The Interaction Between Ideology And Literary Translation

The Gadfly is a heroic novel written by the Irish women novelist Ethel Lilian Voynich. It is famous for its vivid characters, great patriotism and revolutionary enthusiasm, and it is even more popular and has more influence in Soviet Union than it is in Ireland.In 1950s, when the People's Republic of China was newly established, the whole nation was highly unified in politics, economy, culture and other social aspects. The main task of the literary world was to construct the socialist ideology, that is, to uphold the national will and ideology as the core to define the socialist properties of contemporary literature, so as to insure the socialism as the dominant ideology in China. Moreover, influenced by Soviet Union, China begun to translate and publish the Chinese version of the novel at the beginning of 1950s. Li Liangmin's translation was published by the Chinese Youth Press in 1953, and it was very popular after publication and most people modeled themselves upon the protagonist, the Gadfly. As time changes, the dominant ideology is different with that of the 1950s, and public's need for culture is increasing continuously. Under the guidance of times spirit, Chinese literary world produces and translates a great deal of excellent literary works which are full of epochal characteristics and conform to the need of time. what is more, many classic literary works get republished and retranslated in the new era, among which The Gadfly is a very impressive one. The novel has affected a few generations in China, and in 2005, Li Jiang Press republished this novel translated by Qing Xuexian. Reading it in the new era, readers can still be convinced and moved. However, it can be noticed that the 1953's version and the new one have many differences, in comparison with the original one, Li's version is greatly deleted while the deleted passages are restored in the new edition. Such kind of rewriting of the original is not accidental, but affected by a lot of factors, such as ideological, historical and social factors, etc. While the rewritten version exerts influence on those factors, it can also promote the development and construction of ideology.AndréLefevere's rewriting theory is instructive in studying the interaction between ideology and literary translation. AndréLefevere holds that translation is not the mere transference on language level, but rather the rewriting of the culture of the source text. Translation is not taking place in a vacuum, but is constrained and manipulated by ideology, poetics, patronage and some other factors.Literary translation and ideology are interactive and they can not be isolated. This thesis first concludes the previous study in this field and it holds that most of the previous research pay attention to the manipulation of ideology on literary translation, while the counter-effect which literary translation exerts to ideology is rarely studied, that is, the interaction between them is seldom touched. Then on the basis of AndréLefevere's rewriting theory and the ideology theory, it compares the two Chinese versions of The Gadfly, namely, Li Liangmin's version published by Chinese Youth Press in 1953 and Qing Xuexian's version published by Li Jiang Press in 2005, applying the comparative analysis and illustrative method.This study finds out that due to the particular ideological condition in 1950s, the translator and the press adapted the translation greatly, and the translation also had great influence upon ideology. It instructed almost the whole nation to build a heroic and progressive value and helped the establishment and consolidation of socialist ideology. While in the new era, different translation strategies are adopted and the novel is translated, relatively, completely. It restores a great deal of the original information which are important to the character creation and plot development. In doing so, this study shows that, literary translation and ideology are closely related to each other. Literary translation, as a literature production and a rewriting type, is a particular ideology production and it continuously impel the forming, development and extinction of ideology. While, ideology, on the other hand, constrains and manipulates each aspects of literary translation, including text selection, translation strategies and even publication, etc. Hopefully this study can contribute to the study of the interaction between ideology and literary translation.