“Shakespeare translation in China” (Publication, 1991)
Year
1991
Text
Li, Ruru. Shakespeare translation in China. In : Leeds East Asia papers ; no 4 (1991). (Shak17)
Type
Publication
Mentioned People (1)
Shakespeare, William
(Stratford-upon-Avon 1564-1616 Stratford-upon-Avon) : Dramatiker, Dichter
Subjects
Literature : Occident : Great Britain
/
References / Sources
Chronology Entries (7)
| # | Year | Text | Linked Data |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1882 |
Sheffield, Devello Z. Wan guo tong jian [ID D2406]. Li Ruru : Sheffield introduced William Shakespeare as 'Shasipier', as a great playwright as well as a poet : "pathos or mirth in Shakespeare's plays was brought to perfection, which nobody had ever matched since Homer". |
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| 2 | 1896 |
[Huxley, Thomas Henry]. Tian yan lun. Yan Fu yi. [ID D10307]. Yan Fu schreibt über William Shakespeare : "Shakespeare was an English poet and dramatist of the 16th-17th centuries. His works are so valuable that most of them have already been translated all over the worlds. As for the characters depicted by Shakespeare, people living today not only resemble them in their speech and laughter, but also in their conflicts, emotions and their inability to get on amicably with one another. Shakespeare wrote a play recounting the murder of Caesar. When Antony delivers a speech to the citizens while showing the body of Caesar to the public, he uses logic to stir up the citizens cleverly because Brutus warned him that he would not be allowed to redress a grievance for Caesar and blame the murderers. The citizens are greatly agitated by the speech and their resentment against Brutus and his comrades is running high. We should attribute Antony's success to the function of logic !" |
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| 3 | 1904 |
Lanmu, Cha'ersi [Lamb, Charles]. Yingguo shi ren yin bian yan yu [ID D10417]. Lin Shu's translation of Tales from Shakespeare contains twenty stories based on the Bard's plays, it was the second earliest introduction of Shakespearean works into China. Lin Shu schreibt im Vorwort : "When the Europeans criticize our country, they usually say that China is becoming increasingly weak and ill-fated because she is narrow in her view of the world, outdated in her thinking, allowing her past to dominate her present, and too fond of gods, fairies, ghosts, and demons. The young and audacious in our country are going all out for reform and change. They embrace only the new, mocking the old tradition and practice and discarding past history and heritage. There are certainly justifications in what these people are doing. But, if they think that all things Western are new to China, they are wrong, for it would be like glorifying somebody by exaggerating his merits or destroying somebody by magnifying his faults. Aren't Hardy and Shakespeare literary giants of the great civilized England ? Look at Hardy's books that I have translated ; there are taboo snakes and condemned ghosts all over the place. Shakespeare's poetry is quite comparable to that of our [great poet] Du Fu, but he often conjures up images of gods, fairies, ghosts, and demons. If the Westerners are so civilized, then maybe these works mentioned should be banned and burned so as not to interfere with scientific knowledge. As far as I know, however, Shakespeare's poetry is held in high esteem among the well bred [in the West]. There his works are not only read and recited in every household but also performed in theaters, where men and women are moved to tears as they hold each other's hands listening to every word, where no one is ever tempted to call him old-fashioned or accuse him of having a fetish about gods, fairies, ghosts, and demons. Why is this the case ? Certainly, many old things are useless today, for example, the cooking vessels and drinking cups from the Bronze Age, heavy and rust eaten. But no expense should be spared to obtain, preserve, and display, say, a distinguished suit of armor once worn by a great personage from an illustrious family. People who are affluent and not troubled by the material needs of everyday life turn their interest to the past in pursuit of new personal enrichment. This is just like what [Su] Dongpo said, that when one has had enough rich meats and fine grains he starts to miss the snails and clams [of the old days]. Running a country and educating its people are two important matters that do not depend on arts and literature. When all is well with the country and its people, good arts and literature can add more luster; but when good arts and literature is all a country has, they do not benefit either the governing or educating. That's why the Westerners make government and education their priorities, gathering wealth and building military strength. They are so rich and powerful that no outsiders dare to humiliate them. It is only then they begin to enjoy arts and literature in their leisure time. Maybe Mr. Hardy and Mr. Shakespeare are old-fashioned and using gods, fairies, ghosts, and demons too much, but the civilized Westerners are certainly not complaining. I am old, and I do not use the same language as Hardy and Shakespeare, but I am particularly fond of these two gentlemen's works. My good friend Mr. Wei Chunshu, from Renhe [Hangzhou, Zhejiang] —young, erudite, and a master of Western languages—and I teamed up to do translations at the Translation Studio of the Jingshi Daxuetang (Capital University). After Mr. Wei orally translated the works to me, I put them into [Chinese] literary form. In about two years we translated about three or four works, of which the most massive one is the Biography of Napoleon. We are about to graduate from the studio early this coming autumn. When free one night, Mr. Wei picked up some Shakespeare by chance; I started scribbling away by the night lamp. Twenty days later we have a book of Shakespeare's poetic tales. The British certainly embrace new ideas in running their country, but they do not discard Shakespeare's poetry. Now that I have translated the book of Shakespeare's poetic tales, won't those blievers in new things reject it ? There are some different versions of Shakespeare's poetic tales coming into our country. There are similarities and differences in the selections of tales as well as in the contents of actual tales themselves. My book contains bwenty tales, each of which has a new title by me for the purpose of highlighting." Tian Han schreibt : "The novels translated by Lin Qinnan [Lin Shu] were very popular then and they were also my favourite type of publication. I was really interested in Lamb's Tales from Shakespeare which was translated als 'English poet, reciting from afar on joyous occasions'. I've been unconsciously influenced by this book. I read The tempest, Hamlet and Romeo and Juliet in the originals when I grew up, but it seemed to me that Lin's way of telling these stories as fairy tales was more appealing." Li Ruru : Lin Shu adapted his Tales into Chinese. Taking the extract quoted earlier as an example, his version, compared to the original account by the Lambs, is tinged with more personal feelings evoked through the use of dialogue. His style is influenced by traditional Chinese story telling, which alternates freely and frequently between firs-person expression and third-person narration and commentary. |
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| 4 | 1920-1968 |
Liang Shiqiu übersetzt William Shakespeare. Liang Shiqiu was the first Chinese who translated the complete plays of William Shakespeare in the vernacular Chinese prose style, except that he also included rhymed couplets in his translation. Er schreibt 1952 : "My translations were entirely in prose style. To be honest, I was not able to take the rhythms of Shakespeare's poetry into account. I really felt that it was already difficult enough if I was able to express the full and accurate meaning of the original. I was somewhat enlightened by Percy Simpson's Shakespeare's punctuation. It seems that Shakespeare did not use punctuation marks in the standard way but had a system of his own. His aim was to guide his actors and actresses in the recitation of their lines and enable them to reproduce these lines with the right cadence. I decided, therefore, to do my best in my translations to keep Shakespeare's original puncuation system intact. The consequence is that with every line in the original text there will be a line of translation ; in other words, I have taken sentences as my translation units. Of course, it will not be a literal translation, for word-for-word translation will result in total incomprehensibility ; nor will it be a mere translation of meaning, for such a translation, eloquent and fluent as it is, will be too far removed from the tone and the rhythm of the original. I am not sure if the sentence-for-sentence approach I have adopted will be able to retain more or less the original rhythmic pattern." Bai Liping : Liang tries to present Shakespeare seriously and meticulously. In order to fully understand Shakespeare, he took great pains to obtain all the available reference books on Shakespeare. When he translated, he supplied annotations to help readers understand the Bard. Therefore, Liang not only criticizes, but also provides constructive solutions ; he not only preaches, but also acts - in this sense, he is a translator with the virtues of both 'de' and 'xing'. Before his version of each play, there is a detailed introduction to the play's historical background, the source of its story, records of its various performances. Sometimes they also include Liang's own commentaries. The foreword gives a list of his translation principles, but this does not contain a reference to performance on the stage. He thinks that plays, including Shakespeare's, can exist independently of the stage, and can be either suitable or unsuitable for the stage. |
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| 5 | 1921 |
[Shakespeare, William]. Hamuleite. Tian Han yi. [ID D13674]. Tian Han schreibt im Vorwort zu den ersten drei Szenen in Shao nian Zhongguo ; vol. 2, no 12 (1921) : "It is now the 3rd month of the lunar calendar and the three islands of Japan are covered in cherry blossoms. Some early flowers are already falling in profusion. I looked into the distance and thought of Uncle Mei's tomb on which the grass must have grown thickly. Today I am going to take my wife Souyu to Ueno to see the fallen blossoms there. Who would help to carry our tears to Uncle's tomb and sprinkle them over the grass ? Alas ! What else can I say ? What else can I say ? I was filled with grief and indignation when I heard the bad news. Now I feel a little better and I am diverting my feeling to the translation of Hamlet." |
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| 6 | 1924 |
Kai, Ming. Lin Qinnan he Luo Zhenyu. In : Yu si ; no 3 (1924). Er schreibt : "After the Literary revolution, everybody seemed to have the right to chide Mr. Lin Shu because of his conservative attitude. But has there been anyone who worked as hard as Mr. Lin and devoted himself so assiduously to introducing foreign literature to China or translating so many famous literary works into Chinese ? Now even a rickshaw man can speak English and there is quite a number of experts in the English language who are always in the limelight in Chinese society – but where can we find any decent translations of the English masterpieces ? There is nothing but Lin's classical Chinese versions ! Even Shakespeare, such a literary giant in the world has not drawn enough attention and we only have Mr. Tian Han's one or two new translations and a peculiar rendering of Henry V made by Lin Shu." |
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| 7 | 1947 |
Li, Jianwu. Ashina = 阿史那, eine Adaptation von Othello von William Shakespeare, eine Geschichte aus der Tang-Zeit. Er schreibt im Vorwort : "Let's learn from Shakespeare. The adaptor is already gratified if people can detect a certain flavour of Shakespeare in Ashina ; but he will certainly not be surprised if people can find in it nothing like Shakespeare at all. This started as a presumption, so failure should be a due punishment. The adaptor wants Ashina to be hundred percent Chinese but he also hopes that Shakespeare will also share this hundred percent. However, the most important point to make is that the adaptor never regards his work as an adaptation ; on the contrary, for him, it is a creation as a result of ten month’s pregnancy. He has exhausted himself to give birth to it. Nevertheless, he feels that physical acquaintance can never compare with spiritual convergence. Can Shakespeare live again in China owing to its bold venture ?" |
Cited by (1)
| # | Year | Bibliographical Data | Type / Abbreviation | Linked Data |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2000- | Asien-Orient-Institut Universität Zürich | Organisation / AOI |
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