The Analysis Of Arthur Waley's Strategies In Rewriting Hsi-yu Chi

As the abridged translation of Hsi-yu chi,Arthur Waley's Monkey enjoys extremely high reputation in western world.The English sinologist Arthur Waley plays the decisive role in promoting the canonization of Hsi-yu chi in western literature system.Scholars in the academic circle shift their research focuses on social,cultural factors,since translation studies have undergone a “culture turn”.As the representative scholar of the “Culture School” of translation,Andre Lefevere regards translation as a kind of rewriting.Lefevere abandoned the traditional formalist approach,putting translation studies under a larger social,cultural domain.He proposed three determinants in governing the production of translated texts:patronage,ideology and poetics.The thesis employs the descriptive translation method,selecting Waley's Monkey as the research topic,focusing on analyses of Waley's rewriting strategies.Representative case studies are carried out based on Lefevere's rewriting theory,Andrew.H.Plaks' s narratology theory and Peter Newmark's comparative parameters between semantic and communicative translation.The study reveals that Waley's manipulation demonstrates on three levels: ideology,poetics and narrative structure.On the ideological level of rewriting,Waley emphasizes individualism,shifting teamwork Scripture-fetching story to the “Bildungsroman”(novel of formation);Besides,Waley deliberately models the character Sun Wukong as a heroic figure,by rewriting negative expressions against the character;In addition,Waley rewrites Buddhist beliefs of the original into the Christianity.On the poetical level of rewriting,Waley renames characters by following prototypical settings of western novels;Waley also shifts Chinese culture-loaded terms and concepts to western cultural expressions,providing western readers with better understandings.On the narrative structural level of rewriting,Waley reconstructs loose,episodic full-length hsiao-shuo type of literature to tightly framed English novel,sustaining the literariness of the original.Research findings could offer some empirical suggestions on translation methods in spreading Chinese classics to the rest of world.