Translation aesthetics as a site of negotiation: when classical Chinese women's literature goes global

This paper investigates the representation of female images in English translations of classical Chinese women's literature, emphasizing how these translations shape global perceptions of Chinese poetics and gender politics. Classical Chinese women poets hold a significant place in literary history, yet their works have primarily reached global audiences through English translations, especially since the second-wave women's liberation movement in the 1960s and 1970s. Pioneering translations such as Kenneth Rexroth and Ling Chung's The Orchid Boat (1972), Women Writers of Traditional China (1999) by Kang-i Sun Chang and Haun Saussy, as well as Wilt Idema and Beata Grant's The Red Brush (2004) have been instrumental in introducing centuries of women's poetry to a wider audience. However, these translations raise critical questions about how female images are portrayed, particularly concerning potential eroticization and exoticization of gendered experiences. By analyzing the paratextual, semantic, syntactic, and rhetorical aspects in these anthologies, and in particular the concept of reticence and its implications, this paper argues thattranslation aesthetics involves a negotiation between authenticity and creativity andthus should be taken into account to manifest the distinctive status of premodern Chinese women poets in world literature.