An Aesthetic Study of Rhetorical Devices in David Hawkes’s Version of Chu Ci（楚辞）

Abstract

Chu Ci(楚辞)is one of the origins of Chinese romantic literature. There are many English versions since the late 19th century, among which David Hawkes’s version is of great popularity in the west. His translation conveys both academic and literary value with a great sense of beauty. In his translation, Davis Hawkes uses various translation artistic techniques and methods to achieve the finest effect, for example, successful presentation of the rhythm and structure of Chu Ci and appropriate use of rhetorical devices such as alliteration, antithesis, parallelism and reduplication. This study tries to study the rhetorical devices in Hawkes’s version from the perspective of translation aesthetics so that the readers can appreciate the beauty of Chi Ci better.