On The Aesthetic Reproduction Of The English Translation Of The Modern Chinese Lyric Prose In Light Of Translation Aesthetics

Prose, as a literary form equally important as poetry, drama and fiction, has always occupied an important position in world literature, especially in Chinese literature. Prose is the quintessence of Chinese literature and carries the splendid Chinese culture. During its long development process, Chinese prose has been greatly developed. After the May Fourth Movement in1919, modern Chinese prose has gradually formed and a lot of excellent works come out. As one type of prose, lyric prose is widely popular among Chinese readers in virtue of its refined language, vivid images, profound artistic conception as well as sincere feelings. However, such unique stylistic features made the translation of Chinese lyric prose a challenging task for translators, not to mention the significant culture difference of Chinese and English literature. To successfully accomplish the task, a translator should not only convey the original text message, but more importantly, assure the English readers a similar or even same aesthetic experience as the original readers, that is, to fulfill the aesthetic reproduction.Guided by Liu Miqing’s Translation Aesthetics theory, the author selects some classic works of representative Chinese essayists such as Zhu Ziqing, Bing Xin, Yu Dafu, Ke Ling and the most renowned English version as the research object, analyzes their aesthetic constituents at both formal and non-formal systems, and explore whether these aesthetic elements are represented in the translation or not:for those that are represented, the author summarizes the strategies and methods; while for those that are not, analyzes the reasons and then tries to find out how to make it up.The whole thesis consists of five parts:First in Introduction part, the author clarifies the research object and then tells the purpose and significance of the research after a general summary of the previous relevant researches; Chapter two gives an introduction to Professor Liu Miqing’s Translation Aesthetics theory, mainly introducing several critical concepts that will be used in the thesis, such as Translation Aesthetic Object(TAO), Translation Aesthetic Subject(TAS); Chapter three, also the core part of the whole thesis, is the detailed case study at both formal and non-formal system under the guidance of Mr. Liu Miqing’s Translation Aesthetics theory. To be specific, for the aesthetic reproduction of formal constituents, it can be directly realized via imitation, or made up via recasting or rewriting; while for that of non-formal constituents, it requires the translator to excite their aesthetic sense, follow the Comprehension-Transformation-Improvement-Representation procedure to reproduce the beauty caused by the vivid image, profound artistic conception as well as sincere feelings contained in the original prose. Chapter four is a complementary study of the previous part, analyzing the reasons why some constituents cannot be reproduced. Finally comes the conclusion part, where the author draws the conclusion that during the translation of modern Chinese lyric prose, an art of aesthetics, it is possible to accomplish the aesthetic reproduction via imitation, rewriting, as well as exciting translators’subjectivity; meanwhile, translators should be aware that Chinese lyric prose translation is process during which translators have to keep improving via constant practice.