A Comparative Study Of The Translations Of Francis Bacon’s Essays From The Perspective Of Aesthetics

Francis Bacon (1561-1626), a distinguished philosopher and statesman of Britain is the firstinfluential English prose writer. His work, Essays, is regarded as his masterpiece and one of theworld’s epoch-making books. The first edition appeared in1579. The final edition appeared in1625, with fifty-eight pieces, covering such subjects as philosophy, ethic, economics, religion,love, marriage, political systems etc. These essays can be classified into the following three types:human in his relations to the world and society; human in his relations to himself and human inhis relations to God. Bacon has profound insights to every subject. The language is brief, elegant,intelligible and full of aphorisms, which sheds lights on later essay writing.In the1930s, the introduction of western philosophy to China boosted intellectuals’ interestin studying foreign works. In consequence, the first Chinese version for Essays was produced,which was completed by Wu Shoupeng (吴寿彭) and published in1935. The second and thethird were respectively compiled by Chen Deming and Zhang Yintong in the1940s. ShuiTiantong (水天同) retranslated it in1939. It has been the first widely spread version, which has agreat effect on later translation versions. At the early1980s, Gao Jian’s (高健) selected versionand He Xin’s (何新) version appeared. At1990s, new translation versions flourished and CaoMinglun’s (曹明伦) version has been considered as a better one.This thesis analyzes the translation versions of Bacon’s Essays from the aspect oftranslation aesthetics. According to this theory, the aesthetic phenomenon of translation iscomposed of two parts, i.e. the translation aesthetic subject (TAS) and the translation aestheticobject (TAO). Translation aesthetic subject has two basic attributes: one TAS is restrained byTAO; the other is subjective dynamics of TAS. The aesthetic information lies in different levelsof TAO and TAS has its distinctive attributes. This paper takes the translations of Shui Tiantong,He Xin and Cao Minglun as its research objects. By comparing the three versions, this thesisprovides a detailed analysis of restricted translator and their dynamics as well as the differencesand similarities between the three versions in phonological, lexical, syntactical and stylistic levelto shed light on English prose translation.The thesis falls into five chapters. In chapter One, a brief introduction of Bacon and Essaysis presented, including his life experience, his education and his works. Chapter Two deals withthe theoretical background of the thesis: the influence of aesthetics on Western translationtheories, the aesthetic source of Chinese translation theories and review of prose translation.Both western translation theories and Chinese translation studies has close relations withaesthetics. Chapter Three discusses the translation aesthetics in detail. The two attributes of TASas well as the formal and non-formal system of TAO are discussed at length. Chapter Four utilizes the translation aesthetic theory as a framework to analyze the three versions of Bacon’Essays. A diachronic analysis from translators’ aspect is followed by a synchronic analysis fromsound, lexical, paragraph and style of translation versions. Chapter Five is the summary of thethesis, presenting the significance and limitations of this thesis and displaying some suggestionsfor future research.