Abstract:
This thesis focuses on the translation of three essays which belong to the collection called the “Ten floating memories”, written by Su Xuelin (1897-1999). The translation is accompanied by an overview of the historical and cultural context in 20th century China, and a linguistic and translational commentary. These essays, written in different periods of time, fully represent the versatility of this modern female writer: in fact she is a very versatile woman who devoted herself to literary production, teaching, academic research and literary criticism. During her life, she wrote essays, novels, articles, poems, plays and provided translations of many and different kinds. Su Xuelin was a unique writer because she used Catholicism to blend harmoniously the ancient Chinese traditions with the vitality of modern thought.
The thesis is divided into four sections. The first section consists of an introduction which provides general information about Su Xuelin’s life and the historical and cultural context related to it. This section contains references to the literary revolution and the May Fourth Movement (1919) and also analyses Su Xuelin’s behaviour towards two of her contemporaries: Hu Shi and Lu Xun.
The second section explains the importance of female literature in the modern era. Particularly, it analyses Su Xuelin’s early and mature prose: the first one is represented by the collection of essays “Green sky” and by the autobiographical novel “Thorny heart”, the second one is represented by the collection of essays “Ten floating memories”. Moreover, this section shows the main features of three essays which belong to this collection: “Home”, “The New Year in the Native Place” and “Youth”. These essays are the subjects of my thesis.
The third section is a translation from Chinese into Italian of the three essays mentioned above. These essays contain references to Su Xuelin’s life experience and also to the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937-2045). In this section there are also references to the classical Chinese world and personal considerations concerning specific topics, such as the home, considered as a place where people feel at ease, the status of women in China, the vitality of youth, the importance of Catholicism and the importance given to the celebration of the New Year by the Chinese people in the past. The translation follows the same division of the original texts.
The fourth and final section consist of an analysis of the source text, the main problems and difficulties faced during the translation process and the techniques and solutions adopted in order to produce the final Italian text.
A bibliography can be found in the appendix at the end of this paper.
