On Zhou Zuoren's Literary Translation

This text tries to probe into Zhou Zuoren's literary translation from the aspects of its status and evaluation in literary history, as well as his language view, translation view, the study of his translation in vernacular Chinese, Zhou Zuoren and the culture of translated language, the selected texts for translation under the influence of his cultural view. My conclusion is that Zhou Zuoren is a solitary man of culture in literary translation.From the early 20th century to the beginning of the Cultural Revolution, all the writings of Zhou are translated works. If we take the amount of his writings into account, we may find that as an important part of his literary career, his translated works outweigh his creations. Every respect he got involved in literary translation is initiative. He is the path- breaker in translating"the insulted and the injured"literature (in this aspect, Lu Xun, of course should be claimed the first credit.), classical Greek literature, the classical and modern literature of Japan, and Greek mythological archetype etc. His translation theories and large quantities of translation practice play an indispensable role in the"May 4th"New Cultural Movement and even in the translation history of our country. People have thought highly of Zhou's translation, such as Hu Shi, Qian Xiantong, Aying, Luo Niansheng, Lu Xun and Wen Jirruo and etc. It is the basis to understand the point of this thesis to appreciate Zhou's translation theory and his sacred and serious attitude toward his job.As for the origin of vernacular Chinese, there is no unifying saying. The first chapter is to seek the source. I believe that the campaign started in Qing dynasty to use vernacular Chinese as the literary language has promoted the unification of spoken language and literary language, has expanded the use of vernacular Chinese, and thus founded the language basis for"May 4th"new literature movement. During"May 4th"period, Zhou Zuoren was a member of the National Language group and applied himself in the reform of national language. To Zhou, modern Chinese must be a new language which has been fused with ancient and modern, foreign and domestic elements. Consequently, Zhou put great emphasis on absorbing"new words"and keeping Chinese grammar strict, whose realization has to rely on translating foreign literature.Zhou's language view of"Language is the thought"came into being gradually, which I will demonstrate while I am combing his works chronically. Zhou has made significant contributions to our country's translation theory. The theory of"A direct translation of foreign literature"was first brought up by Lu Xun and Zhou Zuoren. It was an important renovation in translation whether from the point of view of today or of that time. In other words it was Zhou brothers who have started the"faithfulness"of translation in China, and they also laid the foundation of"faithfulness"through their own translation activities. During"May 4th"period, Zhou Zuoren translated works in vernacular Chinese out of two reasons: one was to introduce new knowledge and enlighten the public; the other was to import new grammar with the hope that a new style in Chinese could be produced. He strived through translation to import new grammar, new vocabulary, and new way of thinking which were different from traditional Chinese to compensate for the weakness in Chinese way of thinking and the inaccurateness of language, which distinguished him from other translators such as Lin Zhu, Yan Hu in former ages and his contemporary Hu Shi.Zhou Zuoren has committed his whole life to pursuing harmony, which also can be seen in his translation theory. He seldom went to extremes in translation activities and always tired to give attention to both Chinese and Western culture. Around"May 4th"period, the translation of most translators were strongly political and utilitarian. For instance, translators like Fu Sinian, Zhen Zhenduo, Lu Xun and Maodun all claimed that the translated books must be closely associated with reality and must benefit the development of society, whereas Zhou didn't simply regarded translation as a direct weapon to improve reality. While emphasizing the social function of literary translation, he didn't forget the unique features and functions of the art of literature itself. His translating attitude is playful and recreative. He stressed the"literary core"of"being beautiful"and"being empathetic", namely, the taste and empathy of literature, which remarkably differed from Lu Xun's belief to"reform nationality"by literature.Zhou's general attitude toward literary translation is recreative and sportive,which he tried hard to conceal and forget in the rising development of"May 4th"enlightment movement.----- He was full of ambitions then. In 1920s, the translation of Russian literature and to rescue the nation through literature began to be the dominating trend in the work of translation. While Zhou opened a unique new road for translation, that is the road of translating the ancient Greek literature and the classical Japanese literature whose credit is their spontaneity, plainness and concision. This discourse aimed to prove that Zhou wished to find the sportive elements in literature and was opposed to the morality-carried literature. He kept sounding different voices about the development of new literature, and was insistent that the life of literature was liberty instead of equality, separation instead of coalition, which has no small significance in the 20th literary history. Chapter two is about the"study of the characteristic of Zhou's literary translation in vernacular Chinese, and is a more important chapter in my discourse. In this chapter I have put more emphasis on a deeper study of his literary translation language. Firstly, using"A Collection of Modern Japanese novels"as an example, I analyzed the language characteristics of his novel translations: the frequent use of monosyllabic words; large amount of words directly introduced from Japanese; the flexibility of words of speech, the free collocation of words; and a lot of sentences are of Subject-Object-Predicative structure. I also listed and tried to find out the answers to some examples of incoherence and elegance in his translation. Secondly, this thesis analyzes the language characteristics of his poetry translation from the aspects of his translating poetry into prose, and the language barriers he encountered in translating poetry. Thirdly, I provided the example of the same work he translated at different times, and to feel the development of vernacular Chinese and the growth of Zhou's translation language from the changes of his language styles at different times. Finally I compared Zhou's translation of Baudelaire in 1920s and Ya Ding's in 1980s, and in this way, the vicissitudes of language and the language characteristics of translators can be detected. Zhou made Europeanized and Japanized experiments on Chinese language while translating. Through these experiments, he came to find out the most suitable expressions for him, and made significant contributions to Chinese prose style. It is also safe to say that Zhou Zuoren has helped to develop Chinese language through his translation activities, to which the literary world hasn't given enough regard. It is one of the important problems I am trying to solve.In Chapter three and chapter four, I analyzed the relationship between Zhou and the culture of translated language countries (Japan and Greece) from two angles: one is the connotation of the culture of translated language countries, stressing chrysanthemum and belittling sword, the other is his lack of criticism of the culture of translated language countries. As for the relationship between Zhou and Japanese culture, researchers as Qian Liqun has already mentioned, And on the basis of those senior scholars'research, I am trying to give my thoughts and explanations on Zhou's lacking criticism of the culture of the translated language countries.Chapter five is mainly focused on Zhou's insistence in a cultural view of individualism and the selected works for translation influenced by the view. The author argued that the overall aesthetic feature of 20th Chinese literature is a kind of"anxiety"originated in the national crisis. From the angle of translation, Yan Hu's"Evolution and Ethics"in late Qing dynasty employed a method of adding, reducing, deleting and giving notes in prefaces in his translation. He aimed to evoke a national sense of crisis through the manifestation of crisis China then was facing and the distance between China and other countries, a feeling of anxiety and rage was revealed. After"A Collection of Foreign Stories", a"serious"attitude deprived of playfulness was the guiding thought of translation theory and practice. The primary task was to translate"the most important and urgent", and it has become a common goal to translate literature of Russia and other weak countries. It went so far that literary translation has altered from an overwhelming recreation and sportiveness to a total negation of them, and a fundamental change in the selected texts to translate as well. Lu Xun and Zhou Zuoren were the antecedents in this respect. But going too far would result in new mistakes; it was also Zhou Zuoren who first went out of the mistakes. Around 1921-1923, there was a big change in Zhou's literary view in that he determinedly disengaged from the expectations of an ideal society, namely the heavy burden of attempting to reform the society through literature. Returning to literature itself has become his whole bailment. Since then, personality began to dominate in his literary view, and to appreciate literary arts and describe life and personal emotions out of personal feelings.To Zhou Zuoren, his literary translation paralleled with the evolution of his literary idea, they are even intertextual, interproving and interactive. His literary thoughts decided the change of his selected texts for translation, which will be argued from the texts he chose to translate after 1921. Through his translated works, it can be safely assumed that since"A Collection of Foreign Stories"Zhou has selected a marginal and academic road diverting from the political revolution. The alteration attributes to his personal temperament, as well as his large amount of reading of foreign literary works and his acceptance of Havelock Ellis's thoughts. Compared with those vanguards in the movement of new literature and new culture, Zhou has made literature itself as his starting point and destination. He focused on his personal interest and firmly believed in a literature of personality, not merely took literature as a forerunner in social reform.After combing and investigating in this paper, we may come to the conclusion that Zhou Zuoren is a solitary man of culture in literary translation to a large extent. The literary world of 1920s and 1930s was full of sound and fury, and after 1940s, there was a unanimous voice of"to rescue and survive", whereas, Zhou bravely advocated personal literary taste, and sought his personal beloved literature in the works away from"reality". Zhou was a firm guard of literary personality, as well as a sharp different voice in the unifying trend of literature. Under the influence of the big trend, most literary men like Lu Xun, Mao Dun and Ba Jin were highly politically enthusiastic and rebellious, but Zhou's rebellion was the most profound, thorough and complicated. His rebellion found its way in its criticism and skepticism of essence, in his rejection of any authority, even those he has once deeply believed and advocated. He avoided the deafening chorus of that age and the big political utilitarian trend. He was a solitary being of that time.Zhou's literary translation has great influence on the thinkers and writers of"May 4th"generation as well. A meticulous reading of his translated works may give the impression that translation has influenced himself and has a close association with his literary theory, taste, creation and the evolution of his overall way of speaking. Furthermore, research works on Zhou Zuoren as a writer are a lot, but not so for the study on him as a literary translator. While I hold that the study about him is not complete without the study of his literary translation, and I take the study of Zhou's literary translation as a new approach to enter into his literary world and thoughts. What I am doing is to put the same object in a different area to illustrate.A systematic study on the language characteristics of a translator is not frequent in our country, and there is no antecedent in the study of Zhou Zuoren's literary translation language. Zhou has introduced considerable Japanese vocabulary and enriched Chinese language through his translation, which is a new discovery of this discourse.