A Study Of Translation Strategies In The Version Of Howard Goldblatt’s The Republic Of Wine From The Perspective Of Receptive Aesthetics

Mo Yan won the Nobel Prize in Literature in2012. His works, not only bringhimself great honor, but also attract a variety of people’s attention, especially theforeign readers who are curious about China, Chinese Literature and Chinese culture.As a writer who writes in Chinese, Mo Yan’s works can be widely accepted bywestern readers, mainly because they were well cross–culturally translated intoEnglish. Howard Goldblatt, one of the excellent Chinese-English translators,translated nearly all of the Mo Yan’s novels. Mo Yan sang high praise for Goldblatt’sEnglish version, for as a qualified translation, Goldblatt can keep the unique“Chinese” style of the original works, as well as ensure that the readers abroad couldgrasp the implied meanings of the novels in “English” ways.Goldblatt’s translation is not only faithful to the original text, but also takes thereaders’ receptive and comprehensive competence into consideration. His translationideas tally with the essence of Receptive Aesthetics, which put forward in1960’s byJauss and Iser. Compared with the traditional translation theory, the receptiveaesthetics does not only pay attention to the original books and writers, but also laysthe greater emphasis on the important role of readers in the target language. On theone hand, it emphasizes to keep the fresh meaning of the original works. On the otherhand, it also pays attention to the ability of reception and understanding of the readers.Whether a translation is good or not depends on the evaluations given by the readers.Mo Yan’s garnering the Prize somewhat affirms the great contribution of Goldblattand his translation skills.Goldblatt’s translation strategies are successfully applied in his translationexperience of Mo Yan’s The Republic of Wine. The Republic of Wine, one of Mo Yan’srepresentative novels, contains two clear-cut branches, one of which is a standardfiction which is followed by a detective part, and the other thread contains a series ofletters between "Mo Yan" and an aspirant writer who is an idolater of Mo Yan’scompositions. When translating The Republic of Wine, Goldblatt did not only attemptto keep the essential information and keep the special style of the original text, but also did ensure readers in the western countries could comprehend and appreciatethem by using the literary translation strategy and the free translation strategy. What’smore, taking the readers’ values of aesthetic ability, he adds and omits some contentscreatively. In order to keep the perfect balance between the original text and thereaders in the target language, Goldblatt tries to find a harmonious way to keep theconnections among text, translators and readers,that is, he makes him as a readerfirstly, and depending on his own comprehension, translate the works for readers inthe target language. Goldblatt’s flexibility of translation skills could be recognized inhis dealing with the in Chinese literature, similes, metaphor, allusions and culture–loaded words, which express Chinese special and typical characteristic in languageand culture.Driven by the aesthetic charm of The Republic of Wine and Howard Goldblatt’stranslation strategies, the author conducts this issue and dig out the problem. Thepaper provides a tiny view for other scholars who want to further the study of TheRepublic of Wine and translation strategies which Goldblatt has applied. It also makescontribution for the scholars who are engaged in translating other Chinese writers’works.