A Study On Drama Translation During The May Fourth Movemen

Dramas translation,which were the beginning and power of development of Chinese modern dramas,contained new thoughts,new ideas and new performance forms that were able to be the fountain and source of Chinese stage-plays,in that case,dramas translation never be absent during the developing process of Chinese stage-plays.What we said above is commonsense in the field of drama research,however,researchers still omitted some important information: in the first place,the process of translation could be too simplified if regarding translated dramas as foreign dramas and treated their influences in China as the same thing.The cause and influence of variation of images in translated dramas,a type of special literature,owe to be analyzed.The following thing is that the angle of literature history narration always focused on new vernacular literature,but,in fact,translated dramas during the May Fourth period were the weapons of disseminating enlightenment thoughts as well as an art in order to satisfy people’s aesthetic expectations so that grandly recounting may ignored the amusement function of translated dramas.Studying dramas translation during the May Fourth period via the sight of intercultural studies is able to help us reconsider those neglected clues and rethink about the reasons why Chinese modern dramas only accepted by minorities at that time,in order to inspire us to constructing stage-plays of contemporary China.The following questions are putting in front of us when studying dramas translation of the May Fourth: Why translated them? What to translate? What happened during translation especially the variations of images? How readers accepted them?Firstly,investigate what was the primary cause that Chinese translators translated dramas of western countries.Two movement in drama performance field took place in the end of Qing Dynasty and the beginning of Republic of China—the Drama Amelioration Movement and the May Fourth Drama Movement—and both of them were connected with dramas translation.The Drama Amelioration Movement in the end of Qing Dynasty responded the requirement of enlightenment purpose and preventing nation extinction of China,as a result,New-fashioned Drama Performance,which was different from traditional Chinese dramas,was established.New-fashioned dramas lost their direction soon after Xinhai Revolution failed and became vulgar and finally disappeared.This situation did not become better until the May Fourth Drama Movement arose.The Drama Amelioration Movement was the prelude of the May Fourth Drama Movement,the former one provided experience and indicated direction and Mr.Science and Mr.Democracy during the May Fourth offered an opportunity to destroy Chinese traditional orders,at the same time,the La Jeunesse published special column of lbrahim and exclaimed that revolution in drama field was urgent and it was time to established modern drama.In order to catch that goal,drama translators believed that translating western drama plays and theories was the only way.As literary idea changed,dramas backed to the center of literary system and translated dramas turned out to be a symbol of New Culture Movement.Secondly,concentrating on translated drama scripts,thus answer the question that what kind of language style translated dramas based on and how translators chose the contents of dramas.Fighting for human rights,resisting and exposing by critical thinking and the comprehension of life based on irrational ideas were common topics of translated dramas during the May Fourth and they brought new ideas to Chinese audiences and extended the sight and thought of writing dramas.One thing have to be pointed out that vulgar motives were still existed,though they were marginalized due to them betrayed the New Culture Movement,citizens prefer them so much,in that case,variant themes of translated dramas influenced Chinese modern drama at different levels.The language style of translated dramas was like modern proses,which illustrated the characteristics of cultural negotiation in a specified era and indicated the contradiction between traditional Chinese and vernacular,nationalization and Europeanization,reading and acting.Translators intended to spreading new thoughts and cultivated new aesthetic tastes by vernacular,nevertheless,word-for-word translation became the impediment of accepting and acting translated drama scripts.Not only the drama scripts,para-texts such as introductions,postscripts of translators,translators’ annotations and illustrations,they all contained significant cultural information and they were the stage of translators,who controlled the meaning of dramas and leading the atmosphere of reading drama scripts and revealed a wide literary scope.Some para-texts blurred the boundary between reading materials and acting scripts,as a result,translated dramas did not always response the requirements of modern dramas during the May Fourth and pointed out the reason that caused the lack of scripts.Thirdly,misinterpretation,due to that translators did not have comprehensive foreign cultural information,of drama ideas and performance techniques during the process of translation affected Chinese drama writing and the Amateur Play Movement.Besides,considering the need of cultural reform,some translators,usually cultural pioneers,preferred word-for-word translation,as we mentioned above,it brought difficulties for drama acting and challenged skills of translators so that rewriting-translation appeared.In order to respect Chinese audiences’ aesthetic tastes,rewriting translators deleted unnecessary plots and transplanted the whole paly into Chinese culture by replacing names,places,items and sceneries.After that,some translators did not persist the original themes and changed characters actions or relationships,therefore,we can call these rewriting phenomena,which based on Chinese cultural psychology and aesthetic tastes,a typical way of nationalization.Lastly,there is a paradox between translated dramas in the May 4th Movement and the Chinese modern drama: the drama is valued and translated because of its popularity,while Chinese modern drama tends to be less popular.In general,translated dramas took part in Chinese modern drama construction and stage acting practice,however,there is a gap between dramatists and the masses in their acceptance of translated dramas.Comparatively speaking,rewriting-translators,who were much more succeed than others,included two kinds of people: intellectual translators and impersonator translators.Those two types of translators had their own way to understand foreign dramas,which related to that dramas had literariness and performance characteristics at the same time.Generally speaking,intellectual translators paid more attentions to translated dramas’ themes and literary skills,while impersonator translators focused on performance technics of translated materials.For translators themselves,their works conveyed intercultural features,which turned out to be a method to solve the problems of contradictions among new thoughts and old-fashioned ideas,among fine arts’ utility and the opposite side and turned out to be an angle to understand how translated dramas were accepted by Chinese.For readers and audiences,translated dramas amused them and educated them at the same time,however,entertainment was an important factor that drove citizens to watch modern dramas but this part was absent in literature history leading by grandly narrations sometimes.Anyhow,stage-plays during the May Fourth were accepted by only a few people,because that translated dramas ignored there popularity.