Zhu Shenghao's Translation Of Shakespeare's Drama: Influence And Comparison

Zhu Shenghao's translation of Shakespearean drama tops all other versions with its largest scale of printing and publishing, enough to pride itself for the most coverage and influence over China. The poetic quality of his translation is attributed both to the contradictions between classic Chinese poetry and anti-classic tendency in the New Literature Movement, and between the power of localization and the thirst for foreignization. This featured style has a profound impact on the translation of Shakespeare's plays of Bian Zhiling and Ying Ruocheng, as well as the literary taste of public in general. However, the values of its poetic influence, which constitute the major part of this dissertation with the explanation of its norms and techniques remains rarely investigated.Zhu Shenghao's translation is fundamentally defined by its musicality. Comparing with other versions, Zhu's works are in parallel with a variety of rhythm and tempo deviation originated from ancient Chinese poetry, especially the Tang and Song prosodic features as well as the four-letter tradition of the Book of Songs. The multi-rhythms are created with ping and ze, long and short word units, rhythmic steps and other means to establish several layers of rhythm to play simutaniously in harmony, which keeps drama and narrative rhythm in correlation and becomes his unique musical characteristics. Zhu's creation of meaning-based units to display rhythm has a different nature from the "Dun" in Bian Zhilin's Theory, which is often constituted by two or three words. Zhu's extensive use of four-character units not only contributes to the long and short metrics, but also promotes the use of four-character words, clause and abbreviated sentences in Chinese literature as a poetic way of speech. In this way, many ancient Chinese words and rhythmic techniques return to life as a regular form of poetical expression. All is under the power of his manipulation of musicality in the translation to make the ancient and the exotic flow fluently in modern Chinese drama without being awkward. According to Zhu himself in a letter to his wife, he admitted that "Music is the most grandeur......poor rhythm is but the fundamental problems of life." The pursuit of musicality determines the basic style, and is responsible for nearly all aspects of his translation. Zhu Shenghao, living in the transitional period from the old tradition to new literature, received influence both from the classic Chinese poetry and Shakespearean English language. In his translation, the wide use of four-character words rooted from the Book of Songs, as well as literary adaption of awkward long sentence patterns directly translated foreign language with an exotic taste, reflecting the mixture of classical poetry and modern rhetoric. Zhu Shenghao, a witness of the turning point in Chinese literature history, the New Cultural Movement, put elements from both origins in his translations without fully awareness of his compromise. For instance, he has a keen sense for the the length of sentence between different classes to distinguish nobles and servants. The average sentence length for senior nobles in a formal situation is 13 characters, a younger noble or in a more casual occasion is 9 characters and the under-class speaks out sentences of roughly 6 characters. This grading imitates stylistic changes in the original text. Meanwhile, the governing music features help the drama dialogues continue between characters from different classes or of special speech styles, which could otherwise hear unnatural. The stylistic grading of conversation holders within drama characters reflects paradox in understanding the process of literature canonization. Moreover, Zhu Shenghao, as well as Liang Shiqiu, another great Shakespeare translator in the same age, shares many similar misunderstanding of the relationship between Romeo and Juliet characters, which are obvious in their mistranslation of "slave" or the interpretation of "fish live in the sea". Study of the translators'adjustments indicates how both were gradually changing the aesthetic tastes in the time when western romanticism was coming to China.However, Zhu Shenghao did not intend to deviate from the original. On the contrary, He consciously used more words to translate attempting to reveal the original intension of Shakespeare or to keep the smooth development of plots in the way it was initially designed, and localization is the last thing in his consideration. Although he did not read Liang Shiqiu's version of Romeo and Juliet before translating, he likewise explained in details about how translators with a deep-rooted Chinese background could do to avoid misunderstanding, which nonetheless did not detain his works from being the very Chinese way it is now. Thus the research on the mis-translation does not focus on the misunderstandings and mistakes made in the translation, but more on the shared changes made by several translators alike, which is inevitablly in order to deliver the story smoothly under certain historical background against the solid Chinese literary tradition.Readers generally prefer Zhu Shenghao's translation of Shakespearea's plays because they are easy to read and gives great pleasure. A survey is carried out to evaluate the preference for different Chinese versions from Zhu Shenghao, Cao Yu and Bian Zhilin. Zhu's version is more popular in general, but sometimes his definitely Chinese way of expression could also be rejected by the readers. Cao Yu's version, likewise fluent and more suitable for stage performance, is only slightly lagging behind in popularity, while Bian's version which has the most prominence in the literature society is hardly accepted by the common public. Exploration of the survey is still incomplete and requires further verification.The past sixty years witnessed huge cultural impact of Zhu Shenghao's translation of Shakespear's drama on Chinese literary tradition, which is now an inseparable part of history of Chinese literature itself. Heterogeneous factors find a safe access to Chinese literature in controlled quantity and quality in Zhu's Shakespearean translation and enriched the Chinese sense of poeticalness. By maintaining a delicate balance between the classic Chinese poetry and the English drama, Zhu Shenghao's translation of Shakespeare's drama poses a great influence on the development of collective aesthetic experience, giving the voice of the times and the local life.