China and the West

[Shakespeare, William]. Liya wang. Sun Dayu yi. [King Lear. ID D23593].
Li Ruru : The question of how to translate Shakespeare's blank verse into Chinese fascinated Sun Dayu. Sun had been seeking a new style of Chinese poetry written in the vernacular. His ideal form would "consist of rhythm and must have rhythm, but it should neither rely on rhymes nor should it follow the strict prosodic rule of exact numbers of character in each line". He invented a new concept of 'yin zu' (sound group) for modern Chinese poetry, which was much inspired by the style of the Italian sonnet.
Murray J. Levith : Sun's 'Preface' discusses the almost insurmountable difficulty of translating Shakespeare into vernacular Chinese verse due to the vast differences between the English and Chinese languages. He states that accomplishing a 'perfect translation' would indeed be a 'miracle'. Sun invents a Chinese equivalent for Shakespeare's blank vers, 'yin zu' or 'sound unit', based upon phoneme groupings. His idea is that because vernacular Chinese words are often composed of two or three characters, which may be seen as akin to syllables, something approximating a five beat blank verse line can be suggested. Sun's desire is that his King Lear recreates the 'spirit' of the original play, which he feels is what Schlegel-Tieck accomplished with their famous German version.