17 Years Of Our American Literature Translation Of The Founding Of The People's Republic Of China

Translated Literature is an integral part of the target literary polysystem. During the first 17 years after the establishment of PRC, literary translation was mainly done in service of socialist culture building. The scale of literary translation during this period was much larger than any period in the first half of the 20th century. Due to the ideological reason, most of the works that were translated into Chinese are from Soviet literature. Meanwhile, the literary works of the Third World were also translated and introduced in an unbelievable scale without parallel in history. Furthermore, China also translated and introduced a lot of literary works from capitalist countries. But these works, before translation or introduction, were obliged to be strictly selected. As a result, among those literary works from western countries, classic works and so-called "progressive literature" became the focus of translation selection while the modem and contemporary literature was deliberately neglected or disparaged. In the 50s and 60s of the 20th century, the translation and introduction of American literature not only experienced the similar hardships as the other capitalist countries' literature did, but also suffered much more rigorous manipulations by China's politics and ideology.With Itamar Even-Zohar's polysystem theory and Andre Lefevere's translation theory as the theoretical framework, the present paper, by making a critical survey of the literary translation and introduction of American Literature in China from 1949 to 1966, has discussed the relationship between translation selection of American Literature and ideological and poetic manipulation, and analyzes the purposes and effects of the translation and introduction of American Literature.The foreword of the present paper at first introduces the present condition of the related research of the field, its deficiency and the room to be improved, then explains the present paper's object, academic value and the methods to be used after investigating. This part also stresses the importance and effectiveness of comparative literature approaches in studying the translated American Literature in China from 1949 to 1966.The first chapter analyzes the cultural context in which the translation and introduction of American Literature were done. Firstly, it makes a survey of the formation and changes of China's literary policy in 1950s and 1960s and its influence on translation; secondly, it discusses the factors that influenced the translation of American literature, such as political ideology, and the hostile relationship between China and America, and thirdly, it deals with the changes of translators and critics' cultural mentalities and literary ideas before and after the foundation of PRC.