The Translator’s Subjectivityunder The Influence Of Poetics In Literary Translation

Literary translation, as a means of trans-culture communication, requires not only the exact delivery of the meaning of the source text, but also the resurrection of its style and charm. The translation manipulation theory, which is represented by Theo Hermans and Andrew Lefevere, is of great applicability for literary translation.Theo Hermans holds that all translations are manipulations of the source text for some purposes, and translators are not the slaves of the target language system. This means we have to take translator’s subjectivity into consideration. According to Andrew Lefevere, three factors that influence translation activity are Ideology, poetics and patronage. Among them, the poetics factor can be divided into two parts, one of which is literary elements, including techniques, style, theme, prototype, plots and symbols, etc. Under the influence of literary elements, the translators show their subjectivity in the process of understanding the source text and reproduce the target text. This thesis will discuss translator’s subjectivity under the poetics factor of the translation manipulation theory.This thesis chooses the translation of a satirical fiction England, England. By analyzing the examples taken from it, the main features of translator’s subjectivity are subjective, creative and selective. In the meantime, considering that the current studies for translator’s subjectivity mainly aim at the comparison of two different translations, which ignored the practical significance of translator’s subjectivity, this paper also puts forward several translation strategies targeting literary translation, hoping that they can be of some use for literary translation in the future.