Abstract:
This article focuses on the translation of some parts of Michel Pastoureau’s book Bestiaries of the Middle Ages (Bestiari del Medioevo). Published in 2012 by Giulio Einaudi editore, the book portrays real and fantastical animals of the Middle Ages, illustrating their symbolism and emphasizing that this symbolism is often linked to morality and religion. The book is of great value for the study and discussion of medieval Western animals in China and provides many points of reflection.
This dissertation is divided into four main parts: the first chapter outlines the main content of the book, briefly introduces the life of the book’s author Michel Pastoureau, explains the influence of Michel Pastoureau’s life experiences on the creation of his work, describes animal symbolism in medieval visual culture, art, and religion, explains the similarities and differences between the connotations of Chinese and Western animal culture, and analyzes the implications of the Bestiaries of the Middle Ages and my dissertation for the development of studies on Western medieval animals in China.
The second chapter will provide translations from Italian to Chinese of selected parts from the six themes of Bestiaries of the Middle Ages, namely “Medieval Zoology” (“La Zoologia medievale”), “Wild Quadrupeds” (“I quadrupedi selvatici”), “Domestic Quadrupeds” (“I quadrupedi domestici”), “Birds” (“Gli uccelli”), “Fish and Aquatic Creatures” (“I pesci e le creature acquatiche”), and “Snakes and Worms” (“I serpenti e i vermi”).
In the third chapter, the translation process is analyzed and commented on, introducing the objectives, language, register, and genre of the source text, analyzing the target readership and providing an analysis of the problems of translation from Italian to Chinese and the strategies employed to overcome the difficulties of this process. Among the examples of difficulty is the understanding and translating certain Italian sentence structures into Chinese, proper names (names of animals and people, book titles), and foreign languages (Latin, French), etc.
Finally, the article will conclude with a synthesis of what has been explored, including a review of the main ideas and content of the article.
