Study On The Boom Of Translated Literature In China From The 1870s To The 1920s From The Perspective Of Polysystem Theory

Based upon a brief introduction to the recent developments of Western translation studies, this dissertation intends to make a historical and dynamic description of the boom of translated literature in China from the 1870s to the 1920s by applying some significant viewpoints and hypotheses of the Polysystem Theory, a theory dealing with literary translation and culture studies proposed by E-Zohar. To this end, this dissertations places China's translated literature in the polysystem of China's literature, endeavoring to re-account for the very boom in terms of the interrelations between translated literature and native literature rather than simply from the perspective of the amount of translated and published literary works. Therefore, the boom can be alternatively understood as a process in which China's translated literature approached the center from the periphery, became canonized to some degree from non-canonicity, and began to shift to the secondary mode of literary creation within the polysystem of China's literature. Further, this dissertation explores the underlying workings for the very boom with reference to Zohar's suggestions and comes to a tentative conclusion that it was the temporary crisis and vacuum in the polysystem of China's literature and Chinese literati's consciousness of learning from the West that led to this boom. And this boom reflected a necessary and conscious reaction to the intrusion of the powerful and aggressive Western culture in that period. With regard to the future orientation of China's literature, this dissertation holds that translated literature will play a vital role in the cultural exchanges between China and the West. However, the chances that another large-scale boom occurs are relatively remote. And in the global context of the ongoing cultural fusion, with translated literature continuing to play its part, Chinese literature and culture will be one of the driving forces in formulating a multi-cultural world and a harmonious cultural-ecosystem.