Version Of Ulan Bator, The Mongolian Translation Of "the Spectacles In Ancient Study

Wonders of Ancient and Modern Times is a famous novel collection of ancient Chinese, which was finished during year 5 to 17 of Chong Zhen Period in late Ming Dynasty. An old man holding urns selected and edited it from Three Volumes of Words and Two Volumes of Slapping, which are novel collections by Menglong Feng and Mengchu Ling based on the folk narrative stories passed on widely from generation to generation. Three Volumes of Words and Two Volumes of Slapping collectively represent the highest achievements of short novels during Song, Yuan and Ming dynasties. The well founded literary basis and the unique perspective of appreciation by the old man made the Wonders of Ancient and Modern Times the most important collection of short novels of ancient Chinese. It had been rather popular in that society and the fame and influence had been well over those of Three Volumes of Words and Two Volumes of Slapping. It is not only favored by Han readers, but also won the preference of Mongolian readers. During Qing dynasty, it was translated into Mongolian and was widely spread among Inner Mongolians and the khalkha Mongolians (today's Mongolia). The khalkha Mongolian translation was very popular among its readers, and has made great influence on the Mongolian's cultural life, literary appreciation and innovation. It was published in the 50s of the 20th century, and is referred to as the Ulan Batorian translation of Wonders of Ancient and Modern Times (Ulan Batorian translation henceforth). The present dissertation chooses this translated edition as the research subject.The comparative study of the Ulan Batorian translation and its original Chinese edition has been an important research subject in the study of the relations of ethnic literatures and of the theoretical studies of comparative literatures, and also in the relations of Chinese and Mongolian literatures of Qing dynasty. The present dissertation is based on the first-hand materials collected from Mongolia and Inner Mongolia and on the theory of comparative study concerning the parallelism of literatures, and conducts multi-perspective comparative study to the Ulan Batorian translation and its original Chinese edition.First, the present study introduces the popularization and the influence of Ulan Batorian translation in Mongolian areas, and discusses the reasons for the wide spread of this particular translation, based on the first-hand materials, interviews and evidential facts.Second, with a word by word and sentence by sentence contrast of the original novel and the Ulan Batorian translation, the author sorts out the basic information necessary for the dissertation, that is, the additions, deletions and the adaptations in the Mongolian translation. The paper, by analyzing some typical examples of these alterations, further discusses and analyzes the reasons, and the influence of the adapted literary piece on the Mongolian culture and on the literary phenomenon. The translators deleted or rewrote the contents which were difficult to translate, which were not consistent with the Mongolian literary tradition, and those which did not concord with the Mongolian's aesthetic ideal, so that it resembled the Mongolian literary works, and accordingly better and more easily accepted by Mongolian readers; such an adaptation laid a good foundation for the wide spreading of the translation in the Mongolian areas. The translators also expanded the original novel by adding some contents concerning Mongolian culture, customs and literature, making the translation closer to the literary tradition of Mongolians and to the sense of beauty of Mongolian readers.Third, the 40 volumes of the translated edition are classified into three parts labeled with different standards, namely high, medium and low, and two pieces from each standard are chosen for the case study, because each volume of the original novel was an independent story and they were translated by different translators, which led to certain differences in the standard and characteristics.Finally, the paper also attaches the records of the interviews and the tables of the added, deleted and rewritten parts of the translated edition. The table lists in detail the added, deleted and rewritten parts of the Ulan Batorian translation, which are not only the most powerful justification but also a very valuable material for further studies.