Abstract: This article discusses a basic literary question: suppose there is an original text which is an authorized canon, then is its translated text still a canon? The circulation of Literary Mind and the Carving of Dragons in American scholarship is an example. Those translated texts, rewritten through cross-cultural translation, deviate from the original because they were reconstructed in a heterogeneous cultural context. With three kinds of research methods, including contextual reduction of the original text, form reconstruction of the paratext and comparison of intertextuality between Chinese and Western versions, Vincent Yu-chung Shih, Stephen Owen and Yang Guobin succeeded in reestablishing the canonical status of Literary Mind and the Carving of Dragons in American scholarship, which is obviously distinct from the original text. This article concludes that the "new canon" is not only the technical achievement of the native Literary Mind and the Carving of Dragons as "peripheral literary texts" in America literary context that shift from an identity of "the Other" to "the Self", but also the product of cultural exchange where American "central literary texts" absorb Chinese "peripheral literary texts" for innovation.

Key words: Literary Mind and the Carving of Dragons, original text, translated text, reconstruction of canons