shakespeare's Poetic Dramas
-
A Comparative Study of
the Translations of Othello
A
Thesis
Presented to
The College of English Language and Literature
Shanghai International Studies University
In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements
For the Degree of Master of Arts
By Lou Yanfei
Under the Supervision of
Prof. Shi Zhikang
December 2004
A Choice of Literary Forms in Translating Shakespeare's Poetic Dramas
Acknowledgements
I would like to express my sincere gratitude to the following individuals without
whose substantial assistance the completion of this thesis would not have been
possible.
I am especially indebted to my supervisor, Professor Shi Zhikang whose
illuminating guidance has proved invaluable throughout the course of my composing
the thesis. My thanks also go to other professors at Shanghai International Studies
University from whose inspiring lectures I have benefited immensely. Finally, I would
like to give my special thanks to Professor Chen Jianlin from Shanghai International
Studies University and Professor Zhang Qin from Zhejiang Normal University for
their constant support and encouragement.
2
A Choice of Literary Forms in Translating Shakespeare's Poetic Dramas
Abstract
During 300 hundred years or so after the first publication of the Complete Works
of Shakespeare in 1623, the 37 dramas have been translated into many languages.
From the very beginning of the 20th century, translators in China began to introduce
Shakespeare's dramas piecemeal. With the social and cultural development and the
theoretical improvement in the discipline of translation, new versions are being
brought forth continually.
One of the unique features of Shakespeare's works is that they were basically
written in blank verse, a literary form which is absent in Chinese literature. Thus the
Chinese translators were, and still are, confronted with the problem of whether to
render Shakespearean blank verse in prose or in verse. In terms of the literary forms
they adopted, the Chinese translators can be divided into two schools. The first school
consists of those who translated blank verse in the form of prose, and the other school,
of those who translated blank verse in the form of verse.
It has always been a controversial issue whether to translate Shakespearean blank
verse in prose or in verse. With the theory of the transposition of blank verse from
English into Chinese as a theoretical basis, the author has compared five translated
versions of one of the most famous tragedies.of Shakespeare -
Othello in an effort to
analyze the superiority of the versions in which blank verse is rendered in the form of
verse over those in which blank verse is translated in prose. The conclusion reached
here is that the versions in prose played an important role in popularizing
Shakespeare's dramas in China, yet the approach of translating Shakespearean blank
verse in verse has on the whole surpassed the other approach for the reason that the
former is more faithful in form to the original, by which the original flavor of
dramatic poetry is kept. Moreover, the respective dramatic functions of another two
media in the plays, i.e. prose and rhymed verse, are reproduced to the full.
A Choice of Literary Fonns in Translating Shakespeare's Poetic Dramas
3
摘要
自从 1 623年第一部《莎士比亚全集》问世以来，三百多年间，莎氏作品曾
被翻译成各国语言。 20世纪初，中国翻译家开始译介莎剧。随着我国社会文化
的进步和翻译事业的发展，莎剧的中译本也不断推陈出新。
莎剧的最大特点在于以素体诗(无韵体)为主要文学形式，然而素体诗这一
文体在中文中缺乏对应的文学形式，因此翻译家们面临着采用何种文体翻译的棘
手问题。总体而言，我国的莎剧翻译可分为两个流派，一是散文体派，另一个是
诗体派。早期的莎剧译本多为散文体， 40 年代伊始，诸 多 译 者 尝试按 原 剧 的 素 体
诗以诗体形式进行翻译。
对于莎剧究竟是用诗体翻译得体还是用散文体翻译合理，译学界向来看法不
一。本文试以诗歌翻译理论及莎剧翻译家孙大雨、1'"之琳和方平等关于素体诗移
植的论述为理论依据，对《奥赛罗》几个具有代表性的中译本进行了对比研究，
旨在阐明用诗体翻译莎剧较之用散文体翻译的几个优势。同时，本文结合了各位
译者翻译莎剧的不同时代背景，从历时的角度对具有代表性的莎剧译作做出了较
为详尽的评价。文章最后得出结论:用散文体翻译莎剧固然为莎剧的普及作出了
不可磨灭的贡献，但用诗体翻译则比用散文体更高一个层次，不但原文文体得到
了保留，译文在形式、戏剧效果和艺术美感上更忠实于原文，而且凸现了莎剧作
为一种诗剧的独特风格。
A Choiceof LiteraryForms in TranslatingShakespeare'sPoetic Dramas
4
Contents
Acknowledgements········································································
Abstract (English)···············
·..··..··..··..·
1
··..·..···..·..··
·····2
Abstract (Chinese)
·3
·
Introduction··· ..······..··..······..··..·······..····..··..··..······..····..·..······..·..·······..··..······..·····..·6
1. Theoretical Review"
2.
···9
The Literary Form of Othello
2.1 Blank Verse -
16
the Dominant Literary Form of Othello· ..·
·..·..·
·
··
· ... 16
2.1.1 The Origin of Blank Verse"
..18
2.1.2 Blank Verse and Drama
···18
2.1.3 Blank Verse and Poetry·
·..19
2.2 The Application ofAnother Two Media
3.
20
Different Versions of Othello and a Comparative Study ..·........·..·..·........·....23
3.1 A Historical Review and Two Schools of Translators"
..
3.1.1 A Historical Review of the Translating of Shakespeare's Dramas
3.1.2 Two Schools of Translators ....··..·..·..·......····....·..·..··
3.2 A General Comparison of Five Versions of Othello
4.
·..·· ···
·
Superiority of Versions in Verse to Versions in Prose ..·
4.1 Faithfulness in Style
23
··
···23
·..· ·
·..··..··..··
·26
·
·..··..·
·
·
30
·33
·..·33
A Choice of Literary Forms in Translating Shakespeare's Poetic Dramas
5
4.2 Faithfulness in Dramatic Effects
·35
4.3 Faithfulness in Aesthetic Beauty
·..39
4.3.1 Faithful Conveyance of the Sound Effect
···..·..·
4.3.2 Faithful Conveyance of the Visual Effect·· ..···..··
·..·
··..·
···
··..··..···..·········
4.4 GoodApplication of the Chinese Characters
5.
Conclusion
·
··.. ·..·..·
··..··..··
·..· ··....39
·.. A1
..·46
·
·
· ..·
·
······· ..·..·48
Bibliography···· ..·········· ..·········· ..···································· ..···························· ..·········· 51
A Choice of Literary Forms in Translating Shakespeare's Poetic Dramas
6
Introduction
William Shakespeare (1564-1616), the greatest British dramatist and poet of the
Renaissance, is considered a genius in play-writing with his ready humor, his mastery
of the English language, and his keen sensitivity to the sights and sounds of English
life. He wrote altogether 37 dramas, 154 sonnets and 2 long narrative poems, which
made his creation flower without precedence. The world's greatest plays about love,
ambition, jealousy and grief are all written by him. Each one of the plays - Hamlet,
Macbeth, Othello, King Lear and so on teaches perceptive readers something new
about themselves. For centuries, his dramas, sonnets and poems have been
appreciated by readers from all over the world and studied by successive generations
of critics. Any translator who wishes to establish himself in the field of translation
will tryon Shakespeare's works. The translators in China are no exception. It is every
Chinese translator's ambition to discover Shakespeare's world of thought and beauty.
The earliest Chinese version of Shakespeare's works with a known translator was
provided by Lin Shu, a translator in the tum of the late Qing (1644-1911) and early
republic period. It was in the classical Chinese and was a retranslation of the book
Tales from Shakespeare, which was written by the British essayist Charles Lamb and
his sister Mary Lamb. (1982 Ge Baoquan: 334) In 1921, the first version in the
vernacular by Tian Han came off press. Later more and more Chinese translators
devoted themselves to the translating of Shakespeare's works.
Shakespeare's works are written in a literary form that is known as blank verse,
which is absent in Chinese literature. On account of that, Chinese translators chose
different literary forms to render his works. Generally speaking, there are two schools
by category, namely the school of translators who translated blank verse in the form
of prose and the other school of translators who translated blank verse in the form of
verse. The former school is represented by Zhu Shenghao and Liang Shiqiu in the
spotlight, and the latter, by Sun Dayu, Bian Zhilin and Fang Ping. Then why did they
A Choice of Literary Forms in Translating Shakespeare's Poetic Dramas
7
choose different literary forms to render the same works? Which approach is better?
What are the respective gains and losses? These are the questions the present study
attempts to answer.
In this thesis the author selects the drama Othello and five of its translated
versions as the subject of study to probe into these questions. Othello is one of the
four somber tragedies that are considered masterpieces written by Shakespeare in his
mellow age. Although it has not drawn as much attention upon the critics as Hamlet, it
has its own characteristics and significance. Of all Shakespeare's tragedies, Othello is
the most painfully exciting and the most terrible. Evil is aided at every step by
fortunate accidents and the innocent mistakes of its victims. As Professor Bradley
(1956) pointed out, "Evil has nowhere else been portrayed with such mastery as in the
character ofIago." (Bradley 1956: 207) Othello, the noble-hearted hero is completely
in the darkness, unaware of his enemy, and mislays his trust upon the most
incomparably ingenious and unscrupulous villain. He is led by the nose to believe that
his newly wedded wife is not as pure as he has thought before and finally to strangle
the sublimely innocent and pure angel upon her wedding sheets, conceiving of
himself as the agent not of vengeance but of divine justice. The cruelest consequence
of credulity and sexual jealousy has nowhere else been depicted as in Othello.
Regardless of Lin Shu's retranslation, the earliest Chinese version of Othello
appeared merely in selected paragraphs rendered by Zhu Weiji in the form of verse in
1929. Later, complete versions were provided by translators like Zhu Shenghao,
Liang Shiqiu, Guo Moruo, Cao Weifeng, Sun Dayu, Bian Zhilin, Fang Ping and so on.
Among them, Zhu Shenghao and Liang Shiqiu are the representatives of
prose-rendition; Sun Dayu, Bian Zhilin and Fang Ping are the representatives of
verse-rendition. Five typical versions of these translators' were chosen as the subjects
to be compared and discussed in this thesis.
With the theory of the transposition of blank verse from English into Chinese as
a theoretical basis, the author tries to compare these translated versions in an effort to
analyze the superiority of the versions in which blank verse is rendered in the form of
verse over those in which blank verse is translated in prose. In the meantime, the
A Choiceof LiteraryForms in TranslatingShakespeare'sPoetic Dramas
8
author also takes into consideration of the social environment in which the translators
lived and commented on their contributions and limitations from a diachronic point of
VIew.
The main body of the thesis is divided into five parts. In the first part, the
theoretical basis of this thesis is introduced. The second part is a general description
of the literary form of the drama Othello. The author introduces the literary form of
blank verse and the two literary genres in which it is widely employed, i.e., poetry and
drama. Moreover, the functions of another two media- prose and rhymed verse in
the drama are analyzed. A comprehensive historical review of the translation of
Shakespeare's dramas and the division of two schools of translators are the subject of
the third part. A general comparison of the five typical versions of Othello is also
made. The analysis of the superiority of the versions in which blank verse is rendered
in the form of verse over those in which blank verse is translated in prose are
discussed in the fourth part. In this part, combining the theory of poetry translating
and the transposition of blank verse from English into Chinese with the versions given
by the master translators, the author tries to find out how the theory of sound groups
applies to the translating of Shakespeare's works and how sound groups are used to
replace feet in English poetry while retaining the original rhythm. Finally, the author
reaches the conclusion that despite the limitations of each approach, the approach of
translating Shakespearean blank verse in verse has on the whole surpassed the other
approach for the reason that the former is more faithful in form to the original, by
which the original flavor of dramatic poetry is kept. Moreover, the respective
dramatic functions of another two media in the plays, i.e. prose and rhymed verse, are
reproduced to the full.
A Choice of Literary Forms in Translating Shakespeare's Poetic Dramas
Chapter One
9
Theoretical Review
The famous American poet Robert L. Frost (1874-1963) once said that poetry
was "what gets lost in translation." (Chukovsky 1984: 153) This remark precisely
describes the difficulty of translating poems from one language into another and has
become the favorite quotation of those who deem poems untranslatable. However,
bulks of translators are still of the view that poems are translatable. As Shakespeare's
dramas are mainly written in blank verse -
a variety of poetry, it will be necessary
for us to discuss the translators' views on the translatability of poems, the means
employed in translating them and the transposition of blank verse from English into
Chinese.
Professor Liu Zhongde (1991) holds .that it is possible, though quite difficult, to
translate poems satisfactorily and successfully. The reasons he gives are twofold:
First of all, there exist many things in common among men. For instance, they all have the
thinking powers to reason logically and the feelings to express joy or sorrow, love or hatred, and
possess the same nature, world and universe no matter what races they may be. In other words, all
human beings are endowed by nature with the same mind which has the same function so that they
can communicate with one another. As a consequence, poetry, a product of the mind, is
understandable, enjoyable and translatable. And secondly, the translatability of poetry has already
been demonstrated by quantities of historical facts. The poems written by the well-known poets in
the world, such as William Shakespeare, John Milton, Percy Bysshe Shelley ... were translated
into various languages long ago and a great number of them well-done. (Liu Zhongde 1991: 128)
Not only poems in English, but also poems in Chinese written by the poets of the
Tang Dynasty (618-907) have been introduced to the English people by the
distinguished Oriental scholars such as Herbert Allen Giles and W. J. B. Fletcher.
Though he insists that "all poetic art is technically untranslatable", Roman
Jakobson also admits that "creative transposition is possible." (Bassnett 1980: 15) As
a matter of fact, the practice of translating poems from one language into another has
always been going on in Britain, China and any other country, in the past or at
A Choice of Literary Forms in Translating Shakespeare's Poetic Dramas
10
present.
Then how can a translator render poems in a proper way? What are the basic
requirements of poetry translating?
In his book The Art of Translation, the noted British translator Theodore Savory
(1957) puts forward six contrasting pairs while discussing the translation principles,
which are:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
A translation must give the words of the original.
A translation must give the ideas of the original.
A translation should read like an original work.
A translation should read like a translation.
A translation should reflect the style of the original.
A translation should possess the style of the translator.
A translation should read as a contemporary of the original.
8. A translation should read as a contemporary of the translator.
9.
10.
11.
12.
A translation
A translation
A translation
A translation
may add to or omit from the original.
may never add to or omit from the original.
of verse should be in prose.
of verse should be in verse.
(Savory 1957: 48-49)
From the last contrasting pair, we may find that there are basically two
approaches to poetry translating. Poems can be translated either in the literary form of
prose or in the original literary form of verse. The prose translation of poems and
poetic dramas is initiated by E.V. Rieu for Penguin Books (Newmark 2001: 52). Peter
Newmark (1988) describes the characteristics of this approach in A Textbook of
Translation, "Usually stanzas become paragraphs, prose punctuation is introduced,
original metaphors and SL culture retained, whilst no sound-effects are reproduced.
The reader can appreciate the sense of the work without experiencing equivalent
effect." (Newmark 2001: 52) That is to say prose translation only conveys to the
readers the meaning of the original. It can only be regarded as a kind of interpretation.
Usually, through a careful word-for-word comparison, prose translation can provide
ready and full access to the original. However, it stops at the meaning level. The
readers can hardly gain an access to the artistic beauty of the original poems,
especially the sound effects created by a regular rhythm, which is regarded as the
A Choice of Literary Forms in Translating Shakespeare's Poetic Dramas
11
most distinctive feature to distinguish between prose and poetry. Savory himself is in
favor of the approach of translating poetry into poetry. In his opinion, one fact is
undeniable: to translate poetry in the form of poetry can not only achieve a similarity
in the literary form, but also obtain an opportunity to use the rhetorical devices freely
and keep the original deviant word-orders. In general, the emotional impact a poem
arouses is much stronger than that of a prose. (Liao Qiyi 2001: 63)
The approach of translating poetry into prose is also mentioned in the seven
different strategies Andre Lefevere catalogues in his book on the various methods
employed by English translators of Catullus' Poem 64. He concludes that "distortion
of the sense, communicative value and syntax of the SL text results from this method,
although not to the same extent as with the literal or metrical types of translation."
(Bassnett 1980: 82)
The book Contemporary Translation Studies in USA generalizes the theories on
literary translation, especially on poetry translation, by some famous American
translators (Herbert C. Tolman, John Felstiner, Burton Raffel, etc.). One of the
conclusions made is that "the translators of poetry should comprehend a poem as a
whole and lay emphasis on the transposition of its spirit. A successful translation of a
poem should be itself a poem, though the prosody is not transposable." (Guo
Jianzhong 2000: 224)
Many translators such as John Fe1stiner, Thomas R. Steiner, Weissbort Daniel
and Burton Raffel are in favor of translating poetry into poetry. A case in point is
Burton Raffel. He believes what a translator should do is to "recreate something
roughly equivalent in the new language, something that is itself good poetry and that
at the same time carries a reasonable measure of the force and flavor of the original."
(Raffel 1988: 121) He is against the approach of translating poetry into prose. To
illustrate his point of view, he compares four translations ofDu Fu's Moonlit Night by
Ding Zuxin and himself, Witter Bynner, Robert Kotewall and Norman L. Smith, and
David Hawks respectively. He comments that "though David Hawks is one of the best
of Western Sinologists, a brilliant critic, and a stunningly fine translator of prose, his
clear, straightforward prose rendering is inferior to every single one of the verse
A Choice of Literary Forms in Translating Shakespeare's Poetic Dramas
12
translations, no matter what their quality.... Each of the verse translation has created,
to one degree or another, a sense of poetic approximation." (Raffel 1988: 36) John
Felstiner (1980) points out that only by translating poetry into poetry can the thoughts
of the poets be transmitted. (Guo Jianzhong 2000: 224)
The Chinese translator Cheng Fangwu (1984) shared the same opinion with the
above mentioned translators in this regard. He said long ago that "the translation of a
poem must remain a poem. That is the first thing we should always bear in mind. And
secondly, it should be faithful to the original." (Cheng Fangwu 1984: 383) That is to
say, the poetic artistry must be retained and the beauty in form, sound and meaning
sought. Translation itself, strictly speaking, is not creation, therefore the translator
should faithfully convey the content of the original on the basis that the original form
is kept or the form of the translation is at least very close to the original.
Professor Liu Zhongde, on the basis of Yan Fu's three-point criterion for a good
translation, i.e. faithfulness, expressiveness and elegance, sets up his own criteria on
translation in his article On the Principles ofTranslation in 1979, namely faithfulness,
expressiveness and closeness. He applies these principles to the translation of poetry,
"The translation should also be poetry and true to the original. In other words, the
translation must be faithful to the original content, as expressive as the original in
language and close to the original in style. In a nutshell, the translation of a poem is
wholly determined by the specific original." (Liu Zhongde 1991: 158)
Another conclusion made about translating poetry in the book Contemporary
Translation Studies in USA is that "literary translation and poetry translation are arts
and some kind of recreation. A translator should be an artist and a translator of poetry
should be a poet himself." (Guo Jianzhong 2000: 223) Burton Raffel (1988) points out
that in the case of poetry translating, "the translator must be a poet: there should be no
argument about that." (Raffel 1988: 182) A case in point is Ezra Pound who was a
distinguished translator of poetry in the Westerners' eyes. People remember him as the
one who "brought pearls to them out of the past and pearls from distant shores".
(Raffel 1988: 182) However, we should never forget that he was, at the same time, a
poet who wrote many fine poems. In China, Jiang Feng, as an experienced translator
A Choice of Literary Forms in Translating Shakespeare's Poetic Dramas
13
of poetry, also believes that on the condition that the knowledge of the SL and TL are
exactly equal, a poet will do better in translating poems than a non-poet. ( Xu Jun
2001: 114)
As soon as we decide on the literary form to be adopted in translating poetry,
another problem emerges: as poems vary in verse forms, exactly which verse form
should be taken to translate the original? What ifthere is not an equivalent verse form,
as in the case of Shakespearean blank verse since there is not a verse form of "blank
verse" in Chinese prosody? Susan Bassnett (1980) points out in her Translation
Studies, "Any translator must first decide what constitutes the total structure and then
decide on what to do when translating a type of poetry which relies on a series of
rules that are non-existent in the TL." (Bassnett 1980: 96) The Chinese translators
adopted two approaches. One group has rendered blank verse in prose and the other
group in free verse. Liang Shiqiu and Zhu Shenghao are the most conspicuous figures
of the former group. Liang said after he finished translating the Complete Works of
Shakespeare, "I mainly adopted prose to render blank verse, hoping that the meaning
of the original could be conveyed as exactly as possibly."(Qiu Ke'an 2002: 78)
However, he also admitted, "It is beyond my ability to reproduce the beauty of the
original rhythm in a satisfactory way. I sincerely hope that the readers can show their
understanding on that point." (Qiu Ke'an 2002: 78) Zhu Shenghao also attached so
much importance to the conveyance of the original sense as to have neglected the
original literary form.
In the present author's opinion, the translating of Shakespeare's works has its
uniqueness. Shakespeare's works are dramas in poetry. According to Susan Bassnett
(1998), when translating dramatic texts, the translator should always keep
performance in mind. However, the Chinese translators did not seem to have such a
precise notion while translating Shakespeare's dramas since the products were
primarily targeted at a reading public. If we keep performance in mind, the literalness
and linguistic fidelity should have been the principal criteria. Linguistic fidelity not
only refers to the faithfulness in content, but the faithfulness in form.
There is another group of translators who endeavored to keep the original form
A Choice of Literary Forms in Translating Shakespeare's Poetic Dramas
14
of the poetic dramas, of which we may find Sun Dayu, Bian Zhilin and Fang Ping in
the spotlight. Sun Dayu (1934) said, "Although there is not a literary form which is
equivalent to blank verse in the Chinese language, we can create one, if necessary, to
meet our demand." (Sun limen 1996: 234) This idea is, by and large, in agreement
with Bassnett's thinking, " ... by choosing to retain, rather than replace, the form of
the SL text, the translators encouraged a new form to enter the TL system." (Bassnett
1980: 105) In 1925, Sun Dayu set up a standard for the rhythmic pattern of the new
poems in China, which he employed later to translate Shakespeare's works. The
formation of this rhythmic pattern relies basically on the application of "sound
groups". According to Sun Dayu, a "sound group" is usually composed of two or
three syllables, i.e. two or three Chinese characters. Variation is also allowed. All the
possible constitutions are illustrated with big and small circles below:
00
000
or-...-
oA
000
000
00
000
(Sun 1996: 242-243)
The big circle represents a notional word and the small circle -
a functional
word. Each sound group occupies the same or similar time length in articulation. If a
sound group consists of merely one Chinese character, it must be lengthened when it
is pronounced (as in
word (as in oA:
0'-""':
"njln1'-""''' "Il)t,-.....") or a caesura must be inserted in after that
"1lJ. A"). Practice has proved that it is feasible to substitute the sound
groups Sun Dayu created for the feet in blank verse when translating Shakespearean
blank verse into Chinese. There are five feet in each line of the original.
Correspondingly, there are five sound groups in each line of the translated versions.
Exceptions can also be dealt with properly:
In case the translation has an extra sound group or is short of one sound group, the translator
can put the extra one to the next line or lend a sound group from it. As the Shakespearean blank
verse is in run-on lines, such an adjustment will not cause much deviation from the original.
Another choice is to make no adjustment as all, for the Shakespearean blank verse itself is flexible
and usually has an extra foot or has only three or four feet in one line. The translator should not
add or chop out anything at will only to observe the rule religiously. (Sun Jinren 1996: 243)