On Applicability Of Philosophical Hermeneutics In Retranslation Of "The Happy Prince"

Hermeneutics is science and methodology concerned with understanding and interpretation. The development of it has undergone a long process from theological hermeneutics gradually to modern philosophical hermeneutics. The publication of Gadamer's Truth and Method in 1960 symbolized its author become the most influential contemporary henneneutist.There is an intrinsic relationship between hermeneutics and literary translation studies. Translation studies from the perspective of philosophical hermeneutics provide a new perspective to translation studies, breaking through the traditional principles of "determinative author" and the pursuit of the only "standard" translation. According to hermeneutics, literary translation means interpretation. There exist different horizons in literary works and the translators, while translators of different times understand and translate the source texts with their own horizons (including language, culture, religion etc.) to achieve a diversity of interpretation. Therefore, the process of literary translation is a process of fusing horizons as well as a process of interpretation. Meanwhile, the irreversibility of history determines the historical translation, which is produced in a particular social and historical environment.From 1909 when "The Happy Prince" was first introduced into China by Zhou Zuoren, there have appeared hundreds of different versions of its translations in nearly a century's time. The three versions selected in this thesis are Anle Wangzi translated by Zhou Zuoren in 1909, Kuaile Wangzi translated by Ba Jin in 1947 and Kuaile Wangzi translated by Li Jieren in 2007. In this thesis, the three representative translations are comparatively studied based on the three main theoretical perspectives of Gadamer's philosophical hermeneutics, namely, "historical understanding", "fusion of horizons" and "effective history" combined with other related theories of hermeneutics. A translation is a prejudice of an era and a good translation should be recognized the accepted prejudice at its time. Philosophical hermeneutics is able to effectively explain some translations influenced and determined by the historical context of society and culture. It applies to the study of different translations occurring in different periods especially to the retranslation of children's literary works heavily influenced by the times. Thus this provides a new perspective to the study of retranslation of children's literary works.