Creative Treason In Literary Translation

The present study of literary translation no longer focuses on the study of source and target texts as the traditional way does, but brings more factors in other fields into consideration. The once prevailing translation criterion "faithfulness" is not the upmost judgement for a good translation any more. As the study on translator's subjectivity goes further and further, creative treason as one of the most important and typical characteristics of literary translation has gained attention as never before. Traditional translation study denies it and holds that translator should"minimize"his creativeness, while comparative literature encourages its full play in literary translation. Skopostheorie, which developed from German functionalism, holds that translation is a form of translational action based on a source text and the prime principle determining any translation process is the purpose (Skopos) of the overall translational action. This theory provides a new and effective perspective for the study of creative treason.This paper tentatively applies Skopostheorie to literary translation to expound the rationality and necessity of creative treason in literary translation, and propose to evaluate creative treason with rules of Skopostheorie. First, the paper argues that creative treason is inevitable and necessary in literary translation by analyzing the actional aspects of different agents in literary translation. Then based on the research and case study of relevant translated works in literary field, the paper clarifies the role of Skopos as the governing factor in the actual procedure of creative treason. The next part of the paper evaluates the quality of creative treason by applying Skopos rules. Based on the previous theoretical study and the analysis of a number of cases collected from translated literary works, this paper leads to the conclusion that literary translation, like any other forms of translation, is to a great extent governed by Skopos, and creative treason is the necessary strategy for an adequate target text in literary translation. Creative treason should meet the dual-principle of adequacy and loyalty: Adequacy requires creative treason to realize the translation brief and loyalty limits the range of justifiable target text functions and requires translator's moral responsibility to ensure the acceptability of creative treason.