The Flavor Of Hamlet

As a prominent poet and literary translator, Zhu Shenghao holds an important position for his brilliant achievement in the history of Chinese literary translation, for he is the first one who systematically translated The Complete Works of William Shakespeare into Chinese. Zhu Shenghao is remembered by all Chinese people and constitutes a milestone in the history of Chinese literary translation. In less than a decade, he translated 31 and a half Shakespearean works, of which Hamlet is one of the masterpieces of Shakespeare and can be reckoned as the summit of all Shakespeare's works. The flavor in Zhu Shenghao's translated version is the most distinct feature, which explains its enduring attraction to the readers and audience. Therefore, it is significant both in theory and practice to do a research into the flavor of Hamlet translated by Zhu Shenghao and the influence of Zhu Shenghao on the translation circle in China.By comparing and contrasting the Chinese and English texts of Hamlet, this thesis intends to explore into Zhu Shenghao's translating practice and the flavor of his translation.First of all, a brief introduction is given to the life, the translation practice of Zhu Shenghao and Shakespeare's Hamlet, all of which indicate that Hamlet is the optimal play as the case study.The flavor of Hamlet is analyzed from the perspectives of form and content. As for the form, the using of onomatopoeia, reiterative, rhyme and the Four-Character Chinese idioms illustrates the flavor of harmony in sound. In the sentence structure, besides the parallel structure and inversion, Zhu Shenghao adopts bamboo structure and parataxis to translate the grape-vine structure and hypotaxis, owing to the differences in the sentence structures between English and Chinese. All of these aim at conveying the flavor of Hamlet. In the aspect of content, this thesis analyses the flavor from the characteristics reflected in rhetoric device, image and register with profound examples, and concludes that Zhu Shenghao's translation maintains the flavor of the original and the characteristics of his translation are in accordance with the aesthetic perception of the Chinese people, the target language readers.From the previous analysis, this thesis finds out Zhu Shenghao's translation principle of Flavor. Through the trace of the evolution of Chinese traditional translation principles from Word-for-Word to Spiritual Resemblance, the author finds that Zhu Shenghao has played an important role like a hinge in Chinese translation circle, for his translation principle of Flavor has inherited the highlights from Yan Fu's 'faithfulness, expressiveness, and elegance', and greatly influenced Fu Lei's 'spiritual resemblance' and Qian Zhongshu's 'consummate realm of transmigration' or 'Hua Jing' as well.After the tentative research on Zhu Shenghao's translation of Hamlet, the following conclusions can be drawn: (1) the characteristics of his translation adhere to the aesthetic perception of the Chinese people, the target language readers. That is the reason for the prolonged popularity of his translation in China. (2) Zhu Shenghao's translating practice is consistent with his translation principle. His translating practice mirrors the translation principle of Flavor advocated by him. (3) Zhu Shenghao's translation principle holds an important role during the evolution of the discourse in translation theory and he plays a significant role of hinge in the formation of Chinese traditional translation theory.