Novel Translation From The Perspective Of Translation Aesthetics

In terms of a discipline studying translation from the perspective of aesthetics, translation aesthetics aims to guide the practice of translation activities by exploring the aesthetic origin of translation theories and discussing its influential significance. Taking the aesthetic object, subject, process, criteria and the aesthetic reproduction of translation activities as research subjects, it points out the aesthetic constituents of the aesthetic object and the dynamic role of the aesthetic subject as well as their close relationship during the process of translation. With Liu Miqing’s translation aesthetics theory as the theoretical framework, selecting two Chinese versions of Tess of the d’Urbervilles as the case, this paper explores the aesthetic process of its representation in English-Chinese novel translation and reveals the aesthetic features of different versions. With the aim of enriching the research methods of literary translation, especially of novel translation, the author expects to make new contribution to the development of translated literature and translation aesthetics.Methods of description, literature review, observation, analysis and induction, data collection, comparison, case study are adopted in the analysis and discussion. This study finds that the aesthetic object and subject of translation are of equal importance to translation studies. The aesthetic subject of translation makes the object better understood and disseminated, while the object makes the existence of the subject possible. China’s contemporary translation aesthetics and even translation studies should adhere to the principle of "domestic theories as the guideline, foreign theories as the reference". With focus on the academic level to conduct translation studies more from cultural and aesthetic perspective instead of just lingering on "how to translate", new realms for translation studies can be opened up. In addition to translation practice, enough attention should be paid to theory construction and improvement, achieving genuine development of the discipline.