Tang Legend's Centennial Foreign Domain Translation Process

The history of Chinese culture has a long history. As early as two thousand years ago, Zhang Jian opened the Silk Road in the Western Regions. This is both a road of trade and an ancient civilization. This has opened the door to the interaction of Chinese and Western civilizations. In the 18th and 19th centuries, ancient Chinese literary works aroused strong interest in western sinologists, such as "Ancient Wonder", "Dream of Red Mansions", "Good Biography", "Yu Jiao Li" and other Ming and Qing dynasties translated into the West by missionaries in China into the West. Language is introduced into Europe. These missionaries have become researchers in traditional Chinese culture, and some people even become pioneers of Sinology research. In the 20th century, most of the translations of Chinese sinologists in Chinese novels were mostly for the purpose of mission and cultural exchanges. The Tang Legend, who belongs to the Chinese novel family, entered the English world in the early 20th century. Looking at the century -old translation process of the Tang Legend, it has gone through three different translation periods and presents very different translations.

The early English translation of the Tang Legend was mainly "Yingying Biography".

From the beginning of the 20th century to the late 1950s, the spread and acceptance of the British and American sizes in the British and American sinctions were in the immature period. There are 5 translations, three of which are non -Chinese and 2 translators. The earliest known as Tang legendary translation of the first known as English is the "Biography of Yingying" translated by British Sinologist Arthur Wili in 1919. It is included in the "Chinese Literature Translation" compiled by him. The overall summary of Chinese literature is only translated according to his own literary preferences in order. For "Yingying Biography", he adopted a literal translation method to omit some plots. Later, in 1929, he was included in the book "Ten Day Talks in China" by Carlo Defanaro. Weili's "Yingying Biography" translation has been selected as a variety of British translations of Chinese literature. Since then, a Western reader has been exposed to the window of Tang Legend, and the classic status of "Yingying Biography" in the English world.

Western translators who clearly incorporated Tang Legend into the field of novels are British scholar Edwardz. The "Chinese Prose Literature of Chinese Tang Dynasty" published in 1938 was the most important Tang legend in this period. Of the 79 stories included in the book, the important works of the Tang Legend are all listed, including "Yingying Biography", which is the most comprehensive Tang legendary translation so far. In addition to the translations of Welley, Funaro and Edwardz, which have been mentioned above, two translations also appeared. T.Y Leo's "Yingying Biography" translation is entitled "West Chamber: The Story of the Eighth Century of China". Nine exquisite illustrations are inserted in the article. Cui Yingying wrote two poems to Zhang Sheng and only translated the second song. Wang Jizhen, a Chinese scholar who taught in Columbia University in the United States, was born in 1944. He was selected into the collection of Chinese traditional novels compiled in 1944. This translation content is relatively complete, but it has also omitted Yang Juyuan's "Cui Niang Poems" and "Henan Yuanzhang also continued to give birth to the" Thirty Rhymes of the True Poems "." For Western readers, this kind of abandoned approach does not seem to prevent the understanding of the entire story, but if translated from the poems inserted in the original text, it is actually more conducive to the reader's judgment of Zhang Sheng's abandonment of Yingying at the time. Attitude, so as to better understand the theme of the story. The characteristic of this translation is that there are 15 notes in the full text, mainly to take care of Western readers, the location, year, and character behavior that appear in the explanation.

Tang legendary English translation enters the prosperous period

The Tang Legend of the English World was in a period of booming in the 1960s and 1970s, with the main position of the Chinese Sinology community in the United States. The more famous Tang legendary works such as "Biography of Ren", "Liu Yi Biography", "Li Wa Zhuan" and "Nanke Emperor's Biography" have produced multiple translations. The monograph "Golden Box: Two Thousand Years of Chinese Novels" published in 1964 was translated into English based on German sinologists Bao Wu Gang and Fu Haibo. The book contains a total of 46 Chinese stories, mostly short stories, and the time span is from the Warring States Period to the Qing Dynasty. "Biography", "The Biography of the Passenger", "Red Line", "Strange Man", "Huo Xiaoyu Biography". The translator completely gave up the poems cited in the story in the translation. The reason is that although they can understand the important plots in the original text, few people can understand poetry like Arthur Welley, and can translate the meaning of poetry.

In 1965, the "Chinese Literature Treasure" compiled by Zhai's father and son was published in New York. In the preface, the translator declares that the book is to introduce ancient Chinese and modern literature to the Western doors. The translator divides Chinese literature into three categories: prose, novels, and drama, and extend the time to include the works to modern. The fifth chapter is "the legendary story of the Tang Dynasty", and the works such as "Huo Xiaoyu Biography", "Ren's Biography", "Wushuang Biography", "Nanke Emperor's Biography", "Biography of the Passenger" and other works. The translator attribute his translation to literal translation, intended to be closer to the source text. However, the translator also regrets that due to the fundamental differences between Chinese and English, any translation, no matter how well you do, never reached the flavor of the source text.

The multi -directional development stage of the legendary translation of the Tang Dynasty

In 1983, the Chinese Chinese scholar Zhang Xincang published "Chinese Literature 3: Monster Novels", including seven Tang legend, namely "Ren's Biography", "Li Soul", "Lujiang Feng Ying Biography" and "Xue Weixuan Records" "Xue Wei "Li Weigongjing" and "Zhang Feng" and "Zhang Lao", each of which has a small paper that analyzes the work before each translation. It can be said that this is a monograph with equivalent translation and research. The author also introduced more than 30 Tang legend in the preface, mostly about the story of ghosts and gods. Although illusions are the main purpose of the story of the Tang legend, Zhang Xincang pointed out that the authors of the Tang legend are often more inclined to express true, intentionally or unintentional or unintentional Write the work as a historical biography. Since entering the 21st century, the spread, influence, and research of the legend of Tang has entered a stage of slow development in multi -directional and multi -level development in the English world. Researchers actively explain the text of the Tang Legend, and promoted the booming growth of the Tang legend in the exotic context with a broad vision and knowledge of insights. During this period, there were two main elections of the Tang Legend of the Tang Dynasty: one was the "Chinese Classical Literature English Translation Collection" compiled by British Sinologist Min Ford and Liu Shaoming in 2000. "Pillow", "Biography of Ren", "Li Soul", "Liu Yi Biography", "Yingying Biography", "Biography of the Hakka", "E engissime shop", "Du Zichun", "Hejian Biography". The editor considers that the original cultural charm will inevitably be lost in the translation, so the calligraphy, painting, traditional woodcut illustrations, seals, and prints of calligraphy, painting, traditional woodcut illustrations, seals, and prints are added to the book. This also reflects the distinctiveness of the book, exuding a strong Chinese traditional cultural flavor. The other is the "Tang Dynasty Story Reading Guide" edited by William. H. Nienhauser, a 2010 American sinologist. The Biography of Nanke Emperor's Shou "" The Biography of the Hakka "and" Huo Xiaoyu Biography ". These translations are extremely detailed annotations, the purpose is to facilitate readers to have a deeper understanding of Tang Legend.

The British translation of the legend of Tang has a long history, and the translation group is diversified. Although the western sinologists in the West have contributed a variety of English translations, the translation objects are extremely uneven. "Xiaoyu Chuan" and other famous articles, and many Tang legendary works have not been included in the translator's vision. With the implementation and promotion of the "going global" strategy of traditional Chinese culture, I believe that more Tang legendary works will be recognized and appreciated by Western readers.

(This article is the Hunan Provincial Social Science Fund Project (17WLH32) and the Hunan Provincial Department of Education Outstanding Youth Project (18B490) phased results)

(Author Unit: School of Literature and News Communication of Huaihua College)

Source: China Social Science Network-Journal of Social Sciences of China

Author: Zhang Lili

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