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Chapter 1 Xu Yuanchong and His Works

In translation field, the study on translators is one of the most im portant part in the framework of translatio n study. Translator Xu Yuanchong is a great tran slator in recen t Chinese translation field. In this chapter , the author will give a brief introduction about translator Xu Yuanchong and his translation works.

1.1 A Brief Introduction to Xu Yuanchong
Xu Yuanchong (1921-), is the trans lator and professor of Beijing University. His works are published in Chinese, English, and French, which includes at least sixty books and papers such as The Book of Poetry , Songs of the S outh, Selected Poems of Slow Slow T une, The West Chamber, Red and Black, Madam e Bovary and some other famous works. In 1999 he was nominated as candidate for the Nobel Prize for Literature. He is also an outstanding representative in translation circle. One of his great achiev ements is that he translates poetry in the poetic way. Not only has he m ade brilliant contributions to cultural exchanges, but his innovative translation theories and thinking have pointed out the future direction for translation. Xu Yuanchong was bone in 1921 in Nanchang. His mother is a well educated person who influences Xu a lot. She taught him to read. Because of her painting habit, Xu got a good sense of beauty and started to be interest ed in literature. He learned English when he was in primary school. He found there is a gr eat connection between word spelling and word pronunciation. During his high school , two famous literary works make a great influence in his future achievement. The two works are Analects of Confucius (《论语》) in Chinese and Tales from Shakespeare in English. These two works can be regarded as the foundation of his writing skills and his future poem translation. Xu’s uncle, Mr. S.I. Hsiung (Xiong Shiyi) is a translator. And Xiong used to translate a play name Lady Precious S tream (Wang baochai) which was shown to audience in Europe and America. Xiong’s great achievem ent gave a big im pression to X u’s future plan. He determined to study En glish in the future and h oped to be as successful as his uncle to be known by the world. He tried his be st to learn English hard at school, as the reward, he got a very high score in his examinations.
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1.2 A Brief Introduction to Xu’s Translation Works
Xu Yuanchong has been in the field of transl ation for more than 60 years. During his 60 years translation experience we can see that Xu Yuanchong is a very productive translator . More than 50 books were translated and published. Around 100 papers were published also which are related to translation. Among the works, there are some famous pieces. The English ones are as following: Selected poem s of Li Bai, Tang –Song Lyrics, On Chinese Verse in English Rhyme, Songs of the Immortals, 150 Tang Poems (1984), Books of Poetry (1993) and so on. The French translation works are as follows: 42 poem s of Mao Zedong, 100 T ang Poems and Song Lyrics and 300 Chinese Ancient Poem s and so on. Xu’s Chinese translation words are all from French novels and