On Retranslation Of Children's Literature From The Perspective Of Rewriting And Polysystem Theory

Itamer Even - Zohar advocates that a literary work is not studied in isolation but as part of a heterogeneous and open literary system, where there is an ongoing dynamic of "mutation" and struggle for the primary position in the literary canon. Therefore, in a certain period, it is inevitable for some parts of the system to assume the primary position while others the peripheral one. According to Zohar, translator's tasks vary if the position of each part of literary system is different. Later, Andre Lefevere proposed the rewriting theory, in which he believes that the major factor that influences translator's major task is the translator's consideration of an ideological and/or poetic nature. For him, translation is a process of rewriting not only in language but also in cultural sense, which suffers from restrictions due to political, economic and cultural factors.Children's literature is a special yet indispensable component of literature. It has long been in a peripheral position in the literary system until the late Qing period dynasty, which witnessed its embryonization. Due to special social and cultural circumstances in the May 4^th period, children's literature was established for the first time from the large literary canon, as a unique genre. Since China's reform and opening, children's literature has been undergoing fundamental changes in the new era. As an independent genre, it is further classified into three categories, each with distinctive aesthetic features and functions. This evolution of children's literature, determined by improvements in ideology and poetics of each era, will eventually call for an upgrade of translated works.The Happy Prince by Oscar Wilde is one of the earliest fairy tales introduced into China. The translations of the story thread through almost 100 years' time from the late Qing period to the new era after China's reform and opening. This period witnessed the "on-going struggle" of children's literature from the peripheral position to a primary one and thus is important to the retranslation studies of children's literature. In this paper, three representative versions will be chosen for analysis. If each shows improvement over the previous driven by some inevitable forces, the necessity of retranslation is verified.This study then comes to a conclusion. Retranslations of The Happy Price continue to show that the translators' awareness of features of children's literature is becoming stronger and stronger. This is not a random result but is inevitably driven by the change of children's literature in the literary canon, determined by factors of ideology and poetics.