On The Translation Of The Poetic Beauty Of Hong Lou Meng

Hong Lou Meng (A Dream of Red Mansions) is undoubtedly one of the most difficult works to translate in Chinese classical literature. In this paper, we have taken the translation of the poetic beauty of Hong Lou Meng as our research object, and discussed the strategies of translation of this novel from the esthetic point of view. Focusing on the main topic of the’image’, we have criticised the literal translation in French by Li Tche-houa and Jacqueline Alezais and provided new referential ideas for the translation of this great work, in order to support our five basic arguments and the new strategy of translation that we have put forward.This dissertation is made of an introduction and five chapters. The introduction highlights above all the reason why we have chosen the perspective of’poetic beauty’ as our main approach to the translation of this novel. Therefore, our discussions of theory and skills are confined to the esthetic framework. After introducing the history of the translation and studies of Hong Lou Meng in France to serve both as the basis of our demonstration and a contribution to the’Redology’(the study of the novel A Dream of Red Mansions) in China, we have announced the contents and the connections of the five chapters, so as to clarify the general structure of the dissertation. Finally, we have summarized the main arguments defended in the thesis.The first chapter tries to elucidate several theoretical problems. In the esthetic framework that we have built, the central value of Hong Lou Meng is the’poetic beauty’which gives priority to the’feeling’. This is also the main target of the translation of this great work. Since the target of the translation of this novel consists in its beauty, it can not preexist the esthetic reading of the translator. In fact, the reading activity and the beauty of Hong Lou Meng coexist and interact. The principal mission of the translation of Hong Lou Meng is to represent the dynamic and dialectic relations between the universe, the original work, the translated work, the reader, the author, and the translator, among which an extremely important and often neglected relation is the one between the translator and another’self. This particular and important relation can only be discovered on the esthetic level. In order to clarify the subject-object relations during the translation of Hong Lou Meng, we have summed them up as a process of’empathy-exotopy-surplus of vision-recreation’. Among these esthetic steps, the’surplus of vision’is the primary stage of the display of the subjectivity of translator, which marks the end of the esthetic judgement and the beginning of the recreation. As for the recreation, the first problem that the translator is bound to face is the determination of the unit of translation. From the esthetic perspective, we have argued that the unit of translation of Hong Lou Meng consists in the’image’which can be esthetically represented in the translated work. The segmentation of the images depends on the integrity and the reliability of the transmission of the artistic vision (mindmosphere意境), as well as the coherence between the images. Finally, we have explained the strategy of Li’s translation and formulated a new strategy of translation from the esthetic point of view, to serve as a basis for our criticism and discussion about translation.After having clarified the main target, the principal mission and the process, and put forward hypotheses concerning the unit of translation of Hong Lou Meng, we have set out arguments for our new strategy of translation based on three elements:image of word, image of rhetoric and image of rhythm.1. image of word:the esthetical effects of the strategy of word-unit by Li Tche-houa have a quite different effect depending on whether they are applied to the’different translations of a same word’or to the’cultural terms’, because the artistic images coincide with the images of words in the’cultural terms’.2. image of rhetoric:homophone, pun and hendiadys can be considered as the’three difficulties’in the translation of Hong Lou Meng. Given the characteristics of French rhetoric, we have suggested that the most effective substitutions of the’homophones’are the’semantic puns’, which should be kept as often as possible when they appear in the original work.3. image of rhythm:for the translation of the four-word expressions, we have proposed the arrangement of the text, of the cesuras and the adjustment of numbers of syllables. On the basis of the discussion developed in those three chapters, we can certify that the representation of the images is the key to a successful translation of Hong Lou Meng. Besides, the translator should also pay attention to the coherence of the images, thereby completing the’atmosphere’of the translated work and achieving the core objective which consists in the representation of the artistic vision of the original work. This is the conclusion of the fifth chapter, which echoes the strategy of translation formulated in the first chapter.In summary, the demonstration of the five chapters in this dissertation has presented a circular operation of’mindmosphere-image-discourse-image mindmosphere’, which corresponds with our interpretation of the bi-directional circular movement of the subjective and objective factors in the translation of Hong Lou Meng. This correspondence on one hand combines the five chapters into an organic whole and on the other hand corroborates our five arguments and new strategy.