Translation and Creation: Readings of Western Literature in Early Modern China, 1840-1918

341 Pages·1998·39.25 MB·English

by  David E. Pollard

TRANSLATION AND CREATION
BENJAMINS TRANSLATION LIBRARY
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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.