The "Afterlives" of Virginia Woolf: On Translations of Mrs. Dalloway

• Main Author: 李延輝
• Other Authors: 李奭學
• Format: Others
• Language: en_US
• Published: 2011
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/17961655845834402927

博士 === 國立臺灣師範大學 === 翻譯研究所 === 99 === The term “afterlives” derives from Walter Benjamin’s “afterlife” of literary works in his groundbreaking essay “The Task of the Translator” in 1923. In my dissertation, I will appropriate Benjamin’s approach to “translation” to discuss another important literary figure in England in the early 20th century, Virginia Woolf. The age of mechanical reproduction has immensely helped distribute the image and works of Virginia Woolf. My dissertation, hence,will be divided into five chapters to delve into “imitation” and “crossings” in “translations” of Woolf’s famous novel Mrs. Dalloway. The “translation” here not only deals with “the translation of languages” but also examines the adaptation of literary forms and transformation of characters into words and images. Mrs. Dalloway is imbued with possibilities for interpretations and inspires so many writers, playwrights, directors and actors of later generations. In Chapter Two, I would discuss the translation of two stories inspired by Mrs. Dalloway: Michael Cunningham’s The Hours and PaiHsien-yung’s “Wandering in the Garden, Waking from a Dream.”In Chapter Three I will go back to the conventional notion of translation: the exchange of two different languages. I will go through four different Chinese translations of Mrs. Dalloway and examine the strengths and weaknesses of each translation based on feminist translation theories and modernist translation theories. In Chapter Four, I will discuss the filmic interpretations of Woolf’s work. These adapted versions, as the combination of shadow and light, unfold the kinship with the originals and supplement them as Benjamin’s theory suggests. In Chapter Five, I will sum up the results of the forementioned translations of the “afterlives” of Woolf and her works. Since translation works, according to Benjamin, can never be exhaustive, “the original” still has room for further exploration in the age of mechanical reproduction. Mrs. Dalloway is never finished. As time went by, it acquires new meanings and becomes something different. What he says is close to the basic idea of change in the literal meaning of “translation” in Chinese. I will, therefore, point out several possible translations of Woolf. Hopefully, future generations can still witness the Woolf’s continual star power.