关键词: 歌德; 《西东合集》; 诗歌翻译; 哲学诠释学; 德国文学经典; 复译

Abstract:

As Goethe’s last collection of poems, West-östlicher Divan is the crystallization of his mature poetic art in his later years. It integrates eastern and western cultures and is filled with the natural-divine nature of oriental spirit. In fact, it’s a prescription that Goethe gave to the war-torn, spiritual retrogression in 19th century Europe. However, this masterpiece has so far only a limited reception in China, with few Chinese translations. In one translation (Qian Chunqi), “formal equivalence” takes priority over “content equivalence”. Therefore the translation fails to grasp the original meaning and spirit of Goethe poetry. This article will explore this issue within the framework of philosophical hermeneutics, and, with the help of Gadamer’s dialogue theory, will explore the meaning of text in translation, in order to promote the translation and further research of this great work. The conclusion drawn from this article is that methodologies cannot be used to arbitrarily cut texts, let alone to generally prioritize “formal equivalence” and “content equivalence”. Translators should understand the text and its inner spirit by way of a dialogue with the text, and should try to let the spirit of the original text exist in new ways in the new language world.

Keywords: Johann Wolfgang von Goethe; West-östlicher Divan;; poetic translation; philosophical hermeneutics; German literature classics; retranslation