本雅明著作的风格与翻译

On the Style and Translation of Benjamins A Lyric Poet in the Era of High Capitalism

本雅明的《发达资本主义时代的抒情诗人》受到中国学界的重视,出版了不同的译本。对本雅明作品风格的不同理解,可能导致翻译实践的一些差异,或者把本雅明的“诗意思维”理解为文学想象,或者把“意象蒙太奇”理解为本雅明“诗意思维”的外化。可能是学科背景的差异,文学和史学的不同思维及知识结构,规定了不同的阅读眼光。本雅明的诗意思维并非表现为文学想象,而是体现为“意象蒙太奇”。这些意象都有具体的历史依托或文献依托。意象蒙太奇是本雅明文本的文体或风格特征,翻译时对本雅明文本中的种种意象需要坐实,澄清文本的晦涩现象。本雅明著作翻译时的以下几种情况需要注意:用专名来表示特指意象;用所指明确翻译意象;保留典故中的意象。

W. Benjamin＇s Charles Baudelaire. A lyric Poet in the Era of High Capitalism has drawn wild attention to Chinese academic circles, and has been, therefore, translated into three Chinese versions. This paper discusses the understanding toward the style of WB＇s text and its impact on translation. The author argues that, the ＂poetic thinking＂ of WB is not literary imagination, but rather, is embodied as ＂image montage＂. All of the images have clear implications from historical or literary references. As this ＂image montage＂ is the unique style of WB＇s text, when being translated, the images involved should be exactly and clearly interpreted according to their signified （signifi~） in history or literature. The author specifically discusses several approaches applied to correctly interpret WB＇s text in the translation： to use or invent a Chinese specific term for the specific image; to interpret image with its signifié to retain the image of idiom.