City of the Queen, mis(apprehend)ing the mark: Levý's re-concretization of ideo-aesthetic reality as a translation boundary for literary re-creations

Abstract

Translation conceived as rewriting empowers the translator of literary works with the authority to re-present the source text in a target language. When does the translator’s re-creation exceed the limits of “translation”? Jiří Levý’s discourse on literary translation provides useful guidelines for the evaluation of translated literature based on the target text’s capacity for re-concretization of the source text’s ideo-aesthetic reality in the mind of the reader. One of Levý’s stipulations is that the translator fully apprehends the source text so that extrinsic material conflicting with the ideo-aesthetic reality is not imported through (mis)interpretation, distorting the restyled literary work. The introduction of a new character identity by the re-writers (Goldblatt and Lin) of City of the Queen provides an opportunity to explore the limits of the translator’s re-creative freedom.

Keywords:

• Translation studies
• Howard Goldblatt
• Shi Shu-ching
• City of the Queen
• literary translation
• postcolonialism

Notes

1. Its Chinese version is 《香港三部曲》.

2. Its Chinese version is 《她名叫蝴蝶》.

3. Translated by the present writer.