Political ideology in the translation of occidental modernist literature in China in the 1950s : the case of French modernist literature in Shijie Wenxue

Abstract

According to André Lefevere, translation is a rewriting of an original text. All rewritings, whatever their intentions, reflect a certain ideology and poetics, and as such manipulate literature to function in a given society in a given way. Borrowing this concept, this chapter examines the translation of occidental modernist literature, with a focus on French modernist literature in Shijie Wenxue (World Literature)—the only official journal publishing translated literature in Mainland China in the 1950s, a period when China was dominated by Maoism and the unified communist ideology. During that time, China’s alliance with the USSR, its antagonism against the Western capitalist camp, and Mao Zedong’s mandate that “literature should reflect politics” all exerted ideological influences on the translation of occidental modernist literature in China. Taking a temporal and geographical approach, this chapter aims to examine the cultural behaviors of translators in the given cultural climate and timespans, the relationship between poetics and ideology in the polysystem of the target culture, the interaction among professional actors (such as reviewers, critics, teachers, and translators), mainstream ideologies and patronage, and the translator’s subjectivity under the manipulation of ideology. Framing the case study in a specific historical period, the concepts of rewriting, subjectivity, and ideology in translation studies will be examined as well.