On The Retranslation Of Literary Works From The Perspective Of New Historicism

This thesis intends to make a descriptive textual analysis of the Chinese translations ofUncle Tom’s Cabin rendered by Lin Shu in1900s and Huang Jizhong in1970s respectively.Based on the philosophy foundation of power relation by Foucault, the descriptive textualanalysis is made in terms of textuality of histories and historicity of texts, with its focus ondifferences between the two versions and the reasons behind in history, so that thenecessity of retranslation can be defended and the efforts of the translators at differenthistorical periods will be thus recognized for their own contributions not only to translationbut also to the development of society.According to traditional translation theories, some scenes in translation areunaccountable if we simply compare the literal meanings of different translated versionswith the original work. Thus, this thesis, taking new historicism as its entry point, probesinto the common ground between the original work and its translations. It centers on themeinterpretation of historical poetics and traces the trail of power relation in historical andsocial environments, unveiling a total new interpretation to the cultural images in the relicsof history. Founded on “historicity of texts” and “textuality of histories”, power discourse’sinfluence in retranslation will be discussed.This thesis utilizes related theoretical analyses for a comparative analysis of the twotranslated versions, and my major findings are as follows:1) entities in the translationactivities are dynamically correlated and constrained by special social historical conditions.2) the retranslation of classical literature historically reshapes the original work rather thanreproduces it.3) new historicism represents a new dimension for doing translation researchand constitutes a new theoretical foundation for interpreting retranslation. Retranslationphenomena appear because translating activities are subject to power relation.