The Principle Of "Faithfulness" Observed In Rendering Hongloumeng

The problem of translation criteria has been a puzzle for centuries. During the history of translation study, various theories have been raised and have benefited much the practice of translation. In China, Yan Fu (严复) is unanimously acknowledged as the forefather who puts forward the proposition of translation criteria and his three-word criteria "faithfulness, expressiveness and elegance" have laid the foundation for his successors to further discuss and study this proposition more extensively and specifically.In this thesis, the author stresses in particular his first word, "faithfulness", and its impotance in literary translation, and tries to expound it from two different aspects, that is, "faithfulness" in translating meaning and "faithfulness" in transmitting culture. Examples are cited from the Chinese classical novel Hongloumeng and comparison be made with the English edition rendered by Yang Xianyi and Gladys Yang to show the gains and losses in translating the novel so far as the above-mentioned two aspects are concerned, and to demonstrate that "faithfulness" is the first and foremost translation criterion and should be observed to the largest extent possible in literary translation.Due to the limited knowledge and ability of the author, there is still much room for improvement in this paper. But the author will be quite pleased if the thesis may be of some value in the study of translation criteria.