Translation And Research Of Chineses Classical Novels In France During The 19th Century

The translation and research of modern Chinese classical novels in France was pioneered by Jean-Pierre Abel-Rémusat,followed by Stanislas Julien.This thesis aims at discussing these two people’s translation activities,the characters of their translation works and their researchs on Chinese novels through detailed analysis based on the original works.There are problems on translating Chinese stories such as incomplete or sloppy translation in the 18^th century and the beginning of 19^th century in Europe.In order to solve these problems,Abel-Rémusat put forward his original-text-based idea on translation them,which provided a guiding principle for the western translation of Chinese novels.Applying western literary theories and comparative study on Chinese novels were Abel-Rémusat’s main ways of Chinese novel research,which were the first time those methods being used in western classical Chinese novel studies.Besides,observing Chinese novels in the frame of the oriental literary system,was another tradition he createded on western chinese novel studies.His successor,Julien,translated various types of Chinese classical novels,making the first peak of French-translated Chinese novels.Julien’s translation choices,translation theories and strategies are mostly inherited from those of Abel-Rémusat’s.But they changed a lot when Julien entered his later years.In terms of translation concepts,he pushed futher Abel-Rémusat’s original-text-based idea.In his later years,Julien almost required faithfulness to each words of the original text,which leads to his word-for-word way of translation.Julien could reach a lot more Chinese novels than Abel-Rémusat,with which his overall Chinese novel knowledge was expanded.As a complementarity of Abel-Rémusat’s western way of Chinese novel study,Julien cared more about understanding Chinese novels from the logic and characteristics of Chinese novels themselves.The two sinologists initially cleared the obstacles of Chinese language—poetry and allusion translation,formed the translation idea to guilde translaton practice,and established the early Chinese novels research mode for France and even Europe.Their work laid a solid foundation for modern Chinese novel translation and research.