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Spread of Romance of The Three Kingdoms to the West : focusing on the translation by Peter Perring Thoms

  • Journal of Chinese Language and Literature
  • 2023, (94), pp.317-340
  • DOI : 10.15792/clsyn..94.202312.317
  • Publisher : Chinese Literary Society Of Yeong Nam
  • Research Area : Humanities > Chinese Language and Literature
  • Received : November 20, 2023
  • Accepted : December 13, 2023
  • Published : December 30, 2023

Kim Sojung 1

1부산대학교

Accredited

ABSTRACT

The purpose of this study is to examine the process of spreading the Romance of the Three Kingdoms to the West, specially focusing on the translation by Peter Perring Thoms(1790~1855), the first English translation. From 1820 to 1821, Toms published “The Death of the Celebrated Minister Tung-cho” in serial form in December issue of Volume 10 and February and March issues of Volume 11 of The Asiatic Journal. This is the story of Dong-Zhuo described in chapter 8 and 9 of Romance of the Three Kingdoms. This paper examines Toms's translation in the historical situation and social cultural context in which he lived. In order to derive the characteristics of the English translated text, this paper intends to use a method of detailed cross-examination of the original text and the translated text. Toms didn't understand Romance of the Three Kingdoms as a novel but understood as a history, so focused only on translating the content of the original text, without preserving the literary writing style and form of Romance of the Three Kingdoms. In particular, a lot of additional descriptions were inserted and omissions were also used appropriately, which was a translation strategy to easily reach the English-speaking readership. Although Toms's translation was based on misunderstanding of the characteristic of the original text, it can be evaluated as having its own internal unity. Because of the translator had a sense of duty as a cultural transmitter and effectively used translation strategies that correspond with clear translation purpose.

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This paper was written with support from the National Research Foundation of Korea.
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