The Translator's Mirror for the Romantic: Cao Xueqin's Dream and David Hawkes' Stone.

The article focuses on a detailed examination of David Hawkes’s translation of the eighteenth-century Chinese novel *The Dream of the Red Chamber* into *The Story of the Stone*, as presented in Fan Shengyu’s book *The Translator’s Mirror for the Romantic*. Fan’s study highlights Hawkes’s innovative translation methods, including his creation of a unique base text, attention to aural and visual elements, and playful linguistic creativity, supported by extensive archival research and collaboration with John Minford. The work also addresses Hawkes’s revision process and situates his translation within broader literary and cultural contexts, setting a new standard for empirical studies of literary translation. Additionally, the article briefly reviews Gao Xingjian’s *Calling for a New Renaissance*, which advocates for revitalizing literature by challenging contemporary ideological and commercial influences.