A Study Of The Chinese Translations And Researches Of F.Scott Fitzgerald’s Works In China

F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896-1940) is recognized as one of America’s greatest modern novelists and the spokesman of the Jazz Age. In mainland China, the translations of Fitzgerald’s works beg an in the 1980s. Overall, the translations and studies of Fitzgerald in our country started rather late compared with those of his contemporaries. Throughout this time, his works went from being totally repudiated to being reluctantly accepted and, finally, to being widely approbated. Using an objective, descriptive approach, the thesis explores the following questions:Why did the translations of Fitzgerald’s works begin at different times in mainland China and Taiwan? Why did the reception of Fitzgerald’s works waver before finally enjoying great popularity in China? What are the features of the translations and researches concerning Fitzgerald?The thesis reviews the history of the translations and researches performed about Fitzgerald’s works in China. It divides this history into three periods according to the social and historical background:the early period (1954-1977), the period of development (1978-2000), and the period of prosperity (2001-2013), in an attempt to discover the reasons of the differences in reception by applying Lefevere’s rewriting theory. It indicates that three factors, namely ideology, poetics and patronage have played an important role in manipulating the translation process, which in turn makes the translations and researches of these three periods take on various features. Simultaneously, it shows that the reception of Fitzgerald’s works in China, having gone from negative to positive, can be correlated with the translations and researches. Through the exploration of the translations and studies of Fitzgerald and his works in China, it is hoped that it can not only contributes to enriching the researches of Fitzgerald in China, but also provides some useful help for the research on translated literature.