博物学视域中的莎士比亚戏剧及其汉语翻译之反思

Natural History - Shakespeare’s Dramas and Their Chinese Translations

莎士比亚生活于英国历史上博物学勃兴的时代一伊丽莎白一世统治时期。他的趣味和文风受到时风的扇染,具有相当丰富驳杂的博物学元素。早在维多利亚女王统治时期,关于莎士比亚与博物学之关系的研究已经蔚然成风。但是,由于种种原因,这样的研究在中国百年莎士比亚接受史上,始终几乎付诸阙如。这严重影响到了中国人对莎士比亚戏剧的读解和翻译。那样的翻译窄化了莎翁的博物学知识视野,矮化了他的博物学水平,甚至遮蔽了他的博物学兴趣。要想解决这些问题,中国译者必须在博物学尤其是莎士比亚博物学上下功夫,以最大可能恢复莎翁的博物学面貌。

Shakespeare lived in the period of British history when natural history was rising--the reign of Queen Elizabeth I. As early as in the period of Queen Victoria, the research in the relationship between Shakespeare and natural history became the order of the day. Yet, due to various reasons, in the 100 years ’ history of Chinese accept of Shakespeare, the perspective of natural history has been almost always lack, which has seriously affected Chinese reading and translating of Shakespeare ’ s dramas. The Chinese translation narrows Shakespeare ’ s view of knowledge of natural history, lowers his level of natural history and even covers his interest in it. To solve such kind of a problem and recover Shakespeare’ s image of natural history to the greatest extent, Chinese translators must concentrate their efforts in learning natural history, especially Shakespeare ’ s natural history.