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ChinaResourceNews
No.15 (30 Jan 2003)
http://listserv.uni-heidelberg.de/archives/chinaresource-l.html
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100 Chinese
translations of foreign publications which had strong influence in
China
by Thomas Kampen
Between 1840 and 1949, millions of Chinese students, academics and politicians were influenced by Chinese translations of Western books. But for a long time it was difficult to find details about the publication of these translations and biographical data of the translators.
In 1996, the Chinese scholar Zou Zhenhuan (Fudan University, Shanghai) published a book introducing one hundred Chinese translations of foreign publications that had strong influence in modern China (Yingxiang Zhongguo jindai shehui de yibai zhong yizuo, Beijing: Zhongguo duiwai fanyi chuban gongsi, 1996). This book provides important information for studying Western influences in China as well as literary, philosophical and political trends in modern China.
Contents
The book includes an impressive selection
of novels (Defoe, Dumas, Scott), detective stories (A.C. Doyle), plays
(Schiller, Shakespeare), poems (Byron), as well as historical, religious,
sociological, philosophical and political studies (Einstein, Huxley, Kropotkin,
Marx, Nietzsche, Rousseau). Most of the original works are from Europe and about
Europe; there are about a dozen Japanese books, but most of these are also based
on western publications; there is also a small number of Western books about
China, including Pearl S. Buck's Good Earth and Edgar Snow's Red Star over
China.
Zou Zhenhuan provides information about
- the
original works and authors,
- the Chinese translations and translators
-
the impact of the translations in China.
Languages
The original works were published in
several countries and languages (English, French, German, Japanese and Russian).
Zou does, however, show that most of the Chinese translations - including those
of German and Russian books - were based on English versions; a small number of
European books were first translated from Japanese versions. Translations
published in the late Qing and early Republican periods were often incomplete
and inaccurate. (In many cases more accurate and complete translations were
later published in the People's Republic of China, Hong Kong and Taiwan.)
Translators
Many of the translators of the works
discussed here were well-known journalists, poets and officials. They include
some of the most prominent intellectuals and politicians of the 19th and early
20th centuries (Chen Duxiu, Guo Moruo, Liang Qichao, Liang Shiqiu, Lin Shu, Lu
Xun and Yan Fu).
Significance
Most of the works discussed in Zou
Zhenhuan's study - including Goethe's Faust and Werther, Nietzsche's Zarathustra
and Shakespeare's King Lear - would have been expected in this kind of
compilation; they might also appear in similar lists of translations published
in Japan or Korea. There are, however, numerous interesting surprises -
including works which were not particularly popular in their original versions.
There is a substantial number of minor novels and text books.
One important
aspect of this compilation is the fact that Zou discusses publications and
topics which are often avoided or ignored in PRC publications, such as works on
anarchism, religion, etc. The number of leftist or communist publications is
relatively small.
Availability
While most of the original works
studied by Zou Zhenhuan are easy to find in Western libraries, it is very
difficult to find the translations he mentions. Firstly, Western libraries
rarely buy Chinese translations of Western books; secondly, the Chinese
translations published in the 19th and early 20th centuries are difficult to
obtain. But as more recent, correct and complete translations do not indicate
what Chinese readers read in the Imperial and Republican periods, it is very
important to study the early translations.
More than ten years ago, the Institute of Chinese Studies in Heidelberg has started to collect the early translations and has already acquired a substantial number of works, including early translations of Kropotkin's Mutual Aid, MacKenzie's Nineteenth Century, Shakespeare's King Lear and Storm's Immensee. More will be bought in the near future.
A list of these works available at Heidelberg can be viewed at:
http://www.sino.uni-heidelberg.de/library/#collections
_______________________________________________________
With kind
regards,
Hanno Lecher
([log in to unmask])
ChinaResource.org -- Content
manager
http://chinaresource.org/
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