On Lin Shu’s Hei Nu Yu Tian Lu From The Post-colonial Perspective

Lin Shu (1852-1924), a prestigious translator and forerunner of literary translation in modern history, for the first time translated and introduced Western literature to China in a large scale. In his lifetime, Lin Shu translated a large number of foreign literary works, making an indelible contribution to the import of Western literature and the progress of social culture. Lin Shu lived in ages when China was plunged deep into semi-feudalism and semi-colonialism. Patriots realized the backwardness of China’s science, technology, politics, and especially the culture. Lin Shu, by virtue of translating literary works, introduced advanced Western ideas and cultures into China, in an effort of saving the Chinese nation from grave peril.With the development of translation theory, people probe deeper into Lin Shu’s translation. In the1980s, the post-colonial school of translation studies emerged in the field of translation studies, which resulted from the combination of post-colonial study and translation study. The main concern of post-colonialism is the unequal cultural relationship between the suzerain and the colonized, holding that the weak culture of the developing countries are still dominated and controlled by the strong culture in developed countries. As to the post-colonial translation theory, it focuses on the relationship between cultural factors and translation in colonial and post-colonial periods, studying how these external factors influence translation and the process. The post-colonial translation theory has its own political tendency, standing by the minority and the weak cultures, claiming that translation serves as a tool of colonial conquest and domination, and also as a powerful weapon the colonized people can resort to in fighting back the colonists and resisting the neo-colonialism.After the Opium War in China, the whole country was plunged into tribulation. The imperial aggression and the territorial cession dragged China down to a critical national crisis. Impelled by such social environment. Lin Shu chose to translate Uncle Tom’s Cabin, which was the masterpiece of the American writer Mrs. Stowc. in the novel, Mrs. Stowe, through depicting the deplorable life and fate of the black slaves, kindled people’s anti-slavery enthusiasm, speeding the abolition of the slavery system in America. Lin Shu intended, through exposing the miserable situations of the black slaves, to awaken the masses so as to resist the imperial invasion and revive the Chinese nation. Hei Nu Yu Tian Lu is a masterpiece translation, which embodies Lin Shu’s translation ideas, strategies and features. The present thesis studies Lin Shu’s version from three aspects—cannibalistic translation strategy, hybridity, and decolonization in the light of the post-colonial perspective, for the purpose of a in-depth understanding of Hei Nu Yu Tian Lu.