A Study Of Waley's Version Of The Analects From The Perspective Of Reception Aesthetics

As a Chinese classic recording the teaching of Confucius, the Analects is one of the most influential books in the world. It covers such fields as ethics and morality, politics, culture, education, philosophy, and others, counting as a valuable book. Among the numerous English translations of the Analects, the author chooses Arthur Waley's version to research into.Reception aesthetics, a kind of literary criticism theory, is utilized in the study as theoretical basis. Born during the turbulent 1960s, reception aesthetics (reception theory) is a brand-new paradigm and methodology. The theory emphasizes shifting the focus of literary criticism from author-text to text-reader relations. It regards reader's reaction as the standard of the text's quality. Therefore the author should always bear in mind readers'"horizon of expectations" and aesthetic experience, i.e. their social experience, aesthetic tendency, and reception ability, etc. besides, a literary work does not present all the messages to the reader's face. Instead, it contains many blanks and indeterminacies. Reception aesthetics has been applied in different fields since its naissance. Till the 1980s it was spread to China and employed by Chinese scholars on translation studies.There are plenty of English versions of the Analects from various perspectives, but rarely few focus on Waley's version using reception aesthetics. Arthur Waley's unique cultural identity as a sinologist, growth as an English with Jewish blood, and his personality, all attracted the author to research into his the Analects. Initially the thesis elaborated on Waley's family background, growth, and his road to a superior Chinese scholar. These background information, part of "horizon of expectation" or "pre-understanding", influences the translation strategies Waley employed. In the analysis part, with examples from Waley's the Analects, the thesis explains that Waley first is the reader of the original text, who concretizes blanks and indeterminacies based on his own "horizon of expectations" and aesthetic experience. Meanwhile, as the creator of the translated text, Waley needs to consider the target reader's "horizon of expectations". Therefore, the work can realize the horizon fusion of the the author, the translator, and the reader.Waley's version is compared and analyzed with Paul White's version from three aspects of cultural level, semantic level and rhetoric level. Through explaining how Waley tackles "horizon of expectations", blanks and indeterminacies, this thesis has summarized various translation strategies Waley employed, including domestication, creative transposition, etc. The aim of the thesis is to examine the feasibility of applying reception aesthetics in translations of the Analects, and attract more studies on Waley and his translation.