A Study Of Lin Yutang's Translation Aesthetics

This paper is a tentative exploration into an aesthetic approach to translation studies, historical and contemporary, and into Lin Yutang's translation aesthetics and his"Beauty"principle in his essay translations, theoretical and practical.Translation is, as it has always been, hard to define since the first activity of translation appeared in history. Whether translation is science or art remains an ever-argued issue in the West and in China. Translation is a rewardingly inter-disciplinary subject, ever absorbing the fine essence from other disciplines. Their interaction or happy marriage have been enriching translation theories and accelerating the development of translation studies. As a theory and approach having inter-disciplinary quality, translation aesthetics deserves more research in more profound fashion. There is an exciting possibility and practicality that translation, especially literary translation, can be, and should be, viewed from the perspective of aesthetics, and practice guided by aesthetic thoughts. In the paper, the origin and development of translation aesthetics are given full consideration. Over the years, translation aesthetics in the West and in China have been developing along two different tracks, due to the vast differences in religion, culture, language, and thought pattern. Translation aesthetics in the West has not developed into an independent tributary in translation studies, while its Chinese counterpart has been gaining ever-increasingly wide acceptance.Lin Yutang is a representative who applied aesthetic thoughts to translation studies and practice. He believes that"translation is art". The paper is intended to explore Lin Yutang's translation aesthetics, and the application of his"Beauty"principle in translations of essays of the Ming and Qing Dynasties. Based on Lin's On Translation, the paper studies Lin's three translation principles: Faithfulness, Fluency, and Beauty, centered on"Beauty"; it explores Lin's choice of texts, and the internal and external causes for him to choose the essays of the Ming and Qing Dynasties; it reveals the embodiment of Lin's aesthetic perspective in essay translation both on the theoretical level and on the practical one, in which philosophy and ideals, style, artistic conception, diction, rhetorical devices, to mention a few, are analyzed.As a frame of reference for literary translation, and for its theoretical and practical value, translation aesthetics should not be ignored. Though it faces a series of challenges now, but with its unique characteristics there are still ways out. In the paper, Lin's translation aesthetics are provided with theoretical and practical values, both of which are of great significance in translation theory and practice to translation theorists and practitioners.