中英诗歌语言层面差异

中英诗歌语言层面差异

The differences between Chinese and English poems

From linguistic perspective

——从非格律角度出发

摘要：诗歌在中英文学作品中都占有重要席位，但两国诗歌无论是在选材、格律、立意还是描写方式上都存在较大差异，今天我们就从语言层面（除去格律方面）谈谈中英诗歌差异。

关键词：表达方式；意向选择；表达量化；选材偏好

一、表达方式的差异：含蓄和直白

The differences in expressing: implicit and explicit

斗鸭阑干独倚，碧玉搔头斜坠

终日望君君不归，举头闻鹊喜。

——冯延已《谒金门》

译文（母语译者）

1. All day long, she expects him.

But, somehow, he is not back.

She raises her head upward,

Hearing the magpie’s chick-chack.

译文（外语译者）

2. Waiting for you the whole day long wears out my eyes;

Raising my head, I’m glad to hear magpies.

这首词通过写景，以象征的手法巧妙地揭示出一位富贵人家的少妇不平静的内心世界。从抒情的角度来看，由于身居深闺的上层妇女长期受“温柔敦厚”之类封建礼教的熏陶和束缚，在涉及男女爱情这类心理活动时，感情宣泄较含蓄，起伏也较微弱。

译文1通过“喜鹊”的文化继承性意义——喜鹊报喜——含蓄地传达出作者以象征的手法精心营造的氛围，这般处理符合词中主人公情感的宣泄方式，真可谓意在言外，且又意藏词中。

相形之下，译文2就显得稍稍直露了些，把那种可通过“喜鹊”这一形象传达出主人公内心的喜悦自然化解了。

由此可见中文诗歌以含蓄、微妙胜，而英诗的直率和铺陈也可以从以下一首诗窥见一二。

二、意象的选择：少而精和广泛的差异

The differences in choosing of image: typical and extensive

中文诗歌的含蓄、微妙和英诗的直率和铺陈又都是通过意象的选取来体现的.中国古典诗歌中意象多为精心挑选的且为数不多的具体意象,而英诗则是通过多种意象淋漓尽致地体现出诗歌的主题.以以下两首诗对比为例：

比如张九龄的《自君之出矣》:

自君之出矣,不复理残机.

思君如满月,夜夜减清辉.

和一首勃朗宁夫人(Browning E B)的十四行诗

《Sonnets from the Portuguese,Ⅵ》:

Go from me: Yet I feel that I shall stand

┇

Alone upon the threshold of my door

Of individual life, I shall command

The uses of my soul, nor lift my hand

Serenely in the sunshine as before,

Without the sense of that which I forbore,

Thy touch upon the palm. The widest land

Doom takes to part us leaves thy heart in mine

With pulses that beat double. What I do

And what I dream include thee, as the wine

Must taste of its own grapes. And, when I sue

God for myself, he hears that name of thine,

And sees within my eyes the tears of two.

虽然这两首诗均表现了”闺中怨”的主题,但是两者之间的差异却是非常明显的:张九龄通过“残机”和“夜夜减清辉”的月亮,描写了一位妻子对远离家乡的丈夫的思念之情.诗人将妻子的思念与悲凄融入月亮之中,而每夜渐缺的月亮更加重了妻子的寂寞和痛楚.张九龄对妻子的容貌体态没有正面描写,而是选择两个意象(“残机”和

“月亮”),间接而含蓄地表现了她的绵绵情思.而勃朗宁夫人在诗中使用多种意象:具体意象如“the tears of two”,抽象意象如“individual life”以及比喻意象如“the widest land”等,直接地、尽情地抒发了她对恋人的思念.

三、表达量化程度差异：模糊和准确

The differences in quantification degree: obscure and precise

千山鸟飞绝，万径人踪灭。

孤舟蓑立翁，独钓寒江雪。

——《江雪》柳宗元

译文（外语译者）

1. On a thousand hills all birds life is cut off,

On ten thousand paths there is no trace of human footsteps;

In a lonely boat the old man with the bamboo hat and cape

Sits by himself fishing the river in the winter snow.

译文（外语译者）

2. A hundred mountains and no bird,

A thousand paths without a footprint;

A little boat, a bamboo cloak,

An old man fishing in the cold river snow.

译文（母语译者）