Cultural Factors In Translating Classical Drama

With the “cultural turn” in the late1970s, people began to look at translation fromthe perspective of cultural influence. The “cultural turn” signifies that the emphasisshifts from translation texts to translation cultures elements, from linguistic factors tocultural ones. Translation is a decision-making process in a certain social-cultural frame.The basic task of a translator is to compare and analyze the oriental and western culturecarefully and then to convey the real meaning of the original works. Translation,therefore, has a close relationship with culture, involving inevitably the process ofdealing with cultural factors. However, cultural concepts and different language featuresmake it especially difficult for translators to find corresponding expressions in the targetlanguage to transfer the cultural elements contained in the source text, and it is evenmore difficult to find an appropriate method or technique to achieve equivalent effectsin the translation. This is often considered as the greatest problem in translating.The Peony Pavilion which has55scenes is a well-known classical Chineseromance drama. Its plot, theme and language became popular as soon as it went onstage. The play presents a marvelous story beyond life and death between the femaleprotagonist Du Liniang and her dream-lover Liu Mengmei. The play boldly exposes theevil of the feudal Confucius ethic code constraining human nature, deeply revealing thestruggle spirit of people who fight against the feudal ethic code and pursue personalfreedom and love. It is regarded as one of the three most excellent love stories togetherwith A Dream of Red Mansion and The Romance of West Chamber. The Peony Pavilionis a world-renowned play which enjoys equal popularity in China with Romeo andJuliet in the west, and Tang Xianzu, the writer of The Peony Pavilion, is considered asthe Chinese William Shakespeare in the drama world. The Peony Pavilion gains itsfame mostly due to its beautiful language and abundant allusions, metaphors, puns andculture-specific expressions particularly in Chinese culture. It is a big challenge for thetranslators to transfer all the cultural factors in their translations.The most popular English versions of The Peony Pavilion are from Cyril Birch, Professor Zhang Guangqian and Professor Wang Rongpei. This thesis will make atentative study of how these cultural factors are translated in their versions withdifferent aims and strategies and how to convey the most information of the originalplay in the target text in order to the spread traditional Chinese culture.