The Translation Of Shakespeare's Metaphors From The Perspective Of Reception Theory

Shakespeare's plays are a treasure house of rich cultures and arts. Shakespeare's extensive vocabulary, vivid metaphors, witty and humorous puns play real important part in his plays. For translators, how to translate a large number of metaphors in the plays arouses their attention while exploring Shakespeare's plays. Metaphors are so richly loaded with ethnic culture that their translation of metaphors has been a long-existing challenge for translators. An investigation of different translated versions shows that approaches to translation of metaphors vary with translators. Whether metaphors in the source language are adequately transferred to the target language is essential to effects of translation of metaphors. However, there are still few attempts to make a penetrating probe into Shakespeare's metaphors and translation in China.This thesis attempts to make a relatively systematic study on translation of metaphors in Shakespeare's plays from the perspective of Reception Theory by Hans Robert Jauss and Wolfgang Iser. As a new and influential paradigm and methodology in literary theories, Reception Theory or Reception Aesthetics marks a shift in concern from the author and the work to the text-reader relationship in literary criticism. Reception Theory focuses on the active role of the readers in the process of reception. The readers usually enter the reading process with his"horizon of expectations"formed in previous readings, life experience and cultural background. The reception of the same literary works may be different from readers to readers and from reading to reading.The author mainly chooses Shakespeare's eight plays, i.e., such as Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth, Romeo and Juliet, The Merchant of Venice, Much Ado About Nothing and The Merry Wives of Windsor as materials and applies Reception Theory to the comparison and analysis of some examples of metaphors from Zhu Shenghao, Liang Shiqiu, Bian Zhilin, and Fang Ping's translated versions. After examining the readers'role and status in the translation of metaphors in Shakespeare's plays, their shift of horizon of expectations, their reception of the works, and culture exchange respectively through a careful analysis of metaphors and translations in Shakespeare's plays, the author draws the following conclusions: Shakespeare's metaphors carry rich cultures worthy of being learned by readers; the original images of metaphors should be retained in the source text while they are translated; in evaluating a translation work and the strategies adopted, we should consider the readers'role and status, the shift of their horizon of expectations, reception and culture exchange. The author also argues for the feasibility of the application of Reception Theory to Shakespeare's translation of metaphors.