Creative Treason: A Study On Howard Goldblatt's Translation Of The Republic Of Wine

Creative treason is recognized as a common phenomenon in translation, first put forward by the French sociologist Robert Escarpit (1987:137) in his noted book Literature and Sociology which says "translation is always a sort of creative treason". Translation is a kind of treason in that it sets a literary work in a new language system; translation is creative in that it gives the literary work a new life,making it accessible to more readers.The concept was introduced into China and further interpreted. The creative treason in literary translation is worth studying.It is fair to say that Howard Goldblatt, the English translator of Mo Yan's works, plays an important part in his winning the Nobel Prize. He is an American sinologist who has translated Mo Yan's works the most. It is due to his prolific translating that Mo Yan's works can be spread to the western world and then gain popularity among western readers who are interested in Chinese literature. The Republic of Wine is favored by both the writer and the translator but the research on its English translation home and abroad is relatively lacking. This thesis attempts to give detailed analyses of the translated work from the perspective of creative treason. With a large amount of Chinese and English literature collected and studied, the thesis summarizes the current studies on Goldblatt's translation and the translation of the novel, analyzes the embodiment of the translator's creative treason in The Republic of Wine in detail, including the translator's creative treason in both linguistic and cultural levels, giving comprehensive analyses by relating to the examples in the book from more specific perspectives. The thesis also explores the mistranslation in the translated work and the reception of it in the western world. It is thus found that regarding the comments on the The Republic of Wine, the compliments and the criticism are mixed.Meanwhile, Goldblatt's translation is generally praised by the critics. By analyzing this work of Mo Yan, the thesis hopes to enrich the research on Mo Yan's literary world and Goldblatt's translation.