A Reevaluation Of Lin Shu's Translation From A Historical-cultural Perspective

Lin Shu's translation of foreign literary works was unprecedented in China's translation history, which remains a controversial and heated issue in the translation circle. Due to the inevitable "inadequacy" rooted in incipient Chinese literary translation and the negative effect brought on by the New Culture Movement, Lin Shu's translation has long been subjected to questioning and criticism.The shift toward the study of non-linguistic factors involved in translation activities, marked by Polysystem theory put forward by Itamar Even-Zohar in the 1970s, broadens the perspective on translation studies. This thesis, with Gideon Toury's target-oriented approach and Andre Lefevere's translation theory of manipulation as the theoretical framework, makes a tentative reevaluation of Lin Shu's translation from its historical and cultural background by taking one of his representative translations, Hei Nu Yu Tian Lu, as a case study. Concrete examples of translation are employed to illustrate influence and manipulation of the target literary, cultural, political, and social factors behind different translation strategies the translator adopted in translating, including but not limited to addition, omission, abridgment and alteration. Meanwhile, the thesis also dwells on the immense impact the translation produced on the society then.The conclusion is reached that Lin Shu's translation, confined to but counteractive on the given social and historical environment, exerted a tremendous political and social impact on China during the late Qing and early Republic period, and played a significant role in promoting the development of Chinese literary translation and modern Chinese literature.