《红字》的三种中文译本比较
中国科技经济新闻数据库 教育
2015年21期 289
《红字》的三种中文译本比较
陈溢璐
上海外国语大学，上海 200122
摘要：《红字》是霍桑的代表作，是美国文学发展史上第一部象征主义小说。《红字》以耻辱的红字为中心线索，通过女主人公所受的不公正待遇，揭露了社会的不公、宗教的偏见、狭隘的伪善。作者大量运用想象和象征的手法，借助外部世界环境来加以表现人物的内心世界和道德精神状态。译文的精准在翻译中起到了决定性的重要，本文比较了三种译本下对于主人公心理变化细致的描述的不同运用，以提高我们的翻译实践能力。 关键词：情感修辞；中译本；心理描述 中图分类号：H315.9 文献标识码：A 文章编号：1671-5861（2015）21-0289-02
1 作者及故事简介
The Scarlet Letter is considered as the masterpiece of Nathaniel Hawthorne.By reading the novel ，the Arthur revealed a 17th century’s authentic life in America，especially focused on a woman’s misery experience，which led readers to be personally on the scene ，vivid and sad.He revealed not only the actress’s miserable and painful life but also described a cold and rigid social situation that the actress lived.He exposed the hypocritical morality ，fraudulent religion ，which had been veiled under “normal” society .
The story took place in a Puritan village.The actress in the book called Hester Prynne ，who was punished seriously due to her adultery.The Scarlet Letter “A” represented her act of adultery and a symbol of her punishment.She was alone in the village ，with a missing husband.However ，she was pregnant ，hided all clues about the father and her affair.Several years later ，she passed a tough life with her daughter and her lover ，Dimmesdale ，was always embarrassed about the “Adultery” and didn’t confess to the others .Finally ，Dimmesdale confessed his sin and ended his life ，Hester fled away and came back years later.After her death ，her tombstone was decorated with a letter "A"，for Hester and Dimmesdale.
2 三种译本的比对
The Scarlet Letter was introduced in our country years before and had published in several Chinese translations as well.Hereby ，I would compare three versions of them.One of them is translated by Yao Naiqiang （姚乃强），another is Hu Yunheng （胡允桓）’s，and the last one is Fang Huawen （方华文）’s .
The first two of them are notable ，they give a full reproduction of the original ，whereas each has its own distinctive characteristics and also has its own pro and cons.Today ，we’re focusing on the emotions’ translation of the three versions.
2.1 对主人公情感描述的译本比对
“While this passed，Hester Prynne…still with a fixed gaze towards the stranger ；so fixed a gaze ，that ，at moments of intense absorption ，all other objects in the visible world seemed to vanish ，leaving only him
and her…with the hot，midday sun burning down upon her face and lighting up its shame”
The paragraph expresses the Hester’s feeling when she met her husband in an embarrassment situation ，who was shamed by public.
Yao’s version：在此期间，海丝特·白兰一直站在台上…她盯得那么专注，以致完全入了神…仿佛世间万物全都消失了，只留下他和她两个人…此时，烈日当空，强烈的阳光烧灼着她的面庞，点燃起了她脸上的羞愧。
Fang’s version：在这期间，赫斯特·普林立在台上…她的目光是那样专注，有时想得出了神，世界上所有的东西都似乎消失了，只剩下他们俩…中午灼热的阳光火辣辣照在她脸上，令她的耻辱更加醒目。
Hu’s version：在这段时间里，海丝特·白兰一直站在高台上…她的视界内的一切目标全都从他眼前消失了，只剩下了他和她两个人…炎炎的午日烧灼着她的面孔，照亮了脸上的耻辱。
In the paragraph ，when Hester suddenly saw her husband ，“still with a fixed…only him and her”，which indicated that she wanted to clarify that the person was her husband or not ，that she would be so surprised at what really happened.The application of the word “vanish” was extremely vivid .I prefer when Yao implied “完全入了神”，as if the time had stopped when Hester saw the man.While Fang’s applied “想得出了神”，which the paragraph seems to be distorted ，the sentence could not link to the passage ，meanwhile Hu’s description“她的视界…消失了”wasn’t authentic at all.
Secondly ，the phrase ”with the hot…shame” increased Hester’s embarrassment .The application of “burning” would be perfect which is underlined “shame”.I prefer “烧灼” due to the perfect description and the extent of strong effect with the sunlight ，the sunlight in Fang’s translation would be so normal and to some extent ，so gentle.
In the paragraph ，it’s obvious that preciseness plays a very crucial role in translation ，if we use an inaccurate description or an unrelated word with no relation to the paragraph ，it would change the meaning of the original.
“The stigma gone，Hester heaved a long ，deep sigh ，in which the burden of shame and anguish departed from