《长恨歌》文本的现代阐释和世界文学价值重构

Modernizing a Thousand-Year Sorrow:“Translation”of Chang Hen Ge as World Literature

唐代诗人白居易对历史上的杨玉环怀有怜悯之情,并发乎“情”于其《长恨歌》诗中,对她做了相对客观的评判,在当时的社会风气下无异于一种现代主义象征。当代中国台湾诗人洛夫别出心裁,将白居易的这一长篇叙事诗改写成现代主义风格的汉语短诗。比较文学学者奚密对洛夫版《长恨歌》的英译,则充分借助了汉语自身的发展与嬗变,将古典文本被现代语境重写后所焕发的人性光辉展现得淋漓尽致,进而延续并催发了白居易诗中的现代主义萌芽。通过语内翻译和语际翻译两种文本阐释,一则原本囿于中国传统叙事的浪漫传奇以崭新的面貌登上世界文学舞台,为不同文化背景的读者所欣赏、评判、熟知。

This article seeks to explore the divergent ways in which Bai Juyi’s classical poem“Song of Everlasting Sorrow”(Chang Hen Ge)was turned into world literature via Luo Fu’s intralingual translation of Bai’s poem and sinologist Michelle Mi-Hsi Yeh’s interlingual translation of Luo Fu’s modern rewriting of Bai’s poem.While Bai Juyi’s original poem unfolds the Tang poet’s empathetic,revisionist view on Lady Yang in contrast with the traditional,indifferently prejudiced meta-narrative in the postscript composed by Bai’s contemporaneous romancer Chen Hong.Michelle Yeh’s English rendition of Luo Fu’s reconceived poem,which is included in Tony Barnstone’s anthology,is grounded in the natural modern transition of Bai’s poem within the Chinese language tradition itself and has boosted the embryonic modernity in Bai Juyi’s poem.It is arguable that the story constantly retold by Chinese literati has rejuvenated its identity as national history over time,and has tentatively entered the canon of world literature as Lady Yang gradually gains modern subjectivity through inter-textuality and intra-/inter-lingual translation.