摘 要

《诗经》是中国最早的一部诗歌总集。自十八世纪以来，各种译本遍及海内外，其中全英译本就达十余种。根据翻译时是否用韵，这些译本可以分为韵体译本和散体译本。在浩如烟海的译本里，许渊冲先生所译的《诗经》译本是韵体译本的杰出代表，并在“三美”原则的运用上取得了很高的成就。“三美” 原则， 即音美、意美、形美，是由许渊冲先生提出并不断改进的翻译美学原则，在中国乃至世界翻译学中占据举足轻重的地位。本文将以许渊冲先生的《诗经》译本为例本，通过举例、列举、对比等研究方法，分析三美原则在《诗经》翻译中的具体运用。

关键词：三美原则；《诗经》；翻译

Contents

1. Introduction 1
2. Demonstration 2
   1. Three Beauties Principle 3
      1. Origin and development of “Three Beauties Principle” 3
      2. Connotation of “Three Beauties Principle” 3
   2. Application of “Three Beauties Principle” to Book of Poetry Translated by Xu Yuanchong 5
      1. Application of beauty in sense 6
      2. Application of beauty in sound 11
      3. Application of beauty in form 14
3. Conclusion 17

Works Cited 19

Bibliography 20

On Application of “Three Beauties Principle” to Book of Poetry Translated by Xu Yuanchong

Introduction

Book of Poetry is the first anthology of verse in China. It won the first prize in the competition of the Most Beautiful Book in the world held in Germany in 2010. As Homer’s epics Iliad and Odyssey plays an important role in western literature history, Book of Poetry enjoys high reputation in eastern literature history. In content, it records various aspects of ancient people’s lives, such as agriculture, sacrifice, military, love, and their laborious sprite in ancient time; in sound, it boasts of musical rhythm sensation, and in fact, most poems in Book of Poetry were then sang with scores; in form, with lines of the same length and usually of four-character, it is neat and orderly. All in all, it fully represents Xu Yuanchong’s Three Beauties Principles: beauty in sense, beauty in sound and beauty in form.

The translation of Book of Poetry originates from the 18^th century. During this two hundred years, there are various versions of translation both at home and abroad. According to the way of translation, they are divided into rhymed version and blank version. Among them, the translation of Xu Yuanchong is undoubtedly the best representative of rhymed version and he has made great achievements in the application of the Three Beauties Principle.

As one of China's most famous collections of poems, Book of Poetry has never failed to attract Chinese and foreign scholars’ study on the translation of it. Some of these studies make a comparative study on several current versions. For example, Wang Rongpei makes a classification and an introduction to the English versions of Book of Poetry in his essay On The Versions of Book of Poetry; Bao Yanxin and Meng Wei make a brief introduction to the characteristics of the versions widely spread in the world. Some of these studies focus on the version of one translator. For instance,

Li Liangyu analyzes the “realism” principle and imagist principle of Pound’s version in his writing On Pound’s Vrsion of Book of Poetry; Some of these studies make researches on the method and technique of its translation: Jing Ning makes a study on the application of metaphor in Conceptual Integration Theory and Its Application to the Metaphor Translation of Book of Poetry --- A Case Study of Wang Rongpei’s Translation of Book of Poetry.

In recent years, more and more people have casted their attention to and made more researches on the comprehensive value of Book of Poetry and Three Beauties Principles: Han Kun makes a combination of Xu Yuanchong’s Translation of Book of Poetry and his Three Beauties Principle in his master's thesis On Xu Yuanchong’s Translation Aesthetics--- A Case Study of Translating Book of Poetry Into English; in On the Reproduction of Aesthetics in the English Versions of Shi-king ---Based on the Principle of “Three Beauties”, Wu Gaochang shows the manifestation of Three Beauties Principle in some versions.