A Comparative Study On The Two Chinese Versions Of Gone With The Wind

In the development of translation studies, translation and aesthetics have interacted with each other for a long time. Translation Aesthetics studies translation from an aesthetic perspective, and it is believed that the process of translation is an aesthetic process. Similar to other human activities, the translating activity is a process during which the subjects, including the translator, are involved in the chase for beauty. Although the translator’s translation aesthetic activity is the translator’s individual behavior, it does not mean that translation aesthetics is merely delusive subjective existence. On the contrary, through descriptive and comparative study of its Chinese versions, how the original beauty is represented and the translator’s aesthetic choice may be perceived, grasped and analyzed. In the process of translation, on one hand, the translator represents the aesthetic elements of the original work, such as the vividness of the sound, the assonance of the words, the antithesis of the sentences and the coherence of the text. On the other hand, though the translator’s aesthetic sensibility and aesthetic choice are rather subjective, it is by no means arbitrary. Through the comparative analysis of different versions in reference to the original writer’s aesthetic sensibility and aesthetic choice, it can be found that the translators will present their aesthetic sensibility and aesthetic tenacity in the Chinese version intentionally or unintentionally.Gone with the Wind, a classic novel written by the American female writer, Margaret Mitchell has several Chinese versions in circulation. The thesis aims at a comparison of Fu Donghua’s version and Li Meihua’s version from the perspective of Translation Aesthetics. By tracing the concept of Translation Aesthetics, and then applying its theory to the analysis of specific translated works, the thesis investigates how the two translators represent the aesthetic elements embedded in the original work, and how they present their own aesthetic sensibility and aesthetic tenacity in the formal and non-formal systems. Specifically speaking, the aesthetic elements of the formal system are chiefly embodied on phonetic level, lexical level, syntactic level and textual level of the two Chinese versions, while the aesthetic elements of the non-formal systems are mainly manifested by the translator’s aesthetic sensibility and tenacity in different versions.Through the comparison, the study has accomplished the following findings: Firstly, although the translators differ in historical context, translation purposes and translating strategies, both translators endeavored to transfer the beauty in the source text into the Chinese versions by employing some rhetoric devices, such as onomatopoeia, simile and metaphor etc. Secondly, the translator’s aesthetic sensibility and tenacity will be projected into the translation.By analyzing the diction, rhetoric and the choice of translation strategies, the translator’s aesthetic behavior in the non-formal systems can also be traced and sensed.So the thesis comes to the conclusion that in translation practice, the translator’s pursuit of beauty is inevitable, and the translator’s aesthetic perception is by no means illusory. On the contrary, the representation of the aesthetic elements and the presentation of the translator’s aesthetic sensibility and aesthetic tenacity can be well-founded on the close study of the aesthetic elements in different versions.