The Components In The Translation Canon Of Literary Works

Literary translation is a creative art. Actually it is both a process of appreciation and a process of recreation. As a translator of literary works, one should not only translate the content and form of the original but also try his best to reproduce the stylistic features of the original and transfer maximally the cultural information of the original. Theoretically, the translators also have to closely adhere to the basic criteria of literary translation like Tytler's"Three Principles of Translation", Nida's theory of Functional Equivalence and Yan Fu's"Faithfulness; Expressiveness and Elegance".Although there have been many discussions and proposals on the criteria of literary translation, we know that consensus hasn't been made. There is still room for us to study. This is the starting point of this paper. Here comes the point, besides the famous criteria above and many other general criteria, are there any more specific and detailed rules for translators of literary works to follow? Is it possible to find out some more practical references for translators of literary works to consult in practice? To dig out the answer, the author of this paper draws support from a very excellent and universally acknowledged literary translation work– Yang Bi's translation of Vanity Fair.As this translation work can be regarded as a canon in literary translation field, it is surely composed of some successful components. What are they? Can some components be generally applied to the literary translation field? Is it possible to summarize some guidelines from this fine work and use them to be references for literary translation practitioners? With the purpose of seeking answers to these questions, the author carried out this study. This paper starts from the influential theories about literary translation, combining the studies about literary translation from both home and abroad, and tries to comb out Yang Bi's translation of Vanity Fair by means of a descriptive (not prescriptive) and bottom-up approach (or an inductive approach) based on the contrastive study of Chinese and English.The examples applied in this paper are all selected and classified carefully by the author. They are mainly analyzed from three perspectives, namely, linguistic aspect, cultural aspect and stylistic aspect. The author hopes to dig out the features and qualities of this translation canon by detailed analysis and summarize some consensus over the criteria of literary translation.After the detailed analysis of the corpus, the author has got the following findings of the components of Yang's translation canon.Firstly, before translation, Yang Bi has had a quite thorough comprehension of the original. He not only thoroughly figured out the semantic relations in the source text but also straightened out the communicative function as well as the conversational implicature of each sentence.Secondly, the expressions in Yang's version are closely obedient to the typical and traditional expressing patterns of Chinese people, catering to the reading requirements of the target readers. The beauty of the languages is the result of her careful selection and application of words and expressions, namely,'using the most appropriate and unique words and expressions in the most appropriate and unique places'. Besides, the frequent application of functional words and rhetoric expressions also do credit to the excellence of this translation work.Thirdly, as the recreation of a literary work, Yang Bi faithfully recreates the artistic styles of the original, including the linguistic styles, the cultural images as well as the characteristics of the characters in the story. In addition to the faithful transfer of the original content, she also transmits the communicative and the aesthetic information of the original clearly and vividly.Fourthly, Yang Bi has completely shakes herself off the constraint of the linguistic forms of the original and reproduces the work into the one which the target readers nearly consider to be a work of their own native language.Fifthly, Yang Bi's application of proper translation methods (literal translation and free translation as well as domestication and foreignization) throughout the whole translation work ensures her version to be a great success, especially the domestication-oriented method making it as easy as possible for the readers to comprehend.According to the analysis and summary above, there is no doubt that this translation work has tried its best and dose possess the aesthetic qualities of literary works, namely, the perfect combination of content and form, no matter in terms of comprehension, the process of expressing or the selection and application of the translation methods and strategies. That is to say, from the perspective of translation, this translation work has achieved the unity of form and spirit after the intercultural and interlinguistic transfer of the original work.The unity of form and spirit is the most essential and fundamental component of the translation canon --- Yang Bi's translation of Vanity Fair. It is also the conclusion made by the author of this paper in perspectives of the criteria of literary translation. This study again proves that the unity of form and spirit is a basic principle in literary translation and proper translation methods and strategies have to be applied accordingly. Hopefully, it will enrich and promote the study and research about literary translation and provide references and guidelines for literary translation practitioners.