A Study Of Ba Jin's Translated Works

Bajin is a leading Chinese writer, who makes use of writing and translating alternatively in uttering his voice, as is the case with many other Chinese writers in the first half of the 20th century. However, owing to the long established bias towards the translated literature, few scholars touch upon the question of translation in their study of Bajin and 20 century literature at large, which is the issue this paper tries to address.By taking a systematic look into his translated works, prefaces or postscripts, and writings related to his translation, this papers probes into Bajin's development of thinking, his literary tastes and the interaction between his writing and his translation, revealing his devotion to Anarchism in the 1920's, the rise of Nationalism in 1930's and the recovery of a sense of "self in the 1970's as well as his pragmatic orientation towards literature.This paper hopes to conduct a study of Bajin through a new perspective, namely, his translated works, thus makes a contribution to the research of 20th century Chinese literary history and translation history.It also aims to testify I.E. Zohar's hypothesis that at the moment of literary crisis, when the old literary model is held to be untenable and the new one is in the process of formation, translated literature occupies a central position in the construction of the new literary system of the receiving culture.