A Report On The Translation Of The King Collector:Henry Ⅷ And The Art Of Kingship In Light Of Context Theory

Literary works have strong carrying capacity and are indispensable media for cultural communication.Henry Ⅷ is the most innovative monarch in British history.The translation and exploration of his biographies will help Chinese and Western readers to have a more thorough and specific understanding of the British royal family and also provide historical data for western historians,which has historical and literary values.This translation practice material is selected from the first three chapters of The King Collector: Henry Ⅷ and the Art of Kingship by Linda Collins and Siobhan Clarke.The first three chapters of the book brings the great king to life through paintings and sculptures of the royal collection.It tells the stories of Henry Ⅷ’s childhood life in court,his father-son relationship,his early military and diplomatic strategies and the making of painted treasures.We also have a comprehensive understanding of Henry himself-the nature of his kingship,his ambitions,achievements,failures and insecurities-and we follow his path from ebullient masquer and triumphant jouster to the cripples and irascible tyrant.The original text of this work reproduces numerous historical events and describes many historical figures.The language is simple and easy to understand,and at the same time there is no lack of vivid expressions and rhetorics.Therefore,the translator’s focus of this biographical translation is to respect historical facts and be faithful to the language style of the original text as much as possible.Different from practical texts,the understanding of literary texts is highly dependent on context.According to the specific situation analysis,translators can more accurately convey the original information.Therefore,the translator chooses the context theory as the guidance,mainly discusses the translation of words,syntax and text from three aspects of linguistics context,situational context and cultural context and demonstrates the effectiveness of some translation strategies through classical examples,such as Conversion of Part of Speech and Conversion of Voices.We hope that this translation practice can provide some enlightenment for translators facing similar problems in the future.