3。4 Culture-loaded Word 6

4。 Conclusion 7

References 8

1。 Introduction

The Essays, written by the philosopher, statesman and jurist Francis Bacon, are written in a wide range of styles, from the plain and unadorned to the epigrammatic。 They cover topics drawn from both public and private life, in each case the essays covering the topics systematically from various angles。 Bacon published three versions of his Essays in all。 Essayes: Religious Meditations。 Places of Persuasion and Dissuasion。 Scene and Allowed (1597) was the first。 And a much-enlarged second edition came out in 1612 with 38 essays。 The third, under the title Essayes or Counsels, Civill and Morall, appeared in 1625 with 58 essays。 Though Bacon considered the Essays "but as recreation of my other studies", he was thought highly by his contemporaries, even to the point of crediting him with having invented the essay form。 Later researches showed the extent of Bacon's borrowings from the works of Aristotle, Montaigne and other writers, but the Essays have nevertheless remained in the highest repute。 The 19th century literary historian Henry Hallam wrote that "They are deeper and more discriminating than any earlier, or almost any later, work in the English language"。 The essays, especially the later ones, show Bacon’s great genius as a phrase-maker, and the 1999 edition of The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations includes no fewer than 91 quotations from the Essays。 “Of studies” is one of the most popular ones that impress people with its concision and aphorism, in which Bacon elaborated the value of reading, writing and learning through masses of parallel structures。From优Y尔E论W文W网wWw.YouERw.com 加QQ75201,8766

With the popularity of Bacon’s essays, translations into French and Italian appeared during Bacon's lifetime。 And they might be introduced into China before 1940s as the earliest Chinese version of translation I can find is in 1942。 From then on, a great number of translations mushroomed, leading to constant comparisons between different versions。

Wang Zuoliang, the distinguished poet, translator and English literature specialist, has a good command of his professional field and a significant contribution to translation。 He has published many books as well as theses on translation theories。 And he translated appreciable quantities of masters written by Francis Bacon, John Milton, Robert Burns, Jonathan Swift, Scott Walter and many other famous writers including Selected poems of Burns, “Of Studies”, “Of Beauty” and so on, in which Selected poems of Burns is the most representative one among Wang’s poetry translations。 In his version of “Of Studies”, Wang chose to translate in classical Chinese to meet the elegance of the original work with a series of parallel structures scattered。 Furthermore, his flexible dealing with words makes his translation more natural and fluent, which shows his good command of translating skills。 His version of “Of Studies” is thought to be the best to convey the spirit of the original work and its rhythmical and musical beauty makes the translation spread so widely that those who have read it can remember some of the quotes easily。

Cao Minglun, member of the council in Translators Association of China, is devoted in literature translation, translation and intercultural communication。 He has published many books on translation theories such as Twenty Talks about E-C Translation, The Way of Translation—Theory and Practice as well as more than 90 theses on Chinese Translation, Foreign language Teaching, Foreign language study and many other academic magazines。 He has also translated many masters such as Essays, Edgar Allan Poe, Selected Poems of Scott and so on。 In his version of “Of Studies”, Cao Minglun chose to translate in vernacular Chines and into simple and plain sentences to make it easily understood by more people。 His version of translation is also a widely-spread one。