| Literary works are different from practical writings, such as governmental documents, business writings, news reports and comments, legal documents, etc., and one of their main features is the aesthetic effect, which may arouse certain aesthetic sensation in readers. This dissertation starts from the aesthetic effect of literary works, compares and analyses aesthetic effects of the originals and the translated texts in literary translation, aiming at finding certain laws in literary translation. This dissertation intends to take an integrated approach, involving various disciplines related to translation, such as linguistics, stylistics, rhetoric, literary psychology, literary criticism, aesthetics, philosophy, etc., with the combination of linguistics and literary theories as the core. The author attempts to overcome the limitation of a single discipline, by employing various theories to explore translation as an interdisciplinary subject. This may be a new approach in translation studies. The introduction has a review of the development of translation theories, and contends the general tendency of translation studies is the employment of: philological rhetoric→linguistics→literary theories→social ideology. It has developed from interior studies towards exterior studies. We have to admit that distinct theories are interrelated and can influence each other, and each has their own advantages and limitations. This part also gives a brief introduction of translation aesthetics in China. Chapter 1 provides comments on literary translation from a macro perspective. It is believed that literary translation is fundamentally a cross-cultural communication event, in which the cultural barrier is more difficult than the linguistic one to surmount. China and the West differ in their aesthetic orientations: the Chinese culture emphasizes community, the whole, and perception, while the Western culture stresses individuals, details, and rationality. However, literary works in China and the West may display some features that are contradictory to their general cultural orientations. Chapter 2 explores aesthetic effects in literary translation from a linguistic approach. It only selects some subjects of linguistics as the research target, namely, word order, pragmatic meanings, and so on. It also employs the overlapping discipline between linguistics and literature — stylistics in the analysis of translation of deviational sentences and the succinct style of the whole text. The linguistic approach in translation studies usually seeks to achieve equivalence between the original and the translated text. Chapter 3 is the core of this dissertation. It tries to investigate translation with the help of various theories: literary theories, aesthetics, philosophy, rhetoric, etc. It has studied features and strata of literary works, readers' participation and expectation in literary appreciation, the nature and aesthetic effects of literary works, and it puts forward two new concepts in literary translation: the complete meaning and the partial meaning. Various relevant theories are utilized to interpret two main processes of translation — comprehension and expression, in order to provide reference and guidance for translation practice. The last part of this chapter gives a case study of literary translation illustrating theories mentioned here. Chapter 4 has investigated one of the features of literary works — imagery, and translation of literary images. Literary images can be traced back to ancient times, and literary images are indispensable for literary works. Literary images are closely related to aesthetics, psychology, and cultural orientations. Readers of certain culture may repel cultural images from other cultures or assimilate them. So it is up to the translator to make a decision on whether he should transfer the original image or not, considering the source culture, the author, the textual features of the original, the target audience, the acceptability of the target culture,...
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