On The Reproduction Of Style In Literary Translation

In September 2012,I started translating a historical biographical novel written by contemporary French novelist and music critic,Vincent Borel.I was responsible for the translation of the first two books of this novel,which has over one hundred thousand words.In this novel,the author has showed us the romantic and legendary life of Jean Baptiste Lully,great French musician in seventeenth century and musical superintendent of King Louis XIV.As a music critic,the author has conducted a lively and picturesque description of the musical playing in the novel by using lots of music terms.This novel is also characterized by the use of various rhetorical methods by the author.The biggest challenge in the translation of this novel lies in the reproduction of his stylein terms of vocabulary,syntax,rhetoric and narratives.The reproduction of style is especially important in literary translation and has always been a challenge and difficulty in literary translation.This article is based on the translation of the novel Baptitste and consists of three parts:introduction,exposition and conclusion.In the introduction,we gave a brief overview on studies of style and reproduction of style.The second part consists of three chapters.In the first chapter,we discussed the definition,the component elements of style,the importance of reproduction of style and the translatability of style.The second chapter is devoted to the analysis of the style of Baptiste.We concluded from this detailed study on reproduction the style in literary translation the following conclusions:the style can be defined as the creative and artistic characteristics of a writer or an artist;the style is reflected in the various elements of the language,forming the basis and soul of the style;It is possible to reproduce the style in literary translation;it is the translator who must assume this responsibility both for authors and for readers;reproduction of style is never easy to achieve;as to the translation strategies,we should analyze the original text in terms of vocabulary,syntax,rhetoric and narratives,and try to find the most appropriate expression in the language so as to reproduce the original style.