On The Variation Of The Song Of Everlasting Sorrow From The Perspective Of Rewriting Theory

The transmission of Chinese literature can not be done without the intervention of translation, so does its recognition around the globe. According to Lefevere’s rewriting theory, “all translation does not happen in vacuum”. The translation of modern and contemporary Chinese literature is subject to various cultural backgrounds. Moreover, the acceptability and the popularity of translations among target readers are manipulated by the dominant poetics and ideology of target text.The requirements on the target text from patrons are also the reflection of its dominant poetics and ideology. Thus, the variation in form and content in translation is inevitable.The Song of Everlasting Sorrow, the masterpiece of Wang Anyi is extolled as “a textbook example of ‘city literature’”. This fiction won the prestigious literary award at home---the Fifth Mao Dun Literature Award at home; and in abroad it was nominated for the 2009 Newman Prize for Modern Chinese Literature. Its success lies not only in its intricately designed plot, but also dedicate, yet lingering way of narration where configuration of Shanghai is revealed. This fiction embraces its international appreciation since 2008 when two sinologists--Michael Berry and Susan Chan Egan, translated it into The Song of Everlasting Sorrow. Since the publication of the English version, great attention is paid by some mainstream media, so does affection from western readers. All of these confirm the success of the translation. The case analysis is carried from the aspects of text selection and the adoption of translation strategies and methods. It tries to reveal the reasons behind the variation of the target text. So far, scholars at home rarely study the English version from the perspective of comparative literature, and there is no predecessor to analyze the reasons of its variation from rewriting theory.By comparison of the source text and target text, this thesis finds out that the variation of the target text is the result of rewriting under the manipulation of ideology,poetic and patronage in the target text, and the variation is mainly represented in the distortion of city image and female image in The Song of Everlasting Sorrow. In the process of translation, the manipulation of patronage is mainly exerted by publishinghouse and mainstream media by the way of insertion subtitle and edition the whole fiction. Under the constraint of ideology, by analyzing the differences on social ideology, custom, culture and religion between target context and source context, this thesis finds out the translator creates a word city to fit readers’ expectation by adaptation of translation methods, such as compensation, creative treason,generalization and omission. In the perspective of poetics, especially in terms of diction, syntactic arrangement, the reading habit and aesthetic form, together with the proper nouns, variation for the sake of the reading experience can be found. It tries to draw a conclusion that the acceptability and recognition of Chinese literature is subjected to the rewriting of the source text for target readers’ reading habit. As long as it is necessary and valuable, rewriting should be done with full respect to the source text. In addition, it is expected that this thesis would enrich the translation study in comparative literature while making itself useful to the spread of Chinese modern contemporary literature worldwide.