China and the West

Catel, Jean. Review of Fir flower tablets. In : Le mercure de France (1926).
Catel praised the accuracy and flavor of the English renderings of Chinese poems. However, after reading the McNair publication of the letters between Florence Ayscough and Amy Lowell, he recants : "Chinese poetry was to Amy Lowell the most delicate of dishes, her collaborating with Florence Ayscough a means of justifying her approach to it. The oriental flavor has evaporated under the touch, however, delicate, of a Western hand."

Luigi Chessa ist als Missionar in Kaifeng.

Emily Dickinson and China : general
Wang Baihua : Modern Chinese literary figures who studied in Europe and in the United States in the 1910s and 1920s paid much attention to the Western New Poetry Movement and with their newly gained insights attempted to prvoke a similar and simultaneous movement in China. These Chinese scholars had the chance to read or hear about the controversial criciticsm associated with Dickinson's poetry.

Xu Cuihua : The Chinese reception of Dickinson's poetry has been passionate since the 1980s.
Twelve major translators published their translations in book form and four other major translators published their translations in monographs or anthologies : Jiang Feng, Zhang Yun, Guan Tianxi, Mu Yu, Wu Juntao, Wu Qiren, Sun Liang, Wang Jinhua, Ma Yongbo, Dong hengxiu, Pu Long, Li Huina, Zhou Jianxi, Liu Shoulan, Huang Gaoxin, Yu Guangzhong, Fei Bai.
Translating Dickinson into Mandarin Chinese involves a two-fold dilemma : on the one hand is the difficulty in obtaining a satisfactory understanding of her poetry ; on the other, finding in Chinese appropriate expressions to represent the original. Basic characteristics of Chinese characters are of great significance to the composition of classical Chinese poetry but are inconvenient for poetry translations. The translators of Dickinson may have felt the impossibility of displaying the musical effects Dickinson intended in her frequent use of alliteration. The limitations of the phonetic dimension of Chinese characters, translators also have to handle problems that arise from the differences between the English language and the forms of Chinese characters. The semantic dimension of the characters is the translators' last resort. They need to translate the ideas or thoughts Dickinson expresses in her poetry, to disclose the essence of her poetry. In this respect, the major challenge remains the task of understanding what ideas Dickinson means to convey through her poetic language.
A general survey of the Chinese translations of Dickinson's poetry suggests that translators show a general concern for the poet's subject. This may be rooted in Chinese culture, which has been deeply immersed in the thoughts of different schools of teaching, especially those of Taoism, Confucianism, and Buddhism. It is therefore natural for a Chinese translator to explore ideas when reading Dickinson's poetry. The fact that Chinese is ideographic may also encourage a reader of Chinese to form such a reading habit. When approaching Dickinson's poetry, scholars and translators may try to explore the ideas she expresses, just as they would with a Chinese poem.
Perhaps driven by Dickinson's conversationally vernacular style, Chinese translators have adopted a similar style. They translate into modern Chinese vernacular instead of the more elegant classical written language. Translations of her poetry into Chinese provide a telescope through which readers of Chinese can recognize her as a serious thinker, who used her intellectual power to interrogate the world and to build an alternative world of her own. Impressive translations show her courage to doubt the existence of God, the seriousness of her reflections on life, her wisdom of renunciation, her conception of poetry and understanding as distilled essence and her prioritizing of goals for life.

Jiang introduced Dickinson as an introverted, unorthodox, and modern poet with broad perspectives. His selections covered typical subjects (mostly nature poems) as well as unusual
ones that showed, for instance, Dickinson's concern for politics, such as "My country need not change her gown". Zhang characterized Dickinson in her preface as a profound poet with a brave heart and subsequently represented these features in her choices for translation. Guan obviously favored Dickinson's nature poems; over fifty out of seventy-eight are about nature. The Wus placed emphasis on Dickinson's definitions of nature, success, exultation, weeping, speech, presentiment, crisis, the past, experiment, love, self, brain, loneliness, civilization, memory, and madness. Sun included Dickinson's favorite subjects: love, life, death, and eternity. Wang saw Dickinson's poetry as a philosophical reflection on daily events.
Significantly, he pointed out in his preface that reading Dickinson's poetry was like reading the words of the Chinese Taoist master Zhuangzi, claiming that reading the works of either could reduce our fear of death. He tended to reconstruct the poems with plain expressions in order to provide readers with easier comprehension. Li seemed to favor the beauty of nature and the wisdoms of life: over one-fifth are about nature and two-thirds about life. Liu integrated her translations into her six-chapter monograph Emily Dickinson Studies. Her discussion regarding the poems' subjects covered more than one-fourth of her book. Only Mu and Zhou did not tend to favor particular subjects in their selections.

Zheng, Zhenduo. Meiguo wen xue [ID D29708].
First reference to Emily Dickinson. "Dickinson is well-known for her meditative poems on life which are full of imagination and wonders, such as 'the forbidden fruit', 'I died for beauty'." Zeng refers to a metaphysical or religious spirit, while 'life full of imagination and wonders' points to a sort of vital power that can overcome the stillness associated with meditation.

Lawrence William Faucett hält sich in Amerika auf.

Kurt Wulff ist Lektor an der Universität Kopenhagen.

Osvald Sirén leitet die Abteilung Malerei und Skuptur des Nationalmuseum Stockholm.

Karl Ludvig Reichelt gründet die Nordic Christian Buddhist Mission in Nanjing.

Gustav Adolf von Schweden reist mit seiner Gattin nach China, Japan und Korea.

Vasilij Mikhailovic Alexeev besucht die wichtigsten sinologischen Zentren in Europa und gibt Vorlesungen.

Vasilij Mikhailovic Alexeev reist in China und sammelt Bücher und Kunstgegenstände für das Asiatic Museum und die Oriental Faculty der Universität Petersburg.

Henry Racmond Williamson ist Direktor des Whitewright Institute, Shantung Christian University und Museum in Jinan, Shandong.

Zhang, Yiping. A lian. In : Zhang, Yiping. Qing shu yi shu. (Beijing : Bei xin shu ju, 1926).
情書一束
Er schreibt im Vorwort der russischen Übersetzung : "Modern Chinese literature has received abundant gifts from the great Russian works. The translations of your Tolstoy, Pushkin, Chekhov and Blok have been welcomed by many of our readers, have filled us with ferbour, and moved us."

Yu, Dafu. Xiao shuo lun. (Shanghai : Guang hua shu ju, 1926). [Literaturtheorie]. 小說論
Yu Dafu listed the names of Chekhov, Gorky, Andreev and Artsybashev as the four modern writers best know in China.

[Turgenev, Ivan Sergeevich]. Qian ye [ID D38541].
Geng Jizhi schreibt in der Einführung :
"This novel was a spur for the struggle of the Russian youth. Everyone who read this book understood that his responsibility lay not in indulging in empty talk, but in really going out to reform society. As soon as this book appeared, many young men and women in Russia were awoken and vied to
learn from the examples of Insarov and Elena. From this it can be seen that literature, society and life are indeed very much interconnected."

Soame Jenyns ist Angesteller des Hong Kong Civil Service und Mitarbeiter der Zeitschrift The Hong Kong naturalist.

Bartók, Béla. Der wunderbare Mandarin : Pantomime in einem Akt. (Wien : Universal-Edition, 1926). Nach Vorlage von Menyhért Lengyel. Uraufführung Köln 1926.
Frank Stahl : Der Chinese verkörpert China : das Unbekannte, Unheimliche und Geheimnisvolle.

John Fitzgerald Brenan ist handelnder Generalkonsul des britischen Generalkonsulats in Guangzhou (Guangdong).

George Alexander Combe ist Konsul des britischen Konsulats in Kunming (Yunnan).

Arthur Ernest Eastes ist Konsul des britischen Konsulats in Chongqing.