My View and Reflection on Literary Translation

My view and Reflection on literary translation 摘要：文学翻译种类繁多，评判标准各不相同，翻译方法和步骤也不甚相同。本文对文学翻译进行了简略地总结和反思。主要针对于文学翻译的标准提出了自己的观点，进而由一个文学翻译学习者的角度，对文学翻译的过程进行了总结，最后对文学翻译的提升空间和方法进行了论述。该文章是一篇以总结、学习为主的反思性文章。

关键词：文学翻译、翻译标准、文学翻译的反思

英汉文学翻译是主要以诗歌、小说、戏剧、散文等文学形式为主体的翻译活动。文学翻译的特点在于译者要忠实地将原文的风格，思想生动地再现出来，译者还要注意俩个文化间的异同。

一、 文学翻译的标准

因为文学作品的多样性和对文学作品本身的评判各不相同，文学翻译的标准也不尽相同。著名翻译家傅雷认为，翻译佳作要做到“形神兼似”。许渊冲对文学翻译尤其是诗歌翻译的评判标准是：“音美、意美、形美”的三美原则；“形似、意似、神似”的三似原则；“等化、浅化、深化”的三化原则”。尤其对文学翻译中有代表性的诗歌的可译性也是有很大争议。整体而言，笔者认为余光中的评判最为生动，他说：“真有灵感的译文像投胎重生一样”。在更换了语言的外衣之后，原作的风骨和核心不能有所更改。如果原作是优美细腻的，那相对应的译作也要呈现出优美的画面场景。但是如果原作描写的本身即为丑恶不堪，那么再用优美的词汇和意境来译，不仅是不忠实于原作，也是对译文读者的不负责任。因为，没有丑恶何来优美，如果将所有文学作品都经过美学的操作进行加工，那么文学本身就失去了意义，文学翻译也不复存在。所以，笔者认为，文学翻译的主流是“三美”原则，因为大部分经典的文学作品是以文学的美而著称，进而流传全世界，但是文学作品的深刻性体现在，文学作品反映了社会、人性，有美有丑，对于“丑”的部分同样要给予

重视，并且不能对其进行美化，要忠实地译出，只有译文读者自己在文字中，通过丑恶体味到美，文学翻译才有价值！

二、 文学翻译的步骤及方法

在了解到文学翻译的标准之后，怎样翻译就成为了重要的议题。其实文学翻译并没有标准步骤可言，可能很多翻译大家在翻译时，灵感涌动，奋笔疾书，一气呵成。笔者在此仅仅以一个文学翻译的学习者，对文学翻译的过程进行总结和反思。

（1） 理解。理解分为表层含义理解和深层含义理解。在理解了原文的基

础上，还要对作品是写作背景、出去以及作者的性格和生平做好全

面了解，以更好地理解原文，挖掘深层含义，是译文更贴近原文。

同时，还要注意文学作品的表现形式，例如散文还是喜剧等，以及

例如在诗歌“Rend Not The Golden Cloth”翻译时，首先要通读原

文，理解原文想要表达的主旨。在通读原文之后会发现，这首诗是

描述一对青年男女争吵甚至分手的历程。在课堂上，学生们了解了

该诗的做这和背景：该诗的作者是一位老年女士，回忆年轻时与男

友吵架的情景，以此来告诫青年男女不要争吵。了解背景对本诗的

最后俩段非常重要，最后俩段结束了叙述和回忆，开始进入主题段，以告诫的口吻和过来人的心态去叙述，这层理解对于后俩段主

题段的翻译至关重要。

（2） 文学翻译的第二个步骤就是用恰当的方式进行表达。一、根据“意

美”的要求，译文要选用与原文相当的语言，使用地道的表达，尤

其在汉译英的时候，不能逐词地翻译，而是要把译文纳入英语的语

言框架之内，选用英语中常用的句型和短语来进行翻译。例如，在

《一件小事》的翻译中，“老实说，便是教我一天比一天的看不起

人。”参考译文中：“Frankly speaking, they taught me to take a poorer view of people everyday.”译文并未将“看不起”逐字翻译出

来而是用“poorer view”这样更加地道的表达来对其进行加工，更

加符合英语的习惯。这在文学翻译的实践以及学习中都是值得非常

注意的。

文学翻译的最后一个步骤就是要进行自我修正。自我修正看似是收尾工作，但是自我修正非常重要，因为文学翻译的性就决定了好的译文一定要反复斟酌酝酿而成的。而且这个步骤是自我提升自我思考最为重要的步骤。自我修正之后还要对译文进行互评。进而通过

三、 我对文学翻译的理解和收获

首先，作为中西文化的传播者，一个合格的译者，尤其是从事文学翻译的译者要对中西文化有深入的了解。因为文学是深入文化又是文化的产物，只有译者在了解俩个文化的基础之上才能对原作有深入的理解，进而用地道的目的语来准确地将其表达出来。而文化不仅局限于文学作品，还在于民族风情和生活阅历等。

其次，要大量阅读汉语经典。只有提升了自身的素养，才能在翻译的过程中闪现出自身的才气，进而进一步提高译文质量。一部有深刻寓意的经典，只有在深刻的译者的手中才会在目的语中展示自己灵魂中最吸引人的闪光点。

最后，多阅读学习既有的译作，虽然各个译作褒贬不一。但是，无论是对形式的遵从，还是对意义的忠实，还是跨过了俩个语系的可译和不可译的诗歌的美，每个译作都在某个方面都是会有可圈可点之处，作为学习者要从不同的方面对不同的译文进行分析和学习，学习不同译者所遵从的标准，取长补短，完善自己。只有有才气的译者，遵从自己的职责所在，就能译出好的作品。

 

第二篇：文学翻译1

湖南科技大学外国语学院

课程学期论文

课程名称：英语修辞学论文题目:

姓 名：

班 级：

学 号：

学年学期： A Stylistic Analysis of Alfred Tennyson’s Poem “Break, Break, Break” 王楠 09级教育2班 0912010705 2012-2013-1

Introduction

Alfred Tennyson is an important poet of Victorian Age. He was born in a priest family. At the age of 18, he and his brother published “Poems by Two Brothers”. After he went into Cambridge, he continued to write poetries as well as got to know a very important friend Arthur Henry Hallam. Because of the death of his father and his close friend Arthur Henry Hallam, Tennyson didn’t writing any more in the later ten years. Later in 1842, he created new poetries again. And in the year of 1850, Alfred was given Poet Laureate. Arthur Hallam's was the most important friend for him. Hallam, is also a very brilliant Victorian young man. He and Tennyson knew each other only four years, but their intense friendship had major influence on the poet. On a visit to Somersby, Hallam met and later became engaged to Emily Tennyson, and the two friends looked forward to a life-long companionship. Hallam's death from illness in 1833 (he was only

22) shocked Tennyson profoundly, and his grief lead to most of his best poetry, including In Memoriam , "The Passing of Arthur", "Ulysses," and "Tithonus".

Tennyson showed his talent in poetic and music when he was a young boy. Also, he is good at using various of meters in his poetries. And the “Break, Break, Break” is a poetry which was written to memorize this sincere friend. Besides, his poetry is rich of musicality and expression.

Analysis

Though Tennyson’s “Break, Break, Break” is not so long, and the title is just like the sound of the waves heating the shores. It is not only the sound of waves, but also the sound of his heart broken. His words are full of emotion and from the bottom of his heart. He uses many figures of speech to let this poetry more vivid. The contrast is that the permanent of life and the death of his close friend. Also, there are man images vowels in it. All this make people who read this poetry feel sad.

Ⅰ. At the Phonological Level

Meter

In this poem, Tennyson adopted anapestic trimester with iambic variations, i.e., three stresses in every line of each stanza:

O ’well for the ’fisherman’s ’boy,

That he ’shouts with his ’sister at ’play!

O ’well for the ’sailor ’lad,

That he ’sings in his ’boat on the ’bay!

While, iambic is different in these four lines. The iambic in the first and third lines is the same, so does the second and fourth lines.

Rhyme

In this poetry, all the stanzas are abcb( /k/, /i:/, /d/, /i:/). The second stanza can be considered as abaa to some extent because of the end “i” s. At the same time, there are a lot of vowels. In the front of all the lines, there are /au/,/u:/,/u/(thoughts, foot, cold) and so on. While in the back of these lines, there are /i:/, /ei/, /i/ (Sea, hill, me) and so on. The sound of vowels sounds like crying and groaning. It constructs a atmosphere of sorrow and pensive grief.

Onomatopoiea

Onomatopoiea is the word you have seen can give you an impression of that kind of sound. In this poetry, the most important Onomatopoiea is “break”. When we saw the title, we have an illusion of hearing the sound of waves heating the shores. Even we can imagine we’ve heard the sound of heart broken of the writer. It makes the title very suitable for expressing Tennyson’s sorrow and grief. We can really hear it.

Ⅱ. At the Graphological Level

Capitalization

In Tennyson’s poem, there is not always capitalization. But in this poem, he uses this random and meaningful. The word “Sea”, it shows us the background of this poem, at the same time, the word can also gave us the feeling of standing at the shore of the sea and the imaginary space to be affected by his innermost sensibility. It is one of the key words in this poem.

Punctuation

Though the traditional use of punctuation in this poem, such as comma, semicolon, full stop and exclamation, these punctuation marks contribute to the structure of this poem and properly express his longing for Hallam, especially in the second stanza, he uses exclamation twice. In this part, the exclamation is to describe fully the happy of the lived people, fisherman’s two children and the sailor. This scene is a strong contradiction to the author’s emotional tone. This happy scene made him recall the memories of his best friend’s death. The contrast is the permanent of life and the moment of death. Also, the poetry uses semicolon in the third stanza to perform the integrity of this woeful scene next to the happy

scene. The sound of the waves now is like the sound of his friend. And the ships go to another haven just like his friend goes to another world.

Ⅲ. At the Semantic Level

Repetition

When a specific word, phrase, or structure is repeated several times, usually in close proximity, to emphasize a particular idea. “Break, Break, Break” is a typical repetition in this poetry. Repetition can emphasis the words in readers’ mind. This is the line drawing of waves. As soon as the poetry saw this scene, he memorized Hallam. As the word “break” repeat, the sound of waves beating the shores again, and his heart was broken again. In the first stanza, the author repeats “break” again. In the first stanza, the author feels sad and heartbroken, while, in the last stanza, the author accepts the fact of his friend’s death reluctantly, or to some extent, may feels relieved. Furthermore, in the second line of the first and the last stanza, there is the repetition of “O Sea!”. This can totally express the pain in Tennyson’s heart. In the second stanza, “O, well for” is the meaning that “it is well that”. The more repetition of description of praising the vitality picturesque scenes are, the more grief the author is.

Oxymoron

Oxymoron is conjoining contradictory term. In the third stanza, “the touch of a vanished hand”, this sentence shows that the author wants to touch the hand of his friend, but Hallam has passed away and vanished. And “the sound of a voice that is still”, there is no voice of other things but the sound of wind and waves and still. This two places in oxymoron describe the two contradictions of ideals and reality, and the live and death. The happy in the ideal world forms strong contradiction with grief and sorrow in the real world. Meanwhile, the lived people live feel so happy, while what left for the author is the painful of his good friend’s death.

Apostrophe

Apostrophe is a figure of speech in which an absent or a dead person, an abstract quality, or something nonhuman is addressed directly. In this poetry, Tennyson uses apostrophe to express his thought and emotion provocatively, especially “O Sea” and “O, well for”. The sea, and the boy and his sister, and the sailor are all the images he wrote in this poetry. Describing those beautiful and life’s vitality is against the death sad and dreary.

Alliteration

Alliteration is the repetition of the initial consonant sounds in poetry. In the last line of the second stanza, there are “boat” and “bay” in “That he sings in his boat on the bay! ”. It reads like singing a song, and the sound of “b” makes the song sorrowful.

Conclusion

Lord Tennyson is one of the great representative figures of the Victorian Age. His writing involves many poetic styles and includes some of the finest idyllic poetry in the language. Tennyson had produced several blank-verse plays and an epic in his early age. In this poetry, we can see clearly that the things were happened by the sea. It is also an idyll. He has a great influence in the Victorian Age as well as in English literature. His style is full of his intellectual, artistic thought and profound cultural deposits.

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