Wang Rongpei’s English Version Of The Peony Pavilion: A Study From The Perspective Of Translation Aesthetics

The Peony Pavilion, masterpiece of playwright Tang Xianzu in Ming dynasty, depicts atouching love story between ladylike Du Liniang and scholar Liu Mengmei, which has beendeemed as a classic reflected in romanticism in the history of Chinese opera. In recent years,with the development of Kunqu opera, The Peony Pavilion has been brought to our attention. Itis characterized by profound thought, superb artistic favor and exquisite language and its profuseaesthetic factors are highly evaluated and praised, in which some opera libretti have been popularwith great value in ideological and artistic field. How to make target readers feel the charming oftraditional Chinese opera literature and sense the beauty in translated version has been regardedas a challenge to translator.This thesis attempts to study Professor Wang Rongpei’s English version of The PeonyPavilion from the perspective of translation aesthetics in modern China. The yearning for beautyhas been the eternal theme for human beings, especially for Chinese people. Translation thoughtsin China have been intertwined with aesthetics through the ages, from the earliest translationproposition “sincere words are not fine, fine words are not sincere” raised by philosopherLao-tzu to proposition “sublimation” set forth by Qian Zhongshu, consequently, Chinesetranslation history is comparable to a history of translation aesthetics. On the aesthetic view,translation is defined as reproduction of aesthetic values in original text, therefore the theoryaesthetics offer an appropriate perspective so as to excavate rich aesthetic elements in literatureworks.The thesis aims at studying how the translator achieves the representation of beauties intranslated text in accordance with translation aesthetics. The saying “only to be sensed, notexplained” indicates that literary translation is beyond the explanation of meaning, andtranslators ought to maximize aesthetic values and transfer the artistic flavor to target readers.The author analyzes aesthetic ingredients in formal aesthetic constituents and non-formalaesthetic constituents, in which the latter deeply reflects that Chinese people particularlyadvocate beauties of fuzziness and implicitness.Studies in this thesis show that although Wang Rongpei’s English version can not achievecomplete correspondence on images, it strives to pursue the similar ideorealm and sound effectwith the original text and successfully reproduces beauties in sound, form and ideorealm inpremise of correct meaning, which offer aesthetic sharing to target readers.