On Two Chinese Versions Of Bacon's Essays

Francis Bacon once said, care about all the problems and difficulties arising in the course of people's life instead of helping them live through their spare time, which is why I wrote books.? In his book of Essays, the author demonstrates this insight in his painstakingly probing attempt to deal with aspects of human nature seen in the surrounding world, in works such as Cf Studies, Of Beauty, Cf Love, Of Death and Of Truth, which leaves profound enlightenment in the reader at every point. Underlining these essays is the essence of Bacon's positivist thought as well as a vivid expression of the value ideal of humanism of the Renaissance period. The Essays discuss concepts related to abstract ideas of wisdom and philosophy, which are potentially of key importance and are endowed in style with an elegant language and a majestic rhythm that wholly appeal to the aesthetic feeling of the reader. Especially within the framework of a rapid development of a knowledge economy within China today, a serious and successful rendition of the original Essays is required, so that the Chinese reader may full appreciate and comprehend Bacon's literary achievement. Translation is more than a linguistic enterprise but rather an attempt to provide the bridge between two ethnographically different worlds. In this study, the author of the paper endeavors to compare and analyze two translations of the Essays of Francis Bacon by Cao Minglun and He Xin for the Chinese readers within the framework of the definition of functional equivalence of Eugene A. Nida. The relevance and applicability of the concept of equivalence within the field of translation theory has been the cause of much controversy. The merits of each translation are assessed on the basis of Nidas approach to this concept, which lays stress on the semantic quality and underlying stylistic features of the source text. The thesis consists of four chapters. The first chapter attempts to deal with the theoretical nature of translation, the procedures of translation and the theory of Eugene A. Nida. The second chapter introduces the Essays of Francis Bacon, its author and the two versions of his work translated into Chinese. As the father of English essays, Bacon is knowledgeable, cosmopolite, innovative and a most typical representative of the Renaissance period. His writing however is deeply affected by the Latin language, which makes it more difficult to translate the source text. The third chapter focuses on a comparison of the two translations in terms of meaning, Style and aesthetics. The fourth chapter points out some flaws in the translations. Although both versions appear generally to be of good quality, they still leave something to be desired. Concluding remarks are given in a brief review of the whole paper. In the course of translating Cao Minglun has sought to achieve maximum similarity in terms of form based on meaning equivalence, while He Xin has focused on the meaning equivalence. With respect to meaning it examines aspects of lexical translation, where certainly both versions have their own merits and demerits. Compared with He Xins version, that of Cao Minglun appears to be more faithful to the original and its author with regard to the aspects of style and aesthetics. Moreover, Cao Minglun's version of the Essays reproduces the original beauty and style of the source text, which makes it more highly valuable to the reader. The relative success of this translatio...