A Comparative Study Of Three Chinese Versions Of The Pilgrim’s Progress: From A Perspective Of Gadamer’s Philosophical Hermeneutics

It is well known that literary translation is more complicated than nonliterarytranslation, for both the content and soul of the original text are important.Philosophical hermeneutics is quite different from traditional translation theorieswhich considered “fidelity” or “equivalence” as a static principle of evaluatingtranslated texts while not considering translators’ subjectivity. Hermeneutics is thetheory of understanding and interpreting the textual meaning, according to which, theliterary translation means interpretation to some extent. Original texts and translatorshave their own horizons. Different translators with different horizons working on asame original text will produce diversified translated texts. From this point, literarytranslation process is a fusing of horizons as well as an interpretation process.Philosophical hermeneutics provides a reasonable foundation for the existence ofdiversifying translations and interpretations, and there is no absolute objective andfaithful translation.Through the analysis of the three concepts of “prejudice”,“fusion of horizons”and “effective history” and the combination with the three Chinese versions of ThePilgrim’s Progress which were produced by Xie Songgao, Xi Hai, and WangHanchuan separately in different time, this thesis proves that different translators withdifferent prejudices and horizon fusion offers various versions for their target readers.The Pilgrim’s Progress was introduced just as a religious book in the beginning andthen its literary features was discovered later. Xie Songgao’s version is full ofreligious characteristics, which is hard for non-Christians to accept. Xi Hai’s versionseems not quite smooth in expression, and Wang Hanchuan’s version gives muchnotes and interpretation for better understanding in a vivid and correct language.The standards for evaluating translation have become multiple due to the theoryof philosophical hermeneutics. Firstly, because different times have engravedtranslators with various prejudices and horizons, it is reasonable and necessaryfor diversity of versions’ existence. Secondly, horizon fusing has never stopped forhuman beings, and then those old versions can not meet modern readers’ need to some extent. Retranslation of those valuable literary works should be strongly promoted.Through the conversation between original text and new age, the value embedded inworks will be continuously realized, instead of being exhibitions in museum only formemorizing.