7。 Works Cited 13

1。 Introduction

     A Dream of Red Mansions has a permanent charm as a literary classic which is one of the greatest literary works in China。 Not only is it heavily loaded with Chinese culture, but also it has a widespread fame in the world。 It is known as the pinnacle of the creation of Chinese classical novels and an Encyclopedia which is the carrier of all the important Chinese cultural elements。 With profound ideological values and outstanding artistic achievements, A Dream of Red Mansions draws numerous translators’ attention both at home and abroad。 Since the 1970s, the British Sinologist David Hawkes’s and Yang Xianyi's translation of A Dream of Red Mansions have been widely circulated。 The emergence of these two versions is considered as an epitome of cultural exchanges between China and Britain, which enhances the translation process of Chinese classical novels。 Two versions of Hawkes and Yang Xianyi adopt different approaches   but they both achieve satisfactory results。 论文网

     Traditional translation studies are fidelity-centered, and experts focus more on faithfulness in their translations。 However, translators have to make some adjustments in many cases, thus breaking the principle of translation faithfulness。 In this case, creative treason in translation comes into existence。

     Nowadays, the studies on creative treason are made from the angle of cultural differences, which has a great number of values。 Firstly, translators can be motivated to rethink the criterion of translation: faithfulness or treason。 Secondly, the studies on creative treason elevate the role of translators who are traditionally regarded as the servants or translation machines to the original texts。 Last but not least, the studies on creative treason helps to accelerate the pace of intercultural communication, and bring us cultural prosperity。

     This paper is composed of six chapters。 The first is the introduction part。 The second reviews the previous studies on creative treason of literary translation, the third is concerned with the creative treason。 The fourth carries out a comparative study of two translator’s creative treason in A Dream of Red Mansions。 The fifth part illustrates the influence of the translators’ subjectivity on literary translation。 The last part is the conclusion part。

2。 Literature Review

     “Creative treason” was firstly put forward by Robert Excarpit in his far-reaching book: sociology literature。 Sociology literature mainly adopted the approach of sociology to explain the literary phenomena。 A successful work should be the one that discloses the universal problems of a society。 文献综述

     The term of creative treason was also mentioned in Comparative Literature and Literary Theory by Ulrich Weisstein who considered the creative treason as “negative influence。” “In national literature, ‘negative influence’ is a kind of new ethos and beliefs that were inspired by foreign literature to resist the pervasive artistic theory and practice。”(Weisstein, 32)

     In the study of translation, creative treason is controversial, which has been a heated topic throughout the field of translation。 Some are in favor of it。 They assert that translators should realize his creativeness or even encourage its full play in literary translation, while others are strongly opposed to it。 They believe that creative treason should be minimized as much as possible in translation。 Traditional translation study is a kind of source-oriented study, which lays an emphasis on the faithfulness between the original text and target text。 As Nida pointed out in his work Toward a Science of Translating: “intellectual honesty requires the translator to be as free as possible from personal intrusion … the translator … must exert every effort to reduce to a minimum any intrusion of himself which is not in harmony with the intent for the original author and message。” (Nida, 154) In this regard, creative treason is criticized as unfaithful to the original text and thus excluded from the category of “good translation”。