A Comparative Study On The Three Chinese Versions Of Shakespeare Sonnets From The Perspective Of Reception Aesthetics

Shakespeare’s sonnets are a collection of154sonnets, written during the16thcentury. The sonnets are mainly dealing with themes such as the passage of time, love,beauty and mortality. Due to its delicate structure and excellent language technique,they have become the peak in the sonnet around the world. The Shakespeare’s sonnetswere firstly introduced to China during the" May Fourth Movement Period by Chinesegreat translator Zhu Xiang. Since then, many different Chinese versions of Shakespear’ssonnets successively emerged such as by Mr. Liang Zong Dai, Zhu Sheng Hao, CaoMinglun etc. The author of the thesis has great interest in the translations ofShakespeare’s sonnets, and attempted to analyze and compare three versions in differenthistorical periods from the perspective of reception theory.Reception theory (also called Aesthetics of Reception) is a version of readerresponse literary theory that emphasizes the reader’s reception of a literary text, that isthe readers are no longer the passive group, but active one. They can not only effect thestatus of a piece of literary work in certain historical period, but also exert an influenceindirectly over the produce of a piece of work. The value in the work should beco-created by both reader and author. In literary studies, reception theory was proposedby Hans-Robert Jauss and Wquolfgang Iser in the late1960s. Its theoretical basis arehermeneutics and phenomenology aesthetics. Some important concepts adopted inJauss’ and Wqolfgang Iser ’s theory are all devolved from Heidegger’s "innatestructure(先在结构)","horizaontverschmelzung(视觉融合) and R. Ingarden’s concreteworks (具体化)".As translation involves the reception of original texts, with the translator as aspecial reader, reception theory has necessarily been applied to translation. Traditionaltranslation, influenced by traditional aesthetics and cultural theories, ignored thetranslator’s creativity as well as the readers’ participation, which cause the literaryworks sometimes hard to acceptable by readers. The application of reception theorycan not only overcome the traditional weakness, but also greatly provide a newperspective for the translation research. The author of the thesis chooses three Chinese versions of Shakepeares’s sonnetswhich has been translated in different historical periods, namely version by Zhu Xiang,version by Tu An, and version by Cao Ming Lun. Through the contrast and analysis ofthe three versions, the author intends to illustrate that readers’ reception of a piece ofliterary work change with the historical background from some main concepts ofreception theory, such as indeterminacy of meaning, horizon of expectation, reader’srole and status. The author also hope that the thesis can provide a new perspective to thestudy of Shakespeare’s Sonnet.