A Report On The Translation Of Mantissa

John Fowles was one of the most important novelists since 1945 and also a spokesman for British postmodernism.His creative scene was deeply influenced by Hardy and Laurence,which gave birth to the mysterious existentialism and expressed the pursuit of artistic freedom.Sartre and Camus impacted greatly on Fowles' creative theme,which led to the characters in the novel shifting frequently between the illusory and real social contexts.The romance genre in the 12th century had far-reaching effects on his creative form,blurring the boundaries of history and literature,as well as placing them both in the same fictional position.Hence,it's difficult for the target readers and the translator to understand his works.Mantissa was the shortest,yet the most obscure and controversial one of John Fowles'novels.In the novel,the heroine is presented to the readers in changeable images such as Dr.Delfie,punk girl,poetic muse Erato and even geisha.During the process to restore Miles'memory and sexual function,Fowles used the disjointed narrative plots and split the narrative patterns to a series of problems about literary creation,faculty of understanding and senses,which lead to a lot of reading obstacles to the readers and the translator.On the other hand,with the postmodernism techniques such as uncertainty,open narrative,intertextuality and meta-fiction,Fowles created a virtual space-time boldly.Although leaving the reader some room for imagination,these techniques further increased the difficulty of understanding.In view of the characteristics of postmodern novels,the translator thinks "creative translation" principle is more appropriate to guide the translation of Mantissa,for it can not only convey the meaning of the source text more accurately,but also make the maximal use of its postmodernism features.Secondly,the new problems the translator encountered in the translation process such as coarse language,coined words,guessing expression,idioms,intertextuality and absurd style can't be settled by traditional principle and techniques.However,the "creative translation" principle can solve them effectively.This report consists of four chapters.Chapter One is an introduction to this translation task,including the analysis of John Fowles and Mantissa,of the novel's postmodernism characteristics and the "creative translation" principle.Chapter Two introduces the whole process of this translation project,which contains translation preparations,the difficulties and problems occurring during the translation as well as proofreading works.Chapter Three discusses how the creativity principle is applied to the problems that the translator met during the translation.Chapter Four summarizes the gains and limitations of the translation task,which will be of help for future translation practice.