Interpretation Of The Literary Translation In Late Qing Dynasty (1895-1918) In Light Of The Rewriting Theory By Andre Lefevere

The development of translation theory has undergone the traditional philological stage and modem linguistic stage. However, both the literary approach and linguistic approach are source-text oriented, so 'fidelity to the original' is usually regarded as the only criterion to evaluate the translated texts. On the other hand, more and more people come to realize that the absolute 'faithfulness' is never possible and in history, there did exist some unfaithfully translated texts, which not only attracted positive attention in the receiving nation but also brought profound influence on its politics, economic and culture. Therefore since the 1970s, in western theoretical circle, there gradually emerged a new discipline in its own right, namely Translation Studies that developed the historic descriptive methodology toward translation research while taking target-text as the starting point. Because of the target-text orientation, this new discipline shifts its focus of research from intratext to extratext and naturally carries out thinking about following questions: what kind of text is to be chosen, what factors constrain the strategies employed by the translator and how a translated text is accepted by the target culture.To answer these questions, some scholars in this group put forward the 'cultural turn' in translation studies, with a view to study translation on the angle of cultural studies and at the same time addressed the interaction between translation and those broad issues such as context, history and culture. As one leading figure of Translation Studies, Andre Lefevere set a shining example for the 'cultural turn' with his rewriting theory.Lefevere's rewriting theory mainly comes from his book titled Translation, Rewriting and The manipulation of literary Fame. In this book, Lefevere points out that translation is essentially a rewriting of the original information in the service of dominant poetics and ideology. The aim of such rewriting is no more than to manipulate the literature to function in a given society in a given way. Besides, Lefevere presents a double factor, which controls literary translation from inside and outside literary system. One is called the factor of professionals,consisting of critics, reviewers, teachers, and translators. They are mainly concerned about the poetics of the works of literature within the parameters set by the second factor. The second factor is called patronage, meaning something like the powers that can further or hinder the reading, writing and rewriting of literature. Patronage might be the influential individuals or a certain group such as, the publishers, political parties, newspapers and magazines. Patronage cares much about the ideology of literary works. Therefore, it is the two elements, poetics and ideology that fundamentally constrain the literary translation functioning inside the literary system.The literary translation in late Qing Dynasty, because of its large proportion of adaptation and deletion has long been ignored by the traditional source-text oriented translation studies Based on the understanding of rewriting theory, this thesis chooses the literary translation in this period as object of study with a view to revealing the historical, political reason behind those unfaithful translations. To put it more specific, this paper aims to interpret how poetics and ideology constraint the process of literary translation in late Qing Dynasty, such as the choice of translation material and the choice of translation strategies and the result of translation, such as influencing the reading of translated works through professionals' manipulation.Lefevere's rewriting theory goes beyond the limits of traditional translation theory (literary approach and linguistic approach) and defines the poetological and ideological constraints on translation, by the means of historic descriptive approach. His very contribution to translation theory is not only helpful for us to interpret the literary translation of late Qing Dynasty but also beneficial in systematically cardi...