On Literariness In Literary Translation

In 1921,Roman Jakobson(1896—1982),the famous Russian formalist proposed in his Modern Russian Poetry that“The object of literary science is not literature but literariness,i.e.what makes a given work a literary work.” As a subordinate category of literary works,literature translation should inherit the property of literature.However,in recent years,most of studies on translated literature are merely done from the perspective of translational theories such as functional equivalence,Skopos theory,domestication and foreignization,etc.And literariness has long been ignored in literary translation studies.This thesis attempts to get rid of the restriction of modern translation theories and go back to text itself so as to dig into the literariness it contained.The thesis mainly adopts descriptive research method.The author firstly presents and discusses on the recent literature studies about literariness in E-C translation and finds the significance and deficiency of it in translation researches.Then the thesis introduces Oscar Wilde and his The Happy Prince and Other Tales collection as a sample of the following study,and analyzes it from aspects of non-conventionality,profound implications and aesthetic images in order to capture the rich beauty and literariness it contains.To discuss the maintenance and transmission of literariness in E-C translation,the thesis provides comparison of the translated versions of Ba Jin's,Lin Huiyin's and Tan Yingzhou's respectively based on the three sides listed above.Through deep analysis and comments,the thesis attempts to appeal for the return of literariness in literature study and emphases again the importance of literariness in literary translation,setting a new criterion besides and based on the general requirements of faithfulness,expressiveness and elegance for translators.Through such a case study,the author of this thesis hopes to increase the awareness of literariness conveyed in E-C translation for translators,as well as bring enlightenments on the translation of classic English literary works represented by The Happy Prince and Other Tales,so as to finally enhance literary translation qualities from literariness perspective.