A Study On The Influence Of Lin Shu's Identity Upon The Translation Of The Sketch Book

Among Lin Shu's numerous translations,Fu Zhang Lu is a rare version of a miscellany of short novels and essays.Due to its various language styles and genre,this collection has gained its fame by Lin's fine writing.However,rewriting in the translation is often regarded as mistakes.Actually,from the perspective of Lin's identity,his profession as a prose master,a scholar in Writing-Studies and a painter sheds light on these mistakes which has not been paid enough attention.Thus this paper aims to find out how Lin's writing studies and painting theory have inspired his rewriting of The Sketch Book by contrastive analysis of the original and the translation in terms of his identity.Consequently,through rewriting theory,the paper applies the descriptive method to explain the poetic and ideological rewriting of The Sketch Book.To be specific,firstly,former researchers focusing on Writing-Studies mainly center around Shih Chi,Zuo Zhuan,Han Shu and other prose and historical writing of the Qin and the Han Dynasty.Meanwhile,turning back to his early years when Lin kept on imitating Ouyang Xiu's essays and later years when he anthologized the prose of the Tang and the Song Dynasty,we may suppose that the Eight Prose Masters have much influence on Lin's translation.Besides,researchers also discuss the relation between Tong Cheng School's prose and Lin's writing as well as translation.Among discourses on Writing-Studies,what Lin often mentions in Tong Cheng School's writing is Gui Youguang's prose,approving his lyrical writing especially about family and friends.Moreover,Tong Cheng School's “Xiao Wen Zhang” depicting ordinary life and novel writing skills may also be used in Lin's description of characters and scenes.Secondly,from the perspective of Lin's identity as a painter,the effect of painting theory upon translation has hardly been discussed,especially configuration,color alteration,inner spirit depiction and the shape of artistic conception.Besides,the language styles of Fu Zhang Lu range from humor,domestic pleasure to lament on passing time.The whole work composes an emotion transformation led by “pleasure” echoing the title “Records of Clapping and Laughter”.Therefore the paper aims at extending research view from Lin's identity to look for reasons behind translation “mistakes”.