The Rebirth Of The Author And The Return Of The Text In The Literary Translation

In literary translation, the translator is first of all a reader to the author and his/her creation. So, it is essential for the translator to hold a reasonable attitude toward them, which requires a systematic research on the understanding of the author and his/her creation in literary criticism. By this way, the evolution and development of the author and his/her creation can be comprehensively studied, meanwhile the progress and defects of various schools can be uncovered, then translation practice would have a criterion to follow.In this thesis, the author firstly introduces the evolution of the status of the author and the text. As a creator, the author indisputably enjoys his status as the authority, and his/her intention is regarded as the ultimate goal of understanding. However, after the establishment of structuralism, people begins to interpret the creation as a separate text, thus, the status of the author has been severely challenged. Thereafter, the trend of deconstructionism arrives, and the author falls from the altar attributed to the'the death of the author' proposed by Roland Barthes, Foucault and Derrida, etc; moreover, the text becomes the source of meaning and the reader turns into the only subject of understanding. The dramatic change brings a shock to the whole world and thinking around the status of the author and the text in reading and translation arouses. Otherwise, people will fall into an awkward dilemma.For the sake of re-establishing the understanding of meaning, the author employs the theory of constructivist translatology, which takes pragmatics as its theoretical basis, analyzing the defects and limitations of various schools. Finally, the author suggests that the status of the author and the text should be restudied, and that in literary translation, the original writer need his/her rebirth and the text need its return.