From Conflicts To Harmonies: Analysis Of Cultural Identities Within Arthur Waley's Translation Of The Confucian Analects

This dissertation maintains that the renown 20th century British sinologist, Arthur Waley, born an Anglo-Jew, found his spiritual homeland in oriental culture and literature and his cultural identities influence his sinological translation of the Analects. This diachronical and synchronical study applies the modern translation theories of AndréLefevere, ideology, poetics and patronage and the translator's culture identities'interferences to his translation process.Cultural identities played an important role to Waley's way to be a sinologist. He showed great enthusiasm for the east when he won the opportunity to work in the British Museum. By conforming to the poetics of the Bloomsbury Group and the Ezra Pound - T.S. Eliot poet circle, and by exchanging ideas with the then authority in sinology Herbert A. Giles and also by publishing translations and articles on Chinese culture and literature constantly beginning from 1918, Waley drew much attention and acclaim. These broad academic contributions informed the British readership on China and the east. This diachronically study of Waley's life and academic experiences explains his attitude toward Confucius and the Analects translation later.Translating the Chinese classics marks another stage in Waley's career. He translated the Confucian Analects which was and is well received in both the West and China among more than 50 different versions that this author has collected. Waley challenged James Legge by criticizing him for his religious ground and relying too much on Zhu Xi's explanation in translation. What he meant to produce is a translation based on the idea of"one Confucius at a time". He provided readers with more information about the historical background of the Analects texts than James Legge had done as he believed that"thought grew out of environment". Waley took the Confucian Analects as an educational book for the common English readers, so he rendered the key term"ren"as"Goodness". Compared with the other translators'choices for the term this study proves that to turn such a cultural load word into English a compromised method might be a better policy as no well established western concept could substitute for"ren", though Waley run the risk of familiarizing the Chinese text.The study has shown that sinologists'identities in translating the Chinese classics are not only academic but also cultural ones, which intend to rewrite the Chinese culture and re-form the Chinese images in their translations. There are traces of the modified orientalism in sinologists'way of dealing with the Chinese texts as the result of long-time immersing in Chinese culture in their career. In this aspect Waley is a representative of the sinologist group. To examine and analyze the great contributions that Arthur Waley has made to the popularization of Chinese cultural and literary classics from the cross-cultural and media-transtology points of view is the method employed by the author, rather than to evaluate his translations on the linguistic level about"wrong or right". The case study of Waley's translation will throw light on the translation of Chinese classics into foreign languages, which means much in the process of making China known to the World.