20230630 final exam 05

202270081680 张文琦 Zhang Wenqi 英语笔译(English translation)

The Translation and Dissenmination of Shi Jing in the English World

Abstract

More than two centuries has witnessed the translation and spreading of Shi Jing in the English world. Various translations have emerged, providing a feasible way for the spreading and research of its English translation. In this paper, the author adpots the method of historical analysis to investigate and examine the English translation history of Shi Jing, and tries to depict the historial evolution of its English translation, which is divided into three periods: the indirect translation and slective translation period, the full translation period and the new period. Each period has the representative translators at home or abroad. Furthermore, the author summerizes the characteristics of each period in general. Based on meticulous investigations, this paper shows how Shi Jing has influenced the world and how it does a great deal for the Chinese literature coming towards the world.

Key Words

Shijing; English translation; three periods

诗经在英语世界的翻译与传播

摘要

两个多世纪以来，《诗经》英译本不断涌现，在英语世界广泛传播。繁多的译本为《诗经》的英译传播和研究提供了可行的途径。本文运用历史分析方法梳理、考辩《诗经》的英译历史，尝试描绘出《诗经》英译的历史演进并将其分为转译及摘译期、全译期和新时期，每一时期均简要评述了代表性翻译家及译作。最后，作者分别总结了上述三个阶段英译活动的特征。通过详实考察，本文展现了《诗经》对世界的影响，以及对中国文学走向世界的巨大推动作用。

关键词

诗经;英译;三个时期

Introduction

Shi Jing, also named Book of Poetry or Book of Songs, is the first collection of poems in China. It consists of 305 poems that vividly show ancient Chinese people’s life from the early Western Zhou Dynasty (the 11th century BC) to the middle of the Spring and Autumn period (the 6th century BC). There are three parts in the book: Feng (160 poems), Ya (74 poems in Xiao Ya and 31 poems in Da Ya), and Song (40 poems). Poems in Feng are mainly folk poems about people’s stories or emotions. Xiao Ya contains some folk poems and nobles’ works, and its most notable works are about fcasts and wars. Most of the poems in Da Ya are produced by imperial nobles. Poems in Song are mainly the song and poetry about the imperial family’s sacrifice to ancestors.

The language of Shi Jing conveys the beauty of music, with a sentence structure mainly composed of four words, but also flexible and varied. The four sentences independently form a poetic chapter, occasionally mixed with sentence structures of two, three, five, seven, or eight words. Reduplicated chapters, sentences, and characters are common expressive techniques in Shi Jing, and rhythm between spaced sentences, between neighbouring sentences, cross rhyming, and rhyming through the same initial consonants and Chinese vowels are the basic methods in Shi Jing for metric. Shi Jing has unique characteristics in terms of meaning and rhetoric. Commonly used rhetorical devices such as exaggeration, contrast, and duality can be found in this classic. Its creative techniques have had a huge impact on the genre structure, language art, and other aspects of Chinese literature.

The translation and dissenmination of Shi Jing to foreign countries can be said to have a long history. The work has attracted many readers and scholars and conscquently been translated into many different languages. According to research, Shi Jing was first passed down through the Silk Road and initially spread to China’s neighboring countries such as today’s Korea, Vietnam, Japan, and so on. In the 16th century, Shi Jing began its journey in Europe. The earliest English translation can be traced back to the 18th century. So far, Shi Jing has been translated into dozens of languages and widely disseminated worldwide. Throughout the research on the English translation of Shi Jing both domestically and internationally, it generally includes two aspects: the English translation of Shi Jing and the research of it. In order to comprehensively understand the research on the English translation of Shi Jing, the author consulted a large number of literature, adopted historical analysis methods to examine the history of the English translation of Shi Jing, and then summarized the characteristics of English translation activities in different periods. The author hopes that this article can not only help us understand the dissemination of Shi Jing in the English speaking world, but also provide some reference for future research on related translation.

1. Three Periods of the English Translation of Shi Jing

1.1 The Indirect Translation and Slective Translation Period (1735-1829)

According to the available materials, the English translation of Shi Jing began with the indirect translation of Description Géographique, Historique, Chronologique, Politique et Physique de L’Empire de la Chine et de la Tartarie Chinoise written in French. It was edited by the French Jesuit Jean-Baptiste Du Halde and it has four volumes. In the second volume, he introduced and examined the literariness of Shi Jing, with a collection of eight poems translated by the France Jesuit Joseph Henry de Prémare. The publication of the book in France immediately attracted the attention of the UK publishers. In 1736 and 1738, the Britain Richard Brooks, the London publisher Edward Cave and the translators he organized translated and published the English version of the book the respectively. It was the first time that some of poems of Shi Jing was translated into English.

In 1761, several excerpts from Shi Jing were contained in the final appendix of the novel Hau Kiou Choaan or The Pleasing History compiled by Thomas Percy. Knowing little about Chinese, Percy translated all those poems indirectly based on the reference to others’ translations. According to Yang Zhiyi (2005, 33), there are seven excerpts respectively translated indirectly from the version in Latin translation of Confucius Sinarum philosophus by Philippe Couplet and others, and cited from the version in the Latin work Musaem Sinicum by German Bayer and the Description Géographique, Historique, Chronologique, Politique et Physique de L’Empire de la Chine et de la Tartarie Chinoise by Du Halde.

The earliest translation of Shi Jing with the original poems in Chinese as a reference was William Jones’s version. He initially translated the Qi Ao in Wei Feng in Latin and included the translation in the Poeseos Asiaticæ Commentatorium. In 1785, Jones took most of pages to discuss Shi Jing in his paper “On the Second Classical Book of the Chinese”, where he also translated each section of poems Qi Ao, Tao Yao, and Jie’nan Shan with methods of both literal translation and free translation in poetic style. His literal translation in prose style is generally faithful to original poems in terms of meaning and numbers of sentences, while his free translation in poetic translation, on the other hand, is considered as “imitation” (Fan Cunzhong 1991, 79), a recreation inspired by the original text. Jones not only added poetic lines in his transaltion, but also generalized the rich cultural imagery of China, adopting the rhyme style of British folk songs.

In 1829, the famous British sinologist Sir John F. Davis published the second complete English translation of The Fortunate Union, which embraces some poems extracted from Shi Jing. He also included these selectiive translations in his article “On the Poetry of the Chinese”, which takes examples of Shi Jing and folk songs from Pre Qin Dynasty to Six Dynasties to elaborate on the rhythmic characteristics of Chinese classical poetry. He referred to the Chinese original text when translating the poems in The Fortune Union, and also introduced them in a Chinese English comparison in “On the Poetry of the Chinese”. In this way, he pioneered the English translation of Shi Jing by comparing with Chinese original poems.

1.2 The Full Translation Period (1871-1976)

In the 1870s, the English translation of Shi Jing entered a prosperous stage, which was characterized by the emergence of a large number of full versions. The most influential ones are the translations of James Legge, William Waley, Bernhard Karlgren and others.

James Legge has translated Shi Jing three times in his life. With the help of Wang Tao, Legge completed the first complete English translation The She King or The Book of Poetry, which was published in Hong Kong in 1871 as the fourth volume of The Chinese Classic. This translation became a milestone in the dissemination of Shi Jing in the Western world. In the preface, the author expressed his expectation that "the Work which he now offers will be deemed by competent scholars a reliable translation of the original poems". The translation was written in a non-rhymed prose style and reflects Legge’s pursuit of reproducing the literal meaning of the original poem, with “significant academic research characteristics”(Li Yuliang 2007, 43). In 1876, Legge retranslated and published the rhymed version The She King or The Book of Ancient Poetry. This is the second complete English translation of Shi Jing. Compared to the 1871 version, this version emphasizes rhythm, strives for accuracy, and pays more attention to aesthetic appeal. The portrayal of characters in the poem is more vivid with smoother expressions. He deleted the original Chinese poems, reduced annotations, and only retained the theme without Chinese characters in the annotations. In addition, the style and arrangement of the translation also undergone significant changes. In 1879, Legge compiled more than 100 ritualistic verses from Shi Jing into a single volume, which was included in the third volume of The Sacred Books of China: Texts of Confucianism, edited by Max Müller. In this translation, the translator placed more emphasis on interpretation. The main feature of this selective translation is to highlight religious connotations, and the content unrelated to religion was removed out of the original preface to be independently composed as the preface to Song. Each poem in this translation is annotated to elucidate its religious significance. Among the above three translations, the first version, which is considered as academic translation, has the profounded influence and a certain impact on many subsequent English translations.

In 1891, the complete rhymed translation The Shi King by British sinologist William Jennings was published in London, marking the advent of the third complete English translation of Shi Jing. Jennings mainly referred to the annotations of Legge's translation published in 1871. Jennings’s translation includes a lengthy preface, and there are annotations on the theme and some word explanations after each translated poems. Jennings advocated for translating poetry in a poetic way and for the translation being as close to the original text in both content and form as possible. When translating, he strived to maintain the external form of the Chinese original poems, adopting a folk style form with interlaced rhymes.

In the same year, the fourth complete English translation of Shi Jing, The Book of Chinese Poetry: The Shi Ching or Classic of Poetry wasbrought to the world by Clement F. R. Allen, who took the appreciation of the British into consideration. The most significant feature of this translation is that the translator greatly rewrote the poetry to live up with Western poetic concepts and acceptance habits of British readers. He adopted rhyme style when translating and employed extreme domestication translation techniques, attempting to achieve a transformation from Chinese poetry to English poetry from content to form.

After the 20th century, the English translation of Shi Jing reached its peak, with various complete and selective translations emerging one after another. In 1905, British sinologist Launcelot Granmer-Byng published the selective translation The Classics of Confucius: Book of Odes. The translation was written rhymed, emphasizing the poetic appeal. In 1913, Helen Waddell, an Irish poet and translator, published the selective translation Lyrics from the Chinese. She knew little about Chinese, so she abridged a lot in her translation, and added plenty of personal creations. But her translation was quite popular at that time. In 1915, Ezra Pound, the leader of the American New Poetry Movement, an image originator and an outstanding translator, published Cathay, a collection of Chinese poems translated from Japanese annotations by Ernest Fenollosa, an American orientalist at the end of the 19th century, including Cai Wei of Xiao Ya. This translation is not faithful to the original text, and the translator recreated to a great extent.

In 1937, the complete translation The Book of Songs, translated from the Chinese by Arthur Waley was published in the UK. Waley made a bold attempt in terms of translation methods. He believed that the use of rhyme would resulted in the loss of meaning due to sounds, therefore Waley adopted free form in poem translation rather than rhymed form, without strict restrictions on the number of words per line. He was skilled in employing appropriate word selection, ventral rhyme, alliteration, repetition, and stressed syllables to reproduce the rhythm and artistry of the original poem. He also broke the order in the original work and rearranged it according to his own understanding of the content. There are many annotations in his translation, and there are also appendices at the end of the translation. Waley’s translation is known for its fluency and the pursuit of the reflection of the original poetic characteristics in form.

In 1950, Swedish sinologist and linguist Bernhard Karlgren published another complete English translation, The Book of Odes. He conducted systematic research on the pronunciation, exegesis, and rhyme of Shi Jing. From 1942 to 1948, he published specialized research annotations on difficult words and phrases in Shi Jing in the Swedish Far East Museum, totaling over 1300 articles. His translation has four main characteristics: (1) Citation of the original text of the Psalm; (2) Annotation to the original pinyin; (3) No lining up, no end rhyme between lines, and no neat foot or obvious rhythm within the line; (4) Annotations between most of lines (Li Yuliang, Sun Lixin, 2011:98). Generally speaking, his translation is a poetry translation aimed at comparing the sound and writing of English and Chinese languages.

In the second half of the 20th century, the center of the translation of Shi Jing shifted from Europe to the United States. In 1954, Pound’s full translation Shih-Ching: The Classic Anthology Defined by Confucius was published. Compared with the poetry translation in Cathay, the translated poems in this version features higher concise, more strict rhythm, and stronger poetic meanings, but they still retain the consistent style as before. Pound’s translation mainly has the following characteristics: (1) There are very few annotations in the translation; no Chinese original poems, only the main text of the translated poems; (2) Many translated poems are rhymed, some of which are relatively neat, while others not. And the rhymes vary from one poem to another on account of different contents; (3) There are significant changes in the theme and meaning of the translated poem. Thus it is difficult to identify the source of the translation without comparing with the original one; (4) In terms of structural form, the translator deleted lots of lines, and there are also a few examples of amplification; (5) Almost all poems were summarized when being translated, based on which the translator rewrote them into new poems according to his own understanding. Pound’s English translation of Shi Jing has gotten a mixed review in the academic community, both criticized for dramatic changes to the original text and hailed as a model of creative translation.

In 1971, William McNaughton’s work The Book of Songs which focuses on the studies of Shi Jing was published in New York. This book is a collection of McNaughton’s research findings on Shi Jing. The book consists of two parts: “Theme” and “Style”, up to sixteen special topics. The book lists many poems from Shi Jing to support his pertinent research. Most of poems were translated by Pound and only a few by McNaughton himself. McNaughton mainly translated his poetry into rhymed verse, with lines corresPounding to the original poem, highlighting overlapping sounds and ending rhymes. The translation has no original reference or annotations.

The British sinologist John Turner extracted and translated several poems from Shi Jing in his collection of ancient Chinese poetry published in 1976: A Golden Treasury of Chinese Poetry. In order to preserve the musicality of Chinese poetry, he translated in the traditional form of English poetry, and translated Chinese poems into rhymed verses. In the same year, the English translation of the collection of ancient Chinese poetry, Chinese Poetry: An Anthology of Major Modes and Genres written by the famous Chinese-American poet and translator Wai-lim Yip’s, was published by the University of California Press. The book has a contrastive layout between English and Chinese, first to present translation word by word, with each Chinese character corresponding to an English word and corresponding part of speech; then, a full translation to be attached line by line. Wai-lim Yip regarded poetry translation as the practical basis for comparative poetics research, highlighting the differences in language between Chinese and English poetry.

Compared with the prosperity of the English translation of Shi Jing in European countries and America, there were relatively few local translations in China during this period. During late Qing Dynasty and the early Republic of China, poet Su Manshu translated 61 pieces extracted from Shi Jing. The content was arranged in the form of Chinese-English comparison. Su valued the metric, rhythm, and artistic conception of poetry. In 1954, Hong Kong Construction Press published Poems from China written by Huang Wen. This book is a selective version with English-Chinese comparison of six poems from Shi Jing. However, few publishers have stored it and it’s not highly praised.

1.3 The New Period (1983- )

After the 1980s, a number of Chinese translators also joined the ranks of translating Shi Jing, making foreign translation of Shi Jing unprecedented active in China. The most outstanding contributions are made by Xu Yuanchong and Wang Rongpei.

In 1983, the selective version Selections from the “Book of Songs”, jointly translated by renowned Chinese translator Yang Xianyi and his British wife Gladys Yang, was published by Foreign Language Publishing House. The couple translated 45 poems. The translated poems in this selective translation are blank verses for reason that the translator adopted the strategy of foreignization to achieve the goal of spreading classical Chinese culture and faithfully conveying the historical content and culture of the poems. However, due to the excessive pursuit of “faithfulness to the original text”, the meaning and aesthetics contained in the poem itself cannot be effectively conveyed to the target language readers, resulting in a vast reduction in the readability of the translated poems. This is also one of the reasons why this version is very popular in China but has little influence abroad.

Xu Yuanchong, a translator known as the “the only expert in the world who can translate Chinese poetry into English and French”, finished his works The First Branch Blooming on Earth-The Book of Lyrics and The First Branch Blooming on Earth-The Book of Odes and Hymns in 1992. The uniqueness of these two translations lies in the fact that it contains the original poems, with Chinese pinyin annotated line by line. Some phrases or sentences difficult to understand are annotated to explain the meaning of the very poem. The book also includes a comparison table of initial consonants and Chinese vowels of Chinese pinyin, and the English International Phonetic Alphabet. In 1993, Hunan Publishing House published The Book of Poetry. This is the first complete English translation of Shi Jing completed by a Chinese translator, and also the seventh complete translation of it. In 1994, the Chinese Literature Publishing House published the translation An Unexpected Translation of Book of Songs. In his works, Xu Yuanchong followed the principle of “three beauties”, and his translation has unique features in terms of translation techniques and aesthetic communication.

In 1995, Wang Rongpei and Ren Xiuhua jointly translated The Book of Poetry, which was published by Liaoning Education Press. This is the second complete English translation of Shi Jing completed by Chinese translators. This translation takes a Chinese-English comparison form, and the original Chinese poetry is marked with modern Chinese pinyin. The translation emphasizes the ending rhyme, and each poem is accompanied by a brief explanation of the theme. In 2008, Wang Rongpei’s English translation The Book of Poetry was published by Hunan People’s Publishing House. On the basis of summarizing the gains and losses of previous translators, Wang Rongpei integrated his own understanding of the original work and its contemporary culture. His flexible and ingenious translation art reveals the translator’s unique artistic craftsmanship in the reconstruction of images, the transmission of the sense of beauty, and the elucidation of interest in the translated poetry.

Wang Fanglu published Exploration of Vernacular and English Translation of Ya and Song and Exploration of Vernacular and English Translation of Feng respectively in 2009 and 2013. The translation is arranged in order of the original poem, Chinese vernacular poem, English poem, annotations, and explanations. In 2010, Jia Fuxiang’s translation work “Airs of the States” from the Shi Jing: A New Trilingual Translation of the World’s Oldest Collection of Lyric Poetry was published, which is one of the few specialized English translations of the Book of Songs. In 2016, Professor Zhao Yanchun briefly introduced the basic situation, artistic value, analysis of other English translations of Shi Jing, and the translator’s translation perspectives in the English preface of his fully translated version She King. Zhao followed the principles of translating poetry in a poetic way and classics in a classical way. The translated text corresPounds to the original text line by line, with great emphasis on word count and rhyme.

2. The Characteristics of English Translation in Different Periods

From 1735 to 1829 underwent the indirect and selective translation period of the English translation of Shi Jing,whose the most conspicuous feature is that it mainly focused on the indirect translation. At this stage, most translators did not understand or were not proficient in Chinese. Hence they mainly relyed on the interlanguage translation, which will inevitably lead to the translations imprinted with the language and culture in interlanguage, as well as translator’s style. Also, in terms of language, culture, and style, they failed to be faithful to the original text, and problems such as mistranslation, addition, and omission would occur frequently. At this stage, there was no complete English translation yet, nor a specialized selective translation of Shi Jing. The number of excerpts is small, and most of them only selected a few poems or some chapters of the poems. Moreover, the selective translations of Shi Jing only served as auxiliary functions in the original book, rather than being used for specialized translation and introduction of Shi Jing. Small though the number of English translations of Shi Jing during this stage was small, they initiated the dissemination of English translations of Shi Jing, marking the embryonic stage of its English translation.

From the 1870s to the 1980s, the English translation of Shi Jing was in its heyday. In the past 100 years, there were not only several selected versions, most of which appeared in special collections of English translations of Chinese poetry, but also a number of full English versions of Shi Jing, such as James Legge’s porse version and rhymed version, Waley’s version, Pound’s version, etc. At this stage, the identities of translators are more diverse, including missionaries, diplomats, sinologists, poets, translators, etc. Most of them are proficient in Chinese and have in-depth research on Chinese language and Chinese culture. Therefore, there is a decrease in translation at this stage, and most of them translated directly. From the perspective of the ethnics of the translators, there are English and American translators, Swedish translators, Irish translators, Chinese American translators, and cooperative translation between English and American translators and Chinese scholars at this stage. In terms of translation style, there are translators for rhyme and against rhyme, and translators attempting to translate. At this stage, Western translators took the English translation and research of Shi Jing to a new platform, both in terms of breadth and depth, which greatly promotes its dissemination in the English world.

Since the 1980s, a group of excellent local Chinese translators have joined the English translation of Shi Jing, promoting the gradual expansion of the English translation of Shi Jing. Over the past twenty years, multiple complete translations came to the world. Most of these translators are both translators and translation theorists. The translation practice of Shi Jing and the formation of translation theory mutually reinforced. Translation strategies presented a coexistence of domestication and foreignization. Many Chinese translators have begun to continuously try to promote the internationalization of Chinese classical culture, forming a new era of English translation of Shi Jing.

Conclusion

This article is mainly based on the English translation practice of Shi Jing both domestically and internationally, attempting to outline the historical development trajectory of the English translation of Shi Jing. The turn of the 18th and 19th centuries was the translation period of Shi Jing, and the 1870s to 1980s were the complete translation period of Shi Jing. The 1980s have been the new era of the English translation of Shi Jing. In addition, the author summarizes the characteristics of English translation of Shi Jing in different periods. In short, during the more than 200 year historical process of translating Shi Jing into English, with the tireless efforts of overseas sinologists and local Chinese scholars, there have been numerous English translations of Shi Jing, including excerpts, selective translations, and complete translations. These translations with different styles have laid the foundation for the study of the translation of Shi Jing, and have made great contributions to the exchange of Chinese and Western cultures, Chinese literature, and the internationalization of Chinese culture.

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