Reconceptualizing an idealistic ancient China: refraction and transcreation in the English renderings of Chuang Tzu

Abstract

Chuang Tzu, one of ancient China’s cultural canons, has been translated into massive English versions in the past century. Consequently, these English renderings, to some extent, reflect the chronological change of reconceptualization of ancient China’s image from the people’s perspective from English-spoken countries. Thus, from the angle of imagology in comparative literature, this paper probes into the recreated ancient China’s images manifested through the refractions and transcreations in the English translations of Chuang Tzu interpreted by overseas translators. As a result, different national images have been found in Chung Tzu’s expedition into the English world, which respectively are a gospel-graced ancient China, a mysterious ancient China, an ecological ancient China and a multi-faceted ancient China. Through a meticulous study of the image variations, the operational mechanism of Sino-foreign translational communication has been clarified to better burrow into the formation of the Westerns’ general impression on the Eastern nation.