The Interplay Between Chinese Translated Literature And Native Literature

Chinese translated literature enjoys a fairly long history, which can be dated backto Buddhist scriptures translation in Han Dynasty. Chinese translated literatureinterplayed frequently and complicatedly with native literature from the verybeginning, which not only exerted great influence upon native literature, but alsoperfected and improved itself. In recent years, the ontological value, formationmechanism, existing form, reading and dissemination style of Chinese translatedliterature, and its interplay with original literature and culture, and with targetliterature and culture are arousing more and more attention, discussion and researchamong the academic circle, which yielded conclusions that are significant, butgenerally speaking, not comprehensive and deep enough. Current discussionsconcerning interplay between Chinese translated literature and native literature focuson influence of translated literature upon native literature for the most part, and arevery unsystematic with its emphasis only on literary facts or on the interplay during acertain historical period. This paper aims at making a comparatively deep andcomprehensive research on the interplay between Chinese translated literature andnative literature, and obtaining an interplaying mode between the two.The interplay between Chinese translated literature and native literature lies firstin the interplay between Chinese translated literature and social culture, becauseliterature is only a subsystem of the culture as a larger polysystem. Literature isalways affected and manipulated by social culture. Chinese translated literaturegenerated through literary translation will face the cultural filtration in Chinese socialcultural context and literary acceptance context. The translated literaturecorrespondent with Chinese mainstream ideology and aesthetic orientation will beaccepted and even canonized, thus occupying the center of the literary system, andinterplay with native literature, and what's more, it will break the accomplished nativeliterary norms and exemplify native literature during certain special historical periods;while those against Chinese mainstream ideology and aesthetic orientation will berefused or marginalized in the literary system.The translated literature is closely related to literary translation, and there is also very frequent interplay between Chinese social culture, especially social ideology, andliterary translation. The restrictions upon literary translation are from the target cultureand ideology mostly, and from the translators' individual ideology, cultural stand,cultural attitude and national culture mentality as well, which results in differences inliterary translation strategies. Literary translation strategies under Chinese culturalcontext vary with different cultural backgrounds and ideologies in different socialperiods, thus generating a complicated and interesting interplay with native literatureand culture.The interplay between Chinese translated literature and native literature also liesin the interplay at the level of poetics. Chinese translated literature has exertedsignificant influences upon native literature and culture in Chinese cultural contextsince the Buddhist scriptures translation. The influences are upon all aspects ofChinese native literature, including literary viewpoints, theme, style, genre, etc., andeven upon Chinese culture as a whole. The modernization of Chinese native literatureand culture is closely and definitely related to the influences from Chinese translatedliterature. What's more, the interplay between Chinese literary creation and literarytranslation is also an important aspect of the interplay between Chinese translatedliterature and native literature. There are many outstanding writer-translators inChinese literary history, for example, Linshu and Luxun, etc. They took advantages ofthemes, thoughts and styles of foreign literatures into their own literary writing, andmade great contributions to the interplay between Chinese translated literature andnative literature.The mutual interplay and transformation of the subjective and objective rolesplayed by Chinese translated literature and native literature as two subsystems in thewhole literary system are incessant in the history of Chinese literature. The nativeliterature during the transforming period of China was eager to enrich itself withadvanced literary thoughts, ideas and writing methods from foreign literatures, thustranslated literature occupied the center of literary system and provided nativeliterature with fresh blood and nutrition. Contemporary Chinese native literature hasbeen becoming more and more mature in literary language, thoughts and methodsunder the influence of the translated literature with the latter still occupying the center of literary system and developing and maturing together with native literature. Sincethe new era of socialism, Chinese native literature has been growing more mature andputting more emphasis on utilizing native cultural resources, and the translatedliterature at the same time gradually lost its central position as exemplar in the literarysystem and was being marginalized, while Chinese native literature has beenapproaching the center of the literary system gradually.This paper will make a deep and comprehensive research into the interplaybetween Chinese translated literature and native literature from the aspects of theinterplay between Chinese translated literature and social culture, the interplaybetween Chinese social ideology and literary translation, the cultural filtration upontranslated literature in Chinese native literary acceptance context, and the interplaybetween literary creation and literary translation practice of Chinese writer-translators.This paper will be concluded with an interplay mode between Chinese translatedliterature and native literature, and several afterthoughts upon the research.