Interpreting Sublimation

As an academic master who is well versed in studies in China and the West, in ancient and modem time, Qian Zhongshu embraces in his studies the pith of classical Chinese culture, from philology to philosophy, from textual criticism to literary criticism, from poetics to aesthetics, from anthropology to psychology, and so on. His discourses on translation studies, as a sub-branch of his comparative literature studies, has drawn widespread attention among Chinese translation theorists and practitioners and scholars in literary circle as well. As the epitome of his translation theory, "Sublimation" has enjoyed high prestige in Chinese translation circle and exerted a tremendous impact upon the translation studies. It remains a pity, however, that very few people in the translation circle make a comprehensive and systematic study of "Sublimation", and even fewer translators understand its real connotations and thus abide by it as a guiding principle, for, to many people, the theory is highly abstract, mysterious and thus unattainable, just like a mirage or an attic in the air.In view of the situation that the theory is frequently quoted but rarely clarified, the present dissertation attempts at a comprehensive and integrated study of "Sublimation" in terms of its historical background, theoretical basis and profound connotations by applying the method of "interpreting Qian Zhongshu in his own words" and by referring to the study results achieved by scholars and experts at home and abroad. On the basis of reading Qian's relevant academic works, including Discourses on Art, Pipe-awl Chapters and Seven Patches, the paper focuses on the elaboration of the connotations of "Sublimation" and the steps of attaining the goal by centering on the three key concepts put forward by Qian in "Lin Shu's Translations"("sublimation", "misinformation", "enticement"). By so doing, Theory of "Sublimation" is clarified, specified and systematized so as to be widely acceptable to people in translation circle. Meanwhile, the theory may be exploited to guide translators how to employ "enticement", avoid "misinformation", seek "sublimation", and eventually perfect their translations with an aim to achieve the highest stage of literary translation.The thesis consists of five chapters. Chapter 1 makes a brief review of Qian's discourses on translation as well as some scholars' studies on his translation theory and points out the issues to be tackled in the thesis: interpreting "Sublimation".Chapter 2 probes into the historical background of "Sublimation", suggesting that it is a timely offspring required by the then Chinese translation field in terms of both practical development and theoretical discussion and that it is also the summarization of Qian's long-time thoughts on translation issues as well as the crystallization of his years of translation practices.Chapter 3 analyzes the profound theoretical basis of "Sublimation" by means of such related disciplines as philosophy, aesthetics and comparative poetics. Qian widely sets foot in various Chinese and Western translation theories, and extracts their quintessence as the sources of his theoretical formulation. Due to the influence by the traditional Chinese thoughts like Confucius, Taoism and Chan Buddhism as well as the Western philosophy, he takes a materialistic and dialectical viewpoint in formulating his translation theory. Edified by the traditional Chinese and Western aesthetics, he proposes the ideal state of literary translation from the aspect of aesthetics. He also employs comparative poetics between China and the West as his methodology in formulating translation theory.Chapter 4 aims at a systematic and thorough interpretation of "Sublimation". With an etymological analysis and semantic interpretation of the Chinese character "hua" [化], this chapter first generalizes the essence of Qian's "sublimation"replacing the external shell while retaining the soul of the old self, that is, transmuting the language forms of the original while preserving its sp...