China News Service, Beijing, September 3rd, title: Celebrity Zhou Jueliang: Why is he considered "the most qualified" to engage in comparative literature?

  China News Weekly reporter Xu Tian

  Zhou Jueliang is not an active member of academia, compared to Xu Guozhang's famous "Xu Guozhang English" and Wang Zuoliang's works.

  Wang Zuoliang once said that Zhou Jueliang is the most qualified to engage in comparative literature and establish universal poetics, because those who study foreign literature do not have a deep Chinese background, and those who study comparative literature are not as well-educated in foreign languages.

  Zhou Jueliang once said that he is a "challenger" in the translation industry, and the word "miscellaneous" may be a certain portrayal of his life.

Zhou Jueliang in his later years.

This photo with his characteristic smile was chosen by his wife Fang Hao as a portrait.

Photo courtesy of China News Agency Zhou Qipeng (daughter of Zhou Jueliang)

"The Liberal Man"

  The Zhou family in Tianjin is distinguished and special. Zhou Jueliang’s great-grandfather Zhou Fu was the governor of Liangjiang and Guangdong and Guangxi. His great-uncle Zhou Xuexi was the chief financial officer of the Beiyang government, and his father Zhou Shutao was a famous industrialist.

  Zhou Jueliang's ten brothers and sisters grew up in the fragrance of books. There are two study rooms downstairs in their home, where ancient books and rare books are collected. There is a forbidden area, and children are not allowed to go in and out casually.

The three study rooms on the third floor are completely open to children. The room is furnished like a library, with book boxes standing in the sky.

Zhou Shutao stipulated that at the end of the year, each child can make a list of books they want to purchase, and they can respond to their needs.

  Zhou Jueliang's level of Chinese studies is among the best among his peers. However, unlike his eldest brother, Zhou Jueliang, who entered the Department of History at Yenching University, Zhou Jueliang finally chose English and American literature as his lifelong major.

  Zhou Jueliang entered the Department of Foreign Languages ​​and Literature of Tsinghua University in 1935. Among the students in this class, Wang Zuoliang, Xu Guozhang, Li Funing and him all became leaders in the field of foreign language teaching in New China.

  From the second grade onwards, they have to take courses in two systems, namely, classical literature, medieval literature, renaissance literature, 18th-century literature, 19th-century literature, and modern literature. The horizontal direction includes poetry, drama, novel and Language History, etc.

Many of China's older generation of German, French, Italian, and even Indian and Greek literature experts have undergraduate degrees in the Department of Foreign Languages ​​and Literature of Tsinghua University, which is related to the country's unique curriculum planning.

  This curriculum plan was set up by Wu Mi, who was the acting dean of the department, with reference to the training plan of the Department of Comparative Literature at Harvard University.

He clearly stated that the training goal is to create "liberal scholars", so that students can understand the spirit of Western civilization, understand the trend of Western thought, create modern Chinese literature, and communicate the spirit of the East and the West to introduce each other.

  Zhou Jueliang said that the teacher Yu Seng (Wu Mi's word) has a very broad vision of foreign literature, and played a key role in formulating this curriculum plan.

After graduating from his undergraduate degree, he studied under Wu Mi and worked as a graduate student at Southwest Associated University.

Wu Mi is one of the founders of Chinese comparative literature, which may be one of the reasons for Zhou Jueliang to engage in comparative literature in the future.

Beijing foreign language university.

Photo by Dou Yixuan issued by China News Agency

"Miscellaneous" in the translation industry

  After the founding of New China, Zhou Jueliang returned from studying at the University of Chicago and joined the English Department of Beijing Foreign Studies University as a professor.

But for a long time, he seldom had the opportunity to teach even literature classes, mostly languages, and was seconded by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs as a translator several times.

  Wang Ban, who later became his disciple, told China News Weekly that unlike the British pronunciation of most professors at BFSU, Zhou Jueliang spoke a pure and beautiful American accent.

  He was often transferred out suddenly, sometimes explaining what he was going to do, sometimes saying nothing, and not knowing how long he was gone.

When he came back, he was also disciplined and tight-lipped.

He did interpreting for Mao Zedong, and it was only after Mao Zedong's death that he told his wife Fang Zhang.

  In the later period of Resisting US Aggression and Aid Korea, he was transferred to North Korea to participate in the translation work of the Korean Armistice Negotiations.

He was in the expert group of the Secretariat of the Volunteer Army Delegation, including Zhu Guangya, an associate professor of the Department of Physics of Peking University, who later became the "two bombs and one satellite" leader.

The next winter, he went home in a cotton uniform of the Volunteer Army.

In 1953, Zhou Jueliang went to North Korea as a translator for the armistice negotiations.

  One winter, he accompanied Liu Shaoqi to the Moscow conference and left a photo on the snow.

The Eighth National Congress of the Communist Party of China invited many foreign political party delegations and journalists to attend, and he served as a simultaneous interpreter for the conference.

In 1961, Chen Yi led a delegation to the Geneva Conference, and he went with the delegation.

This was his longest outing, nearly two years.

  Later, Zhou Jueliang told Fang Huang that political translation, especially interpreting, was difficult. Some foreign leaders spoke with accents. When he started interpreting, he encountered an Indian delegation, which was extremely difficult to understand, and the diplomatic rhetoric of Chinese leaders It is necessary to find the right vocabulary to grasp the sense of proportion, and to complete the listening, memorizing, thinking and speaking at the same time. This kind of work cannot be done at a young age.

  After graduating from Peking University in 1964, Li Zhaoxing was assigned to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and entered the advanced translation class of BFSU. Zhou Jueliang taught English writing.

In his memory, Mr. Zhou was handsome, and his English writing was even more handsome.

  Once, when Li Zhaoxing wrote an article about the international situation, Zhou Jueliang told him when he revised the article that some words were used out of place.

Li Zhaoxing defended a little embarrassedly: "Teacher, I used to read a lot of novels, scripts and the like, but too little about the international situation." Zhou Jueliang interrupted him and said, "Xiao Li, it's a layman to say this. If you can read literature thoroughly, you should be able to use political vocabulary well." Many years later, Li Zhaoxing, who had become Minister of Foreign Affairs, recalled: "Mr. Zhou Jueliang's remarks have benefited me a lot in my subsequent studies."

  In 1975, Zhou Jueliang was transferred from BFSU to the Translation Office of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs as deputy director.

At that time, he was in his sixtieth year and no longer served as an interpreter. He mainly participated in the finalization of the English translations of "Poems of Mao Zedong", "Selected Works of Mao Zedong", the fifth volume and "Selected Works of Zhou Enlai".

  He once laughed at himself. For decades, he had been a messenger in the translation industry. He had done interpreting, translation, politics, literature, foreign translation, Chinese translation and foreign translation, but he did not specialize in it. He was interested in literary theory, so he was interested in translation. The theory also often pays attention to it, but it has never been done specifically.

  In 1980, Zhou Jueliang left the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and returned to BFSU.

The student Gan Huiting remembered that he said that he was always uncomfortable in the officialdom, and that he was like a duck to water in the sea of ​​books.

If it is agreeable, why should it be

  In the 1980s, when the late academic spring came, Wang Zuoliang buried his head in his desk, and 32 of the 38 works he left behind were written after 1980.

This is not the case with Zhou Jueliang. Anyone who knows him knows that he will not give himself a big plan of how many words to write every day, but just live a leisurely life.

  For a while, Zhou Jueliang promised to write "Three Hundred Poems in English" in the same way as "Three Hundred Poems of Tang Dynasty".

Although he agreed, he never started to write. In the last year of his life, he was asked to write one article per issue by "English Learning" magazine, and he only wrote 8 articles.

  Wang Zuoliang once recalled that among professors over 70 years old, Zhou Jueliang was the only one who had been teaching basic literature courses for students in the department.

The course is just a simple "literary analysis", he likes Socratic communication, selects a few poems and one or two novels, asks questions, makes students think and analyze, and his interjections and comments always have to say Don't bother.

  "Second Gong" is a lifelong confidant.

Wang Zuoliang said that he felt comfortable with Zhou Jueliang. The two often bought books together, and then went to a restaurant to drink and eat together after buying them.

In the summer of 1946, when he just returned to Beijing from Kunming, Zhou Jueliang took him to eat breakfast in the north with a family in the door frame alley all morning.

In those days, they always walked together, talked while walking, and were not afraid of long distances.

  Calligraphy is Zhou Jueliang's lifelong hobby.

He often grinds ink by himself, finds a piece of rough-edged paper, writes a poem with confidence, and puts it away only when he is satisfied.

Mrs. Fang Huang said that his words are elegant and beautiful, not flattering or bluffing, and his words are just like people.

His salary is to support his family, and he can only store ink as much as he can with a small amount of remuneration. He spent three or five yuan at a time, and accumulated more than 100 pieces of ink piecemeal.

He specializes in collecting Wuyuan ink that people did not pay attention to in the past, but even if this ink is small, there will be exquisite carvings and lettering on it.

  Mrs. Fang Zhang said that her husband was one of the lucky ones among the intellectuals who came from the old society.

He has a clean history, is friendly to others, and has hardly been hit by political movements.

He has a clean heart, no matter what, he can face it with magnanimity and open-mindedness, and he is rarely depressed.

  He likes to drink, rice wine, beer, rum, whatever he has.

After class, he often drinks alone in the tavern outside the school gate.

The students have encountered each other, and sometimes accompanied him for a drink, chatting all over the world, from the news of the Southwest Associated University to literature and poetry.

  He likes good food and always has a good appetite.

When he was a child, he was particular about his family and ate Huaiyang dishes. When he grew up, he found delicious food everywhere he went.

The state pays more and more attention to intellectuals, and began to give out 100 yuan subsidy to the old experts every month. The family thought that he would be able to satisfy his appetite with the next restaurant every month. Unfortunately, he passed away before the system could be implemented.

  He walked neatly.

In the early morning of October 16, 1992, he suddenly said that he had chest tightness. Within 5 minutes, the ambulance and the doctor did not arrive, and he passed away.

  Bing Xin, an old friend, heard the news and sent a note: "Jueliang is gone, throw away the heavy shell." The elder brother Zhou Liang wrote an elegiac couplet: Poetry is Chinese and foreign, books chase Jin and Tang Dynasties;

  In his later years, he studied "Poems of Poetry" by Sikong Tu, a famous scholar in the late Tang Dynasty, because of his academic writing. He told his daughter Zhou Qipeng that poetry has character.

  Zhou Qipeng asked, what kind of character are you?

He pointed to "Twenty-Four Poems: Sparse Wilderness": "It is only the house of nature, and it is true to be free from restraint. Picking up things to become rich, and rate it for a period of time. Build a house, take off your hat and read poetry. When. If it is suitable, it will not do anything. If it is released, it will be obtained." He said, this is me.

(Finish)