A Comparative Study Of The Effects Of Character Translation In Two English Translated Versions Of The Peony Pavilion

The Peony Pavilion,written by the dramatist Tang Xianzu in the late Ming Dynasty,is an immortal masterpiece in the history of Chinese drama literature.After the translation of several generations,it has been gradually accepted by overseas readers.This essay uses the English translations of The Peony Pavilion by Wang Rongpei and Cyril Birch as two objects of investigation,exploring the effects of character imagereshaping resulted by different translation methods from the perspective of reception aesthetics.On this basis,it also sheds light on the important revelations of Chinese traditional drama translation,and provides references for the spread of Chinese literature and Chinese cultural symbols in the world.Previous studies on the English translation of The Peony Pavilion and other Chinese drama mainly focused on the rhetoric and language style.This provided a good basis for further research.However,it paid little attention to the reconstruction effect of the characters,and neglected the importance of the character image during translation.Taking this as a breakthrough point,this essay analyses the differences in the reconstruction effects of The Peony Pavilion from these two translators,and discusses the reasons behind it.This essay is mainly based on the relevant theories of "fusion of horizons" in reception aesthetics,using literature research methods and comparative analysis methods,respectively making a careful and comparative study from the perspectives of language description,psychological description,and appearance description of the character image.Studies have found that Bai Zhi’s version retained the language form and cultural differences of the original text to a greater extent,highlighting the strangeness of the characters and giving readers a fresh reading experience.He mostly used literal translation,transliteration,annotation,and other translation methods,but did not achieve "fusion of horizons" between the reader,which is likely to cause negative effects such as poor reading process and blurred image of some characters.Wang Rongpei’s version conveyed and presented the characters in the description methods familiar to English readers,achieving more in "fusion of horizons",taking care of the contents with uncertain meaning,and using more translation methods such as free translation,augmented translation,and substitution to make the character image more specific and fresher.However,this version failed to retain the distinctive characteristics of traditional Chinese classical culture.Based on the above findings,this article draws the following conclusions: When completing the English translation of Chinese drama literary works,if the translator obtain the complete,reasonable and effective character reconstruction effect,he must do a special interpretation of this special character type,Giving full respect to the historical horizon of the writer and the readers in the choice of English translation methods,promoting the "fusion of horizons" actively.When faced with the gaps and undecided areas of the original contents,he must take appropriate re-creation means to properly fill and finally accept it,and strictly polish the translation to achieve the reception aesthetics value effects.This will not only be of great benefit to the dissemination of Chinese classical drama works,but will also have important value for the progress and development of TCSOL,and the spread of traditional Chinese culture in English-speaking countries.The points of innovations are: this essay compares the English versions of The Peony Pavilion from the perspective of character image reconstruction,analyzing the inspiration of the English translation of drama works from the perspective of reception aesthetic theories,discovering the different effects and influences of "fusion of horizons" on English translation,and proposing the combination of English translation of drama literary works and TCSOL.It has enriched the overseas communication methods and practice methods of Chinese classic culture.This essay is limited to the comparative study of the translations of two translators,Wang Rongpei and Cyril Birch,and does not compare other translators’ versions with other languages.Therefore,the research results of this thesis are limited to explaining the translation practice and experience of the above two translators.In further research,more translators’ versions will be expanded.