Difference between revisions of "2021 Application Social Sciences Project"
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| − | The Western history after it was accepted also differs much from domestic scholarship on the novel: While in China, the research is endless and every little detail has been explored, in the West only certain ###aspects like “emotion”, “sexuality” … are studied, applying modern research theories on this traditional novel. | + | An important research approach of the project is intercultural communication: |
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| + | In every culture, readers associate the literature they know with new literature they read. So literature is always cumulative, it grows out of existing literature and can refer back to it. When Western readers read the Red Chamber Dreams, they foremost associate novels and other pieces of literature of their own cultural tradition with the Dreams. This has also influenced the first full translation into German. | ||
| + | Cao Xueqin and even more his protagonist Jia Baoyu both are early humanists, universalists and world citizens. The Red Chamber Dreams function worldwide. The Dream is a complex showroom of diverse aspects of Chinese cultures and is the embodiment and essence of Chinese cultures, but it has also a global impact, therefore it should be honoured as “World Documentary Heritage”. | ||
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| + | 本研究项目重要的一个研究方法是跨国文化研究: | ||
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| + | 在每一种文化中,读者都会把他们读到的新文学与已知文学联系起来,所以文学总是积累的,它从现有的文学中生长出来,并以已有文学为参考。西方读者在阅读《红楼梦》时,首先会把《红楼梦》与自身文化传统中的小说和其他文学作品联系起来,这也影响了首次德语全译本。 | ||
| + | 曹雪芹,尤其是他的主人公贾宝玉,都是早期的人文主义者,普世主义者和世界公民。《红楼梦》具有普世价值。《红楼梦》综合展示了中国的多元文化,是中国文化的集中体现和精华,同时在全球范围内产生影响,理应列入世界记忆遗产名录。 | ||
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| + | =_= | ||
| + | The Western history after it was accepted also differs much from domestic scholarship on the novel: While in China, the research is endless and every little detail has been explored, in the West only certain ###aspects like “emotion”, “sexuality” … are studied, applying modern research theories on this traditional novel. | ||
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| + | =Notes= | ||
| + | ==《红楼梦》与其他世界文学作品的相似性—— | ||
| + | 推荐《红楼梦》列入世界记忆遗产名录 | ||
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| + | Commonness between the Red Chamber Dreams | ||
| + | and other World Literature Novels – | ||
| + | Proposing the Red Chamber Dreams to the World Documentary Heritage List== | ||
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| + | 吴漠汀,湖南师范大学 Martin Woesler, Hunan Normal University | ||
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| + | ==Abstract== | ||
| + | In every culture, readers associate the literature they know with new literature they read. So literature is always cumulative, it grows out of existing literature and can refer back to it. When Western readers read the Red Chamber Dreams, they foremost associate novels and other pieces of literature of their own cultural tradition with the Dreams. This has also influenced the first full translation into German. | ||
| + | Cao Xueqin and even more his protagonist Jia Baoyu both are early humanists, universalists and world citizens. The Red Chamber Dreams function worldwide. The Dream is a complex showroom of diverse aspects of Chinese cultures and is the embodiment and essence of Chinese cultures, but it has also a global impact, therefore it should be honoured as “World Documentary Heritage”. | ||
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| + | ==Key words== | ||
| + | Western culture, reception tradition, German translation, Embodiment of Chinese cultures, global compatibility, World Documentary Heritage | ||
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| + | ==摘要== | ||
| + | 在每一种文化中,读者都会把他们读到的新文学与已知文学联系起来,所以文学总是积累的,它从现有的文学中生长出来,并以已有文学为参考。西方读者在阅读《红楼梦》时,首先会把《红楼梦》与自身文化传统中的小说和其他文学作品联系起来,这也影响了首次德语全译本。 | ||
| + | 曹雪芹,尤其是他的主人公贾宝玉,都是早期的人文主义者,普世主义者和世界公民。《红楼梦》具有普世价值。《红楼梦》综合展示了中国的多元文化,是中国文化的集中体现和精华,同时在全球范围内产生影响,理应列入世界记忆遗产名录。 | ||
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| + | ==多元一体== | ||
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| + | 1. Chinese Ethics | ||
| + | To help the poor and disadvantaged belongs to the traditional core values of Chinese culture. | ||
| + | When we sit in the Beijing Subway today, the loudspeaker announcement reminds us, that it is Chinese traditional ethics to give seats to the disadvantaged (老弱病残孕让座是中国传统道德). We know of Cao Xueqin, that he supported the poor and disadvantaged, and that he made kites for children. | ||
| + | However, when we look closer at these “Chinese Ethics”, we discover, that they are claimed also in Indian Buddhism “karuna” and in the Christian tradition of “caritas” and in almost every civilization. Therefore, we might call these values “human ethics”. | ||
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| + | 2. Compatibility | ||
| + | Why do the Red Chamber Dreams function worldwide and have achieved world literature status even in their translations? | ||
| + | First of all, the Red Chamber Dreams are, like novels worldwide, a piece of entertainment literature. In comparison to the drama, in which every element is compulsory and plays its part in the overall structure, in the novel the line of action itself is simpler and not so important, most of the scenes or episodes are loosely put together and fit in the broader theme of the novel. However, the lose arrangement of episodes of the Dreams comes from the tradition of almost unconnected episodes like in the Shuihuzhuan and is a step towards the greater coherence of the episodes, the aligning into a story line and the greater concentration on fewer protagonists. Therefore, the Dreams show clearly a step towards the Western tradition of novels, maybe because of growing Western influence in Qing dynasty. | ||
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| + | 3. Impact of translator’s native culture on the translation process | ||
| + | There are intercultural parallels between the Red Chamber Dreams and Western works of literature. These parallels are fundamental for the translation and were explicitly and implicitly fundamental for the German translator Martin Woesler during his translation and editorial work on the first full German translation. In the following, I will mention some of the Western novels and pieces of literature, which the Western reader of the Dreams will immediately think of. | ||
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| + | 4. The novel as embodiment of “Zeitgeist” | ||
| + | According to Georg Lukács’ Theory of the Novel, while the Epos (like Homer’s Ilias, which like the Dream reasons the stories in the divine realm) displayed a holistic world experience, a complete, self-contained culture, the novel displays, that the modern world has become infinitely large and has lost its homely quality. The novel as a genre is no longer documenting just one culture, but represents, with the words of Walter Benjamin, the Organon of History. So the understanding of the novel changed with Lukacs to historical-philosophically. A novel is understood as typical for its historical era, the novel embodies the spirit of the epoch (Zeitgeist). | ||
| + | The Red Chamber Dreams are written in front of the background of the Manchu minority having taken over the power in formerly Han-shaped Ming-China (which was a multi-ethnic and crosscultural society) and families suffering the changing favor of changing emperors, with the Cao family being fostered by Kangxi and being persecuted by Yongzheng. While the author in his time could not criticize the system and power of emperors, in the novel he came to terms with this life by seeking the guilt for the persecution in the growing decadence of the family (engaging in Daoism, leisure, poetry-writing, arts and music instead of learning for being able to earn a living) and in himself not fulfilling the expectations as the family heir. This description of decadence of a declining family reminds us of the novels of Tschechov (and e.g. in the Buddenbrooks by Mann, including the turn to arts and music). Moreover, with the detailed description of life on all social levels in early Qing Dynasty, the Dream appears as a documentary historical novel very much like Günter Grass’ The Tin Drum 1959. | ||
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| + | 5. Coming-of-age and Alienation | ||
| + | Abandoning the paradise-like garden in the Red Chamber Dreams is a symbol for leaving the protected childhood and arriving in the complex world of adults. With George Lukács theory of the novel, the protagonist starts to problematize the sense of his life, in the novel, the protagonist’s self permanently struggles with his environment. However, Cao Xueqin’s message is not simply the one of “Paradise Lost”, instead he himself made the best out of his life. Although being less wealthy than when his family still enjoyed the favour of the emperor, there was a payroll system and a social net intact in Early Qing China, where he received enough income to be independent from his rich relatives, to be selective on accepting jobs, to live a relaxed life in a small house in the nature, spending time with his family and friends, follow his own interests, like reading, writing and drinking wine, making kites for the children and thinking of the disadvantaged. | ||
| + | Cao Xueqin was fully aware of his time and China’s cultural achievements, he was familiar with the different levels of society, he was a detailed observer and skilful narrator. He may have conceptualized the ending of the novel as a discussion about the different personalities of the characters in the novel and therefore displaying his reflection about life and his psychological understanding of the diversity of human nature. He was able to grasp the “spirit of time” (Zeitgeist) and with his autobiographical experience create an eternal coming-of-age novel not just for his family, for the Qing-Chinese, for Chinese people, but for mankind. | ||
| + | This tradition of Coming-of-age novels is also a European one, like enlightenment philosopher Voltaire’s novel Candide or Optimism《老实人》shows at the very same time (1759) in Europe. Also Voltaire’s Candide has to leave the luxurious paradise of his childhood and strives for true love, but his main learning is more pessimistic, since Voltaire wrote the novel in opposition to Leibniz, who optimistically looked to China as “the best of all worlds”. Recent research findings show that China had a much larger influence on European enlightenment philosophers and we can be sure, that also Cao Xueqin was aware of some European literary traditions. | ||
| + | Also the German readership is familiar with the chronological following of the life of the protagonist and his development, the fate of a family over generations, the German readership knows this type of novel as the “Education novel” or “Coming-of-age-novel”. In Germany, the genre of the coming-of-age novel has a long tradition and it is shaped more by single characters, who appear as teachers (Goethe: Wilhelm Meister’s Apprenticeship威廉•麦斯特的学徒岁月 1795-96, Novalis 诺瓦利斯: Heinrich von Ofterdingen《海因利•封•歐福特丁根》1802). Wilhelm Meister, parallely to Jia Baoyu, is struggling with the traditional education, in Wilhelm Meister this is represented with the classics revived in Shakespeare’s dramas. Tradition can give orientation, but the personality of the protagonist needs to develop through emancipation is a wisdom, we can learn from all mentioned novels including the Dreams. | ||
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| + | 6. Pornography and True Love, female rivals | ||
| + | Sexuality is a basic human need and has developed into different shapes in all cultures. The German audience is familiar with erotic topics from the Middle Ages, in which sexuality was stylized. In the “Schwänke” of the 15th century (Wittenwielers Ring), erotic scenes are described sexually explicit. In the barock literature of the 17th century even the physical act is described extensively. | ||
| + | According to „cumulativity“, every human being is a product of history and literature is based on previous literature, therefore the author of this pager thinks that this background has to be taken into account while translating. | ||
| + | The best study on qing passion in the Dreams is the one by Anthony Yu, who understood it as desire and as the central motif of the Dreams. „The centrality of qing in shaping virtually every aspect of The Story of the Stone’s structure and meaning cannot be denied [...].“ (Anthony Yu 2001, 54). | ||
| + | In the framework story of the Dreams, the narrator consciously takes a stand against low-action and stereotypical pornographic literature as well as against the widespread romance novels (with the classic roles of the beautiful, talented woman and the poor scholar who finally achieves a respected position and prosperity by passing a civil service exam). | ||
| + | In chapter 1 he says: ”of the true feelings of young people [...] nobody has reported about so far.” | ||
| + | Erotic scenes are described in a decent and associative way (“Game of clouds and rain”), while displaying another quality in its openness e.g. towards bisexuality. | ||
| + | The Dreams narrate the story of unfortunate lovers. Unfortunate lovers also in the West have a literary tradition, they constitute an archetype, such as Hero and Leander, Pyramus and Thisbe, Tristan and Isolde, Flore and Blanscheflur as well as Troilus and Cressida, the latter being considered the model for Arthur Brookes, who wrote Romeo and Juliet in 1562 and thus directly influenced Shakespeare. | ||
| + | While Marián Galik saw as the central topic of both, the Dream and Faust, the eternal feminine, which draws us on high, Gu Cheng called it the “eternal virgine”. | ||
| + | In Goethe’s coming-of-age novel Wilhelm Meisters Wanderjahre, we find a similar motif of female rivals, in the Keller 凯勒The Green Henry 《绿衣亨利》1855, the hero turns away from an emphatically sexually designed figure and turns to the 'real' woman. In Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice 1813 Elizabeth and Lin Daiyu are similar, e.g. they both strive for real love (Zhuang 2011). | ||
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| + | 7. Feudal society and slavery | ||
| + | A widespread interpretation is that Jia Baoyu’s equal treatment of family members and slaves would be a manifesto to free the slaves. I also do not share this interpretation, since Aristotle, when he demanded democracy, would exclude slaves from the right to vote. So we cannot use modern concepts to judge on the past. In my understanding, Jia Baoyu was not fighting inequality, but looked at the people as humans and individuals. Also the understanding of the servants as slaves does not match the description in the Dream, since some servants had servants themselves, the family took care after they left the Jia family to find a match for them and Jia Zheng refers to his daughter Yingchun as „yatou 丫头“, so it is inappropriate to translate this expression with slave. Therefore, the translator preferred “servant” over “slave” in the translation. | ||
| + | Mo Yan in his speech at the Frankfurt Bookfair in 2009, when China was the guest of honor, draws the (similarly) parallel between the Dream and Goethe’s Sorrows of the Young Werther, that both expressed the wish to abandon feudal society. My own impression is that both do not express this wish, but that this is a later concept and interpretation and we should not apply this to judge the past. | ||
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| + | 8. Tragedy of all tragedies | ||
| + | Aristotle explained in On the Tragedy (Poetics VI), that tragedies move people more than comedies because they “imitate [mimēsis] an action that is serious, complete, and of a certain magnitude” (Aristotle 1971, 51), This high esteem of the tragedy in Europe is partly ascribed to the loss of Aristotle’s work On the Comedy. While Europe has the Hamlet as its tragedy of all tragedies, the lack of tragic literature in Chinese literary tradition has long been lamented. Wang Guowei sees the Dream as "tragedy of all tragedies". To Wang Guowei the suffering of Faust and Jia Baoyu is central in the novels. However, many scholars contest that Faustianism is central for Chinese culture. | ||
| + | In 18th century Europe, we saw a new development in the genre of the drama, to establish a “bourgeois tragedy”. It developed as an emancipatory movement in the 18th century in London, Paris and Germany, and demonstrated that tragedy was not reserved to rulers, but was also imagineable for lower noblemen and ordinary citizens. The Dream at the same time as the bourgeois tragedy in Europe shows a tragic story of a mid-level noble family which loses its titles and privileges. | ||
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| + | 9. “Non-Binary” Novels | ||
| + | One of the things attracting Western readers is the adorable but mysterious protagonist Jia Baoyu. With his open bisexual orientation and his interest in his mates regardless of their social status, he appears “modern” or at least displaced in time. His struggle with traditional learning makes him appear sympathetic, his long states of rapture out of the world give him both the aura of a timeless character and of mystery. | ||
| + | With the bisexual orientation of the Dreams’ protagonist, the novel appears non-binary. | ||
| + | According to Karl-Heinz Pohl, binaries are just superficial, ultimately decisive is the Heart Sutra. Today, the novel is listed among the genre of non-binary literature (see e.g. the bibliographical list on https://www.goodreads.com/list/tag/non-binary), in which contrasts are dissolved deconstructivistically. | ||
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| + | 10. Foreign Cultures in the Red Chamber Dreams | ||
| + | Foreign Cultures frequently appear in the Dreams in all kinds of varieties, like exoticism with the many objects in the household and presented to the household as novelties, especially the blond girl of the same age as Baoyu referred to in person (combining different origins and cultures, including European, Japanese, Chinese) or several times on paintings, one time shown with wings as an angel. The playful combination of different traditions we can see also when a religious dress is described, which carries characteristics of different religions. Similarly, the Daoist monk and the Confucian priest appear together. Cao Xueqin wanted to show the richness and diversity, also with the many topics and societal levels of the novel. Even a variety of Christian motifs can be found, like when Jia Baoyu is not recognized by his father in chapter 120 and when he disappears, all parallel to Jesus Christ. | ||
| + | The variety of cultures is paralleled with the variety of elements of different dynasties, which makes it timeless and therefore even more a masterpiece of Chinese art and a masterpiece of human art. Therefore I would like to nominate the Red Chamber Dreams as “World Documentary Heritage”. | ||
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| + | ==References== | ||
| + | Anthony, C. Yu. (2001). Rereading the Stone: Desire and the Making of Fiction in Dream of the Red Chamber. Princeton University Press. | ||
| + | Aristotle. (1971). Poetics. Trans. S. H. Butcher. Ed. Hazard Adams. Critical Theory since Plato. ew York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 48-66. | ||
| + | Woesler, Martin, ed., Cao Xueqin, Gao E et al. (2016). Der Traum der Roten Kammer oder Die Geschichte vom Stein [Red Chamber Dreams or The Story of the Stone], Peking: Foreign Languages Press, ISBN 9787119094120, 4813 pages, 6 vols., hardcover, transl. by Rainer Schwarz and Martin Woesler; Chinese-German bilingual edition | ||
| + | Woesler, Martin. (2011). “Being Explicit About the Implicit – John Minford’s Translation of the last Forty Chapters of The Story of the Stone with a Field Study on two Sexually Arousing Scenes”. Hong lou meng xue kan 6: 274-289 | ||
| + | Woesler, Martin. (2010). “ ’To Amuse the Beaux and Belles’ The Early Western Reception of the Hongloumeng”. Journal of Sino-Western Communications 2 (2010.12) 2:81-107 | ||
| + | Zhuang, Xiuhua. (2011). Self, Ideal and Salvation: A Comparative Study of Jane Austen’s Elizabeth and Cao Xueqin’s Lin Daiyu. Journal of Language Teaching and Research, Vol. 2, No. 2, pp. 420-423, March 2011. Fulltext: http://www.academypublication.com/issues/past/jltr/vol02/02/19.pdf. | ||
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This research project is a pioneer study, since there is no overview on overseas’ research on the Red Chamber Dreams so far, neither overseas nor in China. Recently, translations of the novel are studied in China (translation strategies, mistakes etc.), with not so much success, because to judge on translations, a closer cooperation of the Chinese scholars with colleagues from the target language cultures is necessary. This project provides one of the “missing links” between the domestic Hongxue and the upcoming domestic Hongloumeng translation studies. It provides the socio-historical background (attitudes, expectations etc.) to the translators and the audience explains their approaches and translation theories. | This research project is a pioneer study, since there is no overview on overseas’ research on the Red Chamber Dreams so far, neither overseas nor in China. Recently, translations of the novel are studied in China (translation strategies, mistakes etc.), with not so much success, because to judge on translations, a closer cooperation of the Chinese scholars with colleagues from the target language cultures is necessary. This project provides one of the “missing links” between the domestic Hongxue and the upcoming domestic Hongloumeng translation studies. It provides the socio-historical background (attitudes, expectations etc.) to the translators and the audience explains their approaches and translation theories. | ||
Revision as of 13:03, 22 February 2021
国家社科基金重大项目选题推荐表
Empfehlungsformular für Großprojekte des Nationalfonds für Sozialwissenschaften
选题名称
Titel des gewählten Themas
《红楼梦》海外学术史研究
涉及学科
Abgedeckte Themen
文学、文化、历史
填写主要的一级学科,不得超过3个。
Füllen Sie die wichtigsten Primärdisziplinen aus, nicht mehr als drei.
1.选题的学术依据和提出背景。
1. die wissenschaftliche Grundlage des gewählten Themas und den Hintergrund des vorgeschlagenen Themas.
2.选题的国内外研究状况及选题价值。
2. den Stand der nationalen und internationalen Forschung zu dem gewählten Thema und den Wert des gewählten Themas.
3.选题的研究内容、总体框架、基本思路和研究目标。(3000字左右)
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《红楼梦》海外学术史研究
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The Red Chamber Dreams is an example of a product of traditional Chinese culture which has successfully been distributed worldwide and has been awarded its place in world literature. The history of the overseas research on the Red Chamber Dreams shows, that it went a stony path until it was acclaimed as a Chinese masterpiece of world literature. This project wants to document this process as a model for other pieces of traditional Chinese art, how to be exported successfully overseas and for Chinese ideas, values, inventions in general to go abroad successfully.
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The research project uses a socio-historical approach, describing the changing attitude (from ethnocentric to dialogical) of Western scholars, translators, critiques and points out the role the availability of the novel in translation played. During times when the novel was not yet available in English, misunderstandings of the novel were frequent and were passed down in reception history. The research project applies Bourdieu’s theory of the cultural field, identifies agents in the 200 years from the early 19th century until today and describes how the cultural capital was accumulated. These agents were not just sinologists like Herbert Allen Giles 翟理思 in 1900, but, especially at the beginning, missionaries and Chinese teachers like Robert Morrison 马礼逊 (esp. 1815), British delegation members to China like John Barrow (1792-1794) and John Francis Davis (1816), the journal Quarterly Review 《评论季刊》 in London and the book Lao-seng-eul 《老生儿》 in France, which already in 1819 published the first English and French excerpt translations, reviewers, British authors like Oliver Goldsmith 奥利弗•史密斯 with his book 《奥利弗•史密斯的各项工程》 in 1837.
Great Britain sent an embassy to the Qing court in 1792-1794, with Ambassador George Macartney, Secretary George Leonard Staunton, and comptroller John Barrow . The embassy was not successful, partly because Macartnay refused to kowtow. From the accounts of Staunton and the various reports of Barrow we know that the delegation extensively documented Chinese language and literature. As far as we know, Barrow also became the first to publish extracts of Red Chambers Dreams in Western translation.
1791年清朝的军队在西藏打败了尼泊尔的入侵者。1792年至1794年,英国向清廷派出了由大使乔治•马戛尔尼(George Macartney)、大臣乔治•伦纳德•士丹顿(George Leonard Staunton)以及主审计长约翰•巴罗(John Barrow)组成的使团。 这个使团并没有完成它的使命。部分是由于他们不肯向清廷下跪。从士丹顿记载和各种报告中,我们可以知道:代表团广泛地记载汉语言文学。据我们所知,巴罗也成为第一个在西方翻译出版的《红楼梦》节译本之人。
Great Britain sent a second embassy to China in 1816 with Ambassador William Amherst, accompanied by 21-year-old John Francis Davis, who was author of the East India Company’s factory in Canton since 3 years. It failed like the first. However, Barrow and J. Davis learned the language and collected and translated a lot of Chinese literature. J. Davis translated extracts of the novel under the title Red Chamber Dreams and sent them to his predecessor Barrow, who now worked for the Quarterly Review, and to the French translator Antoine-André Bruguière, who at that time published a French translation of J. Davis’ English translation, An Heir in His Old Age. Both published the extracts simultaneously, in 1819, in Barrow in English and Bruguière in French.
英国在1816年第二派出了以威廉•阿默斯特(William Amherst)为大使的使团,并由21岁的约翰•弗朗西斯•戴维斯(John Francis Davis) 陪同,他三年前开始担任东印度公司在广州工厂的创始人。他们像上次使团一样失败了。但是,巴罗(Barrow)和约翰•戴维斯学到的语言,并收集和翻译了不少汉语文学作品。约翰•戴维斯翻译了一部分标题为Red Chamber Dreams小说的节选, 并将之送给他的前任——当时正在为《评论季刊》 工作的巴罗和法国法语翻译家安托万•安德烈•布鲁盖尔(Antoine-André Bruguière)——当时他正在将约翰•戴维斯的《老生儿》英译本转译成法译本。这两种语言的节译本几乎同时在1819出版——巴罗的英文版和布鲁盖尔的法文版。
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The end of the 18th to the beginning of the 20th century saw an encounter between two high civilizations, the Chinese and the Western. The innumerable discourses of the time reveal that the mutual curiosity of both sides was immense and comparable. The larger impact of European literature is documented by the larger number of translations into Chinese compared to translations from Chinese into Western languages.
18世纪末到20世纪初,世界见证了两大高度发展文明的碰撞——中华文明和西方文明。那个时期不计其数的文献透露出这样一种信息:两大文明间的好奇是巨大而可比的。而中西文献的译介比较则表明:欧洲文学对中国的影响大于中国文学对欧洲之影响。
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Dream was among the first representative literary works to be introduced to Western readers. The research project examines early Western reception and critique at a time when there was no full translation available. It sees a polarization between supporters and opponents of Dream. The discourse on Dream was used as a means to interpret Chinese literature or even Chinese culture as a whole. At the beginning of the discourse, a few opinion leaders in both civilizations shaped the key judgment that the other literary culture was inferior to their own. Despite cultural differences, the need for change in Chinese society and the attractiveness of the “modernity” of Western culture lead to a modernization of Chinese society.
《红楼梦》几乎是第一部进入西方读者眼帘的具有代表性的文学作品。本研究项目探讨的是早期西方对《红楼梦》的接受和在尚不存在完整译本时对《红楼梦》的批评。对于《红楼梦》,支持和反对似乎存各执一端。而对于《红楼梦》的讨论常常被认为是对中国文学,甚至是整个中国文化的解释。讨论之初,双方论争的领袖都形成了这样一种核心判断:其他的文学文化都比自己的文学文化低等。尽管文化存在差异,但中国社会内在改革的需要和西方文化的‘现代性’促进了中国社会现代改革的进程。.
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It took half a century to get to know each other better, to change attitudes from ethnocentric to dialectical, to stop exploiting the novel and to come to the insight that Chinese literature with Dream as one of its masterpieces was not only comparable to other world literatures but also could bring value to Western readers (Mayers 1867).
经过半个世纪,双方增进了解,并从“民族中心主义”的优越感向辩证思想转变,停止利用小说互相攻击,开始深入了解中国文学,不仅将《红楼梦》这类杰作与其他世界文学相比较,而且,更重要的是将价值观带给西方读者(梅辉立(Mayers) 1867年)。
This project concentrates on the phase between the early reception of Dream in the West since 1815, the first full translation, which appeared in 1929 and until today.
本研究项目关注于自1815年《红楼梦》在西方的早期认同到1929年第一版完整译本的出现和到今天。
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An important research approach of the project is intercultural communication:
In every culture, readers associate the literature they know with new literature they read. So literature is always cumulative, it grows out of existing literature and can refer back to it. When Western readers read the Red Chamber Dreams, they foremost associate novels and other pieces of literature of their own cultural tradition with the Dreams. This has also influenced the first full translation into German. Cao Xueqin and even more his protagonist Jia Baoyu both are early humanists, universalists and world citizens. The Red Chamber Dreams function worldwide. The Dream is a complex showroom of diverse aspects of Chinese cultures and is the embodiment and essence of Chinese cultures, but it has also a global impact, therefore it should be honoured as “World Documentary Heritage”.
本研究项目重要的一个研究方法是跨国文化研究:
在每一种文化中,读者都会把他们读到的新文学与已知文学联系起来,所以文学总是积累的,它从现有的文学中生长出来,并以已有文学为参考。西方读者在阅读《红楼梦》时,首先会把《红楼梦》与自身文化传统中的小说和其他文学作品联系起来,这也影响了首次德语全译本。 曹雪芹,尤其是他的主人公贾宝玉,都是早期的人文主义者,普世主义者和世界公民。《红楼梦》具有普世价值。《红楼梦》综合展示了中国的多元文化,是中国文化的集中体现和精华,同时在全球范围内产生影响,理应列入世界记忆遗产名录。
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The Western history after it was accepted also differs much from domestic scholarship on the novel: While in China, the research is endless and every little detail has been explored, in the West only certain ###aspects like “emotion”, “sexuality” … are studied, applying modern research theories on this traditional novel.
Notes
==《红楼梦》与其他世界文学作品的相似性—— 推荐《红楼梦》列入世界记忆遗产名录
Commonness between the Red Chamber Dreams and other World Literature Novels – Proposing the Red Chamber Dreams to the World Documentary Heritage List==
吴漠汀,湖南师范大学 Martin Woesler, Hunan Normal University
Abstract
In every culture, readers associate the literature they know with new literature they read. So literature is always cumulative, it grows out of existing literature and can refer back to it. When Western readers read the Red Chamber Dreams, they foremost associate novels and other pieces of literature of their own cultural tradition with the Dreams. This has also influenced the first full translation into German. Cao Xueqin and even more his protagonist Jia Baoyu both are early humanists, universalists and world citizens. The Red Chamber Dreams function worldwide. The Dream is a complex showroom of diverse aspects of Chinese cultures and is the embodiment and essence of Chinese cultures, but it has also a global impact, therefore it should be honoured as “World Documentary Heritage”.
Key words
Western culture, reception tradition, German translation, Embodiment of Chinese cultures, global compatibility, World Documentary Heritage
摘要
在每一种文化中,读者都会把他们读到的新文学与已知文学联系起来,所以文学总是积累的,它从现有的文学中生长出来,并以已有文学为参考。西方读者在阅读《红楼梦》时,首先会把《红楼梦》与自身文化传统中的小说和其他文学作品联系起来,这也影响了首次德语全译本。 曹雪芹,尤其是他的主人公贾宝玉,都是早期的人文主义者,普世主义者和世界公民。《红楼梦》具有普世价值。《红楼梦》综合展示了中国的多元文化,是中国文化的集中体现和精华,同时在全球范围内产生影响,理应列入世界记忆遗产名录。
多元一体
1. Chinese Ethics To help the poor and disadvantaged belongs to the traditional core values of Chinese culture. When we sit in the Beijing Subway today, the loudspeaker announcement reminds us, that it is Chinese traditional ethics to give seats to the disadvantaged (老弱病残孕让座是中国传统道德). We know of Cao Xueqin, that he supported the poor and disadvantaged, and that he made kites for children. However, when we look closer at these “Chinese Ethics”, we discover, that they are claimed also in Indian Buddhism “karuna” and in the Christian tradition of “caritas” and in almost every civilization. Therefore, we might call these values “human ethics”.
2. Compatibility Why do the Red Chamber Dreams function worldwide and have achieved world literature status even in their translations? First of all, the Red Chamber Dreams are, like novels worldwide, a piece of entertainment literature. In comparison to the drama, in which every element is compulsory and plays its part in the overall structure, in the novel the line of action itself is simpler and not so important, most of the scenes or episodes are loosely put together and fit in the broader theme of the novel. However, the lose arrangement of episodes of the Dreams comes from the tradition of almost unconnected episodes like in the Shuihuzhuan and is a step towards the greater coherence of the episodes, the aligning into a story line and the greater concentration on fewer protagonists. Therefore, the Dreams show clearly a step towards the Western tradition of novels, maybe because of growing Western influence in Qing dynasty.
3. Impact of translator’s native culture on the translation process There are intercultural parallels between the Red Chamber Dreams and Western works of literature. These parallels are fundamental for the translation and were explicitly and implicitly fundamental for the German translator Martin Woesler during his translation and editorial work on the first full German translation. In the following, I will mention some of the Western novels and pieces of literature, which the Western reader of the Dreams will immediately think of.
4. The novel as embodiment of “Zeitgeist” According to Georg Lukács’ Theory of the Novel, while the Epos (like Homer’s Ilias, which like the Dream reasons the stories in the divine realm) displayed a holistic world experience, a complete, self-contained culture, the novel displays, that the modern world has become infinitely large and has lost its homely quality. The novel as a genre is no longer documenting just one culture, but represents, with the words of Walter Benjamin, the Organon of History. So the understanding of the novel changed with Lukacs to historical-philosophically. A novel is understood as typical for its historical era, the novel embodies the spirit of the epoch (Zeitgeist). The Red Chamber Dreams are written in front of the background of the Manchu minority having taken over the power in formerly Han-shaped Ming-China (which was a multi-ethnic and crosscultural society) and families suffering the changing favor of changing emperors, with the Cao family being fostered by Kangxi and being persecuted by Yongzheng. While the author in his time could not criticize the system and power of emperors, in the novel he came to terms with this life by seeking the guilt for the persecution in the growing decadence of the family (engaging in Daoism, leisure, poetry-writing, arts and music instead of learning for being able to earn a living) and in himself not fulfilling the expectations as the family heir. This description of decadence of a declining family reminds us of the novels of Tschechov (and e.g. in the Buddenbrooks by Mann, including the turn to arts and music). Moreover, with the detailed description of life on all social levels in early Qing Dynasty, the Dream appears as a documentary historical novel very much like Günter Grass’ The Tin Drum 1959.
5. Coming-of-age and Alienation Abandoning the paradise-like garden in the Red Chamber Dreams is a symbol for leaving the protected childhood and arriving in the complex world of adults. With George Lukács theory of the novel, the protagonist starts to problematize the sense of his life, in the novel, the protagonist’s self permanently struggles with his environment. However, Cao Xueqin’s message is not simply the one of “Paradise Lost”, instead he himself made the best out of his life. Although being less wealthy than when his family still enjoyed the favour of the emperor, there was a payroll system and a social net intact in Early Qing China, where he received enough income to be independent from his rich relatives, to be selective on accepting jobs, to live a relaxed life in a small house in the nature, spending time with his family and friends, follow his own interests, like reading, writing and drinking wine, making kites for the children and thinking of the disadvantaged. Cao Xueqin was fully aware of his time and China’s cultural achievements, he was familiar with the different levels of society, he was a detailed observer and skilful narrator. He may have conceptualized the ending of the novel as a discussion about the different personalities of the characters in the novel and therefore displaying his reflection about life and his psychological understanding of the diversity of human nature. He was able to grasp the “spirit of time” (Zeitgeist) and with his autobiographical experience create an eternal coming-of-age novel not just for his family, for the Qing-Chinese, for Chinese people, but for mankind. This tradition of Coming-of-age novels is also a European one, like enlightenment philosopher Voltaire’s novel Candide or Optimism《老实人》shows at the very same time (1759) in Europe. Also Voltaire’s Candide has to leave the luxurious paradise of his childhood and strives for true love, but his main learning is more pessimistic, since Voltaire wrote the novel in opposition to Leibniz, who optimistically looked to China as “the best of all worlds”. Recent research findings show that China had a much larger influence on European enlightenment philosophers and we can be sure, that also Cao Xueqin was aware of some European literary traditions. Also the German readership is familiar with the chronological following of the life of the protagonist and his development, the fate of a family over generations, the German readership knows this type of novel as the “Education novel” or “Coming-of-age-novel”. In Germany, the genre of the coming-of-age novel has a long tradition and it is shaped more by single characters, who appear as teachers (Goethe: Wilhelm Meister’s Apprenticeship威廉•麦斯特的学徒岁月 1795-96, Novalis 诺瓦利斯: Heinrich von Ofterdingen《海因利•封•歐福特丁根》1802). Wilhelm Meister, parallely to Jia Baoyu, is struggling with the traditional education, in Wilhelm Meister this is represented with the classics revived in Shakespeare’s dramas. Tradition can give orientation, but the personality of the protagonist needs to develop through emancipation is a wisdom, we can learn from all mentioned novels including the Dreams.
6. Pornography and True Love, female rivals Sexuality is a basic human need and has developed into different shapes in all cultures. The German audience is familiar with erotic topics from the Middle Ages, in which sexuality was stylized. In the “Schwänke” of the 15th century (Wittenwielers Ring), erotic scenes are described sexually explicit. In the barock literature of the 17th century even the physical act is described extensively. According to „cumulativity“, every human being is a product of history and literature is based on previous literature, therefore the author of this pager thinks that this background has to be taken into account while translating. The best study on qing passion in the Dreams is the one by Anthony Yu, who understood it as desire and as the central motif of the Dreams. „The centrality of qing in shaping virtually every aspect of The Story of the Stone’s structure and meaning cannot be denied [...].“ (Anthony Yu 2001, 54). In the framework story of the Dreams, the narrator consciously takes a stand against low-action and stereotypical pornographic literature as well as against the widespread romance novels (with the classic roles of the beautiful, talented woman and the poor scholar who finally achieves a respected position and prosperity by passing a civil service exam). In chapter 1 he says: ”of the true feelings of young people [...] nobody has reported about so far.” Erotic scenes are described in a decent and associative way (“Game of clouds and rain”), while displaying another quality in its openness e.g. towards bisexuality. The Dreams narrate the story of unfortunate lovers. Unfortunate lovers also in the West have a literary tradition, they constitute an archetype, such as Hero and Leander, Pyramus and Thisbe, Tristan and Isolde, Flore and Blanscheflur as well as Troilus and Cressida, the latter being considered the model for Arthur Brookes, who wrote Romeo and Juliet in 1562 and thus directly influenced Shakespeare. While Marián Galik saw as the central topic of both, the Dream and Faust, the eternal feminine, which draws us on high, Gu Cheng called it the “eternal virgine”. In Goethe’s coming-of-age novel Wilhelm Meisters Wanderjahre, we find a similar motif of female rivals, in the Keller 凯勒The Green Henry 《绿衣亨利》1855, the hero turns away from an emphatically sexually designed figure and turns to the 'real' woman. In Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice 1813 Elizabeth and Lin Daiyu are similar, e.g. they both strive for real love (Zhuang 2011).
7. Feudal society and slavery A widespread interpretation is that Jia Baoyu’s equal treatment of family members and slaves would be a manifesto to free the slaves. I also do not share this interpretation, since Aristotle, when he demanded democracy, would exclude slaves from the right to vote. So we cannot use modern concepts to judge on the past. In my understanding, Jia Baoyu was not fighting inequality, but looked at the people as humans and individuals. Also the understanding of the servants as slaves does not match the description in the Dream, since some servants had servants themselves, the family took care after they left the Jia family to find a match for them and Jia Zheng refers to his daughter Yingchun as „yatou 丫头“, so it is inappropriate to translate this expression with slave. Therefore, the translator preferred “servant” over “slave” in the translation. Mo Yan in his speech at the Frankfurt Bookfair in 2009, when China was the guest of honor, draws the (similarly) parallel between the Dream and Goethe’s Sorrows of the Young Werther, that both expressed the wish to abandon feudal society. My own impression is that both do not express this wish, but that this is a later concept and interpretation and we should not apply this to judge the past.
8. Tragedy of all tragedies Aristotle explained in On the Tragedy (Poetics VI), that tragedies move people more than comedies because they “imitate [mimēsis] an action that is serious, complete, and of a certain magnitude” (Aristotle 1971, 51), This high esteem of the tragedy in Europe is partly ascribed to the loss of Aristotle’s work On the Comedy. While Europe has the Hamlet as its tragedy of all tragedies, the lack of tragic literature in Chinese literary tradition has long been lamented. Wang Guowei sees the Dream as "tragedy of all tragedies". To Wang Guowei the suffering of Faust and Jia Baoyu is central in the novels. However, many scholars contest that Faustianism is central for Chinese culture. In 18th century Europe, we saw a new development in the genre of the drama, to establish a “bourgeois tragedy”. It developed as an emancipatory movement in the 18th century in London, Paris and Germany, and demonstrated that tragedy was not reserved to rulers, but was also imagineable for lower noblemen and ordinary citizens. The Dream at the same time as the bourgeois tragedy in Europe shows a tragic story of a mid-level noble family which loses its titles and privileges.
9. “Non-Binary” Novels One of the things attracting Western readers is the adorable but mysterious protagonist Jia Baoyu. With his open bisexual orientation and his interest in his mates regardless of their social status, he appears “modern” or at least displaced in time. His struggle with traditional learning makes him appear sympathetic, his long states of rapture out of the world give him both the aura of a timeless character and of mystery. With the bisexual orientation of the Dreams’ protagonist, the novel appears non-binary. According to Karl-Heinz Pohl, binaries are just superficial, ultimately decisive is the Heart Sutra. Today, the novel is listed among the genre of non-binary literature (see e.g. the bibliographical list on https://www.goodreads.com/list/tag/non-binary), in which contrasts are dissolved deconstructivistically.
10. Foreign Cultures in the Red Chamber Dreams Foreign Cultures frequently appear in the Dreams in all kinds of varieties, like exoticism with the many objects in the household and presented to the household as novelties, especially the blond girl of the same age as Baoyu referred to in person (combining different origins and cultures, including European, Japanese, Chinese) or several times on paintings, one time shown with wings as an angel. The playful combination of different traditions we can see also when a religious dress is described, which carries characteristics of different religions. Similarly, the Daoist monk and the Confucian priest appear together. Cao Xueqin wanted to show the richness and diversity, also with the many topics and societal levels of the novel. Even a variety of Christian motifs can be found, like when Jia Baoyu is not recognized by his father in chapter 120 and when he disappears, all parallel to Jesus Christ. The variety of cultures is paralleled with the variety of elements of different dynasties, which makes it timeless and therefore even more a masterpiece of Chinese art and a masterpiece of human art. Therefore I would like to nominate the Red Chamber Dreams as “World Documentary Heritage”.
References
Anthony, C. Yu. (2001). Rereading the Stone: Desire and the Making of Fiction in Dream of the Red Chamber. Princeton University Press. Aristotle. (1971). Poetics. Trans. S. H. Butcher. Ed. Hazard Adams. Critical Theory since Plato. ew York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 48-66. Woesler, Martin, ed., Cao Xueqin, Gao E et al. (2016). Der Traum der Roten Kammer oder Die Geschichte vom Stein [Red Chamber Dreams or The Story of the Stone], Peking: Foreign Languages Press, ISBN 9787119094120, 4813 pages, 6 vols., hardcover, transl. by Rainer Schwarz and Martin Woesler; Chinese-German bilingual edition Woesler, Martin. (2011). “Being Explicit About the Implicit – John Minford’s Translation of the last Forty Chapters of The Story of the Stone with a Field Study on two Sexually Arousing Scenes”. Hong lou meng xue kan 6: 274-289 Woesler, Martin. (2010). “ ’To Amuse the Beaux and Belles’ The Early Western Reception of the Hongloumeng”. Journal of Sino-Western Communications 2 (2010.12) 2:81-107 Zhuang, Xiuhua. (2011). Self, Ideal and Salvation: A Comparative Study of Jane Austen’s Elizabeth and Cao Xueqin’s Lin Daiyu. Journal of Language Teaching and Research, Vol. 2, No. 2, pp. 420-423, March 2011. Fulltext: http://www.academypublication.com/issues/past/jltr/vol02/02/19.pdf.
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This research project is a pioneer study, since there is no overview on overseas’ research on the Red Chamber Dreams so far, neither overseas nor in China. Recently, translations of the novel are studied in China (translation strategies, mistakes etc.), with not so much success, because to judge on translations, a closer cooperation of the Chinese scholars with colleagues from the target language cultures is necessary. This project provides one of the “missing links” between the domestic Hongxue and the upcoming domestic Hongloumeng translation studies. It provides the socio-historical background (attitudes, expectations etc.) to the translators and the audience explains their approaches and translation theories.
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This project reviews the existing research and aims to gives an overview as well as compare this Overseas research to domestic Red Chamber Dreams studies. It also aims to judge how useful, benefitial and reasonable it is to apply modern theories on traditional objects.
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In the first phase, the research project collects and analyzes the existing overseas research literature on the Red Chamber Dreams. The result will be an open access database, which will build the foundation for further research of generations of domestic (and overseas) scholars.
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In the 2nd phase, international researchers are invited to a conference in China to display chapters of the history of overseas Hongxue. The collected material is categorized and sorted chronologically and prepared for a monograph on the topic.
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In the 3rd phase, the monograph with the research findings is written, Chinese Hongxue experts are integrated and draw comparisons to domestic Hongxue. The chapters of the monograph are published in international and Chinese journals before the monograph will be published.
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