On The Translation Of Images In Fortress Besieged From The Perspective Of The New Criticism

As a western modern literary theory,the New Criticism was born in the United Kingdom in the early 20 th century and later developed in the United States.Being the formalistic theory paying particular attention to literary texts,it holds that the ontology of literature is the work itself and that literary criticism should be centered on works with a thorough,intensive study.The contents regarding the theory can be specified as follows: from the text viewpoint,the adherents insist on the ontology and organic holism of the literary works;from the semantic viewpoint,ambiguity and polysemy of the language are emphasized;from the rhetoric viewpoint,the specific terms such as “tension”,“irony” are proposed,focusing on the linguistic structure and aesthetic values of literary works with an affirmation that literature is an independent art world.Literary language is the poetic expression,aiming to highlight the charm of existence with aesthetics.Literary translation takes the primary task of making a source language understood for the target readers,which requires the translator to deliberate the original text and transform the unconventional language into symbolic information with better reception of original flavors.It turns out that the analysis of the original text occupies an important position in the process of literary translation.Thus the New Criticism,also the literary theory,can offer an opportunity to guide literary translation.Fortress Besieged written by Qian Zhongshu,regarded as a powerful work that shares Chinese and Western cultures has great literary values.It reflects the author's superb language ability and reveals the inherent artistic beauty based on the application of images,which are entitled with personal affection,lifting the overall artistic charm and enlarging the aesthetic essence.More importantly,the presentation of images in literaryworks,which goes beyond the general meaning of their own,is often alienated or beyond the general concept,which brings great challenges to translators.Chen Zhi'e has categorized images into three types,namely descriptive images,figurative images and symbolic images in view of the relations between images and rhetoric language as well as their functions.Specifically,in light of the New Criticism,images included both in the original and target text are analyzed based on the manual corpus through close reading,semantic analysis and contrastive interpretation.Meanwhile,the according appreciation and evaluation on specific items are conducted for further conclusion of image translation methods.This process of approaching mutual understanding against seeking common ground while reserving differences,engaging in a sound conversation for the establishment of cultural connectivity and avoidance of misreading,is aimed at releasing the potential and vitality of Chinese excellent literature,promoting cultural exchange,and finally providing certain solutions as well as theoretical guidance on how to achieve enormous improvement in the future Chinese literary translation.