The Study On The Introduction Of Byron In The View Of The Literary Transformation From Late Qing To May Fourth

The famous poet George Gordon Byron won a great reputation in late Qing Dynasty,when Chinese literature was undergoing the modern transformation.When translating literature that became a common practice inspired and enlightened the masses to get rid of the state of being uncultured, it cast the literary world with a good rain. So many western literary works had been translated into Chinese, which plays an important role in the evolution of Chinese literature. The introduce of Byron was a clear exceptional case. Many writers devoted themselves to introducing Byron to Chinese from late Qing Dynasty to May Forth. Generally speaking, there were three kinds of inclinations. Firstly, they inclined to introduce Byron in the grand narrative of revolution, which focused on the revolutionary character of Byron, and they misread his involvement in Greece’s liberation. This paradigm was pioneered by Liang Qichao and represented by Ma Junwu, Jiang Guangci,Hong Lingfei, etc. It had a great influence on intellectuals and even permeated into the other two tendencies. Secondly, they tended to introduce Byron from the perspective of enlightenment. They found Byron’s special character as ‘individual’, including his strong personal will and emotions and so on. They consciously or unconsciously re-sculptured the image of the nation by reference to these. This tendency was represented by Lu Xun and Su Manshu. They respectively focused on Byron’s rebellious spirit and emotional character,they added the self-contemplation to the translation, so it’s difficult to distinguish themselves from Byron in the context. Thirdly, they tended to translate Byron’s literary works for its own sake, just as Wang Tongzhao, Wu Mi, Hu Shi did. They accentuate the artistry in Byron’s poems, which they thought to be resources that could be benefited by for the development of Chinese poems. It can be seen as the deepening of the second trend.Besides, Hu Shi and Wen Yiduo’s translation of ‘The Isles of Greece’ bearing the transitional characters among so many versions, through which we can know the occurrence and development of the Chinese poems’ modern transformation to some extent,such as the transition of the literary concept, style and language. It should be pointed outthat the three tendencies are not so respective but intertwined with each other.Above all, the interpretation of Byron’s poems from late Qing to May Fourth bears distinctive Chinese characteristics. Different concepts led to different purposes and ways of translation,and even to ‘idealizing’ speech about objects. But we can not simply identified it with mistakes, after all, it’s a consequence of the transition stage, through which we can find out a better way to deal with the cultural exchanges.