“Creative Treason” as a Travelling Theory and Its Changed Connotations: A Study on the Classic Term in Medio-Translatology of Comparative Literature

The term "creative treason" brought about a lot of discussions, and many studies have been carried out on it.Yet a study from historical perspective is still lacking.This paper focuses on its complicated connotations in the original context, and analyzes the changed connotations in the contexts of different disciplines.It points out that as an important term in translation studies and comparative literature, the "creative treason" originated from the French phrase "trahison créatrice" before being translated into the Japanese term 創造的裏切り and the Chinese term 创造性叛逆.Its connotations and contexts changed remarkably when travelling through different countries and languages.It involved double meanings when Escarpit created it in French.One was the readers' treasonable understandings of literary works from foreign countries, the other was the translation.Otsuka Yukio(大塚幸男), Weisstein, Sun Jingyao and other scholars, all explained it as a mode of translational action.The most important change occurred after Xie Tianzhen's engagement, and its connotations were altered markedly by Xie.Xie took it into the translation studies field in China and made a lasting impact.The changes of the "creative treason" in connotations and its contexts reflected different understandings of different scholars on translation, especially on the literary translation, which is thought-provoking.