China News Agency, Shanghai, June 10th: What is the charm of cross-cultural communication in "A Dream of Red Mansions"?
Author Tang Jun Professor, Institute of Global Civilization History, Shanghai International Studies University
In 1754 (Jiaxu, the 19th year of Qianlong in the Qing Dynasty), the earliest extant hand-written Axu version of "A Dream of Red Mansions" was completed. The 120 chapters of "Dream of Red Mansions" of the ten sequels are officially published.
Since then, "A Dream of Red Mansions", as "the pinnacle of Chinese classical novels" and "encyclopedia of Chinese feudal society", began to spread the complete plot and superb artistic skills to the Chinese reader world at an amazing speed. every corner.
And foreign readers outside the Chinese cultural circle first started to read the book for the rich, vivid and authentic Chinese expressions.
Xiaokai hand-copied "Dream of Red Mansions".
Photo by China News Agency reporter Zhang Yuan
In the early 19th century, Pastor Morrison, who translated fragments of "A Dream of Red Mansions" in English, was the first translator of "A Dream of Red Mansions" recorded in the Spanish-speaking world, and he was also the first translator of the Chinese Bible.
The original intention of its translation is to learn the vivid and lively Chinese words and sentences in the book.
The English translators Debeishi, Robdan, Ayose, Baola, Qiu Li (Zhou Li), the Russian translators Deming and Wang Xili, and even the earliest Korean music in the oriental cultural circle in the world. Shanzhai's complete translation (1879), all of which adhere to the subtle and most catchy Chinese forms of "A Dream of Red Mansions", leave long or short multilingual translations.
This kind of cross-language text representation of learning Chinese and Chinese with the help of books basically constitutes the whole picture of cross-cultural communication in "A Dream of Red Mansions" in the 19th century.
The reason why I say "basically" is because there is another anomaly: the Mongolian translation of "Dream of Red Mansions", which was compiled in the East Asian cultural circle in the early 19th century, was accompanied by comments from the Mongolian translator.
This is the first cross-cultural exchange behavior to appreciate "A Dream of Red Mansions" as a pure literary and artistic work.
As a Mongolian appreciator who is different from the Han and Manchu, Hasbao's translation and commentary, although adhering to the appreciation mode of "A Dream of Red Mansions" that was popular in the era of the banknotes, has many self-generated opinions, so much so that Contemporary scholars have back-translated its Mongolian operation form into Chinese, which has effectively fed back the Chinese Red Learning World, "one of the three major learnings in the Chinese literature circle in the 20th century".
In the 20th century, Hu Shi, the standard bearer of the New Culture Movement, officially confirmed the authorship of Cao Xueqin with the textual research of the New Red Study. "A Dream of Red Mansions" began to step out of the Chinese world and the Chinese cultural circle, and headed towards the world.
In the specific reading of cross-cultural communication, "A Dream of Red Mansions" is no longer limited to a simple Chinese learning aid, but gradually makes the world known as a literary work.
Whether it is Wang Jizhen, who is a close friend of Hu Shi and Shen Congwen, who is deeply influenced by Xinhongxue, who retranslated "Dream of Red Mansions" in North America, and who highlighted the love triangle of Baodai and Chai, Wang Jizhen, one of Columbia University's "Three Heroes of Sinology", or a lifelong self-confessed self by Jia Baoyu. However, Kong Fangzhi of the German-speaking world, who reduced the main content to 50 chapters with his brilliant writing, was republished repeatedly in the European continent and translated into many languages, was all familiar and recognized by the European and American cultural circles in the first half of the 20th century. The hero of the main content of "A Dream of Red Mansions".
In the 1940s, Japan, which is in the cultural circle of East Asia, published two 120 translations of "Dream of Red Mansions"; the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949, the golden decade of Sino-Soviet friendship, directly nurtured the earliest "Dream of Red Mansions" in the Western world. 120 complete translations of A Dream of Red Mansions—the Russian translation (1958) co-authored by Panasic and Menlev, which also indirectly spawned the Czech and Slovak complete translations of A Dream of Red Mansions (1986-1988, 1986-1988) 2001-2003).
From the 1940s to the 1950s, as the first peak period when the full translation version of "A Dream of Red Mansions" was launched, "A Dream of Red Mansions" for the first time entered the world of readers in developed countries.
At almost the same time period, Kong Fangzhi's German version and Wang Jizhen's English version were also translated into French, Dutch, Hungarian, Italian, Finnish and other European languages, virtually expanding the readership of "A Dream of Red Mansions".
The title page of the Greek translation of A Dream of Red Mansions.
Photo courtesy of the interviewee issued by China News Agency
In the 1970s, out of the political needs of the time, the vigorous "Criticism of Red Mansions" movement triggered the second full translation era of "A Dream of Red Mansions" in the history of cross-cultural exchanges.
First, 120 full translations of Mongolian, Tibetan, Uighur, Kazakh, Korean and other minority languages have been released in China, expanding the dissemination of "A Dream of Red Mansions" in the world of ethnic language readers.
Second, the two most important full translations of Yang Xianyi and his wife and Hux Weng's husband in the English-speaking world were also published in full at this time or later - and the comparison of these two texts is still a topic of discussion to this day.
Furthermore, in the early days of reform and opening up, the full French translation of "Dream of Red Mansions" (first edition in 1981) was translated by Li Zhihua and his wife and edited by his teacher Duoermeng, and Zhao Zhenjiang, who translated the English translation of Yang Xianyi and his wife, led the Spanish full translation (first edition in 1988). , which all reflect the full-scale transplantation of Chinese free translation expressions by the translators.
The full German translation of "A Dream of Red Mansions" in the early 21st century, its first 80 chapters are also closely related to the Marxist translator Shi Huaci trained in East Germany.
It can be said that in the last three decades of the 20th century, the full translation of "A Dream of Red Mansions" emerged in groups, reflecting the influence of Chinese culture in the world and being displayed in a panoramic image.
In particular, it is worth mentioning that Hawkes, a British sinologist who resolutely retired from Oxford University and devoted himself to the first 80 English translations of "Dream of Red Mansions", opened up various literary expressions in English for the first time and fully imitated Cao Xueqin's artistic skills "copying". The mode of the text of "A Dream of Red Mansions"; his student and son-in-law, Min Fude, faithfully inherited this translation strategy of Hawkes, so that this translation beat Father Peng Shou's first full English translation and signed a contract with Penguin Publishing House for full publication. Later, it became one of the world's first-class literary works in English.
It is because of the publication of the complete English translation by the husband-in-law of Weng Hox, that the readers of Western languages no longer regard "A Dream of Red Mansions" as a second- or third-rate novel that simply reflects the love triangle.
The full Swedish translation of Baishanren and the full Korean translation of Choi Rongche and Gao Minxi, as well as the full Czech and Slovak translations that are directly and completely influenced by him, also laid the foundation for the higher status of "A Dream of Red Mansions" in the European world. A solid foundation of cross-cultural cognition.
The Slovak translation of "A Dream of Red Mansions", the title page text is the translator's signature message to Tang Jun.
Photo courtesy of the interviewee issued by China News Agency
Only 20 years have passed since the 21st century, but the cross-cultural communication of "A Dream of Red Mansions" is still developing in depth. The completed translations in German, Thai, Malay, Bulgarian and Dutch are typical examples. The implementation of the plan is undoubtedly a powerful driving force that cannot be ignored.
As China grows from a humiliating semi-colonial and semi-feudal society to the world's second largest economy that cannot be underestimated, the pinnacle literary work "Dream of Red Mansions", an encyclopedia of Chinese culture, is exported from small and half-clawed fragments to serve as an assistant for learning Chinese. From reading materials, to introducing the main storyline and showing the stereotypes of second- and third-rate novels, and then rising to a comprehensive translation and introduction to show the elements of Chinese culture, and by imitating Cao Xueqin's creative style and skills, it ranks among the world's first-class literary works.
The trajectory of cross-cultural exchanges in "A Dream of Red Mansions" in the past two hundred years is also a parallel portrayal of China's ups and downs since modern times, and the return of China's efforts to the standard.
"A Dream of Red Mansions" Finnish translation book jacket.
Photo courtesy of the interviewee issued by China News Agency
In all fairness, the novel "A Dream of Red Mansions" written in millions of fonts in the 18th century can be regarded as a grand and thoughtful novel, and it has been read by thousands of people.
Today, which is gradually breaking away from the traditional patriarchal social structure, readers who are native language texts still have a lot of misunderstandings and conjectures about it. First, for readers of ethnic languages and foreign languages with different cultures, "A Dream of Red Mansions" is a reading peak that is difficult to climb.
Fortunately, after the arduous efforts of generations of sinologists and the emergence of more than 150 translations of different lengths in more than 30 languages, "A Dream of Red Mansions" can finally be accepted by English as the representative of the traditional supreme status enjoyed in the Chinese world. Foreign language readers are getting more and more enthusiastic and lofty evaluations, which can be compared with the works of world-class writers such as Shakespeare, Dickens, Cervantes, Goethe, Balzac, and Dostoevsky.
The reason why "Dream of Red Mansions" has attracted more and more attention from readers all over the world is that the main charm lies in the essence of Chinese traditional culture that is all-encompassing and without traces.
It is also a difficulty for translators to fill in the cultural vacancy to accurately transmit it to the audience of cross-cultural reading.
Although "A Dream of Red Mansions" itself lacks intense plot conflicts, the fullness of cultural elements in today's world with frequent cross-cultural exchanges is just like the era of the Republic of China who swarmed to listen to the lectures of a generation of academic master Chen Yinke, not to pursue the vividness of the lectures, but to obey the lectures The profound knowledge of the author and its organic connection.
In comparison, Cao Xueqin's "Dream of Red Mansions" has always been regarded as a cross-cultural exchange as a comprehensive demonstration and peak demonstration of the literary and artistic creation skills of the novel itself. It is reflected in the interview texts of Yang Xianyi and Dai Naidie.
However, the hard work of Hawkes and Minford Weng's son-in-law seems to have turned this "natural moat" into a thoroughfare.
In fact, observe more translations of "A Dream of Red Mansions", as early as the German Kong Fangzhi, as late as the Czech language Wang Heda, Slovak language Montenegro, these translators have also done more or less the translation of Hawkes in their translation practice. Try, just because of the non-universality of its translation, it has not been known for a long time.
In the future cross-cultural communication of "A Dream of Red Mansions", it is necessary to take the initiative to carry out cross-language literary and artistic copying based on Cao Xueqin's writing on the basis of relevant translation theory research.
After this strategy has gradually matured, the original "Dream of Red Mansions", the biggest difficulty in reading in the foreign language world, may instead grow into another charm of cross-cultural communication.
(Finish)
About the Author:
Tang Jun, Ph.D., School of Foreign Languages, Peking University, Visiting Scholar of the University of Helsinki and Slovak Academy of Sciences, Professor of the Institute of Global Civilization History, Shanghai International Studies University, Director of the Chinese Society of Dream of Red Mansions, Distinguished Researcher of the Academic Research Center of the Chinese Journey to the West Cultural Research Association, mainly researching "Dream of Red Mansions" "Multilingual translation and introduction and the multi-ethnic cultural exchange on the Silk Road", co-authored "Research on the Translation and Introduction of Four Books of Confucianism in Europe" (2015), and the sole author of "Red Studies, Translation, Cultural Westward Journey" (2019) Year), "Hu Tianhan Yue Fang Zhu - The first edition of the manuscript of Altai theory" (2022), etc.