A Comparative Study On The Two English Versions Of Xi You Ji From The Perspective Of Reception Aesthetics

In the1960s, Reception Aesthetics, or Reception Theory, spring up and theleading exponents are Hans Robert Jauss and Wolfgang Iser, who are members of“Constance School”. According to its ideas, the literary research transfers its centerfrom the author and the literary text to the text-reader relationship. The author shouldtake the readers’“horizons of expectations” into account. In literary translation, animportant revelation from Reception Aesthetics is that, in the process of translation,the translator is not just a reader of the source text but the writer of the target text aswell. On the one hand, he has to enter the world of the ST with his/her own “horizonof expectations” to read and interpret it and dig deep into it until he reaches a “fusionof horizons” with the ST and the ST author. On the other hand, the translator mustlay great importance to meet the target readers’“horizon of expectations”, receptivityand reflection to achieve the second “fusion of horizons” between the target readersand his TT so as to make the TT more attractive and more readily accepted.Xi You Ji, which is one of The Four Great Classical Chinese novels, occupies asignificant position in Chinese literature. Since it is published, it has been renderedsuccessively into different languages and enjoys warm welcome from the readersand high appraisements from the academic groups all over the world. Among itstranslations, there are two English versions which play a great role in the receptionand popularity of the classic in the western countries. Both of the two versions showits eternal charm to different readers with different perspectives in different periods.The two translated versions are Monkey translated by Arthur Waley in1943and TheJourney to the West translated by Anthony C.Yu.Within the framework of Reception Aesthetics, the author compares andanalyzes the two English versions on the aspects of title, plots, rhyme, images and soon. Through the analysis and comparison, the author intends to probe the reason andthe reception of the two translations. The result of this analysis shows that owing tothe differences of the historical and cultural background, the two authors havedifferent “horizons of expectations”; moreover, affected by the social background, religious, aesthetic tendency and so on, the target readers of the two versions alsohave their individual “horizons of expectations” and degrees of receptivity. In viewof the two aspects above, the two translators with their particular properties come todifferent “concretizations” in the aesthetic pole for those “blanks” and“indeterminacies” in the artistic pole, hence different translations of the original text.Both of the two translators and their English versions fulfill a significant function topresent the readers with the Chinese classic in different periods. They also contributea lot to the cultural communication between the East and the West.