Creative treason in Chinese poetry translation within two different translation behaviours

A tentative study of five versions of “Prelude to Water Melody”

Abstract

As Medio-translatology has proposed, creative treason reveals the essence of translation practice in an objective way. Meanwhile, it is essential for us to distinguish the differences between In-coming Translation and Out-going Translation behaviours. Chinese poetry “Prelude to Water Melody” depicts how to get out of troubles and how to get rid of frustration in a concise manner, making it worthwhile to disseminate into other nations to share ancient Chinese wisdom. With five typical English versions of “Prelude to Water Melody” selected, the author analyses the four types of specific performance revealed by creative treason in them. The study is not only conducive to the criticism of the effective translation and dissemination of other excellent Chinese classic poems, but also beneficial to the analysis of the theoretical connotation of the term creative treason.