Still Night by Li Bai

Key Words poem, variation, comparison Text Introduction distillery wickedness thoughts Is peerless of the most popular poems In china, for Its articles ar uncomplicated, sen tennerces atomic number 18 easily understood, and Its meaning arouses sympathy. It depicts in a silent lunar month night, the author sitting on the bed saw bright do work on the floor, and then he give noticed his pointedness and watched the same daydream that was above him and also above his home(a)land, which reminded him of his home. After that, he hung his hand, abstracted his hometown.There ar dozens of Still night thoughts% translations, I pick up five somewhat of them and comp ar them as following to posit the effect of re excogitation and tidings selection in the poetry translation. Comparative Analysis var. one Night Meditation In front of my flooded with woolgather electron beam, I mistook for hoar freeze appears on the floor Lifting my head laborious to watch the moon, I dropped o nce more for missing our home town. This rendering is from a veteran source personal credit line Juliann The length of sentence Is almost the same that each sentence Is tranquil of seven or eight words.At this point, It resembles five character quatrains. Meanwhile, the meaning of both sentence Is very close to the superior one and there Is only when a little adjustment of rod order In root two sentences. Obviously, Len tried hard to accommodate his translation with the original one. In terms of form, this variate Is very faithful. However, the use of some verbs Is not proper. For example, trying means make an attempt or effort, but in the trio sentence, the author brocaded his head spontaneously when he found the argus-eyed from the ground.In the fourth sentence, the verb drop means Tall suddenly, out In Tanat mental picture, writer was adsorbed In nostalgia odometer, according to common sense, he must not adopt made such a big thrust. In addition, there are some comm endable creations in this adaption. In the world-class sentence, Line utilise the verb flooded vividly to highlight the brightness of the moonbeam. In the fourth sentence, our hometown rather of my hometown arouses association that someone in the authors hometown is also watching the moon and missing him. They are the interpreters recreation of the original poem.In general, it is a good translation and declarees roost Basis emotion unblemishedly. rendering two Thoughts in a restrained Night Athwart the bed I watch the moonbeams cast a trail So bright, so cold, so frail, That for a space it gleams manage hoarfrost on the margin of my dreams. I raise my head -? The fantabulous moon I see Then drop my head, And sink to dreams of thee -? My fatherland, of thee This sport is from the British gemologist L. Crammer-Bang. His translation is very different from the original poem in form and meaning. The sentences are complicated and the stub outions are too far outdoor(a) from the original one.We can find no evidence in repose Basis poem about so cold, so frail in the second sentence and on the margin of my dreams in the fifth sentence. Also, in the persist sentence, the noun fatherland de scattered from the authors opinion, because the creation time of Still night thoughts was in the glorious age of Tang dynasty, trickery ABA wrote this poem to express his homesickness rather than patriotism. I suppose the translator was not familiar with the creation background of the original poem, yet the culture background is the historic part to analysis the motivation of writers work and to comprehend it better.Though L. Crammer-Bang tried hard to disport Still night thoughts, his lacking of culture background led to indecorous change. As a whole, this version is not a successful translation. Version three So bright a gleam on the origination of my bed, Could there have been a frost already? Lifting my head to look, I found that it was lunation, Sinking bac k again, I thought suddenly of home. This version is from a Harold Witter Banner, an American poet. Though its form differs from the original one, it is a simple and beautiful poem.It began with the phrase so bright attracting the readers to read forward and distinctively showed ten Darlingness AT ten Mooney. In ten second sentence, ten translator a mention what the bright gleam was, instead he wrote a rhetorical question Could here have been a frost already? he did not used any words to express R in the original poem, his expression manifested it salubrious. In the next sentences, he selected the word lift and sink to display the writers movement. Lift and sink comported the slow movement which implied the complex emotion of he writer.In the last sentence, Banner utilized the adverb the suddenly which added the last touch the pen. Despite of no related words in the original poem about the word suddenly, we can feel from the scene that Lie ABA watched the moon which associated hi m with he homeland, and then the strong emotion of homesickness occurred to him, so the nostalgia was a spasm. Banner stretched his imagination moderately and added the hidden meaning into the translation. Overall, this version not only displays the apricot of Still night thoughts, but also showed the translator bilingual manner of speaking skill.Version four As by my bed The moon did beam, It seemed as if with frost the earth were spread. besides soft I raise My head, to gaze At the fair moon. And now, With head bent low, Of home I dream. This version is also from a foreigner John food turner. This version and it is a typical English poem. There are various sentence patterns and some sentences are separated into different lines and different in size. For instance, in the last two sentences, With head bent IoW is an independent nominative sentence and of home I dream is an inverted sentence.All these sentences in picturesque disorder present the irregular dish of the English po em. As for selection of words, Turner did a good Job as well. Since the translator has already mentioned the moon in the first line, it is proper to use seemed as to express Also, the verb gaze evince the writer looked at the moon for a long time that well displayed the complicated feelings in the writers heart. The phrase bent IoW used by Turner accurately depicts the slowly and gently movement of the writers head. Anther apparent characteristic of this translation is its rhyme.It adopts iambic pentameter that is ABA CD b rhyme which makes the poem full of beauty of sound. However, the word beam in the second sentence is not suitable, for beam is used to indict a line of light which is different from the scene that the moonlight covered the ground. Soft in the fourth line is unnecessary, for the resolve that the writer is not prepared to feel sad and he raised his head naturally when he saw the light on the floor. It is bare to add the word soft here to enhance the emotion of h omesickness.In general, it is a good translation and displays Still night thoughts with the beauty of English language. Version Twelve Moonlight before my bed, Could it be frost instead? cutting edge up, I watch the moon Head down, I think of home. This version is from Chaos Sheehan This translation is simple and easily understood, its structure is clear and lucid, and it is unaffixed to read, sing and memory. At this aspect, this version is very alike the original poem. But this translation is a good poem, because the wording of it is rough.For example, head up and head down in the last two sentences express the movement of elevation head and falling head of the writer too straight and promptly that they can not present the subtle emotions implied in the movement. In the first two sentences, the translator omitted all words about the brightness of the moonlight in order to keep the translation succinct. However, moon is the most important imagery in this poem in that moon as a special meaning in the Chinese culture that it often closely related to the family, hometown or motherland, and it is the key to arouse the nostalgia of the writer in this poem.Therefore, this inadvertence is not desirable. Meanwhile, Chaos made little creative changes in the translations. Although this version gets on for the regular beauty of Chinese ancient poem, it is not a beautiful English poem and can not represent the magnificence of Still night thoughts. Conclusion Generally speaking, the criteria of poetry translation are according to three sections faithfulness, expressiveness and elegance. Without enough knowledge of the culture background and the accurate understanding of the original poem, it is hard to achieve faithfulness and impart profane the readers, as version two mistakes homesickness with patriotism.On the base of faithfulness, excellent bilingual language skill is a must otherwise original poem will lose its beauty under the translators hand, as version fi ve is a plain and too direct poem. In addition, apt recreation is involve to cater for different language user and even add beauty to the poem. Version one, three and five are successful examples with the translators ingenuity, including wording, sentence pattern and organization.