Yuefu refers to the music bureau firstly established in the Han Dynasty. It develops a unique poetic genre which is Yuefu poems, amongst which Yuefu Ballads are those collected folk oral traditions. They represent the highest achievement of the Yuefu poems throughout the Han Dynasty and Southern and Northern Dynasty. The Yuefu ballads not only appeal to both refined and popular tastes, but also profoundly influence the creation of many poets including Li Bai and Du Fu.
However, along with the process of modernization and industrialization, nowadays fewer people know this precious oral heritage and their transmission will be surely blocked if no measures are taken in time. Translating the Yuefu ballads into English is an effective way to draw more attention from different people at home and abroad. Therefore, these precious folklore heritages which are at the edge of extinction can be rescued and the excellent Chinese folk culture can be carried out.
English ballads are also folk literature with a long history. Of all the types of poetry, perhaps English ballad is the one making the most direct appeal to all classes of readers and listeners from the Middle Age to our days.
Both the Yuefu ballads and the English Ballads are collected folk oral traditions, reflecting wisdom of the masses, revealing the rank and file’s living condition, presenting different cultures. Hence a contrastive study of these two kinds of ballads makes the translation more proper and the conveyance more precise.
The significance of this thesis lies in a systematic introduction to the Yuefu ballads and English ballads and a contrastive analysis between them. More importantly, domestication and foreingnization will be discussed here to guide the translation of Yuefu ballads.
This thesis starts with a systematic introduction to the Yuefu ballads. Then a brief introduction to the English ballads is made. After that comes the contractive study of these two ballads in different perspectives. When the overall understanding of the properties and characteristics of the ballads are shed light on, the discussions of domestication and foreingnization will be activated. The combination of domestication and foreingnization offers a solution to both the transference of the original and local flavor and the purpose of promoting Chinese culture. The ending part is conclusion.
Key words: Yuefu ballads, English ballads, domestication, foreingnization
Table of Contents
1. Introduction.1
2. The Yuefu ballads. 2
2.1 The origin and the development. 2
2.1.1 Han Dynasty 2
2.1.2 The Southern and Northern Dynasty…………………………………. 3
3. The English ballads……………………………………………………………….4
3.1 The popular ballads in the fourteen and fifteen century……………………. 4
3.1.1 The origins……………………………………………………………. 5
3.1.2 The collections…………………………………………………… .5
3.1.3 The characteristics……………………………………………………. 6
3.2 The revival in the eighteenth century………………………………………. 7
4. Contrastive analysis: The Yuefu ballads and English ballads…………………. .7
4.1 Subject analysis……………………………………………………………… …7
4.2 Style analysis………………………………………………………………. .9
4.3 Structure analysis……………………………………………………………… 9
4.3.1 Stanzaic Structure……………………………………………………… 9
4.3.2 Dalogical Structure…………………………………………………… …9
4.4 Rhetorical devices analysis………………………………………………… 10
5. The translation of the Yuefu ballads………………………………………… . . 11
5.1 Domesticating translation and foreingnizing translation…………………… 11
5.2 The translation of Yuefu ballads…………………………………………… … .11
6. Conclusion……………………………………………………………………… …13
7. Bibiography……………………………………………………………………….14
