The Research On James Legge's The Works Of Mencius

James Legge (1815-1897) was a very important and famous Chinese Classic translator in modern times. He was also one of sinologist who researched and translated the Chinese Classics systematically. He got a remarkable status in the history of Chinese Classic translation and Chinese Classic research. His most important and influential translations are The Chinese Classics and the Sacred Books of the East, however, The Works of Mencius is the quintessence of the whole works which could inflect his profound translation skills and translation ideology.Of his translation ideology, he mixed the east thought with the west thought together; he claimed that the Confucianism and the Christianity could be supplementary to each other. This article states his translation ideology from following points:1: religion thoughts should be expressed by translation;2: rescuing world and people is the value of translation;3: exchanging and communication between the east and the west is the aim of translation;4: "not insist on one term so as to do violence to a sentence, nor on a sentence so as to do violence to the general scope, try with their thoughts to meet that scope, and then we shall apprehend it" is the standard of translation.On the aspect of translation methods, many were used, making the translated text having the same effect with the original text. He mainly adopted textual criticism, symbol, literal translation, annotation, free translation, complement, ellipsis, comparing, transliteration, neologism. His probing in translation theory and methods was successful and useful. We can draw lessons from his achievements. The annotations of translated text, preface and indexes include his new creations of Chinese Classics' translation, which inflected his point of view on politic, religion, world, and history, and also testifying his achievements on Chinese Classics researching."rigorous". "archaic","culture blending" are the styles and manners of the translator. The missionary experiences brought the translation a deep religious characteristic quality. His translation style inflects his attitude and preference in writing and translating. Legge combined both Chinese traditional translation theories and Weston translation theories together, thus, opening a new way for us to study the old ancient orient classics.