Resemblance In Spirit Or Resemblance In Form

This thesis is intended to adopt resemblance in spirit and resemblance in form as a theoretical framework to make a tentative study of the two different Chinese versions (Mr. Zhu Shenghao's version and Mr. Bian Zhilin's version) of Hamlet. The purpose of doing so is to verify whether resemblance in spirit or resemblance in form is more important in literary translation.Chinese translation circle borrowed "resemblance in spirit" and "resemblance in form" from art field as two methods to guide translation in the early 20th century. In 1960s, Fu Lei held, "Concerning the effect, the translator should pursue resemblance in spirit instead of resemblance inform," which was popularly accepted by translators. From then on, resemblance in spirit, which symbolized that translation theory in China had developed to a new step, affected much the study and practice of translation.Zhu Shenghao applied resemblance in spirit to guide his translation. He transferred meaning and spirit of the original works without keeping the original form.Mr. Bian Zhilin used resemblance in form to guide his translation and he tried to preserve as much as possible the original elements of the original works.Based on the analysis of the two translated texts, the paper verifies the validity of resemblance in spirit theory and resemblance in form theory from the perspectives of form, language, culture elements, figure of speech and flavor. But at the same time, the paper also finds that resemblance in spirit ignores many culture elements in the original text, and that resemblance in form makes the translated text a little rigid because of the...