Title: Reconstruction of the Illusio of Poetic Stories: With an English Translation of Shen Congwen’s “Quiet” as a Case Study

Abstract: The reconstruction of the illusio of poetic stories is one of the goals pursued by literary translation. This, however, has not obtained sufficient attention in the field of translation studies. Taking as a case the English translation of Shen Congwen’s poetic story “Quiet” made by Wai-lim Yip and C. T. Hsia, this paper attempts to investigate the reconstruction of the literary illusio in the translation and to explore the role of translators’ habitus in the reconstruction process. It points out that both Wai-lim Yip and C. T. Hsia are renowned literary scholars and authors, whose scholar-cum-author habitus matches with the habitus of the author Shen Congwen and have enabled them to accurately identify the literary illusio of “Quiet” and then to appropriately transfer it to the target text, which makes the translation reach a homologous literary illusio and achieve similar literary effect.

Keywords: poetic stories, illusio, “Quiet”, Shen Congwen

Authors: Minhui Xu, Professor, College of Foreign Languages, Ocean University of China, Qingdao, Shandong, China; Junhui Guan, College of Foreign Languages, Ocean University of China, Qingdao, Shandong, China