Chinese Perspective, Eagleton

Terry Eagleton is one of the most distinguished literary critics and cultural theoreticians of the Western Marxism in the contemporary era. He has published many writings and made great influence in the academic field. His distinct theories-ideological Criticism and the perspective of political culture-are unique in the post-modern context, thus nurture the modern Chinese literary criticism in diverse aspects.This article tries to analyze the influence and reception of Eagleton's critical theories in China and the problems in the process by researching the translations and influence of his works. In addition, the paper also attempts to compare the Chinese translations of Literary Theory: An Introduction with the view to better study Eagleton and fuse western theories in Chinese perspective as well as researching the standards of theoretical translation.At the beginning of the article, the achievements and problems of the translations of Eagleton's books in the past two decades in China will be investigated. Being spread and accepted of any foreign theorists into other cultures often starts from translation, which is a very important process and way of accepting indeed. After his first Chinese version of Marxism and Literary being published in 1980, then lots of his books and articles have been translated into Chinese. Yet it is a pity that there are still several crucial books which have not been translated, and the good and bad are intermingled in these translations as well.Secondly, another method to research the influence of Eagleton in China is to analyze the studies of his theories by Chinese critics on account that the value judgment as well as the interpretation and fusion of both cultures are included in these studies. The study of Eagleton in China has improved in a great sense, which has focused on the soul of his theories in three respects: ideology theory, art production and cultural study. However, there are still certain fields, such as his excellent studies of Irish culture, are not covered comprehensively and only two monographs are also not enough to understand such an eminent critic.Finally, translation makes a vital role in the transmission of foreign theories. The qualities of one version will, directly, impacts on the understanding and reception by readers, therefore studying the translated version is very necessary. Nevertheless, this kind of study is still rare in China. According to the Skopos Theory, this article will compare the six Chinese translations of Literary Theory: An Introduction, the representative work of Eagleton, from the respects of accuracy and fluency in order to analyze the collision, combination and misinterpretation of cross-cultural literary theories and benefit the further studies of Eagleton. The comparison and analysis of these Chinese translations offer us four main causes for the mistranslations in the theoretical translation: (1) misunderstanding in grammar and structure; (2) lacking of analyzing comprehensively the context of the original text; (3) unfamiliar to literary writings contained in original text; (4) negligence. Consequently, translators should better know the differences of the system between Chinese and English as well as comprehend the content and context of the original text with a serious attitude.