20201116 trans

Cao Runxin 曹润鑫

WOESLER, Martin

Prof. Dr. Martin Woesler (University Rome III/Witten University)

The Waves of the Stone –

Early Reception Between Instrumentalization and Exoticization

Abstract

The fame of the Dream of the Red Chamber spread quickly not across Asia, but also to Europe and the USA. This paper introduces the roles and motifs of different actors in the early distribution, like merchants, Western embassies, Chinese teachers of Western missionaries, missionaries themselves, translators, early Sinologists as well as literary critics. I introduce judgements on the novel before it was available in translation.

Chang Huiyue 常慧月

As motifs I identify exoticization (joy of otherness of fashion and dressing, customs), universalization (world literature), the instrumentalization of the novel as evidence for own hypotheses on literature (Davis’ poetry), the instrumentalization for language learning etc. I show a change of motifs over time from exoticization and instrumentalization for proving inferiority to Western novels to accepting the novel as part of world literature and a masterpiece of Chinese culture with a special value in documenting Chinese society. Of special interest are misunderstandings (Gützlaff) and deviations from the original (Kuhn, Minford).

Chen Han 陈涵

Key words

Dream of the Red Chamber, Western translation, Western dissemination, Western reception, instrumentalization, exotization, deviation

First (unproven) experiences of young Cao Xueqin with foreign literature

In 1947 the graduate student Huang Long from then Jinling University quoted the following passage from the book Dragon's Imperial Kingdom, which he claimed to have borrowed from the Central Library (today’s Nanking Library), in which William Winston ‘remembers’ an encounter of his grandfather Philip Winston with Cao Xueqin:

Chen Hui 陈惠

"The imperial kingdom was symbolized by a five-clawed golden dragon, a legendary reptile nonexistent since Creation. Of her indigenous produces shantung commanded the broadest popularity. This rendered her to merit the credit ‚Land of Silk’ in the Orient. There has been cherished as our precious heirloom a piece of home-spun fabric with an ornamental pattern of "dragon and phoenix" manufactured at Kiangning Textile Mill. It survived fires and swords. During my grandfather Philip's sojourn in China for trade in textiles, he contracted an acquaintance with Mr. Tsao Fu, the then Superintendent of Kiangning Textile Mill, and at the latter's request served as an initiator of textile technology.

Chen Jiangning 陈江宁

The host was hospitality incarnate and oftentimes indited extempore verses in token of rapport. As a reply, my grandfather delivered Biblical sermons and gave a graphic narration of Shakespeare's dramas. For audience he had merely those other than the juvenile and feminine. On the score of eavesdropping, Tsao’s pampered son suffered a lashing and castigation".[ Philip Winston: Dragon's Imperial Kingdom, Douglas 1874, p. 53. Quoted from: 吴新雷, 黄进德《曹雪芹江南家世考》，福建人民出版社, 1983, 304 pp., here pp. 103-104. See also:馬幼垣（Yau-Woon Ma）《實事與構想: 中國小說史論釋》，聯經出版事業股份有限公司, 2007年，384页。See also: 周汝昌《曹雪芹新传》外文出版社(1992)²1997, 353pp., here p. 101.]

Chen Jiaxin 陈佳欣

If this encounter has been made up, it shows how much effort Redology invested to come to new findings, if not, it may explain some of the special characteristics of the novel never seen in Chinese literature before.

Status of the book before its publication

Between 1754 and 1771 we have one new manuscript version per year in average and almost each manuscript carries new comments mostly from 脂砚斋 or from 畸笏叟. The author died on Feb 1, 1764, which did not end the commenting on the manuscripts.

Chen Jingjing 陈静静

The book was not officially published, but that did not prevented it from dissemination, as manuscript fragments were handed around since the 1750s and the novel was known to many scholars before its publication in 1791.

The preface to the 2nd edition in 1792 also points to the fact, that there had been a “long” tradition of scholarly research of the book and comments. These comments had not been taken over for the 1st and 2nd edition.

Chen Sha 陈莎

From inofficial manuscript versions to the printed book

One of the reasons why the book was not printed was that it was (wrongly) considered either sexually explicite literature (淫书) or against Confucianism, which could only passed on in manuscript versions.

Gao E claims in his preface of 1791, that he had heared before 1771 from this novel and that he checked whether it was against Confucianism, but could not find anything like this in it, so that it could be published.

Chen Sunfu 谌孙福

“One of the best works of fiction in Chinese literature was supposed to have been written by a member of this sect, and was suppressed by the Emperor because of offensive references to the reigning family contained in it. It was called the ‘Hung Lou Meng,’ or ‘Dream of the Red Chamber,’ and it resembles a large number of fairy tales threaded together rather than a modern novel. By an ingenious substitution of false characters, words, occasionally throughout certain portions of the work—something like incorrect spelling —the imperial interdict was evaded, and it has continued in print and popularity down to the present day. Foreign students of Chinese commonly read a portion of it, the smooth and excellent style making it an invaluable text-book.”[ See: He Tianyue 何天爵: The real Chinese question (真正的中国问题), New York: Dodd，Mead & Co. 1900, 386 pp., here p. 109.]

Chen Yongxiang 陈永相

Preparations of the 1st book edition

Gao E worked with Cheng Weiyuan, who ran the publishing house Suzhou Cuiwen Press (苏州萃文书屋).

According to the preface to the 1791 edition by Cheng Weiyuan, different 80 chapter manuscript versions were already circulating, some were sold for a high price at the Temple Market, others were copied by readers. Since the 80 chapter manuscript versions already contained content lists with 120 chapter headlines, he searched for and found (as he pretended) the 120 chapters.

Cheng Yusi 成于思

In the preface to the first printed edition he already refers to an existing number of readers, who share the love of the book with him. Also his description that some readers took over the effort to copy the book by handwriting shows that an early fan culture existed even before the printed version appeared.

Also, Cheng Weiyuan keeps the question of the authorship open, but points directly to Cao Xueqin, who claimed to have worked 10 years on the novel and rewritten it five times. The rewriting may refer to the production of new manuscript versions reflecting the ideas of the commentators.

Deng Jinxia 邓锦霞

1st Book edition 1791: 程甲本 Cheng A edition

According to the preface to the 2nd edition 1792, these early fans were called collectors and the 1st edition was produced with movable characters, which was faster than the woodblock print. The book contained 99 illustrations and more than 100 copies were printed. The first edition might have been printed in Peking at the end of 1791, the 2nd in early 1792 in Suzhou, leaving 72 days between the two editions, which may show that the Peking edition was sold out immediately. The 1791 edition was also soon translated into Mongolian: 蒙古王府本 Menggu ben.

Ding Daifeng 丁代凤

2nd Book edition in 1792: 程乙本 Cheng B edition

A second edition, with ‘corrections’ some consider mistakes today, was published in 1792 in Suzhou and sold well too. The 2nd edition claims to have removed many mistakes of the 1st edition.[ For an overview of the comparison of the two editions please refer to: 《《红楼梦》程乙本版本研究综述》，王丽敏，河南教育学院学报 (哲学社会科学版) Vol．33.] One of the differences is that the 程乙本 Cheng B edition changed expressions in ancient wenyan to more contemporary ones, like “索” was turned into “要”, “趁” into “赶”, “题” into “写”, “端” into “头”, “闻得” into “听见”, “记挂” into “惦记”, “殊不知” into “那里知道” etc., but not in every case. Altogether they changed roughly 20,000 characters.

Fang Jieling 方洁玲

There is also a change of the list of confiscated goods. What might have been the reason in this particular case to change the list of confiscated goods for the Cheng B edition? The list in the Jiaben is a documentation of richness and therefore lets the confiscation seem to be justified because of unjustified enrichment. In the Yiben, the list starts with mostly religious items like, Buddha statues, this lets the confiscation appear unjustified and shifts the sympathies of the reader towards the family. In the late 18th century, there was a turn towards Buddhism.

Gan Fengyu 甘奉玉

Many umlegitimized copies appeared. The book was delivered to Korea and shipped to Japan, where it was read in its original language.

The novel created a wave of interest in China comparable to the one of The Sorrows of the Young Werther in Europe since 1774. The first edition, printed in 1791 in Peking in a small number of copies (estimates range between 4 and 400) was soon sold out.

Gao Mingzhu 高明珠

Some scholars assume a suicide wave among readers who identified with Lin Daiyu. Many readers discussed whether they identified more with Lin Daiyu or with Xue Baochai, a discussion that lasts until today.

Gong Yumian 龚钰冕

Spreading to Japan and Korea

Captain王开泰 Wang Kaitai delivered 18 copies of a 9-volume edition of the Dream on December 9, 1793 to Japan, as we can prove in a store list of a Nanking ship arriving in长崎港Nagasaki (which started on November 3 in 乍浦 Zhapu): „红楼梦 九部十八套“.[ From 发货账本, quoted from: 《红楼梦 》在日本.] We know of an early mentioning of the Dream by the Korean author Lee, Kyu-Kyung李圭景 ( 1788- ? 李圭景(이규경)) in the 1830s.[ From 《五洲衍文长笺散稿》卷七《小说 辩证说》, quoted from: 《红楼梦》在韩国的流传和翻译.]

There were early (partial) translations of the novel into Manchurian.

Gu Dongfang 顾东方

Early Western notions of the book

The novel also caught the attention of Europeans living in China, like the missionaries, who started to translate parts of it into Western languages, as well as the British embassies to China, who collected also Chinese literature, brought it back to Europe or engaged in translation or dissemination.

Guan Qinqing 管钦清

The book seems to have run out of stock often and needed to be purchased from other cities, whereever it was available, like in about 1812 in Canton: Robert Morrison, a missionary who worked in Macao, may have been pointed by his Chinese tutor to the novel. In 1816 he published a dialogue between a student (maybe himself) and his Chinese tutor pointing to the time before December 1812, when he translated parts of the novel and therefore had a copy:

Gui Yizhi 桂一枝

Student: “What is the best book for students to read?” – [...suggestion of Daxue.] Tutor: [...] to read the Hung-low-mung will do very well. – Student: I have not seen the Hung-low-mung, have you seen it? – Tutor: I have not brought it with me, but if you wish to see it, I will write to Canton, and present it to you. Student: “Very good. I will trouble you to write for it.” – Tutor: “I will do so.” – Student: “How many volumes are there in the Hung-low-mung?” – Tutor: “Twenty volumes in all. In this book, the phraseology is entirely that of Peking.”[ From: “Dialogue V”, in: 《中文对话与单句》Dialogues and Detached Sentences in the Chinese Language, with a free and verbal translation in English, collected from various sources, Macao: East India Company Press 1816. [Chinese parts left out in this quotation.]]

Guo Lu 郭露

Between December 1812 and February 1813, Robert Morrison translated parts of chapter 4 and send it to Great Britain. He published entries about the Dream in his dictionary, of which the first volume appeared in 1815[ 《华英字典》A Dictionary of the Chinese language in three parts, Macao: East India Company Press 1815, vol. I 930 pp., the novel title is mentioned in volume I:614.] and more translation excerpts, e.g. from chapters 4 and 39, in his 1816 textbook edition.[ 《中文对话与单句》Dialogues and Detached Sentences in the Chinese Language, with a free and verbal translation in English, collected from various sources, Macao: East India Company Press 1816, e.g. pp. 194-200.]

Han Haiyang 韩海洋

Only 23 years of its publication, the novel already was part of the canonized Chinese literature of fiction and Robert Morrison used excerpts of it for his text books to teach Westerners Chinese, as well as expressions from it for his dictionary and sent letters with excerpt translations to Europe, for an intended 2nd vol. of his Horæ Sinicæ which never was realized.

The first British Embassies to China (among them especially Charles Bowra, John Francis Davies) also collected literature and among it the Dream of the Red Chamber.

Han Wanzhen 韩宛真

Early translation history in the West

In 1819, the first excerpt translations were published in Europe, in English (by John Francis Davis) and in French (by Davis, further translated by Bruguière). Significantly, they were published hidden in other larger works, in the English case, it was a Travel Report by Clarke Abel,[ 约翰．巴罗（John Barrow）：“Art. IV Narrative of a Journey in the Interior of China, and of a Voyage to and from that Country, in the Years 1816 and 1817; containing an Account of the most interesting Transactions of Lord Amherst's Embassy to the Court of Peking, and Observations on the Countries which it visited. By Clarke Abel F.L.S. London 1818”，见：William Gifford（主编）, Quarterly Review 21:41 (1819年1月) 见第67-91页，特见第79-80页。这份期刊于1819年6月4号发行，总发行量13000份。笔者在这里参照了以下的索引并最终确定作者: „Gentleman's Magazine (Mar. 1844), 246-47. The article's author refers to #415 and #438 (including a specific reference), both of which are on the same topic and are by Barrow. Cf. also the discussion of infanticide (p. 76) and Raffles's account of Java reviewed by Barrow in #422. In his QR articles, it was Barrow's signature practice to refer to his own works.“, 参考„Quarterly Review Archive“ http://www.rc.umd.edu/reference/qr/index/41.html。] and in the French case, it was a Chinese drama, La-song-euil.[ “Rêves de la Chambre rouge”, 见：»Avant-propos du traducteur francais«, 见: 安托萬．安德烈．包儒略(Antoine-André Bruguière), Lao-seng-eul [老生兒], Comédie Chinoise, suivie de San-iu-leou, ou Les trois étages consacrés, conte moral ; Traduits du chinois en anglais, par J. F. Davis de la factorerie de Canlon ; et de l'anglais en français, par A. Bruguière de Sorsum; avec additions du traducteur, 巴黎: Rey et Gravier / 伦敦 A. B. Dulau & Co. 1819 年, 227 页, 第141-164页, 见第150-151页。]

He Changqi 何长琦

These excerpt translations were done by John Francis Davis, he translated excerpts from chapter 3 and they were published by John Barrow in Great Britain and by Bruguière in France, both in 1819. Further translations were in 1846 by Robert Thom, excerpts of chapter 6, in 1868-69 Edward Charles Bowra chapters 1-8, in 1892-93 Henry Bencraft Joly chapters 1-56, in 1927 Liang-Chih Wang chapters 1-95, in 1929/1958 Wang Chi-chen an abridged full version, in 1958 Florence McHugh & Isabel McHugh a further translation from the abridged German version of 1938 by Franz Kuhn.

Hu Baihui 胡百辉

Regarding these translations, both the translation quality as well as the quality of the English used did not reach the status of world literature. Regarding full translations, we have in the 1960s Bramwell Seaton Bonsall, in 1973-1986 Hawkes/Minford and in 1978-1980 Yang/Yang. Among all the translators who embarked on this endeavour, only Hawkes (1923-2009) and Minford (1946-) achieved the goal to produce a translation which clearly falls into the categorization of world literature, the others, as Gladys Yang stated, “were a poor shadow of the original”.[ Yang 1980 3:621-622.]

Hu Huifang 胡慧芳

Early Misunderstandings

Before the novel was available in translation, we find a lot of misunderstandings and negative judgements on the novel: Morrison considered the novel to have been written in “Peking Dialect”, this mistake developed its own tradition.[ Even in 1995, you could read that the Dreams is written in Peking dialect, cf. Shu Changshan, Die Rezeption Thomas Manns in China, 1995, Frankfurt: Lang, 326 pp. At least Tong Yao, Die Vielfältigkeit der Literatur, 2006 mentions both Peking and Nanking dialects.] In 1842 Gützlaff[ “Dreams in the Red Chamber”, Friedrich August Gützlaff (1803-1851), “《紅樓夢》Hung Lau Mung, or Dreams in the Red Chamber; a novel. 20 vols. Noticed by a Correspondent”, in: Chinese Repository, issue 11 (1842) 266-273.] introduced the protagonist as „the lady Páuyu“ (p. 268), even “a very petulant woman” (p. 270) and “busy lady” (p. 272), and took Jia Yucun贾雨村 (instead of Jia Zheng 贾政) as Baoyu’s father.

Hu Jin 胡瑾

Also his overall judgement is “in expressing our opinion about the literary merits of the performance, we may say that the style is without any art, being literally the spoken language of the higher classes in the northern provinces.” and he recommends it for language learning (p. 273). Even in 1900, Herbert Allen Giles introduced the novel as have been written in “Peking dialect” and attributed to Cao Xueqin “of the 17th cent.”[ “HUNG-LOU-MENG: 紅樓夢 A famous Chinese novel in the Peking dialect, popularly known as the Dream of the Red Chamber, dealing chiefly with events of domestic life which are very graphically described, and attributed to Ts'ao Hsiieh-ch'in of the 17th cent.” See: Herbert Allen Giles, A glossary of reference on subjects connected with the Far East, 1900, pp. 127-128]

Ji Tiantian 纪甜甜

Also he claimed that the title “红楼梦” would be “a term which is not found anywhere in the text”,[ Giles 1885.] therefore was figurative and should be translated as “A Vision of Wealth and Power”. Actually the expression is found several times in the text, even in the title of chapter 25 and Baoyu actually very often falls asleep and dreams in the red bed-chambers of his female relatives and friends.

Jiang Fengyi 蒋凤仪

Early Reception of the novel in the West

We first must credit pioneers like J. Davis, who not only tried to systematize Chinese poetry with examples from the Red Chamber Dreams, but also sent the first translations of the novel out in the world and made it known in America and Europe just a decade after it has been published in China. Some sinologists used the story simply as a good example for learning Chinese (Morrison, Thom).

Jiang Hao 姜好

One can conclude that the Red Chamber Dreams transported a differentiated image of China, of fashion, of hair and clothes (Barrow, Bruguière, Goldsmith), of human relations (Goldsmith), and of a highly developed language. In this language, some poetical expressions were only understandable to those who had a broad knowledge of Chinese culture. The finesse of the differentiated use of the dialects according to the respective characters in the novel was simply overlooked (Morrison, Gützlaff, Thom) and only discovered much later.

Jiang Qiwei 蒋淇玮

The first phase of the Western reception was ethnocentric, partially due to the China-bashing of philosophers like Montesquieu, Herder, Hegel and to the imperialist spirit of contemporary Europe. The judgments on the novel are mostly driven by argumentation strategies; that is, the novel is used as a tool to prove one’s own existing attitudes. The novel is exploited to argue for:

Kang Haoyu 康浩宇

- exoticism (J. Davis, Barrow, Bruguière)

- the inferiority of Chinese literature (Gützlaff, Langdon Davies, Harte, Giles, Headland)

- polarization by confronting opposite conceptions like ideal of beauty etc. (Goldsmith)

- to proof own hypotheses, like a self-made categorization of Chinese poetry (J. Davis)

In this beginning phase, most comparisons were done within Chinese literature (Gützlaff: best of Chinese literature but inferior to Western literature, later: best of Chinese literature).

Kang Lingfeng 康灵凤

However, when Herder revised his China perception, and when the still inadequate perception of China called for a more differentiated image, the first translated extracts of this rich novel of manners helped to change the perception of China.

Finally Dream was compared to Western literature (Erkes, Wilhelm), was enshrined in the temple of world literature and was assigned attributes that added value to the Western reading experience (Clemons: “slowing down”).

Kong Xianghui 孔祥慧

Motifs for judgements

As motifs for the early judgements mentioned above, I identify exoticization (joy of otherness of fashion and dressing, customs), universalization (world literature), the instrumentalization of the novel as evidence for own hypotheses on literature (Davis’ poetry), the instrumentalization for language learning etc.

There is a change of motifs over time from exoticization and instrumentalization for proving inferiority to Western novels to accepting the novel as part of world literature and a masterpiece of Chinese culture with a special value in documenting Chinese society.

Kong Yanan 孔亚楠

The novel title

The book title changed from the first translations as “Red Chamber Dreams” to singular “Dream” in 1843 by德明 (А. И. Коваńко / A. I. Kovańko)[ „Traumgesicht auf dem rothen Thurm“, see> 德明 А. И. Коваńко (1808-1870, trans.): „Chun-lou-men (‚Traumgesicht auf dem rothen Thurm‘) oder ‚Geschichte des Steins‘（《石头记》）. Tschen-schi-in erfährt im Traume die Wiederbelebung des Steins; Zja-jui-zun verliebt sich in seiner Armuth in eine schöne Magd.“ , in: Das Ausland, Munich 26 (1843) 198-199, 201-203.] and in 1846 by Robert Thom[ Robert Thom 羅伯聃, “Extract from the Hung-low-mung, chapter VI”, in: Robert Thom, 《正音撮要》 The Chinese speaker. Extracts from works written in the Mandarin language, as spoken at Peking. Compiled for the use of students, by Robert Thom, Esq., H. M. Consul at Ningpo. Part I, Ningpo: Presbyterian Mission Press 1846, pp. 62-89].

Lei Fangyuan 雷方圆

Many scholars have discussed the question if it was more appropriate to call the novel “Story of the Stone” instead of “Dream of the Red Chamber”. Arguments for the latter are that the first printed edition and most of the printed editions afterwards carried this title, so that it reached its fame and was read under this title until today, there was also at least one 120-chapter manuscript copy, the 《乾隆抄本百二十回紅樓夢》Qianlong 120 chapter manuscript; with this title circulating before. However, e.g. the Hawkes/Minford translation and the German Schwarz/Woesler translation use both titles with “also called” in between.

Lei Kuangxi 雷旷溪

Some scholars argue that the German title Traum der Roten Kammer was grammatically and logically not correct in German, but you need more than a grammar teacher’s imagination to find the answer why this title prevailed: A book title, especially a poetic one of a work of literature, does not at all have to be grammatically correct or logical, the title is simply assigned with the first translations and translators and then naturally develops in the cultural field over time.

Li Haiquan 李海泉

Language development exactly works like this: New, seemingly incorrect forms of expressions come into existence, and become correct and a part of language simply because they are used. All translation decisions need to be balanced: They do not have to adhere only to a word-by-word translation, or to logic or grammar, but to what is a common expression or broadly accepted.

Li Lili 李丽丽

There are historical settings which influence these historical decisions, like the existence of the English translation title “Dream of the Red Chamber” at that time. Other reasons are that “Traum der” is simply shorter than “Träume im/vom roten Anwesen”, while the reader will still associate the logically correct meaning behind it. The word “Kammer” at the time when the novel was first published in Chinese was linked to luxurious rooms e.g. in castles, so very much appropriate. And the “red” is a leitmotiv.

Li Lingyue 李凌月

To pay tribute to historical developments of becoming a well-known expression, in the German edition, the mentioning of “rote Kammer” was capitalized into “Rote Kammer” in the new edition, very much alike “Red Chamber” in English at the very beginning of the English translation history.

Li Liqin 李丽琴

80 or 120 chapters

The First European Conference on the Dream of the Red Chamber in Bonn 1992 agreed that the 120 chapter version was the authoritative one because it was simply the version under which the novel reached its fame and is best known among readers. Publishing houses argue that a fragment is harder to sell. Also, the part of Cao Xueqin in the last 40 chapters is not finally enligthened, and I always recommend to stick to the editors claims until falsification, therefore we should at least assume Cao’s authorship of the last 40 chapter titles and maybe even some parts of the text.

Li Luyi 李璐伊

How far other contributors have come close to or deviated from Cao’s original intent for the last 40 chapters may stay object of research. However, they seem to have been successful, because the 120-chapter has prevailed historically, also in its translations, and found the acceptance of the readership.

Deviations from the original

Kuhn, successful and critizised, with his Adapting and Foreignizing, very pleasing but ever-the-same-style translations of so different novels like Shuihuzhuan, Xiyouji and Hongloumeng is history and today one among many translations and more and more readers are able to read the Hongloumeng in other languages like English or even in Chinese.

Li Meng 李梦

Kuhn mentions to have used two specific copies of the original work. There are scholars who doubted that he really used the copies he indicated, because they could not be found. I see no reason to doubt Kuhn’s statement, it is more likely that he used grey editions which are not registered and maybe cannot be found any more.

1st deviation by Minford: The explicit episode about the human-ghostly intercourse, chapter 102

This episode is a black humour one, where Wu Gui’s wife has “a little bit a cold”, takes the wrong medicine and dies.

Li Yongshan 李泳珊

At this passage, it looks like we have the opposite case as in the second example: In the Chinese original the whole sentence “enjoyed her at inordinate length” is missing.

程甲本: 那媳妇子本有些感冒着了，日间吃错了药，晚上吴贵到家，已死在炕上。外面的人因那媳妇子不妥当，便都说妖怪爬过墙吸了精去死的。

程乙本: 那媳妇子本有些感冒着了，日间吃错了药，晚上吴贵到家，已死在炕上。外面的人因那媳妇子不大妥当，便说妖怪爬过墙来吸了精去死的。

Minford: Because of her reputation for promiscuity, other members of the household staff concluded that a spirit must have climbed over the Garden wall, enjoyed her at inordinate length, and finally sucked the sap' out of her.

Li Yu 李玉

The sentence seems to be made up by John Minford. It is the explicit report of a sexual intercourse between a ghost and a woman, which ended, when the ghost sucked the lifeblood out of her. Minford does not only extend this brief report about the death of a woman by adding a sexual intercourse between a human and a non-human, which is inappropriate or abnormal by itself, but stresses the abnormality even by characterizing this intercourse in more detail, as taking “inordinate” long.

Lin Min 林敏

Originally, Cao/Gao had only very briefly reported on Wu Gui’s wife’s death. They mentioned the natural cause of death, that she had taken the wrong medicine. However, since most of the strokes of fate in this novel are explained as to be motivated through moral retaliation, Cao/Gao describe her as “promiscuous”. In the logic of moral retaliation, she earns to die. The ghost then would be the executor. But still he only is described as climbing over the wall and sucking the lifeblood out of her.

Lin Xin 林鑫

Minford adds an action, which leads further than Cao/Gao wrote. This action still is connected to the story, it even drives its authority from Wu Gui’s wife’s promiscuous way of living. The scene might have stimulated the readers’ fantasy, but not necessarily in the direction of Minfords account. Did Minford simply give his fancy full scope? He might also have been encouraged to interpret this scene the way he did because of the parallel scene with the mirror in chapter 12, where Jia Rui also has inordinate often sexual intercourse with the ghost of Xifeng, and gradually loses his lifeblood until he dies on a large patch of semen.

Ling Zijin 凌子瑾

After Minford had altered the original, the original ending of that scene did not fit any more: The action of killing her by sucking the lifeblood out of her comes too abrupt. In one subordinate clause they enjoy their sex and even inappropriately long, and in the next he kills her, which is by itself also outrageous. So Minford had to step into the original text sentence and add the adverb “finally” in order to bring it into a chronological and resultative relation.

Liu Bo 刘博

Kuhn and Schwartz/Woesler have translated this passage without these additions and did not elaborate possible fantasies.

The effect of Minfords addition is, that the episode becomes more interesting, scandalous and sexually explicit.

In order to find out, what made Minford add this information, we should consider not only the original, but also a then existing translation. Minford in his preface thanked Yang Xianyi for his help with his own translation Hawkes/Minford 4:30. When we look at the Yang/Yang translation, we find the adding already there:

Liu Jinxingqi 刘金惺琦

Yang/Yang: Outsiders, knowing her bad reputation, claimed that a monster had climbed over the wall to enjoy her until she died of exhaustion.

This translation in many respects is not so accurate. The couple Yang/Yang uses more general words, leaving out the causal conjunction “because” [she was known for promiscuity]. For 不[大]妥当 (promiscuity) they even use the more general “bad reputation”, and maybe in order to compensate for the lacking sexual connotation in this, they added “to enjoy her”, which we do not find in the Chinese original text.

Liu Liu 刘柳

And they already prepare the way for Minford’s “finally” by adding the “until”. As the whole Yang/Yang translation uses simpler words, 妖怪 is translated as “monster” instead of “ghost”. Since immediately before this episode the garden is described as being the home of ghosts, he latter might have been the better expression. Also the “death of exhaustion” is an interpretation, the Chinese text only reads “sucked the lifeblood out of her”.

Liu Ou 刘欧

So it seems that Minford has decided to keep the deviation of Yang/Yang, which is disloyal to the original and therefore falls under category c. However it may protect the Yang/Yang translation from discovery of its same deviation, since only people fluent in both languages will be able to discover it. Was Minford’s disloyalty to the original and his loyalty to his fellow translators a conspiracy? Or did Minford not directly translate from the Chinese, but simply improve the Yang/Yang translation? Since he uses “spirit” instead of “monster”, he still seems to have been conscious about everything and seems to have consciously decided to keep the Yang/Yang deviation for the mentioned possible reasons.

Liu Yangnuo 刘洋诺

2nd deviation by Minford: The explicit episode on the first attempt of the rape of the nun Miaoyu, chapter 111

In chapter 111, we find another anecdote, where thieves invade Rongguofu and steal chests of treasures. On their way, they discover the appealing nun Miaoyu and start a first attempt to rape her. The exact passage reads in both editions:

程甲本and程乙本: 又欺上屋俱是女人，且又畏惧，正要踹进门去，因听外面有人进来追赶，所以贼众上房。

Liu Yi 刘艺

Yang/Yang: The thieves had known that there were no men in the house. While in Hsi-Chun’s courtyard they had peeped through the window and been inflamed by the sight of a ravishing nun. As there were only terrified women inside, they were about to kick down the door when they heard the night-watch rushing in after them and promptly climbed up the roof.

Minford: After the main part of their mission was accomplished, the thieves, knowing how unprotected the Jia mansion was, had been casually snooping around in Xi-chun's courtyard, and had caught a glimpse there of a very attractive young nun, which had put all sorts of mischievous ideas into their heads.

Liu Yiyu 刘怡瑜

They knew that the apartment was unguarded save by a handful of scared old women, and were about to kick the door in and put an abrupt end to Adamantina's meditations when they heard the sound of footsteps corning from outside and escaped onto the roof-top.

Minford has added a sentence here. We see that the original did not contain this sexually explicit clause, therefore the deviation does not fall under category a. We can also exclude the possibility that Minford used an earlier edition which might have been censored in the more prudish socialist era, since we have the original Cheng-Gao edition from 1791/1792.

Liu Zhiwei 刘智伟

Minford’s extra sentence also does not exist in the translations Yang/Yang, Kuhn, nor in the later Schwartz/Woesler.

In the Chinese original, the emerging sexual tension, stimulating the readers fantasy of a rape, is stopped immediately, when the kicking in of the door already at the beginning of this sentence is relieved by the wording “正要” were just about to…

We can also exclude the category b. here, because it is not possible to read one subordinate clause more into the original.

Lou Cancan 娄灿灿

Might it have been a necessary explanation, which Minford did not want to explain in an annotation and therefore had to integrate into the text? This, we can also exclude, since from the context it is explicitly clear why they wanted to kick in the door.

In order to understand Minford’s intention, we should ask what effect this wilful addition of this sentence has on the reader? First, this sexually arousing scene becomes longer. This gives the reader more time to develop fantasies, what might happen. Minford adds a sentence which expresses exactly these fantasies: When the men enter the room, Miaoyu will stop her meditation.

Luo Weijia 罗维嘉

The shifting of the perspective to the woman adds to the sexual tension. Both, the active men and the so far passive woman are now mentioned and can act in the fantasies of the reader. Even the end of passivity of the woman is associated, when Minford explicitly states that the meditation will end. And he stresses again the brutal aspect of this scene, using the word “abrupt”.

The novel is mostly very implicit and connotative, it uses metaphors like “wind and rain game” for describing sexual intercourse. Having explored the effects, Minford achieved with his deviation, one might guess, that the intention was to make this episode more explicit, to sexually arouse the readers.

Luo Yuqing 罗雨晴

This can be seen as disloyal to the original and its author, and it maybe seen as loyal to the profit of the press and the royalties.

Sequels

Many other authors also were inspired by the author and wrote a sequel to the novel. Soon, the novel was broadly accepted as another novel of the format of “四大奇书 Si da qi shu” and, since times became more strict regarding pornographic literature, replaced the Jin Ping Mei. Already three years after the appearance, the Suoyin-School was founded and speculations began about the author and if the story had a real background. Please refer to the table of sequels in the attachment.

Ma Juan 马娟

Spreading of the novel to Russia

In 1832, a member of the Russian Orthodox Mission in China (俄国驻北京宗教使团学员) brought a manuscript copy of the Story of the Stone back to Russia. It had 35 vols. (currently in the St. Petersburg branch of the Russian Scientific Oriental Institute). Another member of the Mission, А. И. Коваńко, used the pen name 德明 to introduce part of the first chapter to the West.

Reevaluation in Late Qing and status in the Cultural Revolution

Ma Shuya 马淑雅

Wang Guowei improved the status of the novel since 1885, he saw it as one of the most important pieces of Chinese literature, and the discussions of Hu Shi and Yu Pingbo.

During the Cultural Revolution, the Dream of the Red Chamber was forbidden again.

Spreading in Germany

The total number of copies published between 1932 and 1977 is 89335 volumes, the Jin Ping Mei 《金瓶梅》 reached between 1930 and 1977 175000 vols. Der Traum der Roten Kammer rangiert auf Platz 4 der Welt-Bestsellerliste.

References

[Please refer to the full bibliographic references in the footnotes for now.]

Ma Zhixing 马智星

Report

3rd International Dream of the Red Chamber Conference in Europe

Martin Woesler

On November 7-8, 2015, the in¬ter¬national conference “Celebrating Cao Xue¬qin’s 300th anniversary - 3rd International Dream of the Red Chamber Conference Europe” was hosted at Folkwang University of Arts, Essen/Germany and organized by Martin Woesler. The Cao Xueqin Society (Peking) and the European Dream of the Red Chamber Society (Bochum) invited 30 speakers from the USA, Australia, Asia (Hong Kong, Taiwan, Korea), Europe (Germany, Hungary, Norway, Slovakia, Switzerland) and China (from the cities of Peking, Shanghai, Chengdu). Sponsor was the Beijing Cao Xueqin Culture Development Foundation.

Meng Ying 孟莹

In the greetings, Cultural Attaché Chinese Embassy Berlin Chen Ping, Essen Folkwang University of Arts’ chancellor Michael Fricke and Essen mayor Thomas Kufen expressed their gratitude and their feelings of great honor to host this 3rd international conference in Europe on Cao and his novel after the first two conferences in Bonn/Germany 1992 and Olomouc/Czech Republic 2014. Vice Minister Hu Deping, president of the Peking Cao Xueqin Society, said this conference offered the rare opportunity of sharing findings among experts from China and experts from the rest of the world, opening opportunities for further cooperation.

Mo Ling 莫玲

Martin Woesler welcomed the participants in his function as president of the European Dream of the Red Chamber Society. He expressed his satisfaction with the high quality of the contributions submitted from all over the world, including 10 written contributions, a selection of which would be published in the European Journal of Sinology. Duan Jiangli announced that a selection of the Chinese papers will be published in the Cao Xueqin Research.

Mo Nan 莫南

Hu Deping opened the first panel on studies on the author (Caoxue) with a discussion of the banner identity of Cao Xueqin, he stressed the imperial proximity of his even plain white banner and his high social status. Hu sees descriptions of Cao asking to put drinks on his tab as a proof of his trustworthiness due to his steady imperial stipend. Fan Zhibin in his contribution interpreted Cao’s status lower. Hu Deping expressed his skepticism towards the authenticity of any findings of cultural relicts after the 1970s attributed to Cao. But he pointed at the fact, that two places in the Old Summer Palace are called like the Daguan yuan itself (‘Daguan’) or like a place in it.

Nie Xiaolou 聂晓楼

Ellen B. Widmer (Wellesley College) analyzed the characterization of Cao as a dramatic character in the sequel Hou Honglou meng. Zhang Shucai (Peking) explained further the findings on social status of aristocratic families and banner people close to the imperial court, with an analysis of the Han and Manchu heritages. Zhan Song (Peking) also reflected on the ethnic identity, when he introduced Honglou meng-critics among Qing Eight Banner people. Duan Qiming (Peking) approached the family history from Cao Yin’s “Beihong fuji”, showing connections to author and novel.

Ou Rong 欧蓉

Ling Hon Lam (Berkeley) opened the 2nd panel “Studies on the novel” with an analysis of the difference of the reading culture in the novel and its sequels. Since the habit of ‘reading silently’ changed at the beginning of Qing to ‘reading aloud’, the silent reading is prominent in the novel and the out loud reading is prominent in the sequels as well as in the last 40 chapters. Duan Jiangli (Peking) introduced the different handwritten comments in the manuscript versions and stressed the importance of the early Zhi Yanzhai commentary. Zhou Wenye (Peking) presented a tool to compare and analyze the different manuscript versions including comments and the different print versions of the novel.

Ouyang Jinglan 欧阳静兰

Up to three versions can be displayed simultaneously with the differences highlighted. He demonstrated how to prove which kind of relation certain versions had and what suggested that, in certain cases, there must still exist a missing edition. He favored the Cheng B edition over the Cheng A edition, since the corrections were mostly improvements. He also argued that there were many intermediate editions, even between Cheng A and B, since all surplus printed pages were used for later editions. Zhang Hui (Hong Kong) introduced the novel in a different media form, the drama, focusing on one example of a drama adaption.

Ouyang Ling 欧阳玲

Marina Čarnogurská (Slovakia), translator of the Slovakian full translation, argued that the last 40 chapters were authored not by Gao E, but maybe even by Cao Xueqin. General consent among the participants was that Gao might have had a more editorial function and some parts of the last 40 chapters might have been written by Cao.

In the 3rd panel “Interdisci¬plinary/In¬ter¬tex¬¬tual Approaches”, Shang Wei (Columbia University/USA) presented insights into visual culture in Qing dynasty and argued that there was a strong European influence in the Manchu court, which is traceable in the novel and influenced Cao Xueqin.

Peng Dan 彭丹

Kam Louie (Hong Kong) compared the novel with Three Kingdoms in regard to masculinity, homo-sociality and class, arguing how Jia Baoyu’s homo-erotic friendships were perceived differently depending on times and lenses. Louise P. Edwards (Australia) explored an aestheticized masculinity in clothing, dress and decoration as described in the novel. Karl-Heinz Pohl (Trier/Ger¬many) analyzed Buddhist thoughts in the novel with the example of several wisdoms from the “Heart Sutra”, he showed pro¬xi¬mi¬ty between Buddhist and Daoist thoughts. Harro von Senger (Frei¬burg/ Ger¬¬many) compared supraplanning (in China traditionally ‘moulüe’) in the novel and the German family tragedy ‘Nibelun¬gen¬lied’.

Peng Juan 彭娟

Zhu Ping (Peking) introduced the historical background of drama culture at the time of Kangxi, Yongzheng (the time the novel was written), and Qianlong. Kristina Schröder (Zurich/Switzerland) ex¬plained references of early illustrations of the novel with the ‘Romance of the West Chamber’ with the example of Wang Xilian ordering flowers to blossom. Stefan Mess¬mann (Budapest/Hungary) asked from the legal perspective, if the Marxist dream of equality had been achieved. Laura Bing Han (Trier) compared the novel and the ‘Buddenbrooks’ regarding philosophical dua¬lism.

Peng Ruihong 彭锐宏

Panel 4 introduced the novel’s in¬ter¬national dissemination, and here Martin Woesler (Witten/Germany, Rome/Italy) ana¬lyzed the changing reception of the novel by early Western translators and recipients. The novel was instrumentalized (e.g. for language learning) and exoticized. Wu Wei (Oslo/Norway, Heidelberg/Ger¬many) explored the color symbolism of ‘redness’ in novel.

The translations were dealt with in panel 5, Daniela Zhang Cziráková (Slovakia) in-tro¬duced the Czech and Slovak translations of the novel. He Jun (Chengdu) introduced German excerpt translations before Franz Kuhn and Khoo An Ny (Fudan Shanghai) the state of translations in Malaysia.

Peng Xiaoling 彭小玲

General consent of the participants was that the 120 chapter version was the most authoritative one and that the title Dream of the Red Chamber was more common than its alternative title Story of the Stone.

Wei Lingzhi (Peking) introduced results of a 2015 representative survey among Chinese readers about the novel and the author proving its unbroken popularity and high esteem. Regarding translations, the Hawkes/Minford translation was preferred over Yang/Yang.

Peng Yongliang 彭永亮

All participants praised the importance of the recently published full translations in German and other languages and welcomed the opportunity to share their findings especially between Chinese and non-Chinese scholars. The choreographer Shen Fang-yu and the dramaturg Martin Woesler also presented a taping of the Folkwang Dance Studio Performance “REDCHAMBERDREAM”.

For further information please refer to the conference website http://china-studies. com.

World Citizen Lu Xun:

Critical reception of European Culture by Lu Xun with the examples of Nazi cultural politics and of the Nobel Prize

世界公民魯迅：魯迅批判性地接受歐洲文化——以納粹文化政治與諾貝爾獎為例

Martin Woesler 吳漠汀

Witten/Herdecke University 北京師範大學

Peng Yuzhi 彭育志

Abstract

Lu Xun was well aware of global politics in culture, as proven by documents discovered a few years ago. Three days after the book burning in Berlin on May 10, 1933, Lu Xun, as a Member of the Executive Board of the “China League for Civil Rights,” protested the “brutal terror and reaction” of Nazi Germany. Lu Xun took action and submitted an official protest to the German Consulate in Shanghai, which was taken seriously by the Nazi diplomats. He protested the racist suppression of Jewish authors while his own piece of world literature, “A Madman’s Diary” (1918), would have been considered “degenerate art” if published in Germany. In June 1933, he proved his in-depth understanding of Nazi crimes, especially the book-burning, humiliation and deportation of writers, in two essays.

Qi Kai 漆凯

因近年来所新发现的文物资料，鲁迅很深刻的意識到和瞭解了全球文化政治。柏林焚书案（1933年5月10日）发生的第三天，鲁迅做为“中国民权保障同盟”委员会成员，抗议德国纳粹“残忍的恐怖行径”。鲁迅立刻展开行动，向德国驻上海使领馆提出抗议（当时该处已经由德国纳粹接管）。他抗议纳粹对犹太作家的压制，当时他自己的世界文学作品“狂人日记”在德国也被看作是“变态艺术”。1933年6月，他通过2篇杂文，深刻论证了德国纳粹的罪行，特别是焚烧书籍、羞辱和驱逐作家等。

In an earlier incident, when he was asked to accept a nomination for the Nobel Prize of Literature in 1927, he refused, not only out of personal modesty, but also because of global political considerations.

他曾于1927年被提名为诺贝尔文学奖的候选人，但是他拒绝了，不仅是个人的谦逊，也是考量到当时的全球政治环境。

Qu Miao 瞿淼

Both cases show a different side of Lu Xun’s Reception of European Culture: He was not just an admiring, importing, translator of European culture who was influenced by it (as seen in his own life and work). Instead, his reception was more complex and critical; he applied universal moral standards, as defined by civil and human rights, which he referred to.

两个例子展现了鲁迅对于欧洲文化接受的不同面：他不仅是一位令人尊敬、重要的受欧洲文化影响的翻译者（参见他的生平和作品）。另一方面，他对西方文化的接受也是复杂而批判性的；他遵循普世价值观，如他所定义的公民权利和人权。

This makes Lu Xun a world citizen, one who cannot simply be claimed by certain parties or nations.

综上所述，鲁迅是一位世界公民，这不是哪个政党或者民族可以对他简简单单下定论的。