On James Jegge's Translation Of Chinese Classics

James Legge (1815-1897), the Scottish missionary, translator and sinologist, was the first one to render into English the entire Confucian canon and other ancient Chinese classics. His translations of the traditional Confucian classics, the Four Books and Five Ching, which were included in his widely acclaimed series, the Chinese Classics and the Scared Books of China, represent the most outstanding achievements ever attained in Western Sinology, and have been subsequently considered as standard versions by scholars for centuries.Legge's monumental translation works are not only valued in terms of its immense academic significance, but also admired for its unparalleled accuracy, perspicuity, thoroughness and faithfulness. While many efforts have been directed to the discussion of the style and language features of the translations, this thesis, based on the theoretic framework of AndréLefevere, is intended to approach Legge's translation of the Chinese Classics from a cultural perspective to explore how the features in Legge's translations are formed and shaped by a series of religious, cultural, philosophic and literary factors and to find out what has made the translation appear as it is.The thesis consists of seven chapters. The first chapter is a literature review of previous studies on James Legge and his translations. Having revealed a traditional tendency of merely focusing on the linguistic level in studies on the Chinese Classics, the review suggests that a study based on the framework proposed by Lefevere will shed some fresh light on Legge's translations. The second chapter is a review on the life of James Legge, including Legge's childhood, his university education and theological training, his missionary career in Malacca and Hong Kong and his translation of Chinese classics. An introduction of Legge's motivation for his translation is also included in this chapter.The third chapter presents a brief account of AndréLefevere and his definition of ideology, poetics and patronage as three controlling factors of translation. Chapters four, five and six, which constitute the major part of the thesis, are devoted to detailed analyses from the perspectives of ideology, poetics and patronage to provide a new interpretation of the style, language features and translation strategies adopted in James Legge's translation by placing it into a broader cultural context. A summary of the thesis is given in the last chapter, which concludes that James Legge's translation of the Chinese Classics is actually shaped by ideological, poetological and other factors.