A Hermeneutic Study Of Zhang Gurou's Chinese Version Of Jude The Obscure

Thomas Hardy was an eminent writer in the late 19th century in Britain. Jude the Obscure, one of his long novels, has experienced ups and downs when coming into being, but the novel turned out to be an excellent one at last. Mr. Zhang Guruo's translation of Jude the Obscure has won great success and aroused a great echo after its publication as early as 1950s.Hermeneutics can be defined as a theory or philosophy of understanding and interpretation of the meaning of the source text, hermeneutics and translation are intrinsically related to each other. Hermeneutics not only deepens people's understanding of the translator, but also provides a brand new perspective for translation studies. However, many people think that hermeneutic concept of translation means translating arbitrarily regardless of the original text, which as a matter of fact, exaggerates the translator's subjectivity and ignores the restriction of the original text.First of all, the thesis gives a brief review of the origin, development of hermeneutics and the relationship between translation and hermeneutics is also illustrated. Secondly, Great efforts are made to introduce Steiner's fourfold hermeneutic motion, that is, trust, aggression, incorporation and compensation. The four steps are divided into two parts: trust and aggression can be considered as the translator's overall attitude towards translation from the macroscopic point of view. Incorporation and compensation can be regarded as the expression form of language, which are the specific embodiment of the above-mentioned overall attitude in translating. At last, the thesis will apply George Steiner's hermeneutic motion to making a research on the Chinese version of Jude the Obscure with a view to exploring how the four steps embody in the Chinese version of Jude the Obscure.The Present study is an attempt to analyze the translated version from hermeneutics instead of making an abstract study. The thesis then draws a conclusion that the translator's subjectivity and initiative are demonstrated in great detail, but it is by no means that the translator can display his subjective initiative arbitrarily. The translator should display subjectivity in accordance with the principle of being faithful to the content and spirit of the source. Translator's subjectivity is the subjectivity under the principle of faithfulness, and faithfulness is the relative faithfulness with subjectivity.