关键词: 毛泽东诗词; 国外英译群体; 译者行为; 诗歌翻译

Abstract:

The poems of Mao Zedong are highly integrated gems that combine romantic lyricism and realistic descriptions. Collectively, they form an epic description of China’s democratic revolution and socialist construction, provide a vivid representation of the revolutionary course of the Communist Party of China (CPC), and are the literary expression of Mao Zedong’s outstanding political and military leadership. Mao Zedong’s poems have been translated, published, and disseminated in foreign countries, thus communicating Mao Zedong’s literary talent to the world. The poems of Mao Zedong tell the revolutionary story of the CPC, its course of struggle and its undertaking of mission. They also set up the brilliant images of the CPC members as striving for national independence and a happy life for the people. This article divides the English translators of Mao Zedong’s poems outside of China into three groups, namely foreign translators, foreign translators and foreign citizens of Chinese origin, and translators as foreign citizens of Chinese origin. With regard to the critiques of translators’ behaviors, the foreign translators, due to their travels and experiences, could be influenced by different cultures they encountered and can often use many languages fluently, thus acquiring a basis for translating Mao Zedong’s poems. The combination of foreign translators and foreign citizens of Chinese origin could not only compensate for the disadvantages of foreign translators who could not fully understand the deeper meaning of the Chinese source texts and the disadvantages of the overseas Chinese translators who could not express the ideas in idiomatic ways that appealed to the target language reader, while translators who were foreign citizens of Chinese origin who were born and grew up in China but who pursued studies abroad, lived abroad, and formed their modes of thinking in English due to their experiences abroad, were more popular with the readers.

Keywords: poems of Mao Zedong; English translators abroad; translators’ behaviors; poem translation