Chapter Five Conclusion    21
5.1 Major Findings    21
5.2 Limitations of the Study    21
5.3 Suggestions for Further Studies    21
References    23
Appendix    24
The Analysis of Three Translated Versions of The Isles of Greece from the Perspective of Equivalence

Chapter One Introduction
1.1 Background Information
1.1.1 About The Isles of Greece and Its Poet
George Gordon Byron(1788-1824) was a great Romantic English poet in the early stage of the 19th century whose well-known works are Childre Harold's Pilgrimage and Don Juan. “Looking back on the translation history over the past century, the poem who has received the most concern from translators is Byron.”(Liao, 2010, p.73) He created a lot of Byronic heroes in his poems. “The Byronic hero is a unique archetype in literary criticism ...” (Hishmeh, 2010, p.97) Byron was not only a great poet but also a brave man who had been fighting throughout the whole life for his dream. He took active part in the revolution. For example, he was involved in the Greek People's Liberation Movement and became one of the leaders.
Don Juan is one of his most important works which is praised as the lyric epic. It contains narration and argument, realistic content and satire words. However, upon its publication, Byron has been criticized for his attacking the religious morals.
The poem The Isles of Greece comes from Don Juan. At that time, Greece was invaded by Turkey and Byron, not being a Greek, felt devastated to have seen such a cruel scene so that he chose to stand shoulder by shoulder with Greek people to fight against invaders. Therefore, he wrote the poem “The Isles of Greece”.
1.1.2 Three Translations of the Isles of Greece
Throughout the 20th century, a flood of translators showed interest in the poem “The Isles of Greece” and set about the translation work, among whom Su Manshu, Ma Junwu and Zha Liangzheng did an outstanding job. Su and Ma translated the poem in the early 20th century while Zha in the late 20th century. As a result, their translation styles vary a lot in that the former two translators use the classical style of writing and the latter complete the translation using Modern Vernacular Chinese. “Ma Junwu was a radical patriot so as to translate the poem in hope of saving China out of tough time. Su Manshu considered Byron as a representative of beauty and humanity so as to remove the political aspect from his translation.”(Liao, 2010, p.75)
1.2 Significance of the Research
Poetry translation is recognized as one of the most difficult of literature translations. Even a shade of differences in the translation style or method will probably result in readers’ totally different penetrations into the same poem. “Translation of literary texts, especially poetry, plays a great role in translation studies. It has peculiar rules concerning translation and the angle from which this type of texts should be tackled.”(Sekhri, 2013, p.150)
A large number of excellent works of the English poet Byron have survived his death. A large number of literature critics speak highly of Byron’s works. In this thesis, three different translated versions of Byron’s poem The Isles of Greece will be studied because of its solemn and stirring style, rich allusions, wide and free imagination and the obvious contrast between old and modern time, all together embodying Byron’s poetry style of active romanticism. Besides, in the tide of translation in China in the 20th century emerged many prestigious masters who got down to translating the poem. A variety of translation styles and methods involved in their translations provide plenty of resources for my study. 对等理论《哀希腊》三个译本分析(2):http://www.youerw.com/yingyu/lunwen_23789.html