Fidelity And Treason In Howard Goldblatt’s Translation In Light Of Reception Aesthetics

Reception Aesthetics occurred in the middle and later periods of1960s firstly as a trendof literary aesthetics thought. Robert Juass and Wolfgang Iser, as the representatives of theConstance school, argue that the reader is the active subject of literary creations, and that onlythrough his or her reading can a literary work obtain its aesthetic value. Since the translator isbound to face two receptive activities in the whole process of translation, the thought ofReception Aesthetics is applied into the translation domain.“Creative treason” was firstly put forward by French literary sociologist Robert Escarpitand then introduced to China in1990s by Professor Xie Tianzhen who thoroughly andsystematically interprets it in his theoretical work Medio-Translatology, and he points out thatcreative treason is the nature of literary translation. The theory of creative treason on the onehand admits the value of the original text and regards literary translation as a process ofre-creation on the other hand. To some extent, it endows the translator with an equal right tocommunicate with the original author and target reader, and thus enhances the subjectivity ofthe translator in the translating process, especially in literary translation.The two receptive activities faced by the translator makes Reception Aesthetics closelyconnected with creative treason. Therefore, the theory of Reception Aesthetics finds a newpoint to connect itself with translation domain: Due to the vast differences in language andculture between China and the Western world, the translator inevitably runs creative treason tocater for the target reader, but his or her creative treason here must be based on fidelity to theoriginal.Chinese literature is entering into a new stage. Since Mo Yan won the Nobel Prize inliterature in2012, the main English translator of his literary works Howard Goldblatt, praised as the Chief translator of China, gets more attention both from home and abroad. Up to now,Goldblatt has translated and published over50Chinese literary works and thus made a greatcontribution to spreading Chinese literary works throughout the world. However, translationstudies of him as well as his versions are still limited.Shengsi pilao embodies Mo Yan’s unique writing style and his deep understanding of lifeand culture. The novel’s individualized writing style, cultural images deeply-rooted in theChinese features and multi-angle narrative style bring much more difficulties to translation.Therefore, the author of this thesis, choosing the representative materials of the three respectsfrom the novel in both Chinese and English and focusing on where fidelity and treasonhappen in it, analyzes them in light of Reception Aesthetics so as to make a thorough andsystematic study of Life And Death Are Wearying Me Out, hopefully to provide somereference for translation research and practice, and to a certain degree, to promote the Chineseliterary works and culture’s spreading abroad.