Chinese Poetesses and Rexroth

Kenneth Rexroth was a renowned American contemporary poet， translator， and one of the starters of San Francisco Poetic Center. He was quite learned and versatile， grasping several foreign languages. He devoted his life to the production of influential works and he also selected， edited and translated large volumes of Chinese poems， Japanese poems and French poems. The final published ones are amounted to 13 translations. And the Chinese poetry he translated are 4 volumes. There are：1oo Poems From Chinese and Turning Year：1oo More Poems from the Chinese， The Orchid Boat：Women Poets of China， Li ChingChao complete poems and Love. （The latter two ones are co-translated with Chungling）. These works had tremendous and extensive impact on the translation field and American poet circle. Because of his introduction， Chinese literature enjoyed an unprecedented popularity among American scholars. His contribution to Chinese literature going out is priceless.

It is interesting to know that the prolific period of Rexroths translation was also the thriving stage of American beat generations literature.whose central elements are rejection of standard narrative values， the spiritual quest， exploration of American and Eastern religions， rejection of materialism， explicit portrayals of the human condition， experimentation with psychedelic drugs， and sexual liberation and exploration. Thus Rexroths works were more or less shaped and shaping the background. His works exerted great influence on American poetry history and even the American culture. One of his works from him， which enjoy the most reputation and popularity， is The Orchid Boat：Women Poets of China.

Rexroth represented the beat generation， finding a way to voice out their pent-up wrath and the outlet to flee away from the swampy social atmosphere by creating a novel and revolutionizing style of literary works. The novelty mainly embodied in the themes and topics. Yet Rexroth as the starter of the unprecedented literature phenomenon， he borrowed the exotic ancient Chinese classical works， especially those from less popular or even considered inferior women poets to be the vehicle bearing and transporting their own feelings and emotions. Though lived in entirely different eras and continents， their inner voice still resonate to each others because somehow they experienced similar life course：being ignored， abandoned and misunderstood. Thus they shared the same social psychology.

Based on the original work， Rexroth did some creative reproduction about them to cater for English readers psychological need. Thus， the westerners can mirror themselves in the overlay of Chinese painting-like images， exclaiming at the deja-vu about sentiment and mental state. In the fluid rivulets of lyrics from The Orchid Boat：Women Poets of China. Readers mainly confront women poets who are basking in the sunshine of happiness or those who are craving for romance missing their partners； affiliated to men but eventually betrayed and deserted by them poetesses， consequently they bear hatred and resentment toward men and the world； wandering women who are heading nowhere； female Taoists and actresses or prostitutes， who were maltreated by the cruel and unfair feudal regime， they still had dreams in their heart， they either resorted to alcohol or intercourse to let off their smothered emotions. The beat generations reactions to the reality predicament in many ways incidentally correspond with the Chinese ancient poetesses. The former can get some comfort and even valid precedents from the latter to justify their thinking and behavior， which were criticized vehemently by the opponent scholars then. In a word， Rexroth represented the beat generation， groping hard in the darkness， and finally found the same outcry from the Far East world.

References：

[1]Douglas Robinson：Who Translates？-Translator Subjectivities Beyond Reason[M].Albany State University of New York press. 2001.

[2]Rexroth Kenneth：Letters From America[J].Chicago：Chicago Review.

[3]葛文峰，李延林.美國詩人與中國詞宗的詩歌因緣-肯尼斯·雷克思羅斯的李清照詞英語譯介研究[J].北京第二外國語學院學報，2013，（10）：40-46.

作者簡介：羅巧（1991.1-），女，漢族，四川巴中人，西南民族大學外國語學院碩士研究生，研究方向：英美文學。endprint