Chinese Versions Of Hamlet And Tung-Hsi Perng's Three Chinese Translations

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John Dryden (1668) described William Shakespeare as “the man who of all modern, and perhaps ancient poets, had the largest and most comprehensive soul.” Shakespeare’s works are timeless that even in the 21st-century people around the globe are still studying and praising them. New commentaries and translations of his masterpieces are printing every day. In this report, three Chinese translations of Hamlet, by Ching-Hsi Perng(2001), Tung-Chi Lin(1982) and Zhu Shenghao(1994), will be discussed. As mentioned, Shakespeare’s plays are regarded as the greatest western literature. Translating Shakespearean plays, compared with other genres, translators are required to be highly skilled with superior language artistry and deep cultural understanding of Shakespearean time. The three Chinese versions of Hamlet focused on this paper, translated directly from English, are presented and accepted as translations. They are translated by well-known Shakespearean scholars and translators. Mr Perng, a Taiwanese professor, specializes in literary translation, English poems and Shakespeare’s works. Mr Lin was a Chinese scholar and an influential Shakespeare expert. Finally, Mr Zhu was one of the earliest translators of Shakespeare’s works in China. The famous translator’s works are studied and respected by all readers around the world. According to Reiss’s text type classification, Hamlet is an expressive text. The artistic and aesthetic form of the source text should be transmitted in the