Tentative Probing Into Translation Multiplicity By Viewing The Interaction Of Aesthetic Subject And Object

The multiple translations for literary works, especially those for the classics often refresh the feelings of the readers. It is a common phenomenon that different translators produce diverse translated versions for the same source language text (SLT). In essence, literary translation can be viewed as a transformation of artistic forms relying on differential creative approaches. As translators differ individually in their cultural backgrounds, life experience, reading experience, literary appreciation, aesthetic sensibility as well as their bi-lingual competency, these diversities are eventually reflected in their varied re-creation activities of producing different translated works. The traditional SLT-oriented translation theory views rendition a mere transformative process of two different languages, and the translator is devalued as a "servant" with no initiative and creativity, who is put into a hard situation between "faithfulness" and "treason"; hence, personal style is out of the question. On the theoretical backgrounds of modern philosophical Hermeneutics, the Reception Aesthetics has made a shift in the traditional view of the literary text in literary criticism. According to Hermeneutics, the meaning of the text is not unilateral, self-closed and arbitrary, but multi-lateral, open and free to diverse interpretations. The innate fuzziness of literary language, the blankness and indeterminateness of the text meaning have determined the schematic characteristic of the text and constitute the appealing structure of the text as an aesthetic object in interpreting process. The Reception Aesthetics makes a further approach to draw the attention of the literary critics to the reader, providing a new angle for translation research.From a perspective of Reception Aesthetics, this paper starts from the analysis of several core concepts in Hermeneutics—pre-understanding, prejudice and the horizon of expectations of the reader, and then it tries to illuminate the multiplicity of translation by combining the SLT with the creativity of the translator as an aesthetic subject. Then the paper introduces the notion of "creative treason" in the exploration of the role of the translator, which puts the translator in a foremost position in translation process.Concerning the problems of mistranslations or free translations resulting from the over- centeredness of the translator in his creating activity, this paper makes its further efforts to divide the creative treason into faithful treason and arbitrary treason. By regarding the mistranslations caused by the latter also as a manifestation of translation multiplicity, the limitation of the translator's creativity is proposed at the close of this paper, which in the eye of the present writer, should be the harmony achieved between the SLT and the target text on the basis of the empathy of the original writer and translator. The thesis also puts forward at last that it is worthy of our further research in the translation field to treat the mistranslation from an aesthetic perspective with both its positiveness and negativeness.It is sincerely hoped that the aesthetic exploration of the multiplicity of translated versions in terms of the aesthetic object and aesthetic subject will be of some value in the future studies of translation.