A Study of the Textual Profile of The Deer and the Cauldron

Drawing on first-hand sources—including translators’ prefaces, personal correspondence, conference presentations, newspaper articles, previously unexamined interview records, and archival documents—this paper adopts the perspective of genetic translation studies and, through a comparative reading of the translated text against its Chinese original, integrates a cross-cultural lens to reconstruct, as closely as possible, the genesis of the historical translation and its underlying logic. By examining the source text, the translators, the division of translation labor, the textual configuration, and the translation strategies employed, the study clarifies a number of issues concerning the English translation of Ludingji that have hitherto been overlooked or insufficiently examined in existing scholarship. It demonstrates that the source text underlying the translation is the revised edition of Ludingji; that David Hawkes, John Minford, and Rachel May jointly shaped the translation; and that the three volumes of The Deer and the Cauldron differ markedly in form, with Volume One constituting a complete translation, Volume Two a selective translation, and Volume Three an abridged translation. The study further argues that, in translating the novel, the translators drew on the successful experience of “telling a vivid story” gained from their earlier translation of The Story of the Stone (Hongloumeng), reconstructing a cross-cultural narrative mode through morphological rhetoric, rhymed verse translation, and in-text explicitation, while relying primarily on narrative rewriting strategies—ultimately crafting, around the figure of Trinket, a captivating martial arts tale for English-language readers.