Comments On Image-shaping Poems In Joly’s Translated Version Of Hong Lou Meng—from The Perspective Of "Three-Beauty" Principle

The research target of this thesis is Joly’s translated version of the great Chinese novel Hong Lou Meng(hereafter abbreviated as HLM). Viewed as one of the greatest ancient Chinese novels, HLM has been translated into many languages such as French and Russian. Many scholars have also translated HLM into English, which is the most popularized language. Among the over eleven English versions, the ones translated by David Hawkes and Yang-Gladys are two complete translated works, which have drawn the attention of the majority of scholars, while few other versions fail to do so. Joly’s version is one of them.Poems in HLM have won great artistic achievements, and Cao Xue-qin developed his own ideas of poem writing such as “creating poems according to different figures”. Poems in HLM are featured with beauty in form, beauty in sound and rich cultural and textual information. Besides, poems in HLM often foretell the fortune of characters, so they’re keys to understanding the images of different characters in HLM.Joly’s version is the only relatively complete early translated text. Joly, the translator, puts great efforts to his creative translation, which has great value in the introduction of ancient Chinese culture. Poems in HLM are Joly’s major concerns. Joly applied variable translation strategies based on “readers-response” idea. However, due to the limitations of his cultural background and other factors, poems in this early translated text have some demerits such as cultural misunderstanding and linguistic faults. Therefore, this thesis is devoted to discussion about Joly’s translation of the poems which help to shape the images of key figures in HLM. In this way, the merits and demerits of Joly’s translation can be presented to help readers achieve a better understanding of his translated work.This thesis is based on "Three-beauty" Principle which is put forward by Professor Xu Yuan-chong. As a famous translator in China, Professor Xu translated ancient Chinese works including ancient poems, ancient novels, etc. into French and English. Although there is controversy about "Three-beauty" Principle, it has some academic value in studying the translation of ancient Chinese poems if viewed from Pro. Xu’s great achievements in translation. Besides, the research results of Professor Gu Zheng-yang will also be applied in this thesis. Gu Zheng-yang makes an in-depth study on Xu’s translated works and develops his own aesthetic ideas of “Three-beauty”.The thesis falls into six chapters. Chapter One and Two address basic issues such as the motivation, significance, theoretical basis and literature review, etc. Main body of the thesis is from Chapter Three to Five. Equipped with the principle of “beauty in meaning”, “beauty in sound” and “beauty in form”, these three chapters explore Joly’s translation of poems shaping the images of Bao-yu, Dai-yu and some other key figures. Chapter Six is the conclusion part.