An Aesthetic Probe Into The Translation Of Chinese Opera

Chinese opera is the priceless legacy of Chinese culture. As an integrated performing art, it is a synthesis of poems, music, dance and stage designing. At the same time, it also ranks as one of the important genres of literature, which carries on the heavy tradition of Chinese literature. The arias of the Chinese opera combine music and poetry, whose librettos is governed by the prescribed tonal patterns, rhythm, rhyming scheme and a fixed number of words like other forms of poetry in China. The speaking parts of Chinese opera are usually written in prose and play an essential role in shaping the characters and pushing forward the plot. How to make the Chinese opera accessible and enjoyable to target readers have always been both a difficult question and a great challenge confronting the translators.In aesthetics, the aesthetic object is the one that falls under the aesthetic subject's recognition and creation. In translation, it refers to the text to be translated. The literariness of the Chinese opera calls for the translator's perception and exploration of the aesthetic constituents of the original at different levels, either formal or non-formal ones. The translator could capture the acoustic and visual effects caused by the versification, rhythm, diction or sentence patterns directly through his sensuous perception. Whereas the vivid images, profound artistic ideorealm with inexhaustible meaning created by the limited words, intense emotions and the tones couched in the speaking of the characters require the translator's higher aesthetic capabilities.In aesthetics, the aesthetic subject is the person conducting the aesthetic activities on aesthetic object. As to the translation of Chinese opera, the aesthetic subject embraces both the translator and reader. On one hand, the translator brings his linguistic cognition, imagination and other psychological faculties to the full play to adjust his cognitive and aesthetic patterns so as to capture the aesthetic information and evoke the aesthetic experience as similar as that of the author. The diversities of perceptive angles and aesthetic judgments by different translators could also bring out the differences of feelings on the part of the readers. On the other hand, the translator is expected to take the target reader's aesthetic culture and patterns into consideration to make his rendering more acceptable.Being a special aesthetic activity, the translation process embraces not only the appreciation of the original but also the transference of those aesthetic constituents into the target language. Guided by aesthetic basic principles and in conformity with the rules of translator's aesthetic activity, this thesis sets out a tentative study on the transference of formal and non-formal aesthetic constituents in the translation of Chinese opera. And the author of this paper hopes that this study will be conductive to the research of translation of Chinese opera.