胡适翻译活动中的文学进化观探源

The Ideological Foundation of Literary Evolution in Hu Shi’s Translation Activities

胡适将进化论应用于文学领域,把文学进化观视为其文学革命的核心思想。他以历史的眼光看待中西方文学,提倡通过学习先进的西方文学,改革中国传统文学,创造中国新文学。胡适的文学进化观在其翻译活动中处处渗透:就语言来说,主张使用更先进的白话,反对僵死的文言;就选材来说,所翻译的作品大都具有人性解放和个性解放等先进的思想内容,或者属于中国传统文学所缺乏的新式体裁,这些作品被胡适有意识地引进作为新文学的典范。通过翻译,胡适从语言、思想内容和形式等各方面对中国传统文学进行了全面革新,促进了传统文学向现代文学的转型。

Hu Shi applies the theory of evolution into the domain of literature and takes literary evolution as the core of his literary revolution.Literary evolution brings him a historical view to look into Chinese and western literature.He advocates to learn from the much more advanced western literature to reform the traditional Chinese literature and develop New Literature.Literary evolution view penetrates his translation activities.As for translation language,Hu Shi firmly holds to take the more advanced vernacular Chinese instead of the lifeless classical Chinese.While in selecting the works to translate,he favors those which either contain such enlightening and progressive ideas as pursuing human and individual liberation,or present new literary forms filling voids in Chinese literature at that time.He hopes these works can be translated as models for Chinese New literature,which is still at its initial stage.Through translation,Hu Shi performs an all-round innovation of traditional Chinese literature in language,themes and forms,and accelerates the transition of traditional Chinese literature to modern literature.