A Study On Lin Shu’s Translation Of Oliver Twist From The Perspective Of Reception Aesthetics

Lin Shu was a famous litterateur and translator in Chinese history. During hiswhole life, Lin Shu translated181foreign works. These works greatly enrichedChinese literature and broadened the horizon of Chinese readers. Comprehensiveresearches on Lin Shu and his translation are meaningful in providing a deeperunderstanding of Lin Shu and the social condition of late Qing dynasty.There were researchers who studied Lin Shu’s translation under the guidance ofreception aesthetics, and few of them wrote their works into master dissertations, butthe objects of the dissertations were mainly la Dame aux Camélias, Uncle Tom’s Cabin;besides, the theoretical concepts used in these theses are mainly limited to horizon ofexpectation and readers’ response. However, this dissertation will devote to the studyof Lin Shu’s translation of Oliver Twist, named Zei Shi by Lin Shu in terms of horizonof expectation, fusion of horizons and aesthetic experience with a wish to enrich thestudy on Lin Shu’s translation, especially his translation thoughts.This thesis firstly elaborates three concepts put forward by Jauss, namely horizonof expectation, fusion of horizons and aesthetic experience. Then the author analyzesthe lexical features, semantic features, stylistic features of Lin Shu’s translation, whichare followed by the discussion on the reception and effect of his translation worksaccording to these three concepts. At last, by taking Lin Shu’s translation－Zei Shi as acase study, the author specifically explores Lin Shu’s reception thoughts which weremainly reflected on lexical level, semantic level and stylistic level in his translation andthe effect of Zei Shi under the direction of horizon of expectation, fusion of horizonsand aesthetic experience.At last, the author achieves three results and enlightenments as follows:Firstly, Lin Shu’s reception aesthetic thought exists almost everywhere in histranslation.Secondly, with the case study of his translation Zei Shi, it is not hard to find thathis success would never have been achieved without his master of ancient Chineseprose. Thirdly, by taking Zei Shi as a case study, it can be concluded that theaccomplishment of Lin Shu’s translation of a certain novel was not symbolized by theend of his translation process or the publish of this translated novel, but by the changesthat novel brought to its readers, on both life practice and morality.Zei Shi, the translation of Oliver Twist, was quite important. This translation lefta far-reaching impact on Lin Shu’s translation career and helped him reached anotherand higher summit; at the same time, Lin Shu’s fantastic translation techniques andadvanced reception thoughts made the success of his version of Oliver Twist possible.Zei Shi is a valuable material to the study of Lin Shu and his translation thoughts.