Research Of The German Translations Of Jin Ping Mei

As one of the four masterpieces in the Ming Dynasty, Jin Ping Mei plays an indelible role in the history of Chinese literature. Through the detailed description of the main and minor characters, the author has revealed the darkness and corruption of the society in the late Ming Dynasty. As early as the 19th century, the novel was very popular in the western world and war translated by a great number of the translator into French, German, English, Japanese and other languages.In Germany, Hans Conon von der Gabelentz was engaged in the work of the Jin Ping Mei translation for eight years (1862-1869). Since Conon was an expert on Manchu language, the novel, which was the first complete translation version in Europe, was translated from Manchu, not from Chinese. However, this version was lost for nearly a century. Until 1998, Martin Gimm has found the manuscript and published it again. Artur und Otto Kibat began to translate the full text of this novel in the 1920’s. Otto, the younger brother, was the main translator, and Artur was his assistant. The original text they referred to was written in Chinese, so this version was the earliest translation from the original language. The abridged translation from Franz Kuhn was published in 1930. The novel was reduced into only 49 chapters, but it has become the most popular German translation.Jin Ping Mei reflects many of the features of Chinese literature both in language and content. It contains not only the large use of idioms, but also names and chapter subtitles. It is such a big challenge for many translators. On the basis of the Functional Translation theory, all the three versions will be compared and analyzed in the aspects of idioms, names and chapter subtitles. In the paper we will see, whether the translators have translated the contents correctly and what they have done to solve the translation problems. We will try to find out the right methods they have used and use the experience of them.