The Ideorealm of Translation from the Perspective of Translation Horizon Theory: A Case Study of a Happy Excursion

Abstract

Professor Chen Daliang proposed the Chinese Translation Theory with “Translation Horizon” as its core, explaining the three states of literary translations: sense, flavor and ideorealm, constructing a theoretical system for the theory of translation horizon, which has Chinese characteristics and represents an innovative development of traditional Chinese translation theories. As the first chapter of Zhuangzi, A Happy Excursion can be regarded as representative of Zhuangzi both in terms of thought and artistry; it contains rich wisdom of classical Chinese philosophy. This paper takes Translation Horizon Theory as the theoretical framework through studying Lin Yutang’s English version of A Happy Excursion so as to explore strategies conducive to promoting Chinese culture by means of literature translation, and to building Chinese characteristic translation studies system, aiming at providing reference for translation of traditional Chinese works.