Study On The Spread Of The Novels Translated By Lin Shu In Late-Qing And Eearly Years Of The Republic Of China

Lin Shu is the last master of ancient prose in the history of Chinese literature, but what makes him famous are the novels translated by him. The spread of the novels translated by Lin Shu is a special phenomenon in the history of Chinese modern novels and literary translation. Those novels helped us know the world’s literature, so they were popular at that time, while they were widely criticized later and became obscure. Lin Shu and the novels translated by him expressed a strong desire of cultural communication, and Lin Shu himself also took an active part in kinds of communicational activities. This paper aims to extend the study of the novels translated by Lin Shu from the perspective of communication.The preface introduces the life experience of Lin Shu and his literary activities, gives a brief survey of the novels translated by Lin Shu, then summarizes the study of those novels by three phases, and explains some related methods of communication and the value of this paper.Chapter one discusses Lin Shu’s social communication and the spread of the novels translated by Lin Shu. Lin Shu’s social communication covered a wide range, including his cooperators, cultural celebrities and cultural organizations. This study mainly refers to the commucation ideology of Maxism—Spiritual Communication Theories. Lin Shu’s cooperators exerted an important influence on the choice of the original works, the exactness and the speed of the translation,which affected the spread of the novels translated by Lin Shu, and the cultural celebrities and cultural organizations also helped.Chapter two explores the relationship between the spread of the novels translated by Lin Shu and the modern publishing organizations. Lin Shu formed a steady cooperation with the Commercial Press since1905, and most of his works were published by the Commercial Press. The advanced equipments, the complete distribution system and the frequent promotion of the Commercial Press made the novels translated by Lin Shu well-known. At the same time, newspapers such as Pingbao, Public Speech also played a role in the spread of the novels translated by Lin Shu.Chapter three divides the novels translated by Lin Shu into two parts by the social environment, Lin Shu’s thought,the contents and the communication effects. Before the year of1913, most of the novels were popular. This paper stated from three aspects:the prefaces and the postcripts and the communication effects, the translation strategies and the communication effects, and the spread of the novels translated by Lin Shu and Lin Shu’s contribution to the literature.Chapter four analysizes the reasons why the novels translated by Lin Shu got unpopular after the year of1913. One of the reasons is that the contents and the quality of the novels were not as good as before. Apart from the reason of Lin Shu’s thought and his cooperators, the ecnomic fator also led to this result. Above all, the entanglements between Lin Shu and the school of New Culture were the decisive factor of the desolation of the novels translated by Lin Shu.The conclusion points out the progress and the shortage of this paper, summarizes the study of the novels translated by Lin Shu, and sugguests some mothods and news tasks on this study.