Re-Evaluation of Lin Shu (the Chinese Translator) - National ...

Xu Jianzhong 151Obviously, more extra-linguistic or extra-literary factorsshould be taken into account in the study of Lin Shu’s translations.The majority of Lin’s versions came into being in early moderntimes, when China witnessed great changes. In the late QingDynasty (about 1890), foreign aggressions brought on serious socialcrisis in China. Some intellectuals began to realize the inferiority ofChinese culture to Western civilization. As a means of importingWestern civilization so as to build up national strength translationbecame flourishing.Furthermore, traditional feudal ideology was not the onlydominant ideology in the early modern China. National salvationand reform became the central idea of the prevalent ideology.Meanwhile, Chinese literature could not keep pace with Chinesesocial development. Thus Capitalist Reformists launched “LiteraryRevolution”. To respond to the call of social development and“Literary Revolution”, translated fictions by Lin Shu came intoexistence.Evidently, the evaluation of Lin Shu and his translationscannot be interpretative, appropriate, objective and plausible withouttaking the status quo of China in the late Qing Dynasty intoconsideration. It gives a hand in uncovering the influence of socialculturalfactors on Lin’s translation. This thesis attempts to reevaluateLin Shu and his translation from a cultural perspective.Through the examination of the influence of ideology, patronage aswell as poetics on Lin’s translation in particular, the article tries toelucidate what socio-cultural elements affected Lin’s translatedworks. In brief, the intention of the thesis is to provide anotherperspective beyond linguistic level for the study and the evaluationof Lin Shu and his translation.In Lefevere’s concept, literary systems do not occur in avoid, but in the ideological milieu of an era (Gentzler, 2004: 136).This system is one of society, a constellation of systems. The literary