China and the West

Byron, George Gordon : Allgemein
Chu Chih-yu : The first period of the Chinese reception of Byron starts from the beginning of the 20th century to around 1919, when the May fourth movement broke out. As the publications during this period bear a strong influence of Japanese scholarship, we may call it 'the Japanese period'. May fourth to 1949 may be called 'the European period. 1949-1959, when the Chinese swallowed wholesale the Russian-Soviet interpretation of Byron and his work, was the 'Soviet period'. Chinese academics always studies Byron in the context of the struggle between two opposing political forces. Byron was no longer a lone fighter, but a representative of a new political power, the rising radical democratism. Nor was his work merely the expression of his thought and the venting of his personal feelings. It was also the resentment and protest of the broad labouring masses against reactionary reality. Byron's contemporaries' adverse criticism and contemnation of him were looked upon as the manifestation of the reactionary classes' fear and hatred for the progressive forces.
From 1960 to the beginning of the Cultural revolution, the Sino-Soviet split brouth great ideological changes. As a result, the study of Byron took an ultra-Leftist path, we can call this 'the Maoist period'. After the Cultural revolution, the study of Byron in China fell into a state of confusion, but gradually began moving towards the West again.

1902-1914 : The early translators introduced The Isles of Greece to China, to a great extent, out of political considerations. They intended to borrow this new image of Byron to awaken the Chinese people's love for freedom and justice, to encourage the oppressed to overthrow their feudal rulers. Liang Qichao found in Byron the political reformer he needed to promote his political principles and ideas. Lu Xun saw him as a revolutionary rebel-poet who could breathe some new air into Chinese literature. Su Manshu viewed him as an example in everything he did and vented his own longings and despair in translations. Liu Bannong added filial devotion, a quality the Chinese have held a virtue since ancient times.
The Isles of Greece expresses a kind of patriotic spirit and rebellion that the passive resistance of the traditional Chinese poet could never reach. Above all, Byron had a special appeal for the Chinese translators primarily because of his sacrifice for the Greek independent cause. Byron's image and spirit, deep down, coincided with that of the traditional patriotic scholar. His rebellion and heroism provided a handy model, one which could serve as a 'catalyst' of political and social reform, of democracy and the cause of national independence.

1976-1985 : Since the essay by Anna Elistratova, the comments on the Turkish tales had usually been negative in China. But in the eighties we find a general confusion. From the perspective of class analysis, one scholar pointed out that Byronic heroes are 'in nature out-and-out egoists split off from the bourgeois aristocracy' (Zhang Yaozhi). This mainly referred to Conrad in The corsair and Lara : 'Restricted by his bourgeois world outlook, Byron fails to expose Conrad's nature of the bourgeois aristocracy who make their fortunes by piracy. Instead, he concentrates his efforts on presenting Conrad as having a bourgeois humanitstic virtue'. (Zhu Weizhi and Zhao Feng). Most of the critics rejected the individualism Byron advocated through his heroes. As for the source of Byron's individualism, it was determined by the limitations of the times - 'the rise of the English proletariat was still in its early rising stage – or it was 'determined by the bourgeois ideas of Byron's world outlook'.
Manfred was looked upon in China as the summit of the development of Byron's individualism and pessimism. The image of Manfred was generally described as 'a free, independent but pessimistic rebel who defies any danger and temptation and never forsakes his dignity'.
The profilic output of Byron's Italian period was customarily attributed by Chinese critics to his participation in the Italien revolutionary movement. Cain, written in Italy, was highly thought for its realistic meaning, as the play 'expresses Byron's concern for the fate of the European peoples in the recationary political conditions under the rule of the Holy Alliance. The year 1812, when Cain was created, was the year of the feudal restoration in European countries. Whether it was the poet's real intention or not, the Chinese critics believed that Byron, to counter the renewed power and authority of the Church, re-interpreted the bibliocal story from a revolutionary point of view. In the Chinese view, Cain and Lucifer are both positive heroes. Cain is a reaction against an 'anti-social, anti-human' religion and a protest against 'a religious mythology which imposes upon the people an attitude of submission the the 'status quo' and to their fate.
Don Juan was the best received of Byron's works in China, because it exhibits the creative mode which the Chinese hold in the highest esteem, the combination of 'revolutionary realism with revolutionary romanticism'. The first and foremost content the Chinese critics pointed throughout the satire to Byron's strong antipathy towards and denunciation of the reactionary forces headed by the Holy Alliance, and his eulogy of freedom. In general, Don Juan was hailed as a progressive epic satire which punctured the arrogance of the reactionaries and enhanced the morale of the bourgeois democratic forces. In sum, Chinese studies of Don Juan lack more comprehensive reseach, they fail to treat the poem as a poetic entity.

Byron's popularity in China has lain primarily in his participation in the Italian independence movement and his last heroic actions in Greece. The rebllion against social conventions revealed in his works greatly enhanced his reputation, but without his final sacrifice for the Greek independence cause, the poetry alone of a poet as morally flawed as Byron could not have had such a great impact. His poetry was introduced to China as the moral poetry of a moral poet. As a poet, Byron attracted the Chinese literati because he expressed openly the kind of rebellion that the passive resistance of the traditional Chinese poet could never reach. The Chinese introduction of Byron as a person has been highly selective, again to serve particular purposes. The fundamental reason for this selectivity, I believe, is that a complete picture of Byron, complete with all the controversies he stirred up in England, would not conform to the Chinese standards of a hero. If 'the complete Byron' is a combination of man, poet, rebel-fighter and thinker, the Chinese paid more attention to him as rebel-fighter and thinker. His poetic works were discusses only if they shed light on his heroic deeds and his thought.

Guo Ting : From 1890 to 1930 Byron enjoyed his greates popularity in China for almost half a century. Especially in 1924, Byron's centenary year, several articles and whole issues of journals, written or compiled, were devoted to him. Moreover, in China, the interpretation of Byron's achievement and aristocratic background was slightly different from what was perceived in Japan. In China, Byron's early fame in English society was less talked about ; instead, the poverty that Byron experienced in his childhood and his being excluded by the English upper classes were associated with his determined resistance to tyrannical rules and oppression. Thus, despite his title of Baron, Byron became the spokesman of the poor and the oppressed in the eyes of the Chinese public.
Byron became an alleged hero, who also wrote poetry, rather than a poet by profession and reputation. China's confucian culture and feudalistic ideology formed in the past centuries also contributed to a filtering of Byron's image as well as to a selective translation of his works. This explain why certain poems of Byron were repeatedly translated in a fairly short period, but other more romantic and rebellious works were overlooked for a long time, and why, in China, Byron could for so long enjoy the image of an idealist and passionate nationalist. As a Western romantic poet, Byron was presented as a nationalist and well-educated writer, aware of the Chinese poetic tradition, through archaic translation.
During the period from 1944 to 1966, the romantic side of Byron was more emphasized, and his works such as The corsair, Dun Juan and Childe Harold's pilgrimage were translated. During the Cultural revolution, translation of Byron's works was completely halted. Byron's romantic poems were excluded because of his Western capitalist background.
The situation changed in 1949, the classical poetics that had been used in the translation of Byron's works were supplanted by those of modern Chinese poetry, which allow a freer form and places less emphasis on rhyme and meter. This change came with the “New culture movement”, in which classical Chinese language was gradually abandoned, and was replaced by 'baihua'.
Influence from both individual critics and literary organizations on the translation of Byron in China are particularly important, given the limited translations of Byron's work and the reputation that he developed in a fairly brief span of time. For many Chinese literati, the focus was not to review translations, but to support and reinforce Byron's established heroic image by adding or emphsizing certain information on the writer and his works. A few Chinese literary organizations, such as the Chu ang zao she (Creative Society) and Wen xue yan jiu hui (Literature Study Society), had given Byron and his works a pssionate welcome in the early 20th century.
Nowadays, in a majority of the textbooks compiled for students studying English literature, Byron is listed as an important poet in the romantic period (along with other writers, such as William Blake, Robert Burns, William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Percy Bysshe Shelles and John Keats). Like these other poets, Byron is often given a brief introduction outlining his background, accompanied by excerpts from his poems. But almost all these introductions and excerpts tend to represent and emphasize Byron as a progressive poet standing for the proletariat and human liberty.

Gregory B. Lee : The reason for Byron's enthusiastic reception in a China faced with the high tide of British imperialist ambition, is perhaps yet more complex than a straighforward approval of Byron's alliance with Greeks independantists, of his defence of the marginalized, colonized subject. Two 19th century events connected by the role of one British ruling family, yet separated in space and time by six decades and a whole continent, arte both well-known to millions of Chinese readers ; yet only one of these is embedded in Green national consciousness.
For the Chinese reader of the early 20th century, and in objective historical terms, the words penned by Byron had become even heavier with meaning. British imperialism had entered a new expansionist and territorialist phase and its ideological disdain for the Other, especially the Other of colour, knew few bounds.