A Study Of "Mencius" In Arthur Waley 's English Translation

Mencius is one of the Confucian classics, by Mencius himself and his disciples compiled, play a vital role in confucianism. The book has attracted a lot of attention from scholars at home and abroad since it been written. It not only promoted the development of Chinese traditional culture, but also has big impact and value in the cultural exchange.Since modern times, many western scholars have had a great interest in Mencius, and had in-depth studies on Mencius.Arthur Waley(Arthur Waley) is one of them, the name of his book is Three Ways of Thought in Ancient China, Mencius was a part of them. Arthur Waley is a great British Sinologist in the twentieth Century.All his life was devoted to translating and studying ancient Chinese classics. His Mencius selected part of the contents in Mencius, and rename them. The book is reprint four times, writing concisely, easy to understand, discussing plain, popular with ordinary readers. Despite the translation of Mencius has great academic value and influence,the Chinese academic circles have not pay enough attention to Waley’s Mencius, so that it is difficult to show its cultural value. This article has main two parts: Frist,Arthur waley and the study on Mencius. On one hand, the introduction of Arthur waley, including Arthur waley’s profile and his cultural identity, on the one hand is the research situation of Mencius, including the study on Mencius in the era of Confucian Classic and the research of the translation of Mencius; Sond, the study of the translation of Mencius by Arthur waley. This part includes two aspects, one aspect is the meaning of the words in Mencius by translated, such as "benevolence", "righteousness", "benefit", "goodness", "day" and so on. The other aspect is the understanding of Mencius’ s core concept by Arthur Waley, such as "the better feelings", "government by goodness", "funeral" and "the view of righteousness and benefit".I am trying to study Waley’s idea about the theory of Mencius, the characteristics and shortcomings in translation, compare to the other versions and its influence,hopping to arouse scholars pay attention to Waley’s Mencius and play its value.The English version of Mencius by Waley, is the crystallization of cultural collision between the East and the West, not only open a window for the western world to understand the traditional culture of China,but also expands Chinese horizon, make Chinese understand Western cognitive ways and thinking model better. Through analyzing Waley’s opinion on the core idea of Mencius and its features in translation, we can understand his version more clear, evaluate it rational and objective.At the same time, we can understand our national traditional culture deeply, treat the development and communication between different cultures objectively.