View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by CSCanada.net: E-Journals (Canadian Academy of Oriental and Occidental Culture,... ISSN 1923-1555[Print] Studies in Literature and Language ISSN 1923-1563[Online] Vol. 20, No. 2, 2020, pp. 9-15 www.cscanada.net DOI:10.3968/11652 www.cscanada.org On Huang Gaoxin’s Choices in the Translation of The Canterbury Tales ZHU Kun[a],* [a]School of English Studies, Shanghai International Studies University, Shanghai, China. asceticism and praises people who pursue happiness * Corresponding author. and freedom, which embodies the humanism spirit of Received 26 December 2019; accepted 17 February 2020 Chaucer. Meanwhile, in this work, Chaucer created the 1 Published online 26 April 2020 heroic couplet , which has been widely used by later English poets. As a result, this collection is regarded as Abstract the beginning of modern English poetry. As a Chinese translator, Huang Gaoxin has been Over the next few hundred years, the collection has devoting himself to the translation of poetry for over been translated into many languages and spread to many fifty years and has successfully translated a large number countries. Since the 1940s, it has been translated into of collections of English poems into Chinese, among Chinese by many Chinese translators, one of whom is which The Canterbury Tales is an essential one. By Huang Gaoxin. However, Huang did not translate it into comparing the translated version of The Canterbury free verse, nor did he adopt a unified translation method Tales by Huang with its original version and analyzing to translate different poetic forms in the original work. In his theory of poetry translation, this paper explores the order to retain the original poetic charm, he chose a new choices regarding translation text, translation method and way of translating English poems into Chinese. In the end, language style he made during his translation process, his translation received a lot of praise, and he won the first and offers the underlying reasons behind the choices from prize in the Fourth National Excellent Foreign Literature the perspectives of translation purpose, views towards Book Award with the highest votes (Ma, 2006, p.231). poetry translation, qualities as a translator and audience The huge success of his translation is certainty awareness. inseparable from a series of choices he made in the process of translation. Therefore, based on Huang’s Huang Gaoxin; The Canterbury Tales; Key words: translated version of The Canterbury Tales and his theory Translator’s choice of poetry translation, this paper intends to investigate his translation choices in three aspects: translation text, Zhu, K. (2020). On Huang Gaoxin’s Choices in the translation method and language style, and the reasons Translation of The Canterbury Tales. Studies in Literature and Language, 20(2), 9-15. Available from: http:// behind his choices. www.cscanada.net/index.php/sll/article/view/11652 DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3968/11652 1. THE CHOICE OF TRANSLATION TEXT Before translating The Canterbury Tales, Huang had INTRODUCTION already translated a series of collections of classical English poems, including Rubaiyat, a collection of The Canterbury Tales is a collection of narrative poems English lyrical poems. Compared with the short poems created by the English poet Geoffrey Chaucer. The in Rubaiyat, The Canterbury Tales is a large volume of collection narrates the stories told by pilgrims from all walks of life on their way to Canterbury, thus presenting 1 th The heroic couplet is a poetic form composed of pairs of an epitome of English society in the 14 century. It rhyming lines written in iambic pentameter that is often used in criticizes the feudal morality and the ecclesiastical English narrative poems. It rhymes in pairs: aa, bb, cc, and so on. 9 Copyright © Canadian Academy of Oriental and Occidental Culture On Huang Gaoxin’s Choices in the Translation of The Canterbury Tales long narrative poems, which would be an overwhelming translated, the sentiment of poetry cannot be translated; challenge for Huang especially because he suffered once a poem is translated, the soul of the poem will get from a serious eye disease. In addition, as early as the lost (pp.112-113). 1940s, Chinese renowned translator Fang Zhong had However, Huang did not agree with such ideas. From already translated The Canterbury Tales. Fang’s version his point of view, poets usually have strong feelings for conformed to the original work in content and style, their own poems. They think that their poems and the and his translation was graceful and fluent, and thus feelings in them cannot be fully understood by other was widely welcomed by Chinese readers (Ma, 2006, people, let alone be translated into another language, p.230). So why did Huang still choose to spend years so they conclude that poetry is untranslatable. As for translating the nearly thousand-page book? After reading translators, they hold that poetry is untranslatable largely his translation work and theory of poetry translation, it because they find it difficult to translate poetry and usually can be found that his choice was made mainly due to the fail to convey all the elements contained in poetry in the following two considerations. process of translation. As for those who do not translate The first consideration is cultural consideration. The poetry, their assertion that poetry is untranslatable is not Canterbury Tales narrates the stories told by people from credible given their lack of practice (Huang, 1999, p.5). th all walks of life in the 14 century English society and Huang believes that although to translate some lyric clearly presents to the readers a comprehensive realistic poetry or classical Chinese poetry is extremely difficult, it picture of the social situation of that time for the first cannot fully prove that poetry is completely untranslatable time in English literature. It also initiated the turn of and at least some English narrative poetry is translatable English literature from medieval romanticism to realism. in Chinese. So he chose to translate The Canterbury Tales At the same time, it used the rhymed stanzas of various as a rebuttal to the untranslatability of poetry. types borrowed from France to replace the old English In his practice of translating The Canterbury Tales, 2 alliterative verse, which laid the rhyme and poetic form Huang tried to prove not only the translatability of foundation for the development of English poetry. These some poetry, but also the necessity to keep the form of factors together contributed to the pioneering position of translated poetry consistent with the form of original The Canterbury Tales in the history of English poetry. poetry in order to present the rhyme of the original poetry. Although Fang Zhong had translated The Canterbury The Canterbury Tales is a collection of verse stories told Tales and won wide acclaim, he adopted the prose style by people from all walks of life; thus the content and the rather than conformed to the poetic form of the original language style reasonably vary from one story to another. work (Ma, 2006, p.230). Thus, Huang decided to translate In order to reflect this feature, Chaucer did not use a same the work in a manner of conforming to the original form poetic form from the beginning to the end, but used a while remaining faithful to its content so as to provide variety of poetic forms. For the most part, the collection The Canterbury Tales with a poetic form translation. used heroic couplets, as well as seven-line stanzas with a And then Chinese readers would be given an opportunity rhyme scheme of “ababbcc” and eight-line stanzas with to enjoy rich and changing rhyme and poetic forms of a rhyme scheme of “ababbcbc”. Accordingly, Huang did the English poetry while experiencing the sharp conflict not choose a unified form of translation when dealing between medieval system and social development in the th with different poetic forms, but chose to conform to the 14 century English society. original poetic forms while remaining faithful to the The second consideration is theoretical consideration. original content so as to present the rhyme of the original For a long time, many poets and scholars worldwide poetry. Such a translation method brought huge success to have thought that poetry is not translatable. The Italian his translation in the end. poet Dante Alighieri (1903) asserted “nothing which hath In addition, Huang also gave sufficient consideration the harmony of musical connection can be transferred to which version of The Canterbury Tales to translate: from its own tongue into another without shattering all the original version or the latter revised version. Chaucer its sweetness and harmony” (p.34). The English poet lived in the 14th century and he wrote The Canterbury Percy Bysshe Shelley (1930) wrote in A Defense of Tales in Middle English, which is not easy to read even Poetry “Hence the vanity of translation; it were as wise for modern native English people. So it has been revised to cast a violet into a crucible that you might discover in Modern English by latter scholars. But Huang chose the formal principle of its color and odor, as seek to The Complete Works of Geoffrey Chaucer3 as the source transfuse from one language into another the creations of language text and translated directly from Middle English a poet” (p.114). Chinese scholar Zhu Guangqian (1984) with the Modern English version only as a reference believed that although the content of poetry can be (Huang, 2007, p.14). Why did he choose a much more 2 Rhyme is generally composed of the rhyme scheme and the rhythm of a poem and rhyme is achieved through the form of poetry, namely 3 The Complete Works of Geoffrey Chaucer was edited by Walter W.