China and the West

[Spenser, Edmund]. Sibinsai shi xuan. Hu Jialuan yi. [ID D26569].
Li Zhengshuan : http://bibs.slu.edu/spenser/result.php?topic=&diss=&query=&start=2590
Although Spenser has ranked among the greatest of English poets since the sixteenth century, there has until now been no comprehensive Chinese version of his poetry. That gap has recently been filled by the appearance of Professor Hu's translation, which embraces almost all of Spenser's important works. It includes the following: "Januarye," "Aprill," "October," and "November," with a commentary on The Shepeardes Calender's remaining eight eclogues; forty-four of the Amoretti sonnets (1, 3-6, 9-10, 12-13, 15-16, 22, 26, 28-30, 34-35, 37, 40, 42, 45, 46, 50, 52, 54, 60-64, 67-68, 70-71, 75-76, 78-81, 84, 86, 88, 89) ; Epithalamion and Prothalamion complete; and The Faerie Queene I.i,ii, and xi, and II.vii and xii. In a twenty-five page Preface Professor Hu gives a detailed introduction to the life and works of Spenser, highlighting his literary career and the background of his works and providing insightful comments aimed at piecing together all of the poems, both translated and untranslated. In a separate introduction to the sonnets, Professor Hu briefly compares Spenser's sonnets with those of Sidney and Shakespeare and then analyzes the structure and meaning of the sequence. The theme of time expressed in the two marriage songs, especially Epithalamion, is vividly dealt with, with the commentary providing information on views of marriage and birth in the Renaissance. Professor Hu also provides an introduction to the whole plan of The Faerie Queene, with detailed analysis of the themes and forms of Books I and II in particular.
Although Spenser's poems are beautiful--intellectually, emotionally, and musically--for Chinese readers, they are very difficult to read and understand, in part because their beauty is obscured by his use of old spellings and by the complexity of his ideas. Professor Hu's translation seeks to convey the beauty of Spenser through a faithful translation of his ideas and poetic forms. In his graceful retention of Spenser's original rhyme schemes, the careful reader should gain some feeling of the "presence" of Spenser. Professor Hu's theory of translation is one that opposes the notion of "nationalizing" a foreign poem just to cater to the taste of readers in his own country. He especially avoids the use of four-word phrases to embellish the original text. For him, the faithfulness of the target language to the source language lies in an almost equivalent re-presentation of ideas, structure, and even punctuation marks from the original, neither over- nor underdoing it, without presenting a totally literal translation either. He insists that the poetic form is an inseparable part of the poem. Thus he tries faithfully to re-present the original arrangement of rhymes and the length of the individual lines. He finds a modern idiom to replace the archaisms of Spenser's original, on the grounds that much of Spenser's original flavor will be destroyed by using ancient Chinese poetic forms. In ancient Chinese poetry the number of words, the rhythm, and the arrangement of rhymes is so strictly kept that the idioms in a foreign poem can hardly find equivalents in the target language. This is especially true of a poem in English, which has a strictness of its own in the rules of rhythm and meter. Professor Hu has taken great pains in translating Spenser, and the pleasure that his readers will get in reading his work will be rich.