Cultural loss in the English translation

of Chinese poetry

Liu Yang
Hunan First Normal University, China

Introduction

Literary activities, in essence, are aesthetic creation, so the artistic value of literary
works is its aesthetic value which is mainly entailed in its beauty of sound, form,
and thought, of course, classical Chinese poetry being no exception. Poetic lan-
guages of various cultures, though slightly different from everyday languages, still
have something in common. And tremendous historical facts have already proved
that poems cannot only be translated, but also translated well.
But so far people still have not yet reached an agreement on what the perfect
translation would be. Some scholars and translators deem that“Poems call for the
beauty in form, sound and meaning. A translator of them should not be satisfied
with the mere conveying of the ideas in the original, but must strive for the re-
production of the original beauty” (Liu Zhongde 2003: 129), i.e. a well translated
poem should combine content with form. Professor Xu Yuanchong put forward
three principles for poetry translation: beautiful sounds, attractive form, profound
image.
However, no one can deny that cultural connotation can hardly be rendered
successfully and satisfactorily owing to dramatic differences between languages.
Sometimes the gaps are so wide that it is impossible for translators to do word-for-
word translation for the purpose of translating “cultural genes”. In that situation,
their task is to keep the losses to a minimum. Therefore, various compensation
methods are often employed to overcome the difficulties.
Addition, extension, break-up, incorporation, substitution, transposition, etc. may
all fall under the category of compensation. Whenever a translator can’t translate
some words and expressions literally, he may make use of this or that compensation
method so as to better convey the spirit of the original and reproduce the style of it
(Liu Zhongde 2003: 130–1).

Babel 56: 2 (2010), 168–185. © Fédération des Traducteurs (fit) Revue Babel
doi 10.1075/babel.56.2.05liu issn 0521–9744 e-issn 1569–9668
 Cultural loss in the English translation of Chinese poetry 169

1. Basic concepts of cultural translation

Cultural translation is a relatively new concept which becomes a trend in the early
1990s. In this part, we’ll review some basic concepts of cultural translation in or-
der to pave the way for the further discussion of the translation of Chinese poetry.

1.1 Language and culture

Language and culture are two distinct but closely related subjects. In the long
course of human civilization, many scholars explained the concept of culture and
its relationship with language. In the following sections, we’ll summarize their
views on language and culture.

1.1.1. The definitions of “culture”

Since the nature of translation is cultural exchange, we cannot get an insight into
translation without understanding the concept of culture, an ambiguous and in-
triguing concept.The classic definition of culture was provided by Edward Bur-
nett Tylor, the father of cultural anthropology. In his primitive culture:“Culture…
is that complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, morals, laws, customs,
and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of a society”
(Bassnett 2001: 34).Besides, “culture may be defined as the total accumulation of
beliefs, customs, values, behaviors, institutions and communication patterns that
are shared, learned and passed down through the generations in an identifiable
group of people” (Davis 2001: 45).
To sum up, we can conclude that culture consists of all the shared products of
human society, which includes not only such material things as cities, organiza-
tions and schools, but also non-material things such as ideas, customs, family pat-
terns, languages.

1.1.2. Relationship between language and culture

There exist many opinions on the relationship between language and culture. In
most cases, language is a part of culture and plays a very important role in it. Some
social scientists consider it the key stone of culture. Without language, they believe
that culture would not be possible. On the other hand, language is influential and
shared by culture. In the broadest sense, language is the symbolic representation
of a people, and it comprises their historical and cultural backgrounds as well as
their approaches to life and their ways of living and thinking.
In his book Language and Culture, Nida points out that language also con-
stitutes the most distinctive feature of a culture, which may be described in a
170 Liu Yang

­
simplistic manner as the totality of the beliefs and practices of a society. And al-
though a language may be regarded as a relatively small part of a culture, it is indis-
pensable for both the functioning and the perpetuation of the culture. Accordingly,
competent translators are always aware that ultimately words only have meaning
in terms of the corresponding culture. But while a language can usually be ac-
quired within a period of ten years, it takes a lifetime to understand to become an
integral part of a culture (Nida 2001: 139).

1.2 Cultural “turn” in translation

As one of the main means for cross-cultural communication, translation is sure
to be faced with the problems of dealing with different cultures. As for the role
that culture plays in translation, opinions also diversify. In the western translation,
there comes a “culture school” with its leading figures as Bassnett and Lefevere. In
their book Translation, History and Culture, Bassnett and Lefevere explicitly put
forward their advocacy of “cultural turn in translation”. The “culture school”, for
the purpose of a philosophical reflection on translation, emphasizes the role and
significance of culture in translation. They hold that the basic unit of translation is
not the word, not the sentence, nor the text, but culture.
We hold that it is the nature and task of translation that makes translation
closely related to culture. Translation itself is a cultural activity which aims mainly
at mutual understanding of different cultures. During the process of translation,
translators rewrite and represent the originals to make them acceptable to the tar-
get language readers.
As the communication between China and the rest of the world increases,
translation is also required to turn a new page. The traditional standards of trans-
lation are not sufficient to cater to the readers’ strong desire to share the treasures
of other cultures. Especially for poetry translation, it demands not only faithful-
ness and fluency but also an intact and exact representation of the original culture.
Loss or distort of the original culture will spoil an otherwise good translation and
obscure cultural communication by misleading the target language readers.

2. Difficulty of Chinese poetry translation

Due to the differences between the Chinese culture and the English culture, the
translator faces many difficulties in the translation of Chinese poetry.
 Cultural loss in the English translation of Chinese poetry 171

2.1. Differences between the Chinese and the English culture

As we all know, China has been profoundly influenced by such religious and phil-
osophical systems as Buddhism and Taoism, while the western European nations
have historically followed the Greek and the Christian traditions. The Chinese
culture is right-oriented, while that of the west duty-oriented. The Chinese phil-
osophical concept emphasizes “Man’s Unity with Nature”, while that of the west
“Man’s Conquest of Nature”. The Chinese emphasize intuition and images while the
Englishmen reason and logic. The Chinese think pattern is inductive whereas the
English think pattern is deductive.
The vast difference between the Chinese culture and the western culture also
finds its way into the poetry of these two languages and is the most striking in po-
etry, which challenges generations of translators who desire to introduce Chinese
culture to readers abroad. For example, in contrast to the western tradition, classi-
cal Chinese poetry may appear rather subdued, in both feelings and flavor. What
is considered “romantic” in Chinese terms may equally be “classical”, or “realistic”
by western standards; what is merely “straightforward in Chinese” would be “sug-
gestive” to western readers.

2.2. Difficulties of Chinese poetry translation

No one has denied that the translation of poetry is a complex process that entails
a lot of difficulties and translatability or untranslatability of poetry have long been
a dispute in the history of poetry translation. Today the translatability of poetry is
no longer a hot topic of dispute, since translations of poems do after all exist and
do continue to be made.
However, the evidence that there indeed is a possibility of poetry translation
does not mean that there are no difficulties in its process. The first difficulty is
rhyme scheme. It is well known that Chinese poetry has a strict rhyme scheme
and limited characters, usually five or seven in each line while English has its own
metrical patterns, ordered in different ways, iambic or trochee for example. The
second difficulty that is hard to convey is rhetoric. Puns, metaphors,palindrome
are generally unique in one particular culture, so it is hard to find replacement in
another.
The commonest difficulty is that there are also difficulties in reproducing the
content of poems. For instance, owing to different cultural backgrounds of the po-
ems, cultural connotations vary consequentially from culture to culture. As a re-
sult, the cultural meanings of a poem shall more or less be lost. For instance, some
words, both in Chinese and English, have their specific cultural connotations. The
English “white”, for example, is not the mere equivalence to “白 (bai)”in Chinese
172 Liu Yang

culture, which indicates death, blankness, futility, reaction, purity, innocence, etc.,
and is considered a both commendatory and derogatory word. But in English, the
color of white always reminds people of something good, happy, harmonious mar-
riage, merits, transparency and purity, etc. The collocations of these words make
for metonymies and metaphors, yielding multiple contextual meanings and clus-
ters special to each language, and are thus quite untranslatable into another lan-
guage whether it is English into Chinese or Chinese into English.

3. Cultural losses in the English translation of Classical Chinese poetry

As is mentioned previously, due to the uniqueness of every individual culture, cul-

tural un-equivalence and cultural default are very likely to exist in translation or
other forms of communication. Such un-equivalence and default are just like loss-
es that occur on the road from one language to another.

3.1. Loss of time

Loss of time arises when the translator or reader cannot fully understand the time
concepts in the original. We think that time concepts in classical Chinese poems
is not merely about the time itself, the more important thing is the political, eco-
nomic, human and social panorama of “that time”. Especially in China, a country
boasting a pretty long history, each and every period has its own style and feature
of the time. It is also safe to say that each period represents a more or less different
cultural style. The time relevant knowledge, which is always a very important, and
sometimes even the first, step to the understanding of a classical Chinese poem,
is a “natural association” for the original readers. While for the target readers, it is
a different ease, for they are and should be supposed to have very limited or little
knowledge about the time sequence and time-relevant information in the poems.
In such a context, no matter how rich the implied meaning of time-relevant con-
cept is, how much association it may bring to the original readers, if not translat-
ed effectively, it will become no more than a blank concept in the target language.
Take the opening lines of Bai Juyi’s (白居易) “长恨歌 (chang hen ge)” as an example:

汉皇重色思倾国，衔宇多年求不得
(han huang zhong se si qing guo,xian yu duo nian qiu bu de)
The original readers are very clear about that the whole poem is about a story of
an emperor in the Tang Dynasty, but the poet used a rather ambiguous term “汉
皇 (han huang)”, which is even a little ambiguous in Chinese. It is, therefore, inevi-
 Cultural loss in the English translation of Chinese poetry 173

table that this ambiguity will remain in the translation and constitute a loss in the
cultural connotation.
Version 1
The Everlasting Wrong
His Imperial Majesty, a slave to beauty,
longed for a “subverter of empires”
For years he had sought in vain
to secure such a treasure of this palace
(Tr. Giles)
Version 2
A Song of Unending Love
China’s Emperor, craving beauty that might
shake an empire,
Was on the throne for many years, searching.
never finding
(Tr. Witter Bynner)

In Version l, the translator simply uses the word“His majesty”, which, in fact,
may refer to the emperors (or head of state) both in China and abroad, or both an-
cient and modern. In Version 2, the translator mentions neither Tang Dynasty nor
Han Dynasty by simply translating it as“China’s Emperor”. The readers still will be
puzzled since there have been so many emperors in China and they therefore can-
not get any idea about who the emperor was, which may lead to a dangerous gen-
eralization that all China’s Emperors had a same quality. In both versions, there-
fore, the translators ignored the time concept, “汉” (Han) and it get lost.
Another example is Yuan Zhen’s (元稹) poem,“行宫 (Xing Gong)”:
寥落古行宫，宫花寂寞红。
白头宫女在，闲坐说玄宗。
(liao luo gu xing gong,gong hua ji mo hong.
Bai tou gong nv zai,xian zuo shuo xuan zong.)

The poem, by depicting the sorrowful sight of the imperial resort and the in-
habitants within, carries a sharp criticism of the pleasure-seeking Xuanzong (玄宗),
with a touch of melancholy over the bygone golden age of the Tang Dynasty. Here
are some of its translations:
Version 1
At an Old Palace
Deserted now the Imperial bowers
Save by some few Poor lonely flowers…
One white-haired dame,
An Emperor’s flame,
Sits down and tells of bygone hours.
(Tr. Giles)
174 Liu Yang

Version 2
THE SUMMER PALACE
In the faded old imperial palace,
Peonies are red, but no one comes to see them…
The ladies-in-waiting have grown white-haired
Debating the pomps of Emperor Xuanzong
(Tr. Witter Bynner)
Version 3
The Imperial Resort
The ancient Palaces present a rueful sight;
’T is vainly that blooming flowers red and bright.
Those white-hair’d ladies, who’ve survived their mental Pain,
Now sit at ease recalling Xuanzong and his reign.
(Tr. Zhuo Zhenying卓振英)

Obviously, to understand this poem, at first the readers have to understand who
“玄宗 (Xuanzong)” is and when he lived. Only when these questions are answered
can a further understanding of the line “闲坐说玄宗” be possible. However, in any
translations of this poem, only such expressions as “Emperor” in Version 3, “Em-
peror Xuanzong” in Version 2, and “Xuanzong” in Version 3,if without sufficient
annotations, no foreigners can be informed that in China’s history there was a Tang
dynasty and an Emperor called “Xuanzong (玄宗)”. And without some knowledge
of “Tang Dynasty” and “Xuanzong (玄宗)”,the essence of the poem will get lost.

3.2. Loss of religious connotation

Religion is of a cultural type. It is also one of the most valuable social phenome-
na by which we can delve into the human history and culture. Different religions
mirror the differences of mentality, thinking, spirit and imagination among vari-
ous peoples. Actually, most Chinese people do not have a religious belief. Instead,
they believe in the “Super God”— “天 (tian)”, as is shown in some classical Chi-
nese poems:
我劝天公重抖擞，不拘一格降人才。(龚自珍《己亥杂诗》)
(wo quan tian gong chong dou sou, bu ju yi ge jiang ren cai. Gong Zi zhen, ji hai za shi.).
Version 1
Heaven! I pray you to make fresh vigorous efforts
And let our talented people thrive in various walks of life.
Version 2
I urge the Lord of Heaven to brace up again
And send down talent of all kinds to Central Plain.
 Cultural loss in the English translation of Chinese poetry 175

In China, the belief of “天 (tian)” is deep-rooted that it becomes an accumulation

of culture. The Chinese “天 (tian)” is different from “God” in English and has a
much broader sense than “Heaven” in both of the above-mentioned translations.
Its meaning, therefore, is narrowed in the translations, some part of which is lost.
Some religions are unique to China, for example, Taoism. In Bai Juyi’s (白居易)
“长恨歌 (chang hen ge)”, there are many words about that religion.
临邛道士鸿都客，能以精诚致魂魄。
为感君王展转思，遂教方士殷勤觅。
(lin qiong dao shi hong du ke, neng yi jing cheng zhi hun po.
wei gan jun wang zhan zhuan si, sui jiao fang shi yin qin mi.)
Version 1
A Taoist Priest of Lin-ch’ung, of the Hung-tu school,
Was able, by his perfect art, to summon the spirits of the dead.
Anxious to relieve the fretting mind of his sovereign,
This magician receives orders to urge a diligent quest.
(Tr. Giles)
Version 2
By chance there came a wandering Priest.
Was steeped in magic lore,
And skilled to call the spirit home
That dwelt on Pluto’s shore.
In Pity for the Prince’s grief,
That never let him rest,
He, Fang-Shih, sent to seek her,
And bade him do his best. (Tr. Fletcher)

Such expressions as “道士 (dao shi)”, “鸿都客 (hong du ke)”, “方士 (fang shi)” in the
original are peculiar terms of Taoism. Both the two versions lose some key ele-
ments about Taoism. In the Version 1, the translator failed to translate the essence
of “鸿都客 (hong du ke)”, although he successfully convey a touch of Taoism by ren-
dering “道士 (dao shi)” as “A Taoist priest” and “方士 (fang shi)” as “magician”. In
Version 2, the lost of cultural elements is nearly unbearable. Throughout the poem,
there is no indication of the Chinese culture with only one word “Fang-Shih” tran-
scribed in Hanyu Pinyin while all other words on Taoism such as “道士 (dao shi)”,
“鸿都客 (hong du ke)”, “方士 (fang shi)” were translated as English concepts.

3.3. Loss in wordplay

It is well-known that every language enjoys some kind of special features that are
inherent in that language, in which the wordplay may be the most obvious one, es-
pecially in the poetry. In the classical Chinese poetry, there exists much wordplay
176 Liu Yang

which is only possible in Chinese and cannot be translated.

Below is a famous line consisting of seven pairs of reiterative locutions written
by poetess Li Qingzhao（李清照）in the Song Dynasty,
寻寻觅觅，冷冷清清，凄凄惨惨戚戚。
(xun xun mi mi,leng leng qing qing, qi qi can can qi qi.)
Version 1 Version 2
Search. Search. Seek. Seek. I look for what I miss,
Cold. Cold. Clear. Clear. I know not what it is,
Sorrow. Sorrow. Pain. Pain. I feel so cold, so drear,
(Tr. Kenneth Rexroth) So lonely without cheer.
(Tr. Xu Yuanchong)

Repeated use of the same characters is a unique factor in the Chinese language.
Owing to that one character only has one syllable, such repetition can often cre-
ate expressive or musical effect. Repeating of characters, may produce continu-
ous aesthetic feeling and express exceedingly sentimental emotion. So it is widely
used in poetry writing. But it is impossible to find exact equivalences in English.
The first version ‘faithfully’ translate it word by word like taking pictures (although
the last pair“戚戚”still escapes). But it is very doubtful that it would inspire the
same grief and sympathy from the bottom of English readers’ hearts by repeating
verbs (search, seek) and adjectives (cold, clear, etc.). Xu Yuanchong translates it into
rhymed four lines to compensate for the original figurative language. The poetess’s
sadness has been expressed, but the fine elements of the poem that makes it stand
out, that is, repeated use of the same characters, is lost.
Another example is a couplet engraved in the Great Wall of Shanhaiguan Pass
(山海关) with special and interesting repeated characters.
海水朝朝朝朝朝朝朝落
浮云长长长长长长长消
(hai shui zhao chao zhao zhao chao zhao zhao luo
fu yun chang zhang chang chang zhang chang chang xiao)
Version 1
Sea waters tide, day to day tide, everyday tide and
everyday ebb.
Floating clouds appear, often appear, often appear
and often go.
(Tr. Eugene Nida)

Particularity of the original poem (or couplet) is that the author skillfully
makes use of polyphones of “朝” (One of the two pronunciations is “cháo”, phono-
gram of “潮” whose meaning is “tide”. It can also be pronounced as “zhāo”, means
“day” or “morning”) and “长” (pronounced as “zhǎng”, growing up and another pro-
 Cultural loss in the English translation of Chinese poetry 177

nunciation is “cháng” means “always” or “often”) to create a special effect. Every­

one may have his own interpretation, which determines how it could be translat-
ed. The translation basically conveys its meaning and style by repeating words like
“day”, “tide”, “often” and “appear”, but the target reader can hardly notice the fine
element of the poetry, i.e., the beauty and pun created by repeated use of the same
characters.

3.4. Loss of allusion

Allusion is an indirect reference, often appearing in the form of quotations from
classical works. Chinese classical poetry is noticed for its abundance in allusions
because it is a common practice for Chinese poets to describe the present things
by setting his pen on the historic figures or events, i.e., they take advantage of the
allusions to shape their poems. So it is rather difficult for those readers who do not
know the whole story behind the allusion or are not familiar with traditional Chi-
nese to read and enjoy those poems abounding in allusions. In other words, the
readers experience loss of allusion in reading the poem.
Lü Shuxiang points out :“Not only those who are ignorant of meaning of the
allusions do not know where to start (to translate), even those who know the true
meaning also have much difficulty in arriving at an exact translation” (吕叔湘 Lǚ
Shuxiang 2002: 4 ). Take Du Mu’s (杜牧) poem “泊秦淮 (bo qin huai)” and its several
translations as an example:
烟笼寒水月笼沙，夜泊秦淮近酒家。
商女不知亡国恨，隔江犹唱后庭花。
(yan long han shui yue long sha, ye bo qin huai jin jiu jia.
shang nv bu zhi wang guo hen, ge jiang you chang hou ting hua.)
This poem criticizes the pleasure-seeking society and expresses the poet’s deep
concern over the fate of the Tang Empire. Its language is simple, its style vigorous,
and the thought profound.
Version l
A Mooring on the Ch’in-Huai River
Mist veils the cold stream, and moonlight the sand,
As I moor in the shadow of a river-tavern,
Where girls, with no thought of a perished kingdom
Gaily echo A Song of Courtyard Flowers.
(Tr. Witter Bynner)
178 Liu Yang

Version 2
Moored on Qinhuai River
Cold water and sand bars veiled in misty moonlight,
I moor near a tavern on Qinhuai Ri’er at night.
The songstress knows not the grief of the captive king,
By riverside she sings his song of Parting Spring.
(Tr. Xu Yuanzong)
Version 3
Mooring on Qinhuai
Mist o’er the cold waters and moonlight o’er the sand.
I moor on River Qinhuai near wineshops at night.
Not being ashamed of the conquered motherland,
A songbird sing songs of palace pleasure in sight.
(Tr. Guo Hui 郭晖)

It is well-known that a thorough understanding of the meaning of an allusion in a

poem demands some knowledge on the background of the allusion and how the
allusion is related to the poetical theme. In the above-mentioned translations, the
Chinese allusion “后庭花 (hou ting hua.)” is related to the poetical theme, “a lost re-
gime”. Without any annotations, this theme is not easily to be realized by the target
readers and will get lost.
A second example is the translation of “古别离 (gu bie li)”, a poem by Meng Jiao
(孟郊), a poet in the Tang dynasty.
欲去牵郎衣，郎今到何处?
不恨归来迟，莫向临邛去!
(yu qu qian lang yi, lang jin dao he chu?
bu hen gui lai chi, mo xiang lin qiong qu!)

In the last line “莫向临邛去 (mo xiang lin qin qu.)”, by alluding to the romantic story
of Sima Xiangru (司马相如), who meets his wife Zhuo Wenjun (卓文君) in Linqiong
(临邛) which is now in the Sichuan province, the heroine of this poem implicitly
expresses her wish that her husband would not change loyalties to her or desert
their family.
You wish to go, and yet your robe I hold.
Where are you going- tell me, dear today?
Your later returning doesn’t anger me,
But that other steal your heart away.
(Tr. Fletcher)
I hold your robe lest you should go
Where are you going, dear, today?
Your later return brings me less woe,
Than your heart being stolen away.
(Tr. Xu Yuanchong)
 Cultural loss in the English translation of Chinese poetry 179

Mr. Lü Shuxiang praises Fletcher’s translation as one “involving necessary and

exact alternations and of high proficiency in translating”. Indeed, both Fletcher’s
and Xu’s translation not only re-present the basic information of the original but its
stanza, meters and rhymes. However, both translators evade the problem of translat-
ing the allusion“莫向临邛去 (mo xiang lin qiong qu.)” by just interpreting its implied
meaning directly, thus causing the loss of the original culture in the translation.

4. Strategies in dealing with cultural loss

Although no translators can get rid of the cultural loss when translating poems
from Chinese into English, they do their utmost in minimizing the impact of
the loss on the target language readers, i.e, adopting some ingenious strategies to
bridge the cultural gaps. Generally, the translator uses most frequently the strategy
of free translation, transfer of allusion and annotation in their translations.

4.1. Free translation

Free translation means that the translator interprets the meaning of the cultural
elements in the poem and tries to translate these elements based on his interpreta-
tion, which endows the translator with great freedom in translation while ensur-
ing the smoothness of the translation. Many translators believe that poems should
sound like poems in the translation and they, therefore, resort to the use of free
translation in the case of damaging the overall beauty of the poem. Of the trans-
lators who put the beauty at the top priority, Xu Yuanchong may be the best ex-
ample and his translation of Chun Yuan(春怨）written by Jin Changxu (金昌绪) is
a good example.
春怨 (chun yuan
金昌绪    jin chang xu
打起黄莺儿， da qi huang ying er,
莫教枝上啼。 mo jiao zhi shang ti.
啼时惊妾梦， Ti shi jing qie meng,
不得到辽西。 bu de dao liao xi.)
Version 1 Version 2
A COMPLAINT IN SPRING SPRING LAMENT
Jin Changxu       Jin Changxu
Drive orioles off the tree Shoo that oriole away!
For their songs awake me Don’t let him sing!
From dreaming of my dear If from these dreams I awake
Far off on the frontier! I’ll never reach Liaoning.
(Tr. Xu Yuanchong) (Tr. Zhang Tingchen张廷琛, Bruce M. Wilson et al.)
180 Liu Yang

In this poem, Xu translated “辽西 (liao xi)” as “the frontier” based on his un-
derstanding of the historical events that the place “辽西 (liao xi)” was where the
battles often arose. Compared with Version 2, to translate “辽西 (liao xi)” as “the
frontier” is better than “Liaoning” for Version 1 sounds more like a poem with its
rhyme structure and especially, its end rhyme.
Another example is from Xu Yuanchong’s translation of Ye Yu Ji Bei (夜雨寄北).
夜雨寄北 (ye yu ji bei
李商隐    Li Shang yin
君问归期未有期， jun wen gui qi wei you qi,
巴山秋雨涨秋池。 ba shan ye yu zhang qiu chi.
何当共剪西窗烛， he dang gong jian xi chuang zhu,
却话巴山夜雨时。 que hua ba shan ye yu shi.)
WRITTEN ON A RAINY NIGHT TO MY WIFE IN THE NORTH
Li Shangyin
You ask me when I can come back but I don’t know,
The pools in western hills with autumn rain o’erflow.
When by our window can we trim the wicks again
And talk about this endless, dreary night of rain?

In the translation, Xu did not mention the place “巴山 (ba shan)”, a mountain
in the Sichuan province where the poet has been posted. Based on his understand-
ing of the role that “巴山 (ba shan)” plays in this poem, Xu successfully rendered
the essence of the poem and created the same atmosphere as the original poem
did. Therefore, although a free translation at the cost of some cultural losses, the
overall effect is achieved and the losses are worthwhile.

4.2. Transfer of allusion

The Chinese culture is quite different from the Western culture. Associations of al-
lusions and specific images of these two cultures are so diverse that they cannot be
readily “borrowed” directly from other cultures. Therefore sometimes the transla-
tors use the strategy of transfer of allusion, i.e., changing the original allusions or
images, paraphrasing or adopting directly allusions or images in existing Western
literature so that his translation may be better understood and accepted by target
readers. For example, these two lines are excerpted from Vanished Spring《西厢记》( )
滋洛阳千种花 (zi luo yang qian zhong hua
润梁国万顷田 Run liang guo wan qing tian)
It makes a thousand flowers dance in glee,
And fertilizes ten thousand acres in Eastern land.
(Tr. Xu Yuanchong)
 Cultural loss in the English translation of Chinese poetry 181

Xu translated “滋润 (zi run)” (to make or become moist) into “to make…dance in
glee”, borrowing from the well-known British poet William Wordsworth’s “The
Daffodils”,
The waves beside them danced, but they
Out-did the sparking waves in glee.

4.3. Annotation
It is undeniable that there are deep cultural gaps between English and Chinese.
The cultural losses are unavoidable in many cases of translations. Translators tend
to use notes to try to fill these gaps, and annotation becomes a useful, common
method. For example:
竹枝词 (zhu zhi ci
刘禹锡 Liu Yu xi
杨柳青青江水平，闻郎江上唱歌声。 yang liu qing qing jiang shui ping,
东边日出西边雨，道是无晴还有晴。 wen lang jiang shang chang ge sheng.
dong bian ri chu xi bian yu,
dao shi wu qing hai you qing.)
The willows are green, green;
The river is serene;
There’s his song wafted to me.
In the east the sun is rising;
In the west rain is falling;
Can you see if it’s fair or foul? (Tr. Zhang Qichun 张其春)
Liu Zhongde stated, that “a footnote such as the following had better be added
so that the reader may understand the poem better. Footnote: “晴” (qing) here
is a pun. On the one hand it means “fairness of the weather”, and on the other it
implies “情” (qing), a homophone, which means “love”. The translator can con-
vey its main meaning and add a footnote as a compensation for its lost sense (Liu
Zhongde 2003: 108).
Another example comes from the translation of Li Shangyin’s (李商隐)
“无题”. (wu ti
相见时难别亦难， xiang jian shi nan bie yi nan,
东风无力百花残。 dong feng wu li bai hua can.
春蚕到死丝方尽， chun can dao si si fang jin,
蜡炬成灰泪始干。 la ju cheng hui lei shi gan.
晓镜但愁云鬓改， xiao jing dan chou yun bin gai,
夜吟应觉月光寒。 ye yin ying jue yue guang han.
蓬山此去无多路， peng shan ci qu wu duo lu,
青鸟殷勤为探看。 qing niao yin qin wei tan kan.)
182 Liu Yang

Version 1
POEM WITHOUT A TITLE
Li Shangyin
It’s difficult for us to meet and hard to part,
The east wind is too weak to revive flowers dead.
The silk worm till its death spins silk from love-sick heart;
The candle only when burned has no tears* to shed.
At dawn she’d be afraid to see mirrored hair gray;
At night she would feel cold while I croon by moonlight.
To the three fairy hills it is not a long way.
Would the blue-bird oft fly to see her on their height?
* The melted wax of a guttering candle is compared to tears.

(Tr. Xu Yuanchong)
Version 2
UNTITLED
Li Shangyin
Difficult it was for us to meet, and difficult to part.
Now the east wind has failed, and all the flowers wither.
The silkworm labors until death its fine thread severs;
The candle’s tears are dried when it itself consumes.
Before the mirror, you will fret to find those cloudlike tresses changing.
Making rhymes at night, you’ll find the moonlight has grown chill.
The fairy mountain Peng* is not so far from here.
Might the Blue Bird† become our go between?
* fairy mountain Peng: one of the fairy mountains believed to be in the Eastern Sea.
†
Blue Bird: Messenger that heralded the arrival of the Queen Mother of the West to the court of
the Han Emperor Wu: a go-between.

(Tr. Zhang Tingchen张廷琛, Bruce M. Wilson and etc.)

Both in Version 1 and in Version 2, the annotations are used to make compensa-
tions for the cultural losses. With these notes the target readers can readily un-
derstand the cultural elements “tears”, “fairy mountain Peng” and “Blue Bird” and
they therefore can enjoy the Chinese culture and experience the aesthetic pleasure
at the same time. Due to this specialty, the annotation is widely used when the
translator is constrained by somewhat contradictory two missions: conveying the
culture contained in the poem and recreating the beauty of the poem.

Conclusion

Translation, “which can be regarded as an art, a skill, or a science” (Wolfram Wilss,

2001: 217) involves language as well as culture and cultural factors become salient
 Cultural loss in the English translation of Chinese poetry 183

in the process of translating from one language to another, making cultural com-
munication through translation very difficult. “The more cultural (the more local,
the more remote in time and space) a text, the less equivalent effect is conceivable
unless the reader is imaginative, sensitive and steeped in the SL culture” (New-
mark, 2001: 49). Therefore, when translating poems, the translator must be sensi-
tive to the cultural connotation of the original poem and well equipped with the
necessary cultural background of the original poem, otherwise they cannot con-
vey the beauty and subtlety closely related to or, in a narrow sense, are part of the
cultural factors of the original poem to the TL readers.
Due to the uniqueness of cultures, their translation contains in many circum-
stances losses with the target language readers still finding themselves in the ob-
scure. However, good translators are capable of varying their translation strategies
with the contents of different cultural factors to achieve the highest possible de-
gree of cultural communication and minimize losses. By discussing the losses and
the compensation strategies, the author hopes that this thesis will generate fur-
ther discussion on the various strategies of dealing with cultural factors of poetry
translation.

Bibliography

Bassnett, Susan and André Lefevere 2001. Constructing Cultures: Essays on Literary Translation
[M]. Shanghai: Shanghai Foreign Language Education Press: 34 (Reprint version). Origin-
al 1998, xxii + 143 pp.
Davis, L. 2001. Doing Culture: Cross-cultural Communication in Action [M]. Beijing: Foreign
Language Education Press: 45 (Reprint version). 345 pp.
Newmark, P. 2001. A Textbook of Translation [M]. Shanghai: Shanghai Foreign Language Edu-
cation Press: 49 (Reprint version). 293 pp.
Nida，E. A. 2001. Language and Culture: Context in Translating [M]. Shanghai: Shanghai For-
eign Language Education Press: 139 (Reprint version). 288 pp.
Wilss, Wolfram. 2001. The Science of Translation: Problems and Methods [M]. Shanghai: Shang-
hai Foreign Language Education Press: 217 (Reprint version). 292 pp.
Liu Zhongde. 2003.Ten Questions on Literature Translation[M]. Beijing: China Translation and
Publishing Corporation: 108, 130–1, 129.
Lǚ Shuxiang. 2004. Collection: On the Translation of Chinese Poems into English Versions [M].
Shanghai: Foreign Language Education Press: 4.
Xu Yuanchong. 2000. English Translations of Three Hundred Poems by the Tang Poets [M]. Bei-
jing: Higher Education Press: 12–13,74.
Wang Jinxi and Wen Shu. 2002. English Translations of the Quatrains by the Jin,Yuan, Ming and
Qing Poets [M]. Beijing: Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press: 26,42–3.
Xu Shouqin and Xu Shouping. 2006. The Appreciation of the Romantic Poems by Ancient Chinese
Poets[M]. Hefei: Anhui Science ＆ Technology Publishing House: 33,48.
Yuan Xinglin. 2000. English Translations of One Thousand Poets’ Poems[M].Beijing: Zhonghua
Books Corporation: 53,87.
184 Liu Yang

Abstract

Translation is to reproduce the meaning and style of a source language text in a target language
text in consideration of the cultural differences. Because of dramatic differences between the
cultures, translators have to sacrifice something, such as time, religious connotation, and the
wording of the original poem to obtain its aesthetic value and its original beauty.
In this paper the author examines the poetry translation focusing on the basic concepts of
cultural translation and the difficulties of Chinese poetry translation, and special attentions are
paid on losses and the strategies in the translation. Beginning from the basic concepts of cultur-
al translation, the paper expounds the essence of the cultural translation in order to lay a sound
foundation for the following analysis of the poetry translation.
In Part 2, the paper points out the difficulties of Chinese poetry translation that arise from
the differences between Chinese and English cultures. Part 3 is a tentative analysis of the losses
in the English translation of Chinese poetry and categorizes the losses into four groups: the loss
of time, the loss of religious connotation, the loss in wording, the loss of allusion. To address the
losses, the author proposes several strategies such as free translation, transfer of allusion and an-
notation.

Résumé

La traduction consiste à reproduire le sens et le style d’un texte d’une langue source dans une
langue cible en tenant compte des différences culturelles. En raison des différences considé-
rables entre les cultures, les traducteurs doivent sacrifier quelque chose, par exemple un temps,
une connotation religieuse et la formulation du poème original pour reproduire sa valeur esthé-
tique et sa beauté originale.
Dans cet article, l’auteur examine la traduction de la poésie en se concentrant sur les concepts
fondamentaux de la traduction culturelle et sur les difficultés que pose la traduction de la poé-
sie chinoise. Il prête une attention particulière aux pertes et aux stratégies de la traduction. En
commençant par les concepts de base de la traduction culturelle, l’article explique l’essentiel de
la traduction culturelle afin d’établir une base solide qui permettra d’analyser ensuite la traduc-
tion de la poésie.
Dans la deuxième partie, l’article souligne les difficultés de la traduction de la poésie chinoise,
dues aux différences entre les cultures chinoise et anglaise. La troisième partie est une tentative
d’analyser les pertes dans la traduction en anglais de la poésie chinoise et répartit les pertes en
quatre catégories : la perte sur le plan du temps, de la connotation religieuse, de la formulation
et de l’allusion. Pour y remédier, l’auteur propose plusieurs stratégies comme la traduction libre,
le transfert d’allusion et l’annotation.

About the Author

LIU Yang, male, member of the Translators Association of China, member of the Comparative
Research Association of Chinese and English of China, member of the Translators Association
of Hunan Province, member of FIT Third Asian Translators’ Forum; a college English teacher
 Cultural loss in the English translation of Chinese poetry 185

since 1982, teaching translation, language and culture, intercultural communication and other
courses. His research is orientated towards the ralationship between translation and culture. He
has finished five research programs correlated with his research orientation,and published ten
books and twenty-six research papers.
Address: English Department, Hunan First Normal University, No. 1015 Third Fenglin Road,
Changsha City, Hunan Province, 410205 China.
E-mail: liuyanglaoshi@163.com

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