A Case Study On Xu Dishan’s Translation Of Song Of Solomon In Light Of Lefevere’s Theory On Poetics Of Translation

This thesis is a case study on Xu Dishan’s Chinese translation of Songs of Solomon in light of Lefevere’s theory of poetics of translation. In his book Translation, Rewriting and the Manipulation of Literary Fame, Lefevere pointed out poetics consists of the inventory of any devices, genres, motifs, prototypical characters and situation, symbols, and the concept of what the role of literature is, or should be, in the social system as a whole.In light of this theory, this thesis analyzes Xu’s translation of Songs of Solomon from two perspectives:to discuss how Xu deals with the theme, characters, genre and literary devices in his translation; and how his translation was affected by the social and historical factors of his times.Having analyzed the language, genre, and literary devices in Xu’s translation, this thesis draws the following conclusions. In terms of translation strategy, Xu adopted strategy of foreignization, which was a dominant translation strategy during May4th New Culture Movement in order to introduce new languages and sentence patterns into vernacular Chinese. Regarding the genre, content and structure, Xu mainly referred to the original text, Moulton’s Modern Reader’s Bible, and made some adjustments. On the language level, Xu borrowed a number of words and sentences from Chinese Union Version, but polished the language to make it more natural and elegant. Generally speaking, Xu Dishan’s Song of Solomon carries the poetics characteristic of traditional Chinese poetry and of the new poetry in May4th New Culture movement. This version also played an important role in the formation of vernacular Chinese.