Gone With The Wind "rewritten In China In The 1940s

Translation is above all a dialogic process and cultural interaction. A translation always takes place in a continuum, never in a vacuum, and there are all kinds of textual and extratextual constraints upon the translator. In Chinese translation history, Fu Donghua's translated version of the work Gone With the Wind has always been evaluated negatively, while in the perspective of comparative literature, it is a valuable topic. Operating on the flat of André Lefevere's Rewriting Theory, the thesis reveals how different forms of rewriting act in collusion to project the image of Gone With the Wind in China under the constraints of ideology, poetics and patron., and focuses on the analysis of Fu Donghua's version where manipulative forces play the role in shaping the translator's strategy. Chapter One introduces the background and the paradigm of Rewriting Theory. 'Cultural turn' in translation studies in the 90's and Deconstructionism manifest the shift of emphasis in translation studies. Lefevere lays out the concept of 'rewriting' as a genre that includes interpretation, criticism, anthologizing, as well as translation and shows how all rewriters operate under constraints of poetic norms and ideological beliefs inherent in the target culture. Chapter Two reviews the rewriting history of Gone With the Wind in China synchronically and diachronically, demonstrating that neither translators nor critics are innocent bystanders of perpetuating certain cultural values at the expense of others as they rewrite. Various rewritings including translation, film, drama and criticism collude and supplement each other under ideological and poetological constraints, in their efforts to construct the image of the original work. Chapter Three, as the main body of the thesis, analyzes the manipulative forces shaping Fu Donghua's translation strategy. In order to make his translation accepted, Fu Donghua negotiates with ideology, poetics, and patronage dominant in the receiving literature at the time, resulting the domestic strategy at the level of language, literary form, and shifts. All rewritings in Fu Donghua's translation are closely related to his translation ideology, derived from the historical background and his understanding of the original text and therefore should be viewed historically and objectively. It is not my intention here to evaluate the translation. Nor is it my task to do so: evaluation would simply reveal the hidden prescriptive assumption. I merely hope to show that a descriptive analysis of translation in the case study would help to deepen the understanding of Fu Donghua's translation and broaden the view in translation studies.