A Probe Into The Popularity Of Yang BI’s Translation: A Comparative Study Of Two Chinese Versions Of Vanity Fair

William Makepeace Thackeray was a critical realist in the19th century of Britain.His fame was mainly earned by his representative work Vanity Fair: A Novel withouta Hero. As one of the classic novels from the west, Vanity Fair has been translated inChinese by more than twenty translators. Among all of the versions, Yang Bi’s hasbeen admired and attached great importance to by the circle of literary translation inChina and also widely favored and praised by readers. Translators and scholars havebeen conducting all-round researches on it. This thesis studies typical Chinese andwestern translation theories to conclude translation principles applicable for literarytranslation and based on this, compares two versions of Vanity Fair to unearth thefactors that ensure universal approval and popularity of Yang’s version.Yan Fu’s “faithfulness, expressiveness, elegance”, Fu Lei’s theory of“reproducing the nuance” and Qian Zhongshu’s view of “sublimation” arerepresentative translation theories of contemporary China, which bring far-reachinginfluence on the translation field in China. Alexander Fraser Tytler’s “three translationprinciples”, Eugene A. Nida’s translation theory centered on “equivalence” and PeterNewmark’s semantic translation and communicative translation occupy importantplaces in the field of western translation. Some of the above-mentioned translationtheories are closely-related to literary translation since their appearance and some,extended by later generations or applied from different perspectives, also suit literarytranslation. This thesis, through analysis and induction, summarizes the sharedopinions on the standard of literary translation. After a comparative study of differentversions, it further explores the techniques adopted by the better one to provide cluesto the production of outstanding literary translations.