“Shakespeare in China” (Publication, 2004)

[Shakespeare, William]. Hai wai qi tan [ID D23522].
Darin enthalten sind The two gentlemen of Verona, The merchant of Venice, The twelfth night und The taming of the shrew.
Der unbekannte Übersetzer schreibt in der Einführung : "The book was written by the Englishman Shakespeare. He was a world-renowned actor, an accomplished poet, an extraordinarily popular playwright, and is considered a literary giant in England. His works have been translated into French, German, Russian, and Italien, and are read by almost everyone. Our own contemporary literati who specialize in writing verse and fiction have also joined the chorus in his praise without even having had the opportunity to read his work. To remedy this unfortunate situation, I have undertaken this translation with the hope that it will add color and splendor to the world of fiction."

Dong, Run [Zhu, Dongrun]. Sha shi yue fu tan. [ID D23859].
Murray J. Levith : Dong suggests that his observations about the playwright might help people in conversation with English speakers, since Shakespeare is a subject that inevitability arises in such exchanges. He hotes Lin Shu's translations from the Lambs, and reviews details of Shakespeare's life. He considers Shakespeare 'liberal' because he marries an older woman. Dong also compares the dramatist with the Chinese poet Li Bo : Li Bo's poems are subjective while Shakespeare's plays present dramatic characters. Shakespeare's techniques of stagecraft interest him as well, as do devices such as cross-dressing. Dong's other essays focus on specific plays, for example Julius Caesar and Romeo and Juliet.

Erste vollständige Aufführung des Weinishi shang ren = The merchant of Venice von William Shakespeare in der Übersetzung von Gu Zhongyi [ID D23505] durch die Shanghai xi ju xie she (Shanghai Drama Association) unter der Regie von Ying Yunwei und Meng Junmou als Bühnenbildner.
Zhang Xiao Yang : It was the first time that the Chinese saw a real stage representation of a Shakespearean play given in a mature form of modern spoken drama and with Shakespeare’s original text.
Murray J. Lewitt : This production is considered the first original-text performance of Shakespeare in China. It featured 16th and 17th century period costumes and scenery suggested by Renaissance Italian paintings.

Wu, Jingxiong [Wu, John C.H.]. Shakespeare as a taoist. In : T’ien Hsia monthly ; no 3 (1936).
Er schreibt : "The fundamental of taoism is the subtle idea of the permeation or interpenetration of opposites, life's mingled yarn. This is exactly the vision that Shakespeare saw. Shakespeare is so inebriated with this thoroughly taoist notion that he applies it to every situation in life, with the result that underneath the infinite variety of his lore, there lurks a simplicity that is primoridal. I almost think that the works of Shakespeare can be used as a casebook of taoism."

[Shakespeare, William]. Yadian ren Taiman. Yang Hui y [ID D23870].
Cao Weifeng : The preface of Timon of Athens by Yang Hui is the first and most important critical essay on Shakespeare's works from a Marxist-Leninist approach.
Murray J. Levith : This detailed study mentioned a number of times in the writings of Marx and Engels anticipates the critical slant that became 'de rigueur' for Chinese critics on the mainland after 1949. Yang first rehearses well-known facts about Shakespeare's life and times, reading the playwright's presumed biography into the critic's interpretation of Elizabeth's and James' reigns. He discusses the waning of feudalism and the initial optimism about the new social order replacing it, linkening the social chaos at the start of the 17th century to a 'corresponding situation in China : the old moral order was bankrupt and the new moral order had yet to be established'. Then Yang launches into his interpretation of Timon of Athens, suggesting that 'the play is Shakespeare's violent attack on his society, his roar of anger' at what happened in England after the death of Elizabeth. 'Timon of Athens is the tragedy of gold'. He states that Timon of Athens is 'Shakespeare's most important work. If we want to know Shakespeare, his era and society, we need to study the play'.

[Shakespeare, William]. Shashibiya xi ju quan ji. Zhu Shenghao yi [ID D23377].
Zhu Shenghao ist der erste chinesische Übersetzer, der die Gesamtwerke von William Shakespeare übersetzen will.
Er schreibt im Vorwort : "I have always loved Shakespeare's plays and in some cases I went over whole plays a dozen times, studying the text closely and reciting it to myself. I feel that I have quite a good understanding of the spritit in the original plays. In the spring of 1935, encouraged by my colleagues and my predecessors, I began my attempt to translate the complete works of Shakespeare. The next year war broke out and all my books, more than one hundred items including different Shakespeare editions, annotations, research papers and reviews, were completely destroyed by fire in a bombing raid. In great haste, I was abel to rescue the complete edition published by the Oxford University Press and a few pieces of translation. After that I was compelled to move from place to place and hunt around for a living so that I did not have the leisure to carry on with what I wanted to do. Not until the spring of 1942, when I found the times really bad, did I sever myself from all other work and, confining myself to home, concentrate on my translation work. Though I was pressed on both sides by poverty and illness, I never stopped translating. Over a period of ten years, I finished all the manuscripts. Ten years is not a long time for a task as arduous as translating Shakespeare. However, I have put my whole life's effort into it."
"I do my best for conserving the flavor and features of the style of the original. In case I failed to reach this goal, I would try to communicate the ideas... clearly and faithfully in an elegant and comprehensive Chinese. I considered it indecent to translate word for word without expressing the ingenuity and vigor of the original. Whenever I felt unable to render an English sentence into Chinese adequately, I would work a long time on it, and strive to reveal the English poet's ideas clearly, risking a completely different rearrangement of the words of the original sentence. Every time I finished translating a paragraph, I used to read it carefully as the first reader... if there were any ambiguities, and at the same time I would consider myself an actor for examining if the tone of the version was harmonical and the rhythm was agreeable. If, for example, a word or a sentence were not used with good taste, I would mediate even for some days trying hard to find the right word."

[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.

Edmund Blunden ist Dozent für Englisch am English Department der University of Hong Kong. Er gründet die dramatische Gruppe "Masquers", die William Shakespeare in englischer Sprache aufführt : Twelfth night (1956-1957), As you like it (1958), Romeo and Juliet (1961), A midsummer night's dream (1962) und Othello (1963).

Chen, Jia. Shashibiya zai li shi yu ju zhong suo liu lu de zheng zhi jian jie [ID D23911].
Er schreibt : "Shakespeare obviously revealed his own political views in his history plays. He was against feudal separation, tyrants, and civil war. He was for centralization of power, national unity, and a just king. He hated the conflicts between the monarch and nobles because they brought disaster to the country. He noticed the significant power of the bourgeois and the working people (especially the towns’ people). He exposed, although in a limited way ; the oppression and exploitation of aristocrats against the people (including the bourgeois). He applauded patriotism and criticized the unscrupulous pursuit of personal interest. His attitudes were from the middle class viewpoint, but also often reflected the voice of the working people. One thing is worthy of special note : he criticized the ugliness of the bourgeois class. This fact reflected the progressiveness of Shakespeare and his standing on the same ground as the common people."

Festival zum 400. Geburtstag von William Shakespeare in Hong Kong.
Aufführung von Twelfth night in englischer Sprache durch den Hong Kong Stage Club und Garrison Players und Weinishi di shang ren = The merchant of Venice durch die Drama Society of the Hong Chinese University in Kantonesisch.
Das British Council organisiert eine Shakespeare-Ausstellung.

Das British Council und das Hong Kong Urban Council organisieren "The appreciation of Shakespearean Drama". Aufführung von Szenen aus The winter's tale, Hamlet, Twelfth night und Othello durch das London Shakespeare Theatre.

Gründung des Hong Kong Repertory Theatre = Xianggang hua ju tuan durch das Urban Council.
Aufführung von Wang zi fu chou ji = Vengeance of the prince = Hamlet von William Shakespeare in Kantonesisch in der Adaptation von Richard Ho Man-wui unter der Regie von Daniel S.P. Yang

Aufführung von Luomiou yu Zhuliye = Romeo and Juliet von William Shakespeare in Kantonesisch durch das Hong Kong Repertory Theatre = Xianggang hua ju tuan in der Adaptation von Zhu Shenghao unter der Regie von Glen Walford.

Chen, Jia. Shashibiya zai li shi yu ju zhong suo liu lu de zheng zhi jian jie. In : Meng, Xianqian. Zhongguo Shashibiya pinglun. (Changchun: Jilin Jiaoyu Chubanshe, 1991). [Shakespeare's political views revealed in his historical plays].
莎士比亚在历史剧中所流露的政治见解