On Translating Chapter Titles Of Hong Lou Meng In Light Of Aesthetics

With the overwhelming and long-lasting attraction, Hong Lou Meng is universally acknowledged as the peak of novels characterized by chapter titles. As one of the most studied Chinese classical novel, as well as a world famous masterpiece, Hong Lou Meng has never ceased to be appreciated by different academic circles, including the translation one.With high aesthetic value, the chapter titles of Hong Lou Meng is a paradigm of Chinese chapter novels. As a unique artistic form of Chinese classic novel, the titles are usually used to introduce and proclaim the main contents of the body of the chapter. The 120 chapter titles of Hong Lou Meng are all of the same antithetic pattern. Since Hawkes is responsible for the translation of the first 80 chapters of the whole novel, the latter 40 will not be used in this thesis for the sake of consistency in translating style.Unconfined by the attribute of Chinese traditional translation theories, that is proceeding an analysis from personal experience, this thesis aims to probe the chapter titles of Hong Lou Meng and its two translated versions from the perspective of aesthetics with a clear base. Liu Miqin's aesthetic representation method called "dynamic imitation" derived from Eugene Nida's dynamic equivalence theory is adopted as the theoretical basis of the thesis. The distinct features of the chapter titles, as the aesthetic object, are revealed at the first place. The aesthetic elements of the original text which involve the beauty of forms at different linguistic levels are analyzed thoroughly. The subjectivity of the translators and their qualifications are also considered in this chapter. The third chapter focuses on the contrastive and comparative study between the original text and the two versions translated by Yang and Hawkes respectively. Through case studies, two tranlators' representation of the formal beauty and cultural images of the source text reveals their emphasis laid on target readers' reception. The strategy of dynamic imitation enriches the expressions of English by the transference of exotic beauty both formally and culturally.