A Study Of Bian Zhilin As A Translator

Bian Zhilin (1910-2000) is a famous poet in the history of modern Chinese literature. Like many other poets, he is also an outstanding translator, a scholarly one of academic excellence. In his more than sixty years of literary career, he made brilliant achievements in writing, translation, studies on translation as well as on foreign writers and their works. He made indelible contributions to the development of China's New Poetry and to the introduction of Western literature into China. His achievements are such that the literary circle and the translation circle in China feel proud of them.Bian Zhilin's literary career began with his translation and introduction of Western literature into China. In the early 1930s when he was still at collage, he began to publish translated works. He translated novels, poems, essays, plays, a biography, and so on. All of them have been influential, esp. his anthology of translated poems and his translation of Shakespeare's four great tragedies in poetic form. Apart from his translations, he wrote some prefaces and theses in which he discussed problems about translation, expressed his views on translation, and introduced and commented on relevant writers and their works. He made great achievements in the translation and introduction of Western literature into China. But studies on him as a translator are far from enough and need to be strengthened. This dissertation, based on the current research achievements as well as on the historical context of the cultural communications between China and foreign countries, is intended to make an intensive and comprehensive study of Bian's academic and translation undertakings by applying theories concerning philosophy, translation, literature, and so on, so that the readers will be able to have a good understanding of his outstanding achievements as a translator.The dissertation is composed of two parts besides the introduction and the conclusion. Part One dwells on three aspects which are most representative of Bian Zhilin's translating activities. Part Two probes into his translation theories and practice. These two parts include several chapters. They form an organic integrity in which they are independent of each other as well as supplement and connect with each other.The introduction first examines the cultural collisions and communications between China and Western countries, mainly the introduction of Western culture into China since the May Fourth Movement, describing the cultural background in which Bian Zhilin undertook translation work and through which people can get to know about Bian's motives, thoughts, strategies and value orientation of translation. Then it gives a general introduction to his translation career, displaying the contributions he made in the cultural communications between China and Western countries, so that the readers will have a general knowledge of him as a translator. The introduction ends with a review of the studies on Bian Zhilin as a poet and as a translator, pointing out the achievements and inadequacies concerning studies on him as a translator, thus providing necessary preparation and groundwork for the following discussion.Part One consists of three chapters. Having had a general survey of Bian Zhilin's translation career in the introduction, this part focuses on some of his important literary translations and literary studies, displaying the interactive relationship between his writing and his translation as well as the influence of his translation and introduction of Western literature upon his thoughts and writings.Chapter One probes into the complementary relationship between Bian Zhilin's poem translation and poem writing. Bian translated quite a few love poems. But the poems written by him seldom touch upon love. He was an introverted poet and did not want to reveal his personal feelings in his poems. His introversion caused him to express his feelings very implicitly in his few love poems. Therefore he resorted to poem translation to reveal and release his feelings. His poem translation is a supplement to his poem writing in the aspect of revealing his innermost feelings.Chapter Two discusses Bian Zhilin's translation and study of Shakespeare. Bian began the translation and study in 1954. It was 34 years later that he published his translated work Shakespeare's Four Great Tragedies:Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, and Macbeth and his academic work On Shakespeare's Tragedies in 1988. What caused him to study Shakespeare? What was his philosophical standpoint in his study of Shakespeare and what characteristics of the times does his study show? This is analyzed in detail in this chapter. The chapter also describes the phenomenon of the retranslation of Shakespeare's plays. Then it expounds Bian Zhilin's retranslation of Shakespeare's four great tragedies in poetic form, pointing out that his translations are classical ones in poetic form which are different from Zhu Shenghao's in prose style. It also points out that it owes much to Bian's talent as a poet that he could translate Shakespeare's tragedies in poetic form and that his translations are full of rhythmic and poetic lines. His accomplishments as a poet played an important part in the successful translation.Chapter Three expatiates and analyzes Bian Zhilin's translation and introduction of Gide's works as well as Gide's influence on his thoughts and writings. Bian Zhilin read and translated Gide, and wrote articles to expound the writing features of Gide's works and his thoughts guiding artistic or literary creation. He absorbed Gide's quintessence of thought and that of art, and embodied them in his own works. Gide's thoughts and artistic techniques had a great influence upon him, which was reflected not only in his writings but also in his life and thoughts.Part Two also consists of three chapters. They analyze Bian Zhilin's translation theory and translation practice. This part summarizes and expounds his representative translation thoughts dispersed in his theses and prefaces. It also analyzes his representative works through some examples, bringing to light the close relationship between his translation theory and translation practice.Chapter One expounds Bian Zhilin's translation thoughts and translation artistry. Based on fidelity, Bian absorbed traditional Chinese translation theories dialectically and presented his notion of faithfulness, approximation, and translation from the angle of literary translation. He pointed out that translation should follow and keep the original form and manage to achieve similarity in spirit. He held a negative attitude towards such expressiveness and elegance that led to unfaithfulness to the original works. He thought that translation should be translating rather than creating. It should be faithful to the original works not only in content but also in form. But absolute faithfulness is impossible. The artistry of literary translation lies in its relative equivalence to the original. He stressed that the translator should take advantage of the flexibility and potentiality of his native language and be very creative in the use of language. His translation theory forms a sect of its own and has exerted a great influence upon the translation circle of our country. His translations fully reflect his notion of giving priority to faithfulness. Based on faithfulness, they are as expressive and elegant as the original works, and similar to the original both in form and in spirit.Chapter Two analyzes Bian Zhilin's poem translation from three aspects, that is, his choice of vernacular style with metrical form as the style of poem translation, faithful reproduction of the forms of the original poems, and faithful transfer of the original images into the translated poems. Bian Zhilin proposed choosing vernacular style with metrical form as the style of poem translation. This choice of style is suited to the context of modern Chinese culture and to the readers' horizon of expectation. It also accords with poets'stress on metre in Western countries and with their maintenance of writing poetry in colloquialism. And his translated poems have well reproduced the styles of the original poems. They perfectly display the aesthetic value of this style in poem translation as well. To transfer the rhythmic forms of the original poems, Bian adopted the translation strategy of "replacing an English foot with a Chinese pause". He followed the principle of faithfulness in transferring rhyme, rhythm and imagery. Meanwhile he would make corresponding changes when necessary. His poem translation is a vivid reflection of his translation thoughts.Chapter Three elaborates on Bian Zhilin's attitude towards two important constraints in translation --- the original author and the target reader. Bian attached great importance to the original author, showing his great loyalty to him. Meanwhile, he affirmed the creativity and subjectivity of the translator. He brought his subjective initiative into full play when understanding original texts, and then managed to faithfully reproduce the forms and the contents, approximate to the original in language style and in expression. When beginning to translate texts, he would also preset the readers for his translations. The potential readers in his mind included average readers and intellectuals. Intellectuals generally own a complete knowledge structure and a strong reading comprehension ability. They are ready to accept new knowledge and new ideas, and able to "communicate" with the original authors through texts, thus coming to understand their thoughts and feelings as well as their language features. Because of this, Bian Zhilin managed to faithfully reproduce the forms and contents of the original texts, displaying to the readers the authentic Western culture, letting themselves feel, comprehend and accept the knowledge systems, the forms of expression, and the values of Western culture. As regards average readers, he did not adapt his translations to them and cater for their taste. Instead by giving proper guidance, he helped them understand the spirit of his translations and improve their comprehension ability, broadening their horizon of expectation and raising their level of understanding and appreciation.The conclusion illustrates the influence of Bian Zhilin's translation theory and translation practice upon China's translated literature and upon the development of modern Chinese poetry, displaying the significance of study on Bian's translation. Then it describes the prospects for future work.To sum up, this dissertation, by applying Medio-translatology theory and other relevant translation theories, is a systematic and comprehensive study of Bian Zhilin as a translator. It examines his translation thoughts and translation features, describes his contributions to China's translated literature as well as to the development of China's New Poetry, and makes manifest the interaction between Bian's translation and his writing. The research done here is expected to have laid a preliminary groundwork for further study of Bian Zhilin as a translator.