"Three Beauties" Principle in the English Versions of "Jing Ye Si"—Translations by Xu and Fletcher as Examples

“Jing Ye Si” is a classical poem with international influence by the Chinese poet Li Bai in the Tang Dynasty, which expresses the poet’s deep nostalgia. This paper compares and analyzes its two English versions translated by the Chinese translator Xu Yuanchong and the British translator W. J. B. Fletcher based on the “three beauties” principle (beauty in sense, beauty in sound, and beauty in form), and discovers that the English version of Xu basically achieves the unity of the “three beauties”, while the English version of Fletcher realizes the “beauty in sound and form”, but deviates from the “beauty in sense” mainly owing to theinaccurate comprehension of the moon as an image and other factors. This analysis may afford us with certain reference in poetry translation.

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