A Literary Stylistic Approach To The Translation Of Style On Francis Bacon's "of Studies"

Discussion on the translation of style runs through the history of translation. First, the translation of style has always been a necessary element in translation evaluation, thus has been taken into consideration by famous translators home and abroad in their practice as well as theoretical research; secondly, the study on style translation embodies the product of the research on translation. Whatever approaches taken, whichever theory applied, the focus behind the activity of translation is to revive the style of the original.Francis Bacon (1561—1626), a distinguished philosopher and statesman in Britain during the Renaissance, is regarded as the inaugurator of British essays, whose work, Essays, has not only become his main representative of literary creation, but also won him enduring literary fame. The clear and terse style of Essays did influence the writing mode of scientists in the Royal Society. In Essays, the particular concentrated form Bacon uses is the aphoristic style. It combines brevity and perspicuity. Bacon employs many rhetorical devices to ornament his work, increase its persuasive force and amplify the subject matter. The research subjects are the two English versions of Bacon's Essays: Shui Tiantong's version and Cao Minglun's version. The author, based on the previous study of style as well as the statements of literary stylistics throughout the translation history, makes an attempt to reveal how the features of style are revised in the translation in the syntactic level and rhetorical level. With respect to syntactic level, the paper examines aspcts of translation of coordinate sentences, translation of compound sentences, and translation of omission. With respect to rhetorical level, the paper examnines aspcts of translation of antithesis, translation of similes, and translation of parallelism.Through the comparison and analysis of the two English versions of Essays, the author examines how the employment of the target language in a text of particular genre influences the translation whole, and tends to make out a better way of style reviving in literary translation especially in essay translation. Based on the examination of the two translators, the author discusses the relationship between the translation of style and the style of translation, and proves the inevitability of influence on the translation of style from the objective existence of translation style. The conclusion sums up the whole thesis, and emphasizes that the open and tolerable attitude adopted in the descriptive translation study will benefit China's translation research with more interpretations of classics by translators and readers.