A Comparative Study Of Two English Versions Of Six Chapters Of A Floating Life From The Perspective Of Liu Miqing's Translation Aesthetics

Six Chapters of Floating Life,written by Shen Fu,a literati in Qing Dynasty,was based on the lives of his wife and him.With a simple and fresh writing style,the author described a picture full of life.From ordinary and interesting family life to what he saw and heard around the world,his words revealed the unique life attitude,values and aesthetic ideology between the lines.In the process of translation,it is necessary to reproduce the aesthetic connotation of the original work as completely as possible,so that the translated work can be kept long-term vitality in the environment of the target language.Literary translation is to convey the artistic conception and aesthetic meaning of literary works in another language,so that the readers can feel the beauty of the original works when reading the translated works.Therefore,the reproduction of aesthetics is an important part of translation activities.This paper first reviews the application and study of translation aesthetics in the history of translation in China and the west,as well as the study of the combination of translation aesthetics and translation activities.Then,it introduces the main contents of Liu Miqing's translation aesthetics.After that,the author compares the two English versions of Six Chapters of Floating Life,Lin Yutang's version and Leonard,Pratt and Chiang,Su-Hui's version,and analyzes the similarities and differences.Then,based on Liu Miqing's translation aesthetics,representative words and phrases are selected to analyze how the two versions reproduce the original text aesthetically from the perspective oftranslation aesthetic object and translation aesthetic subject.Finally,the analysis shows that translation aesthetics plays an important role in literary translation.Different translators apply various translation methods due to the difference of knowledge and background.To reproduce the aesthetics of the text,Lin Yutang tends to use free translation and domestication while Leonard,Pratt and Chiang,Su-Hui tend to use literary translation and foreignization.Besides,their translation strategies are worthy of reference and be studied by contemporary scholars.