Li Bai's Poem Night Words

The word “translation” always defined as the bridge between the culture and language which it extremely impacts in the literature. In order to demonstrate the impact from translation, there is a poem called “Night thought” which written by poet Li Bai highly shows how the translation impacts in the literature. I prefer to choose the one translated by Herbert A. Giles, and compares it with the other one translated by Florence Ayscough and Amy Lowell. Although the “translation” sometimes makes the topic in the inaccurate meaning, however, the “translation” still takes advantages in the promoting culture diffusion and communication between different countries , therefore “translation” can be either positive or negative for the impact of literature, based on the inaccurate punctuation using, accurate meaning with the original text, rewrite the new insight of figurative language.

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The phrase “moonbeams play around my bed” (Giles 1) is using the personification to point out the moonbeam gives a mysterious feeling for the environment which it’s like a fairyland, and the other phrase “glittering like hoar-frost” (Giles 2) is using the simile which describes glittering like the hoar- frost, this one shows the moonbeams are very beautiful that shine in all the ways. In contrast, another one translated by Florence Ayscough and Amy Lowell gives none of the figurative language which is less efficient to illustrate the surrounding environment with the poet’s deep thinking. For example, the phrase “moonlight is very bright” (Ayscough 1) just describe the moonlight in the surface meaning, it’s unimpressive for the reader to remember and less interests in showing the details. Therefore, the use of figurative language in translation is impacting in the literature with a great