| Hong Lou Meng translated by David Hawkes(The Story of the Stone in English)is widely appreciated by readers and scholars in western countries due to its idiomatic and beautiful language.What makes it distinguished from previous versions is that the poems in original text was faithfully transmitted while their poetic form was also persisted.This thesis will focus on translation of imagery in poems of Hong Lou Meng,studying differences between Chinese and Western culture.In chapter one,translation methods that Hawkes employed are discussed.The methods can be classified into four types: literal translation,shift,addition and omission.Hawkes chooses proper methods according to the context of Hong Lou Meng and pay attention to whether images' meaning changes or not in different culture.Creativity is the most remarkable feature of The Story of the Stone.In chapter two,the cultural differences that showed in translations of poetic images are studied.Seven images that frequently used in Hong Lou Meng poems are compared to those in western literatures.It is reflected in Hawkes' s translation that one image may contain different meaning in different culture.This phenomenon can mainly originated from the difference between agricultural and commercial economy in ancient China and Greek,which caused thoughts towards value as well as relationship between human and nature in two civilizations differ from each other.In chapter three,factors that led to the distinguishing style of imagery translation in The Story of the Stone are explored.It is no doubt that the style is influenced by Hawkes' s personal experience and motivation,as well as the historical environment.However,the most significant reason is that Hawkes adequately take readers' reception into account when he was translating this novel.Reviewing the process that how foreign novels were popularized in China,it can be also conscious that the closer translations got to readers,the more popular they were.When Hawkes translated the images in poems of Hong Lou Meng,he did further study on those images' meaning in poems even in the whole Chinese culture for the sake of helping readers understand.Therefore,The Story of the Stone and Hong Lou Meng itself are widely known by readers in western countries.Nowadays,people around the world are getting much more interested in Chinese traditional culture.Introducing more traditional literature to readers around the world meets their need and our traditional culture has a new chance to be developed,which is a win-win situation. |
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