A Pioneer Of Translation And Knowledge-Seeking

ZhouZuoren who was proficient in six languages was a great translator in the 20th Century.He translated Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves at the age of twenty andfinished his career as a translator with the translation of Heike Monogatari in hiseighties.ZhouZuoren translated various literary works from various countries andalso wrote a great number of articles about literary translation ,which were based onhis experience.Even today,his translation works as well as his articles are still worthreading. Apart from translation,ZhouZuoren compiled two books to introduce theliterary history of Europe,known as Literary History of Europe and Literary Historyof Modern Europe.However,for some reason,people only saw ZhouZuoren as alitterateur or an ideologist,ignoring that he was a translator who made greatcontribution to literary translation. This thesis ,which is based on reading andanalysing ZhouZuoren’s translation works,translation theories,and books aboutEuropean literary history,tries to study the significance of ZhouZuoren’s translationof foreign literature.The preface of this article summarizes the studies of ZhouZuoren’s translation offoreign literature.Before the 21th Century,researchers usually focused onZhouZuoren’s literary theories and his essays.In recent years,thanks to thedevelopment of publishing and the increase of the number of postgraduates,thestudy of ZhouZuoren covered more aspects,and his translation got more attention.After reading and analysing the relavant text documents,this article comes to theconclusion that ZhouZuoren’s translation of foreign literature has two aspects ofmeaning:to influence the development of Chinese literature,and to transform thespirit of Chinese people.Chapter One is the overview of ZhouZuoren’s translation and introduction of foreign literature. Due to the influence of the translation method and the taste ofreaders at that time,ZhouZuoren used to adapt and paraphrase the books he wantedto translate,but from Foreign Stories on,he began to translate word forword.Gradually,his idea about translation began to transform.At first he translatedfor real purpose,but some years later,he began to translate literary masterpieces.Fora translator,this change is a symbol of mature.Chapter Two studies ZhouZuoren’s translation and introduction of some weakEuropean countries and nationalities.At the beginning of the 20thCentury,ZhouZuoren published a series of articles about the literature of someEuropean countries such as Poland,Russia and Hungary,in the magazineHe’nan.Meanwhile,he translated many literary works of these countries.FromZhouZuoren’s point of view,these countries were as miserable as China,but in theirliterature exsisted the spirit of Humanism,which was rarely seen in Chineseliterature.In order to save Chinese people from misery and establish "Human’sLiterature" in China,ZhouZuoren made great effort to translate the literature of theseEuropean countries.Chapter Three analyses ZhouZuoren’s translation of Japaneseliterature,including Japanese modern novels,poems and classical humourousliterature.ZhouZuoren asserted that immitation ,originality and theoretical directioncontributed to the flourish of the Japanese modern novels.In contrast, Chinesenovels were short in those aspects.In addition,ZhouZuoren introduced and translatedHaiku and Waka as examples for Chinese poem to learn from.As for Senryu andKyougen,ZhouZuoren preferred their healthy humor.He translated them totransform the mental state of Chinese people.Chapter Four is about ZhouZuoren’s translation of Ancient Greek literature.Inthe past,Chinese people tended to view mythology as superstition.In order to change this prejudice,ZhouZuoren tried to explain Greek mythology from anthropologicalviewpoint,and translated mimes which were based on common people’s life,andDialogue of Lukianos which objected to superstition and religious authority.In aword,ZhouZuoren’s translation of Ancient Greek literature had a strong sense ofcultural enlightenment,and accorded with his thoughts of "Human’s Literature".Chapter Five introduces ZhouZuoren’s Literary History of Europe and LiteraryHistory of Modern Europe.The two books which systematically introduced thedevelopment of European literature from Ancient Greece to the 19th Century werethe earlist literary history works of China.Unlike similar books appeared later,thetwo books attached great importance to the literature of the countries which wererelatively weak.In his books,ZhouZuoren emphasized that Greek spirit was alwaysthe core of European literature.To sum up,the two books contained same thoughts asZhouZuoren’s literary translation.Chapter Six summarizes ZhouZuoren’s theories of translation.His articles ontranslation theories were written in 1920s and 1950s.His idea changed from"translate for real purpose" to "translate for books" ,from free translation to literaltranslation,from using classical Chinese to using modern Chinese.Through hislife,ZhouZuoren translated a large number of literary masterpieces,and made greatcontribution to literary translation.