“Meaning Prior to Form” in Translating The Nanke Dream under Threshold of “the Overseas Promotion of Chinese Culture”

The Four Dreams in Linchuan by Tang Xianzu is a brilliant play throughout the history of Chinese drama. To implement the strategy of “the overseas promotion of Chinese culture”, the four plays should be taken as a whole and paid the same attention to. However, The Peony Pavilion has a long history of being widely disseminated at home and abroad, while there are only two existing English versions of The Nanke Dream, so interpretations from different dimensions are quite necessary. However, even modern Chinese people cannot fully understand the profound cultural words in the classics, let alone foreigners. The best way to spread the classics is to make them plain to read and easy to understand. On the basis of former scholars’ theories of cultural translation, “meaning prior to form” in translating The Nanke Dream was proposed to help foreign readers have a better understanding of classical works. Except for thorough and meticulous academic research, the method is applicable to the translation of most Chinese classics.