A Descriptive Study Of The Translation Of British And American Literary Theories In Modern China (1917-1949)

Translation played an important part in the wide dissemination of foreign literary theories in China during the first half of the 20^th century. However, researches done in this field mostly concentrate on the micro studies, such as studies from the perspectives of foreign literary trends, literary works and literary figures. When it comes to the macro study, it has always been the case that hardly any exact data were used to support the large-scale translation of foreign literary theories.From catalogues of literary journals, collections of literary essays and monographs published between 1917 and 1949, the author selected and collected information of translated works concerning British and American literary theories, sorted out these data and made analyses in both qualitative and quantitative manner based on the collected data in an attempt to map a general picture of the translation of British and American literary theories. Using Itamar Even-Zohar’s Polysystem Theory and the concept of ideology, the author also made discussions and case studies from different aspects of literary theories. On the one hand, the author conducted descriptive analyses using actual data so as to make relatively more objective analyses. On the other hand, by means of Descriptive Translation Studies, the interactions of the translation of British and American literary theories and ideology were studied within the polysystem framework.The choice of the translation of British and American literary theories at a given period of time is affected to a certain extent by the existing ideology in society. Ideology, as an abstract concept, more often than not influences individuals from the social and political perspectives, and thus gets control of translation choices through translators. At the first stage from 1917 to 1927, translated literature began to move to the central position from periphery within the Chinese literary polysystem. It was also the period when British and American literary theories started being translated in China, and there was only a small quantity of their translations. The May Fourth Movement helped the whole nation arrive at a climax of fighting against external invasion and pursuing democracy and freedom. Against this background, many Chinese literati played an active part in the translation of romantic literature, particularly romantic poetry represented by such poets as George Gordono Byron （1788-1824） and Narcissa Prentiss Whitman （1808-1847） on the one hand, and literary theories on the other, which bore the spirit of activism, and thus helped promote the foreign romanticism as the dominant literary trend within the Chinese literary polysystem. Between 1928 and 1937, when translated literature polysystem maintained a central position in the Chinese literary polysystem, translated activities were in an unprecedented prosperity and the translation of British and American literary theories reached its peak. However, due to the drastic changes in domestic China, the social realities called for realistic literature and realistic theories in order to mirror the realities, and realism replaced romanticism in due course and rapidly developed into the prevailing literary trend. At the third stage from 1938 to 1949, China had been in the state of war from the War of Resistance Against Japanese to War of Liberation. Even though translated literature remained the central position in the Chinese literary polysystem, Russian socialist realism mounted onto the literary stage, and became the dominant literary trend of the time, which resulted in the decline of British and American literary theories and further pushed the translation of British and American literary theories to the peripheral position.Whichever literary trend was in the dominant position, it had always been subjected to and served the existing ideology. That is to say, ideology would exert an influence on the choice of translation. Judging from the contents of translations, translations were conditioned by the position of the polysystem of source literature in the world literary mega-polysystem. In this sense, the influence of ideology on translation choices is then conditioned by the position of literary polysystem. To sum up, the choice of translation is conditioned and influenced together by ideology and the position of literary polysystem, which exerts influence on the development of modern Chinese literature accordingly.