A Study Of Arthur Waley’s Translation Of Tao Te Ching

Lao Tzu’s Tao Te Ching is regarded as one of the most important works in Chinese philosophical history. Because of the brevity and concision of its language, as well as the extensiveness and profoundness of its culture, this work has gained a high value of researching. Arthur Waley is an excellent and respectable sinologist and translator. He advocates that Tao Te Ching should be noted and translated with the method of philological translation so that its original style and features can be preserved. His version has gained a strong quality of principle and flexibility because of his loyalty and creation to the original work. However, this translation method is not perfect for that its excessive attention to the literal translation makes the translation go far away from the original words and sentences, and even from the original culture.The thesis takes Arthur Waley’s translation of Tao Te Ching as the object of study, and gets over the one-sidedness of those studies about Tao Te Ching’s translation. The thesis is an indepth analysis and carding of Arthur Waley’s version with the method of classification and textual criticism, and also an investigation about the translation features and its misunderstandings of the original through the analysis of those typical examples. Finally, the thesis highlights the value of Arthur Waley’s translation again through putting forward some experience for the translators who are going to translate Chinese classics. The thesis points out that the most important requirements to effectively propagate the Chinese classics are mainly the significance of the chosen classics, the translator’s strict attitude of researching and the innovation of keeping pace with the times.There are five chapters in this thesis. Chapter 1 is an introduction of the significance and innovation of the study, and also a review of the ideas in the previous studies about the translation of Tao Te Ching. In Chapter 2, the reason why Arthur Waley, as an excellent translator, has chosen Tao Te Ching is explained through the statement about the value of Tao Te Ching, and then the translation strategy and method of Arthur Waley’s translation are briefly introduced. Chapter 3 and Chapter 4 are two main parts of the thesis. Chapter 3 is a textual analysis of Arthur Waley’s translation, which classifies and summarizes the features of the philological translation method in this version by using some typical examples. In Chapter 4, Arthur Waley’s misunderstandings and mistranslations of Tao Te Ching are studied by analyzing and classifying those examples. Chapter 5 is the conclusion of the merits and mistakes of the translation method that Arthur Waley has chosen, and some translation experience has been put forward for the future translators.