Siyu Zhang

From Percy Bysshe Shelley to Zhimo Xu

Percy Bysshe Shelley was one of the major English Romantic poets in the world. In
his poems, we can feel his pursuit of beauty of the nature. Especially in To A Skylark,
Shelley eulogized skylark as a symbol of happiness and light. Zhimo Xu was one of the
most famous Chinese Romantic poets, who played an important role in the development
of modern Chinese poetry in the 20th century. Moreover, Xu has been considered Chinese
Percy Bysshe Shelley, and his life path was even similar with Shelley. Xu also idolized
Shelley, so we can see many marks showed how Shelley influenced Xus style of poetry.
For example, A Snowflakes Happiness, Xus masterwork about nature, and To a Skylark
are alike. Although Shelley and Xu had different cultural backgrounds, their poems, To a
Skylark and A Snowflakes Happiness, share many elements in common. Furthermore,
during the process of being translated, their works undergo the loss of translation. In this
paper, I will not only compare their life paths, but also contrast their poems to explore
their inner worlds, and discuss how translator can the maximum avoid the loss of
translation.
Percy Bysshe Shelley was born in England on 4 August 1792. He lived in a welloff household, which could afford his tuition in Eton College. Lately, Shelly was accepted
by University of Oxford, but he was expelled because he published The Necessity of
Atheism in 1811. As a result, Shelleys father stopped to offer him any financial support.
Zhimo Xu was also born in a wealthy family in Zhejiang, China on 15 January
1897. Xu took Chinese traditional education before eighteen, so he had strong knowledge
in Chinese classical literature. After married with Youyi Zhang under his fathers

arrangement, Xu went to study in the United States and England. Shelley and Xu both
had two marriages, and their second ones were their own choices. When Xu divorced
with his arranged wife, and married his true love, Xus father refused to support their
luxury life. As a result, Xu had to taught at several universities in different cities
including Beijing University and Guanghua University.
We can tell that Shelley received higher education such as Eton College and
University of Oxford; however, his rebellious spirit played an important part in his short
life. In To a Skylark, the skylark is a blithe spirit, a symbol of freedom, because it can fly
higher and higher, to break the bonds. Even death, the most terrifying thing in the world,
cannot weaken the skylarks positive free spirit. Moreover, Shelley showed his pursuit of
love, beauty, and freedom. The Skylark in his poem is so happy that like an unbodied
joy whose race is just begun and I know not how thy joy we ever should come near.
To Shelley, what objects are the fountains of the happy strain? The answer is love,
because thou lovest, but neer knew loves sad satiety; love is the thing brings
happiness. With full of love, Shelley saw the beauty of the nature. In this poem, we can
see beautiful colors such as a cloud of fire, the golden lightning, and the pale purple
even; we can hear beautiful sounds such as singing still dost soar, and soaring ever
singest, and rain-awakened flowers; we can smell beautiful fragrance such as till the
scent it gives, makes faint with too much sweet these heavy-winged thieves. Stephen
Owen said, Every reader knows, as Shelley himself knew that a poet had license to add,
subtract, and alter details of the occasioning experience. Whatever the experiential origins
of the poem, the text is taken as a fiction, and its Truth is a metaphorical rather than a
historical truth (57 Owen). Metaphoric, which is common in western poetry, was used a

lot in To a Skylark. For instances, the skylark was like a poet, a highborn maiden, a glowworm golden, a rose, and so on.
On the other hand, Xu was the one who accepted both traditional Chinese
education and western education. The experience studying abroad might push him to end
the arranged marriage and to promote new poetry. Moreover, Xu was a typical Chinese
modern poet whose poems were so different with classical Chinese ones. For example,
according to Stephen Owen, traditional Chinese poems tended to record historical or
nonfictional moments, but Xus poems were more like western ones that put emphasis on
metaphor. For instance, in A Snowflakes Happiness, Xu gave the snowflake life to find
the lover. Additionally, In the Chinese tradition of reading, the meaning of a poem as a
whole is usually not taken as metaphoricalthe tendency to avoid metaphorical reading
is linked to the traditional Chinese readers presumption that most shih subgenres were
nonfictional(57 Owen). So Xus modern poems surprised people in those days, including
Dun Mao. A Snowflakes Happiness is a cinquain. Xu claimed that syllable is poems
vessel, poetic atmosphere is the heart, and meter is the appearance. A Snowflakes
Happiness supported his proposition. If you read it in Chinese, you can find it is rhymed
iambic tetrameter.

In first three strophes, Xu repeated three times in every

strophe. The snowflake represented the poet to find a desired direction. He knew his
direction should be on the ground, but not in cold valley or dreary mountains or deserted
streets, his direction was in a garden, and waiting for her. In the fourth strophe, the
snowflake met her and landed on her and faded. Xu repeated in this last strophes,
and these repetition created a light and steady feeling. Poets in Chinese modern literature
preferred repetition. In A Lane in the Rain from Wangshu Dai, a girl who bears her

melancholy, like a lilac flower has been repeated twice. Although Wangshu Dai and
Zhimo Xu belonged to different poetry genre, and Dai was influenced by French poetry,
compared with Xus English style, this is a noteworthy pattern in the development of
Chinese modern poetry.
It is hard to testify whether the life in the Britain or his adoration for Shelley
affected Xus attitude and poems, the similarity of Xus A Snowflakes Happiness and
Shelleys To a Skylark should not be ignored. They wrote about a snowflake and a
skylark, but they had hidden meanings under these subjects and reflected their own
thoughts pursuit and praise of love, beauty, and freedom. Because of different language,
their rhymes are unlike. Moreover, To a Skylark is more powerful and well organized than
A Snowflakes Happiness. The former has 21 strophes, which starts with a compliment
and ends with a sigh. The latter has four strophes, and is more like a romantic story about
looking for the lover.
According to Georg Brandes, Translation leave out the linguistic artistry whereby
the writer affirms himself, and the better and greater he is in his own language, the more
he loses in translation (63 Brandes). Since Shelley is so famous that his works were
translated to the whole world, the quality of the translation to Chinese was satisfying,
because major translators including Moruo Guo and Feng Jiang are followers of Shelleys
poems and professional scholars. They have enough background knowledge of Shelley
and western society. The only thing might need to be improved is the vigor of the skylark.
In the Chinese version, this poem is softer than the original one. However, Xus A
Snowflakes Happiness is not as famous as his other poems like Saying Goodbye to
Cambridge Again, not even to mention Shelleys. So the translation was barely

satisfactory. For the English version I can found from an amateur translator, her pleasant
aroma fills the air does not have the same meaning of . Plum
blossom is flower of winter for Chinese. More importantly, it also represents strong and
elegant character. Of course, the scent of plum blossom in Xus poem shows his lovers
noble and honorable spirit, and the translation failed to do. Even though Hugo Meltzl
worte, although translations facilitate the international traffic or distribution of literary
products immensely, nobody will dispute Schopenhauers opinion that even the best
translation leaves something to be desired and can never replace the original (44 Meltzl),
I think a good translator with sufficient knowledge is able to the maximum avoid the loss
of translation, and To a Skylark in Chinese () is a great example.
According to Shi Hu, Xu spent his whole life seeking for the freedom, love, and
beauty. This is also the perfect description of Shelley. We are so lucky to have a chance to
understand and feel their spirits in poems. I also hope the loss of translation can be
avoided by professional translators in the future, to help readers around the world to feel
the beauty of poems in other languages.

Citation
Owen, Stephen Traditional Chinese Poetry and Poetics Omen the

World.
Damrosch, David The Princeton Sourcebook in Comparative
Literature