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MAY FOURTH AND TRANSLATION MAY e-ISSN 2610-914X Translating Wor(l)ds 4 ISSN 2610-9131 — May Fourth and Translation edited by Kevin Henry HENRY Edizioni Ca’Foscari 4 May Fourth and Translation Translating Wor(l)ds A series edited by Nicoletta Pesaro 4 Translating Wor(l)ds Collana di studi sulla traduzione e traduzioni delle lingue asiatiche e nordafricane Editor-in-Chief Nicoletta Pesaro (Università Ca’ Foscari Venezia, Italia) Advisory Board Giorgio Amitrano (Università degli Studi di Napoli «L’Orientale», Italia) Anne Bayard-Sakai (Institut National des Langues et Civilisations Orientales, Paris, France) Gianluca Coci (Università degli Studi di Torino, Italia) Noël Dutrait (Université Aix-Marseille, Aix-en-Provence, France) Monika Gaenssbauer (Friedrich-Alexander Universität, Erlangen-Nürberg, Deutschland) Babli Moitra-Saraf (University of Delhi, India) Bruno Osimo (Civica Scuola Interpreti e Traduttori, Milano, Italia) Lorenza Rega (Università degli Studi di Trieste, Italia) Nana Sato-Rossberg (SOAS, University of London, UK) Giuliana Schiavi (Scuola Superiore Mediatori Linguistici, Vicenza, Italia) Stefania Stafutti (Università degli Studi di Torino, Italia) Lawrence Venuti (Temple University, Philadelphia, USA) Yinde Zhang (Université Sorbonne, Paris 3, France) Editorial Board Mirella Agorni (Università Ca’ Foscari Venezia, Italia) Martina Codeluppi (Università Ca’ Foscari Venezia; Università degli Studi di Napoli «L’Orientale», Italia Antonella Ghersetti (Università Ca’ Foscari Venezia, Italia) Sona Haroutyunian (Università Ca’ Foscari Venezia, Italia) Paolo Magagnin (Università Ca’ Foscari Venezia, Italia) Michele Mannoni (Università degli Studi di Perugia, Italia) Caterina Mazza (Università Ca’ Foscari Venezia, Italia) Daniela Meneghini (Università Ca’ Foscari Venezia, Italia) Melinda Pirazzoli (Alma Mater Studiorum, Università di Bologna, Italia) Simone Sibilio (Università Ca’ Foscari Venezia, Italia) Francesco Vitucci (Alma Mater Studiorum, Università di Bologna, Italia) Head Office Dipartimento di Studi sull’Asia e sull’Africa Mediterranea Università Ca’ Foscari Venezia Palazzo Vendramin, Dorsoduro 3462 | 30123 Venezia, Italia [email protected] e-ISSN 2610-914X ISSN 2610-8131 URL http://edizionicafoscari.unive.it/it/edizioni/collane/translatingwor(l)ds/ May Fourth and Translation edited by Kevin Henry Venezia Edizioni Ca’ Foscari - Digital Publishing 2020 May Fourth and Translation Kevin Henry (edited by) © 2020 Kevin Henry for the text © 2020 Edizioni Ca’ Foscari - Digital Publishing for the present edition cb Quest’opera è distribuita con Licenza Creative Commons Attribuzione 4.0 Internazionale This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License Qualunque parte di questa pubblicazione può essere riprodotta, memorizzata in un sistema di recupero dati o trasmessa in qualsiasi forma o con qualsiasi mezzo, elettronico o meccanico, senza autorizzazione, a condizione che se ne citi la fonte. Any part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or trans- mitted in any form or by any means without permission provided that the source is fully credited. Certificazione scientifica delle Opere pubblicate da Edizioni Ca’ Foscari - Digital Publishing: i saggi pubblicati hanno ottenuto il parere favorevole da parte di valutatori esperti della materia, attraverso un processo di revisione doppia anonima, sotto la responsabilità del Comitato scientifico della collana. La valutazione è stata condotta in aderenza ai criteri scientifici ed editoriali di Edizioni Ca’ Foscari, ricorrendo all’utilizzo di apposita piattaforma. Scientific certification of the works published by Edizioni Ca’ Foscari - Digital Publishing: the essays published have received a favourable evaluation by subject-matter experts, through a double blind peer review process under the responsibility of the Scientific Committee of the series. The evaluations were conducted in adherence to the scientific and editorial criteria established by Edizioni Ca’ Foscari, using a dedicated platform. Edizioni Ca’ Foscari - Digital Publishing Fondazione Università Ca’ Foscari Venezia | Dorsoduro 3246 | 30123 Venezia http://edizionicafoscari.unive.it | [email protected] 1st edition December 2020 ISBN 978-88-6969-465-3 [ebook] ISBN 978-88-6969-494-3 [print] May Fourth and Translation / Kevin Henry (edited by) — 1. ed. — Venezia: Edizioni Ca’ Fos- cari - Digital Publishing, 2020. — 116 pp.; 23 cm. — (Translating Wor(l)ds | 4). ISBN 978-88- 6969-494-3. URL https://edizionicafoscari.unive.it/en/edizioni/libri/978-88-6969-494-3/ DOI http://doi.org/10.30687/978-88-6969-465-3 May Fourth and Translation edited by Kevin Henry Table of Contents 4 May 1919: Translation in Motion Kevin Henry 7 Innovative or Rather Traditional? Confucianising Tragedy in May Fourth China Letizia Fusini 13 The Other Vernacular: Commoner Knowledge Culture Circa 1919 Joan Judge 33 Agents of May Fourth. Jing Yinyu, Xu Zhongnian, and the Early Introduction of Modern Chinese Literature in France Paolo Magagnin 55 A Space for Their Voices. (Un)apologies for Translation in the May Fourth Journal New Tide Michelle Jia Ye 75 Ba Jin, “Offspring of May 4th”, Time Bomb and Utopian Impulse Zhang Yinde 99 May Fourth and Translation edited by Kevin Henry 4 May 1919: Translation in Motion Kevin Henry Université de Mons, Belgium In January 1919, after four years of bloody conflict which had spread round the globe, the victors of the First World War gathered in Ver- sailles to sign a document that would send the German, Austro-Hun- garian and Ottoman Empires into oblivion, effectively drawing the borders of a new world. By joining forces with the Allies against Ger- many in 1917, the young Republic of China had hoped to reassert its sovereignty over those portions of its territory (Qingdao and Jiaozhou Bay, Yantai) that had been placed under German rule twenty years earlier. Unfortunately for China, the Treaty of Versailles attributed those territories to Japan, which, at the time, was also a member of the coalition against the central empires and which had demanded those territories as early as 1915 (Twenty-One Demands). Outraged by what they considered a betrayal – especially since the Chinese government was suspected of having offered the territories up in exchange for the promise of a loan from Japan – three thousand stu- dents gathered on 4 May 1919 in Peking before the Tiananmen to ex- press their discontent and their anger towards the pro-Japanese of- ficials. Very rapidly, in spite of the warlords’ attempts to intervene, the nationalist wave, accompanied by social movements, swept over Shanghai paralysing the entire Chinese economy. The movement suc- ceeded in convincing the government to refuse to sign the Treaty of Versailles in June, a decision that, ultimately, had little effect on the Japanese presence in China. Despite this, the student demonstrations marked the emergence of a veritable political consciousness among Translating Wor(l)ds 4 e-ISSN 2610-914X | ISSN 2610-9131 ISBN [ebook] 978-88-6969-465-3 | ISBN [print] Edizioni Ca’Foscari Peer review | Open access 7 Submitted | Accepted | Published © 2020 | cb Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Public License DOI 10.30687/978-88-6969-465-3/000 Kevin Henry 4 May 1919: Translation in Motion the Chinese population, who had seen their power usurped in 1912, after the Republican Revolution, by the autocratic interim president, Yuan Shikai 袁世凱. In particular, the movement served as a soap- box for a plurality of political doctrines, including the left. In fact, the Communist Party of China was founded in 1921 by intellectuals (Chen Duxiu 陳獨秀 and Li Dazhao 李大釗) who had actively partici- pated in the 4 May events. This nascent political and nationalistic dimension aside, the May Fourth Movement, led principally by an emerging class of young ac- ademics and intellectuals, was part of the larger New Culture Move- ment, which flourished between 1915 and the end of the 1920s. Stu- dents, who had been exposed since the end of the nineteenth century to Japanese and Western influences, issued social and cultural de- mands which included their government’s engaging with other na- tions; they embraced such values as democracy, equality and individ- ual freedom. The Confucian way of life was considered incompatible with the modern era and was rejected in favour of rationalism and science. Classical Chinese, too, was seen as a straightjacket that pre- vented new ideas from bursting forth, and became unpopular. In- stead, the leaders of the movement sought to promote the vernacular language, especially in literature, so that it could be made available to the largest possible audience, a mission which was carried out by such universally known figures as Lu Xun 魯迅, Mao Dun 茅盾, Lao She 老舍, Bing Xin 冰心 and Hu Shih 胡適. Given the decisive role it played in the construction of the modern Chinese state – an importance that has been recognised officially on both sides of the Formosa Strait – as well as in the literary and intel- lectual domains, the May Fourth Movement warranted a large-scale international scientific event in its own right. What better time, then, than the year marking the hundredth anniversary of those student demonstrations to organise, not just a cultural commemoration, but an academic conference befitting its imprint on the Chinese psyche? Thus, on May 2-3-4, 2019, an international interdisciplinary confer- ence dedicated to this landmark event of the Chinese nation was or- ganised at the Université de Mons,