"shi Literature Translation Questionable

As the only English translation edition of Shih-shuo Hsin-yu so far, Richard Mather's masterwork, Shih-shuo Hsin-yu:A New Account of The World by Liu I-ch'ing, with Commentary by Liu-chun, has attracted extensive attention and received great admiration not only from the field of sinology in western countries, but also from the researchers specializing in the medieval studies in China. The studies on this English translation edition are currently concentrated in two directions, that is, discussing the flaws existing in the English translation edition and paraphrasing some specific words and expressions which have in the past been the problem spots. As far as now, the researchers in these two directions have made remarkable achievements, though we still encounter some doubts when perusing Richard Mather's translation. This thesis is based on two editions of the English translation of Shih-shuo Hsin-yu(1976&2002), and the author selects Wen-Husen (Letters and scholarship) for a case study in order to 1)make a description of the similarities and differences between two editions and 2)offer a more comprehensive interpretation to some words and expressions on the basis of the existing researches, and in some cases raise suggestions for the English translation edition. By unifying the studies on the texts of Shih-shuo Hsin-yu and the notes from LiuXiaobiao with the various paraphrasis, the author researches on single words, phrases and sentences, which finally points the meanings of the words.