Chapter One Literature Review
The excessive terms with overlapped meanings related to drama translationincluding “performability”, “speakability” and “theatricality” indicate that scholarsmay have been working alone without the knowledge of the latest development in thisfield (Che Suh, 2002: 53). If previous research can be collected and analyzedsystematically, it will be a giant step toward drama translation theories and practice.In this part, important concepts of drama translation will be clarified based on therelevant literature. Further more, a review will be done on the previous study on theChinese translation of The Tempest.The dual nature of drama has been widely realized among scholars at home andabroad. Lukas Erne (2013: 244) points out that drama lies in the very intersection ofliterariness and performability. Earlier than that, Walter Ong (2002: 24) expresses thesame idea using the terms “literacy” and “orality”. Worthen (2002: xi) echoes thisview by exploring the complex and often conflicted relationship between drama’spage and stage. Dong Jian and Ma Junshan state that due importance should beattached to the literariness and performability of drama translation, as all classicdrama texts in the world history are both readable and performable, and thosetheatrical works that can only achieve either one of the purposes are not worthy of thetitle “art” (董健&马俊山, 2004: 41-42). Gong Fen elaborates on the dual nature ofdrama in her doctoral dissertation, in which she says that theatrical texts not onlyshare the literariness with other genres of literature, but also have their own artisticcharacteristics which get to the audiences by the actors’ performance (戏剧是一种特殊的文学体裁，它既有文学的一般特征，又有自己独特的艺术风格。) [龚芬, 2004: 13].
1.1 Literariness of Drama and Its Translation
According to the Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms, literariness can beunderstood as the totality of linguistic and stylistic characteristics that set literary textsapart from non-literary texts (Baldick, 2012). It is the Russian formalist Romantheatre translation involves “a change of medium”, which refers to the transformationof the written text into an element of stage performance. Yu Guangzhong’s strategy intranslating drama is to take into consideration the audience as well as the actors ratherthan preserve all the literariness in the source text as a faithful translator would do to apoem (余光中, 2004: 127). While poetry aims at a smaller circle of literati who aresensitive to the linguistic devices and poetic feelings, drama is intended for a biggeraudience largely composed of ordinary people who might not grasp all the subtletyand nuances like a poet.
1.2 Performability of Drama and Its Translation
The term performability was not coined until the late 1970s, before whichdiscussion touching upon this notion had already been going on for a while. Withoutan accurate term to define it, scholars had been curious about the unique feature ofdrama that sets it apart from the rest literary genres (Che Suh, 2002: 51). Over the pastfour decades, heated discussion on the action dimension of theatrical texts has beenheld and is presumably to continue.The first issue worth clarifying is the definition of performability in drama texts.Susan Bassnett (1991: 102) is doubtful of using the term performability to define theinherent element in dramatic texts capable of being acted out (Bassnett, 1991: 102).Despite the frequent use of the term “performability” in drama translation studies,Bassnett (1991: 102) thinks it is only a futile attempt to describe the undescribable, asone culture differs from the other. In her opinion, what the scholars have done so faris only decide their own standards of speakable texts on an ad hoc basis (Bassnett,1991: 102). Bassnett (1998: 95) concludes that the unique characteristic within thewritten drama text to be presented on stage denies any exact definition. Bassnett’sassertion highlights the cultural dimension of drama, in which a universal amongdif
