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341 Pages·1998·39.25 MB·English
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TRANSLATION AND CREATION BENJAMINS TRANSLATION LIBRARY The Benjamins Translation Library aims to stimulate academic research and training in translation studies, lexicography and terminology. The Library provides a forum for a variety of approaches (which may sometimes be conflicting) in a historical, theoretical, applied and pedagogical context. The Library includes scholarly works, reference books, post-graduate text books and readers in the English language. ADVISORY BOARD Jens Allwood (Linguistics, University of Gothenburg) Morton Benson (Department of Slavic, University of Pennsylvania) Marilyn Gaddis Rose (CRIT, Binghamton University) Yves Gambier (Centre for Translation and Interpreting, Turku University) Daniel Gile (Université Lumière Lyon 2 and ISIT, Paris) Ulrich Heid (Computational Linguistics, University of Stuttgart) Eva Hung (Chinese University of Hong Kong) W. John Hutchins (Library, University of East Anglia) Werner Koller (Department of Germanic, Bergen University) José Lambert (Catholic University of Louvain) Willy Martin (Lexicography, Free University of Amsterdam) Alan Melby (Linguistics, Brigham Young University) Makoto Nagao (Electrical Engineering, Kyoto University) Roda Roberts (School of Translation and Interpreting, University of Ottawa) Juan C. Sager (Linguistics, Terminology, UMIST, Manchester) Maria Julia Sainz (Law School, Universidad de la Republica, Montevideo) Klaus Schubert (Technical Translation, Fachhochschule Flensburg) Mary Snell-Hornby (School of Translation & Interpreting, University of Vienna) Sonja Tirkkonen-Condit (Savonlinna School of Translation Studies, Univ. of Joensuu) Gideon Toury (M. Bernstein Chair of Translation Theory, Tel Aviv University) Wolfram Wilss (Linguistics, Translation and Interpreting, University of Saarland) Judith Woodsworth (FIT Committee for the History of Translation, Concordia University, Montreal) Sue Ellen Wright (Applied Linguistics, Kent State University) Volume 25 David Pollard (ed.) Translation and Creation Readings of Western Literature in Early Modern China, 1840-1918 TRANSLATION AND CREATION READINGS OF WESTERN LITERATURE IN EARLY MODERN CHINA, 1840-1918 Edited by DAVID POLLARD Chinese University of Hong Kong JOHN BENJAMINS PUBLISHING COMPANY AMSTERDAM/PHILADELPHIA The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences — Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1984. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Translation and creation : readings of western literature in early modern China, 1840-1918 / edited by David Pollard. p. cm. - (Benjamins translation library, ISSN 0929-7316 ; v. 25) Selected papers of a conference held 1994 by a group of university teachers in the field of translation studies in Hong Kong in conjunction with a research project funded by the University Grants Committee Research Grants Council. Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Literature-Translating. 2. Literature-Translations into Chinese-History and criti cism. 3. Chinese literature-Western influences. I. Pollard, David E. II. Series. PN241.T72 1998 895.1'0948-dc21 97-50605 ISBN 90 272 1628 2 (Eur.) / 1-55619-709-8 (US) (alk. paper) CIP © Copyright 1998 - John Benjamins B.V. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, by print, photoprint, microfilm, or any other means, without written permission from the publisher. John Benjamins Publishing Co. • P.O.Box 75577 • 1070 AN Amsterdam • The Netherlands John Benjamins North America • P.O.Box 27519 • Philadelphia PA 19118-0519 • USA Table of Contents Dates, Persons, Terms 1 Introduction 5 D. E. Pollard Background Degrees of Familiarity with the West in Late Qing Society 25 Xiong Yuezhi A Statistical Survey of Translated Fiction 1840-1920 37 Tarumoto Teruo From Petitions to Fiction: Visions of the Future Propagated in Early 43 Modern China Wang Xiaoming Translated Works Liberal Versions: Late Qing Approaches to Translating Aesop's 57 Fables Leo Tak-hung Chan Lord Byron's "The Isles of Greece": First Translations 79 Chu Chi Yu "The Sole Purpose is to Express My Political Views": Liang Qichao 105 and the Translation and Writing of Political Novels in the Late Qing Lawrence Wang-chi Wong The Discourse of Occidentalism? Wei Yi and Lin Shu's Treatment 127 of Religious Material in Their Translation of Uncle Tom's Cabin Martha P. Y. Cheung vi TRANSLATION AND CREATION Giving Texts a Context: Chinese Translations of Classical English 151 Detective Stories 1896-1916 Eva Hung Jules Verne, Science Fiction and Related Matters 177 D. E. Pollard Making Waves From Popular Science to Science Fiction: An Investigation of 209 'Flying Machines' Chen Pingyuan Ms Picha and Mrs Stowe 241 Xia Xiaohong Wang Guowei as Translator of Values 253 Cecile Chu-chin Sun The Influence of Translated Fiction on Chinese Romantic Fiction 283 Yuan Jin Translating Modernity 303 David D. W. Wang Name Index 331 Dates, Persons, Terms CHRONOLOGY 1644 Manchu conquerors found the Qing dynasty. 1840- First Opium War. Hong Kong ceded to Britain and five 'treaty ports' 1842 opened to foreign trade. 1843 British concession established in Shanghai, followed by other foreign concessions in treaty ports. 1860 Treaty of Tientsin. Christian missionaries allowed to operate in China. 1862 Tongwen Guan, government translation bureau, set up in Beijing. 1868 Meiji Restoration in Japan: sweeping reforms to modernize and strengthen the state started. 1878 Guo Songdao sent to England as the first Chinese ambassador ever stationed abroad. 1895 China defeated in war with Japan. 1898 Hundred-Day Reforms initiated by Qing emperor with the support of progressive intellectuals; rescinded by Empress Dowager. Six intellec tuals executed. 1905 Civil service examinations based on Confucian texts abolished. 1908 Death of Guangxu Emperor and Empress Dowager. 1911 Wuchang Uprising against the dynasty, followed by nationwide rebel lion. 1912 Republic proclaimed, with Sun Yat-sen as president. 1919 May Fourth Movement in Beijing to replace 'feudalism' with a modern, democratic and scientific culture; led by academics who had studied abroad. PERSONS Kang Youwei (1858-1927) Probably the most prominent of the modernizing intellectuals in the latter half of the 19th century, Kang reinterpreted the Confucian classics to rally support for progress among fellow scholars. Most active in the 2 TRANSLATION AND CREATION decade 1888 to 1898, his greatest success was in persuading the Guangxu Emperor to inaugurate a programme of institutional reforms in 1898, though these 'Hundred-Day Reforms' were immediately aborted by the conservatives at court. Liang Qichao (1873-1929) A disciple of Kang Youwei, Liang was the most effective and prolific publicist for reform of his generation. As an editor of and contributor to newspapers and magazines, Liang swung public opinion in favour of changes in the political, ideological and literary spheres. Especially influential were the journals he edited as a refugee in Japan from 1898, including the first all-fiction magazine, Xin xiaoshuo {New Fiction). Lin Shu (1852-1924) A learned teacher of classical Chinese, and a noted stylist himself, Lin Shu came to fame in 1899 as the translator of Dumas' La Dame aux camélias, the first foreign novel to win a national readership. He went on to translate well over a hundred other novels, all with the aid of collaborators who translated the texts orally to him. His favourite British authors were. Walter Scott, Charles Dickens and Rider Haggard. Yan Fu (1854-1921) Yan studied in England 1877-79 as a naval officer, and on his return to China rose to head the Beiyang Naval Academy. From the mid-1890s he co-founded and wrote for newspapers in Tianjin to advocate reform. His translation of T. H. Huxley's "Evolution and Ethics", published in 1898, introduced Social Darwinism to China. Subsequently Yan trans lated many other major European works of social science. He was also the author of the "faithful—intelligible—elegant" tripartite formula for translation. Bao Tianxiao (1876-1973) An extremely productive writer-translator, Bao belonged to the first generation of professional journalists in China. He edited more than ten magazines in his long career, and wrote and translated scores of novels. His first foreign language was Japanese. Lu Xun (1881-1936) From 1902 to 1909 Lu Xun studied in Japan, where he began his career as a translator and writer. While employed in the Ministry of Education in Beijing, he published in 1918 'the first modern Chinese short story', and proceeded to become the most celebrated writer of his generation. TRANSLATION AND CREATION 3 LANGUAGE TERMS Guwen Archaic Chinese: the 'pure' written language with minimal syntactic signifiers in which the early classical texts were composed. Repre sented later in the prose works of such masters as Han Yu (768-824) and Su Dongpo (1037-1101). Wenyan Literary Chinese: a broad term which embraces everything from guwen to modern journalistic Chinese which uses classical particles. Useful only as an antonym for baihua, the vernacular language. Baihua The lingua franca based on Northern Chinese, with Beijing dialect as standard. It was traditionally used as the medium for novels and dialogues in plays, though this old 'storyteller' baihua is remote from the modern idiom. Adopted generally for writing formal prose only from the 1920s. Acknowledgements Thanks are due to the Research Grants Council of the Hong Kong University Grants Committee for financing the research project which led to this volume, and to the Institute of Chinese Studies and Research Centre for Translation, Chinese University of Hong Kong, for funding the conference with which the research project concluded. The editor is grateful to colleagues at the Research Centre for Translation who assisted with the preparation of this volume, especially Cecilia Ip, who did the typesetting and layout, and Ian Chapman and Tarn Pak-shan, who subedited. Ian Chapman also compiled the name index. Dr Eva Hung, Director of the Research Centre, gave the entire project unstinting support.

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