Translation Aesthetics In China

Aesthetics has long been the theme of Chinese literature and literature theories. Translation, being an art of language and characters, has an indissoluble bond with aesthetics. It is safe to say that Chinese translation history is comparable to a history of translation aesthetics. Translation aesthetics can be defined as the combination of aesthetics and translation, which borrows the basic principles of aesthetics to analyze, explain and solve the aesthetic problems emerging in interlingual conversion.Under the aesthetic edification, many excellent Chinese translators spare no pains to introduce the outstanding foreign works into Chinese and popularize eminent Chinese works in the world. In practice, they have concluded a succession of translation aesthetic theories teeming with Chinese characteristics. After study,the author of this thesis absorbs and extracts the essence of Chinese translation aesthetics, which includes four aspects: persistence in faithfulness, pursuit of expressiveness, emphasis on resemblance of spirit and creation of ideorealm, and uses them as the theoretic principles for this thesis.Professor Xu Yuanchong has built up a school of his own in translation with his rich translation experience. His unique theory is summarized by himself as"Art of beautifulization and creation of the best as in rivalry". Xi Xiang Ji, a classic Chinese drama written by Wang Shifu in Yuan Dynasty, is a splendid shining pearl in Chinese literature, which has far-reaching influence on men of letters for generations. Xu's translated version Romance of the Western Bower is high in accomplishment to preserve beauty in language, particularly beauty in sense, sound and form, to resemble the spirit of the original work and to reconstruct its ideorealm. The author of this thesis strives to analyze the aesthetics temperaments, study and appreciate the beauty within the outline of Chinese translation aesthetics based on the case study of Xu's Romance of the Western Bower. Consequently, the author provides a tentative conclusion of the strategies for reconstructing the charm of work and language in translation.