2.2 Image-G in classic Chinese poetry
The term of image-G,first coined by Jiang(2002:67),is defined as“the representation(mental and verbal)of a certain scene,a certain character or an event as a whole in a literary text.When referred to as image-G,the image is mainly stressed for its overall qualities”.According to Gestalt psychology,image-G is a psychological notion.It refers to a unified mental representation whose connotation cannot be simply deduced from the sum of each parts and implication is more than the merely sum of its parts(Jiang,2002).Instead,it incorporates the aesthetic,cognitive and psychological perspectives so that the three perspectives can be complementary and compatible with each other.Hence,as an image,it is associated with aesthetics conception and cognitive perception;and as imagery in Gestalt sense,it belongs to the field of psychology.
As an artistic unity,classic Chinese poetry possesses image in the Gestalt sense of holistic quality,which is the combination of artistic creation and mental representation.It is a higher aesthetic category composed of the artistic conception,sentiment and ideorealm involved in classic Chinese poetry as a whole.Just as we can identify someone's occupation by a unique temperament she/he has,literary discourse has a certain Gestalt that radiates out of the linguistic description of poetry and is animated through the whole discourse even if we cannot make a precise definition of it.It contributes to making clear how classic Chinese poetry takes on a distinctive Gestalt contour.By Gestalt contour,a certain effect of artistic conception,sentiment and ideorealm arises from the holistic image of poetry.As Jiang(2002:70)stated,“Image-G has the unity of a physiognomy or even of a form of behavior.Just as we identify an individual by a certain air he has,so the text or sub-text has a certain quality which is a unified constitution of the whole text”.(https://www.daowen.com)
Translators'recreation of image-G in the translation of classic Chinese poetry is a major concern facing translation theorists and translation researchers.Translators'interpretation of image-G will undoubtedly evoke their aesthetic activity in their mind and then stimulate their aesthetic perception.Image-G is obtained in translators'perceiving act and is apprehended as an inseparable organic unity of aesthetic content and artistic form,and therefore it is hard for translators to make conceptual analysis of Gestalt elements in image-G of classic Chinese poetry.The Gestalt elements of image-G do not exist as an independent conception or conformation,but are actually consolidated into the representation of a certain imagery and there might be other aesthetic components revealed in literary discourse(Wang,1993).To some extent,the representation of a certain imagery might be Gestalt elements revealed in the aesthetic integration of subjective emotion and objective scenes.Essentially,poets'subjective emotions are subtle,intangible and sophisticated,thus it is hard for translators to describe them quantitatively.It is no doubt that poets'sentiment and emotions are not manifested literally among the words and between the lines.Rather,it depends on translators'interpretation in drawing inference from objective scenes depicted in poetry.Translators can only perceive holistic essence of Gestalt as well as the whole artistic conception from transformation of an artistic Gestalt,rather than by an explicit language transformation of linguistic components.
Image-G gives full play to translators'creation of an aesthetic conception of idealism,which is in the position to guide translators into the Gestalt contour of artistic conception.It is operated by way of textual description of form and spirit which is characterized by a visualized fusion of text-supplied information with translators'aesthetic interpretation.Text-supplied information facilitates translators in acquiring a generally sketchy notion at first glance.The notion formulates a hazy scene in their mind as a Gestalt contour.Their aesthetic interpretation is then to substantiate this contour and can help to form a well-defined contour of image-G.In the process of their aesthetic interpretation,translators are in a subjectively constructed world which is made up of a configuration of images,conceptions,and Gestalt elements.Such a subjectively constructed world rests on translators'encyclopedia knowledge and aesthetic experience.Thus it is featured by individuality in different translators'aesthetic actualization of image-G.