On English Translation of Classical Chinese Poetry: A Perspective from Skopos Theory

Classical Chinese poetry, an important part of Chinese culture, has always been a great task for translators, home and abroad. It is the foreign translators who, in the early 20 century, first translated the classical Chinese poetry into English. The Chinese scholars began to do the translation in the seventies of the 20 century. From the existent translations, foreign or Chinese, we can find that most translators had their clear purposes when translating. These purposes of translation influenced their choice of translation skills when dealing with the content and form of the poetry.