The Reconstruction Of Armymen's Image In The Translation Of Military Novels In Late Qing Dynasty

In traditional Chinese society,the idea that "a good man does not join the army" was deeply rooted in people's mind. As a result, in a society mainly composed of four groups of people (scholars, farmers, artisans and merchants), armymen were marginalized and despised. However, in the context of Late Qing Dynasty when national salvation was the top priority, the trend of militarism flourished and armymen began to claim a central social position. The translation of military novels played a crucial role in building the image of armymen. Though there are a lot of studies on translations and translators in Late Qing,few touch upon the issue of armymen. Actually,armymen's image was praised and promoted by the translator in the translation of military novels, which helped reconstruct their special image.This thesis takes Lin Shu's translation of The White Company as the object of study,which presents many different armymen. The thesis first describes the historical background of military novel translation, which shows that the topics of military texts translated in Late Qing shifted from technology through institution to culture. It can be seen that armymen played a key role in the national salvation campaign. By comparing the translation with its original text, Lin Shu emphasized such characteristics as patriotism, militarism and professionalism. Patriotism requires that armymen should not only love the land, but also stay loyal to their emperor; militarism requires they be brave and masculine; professionalism requires they take good command of the army and be able to boost the morale. These characteristics were what new armymen were expected to have. This thesis probes into the image of armymen reconstructed by Lin Shu and then adds some insight into the research of armymen in translated literature.