Aesthetic Representation In Li Wenjun’s Chinese Version Of The Secrot Garden

The Secret Garden written by Frances Hodgson Burnett is a masterpiece amongchildren’s literature. The whole novel describes the harmonious relationship betweenhuman and nature. The secret garden becomes alive under the great care of the children.Being close to nature makes the sickly and fretful children healthier and stronger bothphysically and mentally. Burnett reveals the magic of the nature through vividdescriptions of the beautiful scenery and distinctive characters. Her language is soelegant and exquisite that readers can picture the scene in their mind. The Secret Gardenis generally considered an artistic masterpiece with high aesthetic value.This thesis will explore how Li Wenjun reproduces the aesthetic information ofthe original text based on Liu Miqing’s translation aesthetic representation theory. Ittries to make a comprehensive study from two aspects of formal system and non-formalsystem, to find out how the aesthetic subject and aesthetic object interact with eachother. For the formal system, it focuses on the aesthetic representation at thephonological, lexical, syntactical, and rhetorical levels. And for the non-formal one, itinvolves the representation of the beauty of imagery and artistic conception. Byanalyzing typical examples, the thesis finds out that Li Wenjun’s version has succeededin retaining the aesthetic value and representing the beauty of the original. As theaesthetic subject, Li Wenjun has skillfully and appropriately dealt with the aestheticobject from four steps: comprehension, transformation, improvement and representation.This attainment cannot be accomplished without his rich aesthetic experience, excellenttranslation ability, and sensitive aesthetic awareness. Moreover, numerous examples inthis thesis prove that Liu Miqing’s aesthetic theory can serve as a new researchperspective for the study of translation and translation criticism of the literary works.