A History of Western Appreciation of English-Translated Tang Poetry China Academic Library

China Academic Library

Lan Jiang A History of Western Appreciation of English-translated Tang Poetry China Academic Library

Academic Advisory Board: Researcher Geng Yunzhi, Institute of Modern History, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, China Professor Han Zhen, Beijing Foreign Studies University, China Researcher Hao Shiyuan, Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, China Professor Li Xueqin, Department of History, Tsinghua University, China Professor Li Yining, Guanghua School of Management, Peking University, China Researcher Lu Xueyi, Institute of Sociology, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, China Professor Wong Young-tsu, Department of History, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, USA Professor Yu Keping, Central Compilation and Translation Bureau, China Professor Yue Daiyun, Department of Chinese Language and Literature, Peking University, China Zhu Yinghuang, China Daily Press, China

Series Coordinators: Zitong Wu, Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press, China Yan Li, Springer More information about this series at http://www.springer.com/series/11562 Lan Jiang

A History of Western Appreciation of English-translated Tang Poetry

123 Lan Jiang Beijing China

Translated by Manliang Wang and Fangjun Li: Xi’an International Studies University, Xi’an, Shaanxi Province

ISSN 2195-1853 ISSN 2195-1861 (electronic) China Academic Library ISBN 978-3-662-56351-9 ISBN 978-3-662-56352-6 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-56352-6

Jointly published with Foreign Language Teaching and Research Publishing Co., Ltd.

The printed edition is not for sale in China Mainland. Customers from China Mainland please order the print book from Foreign Language Teaching and Research Publishing Co., Ltd.

Library of Congress Control Number: 2017962555

© Foreign Language Teaching and Research Publishing Co., Ltd and Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany 2018 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved by the Publishers, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publishers, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publishers nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, express or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publishers remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Printed on acid-free paper

This Springer imprint is published by Springer Nature The registered company is Springer-Verlag GmbH, DE The registered company address is: Heidelberger Platz 3, 14197 Berlin, Germany To my Dearest Girls, Shelyn and Tiffany Yang, for Being There For Me Always Foreword

Why would anyone other than a specialist in Chinese literature want to read this book? This is an obvious and understandable question, which certainly crossed my mind as I embarked on the reading of Dr. Jiang’s manuscript. For me, someone who specializes in Western literature but who has had an abiding interest in China, the question of the translation of Tang poetry into English seemed esoteric and potentially irrelevant to me as an uninformed layman. Yet, as I soon discovered thanks to Dr. Jiang, this is much more than a list of translators and their works, it is the story of a meeting of civilizations. It is the story of me and of you, the reader. The “exotic Oriental” has been a concept that for centuries has conjured visions in the Western imagination of stately pagodas, incense, Golden Buddhas, sheer silks, spices, pearls, and mysterious potions. In particular, the Chinese have long been viewed as “inscrutable,”“unpredictable,” and “unfathomable.”“Chinese”— any one of the hundreds of languages or dialects spoken in what have been terri- tories under Chinese jurisdiction—has been judged by many Westerners as “im- penetrable.” But today, at the time of the publication of this book, Mandarin Chinese is being studied and spoken by a greater number of Westerners than ever before. China is on the rise, and interest in the Middle Kingdom is exploding all over the globe. Fascinated by the beauty of Chinese characters, tempted by the many delicacies of Chinese cuisine, and allured by other Asian delights, Westerners have long desired to commune with the East, but have been put off by the difﬁ- culties of communication and engagement. How does one foster a relationship with a person that he or she cannot understand? And how can one understand the “Other” without direct contact or study? Until quite recently, travel to Asia was limited, difﬁcult, expensive, and, in certain cases, potentially dangerous. In the realm of study, yet another complicating factor was, until recently, the inability to access easily resources to learn about Eastern languages and cultures, even if one was interested. How, then, did Westerners of the English-speaking world learn about China? In an act of faith, they had to rely on the accounts of those who had gone to the East and had communicated their impressions in writing: merchants, missionaries, diplomats, academics, and occasional travelers. Of these, perhaps the three best

vii viii Foreword known were the Venetian merchant and eventual diplomat Marco Polo (1254– 1324), the Jesuit missionary Matteo Ricci (1552–1610), and the American novelist Pearl S. Buck (1892–1973). Others, of course, had published accounts of their journeys and work in China, but very few of these accounts had ever caught enough of the attention of the English-speaking public to reach a broad swath of a general readership. Western interest in China was not purely aesthetic. For centuries, the most vibrant trade route in the world, the Silk Road, had been the link between West and East. Western contacts with the East, and especially with China, had mostly been indirect, through the services of middlemen along the vast routes leading from Venice and Constantinople into the Holy Land, Arabia, Mesopotamia, Central Asia, and, eventually, China, or, conversely, along shipping routes that connected the Atlantic and the Indian Ocean with land routes that ran through India into China. By the nineteenth century, Western nations tired of intermediaries and progressively insisted upon open access to Chinese markets, at first reluctantly abiding by Qing restrictions that limited trade to be conducted through the port of Canton (Guangdong), but then continuously forcing their way militarily into the interior of the nation. Greater contact between Western and Chinese governmental and civil entities saw a multiplication of officials to mediate affairs, giving increasing numbers of Westerners the opportunity either to visit China, or, more often, to live and work in China, something which had not generally been possible for previous generations of non-Chinese. Greater numbers of foreign functionaries in Chinese territory also required greater numbers of Western support personnel, and while the Qing attempted to confine them to foreign districts, a proliferation of communication and commerce could not be stemmed. Chinese merchants craved trade relations as much as Westerners did. Western diplomats and missionaries were being posted throughout the Chinese empire in cities such as Tianjin, Guangzhou, Shanghai, Hankou, Jiujiang, Ningbo, and Xiamen, among many others, and were often spending large portions of their careers living in China. While the “Orient” may still have seemed distant in Western minds, world events were drawing East and West closer together. As had so very often been the case in world history, merchants had gone first, followed by armies, diplomats, and missionaries. In this intriguing study, Dr. Lan Jiang takes us on a fascinating journey of cultural contact and assimilation that started in the sixteenth century with the Jesuits’ attempt to build intellectual bridges between China and Europe. Spearheaded at first by the work of Italian, Portuguese, and German Jesuits, it was eventually the work of the French Jesuits who, through their prolific publications, fostered curiosity about the Middle Kingdom in fellow Europeans. Interest spread in secular circles in France as well, and, as Dr. Jiang shows, by the early nineteenth century the first Chair of Chinese Studies was established at the prestigious Collège de France, marking the birth of the modern science of sinology. Interest spread to other European nations, and by the mid-nineteenth century, the United Kingdom, which had lagged somewhat in the scientific study of China, was also becoming fully engaged in the realms of trade and diplomacy. Dr. Jiang demonstrates clearly and carefully that, as Westerners slowly became more familiar with Chinese life, Foreword ix language, and, eventually, culture, they became increasingly interested in the greatness of Chinese civilization and wanted to share their discoveries with other English speakers who did not have the experience or the knowledge to access the great cultural treasures of China. Skillfully, Dr. Jiang charts the gradual but steady growth of knowledge and understanding of Chinese language and culture in the English-speaking world, as British sinologists, both amateur and professional, advanced into more sophisticated levels of insight and appreciation. Such is the story of the various British diplomatic translators and missionary publishers such as Joseph Edkins (1823– 1905), Edward H. Parker (1849–1936), and Herbert A. Giles (1845–1935), who wrote grammars of the Chinese language, compiled dictionaries, translated literary, historical, philosophical, and religious texts, and started academic journals to share their findings. Similar activities were being conducted by sinological counterparts from the United States, such as Samuel Wells Williams (1812–1884) and William Alexander Persons Martin (1827–1916), and, as Dr. Jiang points out, sinology was growing into an important area of study in America, as was demonstrated by the establishment of East Asian Studies Departments at universities across the United States, including, Yale, Columbia, Harvard, and the University of California at Berkeley. While Westerners may have been ignorant of specific elements of Chinese greatness, there had never been question that China did possess one of the great civilizations of the world. Of the many dynasties of China, one in particular, the Tang (618–907 C.E.) has always been judged by scholars of Chinese history to be the “Golden Age” of Chinese cultural life and production. Celebrated especially for its outstanding poetic creation, the Tang dynasty boasted many of the finest poets in the history of China. Within China, these writers had been extolled as among the finest representatives of Chinese thought and the Chinese spirit, but outside the nation, they were barely known. Interestingly, it would be classical Chinese poetry that would serve as perhaps the greatest vehicle of intercultural communication between China and the English-speaking world, and, as Dr. Jiang shows so con- vincingly, it was Tang poetry that would have an enormous influence on the culture of that world in ways that were unexpected. What constitutes a good translation? One of the most intriguing aspects of Dr. Jiang’s work is her overview of the theories of translation pursued by each translator, and, through abundant comparisons and deep analysis, she adroitly tells each sinologist’s personal story as it is evinced in his or her work. Every translation is an act of personal investment, and, as Dr. Jiang underscores so beautifully, it is this manifestation of self that is actually an attempt to establish a deep communication between the translator and the original Tang poet. What is more, this personal revelation of the translator also acted as a bridge between the Tang poet, the translator, and those who read the translation. In short, Dr. Jiang traces a series of relationships, not just of those between the poet and the public with which he or she wished to connect, but also between the translator who is searching to make a spiritual connection with the poet, and the general public, which is also longing for a closer connection with China and its people. x Foreword

Finally, in one of the most fascinating contributions of her study, Dr. Jiang charts the concrete ways in which Tang poetry inspired Western authors in the creation of their own works. Discussing in detail the cases of Alfred Cranmer-Byng (1872–1945), Arthur David Waley (1889–1966), Judith Gautier (1845–1917), and William John Bainbrigge Fletcher (1879–1933), among many others, Dr. Jiang traces how translations of Tang poetry came to have a significant impact on literary culture in the English-speaking world. It is well known that Ezra Pound was deeply influenced by Tang poetry; however, fewer readers may have recognized the profound impact that Tang poetry had on the work of poets Florence Ayscough (1878– 1942) and Amy Lowell (1874–1925). Perhaps the most surprising effect of the diffusion of English translations of Tang poetry was the role it played in the renewal of American poetry by inspiring poets such as the Modernist William Carlos Williams (1883–1963), and Kenneth Rexroth (1905–1982) and Gary Snyder (1930–), two of the major poets of the San Francisco Renaissance and the Beat Generation. But what of the future of Tang poetry translation in the English-speaking world today? Dr. Jiang’s tour de force reminds us that the study and translation of Tang poetry in the English-speaking world is becoming increasingly sophisticated, professional, and widespread. As China and the English-speaking world move closer together in the areas of trade, diplomacy, and culture, more and more nonspecial- ists, like myself, who still have a deep and enduring interest in China and its people, will be able to benefit—and learn—from the more accurate and more conveniently available resources that will make the Chinese language and Chinese culture more accessible. Dr. Jiang’s groundbreaking work is just such an admirable contribution to this worthy enterprise and, as I found, holds a multitude of intellectual surprises and delights.

Mark DeStephano Saint Peter’s University Jersey City, NJ, USA Acknowledgements

My deepest gratitude to Professor Shijin Luo at Soochow University, China, for he had conjured up before my exalted lights of classical Chinese poetry. His hand has poured out for me fresh and delicate tea from the ancient jade kettle, summoning me to the joyous feast of great literature encounter of China and the West. My sincere appreciation to Professor Mark Destephano at St. Peter’s University, U.S., for his magic guidance and abiding friendship over the years, that had encouraged me and aided me to reach many myriad constellations of the academic firmament. I’m grateful to Professor Manliang Wang and Professor Fangjun Li at Xi’an International Studies University, for their professional cooperation in presenting the primary English version of this book. Under the current subject, translation had become a greater challenge with significant language and cultural barriers even for professionals. I’m grateful for all their hard works, time, and effort. My thanks also goes to Professor Shaorong Huang at University of Cincinnati, for his unflinching assistance; to my dearest friend Ms. Xiaojing Deng, for her continued trust and inspiration; to Ms. Yaru Zhao, Ms. Lu Yi, and Ms. Huixiang Duan at Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press in Beijing, for their constant encouragement, professional cooperation, and valuable assistance at various stages of this project.

xi Contents

Part I The Initial Stage 1 An Overview of the Historical Background ...... 3 1.1 The Emergence of European Sinology ...... 3 1.2 The Beginning of English Translation of Tang Poetry ...... 6 1.3 The Rise of American Sinology ...... 8 1.4 Characteristics of the Introduction of Tang Poetry to the West ...... 12 References ...... 19 2 Research on the Early Signiﬁcant Texts ...... 21 2.1 The Misplaced English Version of Tang Poetry ...... 21 2.2 Pilot English-Translated Works of Tang Poems ...... 25 2.3 The English Anthologies of Tang Poetry ...... 31 References ...... 35 3 British Sinologist Herbert A. Giles and His Contributions ...... 37 3.1 Tang Poems in Chinese Poetry in English Verse ...... 38 3.2 Tang Poetry in A History of Chinese Literature ...... 42 3.3 Tang Poetry in Gems of Chinese Literature ...... 46 References ...... 50 4 Other Early Sinologists and Their Outstanding Contributions .... 51 4.1 British Sinologist Edward H. Parker and Tang Poetry ...... 52 4.2 British Sinologist Joseph Edkins and Tang Poetry ...... 56 4.3 American Sinologist William A. P. Martin and Tang Poetry ... 61 4.4 Review of Their Academic Contributions ...... 66 References ...... 68 5 British Poet Launcelot A. Cranmer-Byng and Tang Poetry ...... 69 5.1 Tang Poetry in The Never Ending Wrong ...... 71 5.2 Tang Poetry in A Lute of Jade ...... 78

xiii xiv Contents

5.3 Tang Poetry in A Feast of Lanterns ...... 84 5.4 Review of Academic Contributions of Cranmer-Byng’s Re-Rendering ...... 87 References ...... 89 6 The British Sinologist and Poet Arthur Waley ...... 91 6.1 Tang Poetry in Chinese Poems ...... 92 6.2 Tang Poetry in 170 Chinese Poems ...... 95 6.3 Tang Poetry in More Translation from Chinese ...... 102 6.4 The Poet Li Po ...... 104 6.5 Review of Waley’s Academic Contributions ...... 110 References ...... 110 7 British Diplomat William J. B. Fletcher ...... 111 7.1 Gems of Chinese Verse and More Gems of Chinese Poetry .... 111 7.2 Characteristics of Fletcher’s Translation ...... 113 7.3 Limitations of Fletcher’s Translation ...... 116 7.4 Review of Fletcher’s Academic Contribution ...... 120 References ...... 123

Part II The Developing Stage 8 The Propagation of Tang Poetry in the West: Historical Background and Characteristics of Its Developing Stage ...... 127 8.1 Historical Review of American Cultural Concern and Absorption of Chinese Culture...... 128 8.2 “The New Poetry Movement” and the First Wave of Tang Poetry Translation in the United States...... 132 8.3 Characteristics of the Developing Stage of the Propagation .... 133 References ...... 138 9 American Adaptation of Tang Poetry Translations from Europe ...... 139 9.1 French Poet Judith Gautier and Le Livre de Jade ...... 140 9.2 Irish Poet Helen Waddell and Lyrics from the Chinese ...... 146 References ...... 149 10 Tang Poetry in Classical Chinese Poetry Anthologies ...... 151 10.1 Mathers and His Two Theme-Oriented Anthologies ...... 151 10.2 Joseph French and Lotus and Chrysanthemum ...... 155 References ...... 160 11 Ezra Pound’s Cathay and the Transmission of Tang Poetry to the West ...... 161 References ...... 171 Contents xv

12 The Beginning of Studies on Chinese Poetic Theories ...... 173 12.1 Fenollosa and the Chinese Written Character as a Medium for Poetry...... 174 12.2 Victor Purcell and The Spirit of Chinese Poetry ...... 180 References ...... 188 13 Fir-Flower Tablets and Its Authors ...... 189 13.1 Contents of Fir-Flower Tablets and Ayscough’s Preface ...... 191 13.2 The “Literariness” Manifested Translation in Fir-Flower Tablets ...... 198 13.3 The Statues of Fir-Flower Tablets on the Propagation of English-Translated Tang Poetry ...... 203 References ...... 205 14 Contributions by Chinese–American Scholars ...... 207 14.1 The Jade Mountain and Its Translation ...... 208 14.2 Tsai Ting Kan and Chinese Poems in English Rhyme ...... 215 References ...... 219 15 Development After the 1950s ...... 221 15.1 The “Beat Generation” and Tang Poetry Translation ...... 221 15.2 Translation and Research on Tang Poetry Resumes in Academia ...... 230 15.3 Characteristics of Contemporary Tang Poetry Studies ...... 232 15.4 Outstanding Contributions of Native Chinese Scholars ...... 243 15.5 Conclusion ...... 245 References ...... 251 Conclusion ...... 253 Afterword ...... 259 Bibliography ...... 261 Part I The Initial Stage Chapter 1 An Overview of the Historical Background

1.1 The Emergence of European Sinology

With the advent of missionaries accompanying European colonialists in the sixteenth century, Chinese culture began to intermingle with Western culture; thus a unique cultural phenomenon emerged. Western missionaries had come to China with their own religious beliefs and evangelical missions; however, to their surprise, they saw a highly civilized country with a long history, a vast geographical area, rich resources as well as a fine political and social order—despite the absence of Christian values. They realized that Oriental civilization and the Oriental’s contribution to human development were no less than those of the West. As a result, quite a number of missionaries—rather than prioritizing the number of believers they would convert—chose to engage themselves in helping to promote cross-cultural communication and mutual understanding so as to alleviate cultural conflicts or confrontations. Educated and cultured, these missionaries turned out to be the secular cultural ambassadors, also known as the early sinologists. By the late seventeenth century, the French Jesuits had begun to play a dominant role in evangelization in China. While endeavoring to learn the Chinese language, study Chinese culture, and translate Chinese classics, they wrote books and articles to introduce to the Western world their personal experiences in China as well as their understanding of Chinese society, culture, and people. These works, serving as the main media then between the East and the West, brought to the spotlight the clash between the Eastern and Western civilizations in the context of the Christian culture, giving rise to the Europeans’ interest in the study of Chinese civilization. On November 29, 1814, the position of Professor of Chinese Language and Literature was posted at Institut Royale de Paris, which marked the beginning of the acceptance of Chinese civilization as a field of academic research in Western institutions of higher learning. A few days later, Jean Pierre Abel Rémusat (1788–1832, known as 阿伯而,or阿伯儿 in Chinese)—a well-known French sinologist—was employed, becoming the first European sinologist. In January

© Foreign Language Teaching and Research Publishing Co., Ltd 3 and Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany 2018 L. Jiang, A History of Western Appreciation of English-translated Tang Poetry, China Academic Library, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-56352-6_1 4 1 An Overview of the Historical Background

1815, Professor Rémusat delivered his inaugural address at the podium of Institut Royale de Paris. His speech “Programme du Cours de Langue et de Littérature Chinoises et de Tartare-Mandchou” and the ensuing lecture “La Chaire de Langues et Littératures Chinoises st Tartats—Mandchoues” he opened and hosted, established the academic status of sinology as a discipline in Europe. Afterward, other Western countries such as Britain, Russia, the Netherlands, the United States, and Germany followed suit, offering Chinese language and culture courses in their colleges and universities. Hence began the initial stage of development of scholastic sinology. The sinology of the Jesuits was mainly composed of the teaching and research included in the personal accounts of China by missionaries, such as Lettres Édiﬁantes Et Crrieuses, and the Chinese classics translated by them such as Yì Jīng (易经), Dàodé Jīng (道德经), Huáinánzǐ (淮南子), and Jīngǔ Qíguān (今古奇观). Even after sinology had become a discipline in academia, what earlier European sinologists—with Jean Pierre Abel Rémusat as their representative—emphasized, in essence, was the learning of the Chinese language by Europeans. As a result, earlier sinology was characterized by research in Chinese language learning and the compilation of dictionaries. Due to consideration of business and trade, evangelization, and diplomacy, studies in Chinese history, geography, history of thought, linguistics, and medicine gradually emerged as the traditional areas of study. However, for a long time, studies in classical Chinese literature lagged. As the essence of classical Chinese literature, poetry—with its terseness, elegance, and beauty—was not in favor among the sinologists of the time, making it even harder to be translated into European languages. Although there had been translated poems published in such titles as Classics of Poetry and The Book of Poetry by 1850, these works were merely a translation of Shī Jīng (诗经), excluding other types of classical poetry. In the eighteenth century, as opposed to the dominant medieval European Christian theology, the enlightenment won the upper hand in Europe. It advocated divine human rights, respect for wisdom and education, and natural law rather than miraculous signs. However, theories of the natural law of the Greek culture originated in Europe failed to provide a rational foundation of thought. As a result, the Confucian people-oriented “harmony” theory and the Song neo-Confucian “heav- enly principles” (天理论) theory were found to be able to serve this end. At this time, Chinese society was in a prosperous period known as the Golden Age of Three Emperors of the Qing dynasty. What the missionaries and sinologists saw and introduced to the West was, under the rule of benevolent emperors, a stable and prosperous society in which people lived and worked in peace and order. This formed a contrast with the ruthless theocratic European monarchies, proving the value of Chinese traditional Confucian ethics and rational spirit, as established in a social system characterized by civilized development and rational progress. With such a historical background, and so as to propound a deeper understanding of the social and cultural psychology of Chinese society, early sinologists paid more attention to research on Confucianism, seeking the spirit of Confucianism and almost invariably focusing on the master Kong Fuzi. Therefore, 1.1 The Emergence of European Sinology 5

The Book of Songs, allegedly composed by Kong Fuzi, happened to be the earliest Chinese classical poetry introduced to the West, although it received widespread attention in the West as a classic work of Confucianism rather than a literary work. The translation and study of The Book of Songs enabled early researchers to explore Chinese literature more extensively and in greater depth. Some scholars began to find in Tang poetry a large variety of usage, morphemes, ideas, and allusions that were borrowed from The Book of Songs. In 1862, the renowned French sinologist D’Hervey Saint-Denys (1823–1892, also known in Chinese as 德理文) had his French translation of Tang poetry, Poésies De l’Époque des Thangs, published. It was “a valuable monograph on the poetry of the Tang period, containing many prose translations and a careful study of Chinese verse form.” (Cranmer-Byng 1909, p. 116) So far it is also known as the earliest monograph of Tang poetry translated into a Western language. Compared with sinology in other European countries such as France, British sinology started late. In the late eighteenth century, with France and Italy and other countries gradually losing in modern industrial competition, Britain had become one of the most world-oriented European countries. With their economic aggression and religious expansion, the British began to show a strong desire to learn about China and Chinese culture. In 1823, the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland, Britain’s first academic research institution dedicated to Asian Studies, was established. In 1825, Robert Morrison (1782–1834), the first Protestant missionary sent to China by the East India Company and the London Missionary Society, established the London School of Oriental Languages and began to teach Chinese as a course within the curriculum. In 1837, a sinology professorship was posted at University College London, and Pastor Samuel Kidd (1804–1843) was employed as the first Professor of Sinology in Britain. This marked the beginning of British scholastic sinology. Early British sinologists were mainly missionaries and diplomats. In terms of the spread of Chinese classical literature in the United Kingdom, Chinese scholar Chen Youbing (陈友冰) divided the process into four stages. The first is called “the Missionary Sinology Stage (from the end of the 18th century to the Opium War in 1840), during which Chinese classical literature research emerged.” At this stage, apart from The Book of Songs, other translated Chinese classical literary works were reader-friendly and strong narrative vernacular fiction works, such as selections from Hǎoqiú Zhuàn (好逑传, Biographies of Good Spouses) and Sānyán Èrpāi (三言二拍), or dramas such as Yuan opera Zhàoshì Gūér (赵氏孤儿) and the local Muyu opera (木鱼戏) of Guangdong HuājiānJì (花笺记). As Chen Youbing summarizes, “studies on classical Chinese literature at this preparatory stage were small in number, narrow in scope, and shallow in depth due to lack of a real understanding of classical Chinese literature.” (Chen Youbing 2008 [3], pp. 34–47) At this stage, Tang poetry was not yet an area of interest among British sinologists. Thus far, the earliest published Tang poem in English had appeared in 1815. It was a poem titled “Jiǔrì QíshānDēnggāo” (九日齐山登高, “Climbing Qi Mountain on the Double Ninth Day”) by late Tang dynasty poet Du Mu (杜牧), and 6 1 An Overview of the Historical Background its translation by Robert Morrison was included in Translations from the Original Chinese, with Notes (1815). Nevertheless, the book by Robert Morrison was not directly related to Tang poetry or Tang culture in that he did not intend to recommend the poem or the poet to the English world; rather, he included this poem in his book simply because toward the end of the first part of the book, he mentioned the fact that the Chinese went climbing mountains to ward off the evil spirits on the double ninth day of the lunar calendar. In order to convince his readers how old this tradition was and how far-reaching its influence was, he translated the poem merely as an illustration. In other words, Tang poems in English which appeared at this stage were entirely accidental—a sheer coincidence.

1.2 The Beginning of English Translation of Tang Poetry

After the Opium Wars, as a series of unequal treaties such as “The Treaty of Nanjing,”“The Treaty of Tianjin,” and “The Treaty of Beijing” were signed, China’s door was forced to open to the West with Western aggression impinging upon the coastal provinces and then gradually expanding inland. On one hand, Westerners dumped goods and plundered raw materials and labor; on the other hand, they strove to spread Christian culture in China. On November 29, 1845, George Balfour, the British Consul in Shanghai, and the Qing government official Gong Mujiu (宫慕久), military head of Suzhou-Songjiang-Taicang District (苏松太兵备道), signed “Shanghai Land Regulations” (上海租地章程), setting aside 136.7 acres of land as the British settlement, which was the first concession. “In the concession, ‘Chinese and foreigners lived side by side,’ and foreigners were allowed to have the ‘permanent right for rent.’ The concession system gradually expanded from Shanghai to other trading ports.” (Xiong Zhiyong and Su Hao 2005, p. 95) As more and more British were engaged in missionary work, foreign affairs, business, and traveling in China, not only did their trail expand from the coastal areas to the hinterland, but also their sojourn in China was extended significantly. This objectively enabled them to record, collect, and order Chinese classics and sociocultural materials, and introduce them to their own country, making it possible to observe and understand Chinese culture at a deeper level. During this process, some of them were so amazed by the unique charm of Chinese culture that they began to study it with great interest. “The missionaries who had studied Chinese culture to increase affinity for preaching and the merchants who had studied it to increase the chance for business success now studied it out of genuine admiration and passion for it; those who had collected the cultural classics and social customs now became explorers and researchers of them, and some even took studying Chinese culture as a lifelong career. Thus, the change of identity from missionaries and diplomats to sinologists was complete.” (Chen Youbing 2008 [3], pp. 34–47) 1.2 The Beginning of English Translation of Tang Poetry 7

The following examples illustrate this change. James Legge (1815–1897), a Scottish missionary, became the first Professor of Sinology at Oxford University; Thomas Francis Wade (1818–1895), former British Embassy counselor and minister to China, became the first Professor of Sinology at Cambridge University in 1888; and Herbert Allen Giles (1845–1935), a former British consular officer, was unanimously elected as the second Professor of Sinology at Cambridge in 1897. According to Sinological Literature Catalog Index at the Columbia University Library in the United States, before 1924, British sinologists composed a prominent percentage of Western sinologists in terms of their publications. In Sinological Literature Catalog by French sinologist Henri Cordier (1849–1925), there is a chart showing the sharp growth of English sinological literature after 1850. Based on these statistics, scholar Que Weimin (阙维民) wrote an article analyzing the development of early British sinology with Cambridge as the exemplar. He pointed out that “British sinology rose so rapidly in the 19th century that it occupied an important position in Western sinology.” (Que Weimin 2002 [2], pp. 31–43) And the rise of British sinology paved the way for the introduction and translation of Tang poetry to the West. Legge, Giles, and another diplomat and sinologist, Sir John Francis Davis (1795–1890), are known as the three representatives of British sinology in the nineteenth century due to the great contribution they made to the spread of Chinese classical literature in the Britain. In 1870, Davis published his translated work The Poetry of the Chinese, a monograph which gives an overview of Chinese poetry. The book contains two parts: the first introduces the origin and development of Chinese poetry, ranging from The Book of Songs to the poetry of the Qing dynasty; the second contains translated poems and critiques of them. Both parts cover the content of Tang poetry, and in the second part two Tang poems, “SòngchūnCí” (送春词) by Wang Ya (王涯) and “Chūnyè Xǐyǔ” (春夜喜雨)byDuFu(杜甫), were translated and introduced. As a result, Davis is considered the first person to consciously promote Tang poetry to the Western world, and his book, The Poetry of the Chinese, marked the beginning of the introduction of Tang poetry to the English-speaking world. The translation of Tang poems received attention from different angles and at different levels by British sinologists who are fond of classical Chinese literature. In addition to Davis and Giles, a group of outstanding scholars such as Alexander Wylie (1815–1887), Joseph Edkins (1823–1905), and Edward Harper Parker (1849–1936), with their concerted efforts, built the bridge for the transition from randomness to systematicity in the translation and introduction of Tang poems. At the beginning of the twentieth century, the British government began to intervene directly in the training of the personnel engaged in customs, diplomacy, and missionary work in China, due to its needs for colonial expansion, economic aggression, and religious mission. In 1906, the United Kingdom Ministry of Finance set up the London Oriental Studies Investigation Committee, chaired by Lord Reay, inviting experts to investigate the status of research in Oriental Studies in London and to put forward suggestions for improvement. In 1909, the committee published the famous “Reay Report” pointing out that compared to some other 8 1 An Overview of the Historical Background

European countries, the British government underfunded its Oriental language teaching programme. The report advocated state funding, integration of existing resources, and the establishment of an Oriental Studies Institute to suit the needs of the British Empire for training personnel at all levels. Hence, the School of Oriental Studies was established in 1916, British first specialized research institution dedicated to Chinese Studies. It served as a milestone in the development of China Studies in the United Kingdom. In 1938, the school was renamed the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), and today it is still a center of research on Oriental and African culture, art, and communication. It is also the largest institution of its kind in the world. It was fewer than 50 years between 1815, when sinology was started in France, to 1862, when D’Hervey Saint-Denys published his Po é Sies De l’des Thangs in French. Coincidentally, the development of the English translation of Tang poetry lasted about the same length of time; a period from germination to full-fledged development, and from accidental introduction to specialized studies. In 1919, the first dynastic Tang poetry monograph, Gems of Chinese Verse, was published by the Commercial Press. The translator, William John Bainbrigge Fletcher (1879– 1933), was a former diplomat serving at different British consulates in China. In 1925, his translated work More Gems of Chinese Poetry was published by the Commercial Press. In these two books, Fletcher selected a total of 286 Tang poems to translate by himself. Although the total number of poems translated was smaller than 300, the scope of his selected poems went far beyond the Tángshī SānbǎiShǒu (唐诗三百首, 300 Tang Poems). As a result, Fletcher is considered the first person to translate and introduce Tang poetry to the English-speaking world professionally. His extensive and systematic translation of Tang poems signaled the successful transition from the sporadic to the systematic translation of Tang poetry.

1.3 The Rise of American Sinology

The time between the 1870s and the end of the First World War was a period during which the translation and introduction of Tang poetry to the English-speaking world experienced the initial stage of its development. As introduced previously, the English translation of Tang poetry underwent a transition from sporadic to systematic in the United Kingdom, with missionary and diplomatic sinologists making the greatest contribution to this transition. What, then, happened with the translation of Tang poetry in the United States? Similar to the situation in Europe, in the early days of Sino-American cultural exchanges, missionaries, and diplomats played a very important role. In August 1784, the first American ship, the “Chinese Queen” headed by Samuel Shaw (1768–1827), an American business agent, arrived at the port of Huangpu in Guangzhou (广州黄浦港), beginning the trade of tea and silk with China. In 1829, the first Congregationalist missionaries arrived in Guangzhou with the merchant ships; in 1832, American diplomats like Edmund Roberts and W. S. W. Ruschenber 1.3 The Rise of American Sinology 9 entered China and began to form initial perceptions of China. Like their British and French counterparts, they came to China for missionary work, colonial expansion, or purposes of trade. These people wrote about China as they saw it; however, their descriptions were no longer the same as what the Europeans had depicted in that the Chinese empire was already in the decline during the Qing dynasty. The image of the Chinese in their books was less than flattering. The Chinese were represented as funny-looking, cunning, ruthless, and blindly arrogant and complacent. After the Opium War, the Sino-British Treaty of Nanjing brought so many benefits to Britain that America began to covet similar treatment by the Chinese government. In May 1843, Caleb Cushing (1800–1879) was sent to China as an envoy. Coming with him were four warships which broke into Humen (虎门) forcing the Qing government to grant America equal trading conditions as Britain. As a result, the “Treaty of Wangxia” (望厦条约) was signed between China and America, another burdensome shackle imposed on the Qing government and the Chinese people. America became the biggest partner of Britain in their economic and military aggression against China. In order to maximize the benefits from their business expansion and colonial aggression, an independent nonprofit research institution, the American Oriental Society, was established in 1842 in Massachusetts, aiming to strengthen the training of government officials and businessmen to work in China. The early American sinologists were mainly missionaries, government officials, and university professors, some of whom enjoyed dual identities. For example, Elijah C. Bridgman (Chinese name 裨治文,1801–1861), David Abeel (Chinese name 雅裨理, 1804–1846), Samuel Wells Williams (Chinese name 卫三畏,1812–1884), William Alexander Persons Martin (Chinese name 丁韪良, courtesy name in Chinese 冠西, 1827–1916), and William Woodwille Rockhill (Chinese name 柔克义,1854–1914) were the pioneering American sinologists. Samuel Wells Williams enjoys the reputation of being the “Father of American sinology”,afigure whose influence on the initial stage of American sinology should never be underestimated. Williams was born into a Christian family in Ithaca, New York, and his parents were devout Protestants. In July 1832, he was formally employed as a printing worker to the Guangzhou Mission Group by the Mission Society, an American missionary institution. He arrived in Guangzhou in October 1833, and lived in China for the next 40 years. His hands-on experiences in China enabled him to have such a good understanding of Chinese society where he published more than ten books about China, among which the most representative was The Middle Kingdom (1848). This two-volume book has 23 chapters, a systematic study of the politics, economy, diplomacy, culture, history, geography, education, art, and religion of the Chinese Empire. It covers a wide range of areas concerning Chinese society, and the author’s view is clear and insightful. In the chapters dealing with ancient Chinese cultural achievements, Williams included a large number of detailed and accurate materials, followed by relatively positive comments. In the foreword to the book, he said one of his purposes in writing this book was to “brush off the impression that the Chinese and Chinese civilization were somehow rather baffling and ridiculous.” This book, both in scope and in depth, excelled all the 10 1 An Overview of the Historical Background previous works of its kind, and therefore became “the English template for the later generations of Americans to learn about China.” It is considered the groundbreaking work of American sinological study. In The Middle Kingdom, Williams took an integrated view of Chinese culture and civilization; therefore, the study was characterized by interdisciplinarity, which was technically a representative feature of early American sinology. Gu Jun (顾均) made such observations, “The Middle Kingdom was completed on the basis of what the author had seen and heard. Therefore, American sinology is found to possess a very strong and personal perception from the start. In contrast to European sinology, which emerged under the background of ‘China Fever,’ American sinology began after the Opium War when Chinese society had changed radically. Inevitably, American sinologists were no longer in a position to fully praise Chinese society or totally focus on ancient Chinese civilization. Social reform and problems of modernization gradually became the focus of attention.” (Gu Jun 2002 [3], pp. 12–16) During the Civil War (1861–1865), the United States government was fully engaged in the war, leaving no time or energy for foreign affairs. Even after the war, for a fairly extended period of time, the American government did not care much about East Asian affairs due to the myriad of domestic contradictions as well as issues of Western development. Thus, this was a relatively quiet period for American sinology. After the Civil War, American capitalism began developing into monopoly capitalism, and America turned out to be a large, advanced, and independent capitalist country in contrast to being a young, weak, outdated, post- colonial, and agricultural country, as it had been previously. Rapid economic development and greatly enhanced national strength stimulated the external expansion of America, especially the desire for political, economic, and cultural expansion in China and other areas of the Far East. More and more Americans began to pay attention to the social problems in modern China; they observed the situation in China with their own eyes and called for a strong policy toward China. To this end, the government began to strengthen research on Chinese issues in terms of organizational and financial support. In 1876, Williams began to offer Chinese language courses at Yale University. In the following year, he was employed to be the first Professor of Chinese Language and Literature at Yale University, and thus became the first sinology professor in the United States. In 1881, he was elected as Chairman of the Oriental Society. During the period when he taught at Yale University, he established the first Chinese-American department and Oriental library. This marked the “movement of American sinology from germination to academic research.” Then, other American universities such as Harvard, the University of California University at Berkeley, and Columbia followed suit. They established Chinese research institutions and began to offer Chinese language courses. Some of the famous libraries began collecting books and reference materials about China in a systematic and planned manner, providing the necessary resources for teaching and research. Sinology became a legitimate field of research in American universities. In addition, some sinology-related research institutions were also set up, among which were the 1.3 The Rise of American Sinology 11

Modern Language Association (1883), American Historical Society (1884), and the Asia Society (1898). In order to develop foreign trade and expand overseas investment and capital output, some big corporations set up regional research foundations. Among them were the well-known Carnegie Corporation of New York (1911) and the Rockefeller Foundation (1913), which started the funding of the strategic research on the Far East, especially China, in its political, economic, social, and cultural terms. These research funds provided by the government or by private individuals insured the change and growth of the American sinology, paving the way for its occupational, professional, and scientific development. In the 1870s, the rapid spread of the second industrial revolution brought about radical changes in the international economic system. While the old capitalist countries such as Britain and France saw an economic decline, America began to catch up and overtake them. In 1894, the total industrial output value of the United States ranked first in the world. The momentum of rapid development attracted large numbers of immigrants continuously so that America was able to exploit tens of thousands of skilled workers and scientific and technical personnel without the need to educate or train them. During this period, the well-disciplined professional sinology experts visiting or immigrating to America formed the backbone of American sinology research. In 1902, when the East Asian Studies Department was set up at Columbia University, there was hardly a qualified sinology scholar to be found in the United States. The first applicant for the lectureship was the British sinologist Herbert Allen Giles, who was the most well-known scholar in Chinese language, culture, literature, and translation studies. He was also the sinologist who had made the greatest contribution to the translation of Tang poetry in the initial stage. From March 1902 onward, Giles gave six lectures at Columbia University, which served as the basis of the later published book China and the Chinese. After Giles declined the reappointment by Columbia University and returned to the University of Cambridge to teach, Friedrich Hirth (1845–1927), originally a German sinologist, took his place and served as the first Professor of Sinology at Columbia. At the beginning of the twentieth century, many famous American sinologists had a European background. Overall, American sinology, whose research resources originated from European sinology, was virtually a branch of European sinology. Like other disciplines in America, American sinology inherited a great deal from the academic achievements of European colleagues, and this inevitably provided American sinology with a strong research base with which to start. Early American sinology was “characterized mainly by an introduction of the history, language, customs and other aspects of China, with some additional introduction on Chinese geography, archaeology, philosophy, literature, politics, education, and medicine.” It can be said that American sinology has had the strong influence of traditional European sinology on it. However, since its birth, American sinology has set the international pace, with its national interests as its main driving force and starting point. “Its main purpose is not academic, but for political reasons. Therefore, for instant success, it was hoped that all research could be practically linked to foreign affairs, national 12 1 An Overview of the Historical Background defense, and the economy. Obviously, the study of Chinese at that time had a clear utilitarian purpose.” (Liu Yuejin 2001 [1], pp. 58–65) American China Study, in essence, is different from early European sinology, which was started by the missionary sinologists spontaneously. No doubt, this difference affected the amount of research funds as well as the research orientation of the university curriculum and sinologists. As a result, compared to other research directions, Chinese traditional culture—especially research on Chinese classical literature––was the underdog in the American sinological circle for a long time. Not until the 1980s did this biased American type of China study begin to change slightly, when the scholars of “Neo-Confucianism of the Song and the Ming” represented by Columbia University’s celebrated professor William Theodore De Bary (1919–2017), called for re-exploration of Chinese traditional advantages and values. They point out that, with an attempt to skip traditional China, it is impossible to understand modern China at all. Therefore, at the initial stage of the introduction of Tang poetry to the West, American sinologists hardly accomplished anything. By the 1920s, among the famous native American sinologists, there had been only one person who was concerned with Tang poetry. William Alexander Persons Martin (Chinese name 丁韪良, 1827–1916) was the only one who noticed Tang poems. In his book Chinese Legends and Lyrics published in 1912, he included three poems by Li Bai. Thanks to their common language, however, communication and interaction between the United States and the United Kingdom in the translation of Chinese classics was not subject to serious geographical restrictions. It was not uncommon that the British versions of the Tang poems were reprinted in America, or that the translations of the Tang poetry by British scholars were published in the two places at the same time. After the 1920s, on the basis of the achievements made by the British as well as the contributions made by the poets, writers, translators, and critics, the spread of Tang poetry from the elites’ circle to the general public was complete.

1.4 Characteristics of the Introduction of Tang Poetry to the West

The English translation of Tang poetry as well as its spread to the English-speaking world was a long process. As the Chinese saying goes, “Everything is hard at the beginning.” During the first few decades, with the painstaking efforts of the translators, Tang poetry was beginning to win recognition in the English-speaking world. Compared to today’s prosperous study of Tang poetry, their arduous efforts were epoch-making and their work exhibited several characteristics, as will be explained in what follows. When the entire Western world still had a biased perception about China and Chinese culture, those who intended to translate Tang poetry directly from the Chinese original had to meet the following three requirements. First, they had to 1.4 Characteristics of the Introduction of Tang Poetry to the West 13 have lived in China for a long time and to have had an intuitive understanding of the social behavior of the Chinese. Second, they had to have been proficient in both modern Chinese and ancient Chinese to a considerable degree. Third, they had to have had much knowledge about Chinese classical literature besides Tang poetry as well as Chinese traditional culture besides Chinese classical literature. Overall, during the initial period, the majority of the translators who could satisfy these three requirements were mainly missionary and diplomat sinologists. As was mentioned previously, such missionaries as Robert Morrison, James Legge, Alexander Wylie, and William A. P. Martin were among the early sinologists who had made various contributions to the English translation of Tang poetry. John F. Davis, Herbert A. Giles, Joseph Edkins, Edward H. Parker, and William J. B. Fletcher were diplomats by profession. The second type of translated works was characterized by the retranslation of the English versions of Tang poetry. That is, on the basis of others’ English or other language versions of Tang poetry, the translators retranslated the versions by per- fecting, polishing, or revising them. A typical example of this type of translator was British poet Launcelot Alfred Cranmer-Byng (1872–1945) who revised the works translated by academic translators such as D. Hervey Saint-Denys and Herbert A. Giles. This type of translators differed significantly from the first type of translators in that they were mostly distinguished poets or writers rather than sinologists, and that they either had very limited or even no knowledge of Chinese language or culture. However, they all invariably had an immense interest in Tang poetry and Chinese classical literature, and their poetic, aesthetic, and rhetorical skills were outstanding. Therefore, if not judged by the sole standard of equivalence, their translated versions of Tang poetry proved more fluent, elegant, graceful, and poetic—despite their flagrant misunderstandings and misinterpretations. Whether dissemination of culture or academic research, the direction is always from the random and the scattered to the systematic, and from the general to the specialized. The expanding phase of the introduction of Tang poetry had also gone along the same path. Its specific performance can be divided into the following several aspects: (1) Individual Tang poems’ translation precedes Tang Poetry’s translation and systematical introduction The earliest published individual Tang poem in English was “Jiǔrì Qíshān Dēnggāo” (九日齐山登高, “Qi Mountain Climbing on the Double Ninth Day”)by the late Tang poet Du Mu (杜牧). Its appearance was a sheer accident, for the translator Robert Morrison meant to prove to English readers how old and how significant double ninth mountain climbing was when he chose to translate this poem. However, by 1870 when “SòngchūnCí” (送春词) by Wang Ya (王涯) and “Chūnyè Xǐyǔ” (春夜喜雨)byDuFu(杜甫) were translated into English, Sir John F. Davis had a clear purpose in mind of introducing Tang poetry to the English-speaking world. 14 1 An Overview of the Historical Background

Through these two Tang poems, Davis tried to prove to English readers that the Tang dynasty was “a perfect period of art of poetry in China.” Nevertheless, the evidence he employed was neither comprehensive nor strong enough to make such an assertion. Limitations were obvious, even in the famous sinologist Edward H. Parker’s English versions of Tang poetry. In 1887, Parker published a series of poems by a number of Tang poets, including Wei Zheng (魏徵), Chen Ziang (陈子昂), Zhang Jiuling (张九龄), Du Fu, and Chu Guangxi (储光羲). Although he seemed to have a better understanding of the artistic value of Tang poetry, the number of poems he selected was still limited and the selection was confined to the early and prosperous Tang rather than the middle and the late Tang. In the book Notes on Chinese Literature by the sinologist Alexander Wylie (1815–1887), which was published in Shanghai in 1867, there was no translation of Tang poetry, but in the chapter introducing the history of Chinese culture it reads, “The Tang is specially distinguished in the annals of literature, the monarchs of that line delighting to draw around them the most illustrious talents of the age. Poets took a high stand, and the period of Le Tae-plh (李白) and Too Foo (杜甫)is looked to as the golden age of the Chinese bards.” (Wylie 1867, p. VII) In the preface to the book, there is a bibliography of Chinese works translated for the West, which is very valuable historical material. In terms of the translated text of the Tang poetry, the book only included “Poésies de l’Époque des Tang,” translated by D’Hervey Saint-Denys. This shows that at least from his perspective only the French version of Tang poetry was considered relatively influential then. The first sinologist to translate and introduce Tang poetry holistically and systematically to the Western world was Herbert A. Giles, one of the “Big Three” in the British sinology constellation, had a tremendous impact on the dissemination and research of Tang poetry in the Anglo-American world. His book Chinese Poetry in English Verse (1898) included nearly 200 poems ranging from The Book of Songs to Tang poetry in chronological order, among which Tang poems accounted for half, including 101 poems by 57 poets like Li Bai (李白) and Du Fu (杜甫). In the fourth part of his masterwork, History of Chinese Literature (1901), he not only introduced the style and writing techniques of Tang poetry in general but also introduced and translated poems by Li Bai, Du Fu, Bai Juyi (白居易), Sikong Tu (司空图) as well as Wang Bo (王勃), Chen Ziang (陈子昂), Meng Haoran (孟浩然), and Wang Wei (王维). In 1923, Giles revised and supplemented his two previously published books, Gems of Chinese Literature (1884) and Chinese Poetry in English Verse, and published a new edition of Gems of Chinese Literature. The new book included two volumes: prose and poetry. In the prose volume, he included his English prose version of “Pípá Xíng” (琵琶行, “The Song of a Pipa Player”) by Bai Juyi, and in the poetry volume, he collected 129 poems by 65 Tang poets. In terms of the range of selected poems and the accuracy of translation, Giles’ versions were unparalleled in his time. Among all the different kinds of his translated works, Tang poetry obviously occupied a large proportion; moreover, among all his translated poems, the Tang poems were considered the most successful. As a result, translators and scholars after him inevitably paid special 1.4 Characteristics of the Introduction of Tang Poetry to the West 15 attention to his Tang poems. Giles laid a solid foundation in the translation and introduction of Tang poetry for the Western world; he was also considered the representative figure in the movement of Tang poetry translation from the sporadic and the arbitrary to the systematic and the specialized. As was mentioned previously, by 1919 William J. B. Fletcher successfully completed the transition by systematically translating a large number of Tang poems in his Gems of Chinese Verse. (2) Specific study of poets precedes study of Tang poetry It is true that before Tang poetry was seriously studied by the Western world as a dynastic Chinese classical literary form, famous Tang poets had been studied in the Western academic world. Following the sequence by which studies of the poets were published, the first Tang poet to be noticed by the Western world was Li Bai. As a matter of fact, by the 1920s, specialized translation and introduction of Li Bai and Bai Juyi had taken shape. Beginning from John F. Davis, who mentioned Tang poetry in his The Poetry of the Chinese, the name of Li Bai emerged as the jewel in the crown of Tang poetry. Davis even mistakenly thought that the majority of the poems in QuánTáng Shī (全唐诗, A Complete Collection of Tang Poetry) were composed by Li Bai. As a result, later sinologists and non-sinologists who were fond of Chinese culture and poetry were bound to cover Li Bai in their works. For instance, Alexander Wylie commented on the eighth century that Li Bai lived, saying his poetic gift shone in the literary world of the Tang dynasty. He concluded that Li Bai was full of wit, and his poems were full of “mellow wine and women.” Such remarks on one hand explain why Li Bai’s poems have been widely disseminated in the Western world, and on the other hand explain why they are used as evidence by scholars, writers, and poets when criticizing Li Bai. The two earliest and most important papers analyzing the characteristics of the poems by Li Bai, Li T’ai-Po as a Poet and On Li T’ai-Po with Examples of His Poetry, published in 1888 and 1889, respectively, were written by the British missionary sinologist Joseph Edkins. Unlike translated works by other sinologists at that time, Joseph Edkins’ papers were based on a serious in-depth study of the poems by Li Bai; therefore his analysis and commentary were more pertinent, revealing the artistic characteristics of Li Bai’s poetry. What is more, his perception was insightful and original. He pointed out that Li Bai’s success was not just attributable to his literary skills, such as diction and rhetoric, but more to his spirit as a poet, and to the tension and elasticity of emotion that were present within his poetry. The translator could also sense from Li Bai’s poetry the writer’s love of nature. Despite the various differences in structure and form, and the cultural differences between Chinese and English poetry, Edkins found common ground between Li Bai and famous English poets such as William Wordsworth. Edkins’ distilling and analyzing of Li Bai’s idealism enabled the literary circle to have a new understanding of Li Bai and Tang poetry. 16 1 An Overview of the Historical Background

Historical documents show that Li Bai was not only the first Tang poet to be paid attention to by the English-speaking world, but also the most influential one. In the various early texts of English-translated Tang poetry, the number of Li Bai’s poems which were selected was greater than that of any other poet’s. Among Westerners who knew a little about China, “Tang poetry” and “Li Bai” were almost inter- changeable. Li Bai was Tang poetry, and was even the symbol of Chinese literature and Chinese culture. Following Edkins, the well-known British sinologist Arthur David Waley (1889–1966) was the earliest scholar who introduced Chinese ancient poets in a specialized and systematic manner. Inevitably, he could not fail to notice Li Bai; however, although his understanding and interpretation of Li Bai were surprisingly biased and misleading. In 1916, in his first book of translated Chinese poetry, Chinese Poems, Waley included three poems by Li Bai. Later, in his 170 Chinese Poems (1918), he also repeatedly mentioned Li Bai. In November 1918, he presented his paper “The Poet Li Po” at a sinology conference at the University of London Oriental Institute. The paper was published in the Asiatic Review, vol. XV, in October 1919. It also came out in a booklet in London. In this paper, a biography of Li Bai was included, and more than 20 of his poems were translated and introduced, which reveals the fact that Waley was quite familiar with Li Bai and his works. On one hand, he was trying to give a “fair” assessment of the artistic influence of Li Bai’s works; on the other hand, Waley had a low regard for Li Bai’s romantic poetic temperament, and his uninhibited personal expression as well as his writing techniques such as borrowing and the use of allusions. According to Waley, Li Bai’s poetry was limited in terms of theme and content, lacking in ideological significance, and nothing but flowery words; hence, Li Bai merely won vain fame by luck. Waley even concluded that those English poets who could understand Chinese poetry would not have a high regard for Li Bai and his works. Later, Waley’s book, The Poetry and Career of Li Po (1951), was published in Britain and America, and it has become a relatively influential critical biography of Li Bai in the Western, English-speaking world. During the dozens of years between the publication of 170 Chinese Poems and The Poetry and Career of Li Po, Waley did not change his view of Li Bai. No other scholar was comparable to Waley in terms of his achievements in translating and researching ancient Chinese poets. Among the Tang poets, he gave much credit to Bai Juyi (白居易). The book 170 Chinese Poems has two parts, with the latter part being focused on Bai Juyi only, including a chronicle and a review of Bai Juyi as well as his 59 poems translated into English for the first time. In 1919, Waley published More Translation from Chinese, in which there was a slightly extended coverage of selected poems compared to the former book, but Bai’s poems still took the first place in number. There were 52 of them, and none was reselected from the 59 poems in the previous book. Moreover, in this book, Waley selected Bai Xingjian’s(白行简) legendary novel Lǐwá Zhuàn (李娃传, Biography of Li Wa) and Yuan Zhen’s(元稹) Yīngyīng Zhuàn (莺莺传, Biography Of Yingying), for the two authors had a close relationship with Bai Juyi. 1.4 Characteristics of the Introduction of Tang Poetry to the West 17

Waley argued that the profound influence Bai Juyi’s works exerted could hardly be reached in the world of his contemporary poets. He preferred the concise diction and plain style of Bai’s poems, following Bai’s advice that poetry should be intended to be accepted and understood by most people, and sparing no effort to spread Bai’s poems in the West. In 1949, based on his two previous books and a great amount of reference materials, Waley completed the book The Life and Times of Po Chu-i. This book, with the translated versions of Bai Juyi’s poetry throughout, included 14 chapters of Bai Juyi’s biography. Once published, it served not only as an important work for the research on Bai Juyi in the West, but it was also translated into Japanese, and received the attention of Japanese sinologists as well. By this time, Waley had translated a total of more than 200 poems by Bai Juyi, and with Bai’s poems clearly constituting a major part of Waley’s poetry translation. (3) The influence of Tang poetry went beyond the field of sinology The translation of Tang poetry was initiated by such missionaries and diplomats as Robert Morrison, Alexander Wylie, James Legge, Edward H. Parker, and William A. P. Martin, who had their expertise in different areas and yet loved Chinese classical poetry. Their work of translation and introduction was mainly at the level of cultural communication. Following them, Joseph Edkins, Herbert A. Giles, Arthur Waley, and William J. B. Fletcher worked together to develop Tang poetry translation into a separate discipline within Chinese Studies, and began to attract the attention of various groups of people in the Western world, especially in literary and artistic circles. Although there were very few non-sinological researchers joining the Tang poetry translation team in the initial stage, the spread of Tang poetry from the field of sinology to other broader social dimensions, and from the elite circle to the general public, had begun by the early twentieth century. In this process of development, L. Cranmer-Byng made the most outstanding contributions. Cranmer Byng’s translated works, such as The Never Ending Wrong and Other Renderings (1902), A Feast of Lanterns: Rendered with an Introduction (1916) and A Lute of Jade: Being Selections from the Classical Poets of China (1918), introduced the Tang dynasty, Tang poetry, and Tang poets in depth, and in ways that other similar works could not match. His poetic style was characterized by expansiveness, exaggeration, romanticism, and skillful literary technique. He did not speak Chinese at all but his love for Tang poetry and his understanding of poetic meanings and modes allowed him to ponder the artistic images of the poems translated by others and rewrite them in his own style. He polished the versions by Giles and others with great care, so that they read more poetically, beautifully, smoothly, and naturally as original English poems, and thus became more popular. Especially the book A Lute of Jade, which was irreplaceable among the texts of a similar nature then, figured importantly in the spread of Tang poetry in the European countries and the United States. This book was reprinted many times, and even now is still adopted by many American universities as one of the required 18 1 An Overview of the Historical Background textbooks for the course of Chinese Classical Poetry. Moreover, its impact diffused into the music world. British composers Granville Bantock (1868–1946) and Peter Warlack (1894–1930) both used the words from the translated A Lute of Jade and A Feast of Lanterns in their compositions. In one of his papers about James Legge and the introduction of Taoism to the West, N. J. Girardot, a Professor of Religious Studies at Lehigh University, pointed out, “This relatively brief British era of Sinological Orientalism during the last part of the 19th century depends primarily on the emergence of a remarkable group of ‘hyphenated’ missionary and consular scholars who, after starting out in the tradition of the British and American amateur-scholar, went on to become professional or semi-professional Sinologists.” (Girardot 2002 [2], pp. 155–165) Those engaged in the English translation of Tang poetry belong to the category of “amateur-scholars.” Although they accounted for only a small fraction of the missionaries and diplomats traveling to China, they were the leading figures in the spread of Tang poetry to the West. They were “a special cultural community and a combination of conflicts between China and Britain, embodying the collision, contact and integration of the British civilization and Chinese culture: they shoul- dered the sacred mission to convert the Oriental barbarians to Catholicism, and at the same time they attempted to save the Western world with Oriental philosophy; they were not only the executors of the Western gunboat policy, but also the admirers of Chinese culture; they were not only the transplanters of the Renaissance humanistic spirit to the East, but also the pioneers of the spread of Chinese culture to Britain.” (Chen Youbing 2008 [3], pp. 34–47) It should be said that these amateur scholars had a certain degree of understanding of Chinese culture, and that they were also quite familiar with Tang poetry. Knowledgeable, open-minded, and well versed in Western literature, these people desired to learn about Oriental culture with goodwill; therefore, they respected heterogeneous literary forms such as those of Tang poetry. Their serious and respectful attitude of acceptance enabled them to touch and feel certain true aspects of Chinese culture and Tang poetry. As a result, they were able to find the appropriate means of translation and dissemination. When translating they could achieve faithfulness, expressiveness, and elegance. Early sinologists indeed had much in common in either the perception of the overall comment on the Tang dynasty as “the perfect era of the art of Chinese poetry” or in the understanding of the mentality behind the writing styles of Tang poets like Li Bai, Du Fu, and Bai Juyi. There is no denying the fact that—due to vast cultural differences—early Western scholars could not possibly get to the deep levels of traditional Chinese culture and interpret them thoroughly and precisely. For example, in the area of translation, these early sinologists were not only challenged by language barriers, but also restricted by the cultural factors accompanying language. Although they were all language experts who paid great attention to the beauty of poetry, which embodied the art of language, in the actual process of translation they encountered not only the differences between Chinese and English but also the differences between modern Chinese and classical Chinese in poetry. So it was in the 1.4 Characteristics of the Introduction of Tang Poetry to the West 19 language-based process of translation; there were indeed too many difficulties in reaching fully the objectives of cultural communication. Inevitably, misunderstanding and misinterpretation existed in the early stage of the translation of Tang poetry. Poetry—especially masterpieces—could hardly be translated technically because every poem, even every word or phrase, was a product of the poet’s emotions. Once it was rendered by another person into a different language, its beauty and authenticity would decay or become stale. While reflecting the poets’ sources of inspiration and aspirations, Tang poetry also served as an indication of the sociocultural and folk customs of the Tang dynasty. It is even hard for contemporary Chinese to rewrite Tang poetry in modern Chinese, let alone non-native speakers attempting to translate them into English. Chinese scholar Wen Yiduo (闻一多) once pointed out that, “Translation is certainly not for the author of the original text, nor for those who understand the original; after all translation is translation, and there is no comparison with the original.” (Wen Yiduo 2003, p. 162) That is to say, any kind of translation is an interpretive process of recreation. When we review the English translations of Tang poetry in the initial stage, we can see clearly both their good and bad points, and that they are far from being perfect. However, if we look at their heterogeneous interpretations of Tang poetry with respect and open-mindedness, we must admit that their work was of epoch-making significance. If we stop emphasizing that only contemporary critics have the right of final interpretation of Tang poetry, we can not only attach importance to the efforts of early translators and appreciate their interpretations, but also be more tolerant of their many defects and deficiencies. After all, their attempts and efforts revealed their goodwill in the spreading of Chinese culture as well as their courage to overcome the difficulties in cross-cultural communication.

References

Chinese References

Chen Youbing:《英国汉学的阶段性特征及成因探析-以中国古典文学研究为中心》,《汉学研究通讯》,总第107期, 2008. Gu Jun:《卫三畏与〈中国总论〉》,《汉学研究通讯》,总第83期, 2002. Liu Yuejin:《近年来美国的中国古代文学研究掠影》,《福州大学学报》, 2001(1). Que Weimin:《剑桥汉学的形成与发展》,《汉学研究通讯》,总第81期, 2002. Wen Yiduo:《唐诗杂论》, 北京:中华书局, 2003 年版. Xiong Zhiyong, Su Hao:《中国近现代外交史》, 北京:世界知识出版社, 2005 年版. 20 1 An Overview of the Historical Background

English References

Cranmer-Byng, L. A. (1909). A lute of Jade: Being selections from the classical poets of China. London: John Murray. (Wisdom of the East Series). Girardot, N. J. (2002). The Victorian translation of China: James Legge’s oriental pilgrimage. Wylie, A. (1867). Notes on Chinese literature: With introductory remarks on the progressive advancement of the art; and a list of translations from the Chinese into various European languages. Shanghai: American Presbyterian Mission Press. Chapter 2 Research on the Early Signiﬁcant Texts

At the British missionary sinology stage, i.e., from the end of the eighteenth century to the eve of the Opium War in 1840, “the achievements of sinology lie mainly in linguistic knowledge, folk geography, travel notes and the like.”“Translation of the classical works for literary purposes just got off the ground.” (Chen Youbing 2008) Except for The Book of Songs, no other classical Chinese poetry was translated and published in English at the time. Research on the early Tang poetry translation had been conducted by the Chinese domestic academic circle, and certain results had been achieved. Due to various objective reasons, however, the introduction of certain early English versions of Tang poetry was misleading. To ensure a more accurate assessment of the academic achievements and activities of the scholars at that time, it is necessary to comb through the signiﬁcant works, the translators, and the content in translation at this stage.

2.1 The Misplaced English Version of Tang Poetry

Zhao Yiheng (赵毅衡) is considered a scholar who has made great achievements in the translation of Tang poetry. In his book YuǎnyóuDeShīshén: Zhōngguó Gǔdiǎn Shīgē Duì Měiguó Xīnshī Yùndòng De Yǐngxiǎng (远游的诗神: 中国古典诗歌对美国新诗运动的影响, The Excursion of the Muse: The Influences of Chinese Classical Poetry on the American New Poetry Movement, 1985), Zhao made reference to “the earliest English version of Tang poetry” for the first time. He believed that the earliest English version of Tang poetry was The Flower Leaf: Chinese Courtship in Verse, translated by Peter Perring, a Briton. Zhao argued that, “The book, an anthology published in London in 1824, was a product of the Romantic poets seeking the exotic flavor from the East, though these Chinese ‘love poems’ clearly failed to satisfy the Romantic tastes as did Persian, Indian or any

© Foreign Language Teaching and Research Publishing Co., Ltd 21 and Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany 2018 L. Jiang, A History of Western Appreciation of English-translated Tang Poetry, China Academic Library, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-56352-6_2 22 2 Research on the Early Significant Texts other nation’s poetry.” (Zhao Yiheng 1985, p. 117) Here Zhao has clearly misunderstood, which is shown in the following views. First of all, this book is not an anthology of Tang poetry. The so-called “Tang poetry anthology,” as the name implies, should be a collection of poems selected from a myriad of Tang poets. The original Chinese version, however, was neither Tang poetry nor an anthology; it was a complete Muyu opera (木鱼戏, wooden fish) lyrics, a folk art of Guangdong, and also known as the “wooden fish book.” The original Chinese version was titled HuājiānJì (花笺记, The Flowery Scroll). Among the Muyu books, there are 11 known as the representative works called “genius books” with The Flowery Scroll being one of them. The libretto was introduced to Europe in the nineteenth century, and afterward there appeared English, French, Russian, German, and Dutch versions, one after another. Various versions and editions were stored in libraries in London, Paris, Copenhagen, Hong Kong, and other places. Domestic and foreign wooden fish book researchers all have studied The Flowery Scroll and its various versions, and some scholars even believe that the German writer Goethe drew from The Flowery Scroll when he composed his famous poem Chinesisch-Deutche Jahres-und Tageszeiten, because in his diary on February 3, 1827, Goethe wrote that he “self-studied in the evening, continuing to read The Flowery Scroll.” In his “Cantonese Opera and the Growth and Spread of Vernacular Written Cantonese in the 20th Century,” scholar Marjorie K. M. Chan made reference to the book The Flower Leaf: Chinese Courtship in Verse, pointing out that it is the English version of the Cantonese Opera The Flowery Scroll. This paper by Marjorie K. M. Chan was collected in The Proceedings of the 17th North American Conference on Chinese Linguistics (2005). There are also similar accounts in K. C. Leung’s “Chinese Courtship: The English Version of Huajian Ji” and Hui Ching Yu’s “On the Eighth Genius Book The Flowery Scroll: Some Doubts about Zheng Zhenduo’s View.” In addition, in his “Miscellaneous Chinese Works Translated to the West,” Alexander Wylie included The Flower Leaf: Chinese Courtship in Verse, whose Chinese original version was not from any Tang poet’s works or any collection of Tang poems either, but from Hwa Tsëen Kè,orHua Jian Ji, as the three Chinese syllables HuājiānJì (花笺记) pronounced in Cantonese. Second, it is not accurate enough to have translated the name of the translator of The Flower Leaf: Chinese Courtship in Verse into “彼得 • 佩林” in Chinese. The translator’s full name is Peter Perring Thoms, a British sinologist. He is known in the field of Chinese Studies for his work in the modern Sino-British relation, The Emperor of China V. The Queen of England (1853). Therefore, The Flower Leaf: Chinese Courtship in Verse is not the first English version of Tang poetry. In his book Tángshī BǐjiàoYánjiū Xīnpiān (唐诗比较研究新篇, A New Comparative Study of Tang Poetry), another scholar Gao Yukun (高玉昆), also addressed the issue of the earliest English translation of Tang poetry. Gao argued that, “It was Soame Jennyns, an 18th-century British sinologist and poet, who started translating Tang poetry. His posthumous works were edited by scholars later, and came out as A Selection from the 300 Poems of the Tang Dynasty and A 2.1 The Misplaced English Version of Tang Poetry 23

Further Selection from the 300 Poems of the Tang Dynasty, published in the 1940s in London.” (Gao Yukun 2003, p. 147) According to Encyclopedia Britannica (1911, vol. 15), there was indeed “a poet Soame Jennyns” among the eighteenth-century British literati, who was born in 1704 and died in 1787. He was a poet and politician serving as a member of Parliament and an official of the Bureau of British Trade and Plantation. His literary works received wide acclaim at the time, and were compiled and published in four volumes in 1790, although their literary value was not given much credit later. Other documents, such as Oxford National Biography Dictionary, provided some information about this person, but did not mention that he was a sinologist or had any relation to China whatsoever. Based on my investigation, there was a sinologist named Roger Soame Jenyns in the twentieth century. Born in 1904 and dying in 1976, Jenyns was a well-known Oriental art collector and connoisseur. In 1926, he was sent to Hong Kong to work in the Office of Government Administration. In 1931, he resigned, returning to Britain to work in the British Museum. After the 1930s, Jenyns published a number of monographs on Chinese art, demonstrating his extensive research on ceramics during the Ming and Qing dynasties in particular. To do field research, he even made a special trip to Taiwan to study the palace collections of porcelain of the early Ming dynasty. Because he did not like his first name Roger, most of his works were authored as Soame Jenyns, and this was probably how the confusion arose. “Soame Jennyns” was an eighteenth-century English poet and politician, and “Soame Jenyns” was a twentieth-century American Oriental art expert and the Ming-Qing ceramics connoisseur. A Selection from the 300 Poems of the Tang Dynasty and A Further Selection from the 300 Poems of the Tang Dynasty published in the 1940s are both important texts in the introduction of Tang poetry to the English-speaking world, but who is their translator? The answer to this question lies in the two books per se. On the information sheets of these books in American libraries, it can be found that the titles, dates of publication, and author of these two books are the same that Gao Yukun had introduced in his book, and there is a clear indication that the author was born in 1904. On the flyleaf of these two books, the translator was introduced as “associate director of the center for Oriental antiques at the British Museum” (1940), and “director of the center for Oriental antiques at the British Museum” (1944). Obviously, the two books in question were written by the twentieth-century American collector Roger Soame Jenyns, and when they were published the translator was still alive. That is to say, the two books were not posthumous works based on the work of the British poet and politician Soame Jennyns, who was born in 1704. Hence, they are not the earliest English versions of Tang poetry. In the research field of the English translation of Tang poetry, there is another book to which there is often reference. It is George Carter Stent’s The Jade Chaplet in Twenty-four Beads: A Collection of Songs, Ballads, etc., published in London in 1874. Later, when this book was mentioned, people would mistake it as a story about Emperor Xuanzong of Tang (唐玄宗, i.e., Emperor Ming明皇) and his concubine Yang Yuhuan (杨玉环, i.e., Yang Guifei 杨贵妃), and some even went 24 2 Research on the Early Significant Texts so far as to associate it with the translation of Bai Juyi’s “ChánghènGē” (长恨歌, “The Song of Everlasting Sorrow”). In fact, this book has nothing to do with Tang poetry. Misunderstandings arose simply because people had no chance to read the original text of the book. Those who have read the original cannot ignore the translator’s remarks in the preface to the book, which clearly state the purpose of the book:

For some of the poems I have translated, there are no Chinese original lyrics in script; what I did was to let the singers come to my home to sing so that my Chinese teacher could put down the lyrics word for word, for I was attracted by the singers at the roadside. In my opinion, the folk songs exude the deepest and most widely spread spontaneous affection; however, they are neglected to a considerable extent so far. Accompanying the British Legation Guard, George C. Stent (Chinese name 司登德), was sent to Beijing. He had a strong interest in Chinese, and hired a Chinese family teacher named Kuo Li-chen (郭理珍). Because of his good command of Chinese in conversation, he served in the Chinese Imperial Maritime Customs Service of the British Royal Family. As a result, he was able to visit Taiwan, Shanghai, Hong Kong, and many other places in China, and therefore had some understanding of social traditions, local customs, and dialects. Upon his return to the United Kingdom, he compiled and published Chinese and English Vocabulary in the Pekinese Dialect, Shanghai (1871) and Chinese and English Pocket Dictionary (1874), which turned out to be best-selling reference books. The Jade Chaplet is the ﬁrst English-translated work published by Stent. Each of the 24 chapters is about a different song, and most of the songs included are plot-based in nature. For example, “Crossing the Boundary” (出塞曲) is a story about Wáng Zhāojūn(王昭君); “Fanning the Grave: The Wife Tested” (扇坟Á试妻) is a story about Zhuāng Zhōu(庄周), and so are “Chang-Pan-Po” (长坂坡) and “Chao-Tzù-Lung” (i.e., Zhao Zilong 赵子龙). There are also ballads without substantive content such as “The Great Watermelon” (大西瓜); and local opera lyric “Tên Kue’s Return” (邓魁还乡). The verse “The Five Watches” (五钟) is very similar to the renowned folk song “Yuèyá Wǔgēng” (月牙五更). Chapters 16–21 give accounts on Emperor Xuanzong of Tang (唐玄宗) and his concubine Yang Guifei, including “Yang Guifei,”“An Imperial Lover,”“Silken Meshes,”“Dream Music,”“The Death of Yang Guifei,” and “The Grave of Yang Guifei.” These six chapters are not only the most popular but are also relatively well translated. The Chinese original versions of these English songs were all adapted on the basis of various legends about Emperor Xuanzong of Tang and Yang Guifei. Of course, it is possible that the composers of these songs referred to Bai Juyi’s “ChánghènGē” (长恨歌), but it is obviously a mistake to regard The Jade Chaplet as the English translation of it. Stent’s translation was quite colloquial in style, and this is directly related to the fact that he was good at conversation in Chinese. Following The Jade Chaplet,he published another book Entombed Alive and Other Songs, Ballads, Etc: From the Chinese (1878), which included the English versions of 16 song lyrics and ballads such as “LúgōuqiáoDeShīzi” (卢沟桥的狮子), “Zhōngguó CháodàiGē” 2.1 The Misplaced English Version of Tang Poetry 25

(中国朝代歌) and “Mèngjiāngnǚ Kū Chángchéng” (孟姜女哭长城). It was unli- kely that the content of the book was from serious literary publications, either. It might share the same original source as that of The Jade Chaplet. Usually, popular literature enjoys a larger audience than specialized works, and ordinary readers are particularly interested in court consorts with legendary stories. Therefore, since its publication The Jade Chaplet has not only spread widely but it has also caught readers’ attention to some degree. Later, when the British poet L. A. Cranmer-Byng compiled his famous book A Lute of Jade: Being Selections from the Classical Poets of China, he listed The Jade Chaplet as one of his important reference books. Cranmer-Byng did not care much for the quality of the translation of the book, thinking that the most readable part was the love story of Emperor Xuanzong of Tang and Yang Guifei. (Cranmer-Byng 1909, p. 116) Later on, Stent published other literary translations in London such as Stories from China (1876), but they have not been as popular as The Jade Chaplet.

2.2 Pilot English-Translated Works of Tang Poems

If we compare the process of introducing Tang poetry to the West as a river growing along its course, then its origin lies in the late half of the nineteenth century when Tang poetry was introduced as a cultural component to the English-speaking world. This origin then can be traced back to the sporadic translations of Tang poetry from the early nineteenth century. I. Morrison and Translations from the Original Chinese, with Notes Morrison was the first Protestant missionary sent by the London Missionary to China. When he arrived in Guangzhou in 1807, the Religion Ban issued by the Qing government not only prohibited foreign missionaries from evangelizing, but also forbade the Chinese to believe in any religion or even teach the Chinese language to foreign missionaries. The British East India Company (i.e., The Honourable East India Company) was also inclined to exclude missionaries. Meanwhile, Roman Catholic bishops treated Protestants with hatred and jealousy. Therefore, Morrison’s situation was rather difficult. With the help of the American Consul General Carrington, Morrison was able to stay in Guangzhou disguised as an American sponsored by an American merchant. In 1809, Morrison accepted the invitation of the East India Company to serve as an interpreter, spending the next 25 years in China. As the first Protestant evangelist in China as well the founder of British sinology, Morrison is credited as a pioneer in many aspects. He was the first person to translate The Bible into Chinese and to have it published in China, so that the Christian classics were completely introduced into China. He compiled the first English-Chinese and Chinese-English dictionary, The English-Chinese Dictionary, which was not only highly acclaimed by the Western world—especially in 26 2 Research on the Early Significant Texts sinological circles, but also served as a catalyst to the transition from classical Chinese to modern Chinese. He founded the first Chinese monthly, Chinese Monthly Magazine, which ranks as the first in the history of Chinese newspapers and magazines. He opened the Anglo-Chinese College, setting an example for missionaries to start missionary schools. In collaboration with doctors from the East India Company, he opened the Ophthalmological Center in Macao, starting evangelization through medical treatment. All these are manifestations of Morrison’s implementation of his “silent and efficient” strategy of evangelization, which led to the accumulation of practical experience for the clergy later traveling to China from Britain, the Netherlands, the United States, and other countries. (Broomhall and Morrison 1927) In order to make the Chinese understand the superiority of Western Christian civilization, and ultimately to convert them to Christianity, Morrison believed that it was necessary to learn about the history, culture, politics, laws, customs, and manners of the Chinese. Thus, his works not only helped Westerners to deepen their understanding of Chinese society, but also promoted communication between Chinese and Western culture. Morrison did not do much translation of Chinese classical literature, however. Even his Translations from the Original Chinese, with Notes, in a strict sense, is not a translated monograph of literature in that its content is rather numerous and complex. The book mainly consists of two parts. The first part was originally authored by the Emperor Jiaqing (嘉庆) of Qing, and it reads like an imperial edict in 1814 when the palace was invaded by the uprising force led by Lin Qing (林清). The second part, entitled The Three Dedicated Rooms: Moral Tales is the English version of a short story from ShíèrLóu (十二楼, Twelve Towers), a collection of vernacular short stories by famous Qing literati and playwright Li Yu (李渔). It is clear that there is no direct relationship between Morrison’s Translations from the Original Chinese, with Notes and the English translation of Tang poetry. The reason why this book is mentioned here is that, at the end of its first part, Morrison introduced the custom of mountain climbing on the Double Ninth Day (重阳节, i.e., 重九节)—the ninth day of the ninth Chinese lunar month—to avoid evil spirits:

In commemoration of this event, annually, on the ninth day of the ninth moon, large crowds of people throughout the whole Empire ascend the hills; they call it ‘Avoiding Judgments.’ The Paper-kites of the Chinese are on that day taken to the hills and let fly away; under the idea, that they give at once their kites and their cares to the wind. After that day, the amusement of kite-flying is discontinued till the ensuing season. It was affirmed, last year (1814), that the Emperor’s return to his Palace, was delayed by his observing this holiday; and, that he, thereby escaped the immediate consequences of the rebellion which broke out on the 15th of the ninth moon. (Morrison 1815, p. 39) To further illustrate the profound significance and lasting influence of the “climbing” (登高, Tang-Kaou) custom in ancient Chinese society, Morrison translated a poem, which, as he mentioned, was composed by the poet Du Mu (杜牧, i.e., Too-Mo); however, he did not point out that Du Mu was a poet of the Tang dynasty, nor did he provide any more information about the poem or the poet. 2.2 Pilot English-Translated Works of Tang Poems 27

Following the translated version was the original poem in Chinese, i.e., “Qi Mountain Climbing on the Double Ninth Day”:

The Following Lines By Too-Mo 九日齐山登高 Have an Allusion to the Tang-Kaou 杜牧 By Morrison (1815, p. 40) When the autumnal rivers receive the shadow of the first flying swallow; 江涵秋影雁初飞, Let us, companions, take the bottle and ascend the lofty mountain— 与客携壶上翠微。 In this impure world, ’tis difficult to meet with a mouth open laughing; 尘世难逢开口笑, Let us (today) with the Keii flower, decorate our heads and return. 菊花须插满头归。 We’ll get merrily drunk, and keep up this happy season; 但将酩酊酬佳节, ’Tis in vain to ascend the hill, and sigh about the sun setting. 不用登临叹落晖。 Old times have passed away, the present come, and still it is thus; 古往今来只如此, What’s the use of (like the man of Cow-hill*) staining our garments with 牛山何必泪沾 tears. 衣。 *Referring to a person named Tse-king-kung

In the original poem, the poet stands on the top of the mountain overlooking the autumn scene, joyful and relaxed. He even gets an idea of decorating his head with chrysanthemums before return, or getting drunk with his friend to celebrate this beautiful holiday season. At sunset, he does not have to feel that life is short anymore—like Jing Gong, the King of Qi (齐景公, i.e., Tse-king-kung) in the Spring and Autumn Period, who traveled to Cow Hill located to the south of Qi’s capital city, sighing with tears and saying: “How can I be willing to give up this beautiful country, to leave the world to die!” (若何滂滂去此而死乎,ruòhé pāngpāng qùcǐ érsǐ hū) There have always been people who ascend at sunset and sigh over the impermanence of life, not just here and now, so why should we weep lonely as Tse-king-kung? Bold and unconstrained, the poem is found to be sharp and expressive in terms of the linguistic style that is typical of Du Mu. It seems that Morrison only tried to reproduce in English the original poem word for word. He also misinterpreted quite a few elements. For example, he mistranslated wild goose (雁,yàn) in autumn as “swallow” (燕,yàn) of spring, confusing the seasonal background. In “’Tis in vain to ascend the hill, and sigh about the sun setting,” he actually failed to catch the deep meaning of “不用” which is “don’t have to” rather than “in vain” or no use. The last couplet was even misinterpreted in two ways. First, the phrase “古往今来” simply means “since ancient times,” but it was split in the middle into two words and translated as “Old times have passed away, the present comes”—a typical mistake made by Westerners who tend to 28 2 Research on the Early Significant Texts translate literally. Second, the man Tse-king-kung on Cow hill at the end appears too abruptly, because it is hard to see the connection between this person and the context of the poem. Morrison failed to combine the allusion with the poem, and thus the poetic effect of the original poem is compromised. It can be seen that Morrison’s translation is relatively rough, though his purpose of introducing the custom of climbing mountains on the Double Ninth Day is achieved. And it is this piece of translation, of such limited quality—and to which the translator himself may not have attached great importance—that has become the first complete English version of a Tang poem according to literature. II. Davis and The Poetry of the Chinese Compared with Morrison’s translation, Davis’ The Poetry of the Chinese is more noteworthy. Sir John Davis was a British sinologist who was equipped with vast knowledge of classical Chinese and profound academic expertise. He not only had some understanding of the Chinese society at the time but also showed interest in Chinese literature. In his early years, he went to China as the supercargo of the East India Company in Guangzhou and the Chief Business Officer of the British government in China. In 1844, he was appointed as the second governor of Hong Kong; however, after just 4 years he sadly resigned due to the heavy tax levied, which led to a great loss of popular support. As a prolific sinologist, Davis not only translated a large number of Chinese classical literary works, but also wrote monographs such as Chinese Novels: The Whole Prefaced by Observations on the Language and Literature of China (1822), The Fortunate Union, a Romance Translated from the Chinese Tragedy [The Sorrows of Han] (1829), The Chinese: A General Description of the Empire of China and Its Inhabitants (1836), and Shuey Ping Sin: A Story Made from the Chinese Romance Haou Kew Chuen (1899). Published in 1870, The Poetry of the Chinese is a monograph which offers a macroscopic introduction to Chinese poetry. The book consists of two parts. The first introduces the historical development of Chinese poetry ranging from The Book of Songs to the poetry of the Qing dynasty. It mainly focuses on the changes in poetic format, such as verse lines, antithesis, stanza, rhythm, and rhyme. The second part is an interpretation of the content, style, and connotation of the poems selected from different Chinese dynasties. The poems introduced or translated in the book were not documented in terms of their source, author, or date of composition, though all of the original poems were provided. Based on a systematic understanding of the traditional Chinese culture, Davis put forward some insightful viewpoints mentioned in The Poetry of the Chinese. For example, when it comes to the appreciation of Chinese poetry, he pointed out that Chinese poetry is usually characterized by being “implied” and “implicit” in meaning, unlike Western poetry, which is straightforward and easy to understand because the poet is rather explicit about what he or she sees, thinks, and feels. If the field of Western poetics accordingly believes that Chinese poetry is empty or shallow, that is only because it tends to stay at the literal or superficial level of the poetry, 2.2 Pilot English-Translated Works of Tang Poems 29 without understanding the origin of Chinese poetry, or the background or cultural connotation represented in the poem. As a result, Davis took pains to introduce the background and other information of the poems he translated. He argued emphatically that Chinese and Western poetry are destined to be different due to the vast differences in language and, therefore, that there should and must be a completely different angle or approach through which Chinese poetry is interpreted and appreciated. This position was put forward against the European and American bias against Chinese poetry at the time, and it was quite sharp and insightful. Davis also pointed out, “A general view of the style and spirit of Chinese poetry, the character of its imagery and sentiment, and the extent to which it seems to admit of a precise classification, relatively to the divisions and nomenclature adopted in European literature. To such as should find the first portion of our treatise dry and technical in its details, the second may possibly prove more attractive; but the order of discussion could hardly be inverted with propriety.” (Davis 1870,p.1) He argued that the form, sound, and meaning of a Chinese character are well associated with each other, and this leads to the fact that the Chinese language is more susceptible to the poetic expression of images. This point of view coincides with that of Professor Ernest Francisco Fenollosa, an American philosopher and political economist (1853–1908), whose article The Chinese Written Character as a Medium for Poetry was published in 1918. Fenollosa proposed that, to express the implied meaning in a poem more vividly, one can figure out the connotative meaning of a Chinese character through the analysis of its structural composition. This proposition formed the theoretical basis of the Imagist Movement advocated by modern American poets. Davis realized the special role Chinese characters played in poetic composition nearly 50 years earlier than Fenollosa did. Of all of classical Chinese poetry, Davis greatly favored Tang poetry. In the first part of his book, Davis introduced the Tang dynasty as “the best era of Chinese poetry.” In the second part, he repeated this remark. However, his concept of “Chinese classical poetry” is so broad that it goes far beyond the Chinese traditional “poetry” category. The poems that he used to illustrate the format, form, and content features of Chinese poetry not only include the works of the Tang and Ming dynasties and even those of the modern poets, but also the nonmainstream works by traditional Chinese criteria, such as excerpts of antithetical couplets and chapters from Ming and Qing vernacular novels, Yuan opera librettos, and even gatepost couplets, Buddhist Guǎnghuà Zhēnjīng (广化真经) and Sānzì Jīng (三字经). This indicates that Davis’ knowledge of classical Chinese poetry was relatively limited, and therefore his interpretations of the Chinese poems were inevitably full of fallacies. In the second part of his book, Davis mentioned, “The most flourishing era of modern poetry was under the T’ang dynasty. The most celebrated poet of that age was the renowned Letaepih, born in the province Szechuan, about A.D. 720… A number of esteemed collection, called T’angshee,or‘Poems of the T’ang Dynasty,’ are regarded, for the most part, as the compositions of Letaepih, and a few more of the better poets of that day.” (Davis 1870,p.42–45) First of all, his account of Tang poetry as such was misleading. Second, although he admired Li Bai very much, he did not seem to be clear about the fact that Li Bai 30 2 Research on the Early Significant Texts

(i.e., Le-pě or Li Po) had a courtesy name (字) as Li Taibai (Letaepih). In the ﬁrst part of the book, where translated the line “Dǎnsì Zǐlóng chóng chū shì,cáirú Lǐbái zàishēnglái” (胆似子龙重出世, 才如李白再生来) of a poem from Hǎoqiú Zhuàn (好逑传, i.e., Haou Kew Chuen), Davis translated it as “Courage—as if Tsz-loong, the hero, had reappeared in the world; Talent—as though Le-pě, the poet, had again been born.” Here, the poet Li Bai was put into “Le-pě,” which indicates that Davis did not know this Li Bai and that Li Bai (Letaepih) he had mentioned earlier were the same person. In the second part of the book, Davis selected three poems to translate and he noted that they were from “A Collection Tang Poems.” Among them, the ﬁrst was “SòngchūnCí” (送春词) by Wang Ya (王涯), and the third was “Chūnyè Xǐyǔ” (春夜喜雨) by Du Fu. As for the second piece, the original Chinese version could not be found in QuánTángshī (全唐诗, A Complete Collection of Tang Poetry). According to the Chinese text provided by Davis, it was more likely the poem “Táoyuán” (桃源) by the Qing poet Fan Qifeng (范起凤). Here, only two of the poems Davis translated—one by Wang Ya and the other by Du Fu—were Tang poems.

By Davis (1870, p. 43) 送春词 *No English title 王涯 Old age hastens on, as each fleet hour passes, 日日人空老, Though spring ev’ry year re-illumines the glade. 年年春更归。 So boys let’s be jolly, and fill up our glasses, 相欢在尊酒, And, why should we sigh for the flowers that fade! 不用惜花飞。

Compared with the original poem by Wang Ya, Davis’ translation is very faithful. While drinking wine as a means of avoiding sorrows is a well-recognized theme among poets, Davis recognized its universal existence in Tang poetry. Therefore, following his introduction to Li Bai he made the remark, “The poetical character in China has of old been associated with the liberal use of wine. So it has, apparently, everywhere else. The poetical brain has loved the stimulus of alcohol, or tobacco, or opium, from Anacreon down to Bums, Byron, and Coleridge.” (Davis 1870, p. 42) Naturally, Davis considered this poem by Wang Ya an “Anacreontic” one which reﬂects the writing career of the Chinese poets.

An Evening Shower in Spring 春夜喜雨 By Davis (1870, p. 45) 杜甫 See how the gently falling rain, 好雨知时节, Its vernal inﬂuence sweetly showers. 当春乃发生。 As through the calm and tepid eve, 随风潜入夜, It silently bedews the ﬂowers. 润物细无声。 Cloudy and dark th’ horison spreads, 野径云俱黑, Save where some boat its light is burning: 江船火独明。 (continued) 2.2 Pilot English-Translated Works of Tang Poems 31

(continued) An Evening Shower in Spring 春夜喜雨 By Davis (1870, p. 45) 杜甫 But soon the landscape’s tints shall glow, 晓看红湿处, All radiant, with the morn returning. 花重锦官城。

The key word in the poem “An Evening Shower in Spring” by Du Fu is “joyful.” The poem starts with the word “good” to describe the spring rain, and its second couplet further explains that this rain is so good as to bedew the flowers silently. In the first half of Davis’ translated version, personification and paraphrase were employed to retain the “goodness” of the rain, though the degree lessened and remained rather superficial. On the other hand, “joyfulness” was not translated at all. In the second half, “rain-wet flowers on the next morning” was simply neglected so that the whole poem appears less coherent poetically. The absence of the place JǐnguānChéng (锦官城), today’s Chengdu, again leaves the readers wondering where the rain fell. In the footnotes, Davis did explain that the poet lived in a warm and dry place in south China which suffered “a small drought every three days and a big drought every five days,” and therefore he loved the rain so much. Here, it is clear that Davis did not know exactly where JǐnguānChéng (锦官城) was. From this, we can conclude that the British people at the time were still lacking an overall understanding of China’s geography and other social conditions. For each poem translated, Davis also provided the Chinese text. In addition to the two Tang poems, there are some valuable poems collected and translated in this book, such as the completed 32 poems of “ChūnyuánCǎichá Cí” (春园采茶词, “Tea-Picking Ballad”) and 10 poems of “LándūnShíyǒng” (兰敦十咏, “London, in Ten Stanzas”), whose originals are either no longer exist or deformed in Chinese records. Many inadvertent fallacies in the book greatly weakened its reputation and hence later sinologists did not give it much credit. L. A. Cranmer-Byng, a British poet who enjoys the status of “expert in classical Chinese poetry,” used to say, there are a lot of mistakes in Davis’ translation due to his “incorrect Chinese pronunciation.” As a matter of fact, the so-called “incorrect Chinese pronunciation” is excusable. Davis learned the language in Hong Kong and his pronunciation was inevitably influenced by Cantonese, whereas Cranmer-Byng learned Mandarin Chinese from Giles. For better or worse, Davis was the first person currently known to introduce Chinese poetry, including Tang poetry, to the English world. His contributions in the field can never be overlooked.

2.3 The English Anthologies of Tang Poetry

To begin with, let us take a second look at Alexander Wylie (1815–1887) and his Notes on Chinese Literature. A carpenter born in London, Wylie had no formal higher education. He became a sinologist out of pure personal interest, occupied an 32 2 Research on the Early Significant Texts important position in the nineteenth-century British sinology due to his myriads of basic, yet pioneering work in the field. In 1847, Wylie was sent to Shanghai as a printing technician for the London Missionary Society Press (墨海书局), and this marked the beginning of his 30-year life in China. During his stay in China, Wylie was active in the introduction of Western learning to the Chinese, like compiling popular mathematics books. He also translated Western mathematical and astronomical works in collaboration with Chinese scholars, and founded a Chinese periodical to introduce modern Western science. At the same time, he also studied Chinese history, geography, religion, philosophy, natural science, and cultural arts, and introduced them to the West. When he found there was a lack of Chinese materials in the British sinological circle at the time, Wylie sold and donated books from his private library to the Oxford University library, the North-China Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society library, and the Anglican Church library. With reference to Sìkù Quánshū (四库全书, The Imperial Catalog of the Four Treasuries), he translated bibliographical materials comprehensively and systematically and compiled his authoritative work Notes on Chinese Literature: With Introductory Remarks on the Progressive Advancement of the Art, which represents his greatest academic contribution to Chinese traditional culture and literature. The book, fully titled Notes on Chinese Literature: with Introductory Remarks on the Progressive Advancement of the Art, was published in Shanghai in 1867. It consists of four parts: Classics, History, Philosophers, and Belles-lettres. Each part is subdivided into smaller sections listing the Chinese titles, pronunciation, spelling, and content briefings. Besides classics of Confucianism, there are also bibliographical resources of Daoism, Buddhism, history, geography, agriculture, forestry, medicine, water conservancy, arithmetic, astronomy, astrology, drama, the novel, poetry, lyrics, and more. The content covered is actually much broader than the scope of Chinese literature. Special attention needs to be paid to the preface to this book, and how it introduces the origin of Chinese culture and history. For example, the literature of the Tang dynasty was introduced in this way: “The Tang is especially distinguished in the annals of literature, the monarchs of that line delighting to draw around them the most illustrious talents of the age. Poets took a high stand, and the period of Le Tae-pĭh and Too Foo is looked to as the golden age of Chinese bards.” (Wylie 1867, p. VII) The preface part also contains a “list of translations from the Chinese into various European languages,” which details the available Chinese texts introduced to the West then. According to Wylie, the only extant text then was Poésies De l’Époque des Thang by the French sinologist D’Hervey Saint-Denys. Except for a small amount of non-Tang poetry, the main contents of Saint-Denys’ book were selected and translated from Yùdìng QuánTángshī (御定全唐诗, i.e. Yútíng Tscuên T’āngshe), to which Wylie added:

It commences with the effusions of princes and their consorts, followed by the collections of the ofﬁcial musical department; and besides the more generally known poetic 2.3 The English Anthologies of Tang Poetry 33

productions, the works of Buddhist and Taoist priests, of foreigners, and pieces signalized by a variety of other characteristics, all under chronological arrangement. At the end are six books of deficiencies supplied, and twelve books of irregular rhymes. Notwithstanding the many acknowledged excellencies of this anthology, it is also marked by some blemishes, as the admission of spurious pieces, authors of other dynasties inserted among those of the Tang, names of authors erroneously written, titles of pieces mistaken for the names of authors, and some minor defects, but these are few when compared with the bulk of the huge work. The extent of this collection necessarily places it beyond the great mass of students; to make up for which to some extent, many smaller compendiums have been formed in later times. (Wylie 1867, p. 195) Although Wylie did not translate Tang poetry directly, his relevant bibliographical list and the ensuing brief descriptions about those works scattered in the different parts of the book are quite helpful to later research of Tang poetry in the West. For instance, Tángyùn (唐韵) in the first part “Classics,” ZhēnguānZhèngyào (贞观政要) and Táng Cáizǐ Zhuàn (唐才子传) in the second part “History,” Yuèfǔ Zálù (乐府杂录), Dàtáng Xīnyǔ (大唐新语), Yúnxī Yǒuyì (云溪友议), and Jiànjiè Lù (鉴诫录) in the third part “Philosophers,” TángyīnTǒngqiān (唐音统签) and Tángshī Héjiě Qiānzhù (唐诗合解签注) in the fourth part “Belles-lettres,” all are invaluable complementary materials for Westerners studying Tang poetry. From the list, one can see that most of the works translated were novels, dramas, Cí (词), and lyrics came second, and poetry was the least in amount. Relatively complete English versions of Tang poetry was still out of sight. Even Giles’ Chinese Poetry in English Verse or Cranmer-Byng’s A Lute of Jade in the early twentieth century, in which Tang poetry occupied a dominant portion, can be considered monographic texts of Tang poetry translated into English. This raises the question of when an English monograph of Tang poetry—similar to the French version of Poésies De l’Époque des Thang by D’Hervey Saint-Denys —came into being, and who the author was. This issue should be clarified first and foremost in the history of introducing Tang poetry to the West. Unfortunately, existing research papers have not answered this question adequately, such that the brilliance of Fletcher, the key figure, has been obscured. In the research field of English translation of Tang poetry, Fletcher’s name is not uncommon. Many of his translations are compared with those of Giles, Arthur Waley, and many other translators’ works. In the preface to his Zhōngshī Yīngyì Bǐlù (中诗英译比录, Chinese-English Translation of Poetry, 2002), the famous Chinese linguist Lv Shuxiang (吕叔湘) cited a number of Fletcher’s translations as examples to illustrate the strengths and weaknesses of different versions being compared and analyzed. In his article entitled The Translation and Acceptance of Tang Poetry in America, another Chinese scholar Zhu Hui (朱徽) also mentioned “Gems from Chinese Verse (1918) and More Gems from Chinese Verse (1919) by W. J. Bainbridge-Fletcher,” and listed them as instances to show the fact that “many American scholarly poets translated and published many kinds of Classical Chinese poetry, especially Tang poetry” in the first three decades of the twentieth century (Zhu Hui 2004 [4]). Gao Yukun also regards W. J. Fletcher as one of the famous English translators of Tang poetry since the end of the last century, saying that 34 2 Research on the Early Significant Texts

Fletcher applied the rhyme of Chinese poetry translation to his Gems of Chinese Verse: Translated into English Verse published in 1918. (Gao Yukun 2003, p. 147, p. 151) In other works about the English translation of classical Chinese poetry, Fletcher was also incidentally mentioned as one of many translators. It seems that in the first wave of Tang poetry study at the beginning of the twentieth century in the United States, Fletcher was seen simply as a translator, without being accorded any special status. Regarding the “two translated books” by Fletcher, the first one fully entitled Gems of Chinese Verse: Translated into English Verse was published in 1918, and the second, More Gems of Chinese Poetry was published in 1919. There are many mistranslated Chinese version for the two book titles, as I have seen, such as “中国诗歌精华”及续篇 (Gems from Chinese Verse and More Gems from Chinese Verse) by Zhu Hui; “汉诗英韵选珍”及续篇 (Gems of Chinese Verse Translated into English Verse and More Gems of Chinese Verse Translated into English Verse) by Gao Yukun; or “中国诗歌选萃”及续篇 (Selected Chinese Poetry and More Selected Chinese Poetry), “汉诗精品英译”及续篇 (Selected Chinese Poetry in English and More Selected Chinese Poetry in English), etc. All these titles sound similar to Selected Ancient and Modern Poetry and Selected Ancient and Modern Treasures by Giles, which may have led to the misconception that the two books are the same as Giles’ and that they all deal with poetry of the different dynasties. As a matter of fact, these two books came out later than Giles’, and they were not as influential as the works by Arthur Waley, L. A. Cranmer-Byng, and Ezra Pound. Therefore, there seems to be nothing special about the two books, and they pre- sumably do not have any particular significance or research value. In fact, the special value of these two books is self-evident. The first book Gems of Chinese Verse: Translated into English Verse has a title in Chinese, 英译唐诗选, literally means “Selected Tang Poetry in English.” The title of the second book, More Gems of Chinese Poetry: Translated into English Verse is in the same format, with the Chinese version as 英译唐诗选续集—literally means “More Selected Tang Poetry in English.” Both books were published by Commercial Press in Shanghai. They are the earliest available English selections of Tang poetry, and Fletcher—who defines Tang poetry as “the gems of Chinese verse”—is the first person dedicated to the translation and introduction of Tang poetry to the Western world. William John Bainbrigge Fletcher (1879–1933) was a diplomat appointed by the British government to the Consulate in China, so he must have lived in China for a relatively long period of time. Gems of Chinese Verse and More Gems of Chinese Verse both started with the poems To Li Po and Tu Fu composed by the author himself in Fuzhou in 1917 and Guangzhou in 1918, respectively. The body of each of the two books consists of three volumes: “Works by Li Bai,”“Works by Du Fu,” and “Works by Other Poets.” There is no overlapping between the poems included in the two books. Except the poem “Jiāojiéfù Xíng” (焦节妇行, Qing dynasty) collected by mistake in Gems of Chinese Verse, there were a total of 285 Tang poems translated. For each poem, both the Chinese and English versions are provided. The large selection and relatively high academic level of the translation are 2.3 The English Anthologies of Tang Poetry 35 worth noting. In addition, in both books, the poet Wang Wei was put on the top of the list in the volume “Works by Other Poets,” indicating that Fletcher was the earliest Tang poetry translator to place Wang Wei and his poems into a special position next to Li Bai and Du Fu. Fletcher’s works came out earlier than The Jade Mountain, a Chinese Anthology: Being 300 Poems of the T’ang Dynasty (618–906) (1929), and much earlier than Selections from the 300 Poems of the Tang Dynasty (1940) and Further Selections from the 300 Poems of the Tang Dynasty (1944). Widely diffused in literary and artistic circles in Britain and the United States, these two books by Fletcher have become canonical texts for later generations studying Tang poetry. As far as the time of publication and the contents are concerned, Gems of Chinese Verse and More Gems of Chinese Verse by Fletcher well deserve recognition as the earliest English anthologies of Tang poetry in the Western world.

References

Chinese References

Chen Youbing:《英国汉学的阶段性特征及成因探析-以中国古典文学研究为中心》,《汉学研究通讯》, 总第107期, 2008. Gao Yukun:《唐诗比较研究新篇》, 香港:天马图书有限公司, 2003 年版. Zhao Yiheng:《远游的诗神: 中国古典诗歌对美国新诗运动的影响》, 成都:四川人民出版社, 1985 年版. Zhu Hui:《唐诗在美国的翻译与接受》,《四川大学学报》, 2004(4).

English References

Broomhall, M., & Morrison, R. (1927). A master builder. London: Student Christian Movement, 32 Russell Square, W.C.I. Cranmer-Byng, L. A. (1909). A lute of Jade: Being selections from the classical poets of China. London: John Murray. (Wisdom of the East Series). Davis, J. F. (Sir). (1870). The poetry of Chinese. London: Asher & Co. Morrison, R. (Rev.). (1815). Translations from the original Chinese: With notes. Canton, China: Printed by order of the select committee: at the Honorable East India Company’s Press. Wylie, A. (1867). Notes on Chinese literature: With introductory remarks on the progressive advancement of the art; and a list of translations from the Chinese into various European languages. Shanghai: American Presbyterian Mission Press. Chapter 3 British Sinologist Herbert A. Giles and His Contributions

British sinologist Herbert Allen Giles (1845–1935) was born into a family of letters in Oxford, Britain. He came to China as a student interpreter in the British Embassy in 1867, after passing an examination given by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Office. Before he went back to Britain in 1893 for reason of health, Giles had worked as an official for the British Consulate in Tianjin, Ningbo, Hankou, Guangzhou, Shantou, Xiamen, Fuzhou, Shanghai, and Danshui during his 26 years of duty. In 1897, he was unanimously elected as Professor of Sinology at Cambridge University, right after the election of another famous sinologist, Thomas Francis Wade (1818–1895). Having devoted his whole life to sinological study, Giles published a series of works that included language-learning materials, translation works, reference books, and essays. His research covers areas such as Confucianism, sociology, literature, history, religion, philosophy, and painting, and his outstanding achievements are highly respected to this day. The Wade-Giles Romanization System (also known as Wade-Giles Pinyin), which was revised by him, has been widely used for over 80 years, and even today is still adopted as the phonetic system used by Yale University and other American colleges and universities in the teaching of the Chinese language. The Chinese- English Dictionary (1882) compiled by him is an immense reference book that dwarfs all previous works of its kind. Having an untold impact on several generations of non-Chinese students, it is considered the most prominent achievement of Giles’ sinological research. In terms of classical Chinese literature translation and research, Giles’ translation of Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio (1880) is still the most complete English version of the book. As was previously mentioned, in his Gems of Chinese Literature (1884) and Chinese Poetry in English Verse (1894), Giles systematically translated and introduced a large number of classical Chinese poems, including Tang poetry. His History of Chinese Literature (1901), the most representative work of his study of classical Chinese literature, was the first English monograph on the history of Chinese literature.

© Foreign Language Teaching and Research Publishing Co., Ltd 37 and Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany 2018 L. Jiang, A History of Western Appreciation of English-translated Tang Poetry, China Academic Library, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-56352-6_3 38 3 British Sinologist Herbert A. Giles and His Contributions

A review of Tang poetry as well as the translation of it is an important part of Giles’ research on classical Chinese literature. He once commented, “The Tang dynasty is usually associated in Chinese minds with much romance of love and war, with wealth, culture, and refinement, with frivolity, extravagance, and dissipation, but most of all with poetry. China’s best efforts in this direction were chiefly produced within the limits of its 300 years’ duration, and they have been carefully preserved as finished models for future poets of all generations.” (Giles 1901, p. 143) The most successful part of Giles’ translation of classical Chinese poetry, such as his rhyme style of text translation, lies in the translation of Tang poetry. And his style was followed as a model by many later Tang poetry translators.

3.1 Tang Poems in Chinese Poetry in English Verse

Chinese Poetry in English Verse, the ﬁrst Chinese poetry translation work by Giles, was published in October 1898, in London and Shanghai simultaneously. Titled the same as the article which he had published in the journal The Nineteenth Century in 1894, the book was widely known among Chinese scholars, although it somehow got at least ﬁve different Chinese titles, including the one, GǔjīnShīxuǎn (古今诗选), which was given by Giles himself. Chinese Poetry in English Verse includes nearly 200 poems by 102 poets, ranging from The Book of Songs to poems of the different dynasties before the eighteenth century. Tang poetry accounted for the largest proportion. The book provided neither the original Chinese texts nor the sources from which the poems were collected; however, each poem was followed by the name of the poet and the date of his birth and death. The titles of the poems were rarely translated literally; according to his understanding of the poems, Giles usually gave each poem a different title. The reason as to why Giles selected only these poets rather than many others was not mentioned in the book. Therefore, in the process of Tang poetry translation, which poets or poems were accessible for Western readers largely depended on the personal interest and preference of the translator. In the preface to the reprinted edition of Gems of Chinese Literature, Giles described the relationship between the original poem and the translated version as follows: “It must however always be borne in mind that translators are but traitors at the best, and that translations may be moonlight and water while the originals are sunlight and wine.” As an excellent writer and rigorous scholar, Giles had his own criterion for the translation of classical Chinese poetry. He believed that the highest quality translation is a representation of the spirit of the original. Under the premise of being faithful to the original, although Chinese poetry can be rendered in the form of either poetry or prose, he was personally in favor of the form of poetry. He argued that the reproduction of the original form of a poem should be equally important as the content. Originally, Chinese poetry was created for singing, so he emphasized that translation must maintain the rhyme, or the characteristics of Chinese poetry would not be fully represented. 3.1 Tang Poems in Chinese Poetry in English Verse 39

Under the influence of his father, a great scholar of European classical literature, Giles showed an intense interest in European classical literature in his early years. His first academic monograph was about the ancient Roman statesman and philosopher Marcus Tullius Cicero and the ancient Greek orator and philosopher Cassius Longinus. Due to his solid academic foundation, Giles demonstrated a preference for elegant and culturally laden words as well as an extraordinary ability to use the English language. Therefore, his translations are usually characterized by precision in meaning, elegance in style, and sophistication in rhetoric, especially with the frequent use of “Victorian” English. Here is an example from Chinese Poetry in English Verse. It was indicated that this poem was a translation of Li Bai’s work, and it can be traced back that the original should be Li Bai’s five-character “Stop-short”“Seeing off a Friend” as follows:

A Farewell 送友人 By Giles (1898, p. 70) 李白 Where blue hills cross the northern sky, 青山横北郭, Beyond the moat which girds the town. 白水绕东城。 ’Twas there we stopped to say Goodbye! 此地一为别, And one white sail alone dropped down. 孤蓬万里征。 Your heart was full of wandering thought, 浮云游子意, For me,—my sun had set indeed; 落日故人情。 To wave a last adieu we sought, 挥手自兹去, Voiced for us by each whinnying steed! 萧萧班马鸣。

Poetic, picturesque and emotional, the original poem depicts a scenario in which the poet and his friend parted unwillingly. The first couplet tells where they bade farewell to each other, and the antithetical effect is impressive: “blue” versus “white” in color, and “stand still” versus “run across” for the state of action of the hills and the river. The two couplets in the middle hit the point, expressing the poet’s sorrows of saying goodbye as well as his deep concern about his friend’s future. In the final couplet, foiled with the whinny of the two horses which are also unwilling to part, the poet and his friend waved goodbye, leaving a parting sil- houette against the sunset, but a long aftertaste for the audience. In Giles’ version, lines 2 and 4 share the same rhyme, and lines 6 and 8 share the same rhyme. In general, these lines are faithful to the original in meaning; however, the “白水” (white river) was rendered mistakenly as “moat,” probably because of the predicate part “绕东城” (girds the town). “孤蓬” (lonely horse weed) means the grass that has been blown by the wind, although Giles rendered it as “white sail alone,” which is acceptable. In the final line, “班马” refers to an isolated horse. The two horses whinnied as if they understood how reluctantly the poet and his friend would part. This is how the horses behaved, let alone the people! The word “horse” was rendered as “steed,” which shows not only Giles’ good command of English but also his profound knowledge of the rhyme pattern of Chinese poetry. 40 3 British Sinologist Herbert A. Giles and His Contributions

Since English and Chinese belong to different language families, direct conversion of words and expressions between the original and the translated does not necessarily correspond to the conversion of meaning; nor does this take into account the fact that this literary form of poetry has overlapping restrictions of sentence length and rhyme. Giles’ translation practice may easily sacriﬁce the original meaning of the poem for the sake of its rhyme. Literally, “steed” means a spirited horse for a state or war; therefore, it is different from a horse in the common sense. Since the original poem depicts a woeful parting scene, the choice of “steed” instead of “horse” actually changed the atmosphere. Giles was very strict, stubborn, and sometimes even harsh with the rhyme. Even though he emphasized that translation should be faithful to the original, he did not hesitate to sacriﬁce elements of the original poem for rhyme. More often than not he failed to reproduce the original connotation. Rather, his procrustean way of wording led to the image of the English version deviating from that of the original, with a lack of poetic abundance and sensitive. His “Victorian” English diction and style of composition, to a large extent, is detrimental to the readability of his works for general readers. Such shortcomings are more evident in his translation of “Boyhood Fancies” by Li Bai.

Boyhood Fancies 古朗月行 By Giles (1898, p. 71) 李白 In days gone by the moon appeared 小时不识月, to my still boyish eyes. 呼作白玉盘。 Some bright jade plate or mirror from 又疑瑶台镜, the palace of the skies. 飞在白云端。 I used to see the Old Man’s legs 仙人垂两足, and Cassias fair as gods can make them, 桂树作团团。 I saw the White hare pounding drugs, 白兔捣药成, and wondered who was there to take them. 问言与谁餐。 Ah, how I watched the eclipsing Toad, 蟾蜍蚀圆影, and marked the ravages it made, 大明夜已残。 And longed for him who slew the suns 羿昔落九乌, and all the angels’ fears allayed. 天人清且安。 Then when the days of waning came, 阴精此沦惑, and scarce a silver streak remained, 去去不足观。 I wept to lose my favorite thus, 忧来其如何, and cruel grief my eyelids stained. 凄怆摧心肝。

Following the old Yuefu (乐府) title, Li Bai depicted the marvelous, magniﬁcent, and artistic images of the moon through rich imagination and the masterful use of myths and legends. The poem starts from a simple childhood misunderstanding of the moon, then expresses the poet’s admiration and hope when he saw “all the angels’ fears allayed” (天人清且安,tiānrénqīngqiěān), and then comes back to a disappointing reality—the brightness of the moon was confused by the “eclipsing Toad.” At the end, the poet was ﬁlled with confusion and inner contradictions, claiming that “cruel grief” had nipped his heart. In Tángshī Biécái (唐诗别裁), 3.1 Tang Poems in Chinese Poetry in English Verse 41

Shen Deqian (沈德潜, 1673–1769) argued that this poem “alludes to the reality that Guifei could confuse the emperor” (暗指贵妃能惑主听), implying that the disappointment and indignation expressed throughout the poem were actually targeted at the corrupt imperial family of the time. Here, Giles translated the original title into “Boyhood Fancies,” which is misleading from the very beginning. With the even lines uncapitalized and indented, Giles probably wanted the reader to take the poem as an eight-line verse, which corresponds with the original in form. In terms of the rhyme, lines 1 and 2 share the same rhyme, lines 3 and 4 share the same rhyme, and then from the 5th line to the end, another rhyme pattern is followed. The poem in English reads fairly rhythmically, but it is hard to understand. Giles reshufﬂed the ﬁrst two lines of the original and reconstructed the phrases in his own way; the charm of the poet’snaïveté gets lost partially in this process. In line 3, “仙人” (immortal) was translated into “Old man,” and other allusions in lines 3–6, such as “Cassias fair,”“White hare,”“eclipsing Toad” and “him who slew the suns,” which are all from moon-related myths, are jumbled and collaged within a poem titled “Boyhood Fancies,” leading the reader to nowhere without the necessary Chinese cultural background. At most, the reader would attribute these legendary images to the wild imagination of the child rather than the intricate and profound meaning intended by the poet. Ending with “I wept to lose my favorite thus, and cruel grief my eyelids stained,” the poem appears abrupt and incompre- hensible. Overall, the translation hardly represents the poet’s complicated feeling of disappointment, resentment, and ambivalence when he saw the moon gradually becoming crescent and bright and then eclipsing with darkness. What is worse, Li Bai’s fresh and beautiful writing style has vanished without a trace. Of course, as an outstanding scholar of sinology Giles also presented some excellent works of translation, which are well rhymed, antithetical, expressive, elegant, and faithful:

A Rencontre 杂诗Á其二 By Giles (1898, p. 55) 王维 Sir, from my dear old home you come, 君自故乡来, And all its glories you can name; 应知故乡事。 Oh, tell me,—has the winter-plum 来日绮窗前, Yet blossomed o’er the window-frame? 寒梅著花未?

The translated poem shares a single rhyme, and the translation is very close to the original literally. If translated back, Giles’ English version is somewhat like Wang Wei’s original, rewritten in vernacular Chinese. The straightforward style of writing in the original is well preserved in the translation, without any modiﬁcation rhetorically, so that the poet’s homesickness is expressed vividly. This verse can be considered a masterpiece in poetry translation. Throughout the book, well-translated poems like “A Rencontre” do not account for the majority by any means, though the book marks the beginning of the 42 3 British Sinologist Herbert A. Giles and His Contributions systematic and professional English translation of Tang poetry. When this book came out, Giles’ three volumes of The Chinese-English Dictionary had all been published. Another reference book of his, A Chinese Biographical Dictionary (1897), had won him the Prix Stanislas Julien, awarded by the French Academy, and an honorary doctorate of law conferred by the University of Aberdeen. He served as Professor of Sinology at the University of Cambridge after Thomas Wade passed away. It can be said that Giles’ reputation and status in British Sinology were unshakable at the time. Therefore, Chinese Poetry in English Verse was particularly noticeable due to his academic authority.

3.2 Tang Poetry in A History of Chinese Literature

“Native scholars, with their endless critiques and appreciations of individual works, do not seem ever to have contemplated anything of the kind, realizing, no doubt, the utter hopelessness, from a Chinese point of view, of achieving even comparative success in a general historical survey of the subject.” (Giles 1901, preface) Therefore, with a strong sense of mission to present British readers with an outline of the development of Chinese literature in the course of several thousand years, Giles published his Chinese Literature in 1901, a book in the “Short Histories of the Literatures of the World Series,” introducing Chinese literature from ancient times up to 1850. In the book, the Tang dynasty is considered a highlight. According to L. A. Cranmer-Byng, who not only read the book but also was very familiar with the Giles family, “Professor Giles devotes considerable space to the poets of the T’ang dynasty, and gives some delightful renderings of the greater poets, such as Li Po and Tu Fu” (Cranmer-Byng 1909, p. 116). In the same year, Giles’ History of Chinese Literature was published in Britain and the United States. This work, following the Western cultural tradition and Western academic thought, provided a general account of the history of Chinese literature. It can be considered an achievement Giles reached after his many years of research in Chinese language, history, culture, and traditions. With the dynasties as the warps, and the literary works as the wefts, the book presented a framework of Chinese literature in dynastic periods and volumes, viz., “The Feudal Period (B.C. 600–200),”“The Han Dynasty (B.C. 200–A.D. 200),”“Minor Dynasties (A.D. 200–600),”“The Tang Dynasty (A.D. 600–900),”“The Sung Dynasty (A.D. 900– 1200),”“The Mongol Dynasty (A.D. 1200–1368),”“The Ming Dynasty (A.D. 1368–1644),” and “The Manchu Dynasty (A.D. 1644–1900).” Within each volume, there are different chapters and sections introducing the most representative literary genres, important writers and their works, and literary events. Giles used a considerable part of the book to analyze, translate, and introduce 200 authors and their works that he had selected. In the fourth volume, Giles allowed two chapters for the discussion about “Tang Literature,” the former being focused on Tang poetry exclusively while the latter dealt with the other literary genres except poems. As for the Tang poetry—the most 3.2 Tang Poetry in A History of Chinese Literature 43 prosperous and brilliant part in Classical Chinese poetry, Giles made a general statement as follows: “The Complete Collection of the Poetry of the Tang Dynasty, published in 1707, contains 48,900 poems of all kinds, arranged in 900 books, and filling 30 good-sized volumes. Some Chinese writers divide the dynasty into three poetical periods, called Early, Glorious, and Late; and they profess to detect in the works assigned to the corresponding characteristics of growth, fullness, and decay. Others insert a Middle period between the last two, making four periods in all. For general purpose, however, it is only necessary to state, that since the age of the Hans the meanings of words had gradually come to be more definitely fixed, and the structural arrangement more uniform and more polished. Imagination began to come more freely into play, and the language to flow more easily and more musically, as though responsive to the demands of art” (Giles 1901, pp. 143–144). Giles’ introduction of Tang poetry as such is no longer a simplistic or incidentally mentioned hearsay, as his predecessors’ had been. Rather it is a concise summary based on detailed historical literature. He explained the reason why classical Chinese poetry reached its peak in the Tang dynasty: the evolution of poetry itself; the requirements of the imperial exam system; the social atmosphere; and the perfection and maturity of the written language, which suffices to be the carrier of poetic beauty and abundance. It is not accidental that Giles came up with such insightful views. Prior to his study of classical Chinese literature, he was an expert in Chinese language studies. In addition to The Chinese-English Dictionary, he had also compiled such textbooks as Chinese without a Teacher: Being a Collection of East and Useful Sentences in the Mandarin Dialect, with a Vocabulary (1872), Synoptical Studies in Chinese Characters (1874), and The 100 Best Characters (1919; 1922) for learning Chinese as a second language. As a result, Giles could make inductive elaborations about the relationship between the pronunciation patterns of Chinese characters and poetic composition when he subsequently introduced Tang poems and their rules of composition to English readers. He said that in poetry, all Chinese characters can be attributed to two tone groups, the level tone and the oblique tone. Tonal sound position is fixed within a verse line and between lines. It is no wonder that a Chinese poem reads rhythmically and “is very marked and pleasing to the ear.” For this reason, Chinese poets have to work very hard to assure the proper rhyme and rhythms during the process of composition, so “there is as much artificiality about a stanza of Chinese verse as there is about an Alcaic stanza in Latin.” In terms of the structure of poetry, Giles pointed out an interesting difference between Chinese and Western poetry: “A long poem does not appeal to the Chinese mind. There is no such thing as an epic in the language, though, of course, there are many pieces extending to several hundred lines.” Thanks to the precociousness and development of historical literature, there is indeed a lack of a long narrative epic like the ancient Greek Iliad and Odyssey in Chinese classical poetry. Giles spoke more precisely to his readers, saying that the “ideal length” of Chinese poetry is 12 lines or 8 lines. The most challenging type of 44 3 British Sinologist Herbert A. Giles and His Contributions composition, however, should be the quatrains which emerged in the Han dynasty and gradually consummated in the Tang dynasty. Giles called it “Stop-Short,” another interesting name for what the ancient Chinese called “Trimmed Verse.” Despite the fact that the whole poem contains a mere 20 or 28 Chinese characters, the quatrains composed by the Tang poets are “just long enough for the poet to introduce, to develop, to embellish, and to conclude his theme in accordance with certain established laws of composition.” What is amazing is that Tang poets’ creative power was not affected by rigorous rules of rhyme and the constraints of structure; rather, Tang poetry as a whole shines brightly, and “in the hands of the most gifted this artificiality is altogether concealed by art, and the very trammels of tone and rhyme become transfigured, and seem to be necessary aids and adjuncts to success.” In the first chapter, Giles briefly introduced the biographies, writing careers and works of several Tang poets, including Wang Bo (王勃), Chen Zi’ang (陈子昂), Song Zhiwen (宋之问), Meng Haoran (孟浩然), Wang Wei (王维), Cui Hao (崔颢), Li Bai, Du Fu, Bai Juyi, as well as others. These poets’ works had appeared in Chinese Poetry in English Verse, though at the time there were merely translations without the introduction of the poets. Here, Giles translated—only partially most of the time—so as to illustrate their writing style. Among the poets, Li Bai, Du Fu, Han Yu (韩愈), Bai Juyi, Sikong Tu (司空图) were the key figures to introduce, and translation of their works accounted for a relatively large portion of the translations. Bai Juyi’s “Pípá Xíng” (琵琶行, “The Song of a Pipa Player”) was translated in prose style, and his ChánghènGē (长恨歌) and Sikong Tu’s Èrshísì Shīpǐn(二十四诗品, “The Twenty-four Poetic Styles”) were also translated in full. In addition, in the second chapter of this volume, “Classical and General Literature,” Giles briefly introduced Wei Zheng (魏征), Kong Yingda (孔颖达), Du You (杜佑) and Li Baiyao (李百药) for social background references of academic research. Prose was mainly the genre translated and introduced in this chapter. The works of Liu Zongyuan (柳宗元), Han Yu and Li Hua (李华) as well as the achievement and the influence of GǔwénYùndòng (古文运动, Ancient Literature Movement), accounted for a considerable part. All these constitute the overall appearance of Tang literature as Giles understood it. The History of Chinese Literature was reprinted in 1909, 1923, 1928, 1933, 1958, 1967, and 1973 in England and the United States, and great importance was attached to it by Western sinologists. The famous Chinese literary historian Zheng Zhenduo (郑振铎) read this book and wrote an article titled “A Review of H. A. Giles’ History of Chinese Literature” (Literature Periodical, Issue No. 50) in 1934. He argued that Giles’ book is “full of loopholes and hardly readable,” though he acknowledged Giles’ contributions to the history of Chinese literature for his foundational contribution, his inclusion of novels and dramas for the first time in Chinese literature history, and his mention of the Buddhist influence on Chinese literature. He concluded that Giles’ book had no value for reference because he did not have a “formal” systematic study of Chinese literature, and was too much influenced by the low class “vulgar scholars.” 3.2 Tang Poetry in A History of Chinese Literature 45

Zheng made a list of the “fallacies” he had spotted in Giles’ book, and he further categorized these errors into four types as follows. The first is “omission,” i.e., many famous and important writers and schools of writing were not mentioned at all. The second is “excessive collection,” e.g., he included some legal provisions and made all efforts to describe them. The third is “improper detailedness,” e.g., the introduction of Li Bai and Du Fu was far less than that of Yuan Mei. Even A Dream of Red Mansions (红楼梦), Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio (聊斋志异) and A Collection of Classic Chinese Jokes (笑林广记) were introduced in more detail than The Book of Songs or Historical Records (史记). The fourth is “unconventionalized framework,” i.e., organizing the volumes on the basis of different dynasties led to the failure of presenting a complete picture of Chinese literature (Zheng 2009, pp. 33–35). Zheng criticized the book from a Chinese scholar’s position, pointing out the problems in existence with evidence. However, it is unfair to say that Giles had done no systematic research on Chinese literature, or that the History of Chinese Literature had no reference value. Despite the fact that Giles had sojourned in China for a long time, it was almost impossible for him to have a “comprehensive and systematic” study of the thousands of years’ Chinese literary tradition. Under the historical circumstances, the works to which he could expose himself as a diplomat were probably those that were generally accepted by the royal court or were widely circulated among ordinary people. As for the fallacies in the book, they were caused more by his inborn identity as a sinologist who wrote the history of Chinese literature than by a lax academic attitude. Meanwhile, Giles’ comprehension and knowledge of Chinese literature was constructed on the basis of his knowledge of Western literature. This can be evidenced by intentional or unintentional comparisons in his translation works or essays. When he could not find the equivalence for some elements of Chinese literature in his Western literary repository, his cognition was clouded and prevented him from moving on. Finally, he had to give up. For instance, throughout the book History of Chinese Literature, Giles did not even mention “Cí” (词), a poetry-like literary form occupying an important position in the history of Chinese literature. Such famous Cí writers as Li Qingzhao (李清照), Lu You (陆游) and Xin Qiji (辛弃疾) of the Song dynasty were nowhere to be found in his book. This is because, to his knowledge, Cí was not the same as poetry in Chinese literature, and it was not equivalent to any European literary form. As a result, Cí,Cí writers and their works were just “ignored.” When it comes to “excessive collection” or “improper detailedness,” we must first take into consideration the fact that History of Chinese Literature was written after the publication of Chinese Poetry in English Verse, Gems of Chinese Literature (Verse), and Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio, the translation of which laid a solid foundation for History of Chinese Literature. It was hard for Giles to discard his previous research achievements from the book, and that is probably another reason why the contents of the book appeared to be collaged and trivial. More important, traditionally Eastern and Western scholars had different understandings of the definition of “literature.” Their aesthetic values were also 46 3 British Sinologist Herbert A. Giles and His Contributions different as well. For example, historical and religious literatures are in the category of English literature, but they were considered lower end writing in Chinese. Similarly, chapter-based novels, romantic legends, lyrics, and plays were highly sought by sinologists who were interested in Chinese literature during Giles’ time, while these literary forms had long been scorned by orthodox Chinese literati. As for the “unconventionalized framework,” it was impossible that Giles had no idea as to what framework of a literary history book was like, because at that time, the history of literature was already an important and mature component of the literary research in Europe. Giles wanted his History of Chinese Literature to be “submitted to English readers as an introduction into the great field which lies beyond.” If he had not had an understanding of the authors and their works, he would not have had a clue about the history of literature. He commented, for example, that, “…I have devoted a large portion of this book to translation, thus enabling the Chinese author, so far as translation will allow, to speak for himself.” Apart from citing some Chinese scholars’ comments, Giles rarely criticized these works in his own right. His original intention was to lead his English readers to the original; let them feel, understand, and judge, so that they would be able to have a panoramic view of Chinese literature “already in existence some six centuries before the Christian era, and has run on uninterruptedly until the present date.” No matter how Chinese scholars pass judgment on him, Giles was full of confidence about this book in terms of its academic originality. In the preface he noted, “This is the first attempt made in any language, including Chinese, to produce a history of Chinese literature.” It is true that the Chinese had never done such a job by taking stock of Chinese literature from a “historical” perspective. Even Zheng Zhenduo had to acknowledge Giles’ initiative. At the end of the twentieth century, it was found that a Russian sinologist, Vasiliev (Bacилий Пaвлoвич), had already published his An Outline Introduction of Chinese Literary History earlier, in 1880. Other scholars believe that the History of Chinese literature written by a German sinologist appeared even earlier. Nevertheless, as far as far-reaching and lasting influence is concerned, no work in Chinese literary history—whether it be the Russian text or the German text—was comparable to Giles’ History of Chinese Literature. Therefore, it is most appropriate and accurate to regard this book as “the first book of the history of Chinese literature written in English.”

3.3 Tang Poetry in Gems of Chinese Literature

In the field of Classical Chinese poetry translation, there is another representative work by Giles, Gems of Chinese Literature. The book has three different versions. According to relevant records from the National Library of China, in 1883, Giles printed Gems of Chinese Literature at his own expense. In this book, Giles translated China’s famous prose writers’“refined” prose “segments” in different periods. All his translations are “the translations for the first time.” In 1884, Giles published the book with the help of his friend Bernard Quaritch (1819–1899). The binding 3.3 Tang Poetry in Gems of Chinese Literature 47 and layout of the book were refined. On its front cover, the title was inscribed in the seal style as 古文选珍 in Chinese. On the back cover was a brief preface in Chinese. In April 1884, a book review published in the newspaper Pioneer said, “English readers search hard, but are unable to find some words about Chinese general literature, even the slightest introductory text. The great efforts made by Dr. James Legge enabled the novelty seekers to access the Confucian classics easily; however, a large number of literary works in China are now still a virgin land to be developed. The newly published Gems of Chinese Literature has just made up for this shortcoming.” In 1923, on the basis of revision and supplement to the first edition of Gems of Chinese Literature (1884) and Chinese Poetry in English Verse (1898), Giles combined the two books into one, kept the title as 古文选珍/Gems of Chinese Literature and published it as a revised and enlarged edition in deluxe hardcover. The version I accessed was this edition reprinted in New York in 1965. The book consists of prose and poetry volumes, and the works Giles selected ranged from 1000 B.C. up to modern times. The content of the text was arranged in chronological order, as well as by the authors. This prose volume includes 186 translated excerpts from texts by 89 authors. Its preface was adapted on the basis of the 1884 edition of Gems of Chinese Literature. In addition, there is a “Note on Chinese Literature,” which gives a brief description of the literary characteristics in each dynasty as well as the representative authors since the Zhou dynasty. Giles’ introduction of Tang literature here is similar to that in History of Chinese Literature, and demonstrates Giles’ consistent view on Tang poetry. “With the final establishment of the above dynasty authorship rapidly revived. It was the epoch of glittering poetry, of satire, of invective, of irony, and of opposition to the strange and fascinating creed of Buddha. Imagination began to come more freely into play, and the language to flow more easily and more musically, as though responsive to the demands of art.” Labeled as prose, this volume actually includes some poems, such as Bai Juyi’s “Pípá Xíng” (琵琶行), translated in freestyle rather than rhyme. The poetry volume of Gems of Chinese Literature includes 240 translated poems from more than 130 poets, an increase by one-third over Chinese Poetry in English Verse. This volume followed the arrangement of Chinese Poetry in English Verse, with the authors and their works not being listed in the table of contents. Although there is a table of the poets’ names in Chinese and English in the general appendix at the back of the book, the authors’ names were spelled in English and listed alphabetically. From this table, one cannot see which dynasty the author lived in or which poem the author wrote. In terms of the number of poets and poems selected, the Tang dynasty still took the first place. Poems that had appeared in Chinese Poetry in English Verse mostly remain unchanged in the poetry volume of Gems of Chinese Literature. In addition, in Chinese Poetry in English Verse, the name of the poet Wang Bo (王勃) was spelled as Wang Po, while in Gems of Chinese Literature it was changed to Wang Pieh. Giles did not give the reason for such a change, but the poem he selected for both books was the same, i.e., “Téngwáng Gé” (滕王阁, “Prince Teng Pavilion”). 48 3 British Sinologist Herbert A. Giles and His Contributions

Another notable feature of the two volumes of Gems of Chinese Literature is that a brief introduction to each poet was provided. In the part on Tang poetry in the poetry volume, no introduction was provided for Qin Taoyv (秦韬玉), Li Changfu (李昌符), Liu Fangping (刘方平), and a few other poets. This is probably because Giles could not find their data, so he just put down, “No record that I can find” instead. The rest were all given a description of one to five or six sentences in length. These descriptive introductions are not merely a mechanical presentation of the authors’ biographies, but interesting remarks based on his own knowledge of these poets. For example: TSÙI HAO (Eighth Century A.D.): A poet, a wine-bibber, and a gambler. LI PO (A.D. 705–762): Regarded by many as China’s greatest poet, and popularly known as “the Banished Angel.” He flourished at a dissolute Court, himself one of its most dissolute members. He was a founder of the drunken club called the Six Idlers of the Bamboo Brook, and also belonged to the Eight Immortals of the Wine Cup. He is said to have been drowned by leaning over the gunwale of a boat in a drunken effort to embrace the reflection of the moon. TU FU (A.D. 712–770): A poet whose fame rivaled—many say eclipsed—that of the great Li Po. He had indeed such a high opinion of his own poetry that he prescribed it for malarial fever. After serving without success as Censor, and secretary in the Board of Works, he resigned and took up a wandering life, finally dying from the effects of starvation during a flood, followed by overindulgence in roast beef and white wine. LI HO (A.D. 791–817): A poet and military official who was noted for his small waist, joined eyebrows, long fingernails, and for the speed at which he could write. He began to compose poems at the age of seven. Giles did not specify the sources for his review of these poets in the book. Probably, he synthesized the relevant information from the notes on classical poetry and novels. It needs to be pointed out that of Wang Ji (王绩), Han Yu (韩愈, i.e., 韩文公 Han Wengong in the prose volume), Bai Juyi, and Liu Yuxi (刘禹锡)—the four Tang writers’ works appeared in both volumes, where Giles gave them different remarks. The following are some examples: PO CHÜI (Prose Volume): One of China’s greatest poets, and a statesman with a varied career. Rising to high rank he was suddenly banished to a distance, with reduced rank, which disgusted him with official life. He then joined with eight congenial companions, and gave himself up to poetry and wine. Later on, he was recalled, and subsequently became President of the Board of War. PO CHÜI (Poetry Volume): One of China’s greatest and most voluminous poets, and a successful statesman, with the usual ups and downs. He was a very preco- cious child, and took the highest degree at the early age of 17. LIU YÜHSI (Prose Volume): One of the well-known poets of the T’ang dynasty. As an official, he shared the fate of Liu Tsung-yuan, being banished to a distant post in consequence of political intrigue. LIU YÜHSI (Poetry Volume): A statesman with a chequered career of ban- ishment and success, and also a poet who was such a purist that he left a beautiful 3.3 Tang Poetry in Gems of Chinese Literature 49 piece unfinished because it was necessary to use the word/dumplings/, which was not to be found in the Confucian Canon. Po Chüi called him a Hero of Song. Similar introductory remarks were also made for Wang Ji and Han Yu in the two volumes. Generally, the remarks in the prose volume are more formal and relatively serious, while the remarks in the poetry volume are more casual, hilarious, and legendary. Giles did not explain why he did so. Perhaps he just wanted to enrich the content of his book. From his remarks, we can envision early British sinologists’ limited or even biased understanding of Tang poetry. For instance, Giles regarded Li Bai’s access to the imperial palace and his alcohol abuse as “dissolute” conduct. Another example is that when he mentioned Du Fu’s position, he split the wording of one position “检校工部员外郎” into two different positions. A third example is that he considered Li He a “poet and officer,” which is actually not the case because Li He had lived such a poor and desolate life that he died at the age of 27, having never been an officer. As a translated literary work, Gems of Chinese Literature is not an academic text. We must admit that, at least in his era, these brief introductory remarks were appealing to English readers who knew nothing about Chinese history and literature. In the era of Giles, the Western perception of Chinese literature—including Tang poetry—was confined only to the individuals’ occasional introduction or translation of some individual works. These works were not only tinted with strong personal preferences, but also filled with misunderstandings or misinterpretations. With a truth-seeking attitude, Giles summarized in his History of Chinese Literature the research achievements of Chinese literature in the British sinological circle since the nineteenth century. While presenting a panoramic view of the history of Chinese literature, Giles attempted to break down cultural barriers. His pioneering efforts are commendable. Although his comments on Tang poetry are not comprehensive and there are problems here and there, there is no doubt that Giles enabled the English-speaking world to have a clearer and more accurate understanding of the important position that Tang poetry had in the history of Chinese literature. Giles’ planned and systematic introduction of Tang poets and their works laid a solid foundation for the integration of Tang poetry into the system of world literature. As Giles said in the preface to the reprinted edition of his Gems of Chinese Literature, the purpose of his translation of classical Chinese literary works was to build a bridge for those who did not understand Chinese and would like to understand China and its culture. Of course, Giles’ translation is filled with obscure English words and sometimes deviated from the original meaning for the sake of rhyme. This, to a large extent, restrains the translated Chinese poetry from spreading in the English-speaking world more widely. Nevertheless, Tang works not only accounted for an obviously large part in Giles’ translation of classical Chinese poetry, but also covered a wide range of topics—some of which are touching or emotional while others are lyrical or descriptive, and the works selected are of varying lengths. People later thought that Giles’ most successful translations were mainly among the Tang poems he translated. Giles’ translations allowed the English-speaking world to shift its attention quickly from “classical Chinese 50 3 British Sinologist Herbert A. Giles and His Contributions poetry” from The Book of Songs to an extended range of works. Due to his influence, many translators and scholars were naturally inclined to pay special attention to Tang poetry. As an erudite sinologist, Giles inherited the work of his predecessors James Legge and Thomas Wade, and set a good example for Launcelot A. Cranmer-Byng and Arthur David Waley, and others thereafter, playing a decisive role in the transition and development of British sinology. Under his direct influence, the British poet Cranmer-Byng began to learn about classical Chinese poems and then retranslated them. On the basis of Giles’ translations, he re-rendered a number of works, and established himself as a “classical Chinese poetry expert” in the poetic circle in Europe and America, and at the same time built himself up upon the history of the English translation of Tang poetry. In the initial stage of the introduction of Tang poetry to the West, Giles is considered a representative scholar who promoted the translation of Tang poetry from a scattered and casual state to a more systematic and specialized level. He is undoubtedly the founder of the systematic and specialized scholastic study of Tang poetry.

References

Chinese Reference

Zheng Zhenze: 《郑振铎古典文学论文集》, 上海古籍出版社, 2009。

English References

Cranmer-Byng, L. A. (1909). A lute of Jade: Being selections from the classical poets of China. London: John Murray. (Wisdom of the East Series). Giles, H. A. (1898). 古今诗选/Chinese Poetry in English Verse. London: Bernard Quaritch; Shanghai: Kelly & Walsh. Giles, H. A. (1901). A History of Chinese Literature. New York & London: D. Appleton and Company. Chapter 4 Other Early Sinologists and Their Outstanding Contributions

In the time of Giles, “what people saw was a decaying China under the rule of the Qing government, and many scholars did not know that this 2000-year-old feudal society had ever been powerful and prosperous in the past” (He Peizhong 2006, p. 189). The need for the British sinological circle to learn about China at the time was based on nothing more than colonial and commercial interests. They learned the Chinese language and familiarized themselves with Chinese social customs and the social system to become church staff and functionaries such as embassy consuls, customs ofﬁcers. “Even if there were leading sinologists like James Legge, Thomas Francis Wade and Herbert Allen Giles, the direction of learning about China for practical use could not be reversed” (Chen Youbing 2008 [3], pp. 34–47). In fact, there were very few scholars––except Giles––who were concerned about Tang poetry or classical Chinese literature in general. Speaking of the translation of Chinese poetry, there appeared a book titled Cantonese Love Songs published in 1904. The book, including two volumes, was a translated version of Guangdong folk songs. The translator, Cecil Clementi (1875– 1974), served as the governor of Hong Kong during 1925–1930. Although this book was popular among the modern and contemporary American poets who had a preference for “Chinoiserie,” it will not be discussed here because its content is irrelevant to the subject. Other well-known early British and American sinologists, such as Edward H. Parker, Joseph Edkins and William Martin, were not research experts in the ﬁeld of classical Chinese literature. However, due to their personal interest in literature, they included Tang poems more or less in their works. These translated Tang poems, though sporadic and unsystematic, also form an indispensable part in the process of the Tang poetry propagation to the West.

© Foreign Language Teaching and Research Publishing Co., Ltd 51 and Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany 2018 L. Jiang, A History of Western Appreciation of English-translated Tang Poetry, China Academic Library, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-56352-6_4 52 4 Other Early Sinologists and Their Outstanding Contributions

4.1 British Sinologist Edward H. Parker and Tang Poetry

British Sinologist Edward Harper Parker (1849–1936) did not translate many Tang poems, but he was one of the first-generation British sinologists who paid attention to Tang poetry. In 1869, Parker was sent to Beijing as a student translator for the British legation in China. Between 1871 and 1875, he worked at the consulates in Tianjin, Dagu, Hankou, Jiujiang, and Guangzhou. From 1875 to 1877, he studied law in England and Canada, and then returned to China, residing in Sichuan and Hainan. It is rumored that he had married a Chinese Hakka woman, which was extremely rare–– even among the sinologists then. This may be part of the reason why he became the first expert in Hakka dialects. Upon his return to England in 1895, Parker served as Professor of Chinese at the University of Liverpool. In 1901, he moved to the University of Manchester (Branner, Vol. 119). E. H. Parker was a diligent and prolific scholar. He was the author of Chinese Account of the Opium War (1888), A Thousand Years of the Tartars (1895), The Life, Labours and Doctrines of Confucius (1897), China and Religion (1905), Ancient China Simplified (1908), and other works. His most prominent achievement lies in his research on Chinese history and the history of religion. He was also the first non-missionary sinologist to study Chinese dialects seriously, especially the Hakka dialect. In recent years, many of his valuable ideas on dialects have gradually come to the attention of the domestic linguistic world (Branner 1999 [3], p. 45). In 1887, Parker published several pieces of his translation of Chinese poetry in The China Review (Vol. 15, No. 4, pp. 239–240; Vol. 16 No. 3, p. 162). The poems he selected were Tang poems. Originally titled China Review: or Notes & Queries on the Far East, the journal China Review was started in Hong Kong in 1872. It was a bimonthly journal “publishing papers and miscellaneous essays of three major aspects: the Chinese language, culture and history.”“The articles of the journal fall mainly into three categories: research papers, book reviews, and translations.” The authors were mainly overseas Chinese or Chinese who had lived abroad for some time, “including missionaries, diplomats, customs officers, Hong Kong government civil servants and, of course, many local European sinologists.” (Wang Guoqiang 2007 [2], p. 87) As Professor Norman J. Girardot of Lehigh University concluded, this publication is “the first real journal of sinology in the Western world, or at least a journal that first focused on China exclusively, with a clear vision of the scientific mission it shoulders.” (Girardot 2002, p. 145) Wang Guoqiang argues that this publication, as well as the sinologist James Legge, may be called “the capstone of British sinology in the last 30 years of the 19th century.” They witnessed a temporary period during which British sinology exceeded French sinology. This “indicates the geographical pattern of British sinology with two wings—‘local’ and ‘foreign’—soaring together, thus changing the geographic pattern of late 19th-century Western sinology.” 4.1 British Sinologist Edward H. Parker and Tang Poetry 53

So it is clear that this publication served as a window showcasing the achievements in sinological research at the time. British scholars like James Legge, E. H. Parker, and Joseph Edkins were all active contributors to this publication. We now turn our attention to the Tang poems that Parker selected for translation. In the 15th volume, he selected “Héngchuī Qǔcí Á Chūguān” (横吹曲辞Á出关)by Wei Zheng (魏徵), “Jìqiū Lǎngǔ Zèng Lújūshì Cángyòng Á Yānzhāowáng” (蓟丘览古赠卢居士藏用 Á 燕昭王) and the poem “Lánruò Shēng Chūnxià” (兰若生春夏) from “Gǎnyù Shī Sānshíbā Shǒu” (感遇诗三十八首) by Chen Zi’ang (陈子昂), and “Gǎnyù Shī” (感遇诗) by Zhang Jiuling (张九龄).1 Each of these poems is accompanied by a brief introduction to the author and the relevant background to the poem. In the 16th volume, he selected “Jiārén” (佳人) and “Zèng Wèibā Chǔshì” (赠卫八处士) by Du Fu, and the poem “Zhòngsāng bǎiyúshù” (种桑百馀树) from “Tiánjiā Záxīng Bāshǒu” (田家杂兴八首) by Chu Guangxi (储光羲). Below are two poems translated by Parker:

Viewing the Ruin Near Peking 蓟丘览古赠卢居士藏用Á燕昭王 By Parker (1887, p. 239) 陈子昂 Southward I mount the Palace Rock, 南登碣石坂, And scan the jungle round. 遥望黄金台。 ‘The famous steeple? The great king? 丘陵尽乔木, No traces to be found! 昭王安在哉。 Alas ambition!’ Musing thus, 霸图怅已矣, I wheel my horse around. 驱马复归来。

Composed at roughly the same time, “Viewing the Ruin Near Peking” and “Ode to Mounting Youzhou Terrace” (登幽州台歌) were both written by Chen Zi’ang when he accompanied Wu Youyi (武攸宜) for a northern expedition. Born to a royal family, Wu was domineering and ignorant. As the consigliere, Chen Zi’ang gave him advice repeatedly; however, not only did his words fall on deaf ears but he was also denounced. Bored and frustrated, Chen climbed the North Ji Tower (蓟北楼, i.e. Youzhou Terrace 幽州台) and wrote for his good friend Lu Cangyong (卢藏用) the poem “Viewing the Ruin Near Peking,” while appreciating the his- toric site. Soon after, he composed the well-known piece “Ode to Mounting Youzhou Terrace.” These poems did not simply express the poet’s nostalgic feelings, but allowed him to vent his frustration and disappointment through the reminiscence of the ancient people and things in the area of northern Ji. After the deadly political defeat in his life, Chen Zi’ang was now helpless, feeling like a hero without a battleﬁeld. Both “Jieshi slope” (碣石坂) and “gold terrace” (黄金台) in the original poem are allusions from Prince Zhao of Yan (燕昭王) when he gave a banquet entertaining Zou Yan (邹衍), Yue Yi (乐毅) and other wise and able men and thus the

1There are 12 poems under the same title by Zhang Jiuling. Parker randomly picked and translated some lines from the original. 54 4 Other Early Sinologists and Their Outstanding Contributions

State of Yan became prosperous. In Parker’s translation, however, these two allusions are vague despite the fact that he added a note at the end: “A place was built by Prince Chao of Yen (Peking) for his instructor Tsow Yen [Mayers’ Manual, No. 746], and close by, a lofty steeple containing stores of gold, to induce learned men to immigrate. The poet tourist Ch’en Tsz-ang visits the spot 1000 years later, and ﬁnds nothing but a hillock overgrown with jungle. He turns sadly and thoughtfully away, disappointed with the want of visible continuity in Chinese history.” This interpretation obscured the poet’s resentment for being ill-treated, his complaint about being born at the wrong time, and his disappointment about the future; instead, the poem turned out as if it were a prosaic “travel poem,” simply expressing the poet’s astonishment at the desolation of the secluded spot. Therefore, the original heroic spirit of Chen Zi’ang is almost entirely lost, let alone his style of vigorousness, boldness, and forcefulness. Even Chen Zi’ang himself, a poet with great political ambition and military talent, was introduced as a tourist who could write poems. Among Parker’s translated Tang poems, the one by Chu Guangxi was best translated not only in terms of the language, format, and rhyme, but also in conveying the poet’s leisureliness while standing aloof from the secular world.

Rustic Content 田家杂兴 By Parker (1887, p. 162) 储光羲 A hundred mulberry trees I’ve got, 种桑百馀树, And thirty acres round my cot; 种黍三十亩。 Of food and clothing thus enough, 衣食既有馀, A friend can share my surplus stuff. 时时会亲友。 In summer there’s my mess of rice, 夏来菰米饭, In autumn seasoned wine with spice; 秋至菊花酒。 The wife smiles welcome in her face, 孺人喜逢迎, The young’uns skip about the place. 稚子解趋走。 At sunset take a garden stroll, 日暮闲园里, Sit chatter on that shady knoll; 团团荫榆柳。 When slightly boozy, toddle home, 酩酊乘夜归, And doze it off in this cool room. 凉风吹户牖。 Where I can watch the Milky Way, 清浅望河汉, And Great bear moving towards day; 低昂看北斗。 Still there are sev’ral kegs of yest, 数瓮犹未开, To-morrow we will drink the rest. 明朝能饮否。

Before the An-Shi Rebellion in the Tang dynasty, the Chinese society was stable and prosperous owing to the rule of Zhenguan (贞观) and Kaiyuan (开元). Chu Guangxi’s poem, in a simple and straightforward style, portrays the affluent and peacefully idyllic life that the poet lived. As the poet had a calm and tranquil mindset, his style of writing was simple and natural. This is the scenario we could 4.1 British Sinologist Edward H. Parker and Tang Poetry 55 envision in his poem: On a farm surrounded by more than 100 mulberry trees and 30 acres of millet, the well-off farmer often invites his friends and relatives to get together. In summer, wild rice is served, and in autumn, they drink chrysanthemum wine. The housewife is hospitable, always greeting everyone with a smile; the kids are sensible and are busy helping to entertain the guests. At sunset, everyone is sitting under the tree in the courtyard, drinking and prattling––not until late in the night when they get drunk do they leave. The cool breeze blows into the room, the Milky Way in the sky looks clear and shallow, and the Big Dipper seems to fluctuate in the eyes of the tipsy men. How quiet and picturesque life is! There are still a few jars of wine to be opened, so will you come back to drink more tomorrow? Parker’s translation maintains the originally simple style of the poem. Each stanza shares the same rhyme; the fresh content of the original poem is basically preserved, and the poet’s character of noncompetition and unfettered movement is unaffected. Nevertheless, there are some discrepancies between Parker’s verse and the original poem. For instance, at the end of the poem, Chu Guangxi depicted a scene where the complacent host is lying in the room, watching the night sky sleepily, and enjoying the aftertaste of the gathering. In Parker’s verse, the host returns home after a drink and sleeps in his room for a while before he wakes up to watch the night sky until it is dawn. He still remembers the several other jars of wine and wants to drink more the next day. Another example is the translation of the fifth and sixth lines, where “wild rice” and “chrysanthemum wine” were put into “mess of rice” and “seasoned wine with spice.” This weakened the poet’srefined taste and hospitality because the wild rice is a shallow water plant in the wild, which is much more nutritious than rice and corn. In ancient China, wild rice grew naturally and abundantly along the Yangtze River and the lakes in the south. Once ripe, it falls off easily; there was no artificial cultivation, and it was not easy to collect. As for the autumn chrysanthemum in the frost, it has always been a symbol of elegance. Chu Guangxi was not an ordinary farmer but a “hermit” official. He dined on wild rice for meals in the summer and plied his guests with autumn chrysanthemum wine, which not only shows that the poet changed his diet seasonally but, more importantly, reflects that he was a “free” and “elegant” intellectual––more than merely a well-to-do farmer. From the following sentence, “Sit chatter on that shady knoll,” one can imagine that the guests with whom the host dined and wined were not ordinary philistines, either. Of course, such culture-loaded expressions as “wild rice meal” and “chrysanthemum wine” are by no means easy to understand for Western scholars. Parker rendered the eighth line as “The young’ uns skip about the place,” which demonstrates his real understanding of written classical Chinese literally. In the ninth line, the word “stroll” was added by Parker probably for the sake of rhyme. In his time, academy scholars of Chinese poetry translation normally put emphasis on the “can-be-chanted” characteristic of classical Chinese poetry; therefore, they deliberately emphasized the rhyming effect of a poem in the process of translation, and addition or ellipsis was not an uncommon phenomenon. 56 4 Other Early Sinologists and Their Outstanding Contributions

4.2 British Sinologist Joseph Edkins and Tang Poetry

Edkins was a sinologist who made outstanding contributions to the eastward dissemination of Western learning in the nineteenth century. His achievements in the field of English translation of Tang poetry lie mainly in his translation of Li Bai’s poems into English. He did not simply translate Li Bai’s works or introduce his life, but discussed his writing style through translation and analysis of these poems as well. He was the first scholar to initiate the study of Tang poets in the English world. Joseph Edkins (courtesy name in Chinese 迪瑾, 1823–1905) was sent to Shanghai by the London Missionary Society to assist another sinologist, Walter Henry Medhurst, in managing the London Missionary Society Press. After Medhurst’s departure, he succeeded to the position of supervisor, presiding over the affairs of editing and publishing. Engaged in missionary work and translation, Edkins spent 57 years in China until he passed away in Shanghai. Edkins’ research interests were extensive, and he had a deep understanding of the Chinese language, literature, and history. He was the author of over 20 books of Chinese studies, including Progressive Lessons in Chinese Spoken Language (1862), China’s Place in Philology (1871), Introduction to the Study of the Chinese Characters (1876), Chinese Buddhism: A Volume of Sketches, Historical, Descriptive and Critical (1893), and The Revenue and Taxation of the Chinese Empire (1903). His A Grammar of Grammar: Colloquial Chinese, as Exhibited in the Shanghai Dialect (1853, 1868), was the first monograph specialized in the grammar of a local dialect in the history of Chinese dialectology. A remarkable language genius, Joseph Edkins spoke not only Chinese “Mandarin” but also Manchu, the Miao language, and Cantonese. At the same time, he also learned a dozen foreign languages such as French, German, Latin, and Greek. This enabled him to communicate conveniently with the local people for his missionary work; meanwhile, it helped him spread Western civilization to the Chinese people. In the nineteenth century when Western learning began to spread to the East, especially when natural science was introduced to China, Edkins compiled––on his own or in collaboration with other scholars––books in Chinese including Outlines of New Learning on the Investigations of Things, A History of Astronomy of the Western Countries, Optics, Algebra, Conics, and Botany, which played a brilliant and irreplaceable role in the cultural exchange between China and the West. Edkins wrote two reviews about Li Bai. One of them was titled “Li Taibai as a Poet,” and was published in The China Review (Vol. 17, No. 1) in 1888. In a strict sense, this article cannot be considered an academic paper; it is more like the notes he took in the process of appreciating Li Bai’s works. This is how the article began: “In the poet’s poem about the Yellow River, he said at the beginning, ‘the Yellow River West plummeted from Kunlun, roaring 10,000 miles till Longmen’ (黄河西来决昆仑, 咆哮万里触龙门). Longmen is a huge rock between Shaanxi and Shanxi…” Here, Edkins refers to Li Bai’s poem “Gōng Wú Dùhé” (公无渡河), 4.2 British Sinologist Joseph Edkins and Tang Poetry 57 though he did not provide a complete translation of this poem. Through this poem, he demonstrated the poet’s habit of forestalling his readers and offering loose commentaries of poetic materials step by step. Edkins, in accordance with the content of the original poem, first introduced the allusions involved in it. For example, what is “dragon,” who is “Yu the Great” and the myths and legends about his “passing by his home three times without entering the door” while he was taming the floods of the Yellow River. Then he pointed out that Li Bai proceeds to a pathetic story after having given an ancient passage of the history of his country mixed with legend. Edkins continued to translate the part of the original poem which is about an old man trying to cross the devouring river and getting drowned despite his wife’s repeated dissuasion. Then he made the following comments: This poet is fond of deep passion, fear, and pathos. All his power is devoted to the production of these sentiments in the reader’s mind. He loves quick transitions and one touch is enough for one thought. Another thought crowds after it and then a third. There are probably many hundreds of such pictures as this of the crazed old man in the works of Li Taibai. They were easy to him. He was an indiscriminate collector. Wherever there was anything to use, he applied it. Edkins also told the guitar story of “A Song of Konghou” in The Collection of Yuefu Poems. He chose to use the original Chinese characters “公无渡河, 公竟渡河。堕河而死, 当奈公何!” (“Good man, do not cross the river, you did not listen, you drowned, and what shall I do with you now!”) He concluded that Li Bai’s poem is the play of the 16 characters in the ballad by Li Yu, wife of a ferryman named Huolizigao. He pointed out that like the greatest Scottish national poet Robert Burns (1759–1796), Li Bai is a poet who was good at drawing on the inspirations and nourishment from the old folk ballads. Edkins argued that Li Bai’s ingenious literary skills and artistic intuition enabled him to break the restrictions of verse so that he could write smoothly. His poems are often able to strike a cord in the reader’s soul, making up for the deficiencies of logical gap and loose structure of his poems. “He left the reader to fill the gap and he himself always wrote brilliant sentences and dealt in the pathetic and the sublime.” As a result, the readers respect and love him in that they are always infected by his intense feelings involuntarily. Edkins actually pointed out very clearly that it is the internal emotional tension and elasticity rather than the external wording and sentence skills that enables Li Bai’s poetry to conquer the readers. “Our poet wrote verses as he travelled, and his poems are a running comment on his visits to various localities in his native country,” Edkins continued. Taking Li Bai’s “YóuNányáng Báishuǐ Dēng Shíjī Zuò” (游南阳白水登石激作) and “Yóu Nányáng Qīnglíngquán” (游南阳清泠泉) as examples, he wrote, “The poet’s being able, to such an extent as this poem reveals, to find in the sounds of nature the interpreter of his thoughts, and to throw himself into nature as this little composition shows he was accustomed to do, is proof of his high character as a poet.” Edkins believed that Li Bai’s smooth and natural, pure and fresh, and romantic style through the description of natural and pastoral sceneries to express his own emotional creation was comparable to William Wordsworth, the representative British 58 4 Other Early Sinologists and Their Outstanding Contributions

“lake school” poet. At the same time, in terms of a broader audience and far-reaching influence, Li Bai’s works outshine Wordsworth’s. As is known to all, Li Bai preferred the freestyled ancient Yuefu to rigidly regulated verses. With a special preference for seven-character poetry, he was very good at manipulating the changes of sentence types to express his passions in a climactic manner. Loose structure and logical gaps are actually an indication of the poet’s untrammeled emotions and his successful reference to the allusions of the previous poetry. Unfortunately, Edkins attributed these two characteristics to Li Bai’s “shortcomings.” Other than this, Edkins generally held an affirmative, positive, and respectful attitude toward Li Bai’s poetry. His analysis and comments are fairly pertinent, capturing the artistic style of Li Bai’s poetry accurately. What is more, he tried to find what was in common between Li Bai’s works and other British poets’ works in terms of the structure, form, and deep cultural foundation. It is indeed commendable that he made such synchronic connections and comparisons. Totally different from “Gōng Wú Dùhé” (公无渡河), which is forceful and unrestrained, Li Bai’s “YóuNányáng Báishuǐ Dēng Shíjī Zuò” (游南阳白水登石激作) and “YóuNányáng Qīnglíngquán” (游南阳清泠泉) are full of tranquility. Absorbing nature’s charm, here Li Bai depicted a clean and picturesque riverbank of the river in ancient Nanyang County. A mythical world was created. Edkins translated these two poems without keeping the rhythm and form of the original, and the language he used is rather colloquial.

A Visit to the Clear Cold Fountain (1) 游南阳清泠泉 By Edkins (1888) 李白 Ah! That sun descends into night, 惜彼落日暮, I love this cold fountain in its clearness. 爱此寒泉清。 The western glow follows the ﬂowing water. 西辉逐流水, The billowy current, as it proceeds, symbolizes my thoughts, 荡漾游子情。 singing a hymn without words. 空歌望云月, I watch the moon among the clouds, My song is made up of the sound of the tall pines. 曲尽长松声。

In English, it is difficult to find a lexicalized term for words like “a wanderer’s love” because in the Western tradition, there is no profound sense of the hometown. So Edkins would have to use the word “thoughts” to express it. In the original poem, the clear and cold water ripples and gurgles; however, Edkins somehow rendered it as billowy current. Also “a hymn without words” is the literal translation. The concluding sentence, “My song is made up of the sound of the tall pines,” is misinterpreted, too. What the poet meant in the original poem was this: The poet is standing on the river bank watching the sunset and moonrise, while his song echoed in the woods and in the valley until it finally faded into the sound of the tall pines. If the song is made up of the sound of the tall pines, then where is the poet’s voice? 4.2 British Sinologist Joseph Edkins and Tang Poetry 59

Despite such minor misinterpretations, Edkins gave Li Bai a great deal of credit. Candid, upright and imaginative, Li Bai could make full use of the heavens, the earth, and everything else as long as he found what was necessary to express his feelings in poetry. He used hyperbole to its fullest capacity, and the employment of metamorphosis on a vast setting vividly conveyed his fearless passion. In one word, Li Bai’s poetry is not tinted with Confucianism, what his works reveal is different from the Chinese traditional artistic features, and this precisely coincides with traditional Western ideas of aesthetics. Therefore, Edkins encouraged readers to compare Li Bai with Wordsworth to see if the comparison is worthwhile. “But he greatly exceeds Wordsworth in popularity, having a whole nation at his feet, and there is to the present time no diminution of his fame,” Edkins added. Out of love for Li Bai’s works, Edkins was determined to introduce Li Bai in a more detailed and more comprehensive manner. In 1889, Edkins completed another paper about Li Bai’s works, “On Li T’ai-Po, With Examples of His Poetry,” and it was read at the annual conference of the Peking Oriental Society. This paper and another one titled “On the Poets of China during the Period of the Contending States of the Han Dynasty,” were published later in the Journal of the Peking Oriental Society in 1890. The latter mentions such famous poets as Qu Yuan (屈原), Song Yu (宋玉), and Sima Xiangru (司马相如), who were little known by the Western sinologists. In the 40-page-long paper, Edkins first argued that classical Chinese poetry, since antiquity, shared a similarity with the Bible—specifically the Old Testament Bible—the Psalms and Shakespeare’s poetry, i.e., starting with a description of the surroundings or a narrative and ending with an expression of the emotions. Then, through the translation and appreciation of 24 poems by Li Bai, Edkins pointed out that Li Bai not only inherited the tradition of Chinese poetry, but more important he wrote like a “word painter,” for his way of writing brought more complete scenic description, stronger emotions, and more musical rhythm. Compared to his previous paper, Edkins’ understanding of Li Bai obviously deepened a great deal. He no longer considered Li Bai’s free form and logical gaps shortcomings; on the contrary, he pointed out that Li Bai’s unrestrained, bold, and passionate thoughts best explained the enduring appeal of his poetic works, and he fully affirmed the unique artistic style of Li Bai as “China’s greatest poet.” In this paper, Edkins interpreted, appreciated, or commented on Li Bai’s poems sentence by sentence. The original Chinese poems were attached to the paper. Now Edkins took a more cautious attitude toward poetry translation. Although he did not emphasize the format correspondence, or rhyme, most of his translation was relatively accurate, and the wording was more delicate than before. Here is an example of his re-rendering of “A Visit to the Clear Cold Fountain.”

A Visit to the Clear Cold Fountain (2) 游南阳清泠泉 By Edkins (1888) 李白 Alas, that day should lose itself in night! 惜彼落日暮, (continued) 60 4 Other Early Sinologists and Their Outstanding Contributions

(continued) I love this fount so clear, so passing cool; 爱此寒泉清。 The western glow pursues its waters’ ﬂow: 西辉逐流水, The wavelets symbolize my silent thoughts, 荡漾游子情。 And murmur forth a wordless hymn of praise. 空歌望云月, I watch the moon among the clouds so grand, The waving pines, athwart the sky so tall. 曲尽长松声。 Anon do blend their rustling with my song.

This time the translation is obviously closer to the original. Except for the word “thoughts,” which still does not correspond to “游子情” (yóuzǐ qíng, the wanderer’s love), “wavelets,”“a wordless hymn of praise,” and “blend their rustling with my song” are more faithful to the original. At this point, the scene, language, characters, color, and sound of the original poem are reproduced in the translation. Of course, there is still regret in the translation of the ﬁnal sentence, which makes the poem lack a feeling of the sublime––a clear indication that Edkins’ thought was possessed by Li Bai exclusively. Among Li Bai’s poems translated by Edkins, not every piece is very close to the original. Sometimes Edkins translated or even recreated according to his own understanding of the original poetry:

(No Title in English) 渌水曲 By Edkins (1890) 李白 There where the lake is green, 渌水明秋月, The autumn moon is seen. And water shields are spread, 南湖采白蘋。 Along the tangled bed. Their leaves are snowy white, Beneath the sun’s warm light. See here the lotus grow, 荷花娇欲语, Making a glorious show. Floating in loveliness, And wishing to express. The thoughts that come to ﬂowers, But lacking speech like ours. The boatman rowing by, 愁杀荡舟人。 Is sad he knows not why.

In the original poem, Li Bai described a charming autumn setting. He started with the clear water of Lushui, which was silhouetted against the bright autumn moon. “The lotus with its enticing beauty seems ready to speak. The girl as she rows is grieved to the brink of despair.” Seeing the beautiful lotus in blossom in the moonlight, the girl who plucks the watercress begins to be a little jealous. This is a typical scene of southern autumn, no chill in the air, no sense of depression, but the liveliness is no less than a spring scene, showing the poet’s pleasant mood. In Edkins’ translation, the girl who plucks the watercress and misses her beloved has 4.2 British Sinologist Joseph Edkins and Tang Poetry 61 become the sad boatman in the moonlight. Lines 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 11, and 12 were added by Edkins based on his own understanding of the poem. Both the “boatman” in the 13th line and the “sun’s warm light” in the sixth line were added without grounds. He offered another version right after which is much closer to the original, though it reads a bit monotonously.

(No Title in English)-(2) 渌水曲 By Edkins (1888) 李白 On the green water shines the autumn moon, 渌水明秋月, Where someone plucks white water shields. 南湖采白蘋。 The lotus with its enticing beauty seems ready to speak. 荷花娇欲语, The boatman as he rows is grieved to the brink of despair. 愁杀荡舟人。

Here, it is particularly worth mentioning that Edkins’ two different versions of this poem actually reﬂected two different methods of Chinese and English poetry translation: rhymed free translation and rhymed literal translation. These two methods were adopted by translators later, and developed into two typical styles of the English versions of Tang poems. Edkins was perhaps not aware of this at the time, or perhaps, his research interest was not in literature, so as a scholar he did not elaborate on the reasons why there existed two versions of the poem, nor did he make any comparisons between them.

4.3 American Sinologist William A. P. Martin and Tang Poetry

In the world of sinology, the English name of William Alexander Parsons Martin (1827–1916) is far less known than his Chinese name “Ding Weiliang” (丁韪良). Opening the books about China compiled by Westerners around the turn of the twentieth century, one will surely find that Martin is one of the most frequently mentioned “China hands.” At that time, the Americans who came to Beijing to study or travel would have to visit Martin, who resided at the Western Hills. W. A. P. Martin, also known as Desan (德三) or Guanxi (冠西), was a member of the American Protestant Presbyterian Society. Coming as a missionary in 1850, Martin lived in China for 62 years until he passed away and was buried in Beijing. Martin’s mission to China was to evangelize, but later he turned out to be not only a pioneer in introducing Chinese literature and culture to America, but also a role model in the formation of modern Chinese education––due to his many years of practical work in translation and education. In 1898, when China’s first university, Jingshi Daxuetang (now Peking University) was established, Martin was appointed by Emperor Guangxu to be the first Chief Teacher (the president), wearing a hat with second-rank cap buttons. On the first day of school, he bowed to the statue of Confucius in the presence of all the Chinese and foreign guests. This 62 4 Other Early Sinologists and Their Outstanding Contributions action incurred him allegations that he betrayed God. As a result, he could enter upper class Chinese cultural circles such that he was able to contact, observe and study members of Chinese society directly and more closely, thus winning him an advantageous position in China Studies. According to Wang (王文兵 2007, p. 23), Martin is “well-renowned for his translation and introduction of Western public law, policy, and science”; “the founder of the modern famous magazine The Peking Magazine (1872–1875) and Shangxiantang (New Learning) Monthly (1897–1898)”; “the correspondent member of several important international oriental academic research institutions such as American Oriental Society and Royal Asiatic Society North China Branch, and the founder and soul of Peking Oriental Society.” Martin enjoyed the authoritative position in American sinology. His sinological works abound, including 42 books in Chinese, eight books in English, and 153 newspaper and magazine articles. His major works include The Cycle of Cathay (1896), The Siege in Peking: China Against the World (1900), The Lore of Cathay (1901), The Awakening of China (1907), and others. His research areas cover Chinese philology, classical and popular literature, history and culture, Chinese language teaching, and the social organization of the Chinese society. In 1912, Martin’s book Chinese Legends and Lyrics was published. According to Wang Wenbing (2007, p. 32), “Martin’s translations of Chinese myths and legends and lyrics were first seen sporadically in New Englander, China Times, The Chinese Recorder,andHanlin Collection (Vol. 1). In 1894, Martin put together a total of 32 poems––including the English translations of these legends and lyrics as well as the poems he composed by himself––and had them published under the title Chinese Myths and Legends and Miscellaneous Poems. According to The Late Dr. W. A. P. Martin (1916) by A. H. Smith (1845–1932), this booklet is the work of which Martin was most proud. It includes the translation of three poems by Li Bai, which made him the first sinologist to translate Tang poetry in the United States. Despite the small number of poems he translated, he has been widely cited by Tang poetry translation scholars due to his authority in the field of sinology as well as the high quality of his translations. Martin spent almost all of his life in China. His intuitive understanding of China’s society, history, and culture was incomparable with that of other Westerners, and his unswerving love and trust of China and the Chinese people glowed throughout his life. In the preface, Martin mentioned that some of the articles in this book had been published previously and that they were already widely quoted materials for the understanding of China, but for similar subjects this book included richer content: “… And they all go to prove that the Chinese are not the stolid, unimaginative people they are reputed to be. Their literature is rich in poetry of all kinds except the epic.” With deep love and passion for the Chinese people, the land, and the stories and poetry, Martin made arduous efforts in the book to advance admiration for the Chinese people. He hoped of his writings that “If they should deepen the interest of his readers in the Chinese people, they will have served a higher purpose than mere amusement.” 4.3 American Sinologist William A. P. Martin and Tang Poetry 63

The book is divided into five parts: (1) Legends of the Golden Age, from the Book of History; (2) Legends from other Classic Sources; (3) Legends from Chinese Folklore; (4) Chinese Lyrics from Classical Sources; (5) Miscellaneous. Some translations in the book are accompanied by a brief introduction to the background of the original works, the Chinese title, and the original author’s name. Between the table of contents and the text are nine pictures taken by Martin in Beijing at the time, which are also very valuable historical data. The fifth part, “Miscellaneous,” as its name implies, includes his own poems, and poems he translated from Japanese, French, and German. The translated Chinese story Sàiwēng Shī Mǎ (塞翁失马) was somehow put in this part instead of in the third part, where Niúláng Zhīnǚ (牛郎织女), Zhùzhōng Qíwén (铸钟奇闻), and MùlánCí (木兰辞) are classified. The fourth part includes 13 translated poems, including the Tang poems by Li Bai: “ChánggānXíng” (长干行), “Yuèxià Dúzhuó Á I” (月下独酌Á其一), and “Xínglù Nán” (行路难). Martin did not follow a certain pattern when he translated the title of an original poem. If he found the title could directly reflect the content of the original poem, he just translated it literally; otherwise he would give a different title based on his understanding of the poem. For example, “Yuèxià Dúzhuó” (月下独酌)isan instance of literal translation, “Xínglù Nán” (行路难), which is essentially a literal translation, too, but “ChánggānXíng” (长干行) is completely irrelevant to the original title, and it does not even suit the content of the original poem. Let us consider Martin’s understanding of the poem. Under the title of this poem is a brief introduction that Martin added to Li Bai: “Li Tai Po is without doubt the greatest of Chinese lyric poets. An emperor said of him that—‘A god had become incarnate in his person; and during eleven centuries no one has risen to dispute with him the title of 谪仙 (banished immortal).’ This little piece is characterized by simplicity of expression and naturalness of sentiment, rather than by strength and elevation.”

A Soldier’s Wife to her Husband 长干行 By Martin (1912, p. 54) 李白 It was many a year ago, How I recall the day! When you were my own true love, Came ﬁrst with me to play. A little child was I, 妾发初覆额, y head a mass of curls; 折花门前剧。 I gathered daisies sweet, Along with other girls. You rode a bamboo horse, 郎骑竹马来, And deemed yourself a knight, 绕床弄青梅。 With paper helm and shield, And wooden sword bedight. (continued) 64 4 Other Early Sinologists and Their Outstanding Contributions

(continued) Thus we together grew, 同居长干里, And we together played— 两小无嫌猜。 Yourself a giddy boy, And I a thoughtless maid. At fourteen I was wed, 十四为君妇, And if one called my name, 羞颜未尝开。 As quick as lightning ﬂash, 低头向暗壁, The crimson blushes came. 千唤不一回。 ’T was not till we had passed, 十五始展眉, A year of married life. 愿同尘与灰。 My heart was knit to yours, 常存抱柱信, In joy to be your wife. 岂上望夫台! Another year, alas! 十六君远行, And you had joined your chief, 瞿塘滟滪堆。 While I was left at home, 五月不可触, In solitary grief. 猿鸣天上哀。门前迟行迹, 一一生绿苔。苔深不能扫, 落叶秋风早。八月蝴蝶来, 双飞西园草。感此伤妾心, 坐愁红颜老。 When victory crowns your arms, 早晚下三巴, And I your triumph learn, 预将书报家。 What bliss for me to ﬂy, 相迎不道远, To welcome your return! 直至长风沙。

Martin’s version is divided into eight stanzas, each with a rhyme, and the language is concise and easy to understand. Putting aside whether it corresponds to the original or not, we find it full of emotion and musical. A young and affectionate wife is talking about her childhood friendship with her husband, their sweet love in marriage, her sorrows after his departure, and her single-minded love for him. Interestingly, in his version, the setting has changed from a quiet Chinese courtyard to the scenery of Europe, the time when the protagonists lived changed from Tang China to Medieval England, and the female protagonist changed from a wife of a businessman to a military dependent. Other than these, the chronological order, the poetic structure, the lovely and innocent childhood image of the young woman, and her affections after marriage remained. The first stanza was added by Martin to give the main idea of the whole poem at the outset: It is a monologue of a lonely young woman who misses her husband, who is far away. He probably felt that the little girl’s action of “playing about the front gate and pulling flowers” was not lively enough, so he let her and her buddies appear together, and specified the flowers as “daisies”; the little boy came on bamboo stilts, playing horse, but Martin let the little boy be armed as a knight with sword and shield, probably to keep agree with the seventh stanza “And you had 4.3 American Sinologist William A. P. Martin and Tang Poetry 65 joined your chief.” As for allusions such as “bàozhù xìn” (抱柱信, pillar-climbing trust), “wàngfū tái” (望夫台, expecting-husband-to-return lookout) and “yànyù duī” (滟滪堆, Yanyu rock), none was mentioned at all––likely because these images were too complicated to render into English. As a result, the young lady’s deep concern about her husband, her silently waiting day after day, and her sad sigh over her fading beauty cannot be found in the English version. Li Bai’s original is highlighted by details and the vivid descriptions which are very successful artistically. Martin’s translation is forthright and sincere. Although the time and space of the setting were changed and even though some of the culturally specific Chinese elements were omitted, the profound emotion and artistic effect can still be strongly felt. In the original poem, even if the young woman misses her husband so much, she would not have to worry about his survival; however, in Martin’s version the wife of a businessman changed into a military dependent, and therefore she must have been concerned about her husband’s life and death. In this sense, the translation ruins the emotional logic of the original. As a China hand, Martin was very familiar with Chinese traditional culture, and it is impossible that he did not understand the legendary allusions in the original poem. It can only be explained that he translated the poem as such because he deliberately Westernized some of the Oriental cultural elements to resonate with Western readers. As he put forward in the preface, some Westerners were prejudiced against Chinese people or Chinese poetry, thinking that they were dull and unimaginative. That is why he resorted to free translation, wishing to prove that Chinese poetry is as rich and imaginative as Western poetry. His viewpoint can be revealed through his translation of “Yuèxià Dúzhuó” (月下独酌). The following is the brief note Martin included under the title of the poem. “This is an attempt to render the best known Ode of Li Tai Po, China’s favorite Bard. He is not less famed as a bacchanal than as a poet, and tradition says that he met his death while in a state of intoxication, by plunging into a river to grasp the shadow of the Moon.”

On Drinking Alone by Moonlight 月下独酌 By Martin (1912, p. 56) 李白 Here are ﬂowers and here is wine, 花间一壶酒, But where’s a friend with me to join, 独酌无相亲。 Hand to hand and heart to heart, In one full cup before we part? Rather than to drink alone, 举杯邀明月, I’ll make bold to ask the Moon, To condescend to lend her face, The hour and the scene to grace. Lo! She answers, and she brings, 对影成三人。 My shadow on her silver wings; 月既不解饮, That makes three, and we shall be, 影徒随我身。 I ween, a merry company. (continued) 66 4 Other Early Sinologists and Their Outstanding Contributions

(continued) The modest Moon declines the cup, 暂伴月将影, But shadow promptly takes it up; 行乐须及春。 And when I dance, my shadow ﬂeet. Keeps measure with my ﬂying feet. Yet though the Moon declines to tipple, 我歌月徘徊, She dances in yon shining ripple; 我舞影零乱。 And when I sing my festive song, 醒时同交欢, The echoes of the Moon prolong.* 醉后各分散。 Say, when shall we next meet together? 永结无情游, Surely not in cloudy weather; 相期邈云汉。 For you, my boon companions dear, Come only when the sky is clear.** *The Poet fancies that the echo comes from the Moon **A common trait of boon companions

Like Li Bai’s original, the English version also begins with the scene: the poet alone among the flowers in the moonlight, a pot of wine, drinking alone without a companion. So the poet makes bold to ask the Moon to join him, and with the shadow there are three of them now. Then instead of translating the third and fourth couplets, Martin created on his own the language used to express the poet’s loneliness. As for the fifth couplet, Martin exaggerated a bit. The sixth couplet was not translated. The final couplet, though rendered differently from the original, might also show the poet’s experience of the inconstancy of human relationships and human well-being. In the above translation, Martin retained even fewer expressions from the original than in “ChánggānXíng” (长干行); he allowed his imagination to come to full play. Nevertheless, his translation never escaped the image of the “banished immortal,” who was immersed in the spiritual world of his own––a world almost as pure as a fairyland. Martin’s emphasis lies in rendering the superb, unrestrained and unthinkable romantic feelings of the “banished immortal” and the “Dionysian.” As the outstanding representative of the poets in Tang dynasty, Li Bai has been held in high esteem by later generations mainly because of the eternal fun and elegant demeanor in his poems. As Shen Deqian (沈德潜) commented, “On Drinking Alone by Moonlight” is the poet’s “ready tongue—pure and natural” (Tángshī Biécái, 唐诗别裁). That over 1000 years later, a non-Chinese like Martin was able to render it to such a fine extent in a foreign language is indeed very rare.

4.4 Review of Their Academic Contributions

Until the 1920s, the translation of Tang poetry in the English world was still in the experimental stage. From the above examples of translation, it is not difficult to see that translations of the early sinologists were far from being perfect––due to the 4.4 Review of Their Academic Contributions 67 difficulties of interlingual transfer between Chinese and English, as well as to the barriers caused by social, historical, and cultural factors. Inevitably, people’s perception of the objective world is always restricted by the cultural factors of their own living environment, values, and language system, as well as by other factors. As a matter of fact, even different groups and individuals within the same Chinese culture may not have the same understanding of a poem or a poet, so we cannot expect Western sinologists to come up with “authentic” interpretations of Tang poetry, like the Chinese. With the enormous differences between Eastern and Western culture, the interpretations of Tang poetry by these sinologists in the Western context were bound to be influenced by their own cultural traditions. The way they selected, dissected, interpreted, and expressed the poems was largely determined by their own mode of thinking and structure of knowledge. Therefore, misinterpretations are not just unavoidable, but widely found in the field of translation of classical Chinese poetry. In fact, in the interaction and dialogue between different cultures, “it is very hard to exclude the components of misreading—whether it is the original culture absorbing from the target culture or the original culture reflects itself from the standpoint of the target culture. And from the historical perspective, such misunderstandings often provide an opportunity to promote the development of both cultures, for identical interpretations will naturally result in rigidity and isolation” (Yue Daiyun 2004, p. 32). What is worthy of recognition at the initial stage of Tang poetry translation is the historical value of the efforts these sinologists made. Until today, when Li Bai is mentioned in the circles of American literature and sinology, Martin’s translations of his works are frequently referred to. There are also many works about China that quote Parker’s and Edkins’ translations of Tang poetry. At the beginning of the twentieth century, in his popular book Things Chinese or Notes Connected with China (1904, pp. 539–554), James Dyer Ball (1847–1919) set aside a whole chapter to introduce “Chinese poetry.” To introduce the outstanding achievements of Tang poetry, he not only cited from Giles’ works on traditional Chinese poetry, but also quoted the full texts of Li Bai’s poems translated by Edkins. He also gave high credit to Edkins’ views on Li Bai. Without careful study of Tang poetry and a thorough understanding of Chinese traditional culture, it would not be possible for sinologists to have come up with reinterpretations of the Tang poems. The above-mentioned sinologists are all forerunners in the introduction of Tang poetry to the West. Their understanding of the poems, the poets, and Chinese culture as well as their expertise in English poetry enabled them to give Tang poetry a new life. They also introduced to the English-speaking world such famous Tang poets as Li Bai, Du Fu, Chen Zi’ang, and Zhang Jiuling, adding to the whole picture of Tang poetry––and Chinese traditional poetics––which now loomed large. 68 4 Other Early Sinologists and Their Outstanding Contributions

References Chinese References

Chen Youbing: 《英国汉学的阶段性特征及成因探析-以中国古典文学研究为中心》, 《汉学研究通讯》, 总第107期,2008. He Peizhong ed.: 《当代国外中国学研究》, 北京: 商务印书馆, 2006 年版. Wang Guoqiang: 《〈中国评论〉与19世纪末英国汉学之发展》, 《汉学研究通讯》, 总第 103期, 2007. Wang Wenbing: 《通往基督教文学的桥梁——丁韪良对中国语言、文学的介绍和研究》, 《汉学研究通讯》, 总第101期, 2007. Yue Daiyun: 《比较文化与比较文学十讲》, 上海: 复旦大学出版社, 2004 年版.

English References

Branner, D. P. (1999). The Linguistic Ideas of Edward Harper Parker. The Journal of the American Oriental Society, 119. Edkins, J. (1888). Li T’ai-Po as a Poet. The China Review, or Notes & Queries on the Far East, 17(1). Edkins, J. (1890). On Li T’ai-Po, With Examples Of His Poetry. Journal of the Peking Oriental Society, Vol. II. Girardot, N. J. (2002). The Victorian Translation of China: James Legge’s Oriental Pilgrimage. Martin, W. A. P. (1912). Chinese Legends and Lyrics. Shanghai: Kelly & Walsh, Limited. Parker, E. H. (1887). The China Review, or Notes & Queries on the Far East, Vol. 15 No. 4 (1887 Jan), pp. 239–240; Vol. 16 No. 3 (1887 Nov), p. 162. Chapter 5 British Poet Launcelot A. Cranmer-Byng and Tang Poetry

At the beginning of the twentieth century, the translation and study of Tang poetry began to enter the academic field due to concerted efforts by early sinologists. In the wake of the work of these scholars, British literary and artistic circles began to pay attention to Tang poetry. Although there were not many people engaged in the translation of Classical Chinese poetry at the time, their contributions made it possible for the English translation of Tang poetry to spread widely from academia to literary and artistic circles throughout Europe. Clifford Bax (1886–1962), a famous and versatile British playwright, poet, critic, translator, lyricist, and hymn writer, translated some classical Chinese poems and published 20 Chinese Poems (1910) and 25 Chinese Poems (1912). In the preface to 20 Chinese Poems, Bax said he had traveled across many Asian countries. When he reached Japan via China, he met a monk named Tsutomi Inoūyë who was proficient in English, French, and Russia. Tsutomi not only led him to rich and beautiful Chinese poetry, but also accompanied him to China and then back to Japan again, teaching him Chinese poetry. These two books were actually based on the notes he made when he attended Tsutomi’s lectures. Thin and simple as they were, the two books in English were fairly popular. On the one hand, this was because of Bax’s own prestige in British literary and theatrical circles, and on the other hand, because of his brother, Arnold Bax (1883–1953), a very famous composer at the time who once set his English versions of poems to music. Therefore, these poems had a wide range of influence. Bax adopted the method of free translation, and throughout the text he did not provide any information related to the original poem or to the author. It is, therefore, yet to be further researched as to what works he translated and whose works he introduced. As compared to Bax, a more representative figure in the translation of Tang poetry should be Launcelot Alfred Cranmer-Byng (1872–1945), a Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood poet. As can be seen from the current information available, Cranmer-Byng was the first creative writer to promote Tang poetry in Britain and America.

© Foreign Language Teaching and Research Publishing Co., Ltd 69 and Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany 2018 L. Jiang, A History of Western Appreciation of English-translated Tang Poetry, China Academic Library, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-56352-6_5 70 5 British Poet Launcelot A. Cranmer-Byng and Tang Poetry

In his early years, Cranmer-Byng composed poems under the pseudonym of “Paganus.” Spontaneous, elegant and rhetorical, his poetry was quickly and well received, and he soon became a quite famous Victorian poet. Of the extant collection of poems by Cranmer-Byng, I found the earliest to have been published in 1895. In 1902, the retranslated Chinese poems in English first appeared in his collection of poems The Never Ending Wrong and Other Renderings, which was published in London. At that time, Cranmer-Byng just turned 30, and it is likely that this is when he began to enter into the translation of classical Chinese poetry. Since then, Cranmer-Byng had been engaged in the dissemination and promotion of Oriental culture with great enthusiasm. Although he cannot be regarded as a sinologist in the strict sense, the book Wisdom of the East Series co-authored by him and S. A. Kapadia (1857–?), a scientist of Eastern religions, established a pioneering status for East–West cultural communication in Anglo-American sinology and literature. The Wisdom of the East Series, published by the John Murray Press in London, consists of 30 books, which fall into seven categories. Except for the seventh category, “general,” which includes Western writers’ works about the traditional culture of Oriental countries, the other six categories are labeled as “China,” “India,”“Japan,”“Arabia,”“Iran,” and “Egypt.” The purpose of publishing these books was to translate and introduce the literary and artistic works of these countries, or to interpret their thought on art and philosophy. The books listed under “China” outnumbered the rest, including The Sayings of Lao Tzǔ (Lionel Giles, 1905), The Book of Odes (Shi King): The Classic of Confucius (Cranmer-Byng 1905), A Lute of Jade: Being Selections from the Classical Poets of China (Cranmer-Byng 1909), A Feast of Lanterns (Cranmer-Byng 1916), The Musings of a Chinese Mystic, (Herbert Giles, 1917), The Spirit of the Brush (Shio Sakanishi, 1939), and others. The authors of these books were mostly influential British sinologists at the time, such as the previously mentioned Oriental art connoisseur Roger Soame Jenyns, whose Selections from the 300 Poems of the Tang Dynasty (1940) and A Further Selection from the 300 Poems of the Tang Dynasty (1944) were also included in the series. As one of the chief compilers of this series, Cranmer-Byng remarked: “The object of the editor of this series is a very definite one. He desires above all things that these books shall be the ambassadors of good-will between East and West. He hopes that they will contribute to a fuller knowledge of the great cultural heritage of the East, for only through real understanding will the West be able to appreciate the underlying problems and aspirations of Asia today. He is confident that a deeper knowledge of the great ideals and lofty philosophy of Eastern thought will help to a revival of that true spirit of charity which neither despises nor fears the nations of another creed and colour.” (Wisdom of the East Series, preface) It can be seen that Cranmer-Byng intended to communicate good intentions between the East and the West. In the series, there were not only translations of Chinese literary works such as The Book of Songs, A Lute of Jade: Being Selections from the Classical Poets of China, and A Feast of Lanterns, but also translations of Egyptian literature. As a poet, he naturally paid more attention to the literary genre 5 British Poet Launcelot A. Cranmer-Byng and Tang Poetry 71 of poetry. The contents of A Lute of Jade and A Feast of Lanterns were mainly focused on Tang poetry. In addition, most of the poems translated in the The Never Ending Wrong were also from the Tang dynasty. As a British poet without much proficiency in Chinese, his translations were actually reinterpretations on the basis of the extant English or French versions of others, not translations in the strict sense. Even so, the painstaking efforts he put into this work are beyond our imagination today, and it was very rare at the time. Cranmer-Byng’s interests in China and classical Chinese literature were intriguing to the famous sinologist Herbert Giles and his son Lionel Giles (1875– 1958). Inheriting his father’s will, Lionel Giles was also a distinguished British sinologist, and he was famous for the translation of such classical Chinese works as The Art of War, The Analects of Confucius, and Zuozhuan (左传, also known as the Commentary on Spring and Autumn Annals by Zuo Qiuming). The book Quotations of Lao Tzu in the above-mentioned Wisdom of the East Series was compiled by Lionel Giles. As far as their age is concerned, it is very likely that Cranmer-Byng and Lionel Giles were both directly taught by Herbert Giles. In the preface to a number of his translations, Cranmer-Byng showed his sincere respect and admiration for Giles. However, Cranmer-Byng considered Giles’ style of translation of Chinese poetry too scholastic—overly precise and not flexible enough. He said “The great literatures of the world have been too long in the hands of mere scholars, to whom the letter has been all-important and the spirit nothing. The time has come when the literary man should stand forth and claim his share in the revelation of truth and beauty from other lands and peoples whom our invincible European ignorance has taught us to despise.” (1908, pp. 13–14) With such a strong sense of mission and responsibility in mind to bring Oriental literature into the Western mainstream cultural circle, Cranmer-Byng began his journey of learning, translating, and interpreting classical Chinese poetry.

5.1 Tang Poetry in The Never Ending Wrong

At the beginning of The Never Ending Wrong, there was a very long foreword to a prose poem entitled, “Dedication to Professor Herbert Giles.” With heartfelt admiration and respect for Giles, Cranmer-Byng described how he learned classical Chinese poetry from him: Aided by Your Excellency’s magic arts I have searched the firmament of a myriad constellations and the “Yellow Springs” below. I have seen many strange and exalted lights and one moon, the moon of Po Chu-I. Your hand has poured out for me the rare and delicate wines from the jade kettle of Ssu-K’ung T’u. You it was who conjured up before me the ghost of old Li Hua wandering among the wailing ghosts of a lost twilight battlefield. (1902, p. 6) While the second part of the book collected the English poems composed by Cranmer-Byng himself, the first part consisted of 19 Chinese poems translated into 72 5 British Poet Launcelot A. Cranmer-Byng and Tang Poetry

English on the basis of the first edition of the History of Chinese Literature and Gems of Chinese Literature by Giles, accounting for half of the contents of the book. Adopting the form of poetry in his re-rendering, Cranmer-Byng retranslated Bai Juyi’s “Pípá Xíng” (琵琶行), which had been translated by Giles in prose; he also retranslated non-poetry works which had been translated by Giles in prose into poetry, such as DiàoGǔzhànchǎng Wén (吊古战场文) by Li Hua (李华), Jì Shímànqīng Wén (祭石曼卿文) and Qiūshēng Fù (秋声赋) by Ouyang Xiu (欧阳修), and Fànghètíng Jì (放鹤亭记) by Su Shi (苏轼). In the process of re-rendering, Cranmer-Byng inherited Giles’ theory of poetry translation, i.e., the principle that “poetry must be rhymed.” As a poet who admired Chinese culture without having much knowledge of it, Cranmer-Byng did not expect his own translation to be very close to the original; rather, he paid more attention to the poetic, romantic, and aesthetic appeal of his version. Therefore, his translation works about Tang poetry are easier to accept for the ordinary readers of the English-speaking world. On the other hand, however, his translations involve a lot of personal factors, and the titles seldom correspond to the original titles of the poems translated, which inevitably brings a certain degree of difficulty to find the originals. First of all, it is difficult to identify the corresponding original poems from the English titles. Compared with Giles, Cranmer-Byng translated the titles of poems very freely. Occasionally, he also followed the English titles that Giles had offered, such as we find with, for example, “The Lute Girl” (琵琶行, “Pípá Xíng”) by Bai Juyi, “The Land of Exile” (悲回风,BēiHuífēng) by Qu Yuan (屈原), and “Under the Moon” (子夜吴歌 Á 秋歌,Zǐyè Wúgē Á Qiūgē) by Li Bai. More often, however, he tended to offer a new title based on his own understanding of the poem. For example, while Bai Juyi’s “ChánghènGē” (长恨歌) was translated by Giles as The Everlasting Wrong, Cranmer-Byng changed it into The Never Ending Wrong, which looks similar but reads more resonant syllabically and more romantic semantically. In some cases, Cranmer-Byng’s change of the poems’ titles may cause confusion and misunderstanding. For example, among all the poems of the Èrshísì Shīpǐn (二十四诗品, The 24 Poetic Styles) by Sikong Tu that Giles had translated, Cranmer-Byng re-rendered seven and changed five titles of them.

Original titles by Sikong Tu English titles by Giles English titles by Cranmer-Byng 之二 Á 冲淡 Tranquil Repose Tranquil Repose 之三 Á 纤秾 Slim-Stout Return of Spring 之六 Á 典雅 Reﬁnement The Poet’s Vision 之十二 Á 精神 Conservation The Color of Life 之十三 Á 豪放 Animal Spirits Set Free 之十六 Á 清奇 Fascination Fascination 之十九 Á 悲慨 Despondent Despondent

The 24 Poetic Styles by Sikong Tu is a series of works of poetry criticism, which theorizes poetry composition in visual language. It aimed at evaluating the styles of poetry creation, differentiating the various types of artistic conceptions of poetry 5.1 Tang Poetry in The Never Ending Wrong 73 and discussing the aesthetic essence of them. Each stanza—tranquil repose or return of spring, fascination or despondent—is a generalization of the poetry style, emphasizing the principle of poetic aesthetics, i.e., “thought in harmony with context.” As Giles introduced at the beginning of his translation, “the following philosophical poem, consisting of twenty-four apparently unconnected stanzas, is admirably adapted to exhibit the form under which pure Taoism commends itself to the mind of a cultivated scholar” (1901, p. 179). Such understanding is far from the case of the original. He only saw the philosophy of life that this series of poems revealed and the experientially remote imagery it embraced, but he failed to understand its connection with the creation of poetry and its criticism and appreciation. As a result, when he translated this series of poems, he mostly focused on their lyric subtitles. Cranmer-Byng, however, further strengthened the lyrical meaning of the poems by giving them new titles. In his translation, the imagery of “tranquil repose” was visualized thus: While visiting Xanadu, the poet was so amazed by the picturesque view that he wished to return with it. The imagery of “animal spirits” turned into a picture in which the poet was lamenting the vast universe between the mountains and the sea. In general, Cranmer-Byng’s re-rendering seized the vivid images of the original, highlighting the critical and philosophical idea of putting the world into one’s Taoist heart. Unfortunately, Sikong Tu’s intention was not to express the poet’s own feelings, but to establish a kind of poetic realm in figurative language. In other words, key concepts of The 24 Poetic Styles were misinterpreted. Sikong Tu’s “charm beyond the rhyme,” “aftertaste of a poem,”“image beyond the image,” and “view beyond the view” were not really perceived by Giles or Cranmer-Byng, though they greatly appreciated his refined lines of verse as well as the figures and images behind the lines. Cranmer-Byng first and foremost was a creative poet. He was very good at capturing the distinctive images of the original, highlighting his understanding of the emotion, and creating romantic and appealing sentiment. When we put Cranmer-Byng’s version side by side with Giles’, the different characteristics stand out on their own:

At the Wars Tears in the Spring By Giles (1923, p. 23) By Cranmer-Byng (1902, p. 40) See the young wife whose bosom ne’er Clad in bright silk and blue embroidery, has ached with cruel pain! — In gay array she mounts the tower At the ﬁrst call of spring the fair young bride, when spring comes round again. Suddenly she sees the willow-trees On whom as yet sorrow hath laid no scar, their newest green put on. And sighs for her husband far away Climbs the Kingﬁsher’s Tower. Suddenly In search of glory gone. She sees the bloom of the willows far and wide And grieves for him she lent to fame and war. 74 5 British Poet Launcelot A. Cranmer-Byng and Tang Poetry

Neither Giles nor Cranmer-Byng includes the Chinese text with their works. They also tend to dispense with almost all of the original poem titles and substitute titles of their own. This makes tracing back to the original Chinese texts something of a challenge. The English titles of the two poems above are totally different, but we can still relate the content to “Guī Yuàn” (闺怨) by Tang poet Wang Changling (王昌龄), since both English versions have “Wang Ch’ang Ling” as the original author: “闺中少妇不曾愁,春日凝妆上翠楼。忽见陌头杨柳色,悔教夫婿觅封侯。” Wang Changling excerpted a segment of a young woman’s daily life and revealed her emotional state and its delicate process of change by describing her behavior on a spring day. Wang’s wordings are intensely alive and lifelike, presenting a colorful picture with great sensitivity. Giles’ version maintains the format of seven character “Stop-Shorts” with rhyming lines, his typical style of translation of Chinese classical poetry. Cranmer-Byng’s version rhymes, too, but is more liberal and free in format. The young woman in Wang’s original had been separated for a long time from her husband, who has been on an expedition. She should have felt unhappiness about this separation, yet she was too naive to feel it. On that particular early spring morning, she dressed up and climbed to the high tower, not for the need of dis- tracting herself from her unhappiness but just to enjoy the scenery. When the fresh new green color of those willow trees came into her sight, she suddenly realized that another spring was approaching and she was there all alone. Then grief caught her right at the spot. With some degree of regret, she felt that she should not have let her husband go. Both English versions carry Wang’s context along respectively. However, Giles entitled the poem as “At the Wars,” creating a melancholy and solitary atmosphere from the very beginning. The image of this “young wife” was pale and somehow nerveless. Cranmer-Byng inserted some details from his own imagination, and presented a more lifelike, vivacious figure. From being free of sadness to being full of sadness, her process of psychological transformation was slow but clear. And most important of all, the poetry flows more smoothly and richly between the lines of Cranmer-Byng’s aesthetically pleasing interpretation. We must admit that Cranmer-Byng’s version of “Guī Yuàn” (闺怨) is closer to the poetic feeling of the Chinese original, both in content and in artistic conception. Of course, his re-renderings were not always better than the original translations. In fact, his romantic spirit as a poet could easily lead him to misinterpret or to overinterpret. “ChánghènGē” (长恨歌) by Po Chu-I might not be the entry point for Cranmer-Byng’s recognition of Chinese classical poetry, but it was his favorite poem. Cranmer-Byng used the title “The Never-Ending Wrong” for this book, put this poem as the first one of the whole book, and separated it from others of Po Chu-I’s poems. He also included this poem again in The Lute of Jade. In the prefaces to his books, the compliment he gave to Emperor Xuanzong of Tang (唐玄宗, i.e., 明皇), the attention he paid to George Stent’s work, and the introductory text he wrote for Tang poems and poets are all reflections of this love poem’sinfluence on him. 5.1 Tang Poetry in The Never Ending Wrong 75

The love story between Emperor Xuanzong and his concubine Yang Yuhuan (杨玉环, i.e., 杨贵妃) had long been known to the West; and Bai Juyi’s poem, which was based on the romance, easily caught the attention of the Western world. Prior to his translation of this poem, Giles dedicated an entire page to the plot. Then, he divided Bai Juyi’s original poem into eight parts, each of which was given a subtitle. Cranmer-Byng retained these subtitles in his re-rendering: (1) Ennui, (2) Beauty, (3) Revelry, (4) Flight, (5) Exile, (6) Return, (7) Home, and (8) Spirit-land. The poem starts with a thesis statement, and the story unfolds thereafter. Concubine Yang was given a great favor because of her sexual appeal to Emperor Xuanzong, who indulged himself in debauchery since her appearance. The An-Shi Rebellion (安史之乱) served as the fuse that led to the “everlasting regret,” and Yang’s death at MǎwéiPō (马嵬坡) was the turning point of Li and Yang’s love tragedy. Broken-hearted in central Sichuan, Emperor Xuanzong started out for his regained capital reminiscing about the good old times all the way. Having returned to his palace, he missed his beloved even more when he saw the surroundings. Hence, the climax of the story—“When is the end of my heart-aching regret?” Giles’ division of the poem is very clear, for he had a thorough understanding of the story. This sufﬁces to show his profound knowledge of classical Chinese poetry. Here is a comparison between Giles’ translation and Cranmer-Byng’s re-rendering of the “homeland” section of poem:

The Everlasting Wrong The Never Ending Wrong By Giles (1901, p. 169) By Cranmer-Byng (1902, p. 17) There is the pool and there are the flowers, There is the pool, the flowers as as of old. of old, There is the hibiscus of the pavilion, There the hibiscus at the gates there are the willows of the palace. of gold, In the hibiscus he sees her face, And there the willows round the in the willow he sees her eyebrows: palace rise. How in the presence of these In the hibiscus flower he sees should tears not flow, her face, In spring amid the flowers Her eyebrows in the willow he of the peach and plum, can trace, In autumn rains when the leaves And silken pansies thrill him of the wu t’ung fall? with her eyes. To the south of the western palace Are many trees, And when their leaves cover the steps, How in this presence should his no one now sweeps them away. tears not come, The hair of the Pear-Garden musicians In spring amid the bloom of is white as though with age; peach and plum, The guardians of the Pepper Chamber* In autumn rains when the seem to him no longer young. wu’tung leaves must fall? Where fire flies flit through the hall, South of the western palace he sits in silent grief; many trees (continued) 76 5 British Poet Launcelot A. Cranmer-Byng and Tang Poetry

(continued) Alone, the lamp-wick burnt out, Shower their dead leaves upon he is still unable to sleep. the terraces Slowly pass the watches, And not a hand to stir their For the nights are now too long, crimson pall. And brightly shine the constellations, Ye minstrels of the garden of as though dawn would never come. the Pear, Cold settles upon the duck-and-drake tiles** Grief with the touch of age has And thick hoar-frost, blanched your hair. The kingfisher coverlet is chill, with none to share its warmth. Parted by life and death, Ye guardians of the Pepper time still goes on, Chamber now But never once does her spirit come back No longer young to him the to visit him in dreams. firefly flits Through the black hall where lost to love he sits * A fancy name for the women’s apartments in the palace. Folding the veil of sorrows round his brow, ** The mandarin duck and drake are emblems of conjugal Alone, and one by one the fidelity. The allusion is to ornaments on the roof. lanterns die, Sleep with the lily hands has passed him by, Slowly the watches of the night are gone, For now, alas, the nights are all too long, And shine the stars a silver mocking throng As though the dawn were dead or slumbered on. Cold settles on the painted duck and drake, The frost a ghostly tapestry doth make, Chill the kingfisher’s quilt with none to share, Parted by life and death, the ebb and flow Of night and day over his spirit go, He hunts her face in dreams and finds despair. 5.1 Tang Poetry in The Never Ending Wrong 77

The original stanza is composed of nine couplets, and Giles’ translation corresponds to the original in form neatly. On the other hand, Cranmer-Byng’s re-rendering is more free-formed, exaggerated, and romantic. In terms of this stanza in particular, his re-rendering sounds more rhymed and poetic. We know that Cranmer-Byng did not read the original, and this probably allowed him more freedom and imagination in the process of his reinterpretation. The Everlasting Wrong is a narrative poem with a strong lyric tone. Putting together the narration, the description of the scenery and the expression of emotion harmoniously in the poem, Bai Juyi rendered to the fullest degree Emperor Xuanzong’s miserable feelings of endless lovesickness, distress, and remorse after Concubine Yang’s departure. The content of this poem had a great impact on Cranmer-Byng. On the one hand, he was deeply fascinated with the love story between Li and Yang due to its imperial background, the ups and downs of the plot, the disparity of the hero and heroine’s identity, and their social status and age; on the other hand, he was amazed by Bai Juyi’s incisive and vivid description of Xuanzong’s “everlasting regret” and unswerving loyalty to Concubine Yang. So fascinated was he by the sadly beautiful and gorgeous story that Cranmer-Byng came to understand the splendid and imposing royal palace in Chang’an city, Emperor of Tang, and Bai Juyi, as well as the Chinese way of abiding love. Apart from the slight change of word order and a few places of non-translation and misinterpretation, Giles’ translation can essentially be considered a representation of Bai Juyi’s original in vernacular. At the initial stage of the English translation of Tang poetry, the translator’s subjectivity was a common phenomenon and was not unexpected. In his re-rendering, however, Cranmer-Byng added much of his own imagination. Now that the story unfolds in the scene of the imperial palace, there should be crimson walls, orange tiles, and golden gates, so the hibiscus was at blossom by the “golden gate.” Now that Li Bai had compared Concubine Yang to a peony, Cranmer-Byng assumed that Xuanzong must have felt exceptionally dazzled when he saw the peonies among the hibiscus and the willow. Now that it was night in the Chinese palace, “lanterns” must be indispensable for lighting. As for “Folding the veil of sorrows round his brow,”“Sleep with the lily hands has passed him by,” and “The frost a ghostly tapestry doth make,” Cranmer-Byng translated freely and as he wished. Although his approach to translation as such might be laughed to scorn by academia at the time, it did not undermine the public’s love for him. It must be admitted that what Cranmer-Byng wrote were romantic, beautiful and poetic sentences; what he added from his imagination did not actually change the basic features the original poem. On the contrary, his addition of the Western elements of language and logic enabled his re-rendering to spread more widely than the strictly literal versions. In other words, Cranmer-Byng’s overinterpretation made the English poem itself a tightly integrated work of art. 78 5 British Poet Launcelot A. Cranmer-Byng and Tang Poetry

5.2 Tang Poetry in A Lute of Jade

A Lute of Jade, first published in 1909, is the best-known work of Cranmer-Byng. With “To Professor Herbert Giles” on the lead page, the appendix indicates that the first-hand English-translated text came from A History of Chinese Literature and Chinese Literature, Short Histories of the Literatures of the World Series (1901b) by Giles. Meantime, 300 Tang Poems in Chinese, The Jade Chaplet, in Twenty-four Beads: A Collection of Songs, Ballads, Etc., from the Chinese (1874) by Stent, Poésies de l’Époque des Thang by Saint-Denys and two other related translation works in German served as his source of reference. Cranmer-Byng also expressed appreciation to Lionel Giles in the preface, indicating that Lionel Giles not only provided great support for him to overcome the language barrier but also to translate all the titles of the poems and the poem “Yì Lǎo” (逸老) by Bai Juyi. The book is divided into two parts, a lengthy introduction and the poems. What is worth mentioning is that the introductory part consists of six sections, entitled (1) The Ancient Ballads; (2) Poetry before the T’angs; (3) The Poets of the T’ang Dynasty; (4) A Poet’s Emperor; (5) Chinese Verse Form; and (6) The Influence of Religion on Chinese Poetry. Among these sections, “Poetry before the T’angs” was selected from Giles’ Chinese Literature (1901), and “Influence of Religion on Chinese Poetry” was from Giles’ History of Chinese Literature (1901). The remaining four sections were written by Cranmer-Byng himself. Beautiful and elegant in language and rhetoric, these words were filled with his exquisite and romantic—though subjective and an even biased—understanding of the contents. From the time of Shi Jing (诗经, The Book of Songs) to the North Song dynasty, the second part of the book contains 66 poems in total, 59 of which are Tang poems. Cranmer-Byng’s preference for Tang poetry again shows forth clearly. Some poems can be found in “The Never Ending Wrong,” although the quantity is obviously increased. In A Lute of Jade, “Chūnjiāng Huāyuè Yè” (春江花月夜) by Zhang Ruoxu (张若虚, i.e., Chang Jo-hu) and “Kūnmíngchí Zhīnǚshí” (昆明池织女石)by Tong Hanqing (童翰卿, i.e., T’ung Han-ching) are the only two poems that did not appear in Giles’ works, and were probably selected from the French or German books Cranmer-Byng referred to. The first section of “The Ancient Ballads” mainly introduces the cultural tradition of Chinese poetry, and begins thus “A little under 300 years, from A.D. 618 to 906, the period of the T’ang dynasty, and the great age of Chinese poetry had come and gone.” Cranmer-Byng made no secret of his preference for Tang poetry; therefore, Tang poetry became the focus from the very beginning of the book. In this section, Cranmer-Byng briefly mentioned some famous pre-Tang Chinese poems, such as Qu Yuan’s “Lí Sāo” (离骚, “The Lament”) and Tao Yuanming’s (陶渊明) pastoral poem “TáohuāyuánJì” (桃花源记, “The Peach Colony”), and then he immediately moved to the Tang poets Li Bai, Du Fu, and Bai Juyi and their historical background. In the section of “The Poets of the T’ang Dynasty,” it goes without saying that all the contents are about Tang poetry and poets. 5.2 Tang Poetry in A Lute of Jade 79

He enthusiastically introduced, “At last the golden age of Chinese poetry is at hand. Call the roll of these 300 eventful years, and all the great masters of song will answer you. This is an age of professional poets, whom emperors and statesmen delight to honour. With the Chinese, verse-making has always been a second nature. It is one of the accomplishments which no man of education would be found lacking.” Full of sentiment, he depicted the Tang poets’ scenario of poetic composition like this: “Complete surrender to a particular mood until the mood itself surrenders to the artist, and afterwards silent ceaseless toil until a form worthy of its expression has been achieved—this is the method of Li Po and his fellows. And as for leisure, it means life with all its possibilities of beauty and romance… Yet it is only in the East that poetry is truly appreciated, by those to whom leisure to look around them is vital as the air they breathe.” With much pride, he shared in detail how he felt about Tang poetry, “With this nation of artists in emotion, the taste of the tea is a thing of lesser importance; it is the aroma which remains and delights. The poems of the T’ang are full of this subtle aroma, this suggestive compelling fragrance which lingers when the songs have passed away.” Throughout this book, one can see his admiration and worship for the art of Tang poetry. Remarking on Tang poetry repeatedly with exquisite and graceful writings, he intended to share with his readers how to appreciate the wonders of Tang poetry, that is to get rid of the constraints of the words and sentences, so that they would be fond of Tang poetry as he had been. “A Poet’s Emperor” is a very interesting section and refers to Emperor Xuanzong of the Tang. Based on Bai Juyi’s “ChánghènGē” (长恨歌), and other stories about Xuanzong, Cranmer-Byng remarked, “History alone would not have immortalized his memory. But romance is nearer to this Emperor’s life than history. He was not a great ruler, but an artist stifled in ceremony and lost in statecraft.” According to Cranmer-Byng’s description, he was not only the most famous and generous “imperial patron” of the art of poetry, but also a poet, a great polo player, and a passionate lover. Cranmer-Byng was so romantic that he believed almost naively that Xuanzong’s significance to Chinese literature was far greater than to Chinese history. The Tang and post-Tang poets, at least Bai Juyi, Li Bai, and Du Fu, should be “thankful” for Xuanzong and Yang Yuhuan, because the beautiful love story of this pair of “immortal lovers” provided them with a source of inspiration. It reflects the Western understanding of the Far East at an initial stage, which had a tendency to cast a romantic and mysterious glance on Eastern culture. It is impossible that someone would still hold the above view on the Tang’s Xuanzong as a historical figure in today’s sinology or literary circles. In the book, Cranmer-Byng gave a brief introduction to most of the poets, including their status in the poetic circle then and the characteristics of their poems; he even made a synchronic comparison of the Tang poets, as well as a diachronic comparison of their works, the backgrounds of their compositions, and their Western counterparts. For a few important poets such as Li Bai, Du Fu, and Bai Juyi, he also compared their different writing styles, advancing his own views as follows: 80 5 British Poet Launcelot A. Cranmer-Byng and Tang Poetry

Tu Fu (杜甫) A.D. 712–770 Tu Fu, whom his countrymen called the God of Verse. Of all poets Tu Fu is the first in craftsmanship. He seeks after simplicity and its effects as a diver seeks for sunken gold. In his poem called “The Little Rain,” which I have (perhaps somewhat rashly) attempted, there is all the graciousness of fine rain falling upon sullen furrows, which charms the world into spring. “The Recruiting Sergeant” has the touch of grim desolation, which belongs inevitably to a country plundered of its men and swept with the ruinous winds of rebellion. Li Po gives us Watteau-like pictures of life in Ch’ang-an before the flight of the Emperor. The younger poet paints, with the brush of Verestchagin, the realism and horrors of civil war. He is haunted by the vast shadow of a past without historians—a past that is legendary, unmapped, and unbounded, and yields, therefore, Golcondas and golden lands innumerable to its bold adventurers. He is haunted from out the crumbled palaces of vanished kings, where “in the form of blue flames one sees spirits moving through each dark recess.” He is haunted by the traditional voices of the old masters of his craft, and lastly, more than all, by the dead women and men of his race, the ancestors that count in the making of his composite soul and have their silent say in every action, thought, and impulse of his life. Li Po (李白) A.D. 702–762 The most famous name in Chinese literature. It is harder to write of Li Po than of any other Chinese poet. Po Chu-I has his own distinctive feeling for romance, Tu Fu his minute literary craftsmanship, and Ssu-K’ung T’u the delicate aroma of suggestive mysticism; but Li Po is many-sided and has perhaps more of the world spirit than all of them. We can imagine this bold, careless, impulsive artist, with his moments of great exaltation and alternate depression, a kind of Chinese Paul Verlaine, with his sensitive mind of a child, always recording impressions as they come. T’ai Chen the beautiful and the grim frontiersman are alike faithfully portrayed. He lives for the moment, and the moment is often wine-flushed like the rosy glow of dawn, or grey and wan as the twilight of a hopeless day. Po Chu-I (白居易) A.D. 772–846 Po Chu-I is almost nearer to the Western idea of a poet than any other Chinese writer. He was fortunate enough to be born when the great love tragedy of Ming Huang and T’ai Chen was still fresh in the minds of men. He had the right perspective, being not too near and yet able to see clearly. He had, moreover, the feeling of romance which is so ill-defined in other poets of his country, though strongly evident in Chinese legend and story. He is an example of that higher patriotism rarely met with in Chinese official life which recognizes a duty to the Emperor as Father of the national family—a duty too often forgotten in the obli- gation to the clan and the desire to use power for personal advantage. Passionately devoted to literature, he might, like Li Po and Tu Fu, have set down the seals of office and lived for art alone by the mountain side of his beloved Hsiang-Shan. But no one knew better than Po Chu-I that from him that hath much, much shall be expected. The poet ennobled political life; the broader outlook of affairs enriched 5.2 Tang Poetry in A Lute of Jade 81 his poetry and humanized it. Po Chu-I is above all the poet of human love and sorrow, and beyond all the consoler. Those who profess to find pessimism in the Chinese character must leave him alone. At the end of the great tragedy of “The Never Ending Wrong,” a whispered message of hope is borne to the lonely soul beating against the confines of the visible world:

“Tell my lord,” she murmured, “to be ﬁrm of heart as this gold and enamel; then in heaven or earth below we twain may meet once more.” It is the doctrine of eternal constancy, so dimly understood in the Western world, which bids the young wife immolate herself on her husband’s tomb rather than marry again, and makes the whole world seem too small for the stricken Emperor with all the youth and beauty of China to command. Compared with similar content in Gems of Chinese Literature by Giles, Cranmer-Byng’s paragraphs are more detailed, more reﬁned, and more personally emotive. His knowledge of Chinese and Tang poets was indirect, and thus might not necessarily have been as detailed or abundant as that of Giles. Cranmer-Byng, however, was obviously concentrated on Tang poetry while Giles was concerned with the long course of development of Chinese literature. Cranmer-Byng was so fond of Tang poetry that he somehow developed a personal sentimental connection with Tang poets. Preoccupied with this feeling, he vigorously promoted Tang poets, but meanwhile this kind of emotion had a negative impact on his reinterpretation of Tang poetry, the result giving excessive explanations.

Night Thoughts Thoughts in a Tranquil Night By Giles (1898, p. 60) By Cranmer-Byng (1909, p. 61) I wake, and moonbeams play around Athwart the bed I watch the moonbeams cast a trail: my bed, So bright, so cold, so frail, Glittering like hoar-frost to my That for a space it gleams wondering eyes Like hoar-frost on the margin of my dreams. Up towards the glorious moon I I raise my head, raise my head — The splendid moon I see: Then lay me down,—nd thoughts Then droop my head, And sink to dreams of thee of home arise — My Fatherland, of thee!

The original is Li Bai’s “Jìngyè Sī” (静夜思): “床前明月光,疑是地上霜。举头望明月,低头思故乡。” Here, there is no special or novel image, nor any complicated rhetoric. What we can see are just a few plain lines expressing a man’s homesickness after traveling or residing in a place far away from his home. Hu Yinglin (胡应麟) commented that, “Natural and spontaneous, the quatrains by Taibai are perfect without deliberation.” (诗薮Á内编Á卷六, Shīshù, “Nèibiān,” VI) This poem one is considered a typical example. The two English versions here are both rhymed—Cranmer-Byng’s rhyme pattern is “aabb” while Giles’ is “abab.” In comparison, Giles’ translation is closer to the original in terms of the night trance in which the poet was not sure whether it was autumn frost on the ﬂoor or not. In Cranmer-Byng’s re-rendering, the poet was awake and he compared the moonbeams cast on the ground to autumn frost. The word “fatherland” added at the end out of the blue turned the image of homesickness to a completely different one. 82 5 British Poet Launcelot A. Cranmer-Byng and Tang Poetry

The translation of Tang poetry into English is difﬁcult. First of all, we must understand the meaning of the original. Then, we should have a good command of English; otherwise, we cannot make ourselves understood in the target language even if we understand the original. Cranmer-Byng’s re-rendering is neither more faithful to the original than Giles’ nor it is close in expressing the content of the original accurately. Although his interpretation of the poems was subjective and arbitrary, Cranmer-Byng was no longer a bystander, but engaged as a recreator. In a way, Cranmer-Byng’s re-rendering has a vitality and an afﬁnity for Western readers as a result of his grafting. It is not hard to imagine that Cranmer-Byng’s freestyle of translation led to some problems of misinterpretation or misunderstanding. For example, according to Qin (2000), the theme line, “With lutes of gold and lutes of Jade” in A Lute of Jade, was actually taken from the phrases of three different poems by Li Bai, namely, “Jiāngshàng Yín” (江上吟), “Jiāngxià Zèng WéinánLíngbīng” (江夏赠韦南凌冰), and “Shàng Cuīxiāng BǎiyōuZhāng” (上崔相百忧章). By the same token, some people later suspected that most of Cranmer-Byng’s re-renderings were actually his compositions based on his general “impressions” of the original and thus were without a reliable and accurate correspondence. This underestimated his performance, though. In the third set of the Chinese vocal music divertimento entitled, Songs from China Poets (1918–1933), by British composer Sir Granville Bantock (1868– 1946), there is a song called “A Drift,” and its lyrics were from Cranmer-Byng’s A Lute of Jade, under the title of “Drifting,” by Li Bai, rendered as follows:

Drifting By Cranmer-Byng (1909, p. 61) 1 We cannot keep the gold of yesterday; 2 To-day’s dun clouds we cannot roll away. 3 Now the long, wailing flight of geese brings autumn in its train, 4 So to the view-tower cup in hand to fill and drink again, 5 And dream of the great singers of the past, 6 Their fadeless lines of fire and beauty cast. 7 I too have felt the wild-bird thrill of song behind the bars, 8 But these have brushed the world aside and talked amid the stars. 9 In vain we cleave the torrent’s thread with steel, 10 In vain we drink to drown the grief we feel; 11 When man’s desire with fate doth war this, this avails alone, — 12 To hoist the sail and let the gale and the waters bear us on.

Scholars in the music world argue that the above corresponds to Li Bai’s poem “Xínglù Nán Á I” (行路难 Á 之一), on the grounds that “gold” and “cup,”“drink again,”“dream,” and the last sentence in the lyric, “To hoist the sail and let the gale and the waters bear us on,” allow it to be traced back to Li Bai’s lines in that poem, such as “gold cup and pure wine” (金樽清酒,jīnzūnqīngjiǔ), “riding a boat traveling around the sun in a dream” (乘舟梦日边,chéngzhōumèng rìbiān), and 5.2 Tang Poetry in A Lute of Jade 83

“brave the wind and waves with the sail set straight high” (直挂云帆济沧海, zhíguà yúnfānjì cānghǎi). Another more obvious reason is that the song title “Drifting” is rather close to the direct translation of the Chinese title “Xínglù Nán” (行路难), which means “traveling is hard.” (Hsieh 2004, p. 42) Neither Giles nor Cranmer-Byng include the Chinese text with their works. They also tend to dispense with almost all of the original poem titles and substitute them with their own. The fact does sometimes make tracing back to the original Chinese texts a challenge. However, although Cranmer-Byng did not know the Chinese language precisely, and did not draw a mechanical correspondence in between the line of Chinese characters and his English stanza, his work never reached such a point that only four or five words or one or two lines reflected the original. If we read Cranmer-Byng’s translation carefully, it would not be difficult to find that the first and second English verses are very close to “qìwǒ qùzhě, zuórìzhīrì bùkěliú” (弃我去者,昨日之日不可留, The day of yesterday has left me and cannot be retained) and “luànwǒxīnzhě,jīnrìzhīrì duōfányōu” (乱我心者,今日之日多烦忧, The day of today is disturbing me and so worrying me); then, the following images of the “autumn geese” and “drinking in the view-tower” are even clearer in “chángfēng wànlǐ sòng qiūyàn, duìcǐ kěyǐ hāngāolóu” (长风万里送秋雁,对此可以酣高楼, The autumn wild geese have a long wind for escort; As I face them from this villa, drinking my wine). If we consider the fifth and sixth English verses are an interpretation of “péngláiwénzhāng jiànāngǔ, zhōngjiānxiǎoxiè yòuqīngfā” (蓬莱文章建安骨,中间小谢又清发, Spirit of Jian’an writers’ brushes in your outstanding writings; And I am also talented as Lesser Xie by your side) without classical allusions, then the ninth and the tenth undoubtedly came from “chōudāoduànshuǐ shuǐgèngliú,jǔbēixiāochóu chóugèngchóu” (抽刀断水水更流,举杯消愁愁更愁, Water flows, though we cut it with our swords; And sorrows return, though we drown them with wine). The last two verses are the result of the rewritten form of “rénshēng zàishì bù chēngyì, míngcháosànfā nòng biǎnzhōu” (人生在世不称意,明朝散发弄扁舟, Since the world can in no way answer our craving, I will loosen my hair tomorrow and take to a fishing boat); thus, we can conclude that the above was the English version of another poem by Li Bai, “XuānzhōuXiètiàolóuJiànbié Xiàoshū Shūyún” (宣州谢眺楼饯别校书叔云), as follows: 弃我去者,昨日之日不可留;乱我心者,今日之日多烦忧。长风万里送秋雁,对此可以酣高楼。蓬莱文章建安骨,中间小谢又清发。俱怀逸兴壮思飞,欲上青天揽明月。抽刀断水水更流,举杯消愁愁更愁。人生在世不称意,明朝散发弄扁舟。 So it is clear that the only sentences that were not translated directly from the original are the seventh and eighth lines “jùhuáiyìxīng zhuàngsī fēi, yùshàng qīngtiānlǎnmíngyuè” (俱怀逸兴壮思飞,欲上青天揽明月, We both are exalted to distant thought; Aspiring to the sky and the bright moon). Thinking of the time when Cranmer-Byng re-rendered the poems, we should not forget the fact that he was under the direct guidance of Herbert Giles and his son Lionel Giles. Therefore, his works could not have deviated from the original to such an extent that they led nowhere. 84 5 British Poet Launcelot A. Cranmer-Byng and Tang Poetry

5.3 Tang Poetry in A Feast of Lanterns

A few years later, Cranmer-Byng published A Feast of Lanterns, which contains 57 poems. His interest in Chinese classical poetry had extended to the Qing dynasty, and Cranmer-Byng re-rendered several poems by the Qing poet Yuan Mei (袁枚), based on the English translation of the text in Cantonese Love Songs (1904) by Clementi. Tang poems still accounted for half of the book, however, Cranmer-Byng made no mention of the sources of the originals to which he had referred. Nevertheless, as far as the content is concerned, it is still most likely that those poems were retranslated from Giles’ versions. It is the first time that the works by Wang Bo (王勃), Wang Wei, Cui Hao (崔颢), and Han Yu (韩愈) were collected by Cranmer-Byng, and even the selected works by Li Bai, Du Fu, Bai Juyi, and Cen Shen (岑参) were different from those in his previous two books. The introduction consists of seven sections: (1) The Moon, (2) Flowers, (3) Dragons, (4) Sources of Inspiration, (5) Chinese Verse Form, (6) Epochs in Chinese Poetry, and (7) Conclusion. These seven sections, all written by Cranmer-Byng himself, introduced his understanding of the theme, the style the aesthetic sense, and the forms and origins of Classical Chinese poetry, with a focus on Tang poetry. The section “Chinese Verse Form,” though having the same ilk as the fifth section in A Lute of Jade, it is not a re-casting of Giles. In “Sources of Inspiration,” Cranmer-Byng pointed out that to appreciate classical Chinese poetry one must trace back to Chinese history and Taoism, Confucianism, and the folk tales. He stated that these classical elements can be seen everywhere in Chinese poetry, and that they were the sources of inspiration for Chinese poets. He illustrated this point by relating the impact of Song Yu (宋玉) and his “Ode to Gaotang” (高唐赋) on Du Fu, the legend of Gōng Wú Dùhé (公无渡河) on Li Bai, and again, the Tang’s Xuanzong and his love affair on Bai Juyi, Du Fu, and Li Bai. The most interesting part of the introduction is the first three sections, where Cranmer-Byng used his typical sparkling style of prose verse to share his understanding of the three high-frequency, culturally specific Chinese words—moon, flowers, and dragon. As for the “moon,” Cranmer-Byng chose the representing image of “Fairy Chang’e” (嫦娥), which recurs in Chinese music and poetry, as well as the Moon Palace or the Cool Palace (广寒宫) to prove that the moon is associated with an image of femininity, sadness, loneliness, and sentimentality in Chinese literature. For example, the lament of the cuckoo that Bai Juyi felt in the moonlight and the lover’s dreamland that Zhang Ruoxu (张若虚) flew into by moonlight, both reflect the ancient poets’ loneliness and their need for comfort and relief. At the same time, the moon serves as the medium of love and the carrier of homesickness. Du Fu and Meng Haoran depicted the moon as the shadow of the swaying roses, or the dreamed battlefield in the wilderness. With their rich imagination, Chinese poets could create a delicate atmosphere that easily brings the reader into a sad, nostalgic, or affectionate mood. The moon also serves as a medium between the past and 5.3 Tang Poetry in A Feast of Lanterns 85 present. It waxes and wanes, forming a cycle that repeats itself forever and ever. No matter how many vicissitudes of life the world goes through, the moon shines there as always. Therefore, in classical Chinese poetry, the moon not only lights up the present but also projects the past and the future. In the “flower” part, Cranmer-Byng’s discussion does not seem to have much relation to “poetry” at the beginning. Rather, he devoted a large part to the story of Xuan Wei (玄微) in the Tang dynasty,1 who loved flowers so much that all the flowers in his garden were found to have souls. He could communicate with the flowers by touching their souls, and the flowers cherished him reciprocally. Making a connection between this story and Chinese poets, Cranmer-Byng believed that the flowers in the works of Chinese literati have spirit, thoughts, and feelings. This kind of personification only appears in fairy tales and mythology in the West. Cranmer-Byng pointed out that, “Yet behind all Chinese poetry and folk-lore, underlying all art, is the ancient philosophy of the True Way.” Why do people still feel empty and distressed in their sweet lives? It is because they do not have internal pleasure. All the pleasure they can feel comes from the external, mundane world, which is soulless and skin-deep, and thus when the things around them disappear, so does their happiness. Chinese philosophy reveals that real happiness is the harmonious unity of the mind and the spiritual images of the secular world. “And so the philosopher has joined the immortals, and lives in the sister realm of poetry and fairy lore, and every garden-lover sees him walking by moonlight surrounded by his fairy flowers.” Cranmer-Byng had a fairly good understanding of the concept of “dragon.” He said that the Chinese Dragon tops the list of the four sacred animals (dragon, phoenix, kylin, and tortoise). Changeable and omnipotent, it takes different forms and has various functions in Chinese mythology. As the dragon likes water, in Chinese poems it is often associated with water. Cranmer-Byng translated a fairly large part of Liu An’s(刘安, 179–122 B.C.) Huainan Zi (淮南子) to illustrate the relationship between the dragon and water: “In the ancient times, the four pillars supporting the sky collapsed, and the earth cracked. The burning flames could not be wiped out, and the floods went rampant. The ferocious beasts ate up people, and the scavengers captured the old and weak. Then the goddess of sky-patching Nv Wa (女娲) came, filled the hole in the sky with five-color stones that she had smelted, cut the horns of the giant tortoise and used them to support the sky, killed the black dragon to save the people from its mouth, and stopped up the floods with reed ashes.” The Chinese dragon is bigger and more powerful than Leviathan and the Babylonian Tiamat in Western mythology. He also quoted from Guan Zhong (管仲, 725–645 B.C.) to illustrate how changeable and omnipotent the dragon was: “It can become as small as a silkworm larva, or as big as being able to hold the world. It can fly high up among the clouds in the sky, or dive deep into the spring.

1The story can be found in the introductory part of “Guànyuánsǒuwǎnféng xiānnǚ” (灌园叟晚逢仙女) from Xǐngshì Héngyán (醒世恒言) by Feng Menglong (冯梦龙, 1574–1646). 86 5 British Poet Launcelot A. Cranmer-Byng and Tang Poetry

No one can tell when it will change, or come and go. It is a god.” (欲小则化为蚕蠋,欲大则藏于天下。欲上则凌乎云气,欲下则入乎深泉;变化无日,上下无时, 谓之神。)(Guan Zi, 管子). If we think of the dragon with our eyes closed, we can envision the image that it flies back and forth between earth and heaven as the Supreme Master with a supernatural power. In terms of the relation between the dragon and Chinese literature, Cranmer-Byng argued that, “From a symbol of spiritual power from whom no secrets are hidden, this dragon becomes a symbol of the human soul in its divine adventure, … The symbol suggests, and all Chinese poetry is the poetry of suggestion, a poem is not merely inspired, but inspiring.” Cranmer-Byng believed that Chinese poets’ attitudes toward everything in the world originated from Zhuang Zi (庄子, i.e., Chuang-tzu), who advocated a natural philosophy, i.e., “beyond the universe, the sages usually leave it as it is without even mentioning it; within the universe, the sages talk about it as it is without commenting on it” (六合之外,圣人存而不论). Therefore, in Chinese poetry one cannot see the signs of the Western way of logical thinking which originated in Christianity. He held the opinion that, under the influence of the Taoist school that advocated harmony between man and nature, Chinese artists and poets are virtually Taoist hermits, and “mysterious nature is their shrine.” While Chinese poets show in their poetry the Taoist idea of “harmony between heaven and human beings” (天人合一,tiānrénhéyī), in real life, they also put into practice the Taoist theory of having “virtue in mind and [being] positive in action” (内圣外王,nèishèng wàiwáng). Cranmer-Byng pointed out that, from Tang poets Wang Ji, Du Fu, Bai Juyi, and Han Yu to Song poets Wang Anshi (王安石) and Su Dongpo (苏东坡), most classical Chinese poets had a dual identity as poets and statesmen. They were “virtuous in mind” because they were able to transcend everything in reality so that they could reach a stage of ultimate liberty and detachment; they were “positive in action” so that they could fulfill social responsibilities successfully. Adhering to the basic ideas of Taoism, they reached the highest state of the world—seeking spiritual pleasure in worldly life and enjoying worldly benefits in the pursuit of spiritual life. Cranmer-Byng’s remarks on the “moon,”“flowers,” and “dragon” may not necessarily be accurate, but he presented the very prominent images in terms of understanding Tang poetry better for the first time. He pointed out that, as a result of the imagination of art or the perception of nature, these images contained very rich, profound, and specific implications that were endowed by Chinese history and culture. And the poets used them to express the “connotations” beyond the lines. His interpretation of the extensive and profound influence that Confucianism and Taoism had on Tang poetry is naturally not comparable to Giles’ at the academic level. However, he had a very clear understanding of the space of imagination that Confucian and Taoist thought and culture opened for Tang poetry, of the extent of penetration of Confucian and Taoist thought and culture into Tang poets’ thinking, and the impact that Confucian and Taoist thought and culture had on them. 5.4 Review of Academic Contributions of Cranmer-Byng’s Re-Rendering 87

5.4 Review of Academic Contributions of Cranmer-Byng’s Re-Rendering

Cranmer-Byng loved and admired classical Chinese poetry, and he tried to describe it in a beautiful and elegant manner. Although his description might not necessarily be accurate, his spontaneous confidence enabled Westerners to re-examine Chinese culture and to treat the essence of it impartially. Measured by the standard of “equivalence,” his re-rendering or polishing of others’ versions of Tang poems may not be of high quality. However, compared with the scholarly and pedantic versions such as those of Giles, his versions are more lifelike, more poetic, and therefore more readable. Cranmer-Byng revealed to Western readers from a different angle that classical Chinese poetry contains not only intrinsic rules of composition and aesthetic taste but also profound cultural origins and heritage, thus enabling Westerners who had long been intoxicated with Roman epics or Greek mythologies to sit up and take notice of the outstanding culture of Eastern poetry. The translation of literary works is also a process of recreation, which requires committed enthusiasm and rich imagination. As a poet rather than a scholar, Cranmer-Byng demonstrated an intense and persistent passion for and pursuit of classical Chinese poetry, especially Tang poetry. It was admirable for him that people in the Tang court or in the country, men and women, young or old, could all read and write poetry; it was even more admirable for him that those Tang poets who had ability, opportunity, and statecraft wrote so many beautiful works. In this kind of mood and through his re-rendering, Cranmer-Byng created a wonderous world of Tang poetry with his understanding, perception, and imagination that went beyond time, space, and even language. This world may not necessarily be the one that Tang poets were committed to creating, or necessarily equal to the world of Tang poetry we understand, but it was a world more in line with English readers’ aesthetic taste and their “Oriental Imagination.” In 1919, A Lute of Jade was reprinted in America. According to the “new book information” in The New York Times on December 22, 1918, the E. P. Dutton & Co. Publishing Company in New York saw the book’s “sales increase steadily for a number of years” after its publication as one of the Oriental Wisdom Series, and therefore they decided to launch the American edition of this book in the following year, i.e., at the beginning of 1919. Since then, A Lute of Jade has been reprinted repeatedly, and it is easy to find. In America today, when people talk about the early English translation of classical Chinese Poetry (not just Tang poetry), A Lute of Jade is frequently mentioned. In 1920, the translator Edward Powys Mathers (1892–1939) published The Garden of Bright Waters: 120 Asiatic Love Poems, which he had compiled. The book included love poems from Afghanistan, Japan, Kampuchea, Burma, India, and China, with a wide range in both space and time. When it came to the part about Chinese poetry, Mathers wrote in the preface to the book, “This book is indebted to Mr. Cranmer-Byng’s erudition.” This suffices to show how great a reputation Cranmer-Byng’s outstanding works brought him in this field. 88 5 British Poet Launcelot A. Cranmer-Byng and Tang Poetry

Moreover, the influence of Cranmer-Byng’s retranslation is not limited to the literary world of that time; it extended to the music industry as well. British composer Sir Granville Bantock (1868–1946) composed 45 pieces of music for Chinese poems in English during his lifetime. From 1918 to 1933, he published in London six groups of vocal divertimentos with a total of 32 songs, entitled Songs from China Poets. The lyrics of these songs were all from A Lute of Jade and A Feast of Lanterns. According to Bantock’s biography, which was written by his daughter, Bantock’s fascination with classical Chinese poetry was directly from the Cranmer-Byng’sinfluence (Bantock, 1971). In 1923, a work of the British composer, music critic and editor Peter Warlock (1894–1930), a vocal divertimento entitled Saudades, premiered. The first song, “Along the Stream,” was also based on the poem titled “Diversion” in A Lute of Jade, and the original was by Li Bai (Copley 1979, p. 61). In recent years, Australian composer Hugh Dixon (1927– ), living in New Zealand, composed a vocal divertimento, Songs of Mystic Jade, with a total of seven songs, and the lyrics were also from A Lute of Jade. In terms of the degree of acceptability in Western literary and artistic circles, Cranmer-Byng’s more emotional, more poetic, and more readable versions of Tang poetry are beyond the reach of many sinologists or scholars. Of course, compared with the original texts, his re-renderings may be questionable. However, as Yue Daiyun has noted, “People are used to interpreting another culture according to their own cultural traditions, way of thinking, and things they are familiar with. Generally speaking, they can only understand the world according to their own mode of thinking… Therefore, we cannot expect foreigners to understand Chinese culture the way that the Chinese do, nor can we expect the Chinese to understand Chinese culture the way foreigners do.” (2004, p. 32). In other words, misreading is inevitable when two cultures with vast differences—the Eastern and the Western— meet and collide with each other. At the beginning of the twentieth century, when the objective conditions for classical Chinese literature translation were so limited, Cranmer-Byng made admirable and unremitting efforts to overcome difficulties in time, space, and language so as to reveal to Western readers the aesthetic taste and cultural heritage of classical Chinese poetry. Through his pen, the English version of Tang poetry was promoted beyond the circle of the academic elites, so that it could reach a greater population of English-speaking readers. And this is Cranmer-Byng’s greatest and most direct contribution to the introduction of Tang poetry to the West. In particular, A Lute of Jade is so prominent that it is incomparable among all the books of its kind—either in terms of the significant proportion of Tang poetry that it accounts for or the tremendous impact that Tang poetry has had on the English-speaking world. In a nutshell, if we take Cranmer-Byng as one of the pioneers in promoting the introduction of Tang poetry to the West, this romantic English poet well deserves praise and admiration. References 89

References

Chinese Reference

Qin Huanming:《中国文化的西传与李白诗-以英、美及法国为中心》,《美国唐学会会刊》, 2000 (Vol.2)。

English References

Cranmer-Byng, L. A. (1905). The book of odes (Shi King): The classic of confucius. London: John Murray. (Wisdom of the East Series). Cranmer-Byng, L. A. (1909). A lute of Jade: Being selections from the classical poets of China. London: John Murray. (Wisdom of the East Series). Cranmer-Byng, L. A. (1916). A feast of lanterns. London: John Murray. (Wisdom of the East Series). Cranmer-Byng, L. A. (1902). The never ending wrong and other renderings. London: Grant Richards. Copley, I. A. (1979). The music of Peter warlock: A critical survey. London: Dennis Dobson. Giles, H. A. (1898). 古今诗选/Chinese Poetry in English Verse. London: Bernard Quaritch; Shanghai: Kelly & Walsh. Giles, H. A. (1901). A History of Chinese Literature. New York & London: D. Appleton and Company. Giles, H. A. (1923). 古文选珍/Gems Of Chinese Literature. London: Kelly & Walsh. Hsieh, C. L. (2004). Chinese Poetry of Li Po Set by Four Twentieth Century British Composers. PH. D. Dissertation & The Ohio State University. Chapter 6 The British Sinologist and Poet Arthur Waley

Arthur David Waley (1889–1966) is another notable expert who succeeded Giles in the translation and study of classical Chinese poetry. Born in Britain, Waley was intelligent and passionate about language and literature. Although he had never been to China, he was very accomplished in Chinese. He was also proficient in languages other than English, including Japanese, French, and German. Waley committed his whole life to the translation and research of Oriental cultural and literary works, and made great achievements. Before his death in 1966, this diligent and prolific scholar had published 40 books, 46 Chinese and Japanese translations and more than 160 academic articles. The translation of Waley’s Chinese literary works ranged from the periods of the Pre-Qin and Han dynasties to the Qing dynasties and included almost all the Chinese genres except drama, such as poetry, novels, and historical narratives. It was speculated that he was a student of Giles at Cambridge. But Wang Shaoxiang (王绍祥) mentioned in his doctoral dissertation that this was merely a deduction which might not be true. Cheng Zhangcan (程章灿), a Chinese professor at Nanjing University who has studied Waley and his life for a long time, also insists that there has been no sufficient historical evidence to prove this. He believes that although Waley was a graduate of Cambridge University, he “learned Chinese assiduously by himself before he started translating Tang poetry.” Among the various Chinese literary genres, Waley cared about poetry the most. He began to study The Book of Songs in 1913, and in 1937 his English version of The Book of Songs was published in London, reputable for its accurate translation and beautiful wording. Because of his persistent personal interest, Waley systematically studied the origin and traditions of classical Chinese poetry and developed his own style of interpreting Chinese classics in English. He maintained that the translation must be faithful to the original, and this kind of “faithfulness” would not merely mean a literal correspondence of words, but the representation of aesthetic and poetic feelings. Moreover, he made it clear that the translator’s own imagination should not appear in the translation, and that the contents of the original

© Foreign Language Teaching and Research Publishing Co., Ltd 91 and Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany 2018 L. Jiang, A History of Western Appreciation of English-translated Tang Poetry, China Academic Library, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-56352-6_6 92 6 The British Sinologist and Poet Arthur Waley poems and their artistic attraction might not be changed or damaged for the purpose of rhythm equivalence or for any other reason. Principally, Waley did not agree with Giles, who proposed that poetry should keep its unique form and its beauty of rhythm whatever the language was. Instead, he insisted that the traditional English poetic rhymes were actually unable to reproduce the rhythmic patterns of Chinese poetry. To avoid the ﬂaws in Giles’ translation, where meanings were distorted for the sake of the rhymes, Waley adopted the prose verse, trying to make the stresses of English correspond to the Chinese forms, which was named “elastic rhythm.” This diligent and proliﬁc scholar contributed not just his translations and research on Tang poetry and poets, but more important, his style of poetry translation, which proved later to be a great reference to modern American poets who wanted to experiment with novel poetic trends.

6.1 Tang Poetry in Chinese Poems

In 1916, London Lowe Bros. published Waley’s ﬁrst translation of Chinese poetry entitled Chinese Poems. This was Waley’s private printing even without his name on the title page. The version I saw was the edition reprinted with Waley’s per- mission by Lowe Bros. in 1965, and was sponsored by The Research Council of Rutgers University, New Jersey, USA. It was mentioned in the preface of the reprinted version that only about 50 copies were made in 1916, which Waley wanted to give to Pound, Eliot, Lawrence Binyon, Lowes Dickinson, and other friends. Among the 52 classic Chinese poems included in this book, only 13 appeared later in his formally published version. The printing of this book was based on Waley’s manuscript without any amendment, even without adding a table of contents. Some translations only had titles of original poems without the authors’ names while others only had the authors’ names without titles. The year of the original work was the sole reliable clue to trace the original works. It is clear that the 52 poems included some works from The Book of Songs, some poems of the Northern and Southern dynasties, a poem by Huang Tingjian of the Song dynasty, a poem by an anonymous poet of the twelfth century, and 23 Tang poems.1 Waley preferred simple, easy to read, and concise poems, so the poems he chose to translate were mostly of this style. In this initial attempt of Chinese poetry

1There were 24 poems in this book that were marked with “T’ang” specifically, but one of them was by Jing Pianpian (景翩翩) of the Ming dynasty. Besides these, there were three poems marked under the Tang poet Po Chu-I. However, there were two poems for which Waley did not provide the original author’s information, and which were translated from “Yèyǚ” (夜雨) and “Kǔrè Tí Héngjìshī Chánshì” (苦热题恒寂师禅室) by Po Chu-I. In sum, this makes 23 Tang poems in this book, only five of which are by Po Chu-I. 6.1 Tang Poetry in Chinese Poems 93 translation, Waley sometimes failed to comprehend the actual contents of the poems, which can easily be observed in this book. For example, his translation of “ShíháoLì” (石壕吏) by Du Fu was divided into four sections: (1) The first section was from the beginning to “Thedeadgoneforever” (死者长已矣, Sǐzhě chángyǐ yǐ)! (2) The second section included four sentences from “No one is left in my home” (室中更无人,Shìzhōng gèng wúrén) to “I got not even one complete dress whenever I went inside or outside my house” (出入无完裙,Chūrù wú wánqún); (3) The third section began with “I as an old woman have no strength any more” (老妪力虽衰,Lǎoyù lì suī shuāi) and ended with “I still have to prepare the morning rice” (犹得备晨炊,Yóudé bèichénchuī); (4) The fourth section was the rest of the poem after the sentence “The talking voices vanish in the late night” (夜久语声绝,Yèjiǔ yǔshēng jué). Among the 24 lines of the original, Waley omitted the line of “jíyìng héyáng yì” (急应河阳役, To be on active urgent service on Heyang). His division of poem cut off the paragraph of “moved forward and declared,” commentary by the old woman. His translation of some words was obviously incorrect. For instance, Waley literally translated “Cúnzhě qiě tōushēng” (存者且偷生) into “The one that is left only steals life.” In Chinese, tōushēng (偷生) is a compound word that means “to drag out an ignoble existence,” which cannot be literally divided into “theft” (偷,tōu) and “live” (生,shēng). Waley was probably aware that such translation could hardly make sense in the context, so he added a note that read “lives in constant danger.” Another example is the translation of “Wéiyǒurǔxià sūn” (惟有乳下孙,I have only an infant grandson). Here the grandson means her son’s son, the only successor of the family, because her three sons were forced to join the army. The infant was so young in his swaddling clothes that his mother had to stay home to attend him. So the mother of the grandson was naturally the old woman’s daughter-in-law. Waley somehow mistranslated it into “my daughter’s baby.” Thus Waley reduced the misery of Du Fu’s sad story in which all the male adults in the family were conscripted into armed service by the cruel officials, causing each to separate forever from other family members. If the old woman had a daughter, she must have a son-in-law; if her daughter’s son was an infant, his father must be in his prime; and the daughters in China are usually married off, so how was it possible that her daughter’s son was living with her instead of with her son-in-law’s family? Although this interpretation by Waley was not an intentional misinterpretation of Du Fu, it did damage the narrative logic of the original poem. Waley did believe that a translation should be as faithful as possible to the original. With his increasing academic achievements in the Chinese language and classical Chinese poems, he gradually realized the flaws and insufficiency of his earlier translations. That was the reason why he did not include all of the 52 poems in this book when he formally published a new collection later. Two better-translated poems, one by Wang Ji (王绩) and other by Bai Juyi, appeared two 94 6 The British Sinologist and Poet Arthur Waley years later in the book 170 Chinese Poems. The poem by Wang Ji remained the same; and the one by Bai Juyi hardly changed, as we see in the following:

On an Old Harp The Old Harp By Waley (1916,p.6) By Waley (1918, p. 185) Of cord and cassia-wood is the harp Of cord and cassia-wood is the harp compounded. compounded: Within lie extremely ancient melodies. Within it lie ancient melodies. Ancient melodies—weak and savourless, Ancient melodies—weak and savourless, Not appealing to present men’s taste. Not appealing to present men’s taste. Light and colour are faded from its jade stops. Light and colour are faded from the jade stops. Dust has covered its rose-red strings. Dust has covered the rose-red strings. Decay and ruin came to it long ago. Decay and ruin came to it long ago, But the sound that is left is still cold and clear, But the sound that is left is still cold and clear. And I do not refuse to play it to you. I do not refuse to play it, if you want me to. But even if I play, people won’t listen. But even if I play, people will not listen. How did it come to be neglected so! How did it come to be neglected so? It was because of the Ch’iang flute and the Because of the Ch’iang flute and the Ch’in Ch’in flageolet.* flageolet.* * Barbarous modern instruments. * Barbarous modern instruments.

The original poem by Bai Juyi is: “丝桐合为琴, 中有太古声。古声澹无味, 不称今人情。玉徽光彩灭, 朱弦尘土生。废弃来已久, 遗音尚泠泠。不辞为君弹, 纵弹人不听。何物使之然, 羌笛与秦筝。” The two English versions by Waley were both word-for-word renderings. Basic sentence structures and words hardly varied. The only difference is in the ninth line. The 1916 version reads, “And I do not refuse to play it to you,” and the 1918 version reads “I do not refuse to play it, if you want me to.” Compared with the original meaning, the former translation was more accurate while the latter one is more ﬂuent and coherent, and vividly reproduced Bai Juyi’s sigh with emotion that it was as an old Chinese expression: “too highbrow to be popular.” One of the unique features of Chinese literature is the adoption of allusions. Historical facts, stories, dramas, legends, and idioms are commonly adopted in Tang poems and all other forms of classical Chinese writings. It takes a great effort to understand the metaphorical meanings of those allusions, even for modern Chinese readers. Waley was impatient and even bored with those allusions so that he failed to realize that using allusions was an excellent skill in Chinese literature composition. One of his criteria for selecting poems to translate was to check whether or not the poems contained allusions and how many allusions the original poems contained. He did avoid those implicit poems which are famous for allusions, such as those by Li Shangyin (李商隐). His criteria for choosing poems and his composing style enabled his English version to connect easily with the original without much contrasting. Many words and phrases were translated cleverly and elegantly. In the above example, he used “weak and savourless” for “澹无味” and “still cold and clear” for “尚泠泠,” both 6.1 Tang Poetry in Chinese Poems 95 of which are utterly convincing phrases. In the 11th line, “How did it come to be neglected so,” the exclamation mark in the earlier version was replaced by a question mark in the new version, which changed the angry exclamation into a grieved rhetorical question. This change fully demonstrated Waley’s profound achievements in translation and creative writing.

6.2 Tang Poetry in 170 Chinese Poems

Published simultaneously in London and New York in 1918, 170 Chinese Poems was Waley’s first collection of English translation of classical Chinese poems for the general public. The book was one of the most famous works about the subject as well as his own masterpiece, which helped him gain an authoritative status in the field. The book was reprinted many times and translated into various languages such as French and German. One stated, “There are now many Westerners whose knowledge of Chinese or Japanese is greater than his, and there are perhaps a few who can handle both languages as well. But they are not poets, and those who are better poets than Waley do not know Chinese or Japanese. Also, the shock will never be repeated, for most of the works that Waley chose to translate were largely unknown in the West, and their impact was thus all the more extraordinary” (Spence 1970, pp. 329–330). This book consisted of a preface, an introduction and a body of text. The introduction contained five sections: (1) The Limitations of Chinese Literature; (2) Technique; (3) The Rise and Progress of Chinese Poetry; (4) The Method of Translation, and, (5) Bibliographical Notes. The body was divided into two sections, of which the first section had five chapters with poems ranging from the Pre-Qin dynasty to the end of the Ming dynasty, including “Guó Shāng” (国殇, “The National Martyr”) by Qu Yuan (屈原) and “Qiūfēng Cí” (秋风辞, “Ode to Autumn Wind”) by Emperor Wu of the Han dynasty (汉武帝), and five Tang poems collected in the fifth chapter. The second section was exclusively translation of 59 poems by Bai Juyi, including a chronology and an introduction to the poet’s life. The section “The Limitations of Chinese Literature” focuses mainly on poetry, not literature in general. In comparing the differences between the Oriental and the Occidental poetry, Waley demonstrated his knowledge and evaluation of Chinese literature from the aspects of the poets’ style of creation, their theme selection, and the common characteristics of the poets. As to the traditional European prejudice toward Chinese literature, Waley questioned directly, “Those who wish to assure themselves that they will lose nothing by ignoring Chinese literature, often ask the question: Have the Chinese a Homer, an Aeschylus, a Shakespeare or a Tolstoy? The answer must be that China has no epic and no dramatic literature of importance. The novel exists and has merits, but never became the instrument of great writers.” Waley’s view about the Chinese people as a nation was unique. He said, “They have no Index, no Inquisition, and no Holy Wars. Superstition has indeed played its part among them; but it has never, as in Europe, been perpetually dominant.” The 96 6 The British Sinologist and Poet Arthur Waley

Chinese people had always been independently exploring, introspective, and seeking the profound mystery of life and the universe. This national thinking pattern as reflected in the creation of literature showed an explicit and direct introspection in many works. Waley continued, “That this is particularly true of its poetry will be gauged from the present volume. In the poems of Po Chü-i no close reasoning or philosophic subtlety will be discovered; but a power of candid reflection and self-analysis which has not been rivaled in the West.” Turning from thoughts and views to the emotional expressions, Waley remarked that the most significant characteristic of European poetry was “pre-occupation with love.” Namely, the European poets regarded themselves as the lover of what they narrated. This self-realization appeared not only in amatory poems but in almost all the poems they created, since European poets put themselves into a romantic atmosphere when they created a poem. But Chinese poets had a different attitude toward their poetic creation. They acted as “not a lover, but as a friend” to what they narrated. Chinese poets were totally at ease and free from worldly ambitions, so the emotions they expressed could be more detached. For the same reason, these differences were also displayed in the creative states between Eastern and Western poets. Western poets were usually anxious and their shirt collars had to be kept unbuttoned; otherwise, they might be choked to death anytime by their surging passion. However, Chinese poets were always hermits free from worldly worries, and whenever they opened a book or drank a cup of wine, they would always “craft a poem under the window,” happy and pleased with themselves. Waley’s aforementioned understanding of Chinese literature indeed exceeded that of his predecessors. Since ancient times, Chinese people had always striven for “the cultivation of one’s moral character, the regulation of family affairs, the management of state affairs and the administration of world peace” (修身、齐家、治国、平天下,xiūshēn, qíjiā,zhìguó,píng tiānxià). After thousands of years of cultivation, the spirit and power of personality still remained in scholars who incarnated the nation’s civilization and wisdom. These intellectuals felt it their mission “to ordain conscience for Heaven and Earth, to secure life and fortune for the people, to continue lost teachings for past sages, and to establish peace for all future generations” (为天地立心, 为生民立命, 为往圣继绝学, 为万世开太平, wèitiāndì lìxīn, wèishēngmínlìmìng, wèiwǎngshèng jì juéxué,wèiwànshì kāi taìpíng). The Tang dynasty was the most prosperous era in China’s history. Its imperial examination system required candidates to compose poems, and laid the path for scholars to achieve their life’s goals. Meanwhile, in traditional Chinese philosophy, “to ordain conscience for heaven and earth” meant harmony between man and nature. Poetry, as a carrier of the literati’s ideals and aspirations, showed the poets’ cultural mentality. With lively images and abundant and prosperous scenes, classical Chinese poetry is more than leisurely entertainment. As for the literary theme, Waley deemed that a great difference existed between romance in the East and the West, from conceptions and techniques to literary expressions. He claimed, “To the European poet the relation between man and woman is a thing of supreme importance and mystery. To the Chinese, it is something commonplace, obvious—a need of the body, not a satisfaction of the 6.2 Tang Poetry in 170 Chinese Poems 97 emotions. These he reserves entirely for friendship.” He accounted that the “emotions” of Chinese poets were always for friendship and friends, and the main ideas of love poems implicitly sighed about nothing but the relationship of affectionate young lovers ending up separated. True love poems written by a man to a woman could not be found since the Han dynasty. Ever since then, poems involving love, especially the poems of the Tang and Song dynasties, were concerned with nothing more than deserted women. The typical intimate relationship between a Chinese man and a woman did not require much affection, since wives and concubines were the instruments for men to carry on their family lines. Poets only communicated in depth with their bosom male friends. Male friends, however, would separate from each other sooner or later, either to garrison the frontiers or to take office far away or to live in seclusion. Thus, farewell poems accounted for half of the total number of Chinese poems. Tang poetry does include a large number of poems that eulogize friendship, and great poets like Wang Wei, Li Bai, and Du Fu created a plethora of such poems. However, it is impossible that China had no real love poetry or true love. The obvious difference here is that Chinese “poetry” is not “folk-song” or “ballad” or “lyric.” Instead, by definition, it is traditional, solemn, and lineal text. Tang poets preferred to describe love in an obscure or ambiguous way, only because they could not eulogize intimate emotions in bold and direct wording in “poems.” For instance, Baron chanted repeatedly in Maid of Athens, “Maid of Athens, ere we part: / Give, oh give me back my heart! / Or, since that has left my breast, / Keep it now, and take the rest! / Hear my vow before I go, / By those tresses unconfined, / Woo’dby each Mgean wind; / By those lids whose jetty fringe, / Kiss thy soft cheeks’ blooming tinge; / By those wild eyes like the roe…” It would be unimaginable for such direct, storm-like expressions of passion to appear in Tang poetry, or in any classical Chinese “poetry.” Tang poetry inherited the aesthetic traditions of euphemism in poetic creation, presenting the reserved and decorous characters of traditional Chinese men of letters and taking advantage of the elegant and profound charms of the Chinese language, as embodied in many rhetorical devices such as symbolism, metaphor, personification, and pun, among others. Many poems were composed in praise of ingenuous, profound, and true love. Grievance poems began to appear ever since the Six Dynasties and prospered in the Tang dynasty, when the imperial examination system was perfected. As more men in the Tang dynasty had to go to Chang’an, the capital city, for the imperial examination, or needed to be engaged in trade since the commercial system flourished during the Tang dynasty, or had to leave home to garrison in frontiers as the Tang Empire expanded its territory, more women had to stay at home to take care of their families, longing for the return of their loved ones. This long separation of women from their men was caused by traditional restrictions as well as by factors of social development. It is unfair to come to a hasty conclusion that there was no genuinely delightful and loving affection between Tang poets and their wives or between all men and women in the whole country, and that the only function of women was to carry on the family line. 98 6 The British Sinologist and Poet Arthur Waley

Influenced by differences in cultural traditions, there is a great disparity between the West and China in literary statements about love. Waley recognized this difference but misinterpreted the reasons, as he was restricted by his Western cultural background and hardly had a comprehensive understanding of the social conditions in China. Although expressing love in a passionate way is one good method, implicit expression and its aesthetic value in literature should not be neglected or denied. Waley observed, “The system of Chinese bureaucracy tended constantly to break up the literary coteries which formed at the capitals and to drive the members out of the little corner of Shensi and Honan which to them was ‘home’.” He further described the living conditions of China’s literati, “It was chiefly economic necessity which forced the poets of China into the meshes of bureaucracy—backed by the Confucian insistence on public service.” This is a serious misunderstanding about classical Chinese poets’ attitudes toward life and the lifestyle of China’s literati. Bai Juyi wrote an epitaph for himself in his late years, explicitly indicating his attitude towards life as “self-cultivation with Confucianism, molding the soul with Buddhism, and delighting the aspiration with natural scenery, music, wine and poetry” (外以儒行修其身, 内以释教治其心, 旁以山水风月诗歌琴酒乐其志, wàiyǐ rúxíng xiū qíshēn, nèiyǐ shìjiàozhì qíxīn, páng yǐ shānshuǐ fēngyuè shīgē qínjiǔ lè qízhì). Most literati in China held the belief that “one should refine his personal virtue when in poverty, and help save the world when in success” (达则兼济天下, 穷则独善其身,dá zé jiānjì tiānxià,qióng zé dúshànqíshēn), and they had never forgotten the creed that “every man has a share of responsibility for the fate of his country” (天下兴亡, 匹夫有责,tiānxià xīngwáng, pǐfū yǒuzé) when pursuing their official careers. Bai Juyi was a good example of “refining his personal virtue” even when in success, and “helping save the world” even when in poverty. Those who lived in seclusion in rural areas were forced to quit their official careers because their political aspiration of governing the state and benefiting the people was shattered. Although Waley did not understand the ideals and aspirations of Chinese poets, he concluded that the “life trilogy” of Chinese poets were vivid and typical. First, Chinese poets invited their friends to drink and chant and talk about the past and the present; then they might be convicted by the court and exiled to the frontiers where they had no friends; and at last, they would live in seduction after they fulfilled their duty to have their children married. Regarding the group of poets and the poetical schools, Waley believed that another limitation of Chinese poetry was that “through the classical period (Tang and Sung) produced no great woman writer,” and that there were no famous women poets even in Tang or Song dynasties when poetry was most prosperous. Chinese women were always situated in a passive position and it seemed that it was their destiny to be abandoned in the end. Thus, their poems expressed nothing but sorrows, and worse still, it was a tragedy for any of them to write poems. Waley’s opinion on this issue made sense because Chinese women poets were far outnumbered by their male counterparts. Traditional women, even if they were literate and talented, could never get a chance to take the imperial examinations, and they could do nothing but “be envious of those who succeeded in the exam.” Traditional 6.2 Tang Poetry in 170 Chinese Poems 99

Chinese women lived in a limited sphere, so the content and quantities of their works were naturally limited. As for poetic expression, Waley thought that Chinese poets were more implicit than Western poets, although there were also similes, metaphors, and puns in their poems. In different situations, Chinese poets described the sky with such words as “blue,”“gray” or “cloudy,” but they would never use exaggerated words like “triumphant” or “terror scourged.” The lengthy similes in Homer’s epic would never appear in Chinese poetry, and even puns were seldom used, for sometimes the random combination of commonly used Chinese characters was almost a “play on words.” Actually, Chinese poets preferred allusion only because it could be a complicated and subtle metaphor. Unfortunately, Waley disliked allusions to such a degree as to declare that “classical allusion, always the vice of Chinese poetry, finally destroyed it altogether.” The section of “technique” was not an analysis of the writing skills of Chinese poets but a discussion of reading comprehension skills of classical Chinese poetry. It aimed at introducing Chinese language and poetry to those English-speaking readers who had no prior knowledge of it. Waley stated, “English poetry has used chiefly rhyme, stress, and alliteration. It is doubtful if tone has ever played a part; a conscious use has sporadically been made of quantity. Poetry naturally utilizes the most marked and definite characteristics of the language in which it is written. Such characteristics are used consciously by the poet; but less important elements also play their part, often only in a negative way.” He also pointed out, “The expedients consciously used by the Chinese before the sixth century were rhyme and length of line. A third element, inherent in the language, was not exploited before that date, but must always have been a factor in instinctive considerations of euphony. This element was ‘tone’.” The next section, “The Rise and Progress of Chinese Poetry,” explained the evolution and characteristics of Chinese poetry in a chronological order of dynasties. Waley shared almost the same opinion as traditional Chinese on this matter, and he even accepted that The Book of Songs was compiled by Confucius. Waley upheld that in Tang poetry form was “valued far above content” and that Tang poetry confined itself “to a narrow range of stock subjects.” The worst part is that both the form and the content of Tang poetry often referred to the writings and/ or history of previous dynasties, and unable to break away from prior themes. For example, Waley said, wars described must be those from the Han dynasty rather than current events; “disfavored concubines” must come from the Han court instead of the Tang; and there were numerous poems about visits to the ruins of former dynasties. Although details of each poem may be different, the emotions reflected in these poems were all similar. He restated his views on allusions, “Poetry became the medium not for the expression of a poet’s emotions, but for the display of his classical attainments.” When readers thought the poet expressed his personal experiences and imaginations, Waley sneered, “He is in reality skillfully utilizing some poem by T’ao Ch’ien or Hsieh Ti’ao.” Obviously, his statements were biased and overstated. It is a pity that Waley had so much misunderstanding and prejudice against Tang poetry and poets. Unlike 100 6 The British Sinologist and Poet Arthur Waley

Cranmer-Byng, who was enthusiastic with panegyric, or Giles, who took an objective scholarly view, Waley treated, analyzed, and judged Tang poetry in a dominating position as an outsider with his own criteria. Waley stated his criteria and principles of translation in detail in the section, “The Method of Translation.” He explicitly denied his use of free translation, saying, “I have aimed at literal translation, not paraphrase. It may be perfectly legitimate for a poet to borrow foreign themes or material, but this should not be called translation.” In Waley’s opinion, the reason why a poem is a poem rather than a verse lies in the use of images, charming and accurate words, and cadence and harmonious rhymes. He explained that, “Above all, considering imagery to be the soul of poetry, I have avoided either adding images of my own or suppressing those of the original.” Since it was impossible to achieve complete equivalence between Chinese and English, something had to be sacrificed. Thus, tempo and rhyme should give way to images and the content of the poem so as to avoid damaging the meaning of the original. Waley tried to make the stress in one English word correspond to a Chinese syllable, trying to achieve the effect of “rhythm equivalence” between a Chinese poem and its English version. In the second part, 140 poems out of 170 were translated into English for the first time. Waley said in confidence that the poems he chose could represent the characteristics of all important periods in classical Chinese poetry. He made it very clear that, unless the previous versions translated by others “were full of mistakes,” he tried to avoid those original Chinese works that already existed in European languages. The book also included six translations by Giles, just for contrast. Due to his disapproval of poetry after the Tang dynasty, Waley mainly chose poems from before the Tang. Among the plethora of Tang poets, Waley only gave his vote to Bai Juyi. He said in the preface that when he selected Chinese poets to translate, he did not focus on those already well known in Europe like Li Bai and Du Fu, whom he “equally appreciated.” Yet undoubtedly, he was especially fond of Bai Juyi. Otherwise he would not devote the latter part of this book entirely to Bai Juyi and his works. Waley even reminded readers not to be misled by the volume of Bai Juyi’s poems in this book, so as to reach the false conclusion that Bai Juyi was the exemplar of the whole of traditional Chinese culture. Culture is first and foremost “a metropolitan product,” yet Bai Juyi was an otherworldly “dépaysé.” A nine-page-long introduction of Bai Juyi’s life preceded the poems. Waley introduced the important issues and details of Bai Juyi’s life, and expressed deep sympathy for him because of his demotion due to political reasons. Waley commented on Bai Juyi, “No poet in the world can ever have enjoyed greater contemporary popularity than Po.” In Waley’s view, the most valuable aspect of Bai Juyi’s poetry is “its verbal simplicity.” He pointed out that it was this verbal simplicity that made Bai Juyi a major figure in Chinese poetry throughout the Tang dynasty and after it. This was also the main reason why Waley favored his works. Waley heeded Bai’s poetic view expressed in Yǔ Yuánjiǔ Shū (与元九书, A Letter to Yuan Jiu), and endorsed the poet’s opinion that “the form must serve the 6.2 Tang Poetry in 170 Chinese Poems 101 content,” but he disagreed with the point that this content had to “shepherd people.” Of Bai Juyi, Waley claimed that: “Content, in short, he valued far above form: and it was part of his theory, though certainly not of his practice, that this content ought to be definitely moral. He aimed at raising poetry from the triviality into which it had sunk and restoring it to its proper intellectual level. It is an irony that he should be chiefly known to posterity, in China, Japan, and the West, as the author of The Everlasting Wrong. He set little store by the poem himself, and, though a certain political moral might be read into it, its appeal is clearly romantic. His other poem of sentiment, The Lute Girl, accords even less with his stated principles.” Bai Juyi expounded upon the characteristics of poetry in A Letter to Yuan Jiu, “Nothing touches the heart but true feelings with words and the righteous tones. Poetry roots in feelings, sprouts with words, blooms with tones and bears fruits of righteousness” (感人心者, 莫先乎情, 莫始乎言, 莫切乎声, 莫深乎义。诗者: 根情, 苗言, 华声, 实义,gǎnrénxīnzhě,mò xiānhū qíng, mò shǐhū yán, mò qiēhū shēng, mò shēnhū yì.shīzhě:gēnqíng, miáoyán, huáshēng, shí yì). Taking the growth of a fruit tree as a metaphor, he vividly put forward the four elements of poetry: “emotions” (情)and“righteousness” (义) constituted the content, and “words” (言) and “voice” (声) made up the form. “Righteousness” was the most important thing to Bai Juyi, who viewed it as a means of regulating the antimony between the ruler and the people, and specifically, to advise the emperor on policy, so that he could comfort people and listen to them in order to achieve his political goals. So Bai Juyi stressed the unity of content and form, saying that form must serve content. He proposed that poetry should be accepted and understood by the majority through its simple wording and harmonious syllables, and that “rigid rhymes and uncommon characters should be avoided” (不求宫律高, 不务文字奇, bùqiú gōnglǜ gāo, bùwù wénzì qí). Bai Juyi implemented these propositions when he began to compose poetry himself. Although his ideas changed gradually as a result of his depression after his demotion, his political satire of the ruler and his deep sympathy for the populace stayed the same. Waley grasped the essence of Bai Juyi’s propositions, but he also pointed out in the meantime that the artistic appeal of “ChánghènGē” (长恨歌) was rooted in its romanticism, and that there was neither a deep political nor a moral implication in “Pípá Xíng” (琵琶行). Thus, the popularity of the two poems was rather antithetical to the poetic theory that Bai Juyi advocated. Regarding the main themes of these two most famous poems of Bai Juyi, and whether they should be attributed to political allegory or should be focused on emotion, there has been great controversy even among traditional Chinese critics. Waley’s opinion has been refreshing in this regard, since, no matter what opinions experts have held, the fact that these two poems have been widely circulated undoubtedly proves that the “emotional” part is closer to popular aesthetic instincts and common sensibility. Although Waley did not include these two poems in his own translation, his opinion did convince traditional Chinese critics to reconsider their long-standing attitudes toward the original text, and thus he promoted better understanding of classical literature as a whole. 102 6 The British Sinologist and Poet Arthur Waley

Waley convinced himself that his translation represented the true original. In spite of the few errors that there might be, the integrity of the artistic conception was well retained. The following is one of Waley’s translations:

On Board Ship: Reading Yüan Chēn’s Poems 舟中读元九诗 By Waley (1918, p. 206) 白居易 I take your poems in my hand and read them beside the candle; 把君诗卷灯前读, The poems are ﬁnished: the candle is low: 诗尽灯残天未明。 dawn not yet come. With sore eyes by the guttering candle still 眼痛灭灯犹暗坐, I sit in the dark, Listening to waves that, driven by the wind, strike the 逆风吹浪打船声。 prow of the ship.

Concise and lively in its use of language, Waley’s translation of this poem is clear at ﬁrst glance, from the title to the composition’s central content. Bai was reading poems written by his very best friend, Yuan Jiu (元稹, i.e., Yuan Zhen), who was also a poet, and thinking of him. The disconcerting poetic sensation was set from the very beginning, and then deepened more and more. Images of a “low candle,”“before dawn,”“sore eyes” and a “lonely boat” fully expressed the hardship and aloneness the poet was experiencing. Moreover, in such a short poem, the character “灯” was repeated three times, effectively achieving coherence between the lines. Waley had been very imaginative in his use of “candle” instead of “light,” vividly reproducing the gloomy scenario of Bai Juyi at that moment. Though unrhymed, the rhythm and syllables stressed quite naturally and accurately corresponded to Chinese characters in each line. The poet’s loneliness, his sul- lenness, and his isolation, together with the whole setting and surroundings, all found their full expression in Waley’s translation.

6.3 Tang Poetry in More Translation from Chinese

In 1919, Waley published his More Translation from Chinese. The American version was published by Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. in New York. The title of its ﬁrst edition bore its title in Chinese as Gujin Shifu (古今诗赋), while later the new edition of 170 Chinese Poems somehow used exactly the same title in Chinese. More Translation from Chinese collected 68 poems and pieces of prose, while 55 of them were translated for the ﬁrst time. Tang poems selected in this book were mostly Bai’s poems, 52 in total. They were different from those in his previous books. There were also eight poems from Li Bai, one from Yuan Zhen and two from Wang Jian (王建). The dates of birth and death of each poet were labeled under their names, while a chronicle of events from 772 to 846 was added to the description of Bai Juyi. Besides the translations of the legendary novel, The Story of 6.3 Tang Poetry in More Translation from Chinese 103

Liwa (李娃传), written by Bai’s younger brother Bai Xingjian (白行简), and The Story of Yingying (莺莺传) by Yuan Zhen were also included. Waley mentioned in the preface that he still emphasized the transfer of artistic feelings from the original poems, while at the same time he did much more experimenting with a freestyle of the English version, since the free-verse style was very well accepted by his readers. Referring to the fact that Bai Juyi’s poems comprised more than a half of this book, Waley again stated that the introduction of Chinese poetry to the West should not be limited to Li Bai and Du Fu, and that this did not mean that he deemed Bai Juyi’s poems superior to those of others. However, his preference for Bai Juyi was already obvious. Let us take a closer look at two more translations of Bai Juyi’s poems by Waley.

Poems in Depression, At Wei Village (I) 昼卧 By Waley (1919, p. 38) 白居易 I hug my pillow and do not speak a word, 抱枕无言语, In my empty room no sound stirs. 空房独悄然。 Who knows that, all day a-bed, 谁知尽日卧, I am not ill and am not even asleep? 非病亦非眠。 Poems in Depression, At Wei Village (II) 答友问白居易 Turned to jade are the boy’s rosy cheeks; 似玉童颜尽, To his sick temples the frost of winter clings… 如霜病鬓新。 Do not wonder that my body sinks to decay; 莫惊身顿老, Though my limbs are old, my heart is older yet. 心更老于身。

For the first piece, Waley’s translation quite completely conveyed the original meaning and could be deemed to have reached the criteria of faithfulness, expressiveness, and elegance. For the second, as usual, he translated the original title literally, been then obviously made a mistake. The content of this poem belongs to Bai’s “Answering a Friend’s Question” (答友问). Moreover, Waley misinterpreted the first two lines from “the waning of a jade-like childface, the coming of frost-white temples” (似玉童颜-尽,如霜病鬓-新)to“似玉-童颜尽,如霜-病鬓新.” On the other hand, each line in his translation had five stresses, with a pause after the second or third stress. It can be seen that his method of translation, the “rhythm correspondence,” had become much more mature and consistent. In February 1941, when remarkable progress had been made in America in research on Tang poetry, Waley’s Translation from Chinese was published in New York. This book, in fact, was a compilation of his two previous books. Accompanied by illustrations, it was reprinted many times both in Britain and America. In 1949, Waley created his biography of Bai Juyi, The Life and Times of Po Chu-I, based on articles about Bai Juyi and many other materials, to introduce Bai Juyi to the West comprehensively. His references contained four periodical pho- tocopies of the translation of Báishì Chángqìng Jí (白氏长庆集, The Changqing Selection of Bai) by the Japanese publisher Douenn Nawa, the important collections of Bai’s works from original classical Chinese records, and some other works about 104 6 The British Sinologist and Poet Arthur Waley

Bai Juyi translated into Japanese and European languages. In addition, the appendix contained a translation of Li Shangyin’s(李商隐) Epitaph for Bai Juyi, an epitaph by Bai Juyi for himself (醉吟先生墓志铭, ZuìyínXiānshēng Mùzhìmíng) and Bai’s family tree. Translations of Bai Juyi’s poems and prose enriched the entire book, which was similar to the Chinese scholar’s “chronology by poems.” Except for one former translation in chapters one and eleven, all the other poems selected—more than 100— were new translations. In the preface, Waley stated that biographical records about Bai were by no means lacking, but they were multifarious and disordered. So as to better present Bai’s life experiences to English readers, he simplified the numerous materials and focused on Bai’s works and the related figures, providing only a brief social background while avoiding complex political events. Since Bai had the habit of noting down the cause of his writing, almost all the works selected by Waley could be dated exactly. What is more, Waley briefly discussed how Bai was related to Buddhism because Bai’s poems were one of the major resources of the time for sinologists to conduct research on the development of Buddhism in the Tang dynasty. Ten years later, in 1959, this book was translated into Japanese by Hideki Hanabusa, a famous Japanese sinologist and expert on the research of Bai Juyi, and was published by Misuzu Shobo in Tokyo, Japan. Waley’s admiration for Bai and his works was somehow unique for his time, as were his translations of the poet’s works and his introduction of Tang poetry to the English-speaking world.

6.4 The Poet Li Po

Starting with the preface to 170 Chinese Poems, Waley had mentioned Li Bai many times. In the section of “The Rise and Development of Chinese Poetry,” he even made a lengthy comment on Li Bai, “It is for his versiﬁcation that he is admired, and with justice. He represents a reaction against the formal prosody of his immediate predecessors. It was in the irregular song-meters of his ku-shih that he excelled. In such poems as the ‘Ssech’uan Road’, with its wild profusion of long and short lines, its cataract of exotic verbiage, he aimed at something nearer akin to music than to poetry.” Waley’s attitude toward Li Bai and his works was biased from the very beginning. Mentioning the An-Shi Rebellion (安史之乱), he said that the civil war that erupted from the rebellion killed three million people and severely debilitated the country. Together with the invasion of foreign powers, it put an end to the “Golden Era” of the Tang Emperor Xuanzong. Li Bai and Du Fu both lived in this tragic era. Stimulated by the social upheaval, Du Fu created “a series of classical poems, winning the praise from Bai Juyi,” while Li Bai, who was bitterly satirized by Waley, had been writing ode poems to the fugitive Emperor as he made his way to Sichuan. 6.4 The Poet Li Po 105

Obviously, Waley interpreted Li Bai as a person with a discursive personality and a poet with an obsequious style. Interestingly, Waley’s startling evaluation of Li Bai did not come out of thin air, nor did he blindly follow what others said, but it was derived from his reading of Li Bai’s works. In 1919, Waley’s The Poet Li Po, based on Wang Qi’s(王琦, 1696–1774) A Selection of Li Taibai’s Poems (李太白诗集), was published in London. 24 poems by Li Bai were translated, among which 23 were translated by Waley himself and one was translated by someone else. The framework of this book was derived from a paper Waley delivered at a conference of China Association of the Oriental College at London University in November 19182, so an abstract of other scholars’ comments from the conference was listed in the appendix. The introduction took up a major portion of this book. At ﬁrst, Waley quoted some famous critiques of Li Bai from historical records. The original Chinese versions of the historical data listed by him were as follows: (1) By Bai Juyi 白居易《与元九书》: “又诗之豪者, 世称李、杜。李之作才矣, 奇矣, 人不逮矣; 索其风雅比兴, 十无一焉。杜诗最多, 可传者千余首, 至于贯穿今古格 …… 律, 尽工尽善, 又过于李。然撮其《石壕》之章, ‘朱门酒肉臭, 路有冻死骨’之句, 亦不过十三四。” (2) By Yuan Zhen 元稹《唐故检校工部员外郎杜君墓系铭(江陵士曹时作)》: “是时山东人李白亦以奇文取称, 时人谓之‘李杜’。余观其壮浪纵恣, 摆去拘束, 模写物象, 及乐府歌诗, 诚亦差肩于子美矣。至若铺陈终始, 排比声韵, 大或千言, 次犹数百, 词气豪迈而风调清深, 属对律切而脱弃凡近, 则李尚不能历其藩翰, 况堂奥乎!” (3) By Shi Huihong 释惠洪《冷斋夜话》中所载王安石编《四家诗》事:“太白词语迅快,无疏脱处,然其识污下,诗词十句九句言妇人、酒耳。” (4) By Hu Zi 胡仔《苕溪渔隐丛话》中所载王安石编《四家诗》事: “王荆公次第四家诗, 以子美为第一, 欧阳永叔次之, 韩退之又次之, 乃以太白为下俗。人多疑之, 公曰‘白诗近俗, 人易悦故也。白识见污下, 十首九首说妇人与酒; 然其才豪俊, 亦可取也。’” (5) By Huang Tingjian 黄庭坚评李白诗: “自从建安来, 绮丽不足珍。”

2It was also published in the Asiatic Review, XV, October 1919. 106 6 The British Sinologist and Poet Arthur Waley

Quoting these materials, Waley tried to explain to his target readers that even Chinese literary masters who lived at the same time as Li Bai did not think highly of his poetry. However, these quotations contained some rather controversial issues. The first quotation by Bai Juyi was written in the period when he and Yuan Zhen were devoted to advocating the style of realistic literature. Bai Juyi had good reason to belittle Li’s poems, which were full of subjective feelings. However, throughout his life Bai Juyi was not consistent in his disapproval of Li Bai nor in his praise of Du Fu. In his Dú Lǐdù Shījí Yīntí Juànhòu (读李杜诗集因题卷后, After Reading a Selection of Li and Du’s Poems), he treated them equally and said, “[Their] poems remain through the ages, and their reputation is spread all over” (吟咏留千古,声名动四夷,yínyǒng liú qiāngǔ,shēngmíng dòng sìyí). In his poem “Lǐ BáiMù” (李白墓, Li Bai’s Tomb), he also praised Li Bai’s writing as “earth-shaking” (惊天动地, jīngtiāndòngdì). The second quotation, Du Fu’s epitaph by Yuan Zhen, who compared Li Bai’s shortcomings with Du Fu’s strong points, was also biased. When Yuan Zhen was asked by Du Fu’s grandson to compose an epitaph, the only thing he could do was to please Du’s descendants as much as possible, even though Li and Du shared equal fame. The third and the fourth quotations share a different part of the same story about a great literature figure of the Song dynasty named Wang Anshi (王安石), who compiled a poetry anthology entitled, Sìjiā Shī (四家诗, Poems by Four Poets). In the book, he ranked Du Fu the first, Han Yu the second, Ouyang Xiu the third, and Li Bai the last. When people doubted this ranking, Wang Anshi criticized Li Bai even more. As a matter of fact, Lu Shiyong (陆时雍) of the Ming dynasty pointed out clearly in his book Shījìng Zǒnglùn (诗镜总论, Poetry Criticism) that, “people in the Song dynasty belittled Taibai (Li Bai) and thought highly of Shaoling (Du Fu) as a result of Neo-Confucianism.” The Song dynasty was the mature period of Neo-Confucianism, which had a strong influence on various aspects of the society, including literary criticism. A pragmatic way of functioning tinged with politics was emphasized and advocated in writing, and the aesthetic value of emotional expressions was denied. Li Bai’s style, which was simply following his heart, was obviously unqualified under Neo-Confucianism, as was his lifestyle. As to the fifth quotation, Huang Tingjian actually quoted from Li Bai’s own poem, which literally means, “Since the Jian’an period and after, gimcrackery was no longer worth appreciation.” It was Li’s declaration for rejecting gaudy and fancy literature, and pursuing a simple, direct and natural style. It was referenced mistakenly by Waley as a negative evaluation of Li’s poetry by Huang Tingjian, which created a comical situation. In fact, Huang Tingjian did make some comments in his own piece Tí LǐbáiShīcǎoHòu (题李白诗草后, Writing after Reading Li Bai’s Poetry), in which he demonstrated full appreciation of Li Bai’s works and respect for the poet. If Waley had not made a mistake here, would he be tempted to quote Huang Tingjian’s original? 6.4 The Poet Li Po 107

“No one who reads much of Li’s poetry in the original can fail to notice the two defects which are emphasized by the Sung critics,” said Waley. He further explicated his interpretation of the materials listed above, “The long poems are often ill-constructed. Where, for example, he wishes to convey an impression of horror he is apt to exhaust himself in the first quatrain, and the rest of the poem is a network of straggling repetitions. Very few of these longer poems have been translated. The second defect, his lack of variety, is one which would only strike those who have read a large number of his poems. Translators have naturally made their selections as varied as possible, so that many of those who know the poet only in translation might feel inclined to defend him on this score. According to Wang Anshi, his two subjects are wine and women. The second does not, of course, imply “love-poetry, but sentiments put into the mouths of deserted wives and concubines. Such themes are always felt by the Chinese to be in part allegorical, the deserted lady symbol- izing the minister whose counsels a wicked monarch will not heed.” Developing along with a few thousand years of history and culture, Chinese literary criticism was influenced by various historical settings, political views, and social trends, and hence adopted different attitudes toward Li Bai at different times. During the Tang and Song dynasties, there was no shortage of praise of Li Bai. Many well-known Tang writers, such as Li Hua (李华), Fan Chuanzheng (范传正), Pi Rixiu (皮日休), and even Du Fu had praised him in their writings. Besides the abovementioned praise by Huang Tingjian, another great Songwriter and scholar, Ouyang Xiu (欧阳修), had also fully recognized Li’s achievement in poetry. From the time of Li Bai and beyond, the list of the scholars who had praised Li Bai and his works was very long, but none of them were mentioned in Waley’s citation. It was impossible that Waley only saw such disreputable comments on Li Bai when surveying Li’s life and works. The only conclusion we can possibly reach is that Waley’s bias toward Li Bai was a preexisting attitude, and that his quotations from historical records were just chosen to support his biased opinions. Waley explicitly pointed out two shortcomings in Li Bai’s works: (1) long poems structured rough-and-tumble; and, (2) limited poetic themes. The so-called “long poems” were actually “ancient style” (古体), as opposed to modern-style at the time. There were no strict requirements on the number of lines, the use of antitheses in wording, the tone patterns or rhymes. Waley mentioned this aspect of wordsmanship in his writing about the “Technique” of classical Chinese poetry. Yet he still insisted that Li Bai’s ancient-style poems were “chaotic in structure,” because such poems were more like songs rather than poems from his point of view. Thus, to Waley, Li Bai’s writing was the outcome of word games rather than the products of his thought. Li Bai’s artistic exaggeration was an unforgivable defect in this regard. Since he was fed up with classical allusions in poetry, Waley emphatically criticized Li Bai for his “extreme allusiveness.” He held that without referring to ancient books, modern readers could hardly understand many of Li’s poems, such as “Antiquity” (古风). Waley believed that common English readers might not be able to detect this defect. He reasoned, “Translators have naturally avoided the most allusive poems and have omitted or generalized such allusions as occurred. They have frequently failed to recognize allusions as such, and have mistranslated them accordingly, often turning proper names into romantic sentiments.” Waley made a 108 6 The British Sinologist and Poet Arthur Waley well-grounded statement indicating that such practices in translation were a common phenomenon in interpreting not only Tang poetry, but also classical Chinese literature as a whole. Furthermore, Waley insisted that classical allusion was not only an obstacle to English readers, but also to modern Chinese readers as well. The presence of the obstacle, however, does not provide a strong enough reason to negate this aesthetic tradition of Chinese classical literature or to deny Li Bai’s accomplishments. If his works were as defective as they were presented in the manner above, how could Li Bai remain so popular for hundreds of years? Waley explained that it was, to a large extent, a mere accident. He remarked, “Serious literary criticism has been dead in China since that time, and the valuations then made are still accepted in the 16th century.” So, Li Bai’s works were collected and published in poetry anthologies which made him well accepted only because common readers were misled at that time. This regrettable attitude toward Li Bai greatly influenced Waley’s translation and introduction of Li’s poetry. Let us see his translation of one of Li Bai’s poems:

Self-abandonment 自遣 By Waley (1918, p. 27) 李白 I sat drinking and did not notice the dusk, 对酒不觉暝, Till falling petals ﬁlled the folds of my dress. 落花盈我衣。 Drunken I rose and walked to the moonlit stream, 醉起步溪月, The birds were gone, and men also few. 鸟还人亦稀。

This is not a “long poem” and the title illustrates Li Bai’s contentment in being in a quiet retreat with beautiful natural scenery, actually having tears in his eyes and walking alone along the stream with the moonlight. When Waley mistakenly translated the title into “self-abandonment,” Li Bai was turned into a drunkard staggering into the stream. Of course, Li Bai was known as a wine tippler who could “write hundreds of poems after a drink.” Yet wine diffuses poetic feelings and arouses poetic settings for almost every poet, both in the East and in the West. Without direct reference to Li Bai’s addiction to wine, Waley never hid his antipathy for Li’s irresponsible and immoral character. The last statement in his conclusion, “I venture to surmise that if a dozen representative English poets could read Chinese poetry in the original, none of them would give either the first or second place to Li Po,” absolutely devalued the romantic charm of Li Bai’s poetry. Usually, literary appreciation or evaluation does not reach a fair and objective conclusion because of the personal values and aesthetic orientation of the com- mentator. Hence, Waley’s judgment on Li Bai was obviously subjective. It was interesting that he assumed quite an objective standpoint in his selection of Li Bai’s works by covering different genres, styles and time of writing, even though it was not too difficult for him to choose only “wine and women” poems, just to support his own prejudiced opinion. Waley was a rigorous professional after all. Among the 24 poems he translated in this book, those that had no relation to wine or women took up almost one-third of the volume. He showed his respect for the original and 6.4 The Poet Li Po 109 gave back to readers their own right to judge with his conventional and meticulous manner as a scholar. The other noteworthy part of this book is the appendix, which contained an abstract of other scholars’ comments from the London conference. The well-known sinologist George Jamieson (1843–1920) commented after Waley’s presentation, saying, “Mr. Li T’ai-po was, I am afraid, a bit of a Bohemian, and his Bacchanalian experiences have been repeated in later days even with the great poets… Thanks to Mr. Waley for his address and the very felicitous language in which he has translated a number of these ancient poems…because these poems, as far as I can judge…are well worthy of careful perusal.” Another sinologist, Gerald Willoughby-Meade (1875–1958), commented, “The Anglo-American people have produced an enormous amount of poetry which they do not often quote, and the Chinese have produced an enormous amount of poetry which, according to experts, they quote a great deal. Now, at the present moment that peculiar British shyness for quoting poetry seems to have largely disappeared in consequence of the writings of soldier poets. These poems have been written under conditions of great danger, difficulty, and discomfort, and it seems to me that it would be a very good thing if poetry illustrating the thought of these men could be placed before the Anglo-American public.” Another scholar on the list named L. Y. CHEN (this sounds like an ethnic Chinese), who might have more knowledge about the Chinese poetic tradition and its historical background, interestingly reinforced or even worsened Waley’s biased judgment. He stated, “Since the lecturer has raised the question whether Li T’ai-po or Tu Fu is the greater poet, I would say that the Chinese of the present day consider Tu Fu to be the greater. It strikes me as curious that European people who know something about Chinese poetry should prefer Li T’ai-po… Tu Fu is placed first by the Chinese because he is the greatest national poet. He expresses national feelings in a way that can be appreciated by everybody. Li T’ai-po’s poems deal chiefly with wine and women, love and sensual things, but Tu Fu’s poems are full of men and women, elderly people and children, their joy, their anguish, the hardship of the soldier, and things of that sort. In a word, Tu Fu’s poetry expresses what we ordinary men and women wish to express and cannot.” The above commentary about Tu Fu has nothing wrong with it, but it is a pity that Chen should derogate Li Bai while in favoring Du Fu. After all, Li Bai’s romanticism before the An-Shi Rebellion and Du Fu’s realism after it was different; yet, both were essential in the vast sea of Tang poetry. In 1951, in London and New York, Waley published The Poetry and Career of Li Po, which included more introductions to Li Bai’s life and social background. This book was translated into Spanish in 1969 and Japanese in 1973 by the famous Japanese sinologists Ogawa Tamaki and Minoru Kuriyama. It was one of the most important references for the study of Li Bai. Nevertheless, Waley’s opinion toward Li Bai had never changed. 110 6 The British Sinologist and Poet Arthur Waley

6.5 Review of Waley’s Academic Contributions

Devoting his life to the study and translation of Chinese and Japanese classics, Waley was quite a hardworking man. Even just in our subject area, his works were more numerous than those mentioned in this chapter, and almost each and every one was published both in England and America. Waley was regarded as one of the most influential Orientalists and the best English translator of Oriental literature in the first half of the twentieth century. Classical Chinese poetry has been made much easier for Western readers to access through his faithful and fluent translations. During the propagation process of Tang poetry to the West, as an outstanding scholar, his study on Bai Juyi and Li Bai also strongly promoted focused academic research on Tang poets. And as a talented creative writer, his works had great impact and served as a connection between pioneers like Giles and the later comers like Ezra Pound. “His in-depth knowledge of Chinese language, culture and tradition, his well-trained language skills and his gifted strong sense of literature, altogether provided his translation a poetic feel with its lucid style and verbal vitality,” commented Cheng Zhangcan (2003 [3], p. 118). More important, Waley upheld that instead of simply reflecting or replicating realities, Chinese poets weaved their soul into stanzas through poetic images. Based on this understanding, he made a conscious effort to keep those poetic images in his translation and presented them to his readers. His translations “also created a successful free-verse style with certain norms. This poetic style was not only conducive to the success of his translation work, but also blended impacts from Chinese poetry into English poetry.” Waley’s innovative free-verse style affected many Imagist and Modernist poets in Europe and America, such as Pound. Through his introduction, many poets learned about classical Chinese poetry, found their inspiration from a totally new source, and interwove it into modern English poetry. Thus, in 1953, Waley was awarded the Queen’s Medal for Poetry in recognition of his outstanding achievements.

References

English References

Spence, J. D. (1970). Chinese Roundabout: Essays in History and Culture. New York: W. W. Norton & Company. Waley, A. D. (1916). Chinese Poems. London: Lowe Brothers. Waley, A. D. (1918). A Hundred and Seventy Chinese Poems. New York: Alfred A Knopf Inc. Waley, A. D. (1919). 古今诗赋/More Translations From the Chinese. New York: Alfred A Knopf Inc. Chapter 7 British Diplomat William J. B. Fletcher

Since the beginning of the twentieth century, the translation of Tang poems in English had started a rising trend. The publication of Fletcher’s two volumes, Gems of Chinese Verse: Translated into English Verse (1918) and More Gems of Chinese Poetry: Translated into English Verse (1919), as translation works of Tang poetry exclusively, marked the milestone of transition from the initial stage to its in-depth development in the propagation process of English-translated Tang poems. Fletcher was a diplomat appointed by the British government to work in its consulate in China, so he had the opportunity to visit many places on the mainland. Somehow, very little information can be found about his life. It is documented in The China Year Book, published in London in 1913, that Lionel Giles was appointed ﬁrst assistant in the British consulate in China in July 1909, and Fletcher received the same appointment in May 1911. Giles came to Beijing less than 2 years earlier than Fletcher, and they were likely colleagues. However, Fletcher might not have become a professional sinologist later in his life because no other works on sinology research by him have been found apart from the above two works of translation.

7.1 Gems of Chinese Verse and More Gems of Chinese Poetry

The author’s forewords to the two books were written in Fuzhou, Quanzhou, and Guangzhou. From this, we can infer that Fletcher became acquainted and fell in love with Tang poetry during his sojourn in China, where he experienced its widespread and profound inﬂuence, and then proceeded with his translation. Both books started with a poem “To Li Po and Tu Fu” composed by Fletcher, in Fuzhou in 1917 and in Quanzhou in 1918. The body of each book consists of three sections: “Works by Li Bai,”“Works by Du Fu,” and “Works by Other Poets.”

© Foreign Language Teaching and Research Publishing Co., Ltd 111 and Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany 2018 L. Jiang, A History of Western Appreciation of English-translated Tang Poetry, China Academic Library, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-56352-6_7 112 7 British Diplomat William J. B. Fletcher

The first book consists of 181 poems in total, including 36 poems by Li Bai, 45 poems by Du Fu, and 100 poems by other poets. In the section of other poets’ poems, JiāoJiéfù Xíng (焦节妇行) was actually written by Huang Jingren (黄景仁, 1749–1783), a poet of the Qing dynasty. Fletcher mistakenly put it here; hence, it should be eliminated and reckoned as 180 Tang poems in this book. The second book retained the same format, and carried a dedication entitled “To Ta Tung” besides the short poem “To Li Po and Tu Fu.” The main content includes 105 Tang poems in total, of which 17 were by Li Bai, 30 by Du Fu, and 58 poems by other poets. There is no overlapping between the large scale of 285 poems in total in the two books, which presented representative Tang poets and their various writing styles substantially. For each poem, both the Chinese and English versions are provided. Fletcher did not explain the sources and/or his principles in selecting these poems. However, the poems selected showed that his range of selection had gone beyond 300 Tang Poems (唐诗三百首). In addition, it is worth noting that Fletcher always placed Wang Wei as the first poet in the third section, and the quantity of his poems selected was only next to those of Li Bai and Du Fu. Fletcher was the earliest Tang poetry translator to pay attention to the distinct style of Wang Wei’s poetry and to recognize him as one of the outstanding Tang poets. “A translation can never equal the original any closer than paste can imitate the real gem: and this is particularly true of poetry, wherein the cream and essence of a language finds its highest and most ethereal expression.” Fletcher started the introduction to Gems of Chinese Verse with a passionate poetic essay. He was not unaware of the hardship of “translating,” but indeed, “the poems are essentially sketches of Nature, written by true lovers of China’s grand scenery, amid ruins of famous dynasties and the memories of immortal beauties,” and hence they were worthwhile to be loudly praised and greatly promulgated to Europeans. Tang poetry offered not only the pleasure of reading, but also enlightenment of life. “For in the Chinese language there are practically no abstract nouns and for such the Chinese has borrowed terms from his one great Master Nature.” Therefore, he felt obliged, through his translation, to present these beautiful poems to Western readers and wanted them to boat on the Yangtze River and stroll in the temples and mountains in the moonlight with these Tang poets, “—then will he know the value of the T’ang poetry; there will he find Peace.” Translations of Du Fu’s poems outnumbered those of Li Bai’s by 20 in the two books of Fletcher, but he showed equal love for the two shining stars in the history of classical Chinese poetry. As a reader who grew up in the midst of Western culture, two short poems of his own at the beginning showed his admiration for these two great Chinese poets, who were born thousands of years earlier than himself.

To Li Po And Tu Fu To Li Po And Tu Fu Li Po and Tu Fu, pardon that I come, The earth reﬂects the moon beam’s silver ray, Lone Nature’s pilgrim from a foreign shore, The bee yet gathers fragrance from the rose. (continued) 7.1 Gems of Chinese Verse and More Gems of Chinese Poetry 113

(continued) With you across the misty hills to roam Then scorn not, if beneath your Milky Way And see the dragons carry you once more My river’s shadow flows! To peaks aflame with sunset; to adore Kiungchow, 28th June, 1918 In Nature’s shrine, as ye were wont of yore; To see the Iris ride the torrent’s foam, And ruins where high mansions stood before, The moonbeams glinting on the broken dome, While some shrill flute the fallen time deplore. Forgive the humble heart and feeble thought, The faltering fingers that the echo wrought Of your sweet woodland lore! Foochow, 1917

Facing Li Bai and Du Fu, Fletcher was humble; facing Tang poems, he was filled with awe in the process of translation. He always likened himself to the shadow of Tang poets, and his translations to imitations. He said that if he might compare the original texts to flowers, then he might have been able to draw the shape of the flowers and describe the colors, but he could not assimilate the scent. “I fear that I may lose the delicacy and subtlety of these poems,” he proclaimed. It is not clear whether he had been guided by Giles or he was influenced by Giles’ theories of translation—poems must be rhymed; translation must retain the form and be faithful to the original texts. Except for the titles of the poems, which he usually gave by his own interpretation of their content, Fletcher’s translations were quite close in style to those of Giles. They both adopted a literal rhyming format. Giles’ translations strove to reflect the original “look” of classical Chinese poems in form; that is to say, Giles’ translations were greatly bonded by the rules of classical Chinese poetry. Fletcher’s translations for general readers paid more attention to the readability of the English versions and strove to make the translations closer in form to English poems so as to increase their intelligibility. He was somewhat like Cranmer-Byng and Waley in this respect. But he did not attempt to create a new style of poetry through translation as Waley did, so the form of English poems he referred to was relatively old-fashioned. In a word, Fletcher’s principle of literal translation with rhyme was in accordance with that of Giles, but he rendered the poems more freely than Giles did.

7.2 Characteristics of Fletcher’s Translation

Dr. Hargrove, Professor of English Literature at Yale University, introduced Fletcher’s work in the preface to Gems of Chinese Verse (1918): “Iamno Sinologue and cannot vouch for the accuracy of the translations, but I know this is true poetry. So well has the work been done that I am sure thousands of readers of the Occident as well as of the Orient will rejoice with me over the production of this 114 7 British Diplomat William J. B. Fletcher book of verse and there will be calls for more from the author.” This review evaluated Fletcher’s work not as a piece of translation but as a collection of poetry with a strong Oriental ﬂavor. We must go back to Fletcher’s work to explore more:

The Moon Shines Everywhere 静夜思 By Fletcher (1918, p. 25) 李白 Seeing the Moon beams by my couch so bright, 床前明月光, I thought hoar frost had fallen in the night. 疑是地上霜。 On the clear Moon I gazed with lifted eyes: 举头望明月, Then hid them full of home’s sweet memories. 低头思故乡。

In previous chapters, we compared Giles’ translation with Cranmer-Byng’s re-rendering of the same piece by Li Bai. In terms of composition, Fletcher was not as sentimental as Cranmer-Byng, but his diction was much more lucid than that of Giles. Similar to Giles and to many others mentioned before, Fletcher had also lived in China for a long time, so he had an insight into Chinese culture and customs as well as into typical patterns of expression which he had encountered through his personal experiences. In addition, his profound knowledge of the Chinese language also prevented him from producing any translations that were too farfetched from the original texts. He would not expand or clip words, or even change the scenario of the original, as Cranmer-Byng had done, or compromise the original meaning for the sake of rhyming. Broadly, his style of translation was in between those of Giles and Cranmer-Byng: more gracious than the former and more accurate than the latter. In terms of poetic form, Fletcher also attempted to reﬂect the tone patterns of Chinese poems—trying to make stressed English syllables correspond to each Chinese character. However, he was not as natural and mature as Waley was in achieving the task, and he was apparently rather reserved in wording and phrasing.

We Three 月下独酌 By Fletcher (1919, p. 75) 李白 One pot of wine amid the Flowers. 花间一壶酒, Alone I pour, and none with me. 独酌无相亲。 The cup I lift; the Moon invite; 举杯邀明月, Who with my shadow makes us three. 对影成三人。 The Moon then drinks without a pause. 月既不解饮, The shadow does what I begin. 影徒随我身。 The shadow, Moon and I in fere. 暂伴月将影, Rejoice until the Spring come in. 行乐须及春。 I sing: and wavers time the Moon. 我歌月徘徊, I dance: the shadow antics too. 我舞影零乱。 Our joys we share while sober still. 醒时同交欢, When drunk, we part and bid adieu. 醉后各分散。 Of loveless outing this the pact, 永结无情游, Which we all swear to keep for aye. 相期邈云汉。 The next time that we meet shall be Beside you distant Milky Way. 7.2 Characteristics of Fletcher’s Translation 115

Fletcher translated “Yuèxià Dúzhuó” (月下独酌) into “We Three” from his habit of translating original titles freely. Every sentence of his translation had five-stressed syllables corresponding to five Chinese characters in the original, so the form was neat and the tone was rhythmic. In content, except for the translation mistakes—bùjiě (不解, do not understand) was translated into “without a pause” and jí (及, on time) into “until,”—his English version was a faithful representation of the original poem and was closer to the original than the translation of the American sinologist W. Martin. The last part, “yǒngjié wúqíng yóu, xiāngqī miǎo yúnhàn” (永结无情游, 相期邈云汉), was too complicated, which, made Fletcher think that one five-stressed-syllable line was not sufficient to interpret the internal meaning. So he extended the two lines into four: “Of loveless outing this pact, / which we all swear to keep for aye. / The next time that we meet shall be / Beside you distant Milky Way.” In this way, the original meaning was retained and each of the four lines formed a stanza in the English version. Different from Giles’ way of reflecting the form of the original, Fletcher paid more attention to the form of the translated version, which is another outstanding feature of his translation. Translating proper nouns with particular historical and cultural meanings is always a great challenge. Different methods were adopted in dealing with those words by different translators. Taking examples from previous chapters, we find that E. H. Parker’s free translation of “jiéshíbǎn” (碣石板) into “the Palace Rock” and “yānzhāowáng” (燕昭王) into “the great king;” Joseph Edkins employed the word-for-word method in translating “qīnglíng quán” (清冷泉) into “Clear Cold Fountain” and Giles had “huánghè lóu” (黄鹤楼) into “Yellow-Crane Kiosque.” We can also find examples of the transcription of the pronunciation of Chinese characters, followed by the translator’s decision whether or not to add annotations according to the contents of the poems, as was Waley’s common practice. Sometimes, translators merely omitted proper names as much as possible, as in W. Martin’s translations. Fletcher dealt with these proper nouns flexibly. Based on his understanding of the poems, he adopted free translation, literal translation or omission accordingly. In his translation of Li Bai’s “Sòng Chǔyōng zhī wǔchāng” (送储邕之武昌), he omitted the person’s name and translated the title into “To Wuchang;”“huánghè lóu” (黄鹤楼) translated into “Huang Ho Lou” was a character transliteration, and chǔrén(楚人) rendered into “Hupeh men” was a literal translation. He added an annotation at the end of the poem to explain that the term “Hupeh man” referred to “jìbù” (季布) and, specifically, that it was a classical allusion to being very serious about making and keeping a promise. Yet, Fletcher’s method of approaching translation was not always consistent. For the line “hǎiwàitúwéngèng jiǔzhōu” (海外徒闻更九洲) in Li Shangyin’s poem “Mǎ Wéi” (马嵬), he translated “jiǔzhōu” (九洲) into “nine-fold world,” which was a literal translation without an annotation; for the line “Qútáng Yànyùduī” (瞿塘滟滪堆)inLiBai’s “ChánggānXíng” (长干行), “Qútáng” (瞿塘) translated into “Chü-Tang Gorge” and “Yànyùduī” (滟滪堆) rendered “Yen-Yü’s billow” are the examples of a transliteration plus free translation; in another line “zǎowǎnxià sānbā” (早晚下三巴) in the same poem, “sānbā” (三巴) was a free translation into 116 7 British Diplomat William J. B. Fletcher

“the gorges”; and in another line “zhízhì Chángfēngshā” (直至长风沙), the place name Chángfēngshā (长风沙) was translated into “the sand the wind ﬂies,” which was an overly interpreted transliteration. It is obvious that Fletcher’s literal translation was not as strict as that practiced by academic sinologists. Sometimes, in order to achieve brevity and ﬂuency in the English version, Fletcher not only overlooked and/or omitted these proper nouns; he even created a line according to his understanding of the original. An example of this is his translation “YīzhōuGē” (伊洲歌) by Jin Changxu (金昌绪):

A Lover’s Dream 伊洲歌 By Fletcher (1918, p. 237) 金昌绪 Oh, drive the golden orioles, 打起黄莺儿, From off the tree. 莫教枝上啼。 Their warbling broke the dream wherein. 啼时惊妾梦, My lover smiled to me. 不得到辽西。

In the English translation, the last line “bù dé dàoLiáoxī” (不得到辽西) was replaced with “My lover smiled to me,” which did not exist in the original texts. But in fact, it highlighted the theme of the poem. In this poem, the heroine drove the Orioles off from the tree because their chirping, though clear and beautiful, broke her dream. This dream was not a usual dream but a sweet dream in which she meets with her lover. When it comes to this meaning, “My lover smiled to me” is clearer and more beautiful than the mechanically literal equivalence of “Liáoxī” (辽西), the name of a strange place, for English readers. Fletcher also kept the ballad style of the original as well. The exclamatory word added at the beginning was very expressive in portraying the dynamic posture and feelings of the bashfulness and annoyance of a young woman whose sweet but unspeakable dream was interrupted. Fletcher only partially translated the second line by omitting “to stop them from warbling” (莫教啼), because the meaning was conveyed in the next sentence and there was no need to repeat it. Overall, Fletcher’s translation represented narrative ﬂashback and the coherent structure of the original rather smoothly: to drive the Orioles away is to stop them from making noises, which might disturb her dream. For what was the fear of having her sweet dream disturbed? Jin Changxu did not state it, and Fletcher left only a hint. They both left room for readers to imagine and contemplate beyond the words of the poem.

7.3 Limitations of Fletcher’s Translation

As a way to literary expression of human emotions, words can only make sense within a specific cultural context. It is hard to achieve cultural transmission in the translation process based on transfer from one language to another. Despite their love for Tang poetry, their knowledge of the Chinese language, and their familiarity with Chinese society, these British and American translators still faced great 7.3 Limitations of Fletcher’s Translation 117 challenges in translating Tang poems that contained allusions, proverbs, idioms, and puns. Due to a plethora of differences between the cultures of the West and the East, the number of “allusions” in classical Chinese poetry is considerably more difficult for Western readers to interpret than they were to native Chinese. Those elements, then, created traps for translation, which might cause losses or distort poetic images. Some translators, such as Waley, who strongly opposed using allusions, would often avoid choosing poems that contained allusions when they selected Chinese poems to translate. Later, the American poet Amy Lowell and the sinologist Florence W. Ayscough, treated allusions in the same way when they collaboratively translated Fir-flower Tablets. Such a practice, needless to say, would keep many excellent Tang poems from being translated. Other translators, such as Cranmer-Byng and W. Martin, would choose to avoid translating allusions in the poems they selected. This would inevitably result in inadequate representation of the original. Giles, a meticulous scholar who advocated absolute faithfulness to the original text, was reluctant to omit allusions entirely and tried to keep them as much as he could. As we saw in the previous chapter, he kept a large number of images which were relevant to ancient Chinese myths, such as “osmanthus in the moonlight” (月中桂树), “jade rabbits made the medicine” (玉兔捣药), “Hou Yi shot the sun” (后羿射日), and so on, when translating Li Bai’s “Gǔ Lǎngyuè Xíng” (古朗月行). Consequently, his English version, with his abstruse diction and syntax, totally baffled and confused his target readers. Fletcher attempted to solve this problem with a compromise. Generally speaking, when he came across allusions or puns, he would translate them literally and add some annotations if their meanings could not be clearly shown in the English version. For some words that he thought were difficult for English readers to understand, such as “éméi” (蛾眉, arched eyebrows), “zhūlián” (珠帘, bead cur- tains), and “hóngdòu” (红豆, red bean), he would add annotations behind them, and even select some English verses with similar settings or images for readers to refer to, so that general Western readers might better perceive the allusions and understand properly. As was noted previously, one outstanding characteristic of Fletcher’s translation is his devotion to transferring his understanding of Tang poems into poetic English, without being confined to the mechanical equivalence to the original. That is to say, whether or not the translation was accurate depended on how thoroughly Fletcher comprehended the meanings of the original poems. Let us review one of Fletcher’s translations of Li Bai’s poems first:

The Boating Party 渌水曲 By Fletcher (1918, p. 25) 李白 The River clear- the Autumn Moon so bright- 渌水明秋月, We pluck the South Lake’s bridal ﬂowers white. 南湖采白蘋。 The maiden water lilies seem to speak: 荷花娇欲语, And tinge with shame each boat borne wanton’s cheek. 愁杀荡舟人。 118 7 British Diplomat William J. B. Fletcher

Joseph Edkins translated the same poem in 1890 and had two versions: a literal translation and a free one. We could see from the discussion in Chapter Four that Edkins’ translation strayed from the original text. Even in the literal text, there appeared an invented character: a desperate fisherman who did not exist in the original. Edkins also split the heroine from one character into two—one boating and the other picking báipíng (白蘋). Then, in Edlkins’ version, the heroine in the moonlight is one artistic image, and the fisherman watching her in the distance is another. In comparison, Fletcher’s translation restored the original image penned by Li Bai—the heroine picking while boating under the bright moonlight on the lake. However, the artistic image of the heroine in Fletcher’s translation was totally different, due to his misunderstanding of the noun báipíng, which is a key image in Li Bai’s original. Báipíng is a type of aquatic growth, commonly called “watercress,” which can be found everywhere in the wetlands of South China in summer time. The whole plant can be used as an herb. People also take its seedlings as vegetables, or the whole plant for animal fodder. Therefore, picking báipíng is a routine practice for Chinese farmers, especially young women who live in watery regions. This plant grew just above the surface of the water, usually low and in between water lilies. So it can only be picked at night, when the summer heat cools down. “Girls picking báipíng under the moon by boat” is a typical image of the summer wetlands in many classical Chinese writings, starting with poems in The Book of Songs. Li Bai did not make it clear whether there was one person or a group of people in the picture, but it was certain that she was or they were young, hardworking and beautiful. “Héhuā jiāoyùyǔ,chóushā dàngzhōurén” (荷花娇欲语, 愁杀荡舟人) described the moment when the women raised their heads from picking, saw the lotus blooming in the moon, and were amazed by the beauty of these flowers; suddenly, they felt a bit bashful because their own beauty was outshone by these flowers. By presenting this typical scene of an autumn night in the South, with no chill atmosphere, no sense of depression, an evening vigorous and even better than a spring night—Li Bai was expressing his joyful mood. Obviously, neither Edlkins nor Fletcher understood the connotation of Li Bai’s expression. Edlkins translated báipíng into “water shield,” which was acceptable. But the overall poetical feelings of his English versions were a murky gray. Fletcher not only translated it into “white flowers,” but also added an annotation to explain that it was a kind of flower that was used to decorate the bride’s car in Western countries. By translating the title into “The Boating Party,” Fletcher showed that he believed that there were more than one or two persons who went boating, and his misunderstanding of this single word caused him to misinterpret the purpose for their boating: he thought they were just playing. As traditional Chinese women were to be virtuous, quiet, and sedate, this group of young girls playing out at night did not fit the image of decency. From here, Fletcher blundered in his translation of the last line “chóushā dàngzhōurén” (愁杀荡舟人). The combination of these three Chinese characters “dàngzhōu-rén” (荡舟-人) was a verb-objective compound, which literally meant “boating person/people.” Fletcher interpreted it as “dàng-zhōurén” (荡-舟人), and then the first character became a modifier, conveying the meaning of “a dissipated person/people boating.” When he 7.3 Limitations of Fletcher’s Translation 119 selected the word “wanton” in his translation for correspondence, the meaning and the theme of Li Bai’s positive appreciation of the night was suddenly turned into sheer reproach. Then, Fletcher added an endnote to his translation by quoting a verse from the American poet Poe’s “Dreamland”: “Their still waters still and chilly with the snow of the lolling lily.” And he emphasized the contrast between the quiet and serene scenery and the unbridled and crazy actions of the boating women. Thus, Fletcher’s misunderstanding of Li Bai’s poem worsened and his distortion was beyond correction. Even for someone like Fletcher, who was proficient in the Chinese language, sometimes it was still a difficult task to achieve an accurate understanding of the whole poem. It was not so hard for Fletcher to find the connotation of some commonly and directly quoted allusions like “wūshānyúnyǔ” (巫山云雨, Wushan’s clouds and rain), “Niúláng Zhīnǚ” (牛郎织女, the cowherd and the weaving girl), or “Lújiā Mòchóu” (卢家莫愁, the girl named Mochou from Lu’s family), among others. When allusions in the original were paraphrased or indirectly quoted, the case would become very complicated. Fletcher often guessed the meanings of certain word combinations based on his knowledge of the spoken language, and this surely caused distortion. The problem was most plainly displayed in his translation of “Jǐnsè” (锦瑟) by Li Shangyin:

The Inlaid Psaltery 锦瑟 By Fletcher (1919, p. 98) 李商隐 The inlaid psaltery fifty chords has; and I know no reason why. 锦瑟无端五十弦, And every chord and every nut vibrates like youth’s fond memory. 一弦一柱思华年。 Sedately born, in morning’s dream like butterflies we madly fly. 庄生晓梦迷蝴蝶, Then passion gazing on our lord yearns with the cuckoo’s wailing cry. 望帝春心托杜鹃。 When on the sea the moon is bright, hard pearls are born like 沧海月明珠有泪, tears of woe. On Fertile Fields where shone the Sun, the gem is lost in mists below. 蓝田日暖玉生烟。 Such thoughts as these had I recalled, my tears had not such cause to 此情可待成追忆, flow. But ah! Transported from myself, I then forgot what now I know. 只是当时已惘然。

The theme of this poem, according to scholar Dong Naibin (董乃斌), is nostalgia, that is, sentiments about one’s own past. Dong points out that Li Shangyin had a very distinct style in his poetic creation, and he was good at using melancholy and perpetual images to describe the mental trauma caused by numerous realities, as well as expressing the sad emotions of his inner heart (Dong Naibin 2005, pp. 60–63). Li Shangyin’s melancholy made “Jǐnsè” the most complicated poem among all his works, even for native poets and scholars to understand fully. So it was hardly possible for Fletcher to avoid misinterpretation or losses in translating this poem, even though his translation was rather plain in diction and syntax. Full of sad emotions and memories of the past, it seemed close enough to the theme of the original—recalling days gone by. However, while Li Shangyin’s 120 7 British Diplomat William J. B. Fletcher poem merely revealed feelings, especially in the two lines in the middle, it was not a direct description of real scenery. Fletcher rendered fictitious elements into real things due to his literal understanding of the verses in the poem. In his annotation, Fletcher faithfully translated the descriptive paragraph from the archaic Chinese record Zhōulǐ Á Yuèqì Tú (周礼Á乐器图, Pictures of Musical Instruments in Zhou Etiquette), to explain what “inlaid psaltery” was. He even referenced the legend “Jiāorén” (鲛人, merman) as Dong Naibin did to explain the allusion in the verse of tears turning into pearls “cānghǎiyuèmíng zhū yǒulèi” (沧海月明珠有泪, mermen weep their pearly tears down a moon-green sea). But, indeed, in the line “Zhuāngshēng xiǎomèng mí húdié” (庄生晓梦迷蝴蝶, the sage Chuang Zi is day-dreaming, bewitched by butterflies), the word “Zhuāngshēng” (庄生) referring to the ancient Chinese philosopher Zhuang Zi was not the verb “Sedately born.” In the following, strictly antithetical line, “Wàngdì chūnxīntuō dùjuān” (望帝春心托杜鹃, the spring-heart of Emperor Wang is crying in a cuckoo), “Wàngdì” (望帝) was also a noun, and referred to an immortal character, not the action of “gazing on the lord.” His translation and annotation about the place name “Lántián” (蓝田) in the line “Lántiánrìnuǎnyù shēngyān” (蓝田日暖玉生烟, the sun is warm at Lantian, the jade emits mist) was even more farfetched. Fletcher translated this word into “fertile fields,” and said in the annotation that it was a land rich in blue gems, a metaphor for “women become pregnant.” In general, Fletcher’s “The Inlaid Psaltery” became a grievance poem in which a deserted woman was recalling old things and grieving about former days. This totally departed from the artistic feelings of Li Shangyin’s original poem, which employs a series of allusions and metaphors to describe his experiences of lamenting the fleetness of time, his wasted talent, and his lost dreams. This phenomenon is an obvious shortcoming in Fletcher’s translation. Apart from the two examples above, there were many other misunderstandings and dis- tortions. For example, he translated the word “húnyù” (浑欲, almost cannot) in the last line “húnyù bùshèng zān” (浑欲不胜簪)ofDuFu’s “ChūnWàng” (春望) into “my own foolish wishes”; he turned the noun phrase “qīngxīng” (清兴, aesthetic mood) in the line “qīngxīng shǔ liángchū” (清兴属凉初) from Meng Haoran’s “XīshānXúnXīn’è” (西山寻辛谔) into a verb phrase, “rise at dawn”; he interpreted “gū” (姑, mother-in-law) into “aunties” in the line of “wèiāngū shíxìng” (未谙姑食性) from Wang Jian’s “XīnJiàniáng” (新嫁娘), and so on.

7.4 Review of Fletcher’s Academic Contribution

In the few decades of the process of the propagation of classical Chinese literature into the English-speaking world, Giles, Cranmer-Byng, Fletcher, and others were credited with a principal status in the initial stage of the endeavor. Fletcher’s two books, joined together as the ﬁrst monograph of a collection of the English translation Tang poetry, had pioneering signiﬁcance in the history of the dissemination of Tang poetry, and even of classical Chinese literature, to the West. 7.4 Review of Fletcher’s Academic Contribution 121

In terms of the contents, although the two anthologies did not exhaust all Tang poets, they included representative poets from every period of Tang poetry: the initial Tang, the prosperous Tang, the middle Tang, and the late Tang. Translated Tang poems outnumbered all previous texts of a similar category, covered different styles of Tang poetry, including ancient style, modern style, new poetry, new Yue Fu, and poems with diverse themes, including history, scenery, and affections. Taken together, they systematically presented the prosperity and varied artistic features of poetry in Tang dynasty to Western readers. When the Western world began to discover the Chinese spirit from classical Chinese literature, readers realized that classical Chinese poetry was the most typical representation of classical Chinese literature, and that Tang poetry was the most authoritative segment of classical Chinese poetry. Among the galaxy of poets in the Tang dynasty, Li Bai, with his carefree and unruly personality, as well as his bold, uninhibited and romantic poetic style, was the first to draw the attention of Westerners. Until the 1920s and 1930s, almost every translator chose Li Bai and his works as a major figure in their translations. Even Waley, who had a serious misunderstanding and a deep prejudice against Li Bai, had a work of translations of Li Bai’s poems exclusively. There is no doubt that, to Western readers, Li Bai was the prime representative of Tang poets and classical Chinese poetry. “Although The Book of Songs was the first anthology to be introduced to Western countries, it was translated by Westerners as Confucian work, which was not as well-known as Li Bai in the West. Western people began to know more about Chinese poetry and feel the influence of it from Li Bai. In Western countries, people who have some knowledge of China would first mention Li Bai when talking about Chinese poetry. He was more famous than Du Fu.” (Qin Huanming 2000 [2]) Although in some books of Chinese culture and literature there were texts stating that “Li Bai and Du Fu were the greatest poets in the Tang dynasty,” Fletcher, in his process of translation, was the first to recognize both of them clearly as having an equally important status. Of course, Fletcher’s translation contains some “errors” to be discussed concerning faithfulness and expressiveness. The cultural barrier that caused misunderstanding and misinterpretation of Tang poems as reflected in his translation was a common obstacle that all translators would encounter. Similar obstacles were also difficult to overcome even in the much later stage of translation of classical Chinese poetry. In fact, for any culture to absorb nourishment and benefit from other cultures throughout human history, such twists as misunderstanding and/or overinterpretation are hardly avoidable. Moving through these twists, Tang poetry and other Chinese cultural elements entered the Western context and enlightened English-speaking readers from outside their own culture. Therefore, in examining the works of Fletcher and other translators, we should not measure their losses and gains in typical “old Chinese ways” of interpreting Tang poetry. Instead, their earnestness, initiative, and passionate spirit in actively promoting Tang poems in the Western world should be greatly appreciated. Fletcher wrote in “To Da Tang” of More Gems of Chinese Poetry: “My heart had never Venus thrilled: / my breast had passion never filled: / Mine art perchance had 122 7 British Diplomat William J. B. Fletcher never brought / to thee these Gems of ancient thought. / Then on sweet affection’s string, / These Gems about thy neck I fling. / for they upon thy breast will shine / with twice the beauty that is mine.” These few lines fully expressed his awe and admiration for the profound and beautiful Chinese culture. It is not hard to conceive the great efforts he put into translating the two anthologies under the circumstances of the time. Fletcher’s respect and approval of the poetical culture of the Tang dynasty left a striking mark in the process of the propagation of Tang poems to the West and in promoting dialogue and communication between the East and the West. From the aspect of acceptance, literary work is created to be read, and its significance and value can only be realized in the reading process. Literary works provide something for readers to appreciate, but at the same time, they also need readers’ recognition. Fletcher’s witty, brief, and elegant translations were loved by readers and had a lasting influence, which is an obvious proof of the value of his two books. Gems of Chinese Verse and More Gems of Chinese Poetry were circulated throughout America as soon as they were published. During the time span of 1924– 1926, the woman composer Phyllis Mary James composed vocal pieces from Fletcher’s translation of “Jiéfù Yín” (节妇吟, “The Retort Courteous”) by Zhang Ji (张继), “Guī Yuàn” (闺怨, “Longing”) by Wang Changling (王昌龄), “Yǒng Liǔhuā” (咏柳花, “The Song of the Willow Flowers”) by Xue Neng (薛能), and “Huā Fā Shànglín” (花发上林, “Your Garden Flowers”) by Wang Bo (王勃). These songs were published by the Augener Music Publication Company, and sung widely. In November 2002, the District of Columbia Federation of Music Clubs held “a concert of women composers,” in which a solo was sung—the “Song of Endless Sorrow” (长恨歌, “ChánghènGē”), which was composed by the Chinese composer Wang An-ming and based on Bai Juyi’s poem, which had been translated by Fletcher as, “The Ballad of Endless Woe.” In 1966, the combination of Fletcher’s two translations was published again in New York and has since been reprinted many times. At present, his works have been collected in major libraries in many English-speaking countries. They are regarded as required reading for majors like Asian Studies, Chinese Studies, and Comparative Literature in many American universities. These two books were also circulated to Japan, Southeast Asia, and other regions later, and provided material for research about the evolution, poetical theories, and artistic characteristics of Tang poetry. As a foreigner sojourning in China, Fletcher demonstrated extraordinary and admirable courage and made great efforts in promoting Tang poetry in the West. Although his translations had some limitations, which any creative work could hardly avoid, they represented the highest accomplishment and the apogee of the first wave of translation, research, and transformation of Tang poetry and its elements into the English-speaking world. References 123 References Chinese References

Dong Naibin:《李商隐诗》,北京:人民文学出版社,2005年版。 Fletcher, William J. B. (1918). 英译唐诗选/Gems Of Chinese Verse. Shanghai: Commercial Press, LTD. Fletcher, William J. B. (1919). 英译唐诗选续集/More Gems Of Chinese Verse. Shanghai: Commercial Press, LTD. Qin Huanming:《中国文化的西传与李白诗-以英、美及法国为中心》,《美国唐学会会刊》, 2000 (Vol.2)。 Part II The Developing Stage Chapter 8 The Propagation of Tang Poetry in the West: Historical Background and Characteristics of Its Developing Stage

Due to historical relations between the two countries, Britain and the United States interacted frequently in cultural and academic exchanges. Many important books of Tang poetry translation and research published in Britain were sold in the United States. Meanwhile, the center of sinology study had been moved from Britain to the United States since the turn of the last century. The proliferation of English-translated Tang poetry, though in its developing stage, reached its first peak before World War II. The outbreak of World War I (1914–1918) brought great disaster to human society. Many cities and rural areas of the belligerent countries were turned into ruins, and a large number of schools, libraries, railways, bridges, and other public facilities were destroyed. Economic loss, according to statistics, amounted to more than 270 billion dollars. The lack of social and economic development brought about a disruption in academic research, and British sinologists were gravely affected. Under that burden, and with the restriction of state interests upon sinology research, classical Chinese literature research among British sinologists was mired in stagnation, lacking impetus to continue. Meanwhile, American sinologists were able to attract a large number of textual and human resources from Europe, and sinology research in the United States developed rapidly as a result of favorable national policy and sufficient funds from the Rockefeller Foundation and other groups. It became more scientific, professional and specialized. The study of classical Chinese literature was not a major issue of concerned for American scholars at that time. In 1902, for example, when Columbia University established its East Asian Studies Department, Herbert A. Giles was invited to give six lectures, whose topics were “The Chinese Language,”“A Chinese Library,” “Democratic China,”“Chinese and Ancient Greece,”“Taoism,” and “Some Chinese Manners and Customs.” During his visiting for a whole year, this great British sinologist, well known for his accomplishment in the study of classical Chinese literature, did not conduct a single seminar on the topic of this special- ization. Here, we can see the indifference among American sinologists toward research on classical Chinese literature. The so-called “sinology” in the United

© Foreign Language Teaching and Research Publishing Co., Ltd 127 and Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany 2018 L. Jiang, A History of Western Appreciation of English-translated Tang Poetry, China Academic Library, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-56352-6_8 128 8 The Propagation of Tang Poetry in the West: Historical …

States had deviated from Europe in the traditional sense of the research ﬁeld, and had been replaced with “China studies,” which was closely related to the interests of the State, including military defense, foreign policy, expansion, and other associated area of concern. The so-called “China studies,” with a model which combined professional knowledge in certain areas with social science research methods, offered a leading research motivation to interdisciplinary researchers and scholars. Within the framework of an interdisciplinary research model, many of the “real” Chinese researchers also worked in different departments, such as history, sociology, and political science, where they taught and did research work. The main research object of these scholars was the modern Chinese political system, China’s present social status, and other issues within the social sciences. “China studies” was ﬁnancially assisted by a generous military defense budget and several foundations, with their basic data construction, personnel training, organizational construction, and other functions aiming at supporting the academic world in exploring ways to solve the “China problem.” The conventional European sinology research model was largely ignored, and traditional Chinese language, culture, philosophy, and literary research were widely considered out of date and unattractive. This change of academic atmosphere occurred in the United States also greatly affected the whole direction of Western sinology research. Therefore, from the beginning of the 20s or 30s of the twentieth century, although some books on Tang poetry translation by British and American sinologists were published, compared with the climax of Tang poetry translation and paraphrasing in American literary and art circles, Tang poetry translation in this period was relatively minimal in scope, a situation that lasted for a long time. It was not until after the 70s that genuine, academic Tang poetry translation and research in the academia started to revive.

8.1 Historical Review of American Cultural Concern and Absorption of Chinese Culture

America is a young nation. Due to the limitations of historical condition and social environment, the soil that nourished Native American culture remained poor long after its independence. With its victory in the second war of independence in 1814, the United States finally cleared the remnants of British colonialism, and thus provided a sovereign guarantee for the country’s independence and steady development. Since then, the American people, especially those of the educated upper class who were aware of the importance of establishing a culture with its own characteristics, were actively involved in an attempt to free themselves from the shackles of colonial culture. Nothing is more directly related to the national characteristics of literature than the writer’s native language. In 1828, the linguist Noah Webster (1758–1843) 8.1 Historical Review of American Cultural Concern … 129 published his An American Dictionary of the English, and from then on the concept “American Language” was formally proposed. Webster states, “A national language is a band of national union. Every engine should be employed to render the people of this country national; to call their attachments home to their own country; and to inspire them with the pride of the national character.” (Webster, 1789. pp. 393–98; 405–6) In August 1837, Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882), a famous writer and transcendentalist philosopher at Harvard University, delivered his speech entitled The American Scholar, declaring an end to the age when the American literary art had to imitate the European one. He called on American writers not to continue their explorations in the shadow of the European cultural tradition. He also urged them to demonstrate their national pride in their own language, freely and bravely reflect the local social life in the United States in their writing. This speech caused a sensation, and was later regarded as America’s “declaration of independence of the mind.” However, even in the Dictionary of the American Language, a large number of examples had to be quoted from British literature. Regardless of Webster’s emphasis on the differences between British and American pronunciation and vocabulary, he still could not determine the meaning of “independent” to make “American” truly become an “independent” language. Thus, for the United States, European culture is foreign, but not heterogeneous. On the one hand, American culture, in the process of its development, tried to get rid of the influence of European culture. On the other hand, for quite a long period of time, it failed to extricate itself fully from European culture, especially English culture. So American culture, pacing between the traditional European style and its local original pattern, has always been closely linked to European culture and the two cultures have permeated each other. In the process of seeking to free itself from European culture and to create its own independent cultural character, American literary and art circles displayed a constant interest in the rich, heterogeneously cultural sources of Oriental literature and culture. Much earlier, via indirect trade, the influence of Chinese culture had penetrated into American society. Americans, like Europeans, were in their amazement filled with yearning for mysterious China. In Eastern coastal cities such as New York and Philadelphia, rich families took pride in possessing Chinese porcelain ware, tea, silk, and various small delicate ornaments. As a leader of literary thought in America of his time, Emerson was a typical representative of cultural trends during this period. In the process of constructing a transcendentalist thought system, he actively encouraged the American literary world to absorb the essence of Oriental culture as the basis of Western civilization, and to make efforts to selectively absorb it and fuse it into the construction of the new culture. He was editor-in-chief of The Dial,a magazine with a regular column for introducing Oriental culture, focusing on the thought of Confucius and Confucianism. He would quote Confucius and Mencius in his writing, and equated Confucius with Socrates and Jesus, believing that traditional Confucian moral doctrines had a universal value. Henry David Thoreau (1817– 1862), Emerson’s contemporary, studied Confucianism even more deeply. His 130 8 The Propagation of Tang Poetry in the West: Historical … representative work, Walden Lake,reflects a spiritual pursuit of philosophy and enlightenment from a life in harmony with nature and a life free from worldly hustle, bustle, and practical concerns, a pursuit significantly affected by Confucian philosophy. Emerson and Thoreau selectively adapted for the West this ancient and yet realistic Oriental idea of attaching importance to spirit and despising the material and developed it incisively and vividly. This part of Confucian thought was fully integrated into American culture embodied in classic American literary works. Since the Opium War in 1840, Western powers with fire and blood ended China’s self-isolation and brought calamity to the land. The areas that suffered most were Guangdong and Fujian. Large numbers of people from these two provinces began to “go abroad.” San Francisco was one of the major destinations in the U.S. for them, where they worked as coolies after landing. The experiences and suffering of this large group of immigrants living in concentrated residential areas naturally aroused the interest of some American journalists and writers. For example, Mark Twain once described them as ugly, selfish, foolish, and ludicrous. The negative impact combined with prejudices about China and the Chinese greatly compromised the image of the splendid traditional Chinese culture in Americans’ minds and caused Chinese culture to lose its luster. In 1868, the Rev. William Speer (1822–1904), who was then secretary of Presbyterian Education Committee of Philadelphia, published an article in Harper’s New Monthly entitled, “Democracy of the Chinese,” questioning Westerners’ views of the Chinese and the Chinese society. He opined, “It is greatly to be regretted that the sentiments of Americans in respect to China have been principally obtained from writers under monarchical influence—from those of Britain, which has bru- tally drugged her that she might rob her, or from French and Italian priests, who flattered and lauded her rulers that they might aggrandize themselves and their work… A fairer estimate of the Chinese will take the place, on the one extreme, of the blunders or misrepresentations as to her political character which held up their empire as a model despotism; and, on the other extreme, of the mistake and folly of those as to her moral character which painted her people as the most vicious or sensual of the heathen.” (Speer 1868 [Vol. 37], p. 839) Rev. Speer was not the only scholar who recognized the necessity of learning about China from a positive perspective. Almost every issue of Harper’s New Monthly carried articles introducing China or discussing Chinese problems. During the first two decades of the twentieth century, with the European introductions of Chinese poetry, profiles of Tang poetry were no longer rare in various writings about China and the Chinese in the U.S. In 1894, William A. P. Martin published his essay, “China Viewed from the Great Wall (A Historical Sketch),” in Hanlin Papers, introducing Tang poetry as the following: “In the T’ang dynasty (618– 905), poetry, which appeared in the rudest ages, attained its highest pitch of perfection, Li Po and Tu Fu being the Pope and Dryden of an age of poets. Chinese poetry comprehends every variety, except the epic, its place being filled by semi-poetical romances.” (Martin 1894 [Vol. 2], p. 26) In 1904, Lady Susan Townley published her My Chinese Note Book, a book to introduce Chinese history, philosophy, language, culture, and her own life 8.1 Historical Review of American Cultural Concern … 131 experiences in China. In the section “Concerning the Classics,” she explained the origin of Chinese literature. Her reference to Tang poetry was very similar to Martin’s words above, plus some legendary description of Li Bai and Du Fu. Compared with the situation before the civil war, these articles reflected some changes in the American attitude toward China’s ancient culture. Americans started to recognize the idea of that the art of Tang poetry represents the highest achievement of classical Chinese poetry. At the same time, people who had suffered from the scourge of World War I became melancholy and anguished, and some felt extremely pessimistic about the degeneration and declining of Western civilization. They believed that industrial- ism and the excessive development of science and technology had led to the plunder of natural resources and the destruction of human nature. Liang Qichao (梁启超), a famous scholar in modern China, traveled around Europe during 1918–1920. His impressions during this trip were compiled into a book, Ōuyóu Xīnyǐng Lù (欧游心影录, Reflections upon European Travel, 1919). Seeing postwar Europe with its fresh scars and sores, where people were confused, but who admired and yearned for Oriental culture, Liang was deeply touched. He wrote, “Recently, many Western scholars want to inject some Eastern civilization to make some adjustment in their own.” He also addressed Chinese and Western intellectuals, pointing out that the root cause of war lay in the defect of the Western way of thinking. He pointed out, “Religious people lay particular stress on the afterlife, and idealist philosophy pitches the mysterious, all removed and remote from the problems in life. Science is reactionary, where materialists prevail, and lofty ideals are lost.” (Liang Qichao 1984, p. 285) Liang Qichao’s words, to some extent, reflected Western scholars’ interest in promoting Chinese culture during the period, as well as the practical and ideological roots of the phenomenon. At the beginning of the twentieth century, many Western scholars traveled long distances to China to seek lost emotions and to find a remedy to save the Western culture from declining. They made speeches or wrote books, affirming that the basic spirit of Chinese culture was of great significance to the self-improvement of Western culture. From 1919 to 1921, the great philosopher Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) was invited to China to give lectures. In his book, Problem of China, Russell argued that Chinese should learn from advanced Western science and technology, while Westerners should learn from the Chinese way of life, in order to realize the complementary advantages of Eastern and Western cultures. He stressed that the Chinese had been implementing their traditional thinking for thousands of years. If the rest of the world adopted it, the whole world would be happier. He said, “I have traveled to the East, and I have much to hope for from China also.” (Russell 1924 Chinese version, p. 11) In 1919, just as the outbreak of the May Fourth Movement shocked the world, the famous American educator, pioneer of pragmatist philosophy and functional psychology John Dewey (1859–1952), made a trip to China at the invitation of Hu Shi (胡适) and other people to give lectures. He watched with great interest China’s ideological liberation movement, arguing that China’s coordinative morality and the Western aggressive morality each had its advantages and disadvantages, and that 132 8 The Propagation of Tang Poetry in the West: Historical … they should complement each other. He especially gave high praise to the Chinese philosophy of life: harmony with nature, law-abiding contentment, peace, and no complaining. The influence of these comments, to a certain extent, corrected the American mentality of despising Chinese culture. Meanwhile, a new modern poetry movement started in the poetic world of the United States, with American scholars living in Europe as the main force. To break away from the old tradition in order to create a new style, new American poets absorbed a large number of foreign influences, among which China’sinfluence held a particularly important position. Dong Hongchuan (董洪川), a well-known Chinese scholar, observed, “The development of history determines changes in the forms of its culture, and the occurrence of cultural migration and cultural influence is the logic requirements of domestic demand in the development of history.” (Dong 2001, p. 127) Perhaps, this view can be used to explain why Chinese culture did not have any special impact on English literature although there had been a large number of excellent Chinese cultural works previously translated into English in Britain, while in contrast, Chinese culture had an enduring influence on American literature, though in the United States not many Chinese cultural works had been translated in the last century. This, of course, involved many complex factors such as the structural patterns of some cultures. However, it cannot be denied that the “domestic demand” in the development of history was the main reason that a foreign culture was accepted or denied.

8.2 “The New Poetry Movement” and the First Wave of Tang Poetry Translation in the United States

As American poetry developed in the twentieth century, it saw the development of the styles of Edgar Allan Poe, Walt Whitman, Emily Dickinson, and Ralph Waldo Emerson, and these styles blended with each other, with Emerson’s having the biggest influence. In 1912, the famous poet and poetry critic Harriet Monroe (1860– 1936) founded a periodical, Poetry, and actively encouraged poetic creation of all kinds of subject matter and styles. As a starting point of the New Poetry Movement, the “American Poetry Renaissance” in the United States was of epoch-making significance in the history of American poetry, ushering American poetry into the boom of modernist poetry. During this period, many new genres of poetry appeared, each following its unique and unconventional patterns. New poets ascended Parnassus. This new, star-studded poetic world was open to a diversity of content and forms. The most striking feature of the so-called “new poetry” was the acceptance of the influence of Chinese culture by a large number of poets. In the new poetry movement, imagist poetry was the most influential faction, though its dominance did not last long. Imagist poets advocated that the poets’ emotions be hidden behind the lines, that these emotions be suggested by objective images, and that thus they would create in the poems a sense of “unfinished 8.2 “The New Poetry Movement” and the First Wave … 133 expressions,” which did not exist in conventional British and American poetry. Here “image” is not something that “exists but is unknown,” something endowed by the Creator that exists in the poet’s mind but has not yet entered the poem, as described by Sikong Tu in his Èrshísì Shīpǐn∙Zhěnmì (二十四诗品∙ 缜密, The 24 Poetic Styles∙Meticulous): “是有真迹, 如不可知. 意象欲出, 造化已寄.” (shì yǒuzhēnjì,rú bùkězhī.yìxiàng yùchū,zàohuà yǐjì.) Instead, it is something that has integrated the subjective cordiality into the objective image, or it is a subjective feeling expressed with the aid of an objective image. In other words, what imagist poets seek is the conception of a variety of specific, graphic, and sensible poetic images expressed with the application of imagination, fantasy, parables, and other techniques, so as to allow poetry, through imagery, to convey individual aesthetic experiences and personal appeal. To this end, they first started by imitating and learning Japanese haiku. Later, when they found that the Japanese haiku originated from Chinese metrical poems, American poets, such as Ezra Pound, saw from the unique characteristic of Chinese writing with the form, sound and meaning all linked together, writing with the magical power of descriptions and images of magic. So they spared no effort to translate classical Chinese poetry, most of which were poems from the Tang dynasty. During this period, many famous translation emerged, such as Cathay (1919) by Ezra Pound, Fir-Flower Tablets (1921) by Amy L. Lowell and Florence W. Ayscough, The Works of Li Po: The Chinese Poet (1922) by Shigeyoshi Obata, and The Jade Mountain, A Chinese Anthology, a collaborative work between Witter Bynner and Kiang Kang-Hu; all were regarded as outstanding volumes in the field. Toward the 30s and 40s of the twentieth century, the American cultural circle still retained its interest in Chinese poetry. Translators and critics continued to work hard. As cultural undertakings developed, the translated texts and numerous research papers did not indicate any change in the Americans’ interest in Chinese poetry. However, the impact of Chinese poetry on creation obviously weakened. Meanwhile, the study of classical Chinese literature among American sinologists reached its nadir. The publication of Selections from the 300 Poems of the Tang Dynasty and A Further Selection from the 300 Poems of the Tang Dynasty by Roger Soame Jenyn as “The Wisdom of the East Series” marked the end of the developing stage of the propagation of Tang poetry in the West.

8.3 Characteristics of the Developing Stage of the Propagation

From the perspective of reception, the achievements in the initial stage of English translation of Tang poetry were integrated into the cultural mainstream of the English world in the United States. The inseparable and interwoven links between 134 8 The Propagation of Tang Poetry in the West: Historical …

Britain and the United States caused the latter, a country that did not have its own national culture, to inherit British achievements, although reluctantly, for greater development. At the same time, the diversity and inclusion peculiar to an immigrant nation, and the fact that the United States merged as the world’s industrial power after the First World War, gave American intellectuals a broader field of vision and a more open and receptive attitude for heterogeneous cultures. The main characteristics of the propagation of Tang poetry in the West at this stage can be summarized as follows: I. Larger Groups of Translators and Diversified Forms of the Practice The 20s and 30s of the twentieth century saw a stagnant stage in the study of classical Chinese literature among British sinologists. The British Parnassus, with a rich traditional culture of its own, lacked the inclusion and enthusiasm for absorbing heterogeneous cultures. British poets were not as enthusiastic as their American counterparts about Chinese poetry. Arthur Waley, a British sinologist who was involved in the propagation of Tang poetry throughout its important stages and made the greatest and most enduring contribution to it, produced several volumes of translation, but the influence of his translations was mainly felt in the United States, not in the United Kingdom. During this stage, although most texts of Tang poetry translation published in the United States were still in the “translating and introducing” phase, there were remarkable improvements. First, more people participated in translation. In terms of ethnic diversity, there were Chinese and non-Chinese translators, and there was collaboration between the two. In terms of the translators’ professions, there were diplomats, poets, translators, critics, sinologists, and so on. Second, there was an increase in translation channels and text types. Language transformation was not restricted to one pattern. Some poems were translated directly from the original, while others were translated indirectly from other European languages. There were not only newly translated volumes of Tang poetry but also works with a chosen theme, selected poets, and collections by famous translators. Direct introduction of British texts such as the translations by Herbert A. Giles, Arthur Waley, L. A. Cranmer-Byng, and others became the most important resources in the initial developing phase in the United States. In the meantime, thanks to the social structure with the fusion of many ethnic groups and multi- cultural coexistence, re-rendering from translated texts became one of the characteristics of this period. The most typical case in this type was English translators’ reference and re-rendering of Le Livre de Jade (1867), a French version of Chinese poems by Judith Gautier (1845–1917, Chinese name俞第德), a French woman poet. The booklet, Le Livre de Jade, which interpreted classical Chinese poetry with a beautifully romantic and emotional appeal, was the most widely propagated and most influential non-English translation of Tang poetry texts in the English-speaking world. The earliest trace of re-rendering of Tang poetry in the United States was from the translation of Le Livre de Jade. 8.3 Characteristics of the Developing Stage of the Propagation 135

Compared with its early stage, the developing stage was featured by the participation of a large number of well-known scholars or writers in the field. They were not experts in sinology. They introduced Tang poetry merely out of their passion, not for the purpose of academic study. They came from different social classes, each employing his or her own native language, cultural, and professional backgrounds. These factors undoubtedly affected their comprehension and interpretation of the Tang poetry. Their works might not be “faithful” to the original, and some of these texts could hardly be called “translations.” They might as well be called “creative rendering” to be more exact. Since they put too many subjective factors into the English version, their works were later criticized by the academic school. However, the strong impact of their texts truly awed the academic community. In addition, Chinese intellectuals during this period directly joined the translation teams. They were not experts in classical Chinese poetry or were they poets or writers. With their love for Tang poetry, and with their intuitive awareness of traditional Chinese culture, they stood as a bridge of communication between Chinese and Western cultures, and exhibited a flare of originality in translating Tang poetry into English. Among them, the most famous was Kiang Kang-Hu (江亢虎). For the translation of The Jade Mountain, he collaborated with the American poet Witter Bynner, and the work has remained a best seller in its genre since its publication in 1929. Among those completed independently by Chinese translators, Ting-Ken Ts’ai’s(蔡廷干) Chinese Poems in English Rhyme, published in 1932, was also noteworthy. The delicacy of Tang poetry was further elaborated through interpretations from different perspectives and with different techniques. Consequently, Tang poetry, which used to be treated in the United States as a collection of antiques for “appreciation” from a distance, was soon elevated to the status of a vibrant new poetic element and was integrated into the American Modernist School of poetry. II. The Development of Poet-Oriented Research Of all the Tang poets, Li Bai has attracted the most attention from the very beginning. Arthur Waley, in spite of his special liking for Bai Juyi, published his first book on Li Bai, The Poet Li Po, in 1919, while his work on Bai Juyi was not published until 1949. Arthur Waley’s review of Li Bai’s life was full of personal speculations and misunderstandings on the poet’s personality. This biased review directly prompted the contemporary Japanese scholar Shigeyoshi Obata, who loved Chinese poetry, to make every effort to reveal to the West a “true picture” of the poet and his poems. In 1922, his The Works of Li Po was published. The book is divided into three parts: (1) English translation of 124 poems by Li Bai; (2) English translation of improvised poems by Li Bai with Du Fu, Li Shizhi (李适之), Jia Zhi (贾至), Cui Zongzhi (崔宗之), and Bai Juyi, and eight other poems associated with Li Bai; and (3) translation of biographies of Li Bai from Cǎotáng Jí Xù (草堂集序) by Li Yangbing (李阳冰) and from the old and new versions of Táng Shū (唐书, History of the Tang Empire). Throughout his book, Shigeyoshi Obata did not 136 8 The Propagation of Tang Poetry in the West: Historical … review the creative style and artistic characteristics of Li Bai’s poetry. Instead, he simply intended, by means of his translation, to provide Western readers with some references as objectively as possible for their study of Li Bai. This book was a major contribution to the study of Li Bai in addition to Waley’s texts not only in the West but also in the East. During this period, there appeared translations specialized in Du Fu, another great poet of the Tang dynasty. Florence W. Ayscough was a sinologist who was born in China and who spent most of her adulthood in China. She not only loved traditional Chinese culture but also systematically studied classical Chinese poetry, especially Tang poetry, and she had reverence for Du Fu. In order for the readers of the English world to better understand Du Fu and his poetry, Ayscough later selected part of the book Dùshī Jìngquán (杜诗镜铨, Interpreting Du Fu’s Poetry) by Yang Lun (杨伦) of the Qing dynasty and translated it into English. She then adapted it into a chronological form which was published in book form as Tu Fu: The Autobiography of a Chinese Poet simultaneously in the United Kingdom and in the United States in 1929. By 1934, Ayscough had published another book, Travels of a Chinese Poet: Tu Fu, Guest of Rivers and Lakes, as a companion piece to her former work on Du Fu. Moreover, she coauthored with Chu-Chi Huang (黄朱祺) and Edha Worthley Underwood, Tu Fu, Wanderer and Minstrel under Moon of Cathay, which was published in the United States in 1929. These works indicated that in the developing stage of the propagation of Tang poetry in the West, studies of Li Bai, Bai Juyi, and Du Fu had passed beyond mere translation and entered a new stage of initiative study. III. Theoretical Research of Tang Poetry Started Theoretical research of poetry is essentially a rational activity which must be based on the aesthetic appreciation of poems. It is obvious that a theoretical comprehension of Tang poetry as a whole in English world naturally lag behind Tang poetry translation. When Tang poetry was first introduced to the West, remarks about the aesthetic rules of Tang poetry could be seen from time to time in prefaces and/or postscripts of all sorts of translated works. But overall, writings on poetic theories by early poetry translators focused more on exploring the creative modes and corresponding techniques of translating Tang poetry and less on theoretical exposition for poetry appreciation. Along with the increase in the number of English translations of Tang poetry and the expansion of their influence, the English world gradually gained an in-depth insight into the distinctive styles and characteristics of Tang poetry, and the demand for deeper interpretation of the cultural images in the poems became more urgent. This situation prompted scholars to provide a more detailed discussion of the aesthetic rules of Tang poetry. In the early twentieth century, American philosopher, political economist, ori- entalist and poet Ernest F. Fenollosa put forward in his paper, “The Chinese Written Characters as a Medium for Poetry,” the concept that “every Chinese character is an image.” This concept provided Western scholars with a new perspective for 8.3 Characteristics of the Developing Stage of the Propagation 137 interpreting and studying Chinese poetry. Fenollosa asserted that Western logical thinking with emphasis on analysis did not blend with the essence of arts, and what was needed in arts should be comprehensive thinking, which did not need an abstract language such as phonetic writing. As ideograms, Chinese characters “visually” would contain a world of vivid and intuitive images and naturally team with clever and poetic turns of phrase. This shocking and unique view from Fenollosa was greatly preferred by Ezra Pound, who put this idea into practice in his own poetic creation. Pertinent and timely, Fenollosa’s theory became an important driving force for the development of modern American poetry. By 1929, the first work to explore theories of Chinese poetry appreciation, specifically with Tang poetry as the research object and with Li Bai’s poems as a typical example, was The Spirit of Chinese Poetry by Victor William Williams Saunders Purcell (1896–1965). Like Fenollosa, Purcell realized that the aesthetic significance of poetry was produced not only by the external form of poetry but also by the overall connotation and denotation of word combinations. He also believed that every Chinese character was a poem, and that the poetic flavor contained in the combination of Chinese characters in Tang poetry should be felt rather than analyzed. According to him, it was a metaphor rather than an entity, and it should be imagined rather than narrated. So, whether in poetic creation or appreciation, a capacity to understand was not enough. Imagination was necessary, and a capacity to sense was even more important. IV. Intrinsic Cultural Elements Interwoven with American Poetry Literary translators began their works on Tang poetry completely out of their love for it. Many of them did not understand Chinese, so their translations might not be any more accurate than those by the sinologists. However, it was precisely through their selections and interpretations from different perspectives that the aesthetic consciousness and aesthetic temperament of Tang poetry had been more richly presented. The creative ability possessed by this band of translators enabled the English versions of Tang poetry to break through the limitation of merely being an object for research or appreciation. As representative elements of traditional Chinese culture, they were integrated by the poets into their own works. Addressing cultural transmission issues, Chinese scholar Yue Daiyun (乐黛云) pointed out, “Whether one culture can be accepted and used by other cultures is not a matter of wishful thinking. The primary concern is to see whether this kind of culture (literature) can be understood by the other, whether it can make useful contributions to the other party and interest the other, and whether it will be consciously absorbed by the other for the development of its own cultural resources.” (2004, p. 5) Although these Chinese cultural models are not the dominant factors that influence modern American poetry, some American poets argue that the influence of Chinese cultural modes is immense. More importantly, there are many American poets who have adopted Chinese models into their creation. The Chinese cultural models in the 20s or 30s of the twentieth century actually refer to the models represented by cultural patterns of Tang poetry. Instead of just one or two isolated 138 8 The Propagation of Tang Poetry in the West: Historical …

American poets who were good at picking intrinsic cultural elements from Tang poetry, a whole group of American poets was good at doing so. They selectively absorbed nutrition from Tang poetry, and put their new understanding into their own poetic creation. This formed a collective cultural phenomenon. When American poets focused their attention on Chinese poetry in order to satisfy their own strong desire to break through the cultural bottleneck that existed and to innovate for improvement, texts of translated poetry began to embrace the function of promoting East–West cultural integration and cultural interaction. In a sense, it was modern American poets like who changed the state of silence in which the Tang poetry in the Western English world had lain. At the same time, with their own creative practice, these American poets prompted the propagation of Tang poetry to begin to go beyond mere literary translation and to acquire a wider and deeper meaning of cultural transmission.

References

Chinese References

Bertrand Russell: 〈〈中国之问题〉〉, 赵文锐译, 北京: 中华书局, 1924年版. Dong Hongchuan: 〈〈文化语境与文学接受〉〉, 〈〈外国文学研究〉〉, 2001 (4). Liang Qichao: 〈〈梁启超哲学思想论文选〉〉, 北京: 北京大学出版社, 1984年版.

English References

Martin, W. A. P. (1894). China Viewed from the Great Wall (A Historical Sketch), Hanlin Papers (Vol. 2). Speer, W. (Rev.). (1868). Democracy of the Chinese. Harper’s New Monthly Magazine. Chapter 9 American Adaptation of Tang Poetry Translations from Europe

In the beginning of the twentieth century, the number of Americans translating Tang poetry was very limited. Resources available to American sinologists, including the interpretation of classical Chinese literature, mainly stemmed from the existing European production. Herbert Giles was once invited to give a lecture at Columbia University, where he introduced traditional Chinese culture to the renascent circle of American sinologists. When Launcelot Cranmer-Byng published A Feast of Lanterns in 1961, the inscription “To many friends in California” on the book’s title page proved that he had interacted frequently with American poets. The great inﬂuence exerted by Waley’s translation was even more remarkable in America. Besides the propagating of English versions, there were also other European-language versions in America. For example, Pastels in Prose, published in 1890 by an American impressionistic poet Stuart Merrill (1863–1915), was a selected retranslation of the same book in French. This book, indeed, is the earliest English version of Tang poetry in America. Merrill, born into a rich Christian family on New York’s Long Island, moved to Paris as a toddler with his father, who was a diplomatic envoy, and was brought up and educated in France. His poems were mostly created in French. Thanks to his unusual talent in languages, Merrill had done commendable translation work for literary cross-communication among France, Britain and America. Pastels in Prose was his only work published in the United States, with which he aimed at promoting poetry in prose by famous contemporary French writers. There were 14 poems in the book “imitating” Chinese poetry—half “imitating Li Bai, and the other half “imitating Du Fu.” They were signed by Judith Gautier, and were derived from her most famous collection Le Livre de Jade. However, Le Livre de Jade was not a collection of Judith Gautier’s own writing, but a selection of her translation of Chinese poems. In other words, it was Judith Gautier’s translation of Chinese poems into French that was regarded as her own works by others. Those poems were then translated into English prose poems. Le Livre de Jade—the French version by Judith Gautier, was a non-English translation text, which exerted the greatest inﬂuence on the propagation of classical

© Foreign Language Teaching and Research Publishing Co., Ltd 139 and Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany 2018 L. Jiang, A History of Western Appreciation of English-translated Tang Poetry, China Academic Library, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-56352-6_9 140 9 American Adaptation of Tang Poetry Translations from Europe

Chinese poetry in the United States. Among other texts translated from European versions, Lyrics: From the Chinese, which was also famous, was published by Helen Waddell (1889–1965) in 1913. The content of this book was all retranslated from Latin, which included two Tang poems. The Latin version of the book—The Chinese Classics—was translated from Chinese originals by James Legge (1815–1897), a Scottish missionary and one of the most famous of the early sinologists.

9.1 French Poet Judith Gautier and Le Livre de Jade

Judith Gautier, an aesthetically sensitive poet, was born into a family with strong cultural inclinations in Paris, France. Her father, Theophile Gautier (1811–1872), was a renowned initiator and the main figure of French Aesthetic Movement, and her mother was Ernesta Grisi, an Italian opera singer. The celebrities of the French literature circle, including Hugo, Flaubert, and Baudelaire, were her house guests. Because of her father’s careful cultivation and the influence of her family environment, Gautier showed her literary talent at a very young age. From the age of 17, she began to learn Chinese from a private Chinese teacher, Tin-Tun-Ling (i.e., Ding Dunling, 丁敦龄), and tried to translate Chinese poems with his help. She published Le Livre de Jade in 1867, under the pseudonym “Judith Walter.” This was her first book, which was to have the greatest influence on society among her almost 50 works of poetry, prose, and drama. The French version of this book was not only printed repeatedly—the latest reprinting was in 2004—but also retranslated and adapted into versions in different languages all over Europe and the United States. Le Livre de Jade has a very poetic Chinese title—Báiyù Shīshū (白玉诗书, The Poetry Book of White Jade). This is one of Arthur Waley’s main reference books in the process of preparing 170 Chinese Poems. Waley introduced this book as follows: “It has been difficult to compare these renderings with the original, for proper names are throughout distorted or interchanged. For example, part of a poem by Po Chii-i about Yang T’ai-chen (杨太真) is here given as a complete poem and ascribed to ‘Yan-Ta-Tchen’ as an author. The poet Han Yii figures as Heu-Yu; T’ao Han as Sao Nan, etc. Such mistakes are evidently due to faulty decipherment of someone else’s writing. Nevertheless, the book is far more readable than the one by St. Denys, and shows a wider acquaintance with Chinese poetry on the part of whoever chose the poems. Most of the credit for this selection must certainly be given to Ting Tun-ling, the literatus whom Théophile Gautier befriended. But the credit for the beauty of these often erroneous renderings must go to Mademoiselle Gautier herself.” (Waley 1918, Bibliographical Notes) Qin Huanming (秦寰明), a contemporary Chinese scholar, wrote a detailed introduction about the content of this book, based on his study of a reprinted French text of Le Livre of Jade. Qin’s comments reveal the level of sophistication and complexity evident in Gautier’s work, and the intense scholarly interest it raised, both in the West and in the East: 9.1 French Poet Judith Gautier and Le Livre de Jade 141

In the preface to a later revised edition of this book, she commented on the poems by Du Fu: “The worshippers of Du Fu thought that he could not only match Li but surpass him. Although his poems lacked singularity and surprise, they were as realistic as a painting… These poems were much easier to translate because they were franker, clearer, and full of warm emotion and compassion to people suffering bitterness.” (p. 5, Le Livre of Jade, 1928 version) Her comments on Li Bai’s poetry: “Li Bai’s poetry with well-chosen images and lots of metaphors, implications and irony employs a succinct and unique form and new and various styles. He, just like Omar Khayyam (a Persian poet, well-known for his quatrain “The Rubaiyat”), indulged himself in wine and it was the only consolation for him.” (p. 3, Le Livre of Jade, 1928 version) She seemed to speak more highly of Du Fu than Li Bai. But in fact, the book has 19 poems by Li Bai, taking the largest portion of it, followed by those by Du Fu. In the eyes of Western people, Li Bai’s poems like “Mòshēng Zèng Měirén” (陌生赠美人, “An Encounter in the Field”), “Wūqī Qǔ” (乌栖曲, “A Tune of Crows Roosting for the Eve”), “Wūyè Tí” (乌夜啼, “Crows Crowing at Dusk”), “Lùshuǐ Qǔ” (渌水曲, Song of River Lu)…are all short, emotional, and rhythmical, and they are no doubt exotic and attractive. Besides, Li Bai’s poetry is featured in Gautier’s book, which collects poems according to different themes and a Chinese title is attached to each theme in its first version. The first theme is “love” with the Chinese title “huángjīnliǔyè fúshuǐ” (黄金柳叶浮水, green willow leaves reflected in water); the second is “the moon” with “wányuè tánqíng shīcí” (玩月谈情诗词, talking about poetry under the moonlight; the third theme is “autumn” with “qiūshī yóujǐng kuàilè” (秋诗游景快乐, enjoying the autumn scenery and writing poems); the fourth theme is “travel” with “yóuhuāchuánguān écí” (游花船观娥词, talking about poems on the flowering boat); the fifth theme is “wine” with “tánjiǔ zuòlè tíshī” (谈酒作乐题诗, taking pleasure in wine and writing poems); the sixth theme is “war” with “zhījǐnhuíwéngěishī” (织锦回文给诗, letters conveying the complaint of war); and the seventh theme is “poets” with “shījiā shèng bǎi jūnwáng” (诗家胜百君王, poets outweighing emperor). To the Westerners who actually have little knowledge about China, the book is full of Eastern flavor with the special emotional appeal. In Westerners’ eyes, the poet Li Bai, who indulged himself in wine and love, plays a leading role in their understanding of Chinese poetry. (Qin Huanming 2000 [2]) Travels of a Culture: Chinese Poetry and the European Imagination, written by the Chinese-American scholar Pauline Yu (余宝琳), who took the content of Le Livre de Jade and the groundbreaking path of the book as her inspiration, introduces the influence of Chinese literary art on the development of French literary art at the end of the nineteenth century. It elaborates on Judith Gautier’s life, including the art she was exposed to in her upbringing, her experience of learning Chinese from Tin-Tun-Ling, and her great accomplishment in the arts as a writer, painter, sculptor, and musician. Yu mentions that Gautier had a smattering of several non-European languages that enabled her to extract rich materials for creation from cultural elements of Eastern countries such as China, Egypt, Persia, India, and Japan, with her focus on China. 142 9 American Adaptation of Tang Poetry Translations from Europe

Yu also considers in detail various versions of Le Livre de Jade from the first version in 1867 to later republications and revisions, and additions, deletions, and corrections made by Gautier in different versions. Yu also mentions that the replication of Le Livre de Jade in 1902 was a revision. It includes 110 poems, only about two-thirds of which correspond to the original. As for the classification of the poems, Yu mentions eight themes, one more than that in Qin Huanming’s introduction. A probable reason for this is that the two scholars read different editions. In Yu’s essay, the titles are: “Love,”“The Moon,”“Travelers,”“The Court,”“War,” “Wine,”“Autumn,” and “Poet.” However, she adds that none of these titles can truly express the original and that these titles are mainly to attract readers’ attention. The consensus in the academic field is that Gautier’s translation style is completely free. She was a poet, after all. Unlike sinologists who try to understand Chinese culture and society through the study of literature, she proceeded to translate Tang poetry wholly out of her great admiration and love for poetry. Thus, she bravely challenged the “sinologists flinch” out of simple courage. Based on parts or most of the originally ornate turns of phrase and meanings of poems, Gautier sought to express her own emotions through the re-creation of structures and plots found in the Chinese text, and with her own surpassing poetic talent to reinterpret in concise and elegant French, the feelings and images locked in the Tang poems. An example of Gautier’s attempts may be found in Li Bai’s poem “Jiāngshàng Yín” (江上吟, “Song on the River”), from Qin Huanming’s Chinese retranslation of Gautier’s French version. Comparing it with Li Bai’s original, it is not difficult to tell that Gautier’s translation is not superior in terms of accuracy or insight:

江上吟 Chinese translation from Gautier’s French version 李白 By Qin (2000, vol. 2) 木兰之枻沙棠舟, 我的船是乌檀木所制; 玉萧金管坐两头。 My boat is ebony, 美酒樽中置千斛, 我玉笛的孔镶嵌着金。载妓随波任去留。 My jade ﬂute is pierced by a golden clarinet. 仙人有待乘黄鹤, 就像有种植物能去掉丝绸上的污淖, 海客无心随白鸥。 Like a plant that removes a stain on silk clothes, 屈平词赋悬日月, 当一个人有好酒、精美的船和年轻女子的爱, 楚王台榭空山邱。 When one possesses good wine, an elegant boat, and love from a young lady, 兴酣落笔摇五岳, 他就像仙人。诗成笑傲凌沧洲。 He is like an immortal spirit. 功名富贵若长在, 汉水亦应西北流。 9.1 French Poet Judith Gautier and Le Livre de Jade 143

The poem, also called “Jiāngshàng Yóu” (江上游, “Traveling on the River”), was written by Li Bai in his 30s or 40s when traveling in Jiangxia (江夏). Tang Ruxun (唐汝询, 1565–1659) said in Tángshī Jiě (唐诗解, Annotation of Tang Poems) that the theme of this poem is “cǐyīnshìtú pòài érsìzhì yǐ xínglè yě” (此因世途迫隘而肆志以行乐也, indulged in pleasures when faced with shattered dreams in his career). The poet was dissatisfied with his life and career circumstances by then, so he engaged in amorous activities. Scenery descriptions take up the first four lines. The rest is for Li Bai to proclaim how he treasured creative writing, sneered at unreachable power, and would not cleave to worldly fame and wealth. But in Gautier’s version, only a picture of sightseeing on the river and a few elements like “boat,”“golden,”“jade,”“wine,” and “lady” are kept, implying nothing about the poet’s deeper thoughts. In accordance with Yu’s analysis, language barriers are the main reason for this disparity. Due to Tin-Tun-Ling’s limited French and Gautier’s even more limited knowledge of the Chinese language, they talked about Chinese poetry freely without great accuracy, resulting in bidirectional garble. At the same time, since they did not know how to spell the names of many Tang poets in French, some names of Tang poets did not correspond with those in Chinese. Furthermore, whether Tin-Tun-Ling had a systemic and profound knowledge about Tang poems is still questionable. Even if he could fully interpret Tang poetry in French for Gautier, whether Gautier at that young and romantic age could or would understand it in a correct way is also questionable. Le Livre de Jade was not only printed again and again in France, but also translated into various languages all over Europe and America. French Symbolist poetry strongly influenced the poetic circle in Britain and America around the turn of the past century. Some French poets, including Remy De Gourmont, had a higher reputation in America than in France. Many poets published poems in French in America, and French remains one of the most popular nonofficial languages in America to this day. Thus, we can speculate that many of the American intelligentsia could read French texts without the help of translation. The propagation of Gautier’s French texts in America may have happened earlier than the appearance of the English version. In 1918, American translator James Whitall (1888–1954) published the book Chinese Lyrics from The Book of Jade, Translated from the French of Judith Gautier in New York, succeeded by Merrill’s Pastels in Prose in 1890. The translated version includes 30 poems with only 53 pages. According to the introduction of the French edition of “Le Livre de Jade” cited above, the book by Whitall was not a complete translation from Gautier’s French version. Whitall translated the introduction of Chinese poetry written by Gautier in prose style in the preface, mentioning the typical manner of the propagation of Tang poetry by then in China: by inscribing it on the wall of public places such as ancient post-houses, places of interest, and houses of prostitution, or by circulating it for perusal among scholars and its use in the chanting of singing girls. There are also some evaluations of the works by the famous poets selected in the book such as Li Bai, Du Fu, and Li Yi’an (李易安). As a reference to the preface in the French version mentioned by 144 9 American Adaptation of Tang Poetry Translations from Europe

Qin Huanming, what Whitall translated is probably the preface to the French version of Le Livre de Jade published after 1902. It shows that Gautier had a good and correct understanding of Chinese poetry. Whitall appended the original author’s name to the end of each translated poem, but without the dates of the author’s birth and death. The transcription of names followed the French spelling by Judith Gautier, which is different from the English spelling. For example, “Li Taibai” was spelled as “Li-Taϊ-Pé,” and “Du Fu” was spelled as “Thou-Fou.” Thus, it can be deduced that Whitall probably did not understand Chinese and translated it without reference to the original Chinese poems or the assistance of someone who knew Chinese. The 30 poems selected by Whitall were arranged randomly, and even the poems by the same poet were not ranked together. Although the majority of the 30 poems are Tang poems, a poem by Tin-Tun-Ling, Gautier’s private teacher, was also included in the book. Nine poems by Li Bai were included in the book, topping the list among many other poets in quantity. Retranslating from French, misunderstanding, and omission might not be excluded in Whitall’s English version, but it still can be referenced. One poem was derived from Li Bai’s poem “CǎiliánQǔ” (采莲曲, “Gathering Seedpods of Lotus”):

At the River’s Edge 采莲曲 By Whitall (1918, p. 34) 李白 At the river’s edge 若耶溪边采莲女, Maidens are bathing among the water-lilies; 笑隔荷花共人语。 They are hidden from the shore, But their laughter can be heard, 日照新妆水底明, And on the bank Their silken robes perfume the wind 风飘香袂空中举。岸上谁家游冶郎, A youth on horseback passes near; 三三五五映垂杨。 One of the maidens feels her heart beat faster, And she blushes deeply. 紫骝嘶入落花去, Then she hides herself 见此踟蹰空断肠。 Among the clustered water-lilies.

The poem in English describes a beautiful scene: several charming young girls were bathing among the lotus by the riverside on a bright and beautiful summer day. One of the girls was shy to ﬂirt with a youth on horseback who passed near. The artistic conception is not exactly the same as the original, for the phrase “a few lotus-gathering girls” is translated into “bathing girls,” and several young men traveling together is interpreted as one lad. Even the melancholy lad has been changed into a bashful girl in the end. The scene of a few girls rowing a boat gathering lotus does not exist anymore, but the happiness and vivacity of common girls exist; the melancholy of the lad disappears but the affection between a young 9.1 French Poet Judith Gautier and Le Livre de Jade 145 man and a young woman remains. It can be seen that what Gautier got from the original poem were the most salient elements—fragments with sentiment and poetic ﬂavor. As a young girl in her early 20s who grew up amidst literature and art, what she felt must have been the aesthetic and romantic scene. She created a tone of vividness and liveliness by adding a new image or changing scenes in order to achieve a dramatic effect. Her language skill in Chinese was limited and she did not at all intend to comprehend the original poem word by word. She just indulged herself in the imaginary Eastern scene, thus creating a fresh, lovely, and yet exotic poem. By the River later became the most famous poem in Le Livre de Jade, and Merrill also translated it into a prose poem in Pastels in Prose. With Li Bai’s name in French as “Li-Taϊ-Fé,” the scene reproduced by Merrill also showed the same Eastern sentiment which was revealed in Gautier’s By the River:

The young girls have gone down to the river; they sink among the tufts of lilies. They cannot be seen, but their laughter is heard, and the wind blows perfumes from their dress. A young man on horseback passes by the edge of the river, close to the young girls. One of them has felt her heartbeat, and her face has changed color. But the tufts of lilies close around him. Succeeded by Whitall’s version, the Chinese poetry section in the book Coloured Stars: Love Songs of Asia (1918), was the earliest Eastern poetry anthology in America, was all retranslated from Le Livre de Jade. The anthology and its contents will be introduced in a later chapter. Yet another English version of Le Livre de Jade is Songs of Li-Tai-Pe, from The “Cancioneiro Chinês” Of Antonio Castro Feijo, An Interpretation from the Portuguese by Jordan H. Stabler. The Portuguese version is actually translated from Le Livre de Jade. American poet Peter Rudolph also translated part of Le Livre de Jade into English, which was included in Chinese Love Poems: From Most Ancient to Modern Times, published in 1942 in New York. The symphony piece Das Lied von der Erde (1908), the last work of Austrian late-Romantic composer Gustav Mahler (1860–1911), involves six movements chanted by tenor and alto alternately. Mahler indicated in the postscript that the lyrics were derived from translated Chinese poetry, Die Chinesische Flöte (1907), by the famous German poet Hans Bethge (1876–1946). In fact, Le Livre de Jade again was the major reference for Bethge. Compared with Giles and other sinologists who strove for faithfulness to the original, Judith Gautier’s translations avoid the important, dwell on the trivial, and delete prolixity, without touching upon the deepest meaning. Therefore, many sinologists do not approve of her translations, believing that they betray the basic principle of “accuracy” in translation in order to please the public with blather by using “exotic” fantasy and novelty. However, even experts in translating classical Chinese literature, such as Arthur Waley, who criticizes Gautier’s translations for being riddled with mistakes, have to admit that there are “beautiful” verses among them. French sinologist George Soulie de Morant, who is famous for his translation 146 9 American Adaptation of Tang Poetry Translations from Europe of Song Verses Selection, fully affirms the value of Le Livre de Jade. He began to study Chinese poetry under the influence of those really beautiful poetic selections and chapters. The later translation of Song Verses Translation by Soulie de Morant filled in the gap in the field of Song verse, becoming one of the important dynastic poetry translations in France. Gautier’s translation is free in style without pursuing any specific rules or methods. Her work did provide an exquisite morsel for British and French writers with a taste for the Chinese, and also developed a new creative style so as to establish her status in the propagation of classical Chinese poetry in the West. As Yu Baolin summarized, “Although opinions have varied significantly regarding the fidelity and quality of her translations, and, of course, about whether fidelity and quality have anything to do with each other, there is no question about the far-reaching influence they exerted. Indeed, for more than half a century, her volume—described by Kenneth Rexroth as ‘that minor classic of French letters’— served, both directly and indirectly, as the primary access for the general European public to Chinese poetry. This comment on a work produced by a 22-year-old woman, a genuine amateur, constitutes a remarkable tale of literary influence.” In addition, under the entry of “English Translation of Chinese Poetry,” many libraries collected a book of poetry, The Book of Jade, which shares the same title of the English translation as Le Livre de Jade. This work was sometimes listed under Judith Gautier’s name. However, none of the poems in the book, including its “prelude” and “postlude, had any indication that the collections were from Gautier’s works, or any clear clues related to the translation of Chinese poetry. Perhaps it was because the name of the book was similar to Gautier’s that it was misplaced within this entry. Conversely, such a mistake actually reveals the great reputation of Judith Gautier’s translations in the United States.

9.2 Irish Poet Helen Waddell and Lyrics from the Chinese

Helen Waddell, an Irish poetess, translator, and playwright born in Japan, was a religious historian and famous for her English translations of Latin poems. In 1913, she published her book, Lyrics from the Chinese: 36 Short Chinese Poems from the 12th to the 7th Century B.C. Are Translated into English by Irish Poet Helen Waddell, in America. The book included poems mostly from The Book of Songs and only two of them were marked “written under the Tang dynasty.” Waddell had polished some of John F. Davis” English-translated Chinese poems, retranslated Legge’s Latin work into English, and made the major portion of her book. Waddell’s book deserves careful reading under the subject research domain, even though the related content in this book is relatively weak compared with other similar works in the same period. On the one hand, all the poems in the book, like those in Le Livre de Jade, were translated from a European language and were published in the United States, which reflected the eclectic and inclusive immigrant culture of the country. On the other hand, the two Tang poems in this book were 9.2 Irish Poet Helen Waddell and Lyrics from the Chinese 147 still quoted by people who were studying Tang poetry and who often compared them with the translations by sinologists such as Waley and Giles. The book on which Waddell based her work was, The Chinese Classics in Latin, a translation made directly from Chinese by James Legge. Clarifying the ins and outs of Waddell’s translations can help us to know more about the contribution of Legge to the translation of classical Chinese poetry. Legge was a Scottish sinologist, missionary, and scholar, best known as the first Sinologist to study classical Chinese texts systematically and as a prolific translator. Legge served as a representative of the London Missionary Society in Malacca and Hong Kong (1840–1873) and was the first professor of Chinese at Oxford University (1876–1897). As a missionary, Legge held that in order to achieve the goal of attracting a nation’s attention to the Christian gospel, one must have some knowledge about the nation first, and the most direct way to know about a nation was to learn classical literary works that constructed the nation’s thinking domain. With such a belief, Legge studied classical Chinese texts throughout his life and translated a large number of the most representative cultural, religious and academic classics of China into English so that other missionaries who were coming to China could directly have a basic knowledge of China and its people. From 1858 to 1886, Legge successively translated and published 28 ancient classical works, such as The Analects, The Great Learning, The Doctrine of the Mean, Mencius, The Spring and Autumn Annals, and Tao Te King. After 1876, he returned to Oxford, Britain, to hold the position of the first professor in sinology and published many works so as to introduce to academia Confucius, Buddhism, and Taoism as related to Chinese religions. He brought to an end British scholars’ amateur studies of classical Chinese texts, making them more professional, and thus contributing greatly to the Western understanding of modern Chinese culture and religion. Among the early sinologists, Legge, Davis, and Giles were praised as three representatives in the field. In terms of the process of propagation of English-translated Tang poetry, the contributions of Davis and Giles have previously been discussed. Did Legge, who was deeply interested in classical Chinese literature, then completely ignore Tang poetry in his research career? The answer can be found in the preface to Waddell’s Lyrics from the Chinese. With a graceful tone, she stated that what led her to realize the internal, unique beauty of classical poetry was Lyrics from the Chinese Classics: “Every lyric has its Chinese text, black and unfamiliar and satisfying; beneath it is a prose translation of unflinching accuracy, with footnotes that unravel all things, from the habits of a sinister plant called tribulus that Shakespeare would have had in his witches’ cauldron to the wickedness of Duke Seuen in his palace of Wei. It is the footnotes that create so gracious a sense of security, an atmosphere in which even Duke Seuen loses half his terrors: the kindly precision of a scholar without guile. This translation of Chinese poetry was obtained by accident.” (Waddell 1913, “preface”) She simultaneously explained that The Chinese Classics in Latin by Legge had two volumes, which were published in Hong Kong at the original translator’s own expense. This book was rarely known to people because of its small circulation. 148 9 American Adaptation of Tang Poetry Translations from Europe

Waddell got a new perspective of classical Chinese poetry through Legge’s translations. Hence, she retranslated parts of the book into English, so as to get more people acquainted with the charm of Chinese poetry. From this, we can assume that Legge indeed did not ignore or overlook Tang poetry. His Latin translations were not only accompanied by abundant annotations, but also con- trasted with the original. It is a pity that Waddell’s re-presentation only had verses without transferring any other contents, making it rather difﬁcult to trace back to the corresponding originals in Chinese from her English version: xxix. Peach Blossom After Rain on the Early Morning Xxxiv. The Moon Is Shining Written under the Tang dynasty; this, with the following on This Borderland four lyrics, is of a later date than the Odes of the Written under the Tang “Shih-King.” dynasty. By Waddell (1913, p. 33) By Waddell (1913, p. 38) Peach blossom after the rain The moon is shining on this borderland, Is deeper red; Just as it will be shining on Lung-t’ow. The willow fresher green; The sea is very quiet on the sand; Twittering overhead; I wonder what the folk are doing now. And fallen petals lie wind blown, The wild geese settle with the same old cry, Unswept upon the courtyard stone. The moonlight sleeps upon the threshold stone. The millet in the ﬁeld is shoulder high, And my young wife goes up the path alone.

Waddell was strict with rhyme in her version, while Legge’s Latin translation was in prose. Conjecturing about the meaning of the English poems, the first seems similar to Wang Wei’s “TiányuánLè ∙ VI” (田园乐∙之六): “桃红复含宿雨,柳绿更带朝烟。花落家童未扫,莺啼山客犹眠。” (Táohóng fùhánxiǔyǔ,Liǔlǜ gèngdàizhāoyān. Huāluò jiātóng wèisǎo, Yīngtí shānkè yóumián.) The second seems to be a portion of “Guānshānyuè” (关山月) by Weng Shou (翁绶): “裴回汉月满边州,照尽天涯到陇头。影转银河寰海静,光分玉塞古今愁。笳吹远戍孤烽灭,雁下平沙万里秋。况是故园摇落夜,那堪少妇独登楼。” (Péihuí hànyuè mǎnbiānzhōu, Zhàojìntiānyá dàolǒngtóu. Yǐngzhuànyínhé huánhǎijìng, Guāngfēnyùsàigǔjīnchóu. Jiāchuī yuǎnshù gūfēngmiè,Yànxià píngshā wànlǐqiū. Kuàngshì gùyuányáoluòyè,Nǎkānshàofù dúdēnglóu.) It is hard to confirm this only with the clues provided by Waddell. As to the content of Legge’s Latin version, Waddell made a perceptive comment: “…for at the end of ‘the great travail so gladly spent,’ he leaves it to the pleasure of ‘anyone who is willing to undertake the labour… to present the pieces in a faithful metrical version.’ These stones are 9.2 Irish Poet Helen Waddell and Lyrics from the Chinese 149 from his quarry; it was under the great Sinologue’s Act of Indulgence that these lyrics were chosen.” Obviously, Legge wanted to present classical Chinese poetry to a greater population of Western readers. Although this Latin version was not published officially, he nonetheless won Waddell’s sincere love for it. Thus, the pain he suffered for his hard work was not in vain. Of course, there are still more details that need further investigation, such as: How many Tang poems did Legge translate in total? Whose works did he choose? How was the quality of his translation? But at least we know for sure now that Legge was also one of the pioneers to introduce Tang poetry to the West. Waddell’s re-rendering was later reprinted several times and widely circulated in the United States, and thus Legge should not be denied the credit for his role in inspiring the Irish classicist’s work in propagating Tang poetry. Chen Youbing also came across a work by Legge entitled The Chinese Classics in his research. He related, “Legge spent more than 20 years from 1858 in translating Confucian classics, including Shàng Shū (尚书, Chancery); Zhúshū Jìnián (竹书纪年, Bamboo Annals); Chūnqiū (春秋, The Spring and Autumn Annals); Zuǒzhuàn (左传, Zuo Qiuming’s Commentary on the Spring and Autumn Annals); Shī Jīng (诗经, The Book of Songs); Yì Jīng (易经, I-Ching) and Lǐ Jì (礼记, The Book of Rites). There were seven volumes in his book entitled The Chinese Classics, among which The Book of Songs was the first integral translation in English.” (Chen 2008, vol. 107) According to Chen’s description, The Chinese Classics, translated by Legge into English, was the seven-volume book series of Confucian classics, which was obviously not the same as the Latin book just discussed.

References

Chinese References

Chen Youbing:《英国汉学的阶段性特征及成因探析-以中国古典文学研究为中心》,《汉学研究通讯》,总第107期, 2008. Qin Huanming: 《中国文化的西传与李白诗-以英、美及法国为中心》,《美国唐学会会刊》, 2000 Vol. 2.

English References

Waddell, Helen. (1913). Lyrics: From the Chinese. Boston, New York: Houghton. Waley, A. D. (1918). A hundred and seventy Chinese poems. New York: Alfred A Knopf Inc. Whitall, James. (1918). Chinese lyrics from The Book of Jade, from the French of Judith Gautier. New York: B.W. Huebsch Inc. Chapter 10 Tang Poetry in Classical Chinese Poetry Anthologies

Chinese poetry translation in the United States began to move to an obviously upward trend from the second decade of the twentieth century. Participants in translation and the number of poems translated both increased greatly, providing the necessary objective conditions for English-speaking readers to appreciate Chinese poems from different perspectives and in different ways. At the same time, English-speaking readers also became gradually aware of the abundant contents and diverse styles of classical Chinese poetry and started to seek out their favorite poems according to their own aesthetic concepts and interests. As a consequence, British and American poets and writers aimed at making innovations in their works and developing their individual styles. Based upon their personal poetic interests, they were engrossed in reading and experiencing the artistic styles of Chinese poems with speciﬁc objectives. Therefore, more theme-oriented anthologies and anthologies of famous Chinese poets began to appear. In this stage, these anthologies of classical Chinese poetry, in general, were created, which were not yet concentrated on Tang poetry. However, because of the undoubtedly representative and distinct aesthetic value of Tang poetry, and the highly positive feedback from earlier works by Giles and his peers, Tang poetry was conspicuous in these anthologies from the very beginning. By the 1950s and 1960s, the mainframe of English-translated Tang poetry had taken shape and its propagation began to prosper in a gradual way and was ready for further development.

10.1 Mathers and His Two Theme-Oriented Anthologies

Edward Powys Mathers (1892–1939), an English poet and translator, was famous for introducing poems from East Asia and languages such as Arabic, Persian, Turkish, Japanese, Chinese, Hindi, and others. He translated two “Asiatic Love Poems” in 1918 and 1920 successively and had them published both in Britain and America. One was entitled Coloured Stars: Love Songs of Asia, and the other was

© Foreign Language Teaching and Research Publishing Co., Ltd 151 and Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany 2018 L. Jiang, A History of Western Appreciation of English-translated Tang Poetry, China Academic Library, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-56352-6_10 152 10 Tang Poetry in Classical Chinese Poetry Anthologies

The Garden of Bright Waters: 120 Asiatic Love Poems. Although there already were many books of translated poetry from different Oriental countries individually, Mathers’ work was the first attempt at compiling across various countries. Mathers modestly said in the preface to Coloured Stars that this kind of work should have been done by scholars, who were language experts for the purpose of rendering Oriental poetry in a more complete and pleasing manner. He himself had to narrow his choices down to a tiny theme in the limited space and time that he had, focusing on reflecting the authentic delicacy and sensibility of Oriental poems. For Mathers, focusing on love poems might be understood as a market-driven practice, yet “Eastern love” was always a hot topic for Oriental poetry anthologies. Coloured Stars contains 50 poems, all secondary translations from Italian and French. Poems from various countries were mixed randomly; some were labeled with the original authors’ names, while others were not. It seems that Mathers followed no specific order in compiling. Tang poems take up more than half of all 12 Chinese poems in this book. The entire Chinese section was transcribed from Gautier’s Le Livre de Jade, which was judged by Mathers as being “incomparable.” Because Gautier selected a few works by Tin-Tun-Ling in her book, the name “Tin-Tun-Ling” also appeared as an original author in Coloured Stars, along with Li Bai, Du Fu, Li Qingzhao (李清照), and Yuan Mei (袁枚). In fact, thanks to Gautier, the name Tin-Tun-Ling (丁敦龄) was now regarded in the West as a “great master” of Chinese poetry. The Garden of Bright Waters was formatted much better, and was published two years later in 1920. All 120 poems are classified by countries, and are arranged in alphabetical order. Among them, the Chinese portion has 17 poems with the original authors’ names and dates clearly marked. Tang poems again take up more than half of the content. In the preface, Mathers gave special acknowledgment to Cranmer-Byng, thanking him for his help and guidance in compiling the Chinese section. This statement reflects the frequent communication of Chinese poetry translations between Britain and America, and also provides strong evidence of Cranmer-Byng’s highly recognized status in this field. Another improvement of The Garden of Bright Water was the clear annotation of the original poets. Spellings of poets’ names no longer followed Gautier’s French version, but became consistent with Giles’ English version instead. For example, the name of Li Bai was changed from “Li’ Tai’ Pe” to “Li Po.” Incidentally, among all the poets Mathers selected from East Asian countries, as can be seen from both books, Li Bai was not only a prominent figure of Chinese poetry, but also the most frequently translated poet of them all. Compared with the former book, Mathers’ translation appeared to be better-rounded in The Garden of Bright Waters. He did not focus on rhyme, but just stressed on recreation freely with a full expression of romantic emotions. As a result, the literal meaning was remote from the original, as was the meaning. This was in part due to his limitations in the Chinese language, and, more important, due to his predetermined theme—love. Whatever the subject of the original text was, to him, the English verses he rendered had to be those of a “love poem.” 10.1 Mathers and His Two Theme-Oriented Anthologies 153

For example, the poem entitled A Poet Looks at the Moon is clearly ascribed to Zhang Ruoxu (张若虚) as we see in the following:

A Poet Looks at the Moon By Mathers (1920, p. 68) I hear a woman singing in my garden But I look at the moon in spite of her. I have no thought of trying to ﬁnd the singer Singing in my garden; I am looking at the moon. And I think the moon is honoring me With a long silver look. I blink As bats ﬂy black across the ray; But when I raise my head the silver look Is still upon me. The moon delights to make eyes of poets her mirror, And poets are many as dragon scales On the moonlit sea.

There are only two poems by Zhang Ruoxu left in historical Tang poetry records. One entitled “Dàidá Guīmèng Huán” (代答闺梦还, “Replying to a Lady’s Dream”) is indeed a love poem: “关塞年华早, 楼台别望违。试衫著暖气, 开镜觅春晖。燕入窥罗幕, 蜂来上画衣。情催桃李艳, 心寄管弦飞。妆洗朝相待, 风花暝不归。梦魂何处入, 寂寂掩重扉。” (Guānsàiniánhuá zǎo, Lóutái biéwàng wéi. Shìshān zhuó nuǎnqì,Kāijìng mì chūnhuī.Yànrù kuī luómù,Fēnglái shàng huàyī.Qíngcuī táolǐ yàn, Xīnjì guǎnxiánfēi. Zhuāngxǐ zhāoxiāngdài, Fēnghuā míngbùguī.Mènghúnhéchù rù,Jìjì yǎnchóngfēi.) The illustration, the scene, the characters and the plot are not related to Mathers’ content at all, so this is deﬁnitely not the original. The other work by Zhang Ruoxu is the most famous long 36-line-poem, “Chūnjiāng Huāyuè Yè” (春江花月夜, “A Moonlit Night on the Spring River”). Acclaimed as “outshining all poems of the Tang Dynasty,” the poem begins with the beautiful scenery of a spring river on a moonlit night. Zhang Ruoxu wove nostalgic feelings and thoughts of life with descriptions of natural scenery, and then switched the poetic focus over to a romantic picture of a lady missing her lover: “谁家今夜扁舟子, 何处相思明月楼。可怜楼上月徘徊, 应照离人妆镜台。 ……此时相望不相闻, 愿逐月华流照君。” (Shuíjiā jīnyèpiānzhōuzǐ,Héchù xiāngsī míngyuèlóu. Kěliánlóushàng yuè páihuái, Yīngzhàolírén zhuāngjìngtái. … Cǐshí xiāngwàng bùxiāngwén, Yuànzhú yuèhuá liúzhàojūn.) Considering the images of moonlight, a woman, a mirror, water, and even a dragon in Mathers’ English version, the above lines might be the central portion of Zhang Ruoxu’s long poem—yet it still is farfetched. In fact, if Mathers had not clearly ascribed this poem to Zhang Ruoxu, no one would ever think that the source of the English version was “Chūnjiāng Huāyuè Yè” (春江花月夜). 154 10 Tang Poetry in Classical Chinese Poetry Anthologies

Another example is the prelude of this book, an untitled poem “From the Chinese of Chang-Chi (770–850).” The text is as follows:

Introduction By Mathers (1920,p.7) Head in hand, I look at the paper leaf; It is still white. I look at the ink Dry on the end of my brush. My soul sleeps. Will it ever wake? I walk a little in the pouring of the sun And pass my hands over the higher ﬂowers. There is the soft green forest, There are the sweet lines of the mountains Carved with snow, red in the sunlight. I see the slow march of the clouds, I hear the crows jeering, and I come back To sit and look at the paper leaf, Which is still white Under my brush. —From the Chinese of Chang-Chi (770–850)

The spelling of the poet’s name “Chang-Chi (Zhang Ji)” in Chinese characters could be the Tang poet 张继 (715–779) or 张籍 (766–830). According to the dates Mathers provided, it most likely should be the later one, 张籍. Nonetheless, I was unable to find the original text that would match this translation, after glancing through 423 poems by 张籍 collected in QuánTángshī (全唐诗, Complete Anthology of Tang Poetry). Random selection and inadequate interpretation are common weaknesses of translators in literary circles. To be objective, this group of translators did not know the Chinese language. They did not have the necessary linguistic competence to understand the original fully. As to the subjective aspect, they did not need to find the genuine meaning of a work; it was adequate to represent their own interpretation of certain elements in Tang poetry from their personal perspectives and in ways appropriate to their particular form of expression. All in all, as collections of Oriental poems, Coloured Stars and The Garden of Bright Waters contain an interesting assortment of love poems of all Eastern countries, among which Tang poetry was highly ranked from among the selected Chinese poems. Its status of importance had been sensed but was not clearly marked, since Tang poetry had not yet been regarded as a distinct entity. Compared with other literary translators, Mathers’ translations lacked the romantic feelings expressed in Gautier’s work and the elegant elements in Cranmer-Byng’s renderings. That is to say, his translation is devoid of outstanding merit. In terms of translation as a medium for literary exchange, his work is rather insignificant. The biggest contribution he made to the propagation of Tang poetry lies in his 10.1 Mathers and His Two Theme-Oriented Anthologies 155 methodology of selecting poems by themes, thus representing a more specialized and in-depth picture of classical Chinese poetry. In 1942, a book entitled Chinese Love Poems: from Most Ancient to Modern Times was published in New York. It is a theme-oriented chronological selection of earlier-translated Chinese poems by Waley, Jenyns, and other translators. The poems are illustrated with decorative cut-outs in this book, and Tang poems out- number those of all other dynasties. Later, as more Chinese poems were translated into Western languages, more theme-oriented collections were published one after another. Various themes include the frontier, love, scenery, Taoist thought, and drinking, and Tang poems take their place with those of the other dynasties and contemporary ones, chronologically. Except for such famous poets as Li Bai and Du Fu, an anthology exclusively of Tang poetry did not appear until the 1960s or 1970s, when the westward propagation of Tang poetry entered its later phase. It is worthwhile to pay attention to the preface of this small anthology. The illustrator Paul McPharlin (1903–1948) mentioned in the preface that, to facilitate smooth reading and research, the name and date of each original poet were given under each poem. However, the lack of standard orthographic rules for Chinese characters caused so much confusion in the spelling of the poets’ names that some poems were not credited to the right poet. The inconsistency in the spelling of Chinese proper nouns remains a common problem in translations of Chinese literature. Other than different orthographic rules, there are different dialectical pro- nunciations for Chinese characters. Many early sinologists mentioned in the previous sections spoke only Cantonese instead of Mandarin. Furthermore, European languages such as English, French, German, Italian, and Latin adopted Chinese name spellings from each other, making things even more complicated. I have come across approximately 20 different spellings of Li Bai’s name in the course of this research. This inconsistency not only poses difficulties to editors and readers, but also, to some extent, affects translators in their efforts to understand the styles of Tang poets and organize their poems systematically.

10.2 Joseph French and Lotus and Chrysanthemum

Joseph Lewis French (1858–1936), a writer, translator, and literary critic who was famous for translating Oriental ghost stories, published Lotus and Chrysanthemum: An Anthology of Chinese and Japanese Poetry in 1927. This book was widely circulated in America, and it was mistakenly thought that the poems were translated by French himself. This book did not earn much attention from the academic community, probably because the title was too obscure. Consequently, no adequate evaluation of its historical value has been made. In fact, Lotus and Chrysanthemum is a selective collection of poems translated from Chinese and Japanese by some famous translators. 156 10 Tang Poetry in Classical Chinese Poetry Anthologies

In the preface, French made a summary of the progress of Chinese poetry translation up to his day. He concluded: “The interest in Chinese poetry on the part of English scholars has increased greatly within the past 50 years, and has culmi- nated finally in the excellent work in translation and paraphrase of Prof. Herbert A. Giles, of Clifford Bax, of Helen Waddell, of Bainbridge Fletcher, of Judith Gautier (in French), of Cecil Clementi, of E. Powys Mathers, of Ezra Pound, of Witter Bynner and of Amy Lowell, finally reaching a cap-sheaf in the splendid perfor- mances of L. Cranmer-Byng and of Arthur Waley… The general interest in the field is increasing, and more volumes have appeared in the past decade than in the half-century that went before” (French 1927, p. 6). French also stated his standards of compilation very clearly. The first objective was to present “a fairly representative compendium of the whole body” of English-translated Chinese and Japanese poetry. The second but more important goal was to bring aesthetic pleasure to readers. Therefore, all the translations selected were from masters in this field. The book had three sections: “Chinese Poetry,”“Japanese Poetry,” and “Imitations.” The first part contains 175 poems, which are arranged and classified chronologically with the names of original poets, ranging from The Book of Songs to contemporary poems, among which Tang poems account for the majority. The book also includes several articles by Cranmer-Byng, Waley, and Giles to introduce the forms, process of evolution and characteristics of Chinese poetry and representative poets such as Li Bai, Bai Juyi, Du Fu, Sikong Tu, and Han Yu (韩愈). All selected articles are from the related books by those scholars mentioned in previous chapters, including Waley’s 170 Chinese Poems, Cranmer-Byng’s A Lute of Jade and The Feast of Lanterns, and Giles’ A History of Chinese Literature. A considerably large portion of translated poems are also from these and other books that were discussed in previous chapters. French also selected poems from many important books that will be discussed in later chapters, such as Cathay by Ezra Pound, Fir-flower Tablets by Florence Ayscough and Amy Lowell, and The Jade Mountain by Witter Bynner and Kiang Kang-Hu. While French felt impressed by the growing interest of the general public in this field, he himself was one of the “the general public.” It is not an easy task for Americans to differentiate “Chinese style” from “Japanese style.” Even at present, both China and Japan are often quoted together as “the Far East.” Please note that Western readers’ knowledge of Chinese or Chinese poetry is learned solely from translated works. The majority of “the general public” does not have any idea about the original works or poets. This fact became one of the problems for French in selecting poems and compiling the book. Inconsistent spellings of Chinese names turned out to be the first obstacle that he could not overcome. For example, Li Bai’s works were scattered among three different entries: “Li Po, “Li T’ai-Po” and “Rihaku” (Li Bai’s name in Japanese). The pen name of the American writer Frederick Peterson “Pai Ta-Shun,” was listed among Chinese poets and his true name “Frederick Peterson” was listed as a translator. Judith Gautier’s name was also placed side by side with Chinese poets. Obviously, the process of diffusion of 10.2 Joseph French and Lotus and Chrysanthemum 157 classical Chinese poetry was just expanding in the United States, and systematic studies in this field had not yet been launched. Surveying the translated versions, French realized that aesthetic value in Chinese poetry was universal and “indeed perennial.” What he meant by “perennial” was that strong and perpetual vitality existed in the lofty images and strong emotions in the poetry that could go beyond time, distance, space, and cultural and national boundaries. This kind of vitality was displayed collectively in the third section of his book, “Imitation”—a section for “Oriental-styled” poems by American poets. Modern European and American writers, such as Glenn Hughes, Witter Bynner, Georges Auriol, Wayne Gard, Helen Schlesinger, Thomas Burke, and Christopher Morley, contributed 22 poems in total, in which they expressed their impressions and appreciation of Chinese and Japanese literary works, natural scenery, and artefacts. These poets and their works demonstrated their joint efforts to shake the shackles off of the European poetic tradition and to seek new inspiration from the other side of the globe. Pound once remarked that when he was eager to search for new nourishment in order to fit into the new era with a new poetic style, he discovered Chinese poetry as one of his treasure houses “by chance.” There was logic of historical inevitability in this coincidence. Pound was not the only American poet, who applied the inspiration and material acquired from Chinese poetry to his own works. Here are the two poems by Bynner collected in French’s book:

A Tea-Girla A Scholar by Bynner (French 1927, p. 191) by Bynner (French 1927, p. 192) When the ﬁsh-eyes of water Having won his diploma Bubble into crab-eyes— He rides a horse of air Tea! Through ten miles of the color Of apricot-blossoms aWitter Bynner, A Canticle of Pan: And Other Poems, Biblio Bazaar, LLC, 2008, p. 91

The above two examples were in Bynner’s suite of poems “Chinese Drawings,” and were also published in his own collection, A Canticle of Pan: And Other Poems, much later. With concise syntactical structure and apt expression, these poems unfolded typical Chinese cultural elements without mentioning the word “China” or “Chinese.” The settings of the two poems, such as water boiling from “fish-eyes” to “crab-eyes” and an ambitious new scholar riding on a horse “Through ten miles of the color / Of apricot-blossoms” after his success in official examinations, vividly presented profound scenarios in the style of chinoiserie. This poetic expression also seemed as if even Bynner himself had gotten lost in his own imagination and would identify himself as a Chinese. These two poems marked out characteristics of the whole suite of poems by Bynner and the rest of the poems in this section by other American poets. American poets were no longer satisfied with reading translated Chinese poetry passively; instead, they attempted to absorb Chinese poetic nutrients and mingle them with their own poetic creations. This attempt enriched the cultural pluralism of modern American poetry and led to the propagation of English-translated Tang poems 158 10 Tang Poetry in Classical Chinese Poetry Anthologies leaping to a new stage. On the other hand, this attempt also provided Chinese writers with fresh references and new methods for retaining the vitality of the classical poetic tradition in contemporary literature. During the process of building the foundation for the propagation of Chinese classical literature to the English-speaking world, pioneer translators like Davis, Giles, and Waley focused on introducing objective facts about the subject. They expounded on the structure and syntactical rules of classical Chinese poetry, interpreted particular images and explained cultural elements. French, however, paid more attention to the poetic aesthetics. As an excellent writer with a rich background in literature, as well as a trenchant critic, French possessed an extraordinary wealth of poetic comprehension and a tremendous depth of appreciation. French declared that the most prominent characteristic of Chinese poetry is “merging human feelings with picturesque surroundings.” Chinese poets used to meld personal thoughts into the scenic description, expressing their emotions through objective subjects, and imbedding affective components into nature and landscape images. He stated that: “Chinese poetry must in all cases be compared with Chinese painting. Here is the most striking example in all arts of the inseparable union of two arts, although the same general parallel exists in all nations, Chinese poems are like a panorama of Chinese mural paintings. … Commonly seen in Chinese paintings are such scenes: a reserved and elegant girl walking away pulling up the drapes of her skirt; the dignified and honorable monarch sitting in the throne in Gautier’s poem; the young aristocrat guarding the country border and his wife thinking of him at home in the moonlight; the beautiful woman, Xi Shi (西施), washing threads along the stream, and Li Bai drinking with his poet friend Du Fu… Even in emotional poems, these images are vivid. It is this visual quality (call it ‘surface’ if you will—but it is none the less subtle—and has endured throughout the ages) that gives Chinese poetry its own niche—its place apart and immortal” (French 1927, p. 3). All literary works are the writers’ emotional deposit and collected ideological leanings. Poetry is no exception, no matter what the language of the article is. Excellent poems always appeal to readers with vivid images and strong aesthetic perceptions, unintentionally or deliberately, deeply, or simply. Impressive poetic expressions always reflect writers’ attitudes toward life, intimating their aspirations and philosophy through objects, events or the people they perceive around them. When Lotus and Chrysanthemum was published, the second period of prosperity in American literature had just emerged. Romanticism was declining, and realism was in its initial stage. When fast-developing industrial civilization brought about abominable quarrels over secular profits, the common feature of various new schools of poetry was to portray the increasingly prominent human contradictions in modern capitalist society. Imagists, new idyllists, symbolists and abstract expressionists revealed the current attitudes of pessimism and uncertainty. Even in idyllist poems, the descriptions of scenes of rural life in New Britain, such as those presented by Robert Frost (1874–1963), were also tinged with isolation, estrangement, and death. Responding to this phenomenon, French remarked that 10.2 Joseph French and Lotus and Chrysanthemum 159 everyone would probably encounter many kinds of difficulties in their lifetime, and find themselves at some time to have a heavy heart. For him, American poets should learn from excellent Chinese poets and embrace a more positive attitude towards life, because the Chinese “always keep a clear conscience in adversity, they never beg for and accept others’ handouts, and they never hesitate in their anger.” French believed that, because Chinese poets always kept an optimistic attitude towards life, every level of their personal emotions and experiences could produce a powerful message coming from the nature of their soul and spirit, thus making Chinese poetry a “perfect artwork.” French, as an American man of culture and literature, was an authoritative reader of Chinese poetry. Lotus and Chrysanthemum not only presented the general performance of elite translators at that time, but also illustrated the reception of their works by the general public. The fact that French could have compiled such a collection demonstrated the fact that the circulation of English-translated Chinese poems reached a booming period, because of both the availability of his references and the acceptance of his work by American poets. Yet again, Tang poems were the most influential group among the classical Chinese poems presented. Of course, Lotus and Chrysanthemum also reveals to us that the American knowledge of classical Chinese poetry was still superficial. To most Americans at that time, China was a piece of poor, backward, remote, and isolated land. Their interest in classical Chinese poems and traditional Chinese culture did not indicate that they had a strong desire to know more about China or its people. Scholar Chung Ling (钟玲) pointed out: “Some American people in the 20th century had a strange dichotomy about China, as if China in reality had nothing to do with the Chinese culture. They ignored or discriminated against the Chinese people in America or China, but highly revered ancient Chinese culture. This mentality determined that they lacked a microscopic understanding of some fundamental conditions of China, such as its history, geography and language, except for texts of poetry. Their knowledge in these areas was poorer than that of some sinologists in the primary stage. This weakness also determined the superficiality in their interpretation of classical Chinese poetry” (Chung 2003, p. 28). The “Imitation” section of French’s book was the appearance of “orientally-styled” American poems and their creators as a unique group. French arranged this section to conclude the whole book in order to remind modern American poets that simply to appreciate or translate the ancient poetic achievements of the Far East was only the first step. He encouraged them to absorb the essence of Oriental poetry and apply it to their own creative work. French was also aware of the problem that American poets lacked a systematic and comprehensive knowledge of classical Chinese poetry. Theoretically, he pointed out that studying Chinese poetry required more than an effort to understand its forms and words, or to compare them with those of Western poetry. More attention had to be paid to the poets’ writing techniques in creating an artistic conception through objective images, and in conveying the fruit of self-cultivation through poetic expression. In order to achieve this goal, Chinese poetry could not be removed from its own cultural framework. French further pointed out that 160 10 Tang Poetry in Classical Chinese Poetry Anthologies

Chinese scholars sojourning in America should take the initiative to link up Eastern and Western cultures. He hoped that more Chinese in America would participate in translation so as to broaden the horizon of English readers’ interests, and promote cultural fusion with their deep knowledge, greater language proﬁciency in the Chinese and bicultural background. Reﬂecting on his insightful advice, generations of Chinese-American intellectuals have accepted this inherited responsibility consciously since the 1920s, and have started on the long journey of making persistent efforts in translation practice to promote poetic dialogue between China and the West.

References

Chinese Reference

Chung Ling: 《美国诗与中国梦 : 美国现代诗里的中国文化模式》, 广西师范大学出版社 , 2003。

English References

French, J. L. (1927). Lotus and Chrysanthemum: An Anthology of Chinese and Japanese Poetry. New York: Liveright Publishing Corporation. Mathers, E. P. (1920). The garden of bright waters: one hundred and twenty asiatic love poems. New York: Alfred A. Knopf ; Oxford: Basil Blackwell. Chapter 11 Ezra Pound’s Cathay and the Transmission of Tang Poetry to the West

The early twentieth century witnessed the decline of New Romanticism, which was a combination of Symbolism, Aestheticism, and Romanticism in European literature. Creative writings disintegrated into oversentimental moaning and ethical sermonizing. This led to the birth of the Imagist movement, which promoted a series of “anti-norms” to reject the sentimentality and discursiveness that were typical of much Romantic and Victorian poetry. Imagism was an assertion of poetic creation, which called for a return to what were seen as more time-honored values in poetry, such as directness of presentation with clear, sharp, and simple language, as well as a willingness to experiment in the use of free verse forms. As a forerunner to the poetic style of Modernism, the Imagist movement has been described as the most inﬂuential project in English poetry since the activity of the Pre-Raphaelites. The Imagist group was centered in London, with poets from England, Ireland, and the United States. When the American poet Ezra Pound was introduced to the group in April 1909, he found that their ideas were close to his own. Pound, Amy Lawrence Lowell (1874–1925), and Witter Bynner were outstanding American representatives of the Imagist movement who actively participated in the translation of classical Chinese poems. In general, their translations focused on the expression of subjective feelings and thematic novelty through their ingenuity in diction, as distinguished from the works of professional sinologists. Their own achievements, together with those of the pioneer Sinologists, became valuable resources in the quest to fulﬁll their aspirations and gain experience. Chinese poetics became part of their own poetic views or served as the foundation of the ideas behind their poetic creation. The Imagists became interested in Chinese poetry mainly because of Pound’s very famous publication Cathay (1915). His involvement with ancient Chinese poetry began with his acquaintance in London with the recently widowed wife of Ernest Fenollosa, Mary McNeill Scott (1865–1954). Throughout his life, Fenollosa had devoted himself to advocating for the study of Oriental culture, showing particular interest in Japanese art, drama, and poetry. After his death in London in 1908, Mary, who was also a writer, engaged herself in

© Foreign Language Teaching and Research Publishing Co., Ltd 161 and Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany 2018 L. Jiang, A History of Western Appreciation of English-translated Tang Poetry, China Academic Library, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-56352-6_11 162 11 Ezra Pound’s Cathay and the Transmission … sorting out a large collection of unpublished notes and manuscripts he had left behind. In order to reorganize her husband’s thoughts according to his talents, she turned to the European and American literary circles to find someone who might be qualified for this task. Five years after Fenollosa’s death, she met with Pound at a literary salon in London. She had read his poems and had a favorable opinion of him, so she invited the young poet to organize and edit her husband’s vast manuscript material (Tryphonopoulos 2005). From this point on, Fenollosa’s dis- organized notes and unpublished manuscripts were submitted in batches by Mary to Ezra Pound. It turned out that Mary’s decision, made out of her artistic sensitivity as a writer, was quite beneficial, “so it came about that the opportunity to invent Chinese poetry for our time fell not to some random modernist but to a master” (Kenner 1973, p. 198). Fenollosa’s manuscripts contained all the notes he had taken when he spent two decades living, teaching, and studying in Japan, including the books in which he was drafting his lectures on Chinese poetry. There is no indication that Pound was thinking of Chinese poems or characters in the creation of his own poetry creation, but he was clearly ready for the task Mary passed on to him. Subsequently, he finished Fenollosa’s work with the aid of Arthur Waley and William Butler Yeats (1865–1939), using them to solidify the growing interest in Far Eastern literature among modernist writers. Pound “selected 14 poems out of some 150 in the notebooks,” and published the first print of Cathay: For the Most Part from the Chinese of Rihaku, from the notes of Ernest Fenollosa, and the Decipherings of the Professors Mori and Ariga in 1915 in London. Hugh Kenner, an American expert on studies of Pound and the author of The Pound Era, remarked that this handsome small volume contained “the first vers-libre translations not derived from other translations but from detailed notes on the Chinese texts” (Kenner 1973, p. 198). Cathay was reprinted so many times that it became one of the most popular translations of Chinese poetry in English-speaking countries. There are, however, some issues that need to be clarified about its content. As quoted above, Kenner remarked that there were “14 poems” in the book, while other critics argued that it contained 15 in total. The right answer can only be found in the book. In Cathay, under the heading of “From Rihaku, Four Poems of Departure,” there are included four poems by Li Bai, “Separation on the River Kiang” (黄鹤楼送孟浩然之广陵), “Taking Leave of a Friend” (送友人), “Leave-Taking near Shoku” (送友人入蜀), and “The City of Choan” (登金陵凤凰台), with all of the original titles being preserved. However, there were another six lines under the following heading, being printed in italics without an original poet’s name or an explanation by Pound:

Light rain is on the light dust. The willows of the inn-yard Will be going greener and greener, (continued) 11 Ezra Pound’s Cathay and the Transmission … 163

(continued) But you, Sir, had better take wine ere your departure, For you will have no friends about you When you come to the gates of Go. By Pound (1915, p. 28)

Because of Pound’s austere and transparent style of writing, it is rather easy to relate this six-line-poem to “Sòng Yuán’èrShǐ Ãnxī” (送元二使安西, “Seeing Yuan’er on Embassy to An’xi”) by Wang Wei: “渭城朝雨邑轻尘,客舍青青柳色新。劝君更尽一杯酒,西出阳关无故人。” (Wèichéng zhāoyǔ yìqīngchén, Kèshè qīngqīng liǔsèxīn. Quànjūngèngjìnyībēijiǔ,Xīchū yángguānwúgùrén.) Pound placed this poem here to use it as an epigraph to “Four Poems of Departure,” so as to contrive a delicate formality. In terms of the total number of poems in Cathay, this section should be counted as five, instead of four. Li Bai’s name appeared in Japanese as “Rihaku” in Cathay. Another poem entitled “The River Song” actually contains “Jiāngshàng Yín” (江上吟) and the complete English version of another of Li Bai’s works called “Shìcóng Yíchūnyuàn FèngzhàoFù Lóngchí Liǔsè Chūqīng Tīng Xīnyīng BǎizhuǎnGē” (侍从宜春苑奉诏赋龙池柳色初青听新莺百啭歌). They were counted as two poems, but Pound mistook it for one. So there were 17 poems in total in the 1915 version of Cathay. Another issue is about the first poem, “The Mulberry by the Road.” It was ascribed in this book to “Kutsugen, fourth Century B.C.,” and “Kutsugen” is the name in Japanese for Qu Yuan (屈原, 340 B.C.–278 B.C.). Yet the corresponding source text of the English version is “Picking fresh vegetable buds till the buds stop growing” (采薇采薇,薇亦作止). One year later, Cathay was reprinted in Lustra, which was first published in Britain and then in America. The original author was noted as “Bunno, Very Early” in the British version and was changed into “Bunno, Reputedly 1100 B.C.” in the American version. On page 258 of Legge’s book series “The Chinese Classics” volume IV, “Bunno” is described as King Wen of the Zhou dynasty (周文王). Hence, the poem is from The Book of Odes (诗经Á小雅, ShījīngÁ Xiǎoyǎ), not a work by Qu Yuan. There is one more mistake about the poem “The Beautiful Toilet” by Mei Cheng (枚乘). According to Pound, the poem was translated from “Green grass on the riverside” (青青河畔草), the second poem in the suite of 19 Ancient Poems (古诗十九首) of the Han dynasty. It was said in some ancient Chinese texts that this poem was written by Mei Cheng, but later scholars actually doubted the veracity of this statement. Pound ascribed this poem to Mei Cheng only because he referred to Giles’ A History of Chinese Literature, when puzzled by Fenollosa’s notes. He simply followed Giles’ inaccurate description and credited the poem to Mei Cheng. Therefore, “Mei Cheng” is the only name of a poet spelled in English rather than in Japanese in Cathay. Fenollosa, who had studied Chinese poetry under Japanese teachers, did not speak or read Chinese proficiently. The notes left were not written for publication 164 11 Ezra Pound’s Cathay and the Transmission … but were only scribbled during tutorial sessions to aid his own recollection. When Pound worked on the posthumous notes of Fenollosa, he brought neither prior knowledge of the Chinese language nor a scholarly grasp of canonical Chinese poetry to the scattered notations and paraphrasing. Needless to say, such a phenomenon presented multiple impediments for Pound to overcome. There is no surprise in the existence of “errors,” of misunderstanding, or of misinterpretation. Pound had taken all the necessary measures to consult the notes in front of him, and to draw connections between as many words as possible. He had to move around deftly, unguided, to protect the natural flow of a poem with elements from a foreign language. Strictly speaking, Cathay was not a work of “translation” but the result of his “recreation” based on Fenollosa’s notes. Upon the publication of Cathay, Ford Madox Hueffer (1873–1939), a well-known American writer, critic and the founder of the English Review, said, “If these are original verses, then Mr. Pound is the greatest poet of this day… The poems in Cathay are things of a supreme beauty. What poetry should be, that they are. And if a new breath of imagery and handling can do anything for our poetry, that new breath these poems bring…” (Eliot 1917, p. 29) This passage later became one of the classical and most frequently quoted comments on Cathay. Needless to say, Pound did not compose these exquisite poetic lines by himself, but, whether original or not, the “freshness” of Cathay in the canon of modern American poetry cannot be denied. Its “freshness” lies in Pound’s creative techniques of imitating Chinese poetry. Due to his crucial role in American literature, Pound and his works have long been a specialized topic in literary research in the European countries and the United States. In recent years, the study of Pound has also become one of the research focuses in intercultural communication between the East and the West. Among Chinese scholars, Professor Qian Zhaoming (钱兆明) from the English Department of the University of New Orleans published his studies Pound and China (University of Michigan Press, 2003) and Pound’s Chinese Friends (Oxford University Press, 2008). Many other scholars, such as Zhao Yiheng (赵毅衡), Xie Ming (谢明), Huang Yunte (黄运特), and Sun Hong (孙宏), have made references to some degree to Pound and his Cathay in comparative studies on literatures and cultures. Since Tang poems are the main content of Cathay, it is quite necessary here to discuss the characteristics of this book from the perspective of the selection of source texts. From this discussion, we can proceed to the evaluation of Pound’s contribution to the transmission of Tang poetry to the West. In terms of the above analysis, we can reach the conclusion that the source texts Pound used were first converted from Chinese into Japanese partially, and then from Japanese into English. During these transmissions, erroneous interpretations might have been made by the Japanese scholars, and then by Fenollosa. Here is the question: Does this thin collection possess, from the perspective of the transmission of Tang poetry to the West, any distinctive characteristics of its own? The answer to this question has direct effects on the evaluation of Pound’s contribution to the field. Here “The Jewel Stairs Grievance” is appropriate for analysis 11 Ezra Pound’s Cathay and the Transmission … 165

The Jewel Stairs Grievance By Pound (1915, p. 13) 玉阶怨李白 The jeweled steps are already quite white with dew, 玉阶生白露, It is so late that the dew soaks my gauze stockings, 夜久侵罗袜。 And I let down the crystal curtain, 却下水晶帘, And watch the moon through the clear autumn. 玲珑望秋月。 By Rihaku Note Jewel stairs: a palace. Grievance: something to complain about Gauze stockings: a court lady who complains Clear autumn: she has no excuse on account of the weather. Also, she has come early, for the dew has not whitened the stairs, but has soaked her stockings. The poem is especially prized because she utters no direct reproach

Among Li Bai’s many masterpieces, this palace grievance poem has a unique style. “Grievance hidden” in its concise words is quite different from Li Bai’s usually free and easy style of expression. Since there is no subject in this poem, we may interpret it either as the narration of the heroine or as the description of a bystander. Pound had to add a subject in his translation and decided to use the ﬁrst person “I” in order to make the poem more expressive. Giles also translated this poem with the same consideration:

From the Palace By Giles (1898, p. 72) Cold dews of night the terrace crown, And soak my stockings and my gown; I’ll step behind The crystal blind, And watch the autumn moon sink down.

The narrator in Giles’ translation is wearing exquisite clothes while standing on the balcony of a palace. Sleepless at midnight, she might be expectant of something but, deterred by cold dews, she “retreats” behind the bead blinds. Not only are her longtime obsession with standing and the helplessness of her looking through the blinds in the presentation of the original poem lost, but the gloomy mood between the lines is also omitted from the original. Comparatively, Pound’s translation keeps the appeal and charm of the original poem. It is natural, vivid, and elegant. Generations of scholars have made com- mendatory comments on this short poem for its effusion of sentiment and reserved affection. Fan Xiwen (范晞文) of the Song dynasty acclaimed it as “full of profound and graceful affection” (备婉娈之深情,bèiwǎnluánzhī shēnqíng), and Shen Deqian (沈德潜) of the Qing dynasty said, “The grace of this poem lies in its implicit expression of gloom” (妙在不明说怨,miàozàibù míngshuō yuàn). The annotations Pound added to this poem also proved that he had a basic understanding of the poetic and aesthetic meaning of the original poem. Among the 17 166 11 Ezra Pound’s Cathay and the Transmission … poems collected in Cathay, this is the only poem with annotations. These notes may show that Pound was more confident in his understanding of this poem, or that he liked this poem the most. Obviously, it is the one to which Pound wanted readers to pay particular attention. Fenollosa’s notebooks had 150 some Chinese poems, while Pound just collected 17 in his Cathay. Then what criteria did he apply in his selection? According to the postscript, since he was attacked for his covert support of many young poets and their new poetic style, he had to be very cautious in what he selected for publication. He avoided poems that contained many allusions, for they needed “necessary breaks for explanation” and boring annotations in English verse, which would certainly interrupt the pleasure of reading, and would then affect the acceptance of the whole book. Therefore, he would “give only these unquestionable poems, even though Fenollosa recorded many good poems. The so-called “unquestionable” means having fewer allusions, causing him less trouble to manipulate, and being more suitable to his personal perceptions of poetics. Due to his deficiency in the Chinese and Japanese languages, Pound was frequently puzzled by the Chinese characters, the Japanese phonetic notations and the word-for-word English interpretations of the source poems in Fenollosa’s notes. Although the Japanese scholar Nagao Ariga provided him with much “technical assistance” in deciphering, he was still not sure what to keep and what to omit, not to mention how to make “correct” judgments. So there exist many obvious defects and limitations in Cathay. One is that Pound mistook the Japanese pronunciation notations of Chinese characters and used them as such in his version. For instance, in the first line “Gùrénxīcí Huánghèlóu” (故人西辞黄鹤楼, My old friend left at Yellow Crane tower to the west) in “Separation on the River Kiang” (黄鹤楼送孟浩然之广陵), two words, “gùrén” (故人, old friend) and “Huánghèlóu” (黄鹤楼, Yellow Crane Tower) were followed by the Japanese pronunciation notes “Ko-jin” and “Ko-kaku-ro,” respectively. Pound retained them in the poem line as “Ko-jin goes west from Ko-kaku-ro,” which means a man named Ko-jin leaves a place named Ko-kaku-ro for the west. Scenes, characters and their actions are totally different from the original. There are some other similar errors in the book: the word “xiānrén” (仙人, Taoist immortal) in “xiānrényǒudàichéng huánghè” (仙人有待乘黄鹤) from Li Bai’s “The River Song” is turned into “Sennin”; “Yingzhou” (瀛洲)in“dōngfēng yǐlǜ yíngzhōucǎo” (东风已绿瀛洲草) becomes “Yei-shu”; and even the “river Kiang” actually is “Cháng Jiāng” (长江, the Long River), not “a river called ‘Kiang’,” and so on. All these mistakes occurred as Pound simply inserted Fenollosa’s information on the Japanese text into the verse. The second defect is the mechanical correspondence of some “characters” without knowing the meaning of the whole “word.” For instance, “duànchánghuā” (断肠花, the begonia flower) is translated as “flowers to cut the heart, and “huángjīn” (黄金, gold) is interpreted as “yellow-metal.” All these phrases did not seem to make sense with the other parts of the poem. It is interesting to note that “Jiāngshàng Yín” (江上吟) and “Shìcóng YíchūnyuànFèngzhàoFù Lóngchí Liǔsè Chūqīng Tīng Xīnyīng BǎizhuǎnGē” (侍 11 Ezra Pound’s Cathay and the Transmission … 167

从宜春苑奉诏赋龙池柳色初青听新莺百啭歌) by Li Bai appeared sequentially in Fenollosa’s notes. However, Pound edited them as one poem “The River Song,” and even translated the title of the second one as an independent stanza in the middle of the poem. Both Fenollosa’s confusing notes and Pound’s limited knowledge of the poems misled him to mistake the long title for part of a poem. That is why the image of Li Bai on the boat suddenly appears in the Emperor’s garden. The third defect is his way of dealing with allusions. Though Pound consciously tried to avoid poems with many allusions, he could not evade the problem. Let us take the “Poem by the Bridge at Ten-Shin” (Pound 1915, p. 14) as an example. The original poem is the 18th of a suit entitled “Gǔ Fēng” (古风, ‘Ancientry’) by Li Bai. In classical Chinese poetry, the word “古风” is not only a common title, but also marked by deliberate obscurity of style or expression. In fact, this particular poem by Li Bai is full of allusions. So what did Pound do with those parts of poems that he could not understand? One thing he did was to avoid and omit them. Some lines, such as “志气横嵩丘” (Zhìqì héng Sōngqiū), “功成身不退,自古多愆尤” (Gōngchéng shēnbùtuì, Zìgǔ duōqiānyóu) are omitted. Another technique was to replace them with the Japanese spellings in Fenollosa’s notes, as mentioned before, with no further explanation. Thus, “Xī Shàngyáng” (西上阳, the west of Shangyang) is written as “Sei-go-yo,” and a woman’s name “Lǜzhū (绿珠)” is replaced with “Riokushu.” In fact, restrained by strict conventional Western academic norms and morals, Pound just intended to give great credit to Fenollosa’s achievements. Kenner comments, “Though he knew the name of Li Po he let the Japanese form ‘Rihaku’ stand when the little book went to press, content to leave it on record that the Chinese had come to him by way of Japan…” (Kenner 1973, p. 222) But Pound’s good intentions really created problems of comprehension for the readers of these poems. Pound’s third method of evasion was to rewrite casually and liberally on the basis of his own feeling, rather than the meaning of the poems. For instance, “Qiánshuǐ fù hòushuǐ,Gǔjīnxiāngxù liú” (前水复后水,古今相续流) becomes, “Petals are on the gone waters and on the going/And on the back-swirling eddies,” and so forth. Kenner holds the idea that the “Tokyo” (referring to Fenollosa’s Japanese tutors) and Fenollosa’s scattered notes are to be blamed for not providing sufficient information, “so he had to turn to the related empty couplets in Giles’ A History of Chinese Literature when he encountered difficulties in understanding Fenollosa’s notes. Therefore, he often made wrong decisions when he was unaware of making a decision at all” (Kenner 1973, p. 204). Kenner’s defense of Pound is generally reasonable. Mistakes are commonly seen in other English versions of Tang poems as well. But in the case of this poem in particular, Pound was not “unaware” of failing to imply the meaning of the words mentioned above. Fenollosa did note down detailed explanations and derived meanings of the main allusions, such as “purple mandarin duck” (紫鸳鸯), “yellow dog” (黄犬), “green beads” (绿珠), and so on. Pound just chose to “omit” them. Were these allusions too complicated for the great poet to interpret sufficiently? Not 168 11 Ezra Pound’s Cathay and the Transmission … really. To him, there was no need to interpret them. In other words, he did not care if the meaning of the original was not faithfully conveyed. His intention was to convey his own “images.” First and foremost, Pound sorted out Fenollosa’s notes more as a poet than as a translator. He gave priority to his poetic and aesthetic pursuits and to the expression of his ideas about the creation of poetry when he edited the notes. The very famous poet Eliot once pointed out explicitly, “It is easy to say that the language of Cathay is due to the Chinese. If one looks carefully at (1) Pound’s other verse, (2) other people’s translations from the Chinese (e.g., Giles’), it is evident that this is not the case” (Eliot 1917, p. 26). Then he insisted, “‘Cathay’ will, I believe, rank with ‘the Seafarer’ in the future among Mr. Pound’s original work; the Noh will rank among his translations” (p. 29). Eliot was a close friend of Pound, and soon after the publication of Cathay,he and Pound were both in London. Eliot’s remarks actually affirmed the value of Cathay from the perspective of verse creation. His comments further prove my previous argument that Cathay is by no means a good work in terms of Tang poetry “translation,” but it is quite another story in view of Pound’s own creation. Cathay is the praiseworthy result of cultural inoculation after a process of encounter, clash, and intertwining. When Western thought met Eastern expression, and when the Western spirit was wreathed with Eastern elements, and as soon as the heavy load of preoccupation and preconception was laid aside, song rose naturally from the lips. As early as 1910, Pound described his view of poetics in his well-known book The Spirit of the Romantics, “Poetry is a sort of inspired mathematics, which gives us equations, not for abstract figures, triangles, spheres, and the like, but equations for the human emotions. If one has a mind which inclines to magic rather than to science, one will prefer to speak of these equations as spells or incantations; it sounds more arcane, mysterious, and recondite. Speaking generally, the spells or equations of ‘classic’ art invoke the beauty of the normal, and spells of ‘romantic’ art are said to invoke the beauty of the unusual. However, any classification of works of art is unsatisfactory. I fear the pigeon-hole, though it brings apparent convenience” (Pound 1910, p. 5). His great ambition to create more enchanting poems by attempting to solve the mystery of poetics finds full expression here. The idea of dismantling Chinese characters as described in Fenollosa’s The Chinese Written Character as a Medium for Poetry had a great impact on Pound. This theory advocated dismantling Chinese characters in an exaggerated way into many parts, believing that each part had the ability of visually expressing meanings, and that the juxtaposition of Chinese characters with images showed the complex relationships between things. Consequently, Chinese characters as media of poetry could achieve the aesthetic effect of integrating the art of music, painting, and sculpture, which could not be reached by the Western alphabetic form of writing. From this theory, Pound found the inspiration and theoretical basis he had been seeking to break the conventional techniques of poetic creation. The “juxtaposition of images” or “reiteration of images” paved a way for him to release the 11 Ezra Pound’s Cathay and the Transmission … 169

“instantaneous outburst” of the “composite” of rationality and sensibility. As a result, in the lines from his well-known “In a Station of Metro,” for example, the juxtaposition of images, such as “face” and “petals,”“bough” and “metro,” is very obvious:

The Apparition of these faces in the crowd: Petals on a wet, black bough. Pound and other Imagists mainly advocated the juxtaposition of objects and views by presenting intuitive images of the world to readers, discarding musicality, lyricism, and theoretical preaching. The common language of daily speech was used with exact words that directly contributed to the poetic presentation. This poem is an example of Pound putting these propositions into practice. His method of intuitively juxtaposing or reiterating various images originated from the few Tang poems in Cathay. We can see the juxtaposition of images in the following lines: “Light rain is on the light dust/The willows of the inn-yard/Will be going greener and greener.” This is the direct treatment of subjective “things” in a framework of Chinese grammar. There are also emotional variations with images’ progression in these lines, “Mind like a floating wide cloud/Sunset like the parting of old acquaintances/Who bow over their clasped hands at a distance/Our horses neigh to each other/As we are departing.” There is no unnecessary verbiage in the sequence of the musical phrase, which is used instead of a metronome. Pound’s speculation, absorption, and application of the techniques of classical Chinese poetry brought new vitality to this traditional literary genre. Tang poetry, as the Golden Age of Chinese poetry, now began to bloom like a plant that had undergone a cycle of growth for a long time. The time span between the two World Wars witnessed the Depression and terrible inflation in the capitalist countries, and Pound’s life was filled with self-exile, betrayal, psychosis, and long imprisonment. His strong will to break away from all European conventions was not hard to understand. All the so-called “European conventions” consisted of the liberal democracy of capitalism, traditional European culture, and conventional European poetics. In terms of the developing process of his thought, Pound had good reasons to use what he learned from Chinese poetry as a weapon to condemn and reject European poetics and even its literary conventions. To break with the traditional culture in “the most ancient and yet most modern” form of protest; Pound armed himself with classical Chinese texts as well as with poetry, myths, and legends from ancient Greece, Rome, Japan, and India. Zhao Yiheng (赵毅衡) has pointed out that Pound’s aspiration in editing Cathay lay in his desire to find support from Chinese poetry for his view of poetics. Inspired by Fenollosa’s theory, Pound found the shocking oddity that he had been looking for all the time in heterogeneous foreign poetry as opposed to the traditional culture of the locality and sphere in which he lived. Especially after he turned to The Cantos, the study of Chinese culture became a dominant concern in Pound’s life and work. His great Canto XIII is about Kung (i.e. Confucius), Cantos LII-LXI 170 11 Ezra Pound’s Cathay and the Transmission … deal with Chinese history, and in the later Cantos, key motifs are often given in Chinese quotations with the characters set into the English text. Chinese characters, then, were no longer linguistic symbols of the Chinese, but organic components of English poetry. Putting aside how much Pound learned from Chinese culture and from the creative techniques of Tang poetry as well as the losses and gains in his form of imitation, what matters is the imitation itself. With his unbelievably creative talent, Pound presented Western readers with an enchanting picture of “Chinoiserie,” which may or may not have been authentic. “The River-Merchant’s Wife: a Letter” from Li Bai’s “ChánggànXíng II” (长干行之二, “Song Of Changgan II”) is the most celebrated poem in Cathay. It was selected as the masterpiece of Pound’s poetry and was collected into Oscar Williams’ A Pocket Book of Modern Verse (New York, 1954), an analogy of masterpieces by acknowledged poets in Europe and America at that time. In 1962, The Mentor Book of Major American Poets, co-edited by Williams and others, also included this poem. Moreover, all editions of The Norton Anthology of American Literatures published in the last 20 or 30 years, an obligatory textbook for the course of American literature in colleges around the world, include this poem by Pound, if they include his works at all. All this indicates the fact that Pound’s adaptation of this poem is not only one of his masterpieces, but that it is also a classic in the annals of American poetry and a typical example in the process of the creative adoption of Chinese poetry. It advertises the win–win effect of intercultural communication: to propagate the literary conventions of Tang poetry as well as to enrich the creation of poetry in English. In fact, in the 1920s, the exploration of Tang poetry’s transmission should go beyond the aspect of its translation. Before Pound and Fenollosa, some professional Sinologists had achieved remarkable results, which could make up an extremely long list. The Western world had begun to sense, approve, and accept Tang poetry as the essence of a foreign culture because of its rich cultural connotations and artistic charm. As a cultural process, the westward transmission of Tang poetry was turning from the first stage—that of familiarization—to the second, that of its utilization. Internationally, cross-cultural communication is a historical trend of cultural development, and all kinds of development proceed stage by stage. The agent that plays the transitional role between two stages is not determined by the initiative of any individual, but it is the choice of history. History chose Pound to be a pioneer in the second stage of the transmission of Tang poetry to the West. Pound’s adaptation and transplantation of Tang poetry and Chinese culture was a complex cultural phenomenon. Although the number of Tang poems in Cathay was limited, its natural images and fresh style were so impressive that “critics from any school commended it with no reserve. Even the British academics, who hated Pound most, had to admit the charm of this anthology” (Zhao 2003, p. 17). Cathay has become a symbol of Pound’s maturity as a paramount figure in modern American poetry and also a window through which Americans can learn about Chinese poetry. At the beginning of the New Poetry Movement, Pound 11 Ezra Pound’s Cathay and the Transmission … 171

“adopted as a tenet of the movement, acceptance of the inﬂuence of Chinese poems, and afterwards he spoke highly of Chinese poetics all his life” (Zhao 2003, p. 17). His absorption of Chinese culture, and his speculation and application of the techniques of Tang poetry produced the effect of promoting the communication of poetics between the East and the West. He played a crucial role in the transitional stage of Tang poetry’s propagation, pushing this cultural process from the stage of knowing and appreciating Tang poems to that of approving and accepting them. From then on, Tang poetry in foreign lands was not merely to be translated and appreciated but also became a signiﬁcant resource for the development of the diversity of American culture.

References

Chinese Reference

Zhao Yiheng:《诗神远游:中国如何改变了美国现代诗》,上海:译文出版社,2003年版.

English References

Eliot, T. S. (1917). Ezra Pound: His metric and poetry. New York: Alfred Knopf. Giles, H. A. (1898). 古今诗选/Chinese Poetry in English Verse. London: Bernard Quaritch; Shanghai: Kelly & Walsh. Kenner, H. (1973). The pound era. Oakland: University of California Press. Pound, E. (1910). The spirit of romance: An attempt to deﬁne somewhat the charm of the pre-renaissance literature of Latin Europe. London: J. M. Dent & Sons, Ltd. Pound, E. (1915). Cathay. London: Elkin Mathews. Tryphonopoulos, D. P., Adams S. (Eds). (2005). The Ezra Pound Encyclopedia. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Books. Williams, O. (Ed). (1954). A Pocket Book of Modern Verse. New York: Washington Square Press. Williams, O., & Honig, E. (1962). The mentor book of major American poets. New York: Penguin Group (USA) Incorporated. Chapter 12 The Beginning of Studies on Chinese Poetic Theories

Discussion of the techniques and strategies of translating Chinese poetry started upon the initiation of the art, and might be always locked in a stalemate. The metrical structures and other physical restrictions of classical Chinese poetry were not the hardest domain for Western translators to notice and grasp, since the early attempts by sinologists and creative writers. They all tried hard to retain those “essentials” of the Chinese originals as much as they could by employing their profound knowledge of literature and linguistic craftsmanship. But even works of translation by native Chinese today might still not be perfect, because of the same cultural differences that impeded the linguistic transfer of poetry between the West and the East. Many early translators discussed in previous chapters had more or less commented with cultural obstacles. Scattered amidst the prefaces and postscripts to their translated works, they indicated in succession that appreciating Chinese poetry involved knowledge of Chinese history, ancient philosophy, and folk legends, which were the organic “sources of inspiration” for Chinese poets in their act of creation. They also noted that some common nouns and/or subjective images such as “moonlight,”“gold,” and “boat” had speciﬁc metaphysical meanings in Chinese culture. With increasing interest, Western scholars had a more urgent need for a thorough interpretation of Chinese cultural images and began to probe into the aesthetic rules and the theories of appreciation of Tang poetry. Two American scholars, Fenollosa and Purcell, deserve a special introduction. Both of them emphasized the visual differences between Chinese characters and alphabetic words, asserting that an effective way to understand the profound sense of Tang poetry was to analyze the pictographic components, dynamic feelings, and metaphorical functions of Chinese written characters.

© Foreign Language Teaching and Research Publishing Co., Ltd 173 and Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany 2018 L. Jiang, A History of Western Appreciation of English-translated Tang Poetry, China Academic Library, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-56352-6_12 174 12 The Beginning of Studies on Chinese Poetic Theories

12.1 Fenollosa and the Chinese Written Character as a Medium for Poetry

The fact that Chinese characters differ from alphabetic languages in their written forms had been long observed by Sir John Francis Davis (1795–1890), a pioneer translator of Tang poetry. He pointed out in his book The Poetry of the Chinese: “A notion seems to have existed, that the whole merit of Chinese poetry lay in some curious and fanciful selection of the characters, with a reference to their component parts. As a medium for the communication of ideas, the written language certainly differs from alphabetic systems: but, after all, the characters are the means only, and not the end. The melody of the sound—the harmony of the structures—and the justness of the sentiment, or beauty of the imagery—constitute, as they do everywhere else, the merits of poetical composition” (Davis 1870, p. 5). Davis believed that pictographic and ideographic Chinese characters and their referential structures were superior to European languages in expressing deep poetic meaning. At the beginning of the twentieth century, Fenollosa was also aware of the same fact when learning classical Chinese poetry in Japan. He elaborated on this proposition in a more systematic and detailed way in one of his famous essays entitled, “The Chinese Written Character as a Medium for Poetry.” Ernest F. Fenollosa joined Tokyo Imperial University to lecture on political science, philosophy, and economics in 1874, after he was graduated from Harvard University. Japan was at the early stage of the Meiji Restoration by then, and the nation was driving towards modernization. Traditional art forms, including many ancient temples and shrines and their ancient treasures, were falling into neglect. Fenollosa interested himself with traditional Japanese painting, Nihonga, and before long, he became a student and an articulate advocate of preserving the unique themes and techniques of Nihonga. And in doing so, he discovered ancient Chinese scrolls brought to Japan centuries earlier by traveling Buddhist monks. In 1882, Fenollosa’s notable lecture “Bijutsu Shinsetsu (The True Theory of Art)” largely inspired native Japanese painters in the movement to revive the Japanese school of painting. In this period, his quick movement to fluency in Japanese brought Fenollosa to Japanese Noh theatre. He eventually translated about 50 Noh plays into English and became a significant figure in the preservation of this traditional art form. In 1890, Fenollosa returned to the United States and served as the curator of the Oriental Arts Division at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. There, in 1894, Fenollosa organized the first exhibition of Chinese painting and created a training center for Oriental arts in the museum. Unfortunately, his scandalous divorce and immediate remarriage with a writer, Mary McNeill Scott, infuriated the whole Boston community, causing his dismissal from the Museum in 1896. Fenollosa went to Tokyo for a longer stay in 1897, and returned to the United States 3 years later. Fenollosa passed away in London en route on his fourth journey to Japan in 1908. By then the first draft of his two-volume masterpiece Epochs of Chinese & Japanese Art: an Outline History of East Asiatic Design had already been finished. His widow, 12.1 Fenollosa and the Chinese Written … 175

Mary Scott, edited his manuscripts, and published them as a book in 1912. This book turned out to be a classic work on the studies of East Asian arts in the United States, and has been reprinted many times ever since. As mentioned in Chap. 11, Scott also turned over to Ezra Pound a large body of Fenollosa’s posthumous notebooks, which Pound reworked into finished products that were published to great acclaim from 1915 to 1917. During his second sojourn in Japan, Fenollosa became a student of the well-known sinologist Professor Kainan Mori, to study Chinese poetry and the history of East Asian literature. Fenollosa had a different approach to appreciating Chinese poetry through his unique views on the structure of Chinese characters, which came mostly from his well-balanced artistic intuition and knowledge of Oriental arts. Fenollosa explained his point of view systemically in his essay “The Chinese Written Character as a Medium for Poetry,” which was written for a lecture he delivered at Tokyo Imperial University. Pound received the manuscript of this essay in the packages that Scott confided to him after the author’s death. Collated, annotated and strongly recommended by Pound, this essay appeared in The Little Review at the end of 1919. In 1920, Pound published it as an appendix to his book Instigations of Ezra Pound: Together with an Essay on the Chinese Written Character by Ernest Fenollosa. It was republished by Pound again in 1936 as the first issue of a projected “Ideogramic Series.” There is no doubt that Pound held Fenollosa in high regard and was continuously stimulated by this short essay. This fact naturally draws attention to Fenollosa’s ideas, and this essay has become one of the most oft-quoted works in the history of American poetics. In this essay, Fenollosa criticized discrimination against and the misinterpretation of Eastern cultures. As the turn of the new twentieth century brought in new prospects and Western cultures were declining in Europe, no country could afford the consequences of missing the opportunity to understand China better because of discrimination and misunderstanding. China has its own ideological system which stands by itself and equals classical Western philosophical thought, from which the Chinese people could consistently benefit. This is the decided advantage of the Chinese people over their international counterparts. Fenollosa said: “The duty that faces us is not to batter down their forts or to exploit their markets, but to study and come to sympathize with their humanity and generous aspirations. Their type of cultivation has been high. Their harvest of recorded experience doubles our own. The Chinese have been ide- alists and experimenters in the making of great principles; their history opens a world of lofty aim and achievement, parallel to that of the ancient Mediterranean peoples. We need their best ideals to supplement our own—ideals enshrined in their art, literature, and in the tragedies of their lives” (Pound 1920, p. 358). Here, Fenollosa not only condemned the European imperial powers for their discrimination against China and their ruthless plundering of the resources in China, but also emphasized the importance of having a positive attitude toward Chinese culture. He strongly asserted that the United States should break through the bigotry of the Western tradition, and treat the cultural differences between the West and the East with greater tolerance. The United States should draw nutrition from Chinese 176 12 The Beginning of Studies on Chinese Poetic Theories culture to create a new culture with unique characteristics that meet the demands for development in the new era. Poetry, as the essence of literature, is supposed to be one of the central focal points in the study of the Asian cultural tradition. However, both Chinese and Japanese poetry were neglected and despised for a long time in the West. Fenollosa mentioned that he had heard a famous sinologist talk about Chinese and Japanese poetry, saying, “Save for the purposes of professional linguistic scholarship, these branches of poetry are fields too barren to repay the toil necessary for their cultivation.” To many experts and scholars, these works “are hardly more than an amusement, trivial, childish, and not to be reckoned in the world’s serious literary performance” (Pound 1920, p. 359). Fenollosa’s words proved that Chinese poetry was not valued or duly revered in Western literary circles of the time, nor was it fully understood by many professional sinologists. He overtly opposed this phenomenon because his firsthand experiences with “these two branches of poetry” were quite different from these stereotypical views. Fenollosa asserted that if his appreciation of Chinese poetry was not the result of a self-deceptive interpretation, then it was proved that the Western world lacked the sincerity to learn about Chinese and Japanese poetry, their aesthetic ideals and poetic perceptions. Fenollosa was a gifted scholar with a brilliant mind possessed of great analytical power and strong opinions. He had an insightful appreciation of the nature of Asian cultures which only a few Westerners could attain, though some of his opinions were biased. We already know that he was an enthusiastic figure in the preservation of Nihonga and Noh dramatic forms when the county was driving for modernization. But by the time many Japanese scholars started to act for the preservation of their own artistic heritage—largely under his influence—Fenollosa felt rebuffed because those art forms, especially Nihonga, had lately become “too modern” for his taste. A similar scenario occurred when he was facing classical Chinese poetry and the Chinese cultural tradition. Fenollosa claimed that the long-standing and well-established Chinese culture had lost its creative and introspective power for centuries, and that its “original spirit” was inherited and developed by the Japanese since the Song dynasty. His insufficient knowledge of Chinese cultural accomplishments since the Ming and Qing dynasties, which were his primary source of information about classical Chinese fine arts and poetry, as well as his personal sentiments toward Japan, all contributed to his developing such opinions. Putting all these biased accounts aside, Fenollosa discovered and traced the Chinese cultural roots in Japanese fine arts, and thenceforth began to dig deep into this huge artist treasure trove. This fact itself reveals an important piece of information, which has special significance to the present study. That is to say, Japanese culture and Japanese scholars served as an important intermediary in the process of the westward transmission of Chinese poetry. Apart from these typical cases of Fenollosa and Pound, the English playwright and poet Clifford Bax (1886–1962) began to translate Chinese poetry through a similar route. The Japanese scholar Shigeyoshi Obata also made great contributions to the English translation and 12.1 Fenollosa and the Chinese Written … 177 introduction of Li Bai and his poems. Moreover, a little book entitled Classical Chinese Poems Translated into English by Su Manshu (苏曼殊, i.e., Mandju) appeared to be the first anthology of English-translated classical Chinese poetry by a native Chinese. It was published in 1914 in Japan and then introduced to the United States. The Tang monk and poet Han Shan (寒山) and his poems were also introduced to the United States by Japanese scholars. Fenollosa stated that the purpose of his writing this essay was to share his new findings and insights while studying Chinese culture, poetry, and translation, and that the essay aimed not at any linguistic perspective but at attempting to analyze the “universal elements” of Chinese character structure, and how the structure nourished Chinese poetry as a medium, through which English poets could learn to shape their own poetic practice and stylistic preferences. Poetry itself is a temporally dynamic and rhymed art. Concerning the understanding of Chinese poetry, the first question raised by Fenollosa was how to evaluate the roles played by the ideographic and nonphonetic Chinese hieroglyphic characters in poems. In his view, the structure of a Chinese character was a sim- ulation of nature, with a clear image and a definite meaning. Its written form and meaning are visually interlinked before it is pronounced. He argued: “In the algebraic figure and in the spoken word there is no natural connection between thing and sign: all depends upon sheer convention. But the Chinese method follows the natural suggestion.” He also provided a bilingual illustration to explain his point as the following:

English sentences, like the above, “Man Sees Horse,” are only made up of “arbitrary symbols,” Conversely, the Chinese character is “a vivid shorthand picture of the operations of nature” and the composition of them “holds something of the quality of a continuous moving picture,” visually triggering a dynamic and an approaching process in the mind of the beholder: The first step: The character “人” (man) seems like a man standing with his two legs parted. The second step: The spectacle moves on with special progression, and, the top part of “見” (see) is a close-up of the man’s eyes, and the part below represents his legs moving toward the horse as it catches his eyes. The third step: The scene moves across space between the characters to the distance where “馬,” a horse, raising its head, stands on its four legs. But if these meanings were expressed in English its dynamic sense and succession would be lost. What is more, the meaning of the three Chinese characters, all “alive,” share the common image of “legs.” But such relationships between concrete and natural elements find no expression in the English version. So Fenollosa concluded that, differing from reading alphabetic writings in which the 178 12 The Beginning of Studies on Chinese Poetic Theories form, pronunciation and meaning had no obvious connections with one another, reading Chinese characters was not only a process of thinking but also a process of observing objective things “work out their own fate.” The special characteristics of Chinese written language had endowed Chinese poetry with the function of expressing the dramatizing process and making Chinese poetry a more elastic, graphic, and natural artwork. Thus, Chinese poetry was given the artistic features of visual art, as in paintings and sculptures, as well as the aesthetic functions, as in music and literature. In brief, Fenollosa intuitively regarded Chinese characters as pictures, then asserted that Chinese poetry, made up of characters, was not to be “understood” but “perceived.” Philologically, Chinese characters are constructed by four major structural methods: pictographic, self-explanatory, ideographic, and phonogramic. Obviously, Fenollosa’s observation applies only to some Chinese characters rather than to all. However, as he stated in the beginning, he did not intend to study Chinese characters from a linguistic perspective. Instead, he attempted to find an ideal and universal form of poetic expression through the examination of Chinese characters. Then, what is the ideal form of poetic expression? How could the graphic Chinese characters outdo the clusters of syllables in poetic expression? Fenollosa stated that some picturesque images were intrinsically embodied in every Chinese character, and that the organic integration of these images presented a vivid and visual world of poetic images. His expression and exposition of this notion can be summarized as follows: (1) The essence of the poetic is a concrete and vivid expression, “crowding maximum meaning into the single pregnant phrase, charged, and luminous from within.” In this sense, Chinese characters naturally accumulated their force from themselves. (2) Better poetic creation seeks the use of language to correspond to some primary law of nature. While neither a true noun (an isolated thing) nor a pure verb (an abstract motion) exists in nature, the Chinese character tends to represent both as one: things in motion, motion in things. (3) The most important feature of poetical syntax is metaphor. Good poets always try to preserve primary images in verses to the best of their abilities. The Chinese character itself is a metaphor. Compounding redials of a character are superimposing images. They create a third image together, and indicate inner connections between the other elements at the same time. For example, the character for man (男) means a laborer (力) who works in the field (田); the character for spring (春) indicates that the sun (日) is hidden behind grass (草) that is breaking through the soil, etc. Excited about these discoveries, Fenollosa concluded: “The Chinese written language has not only absorbed the poetic substance of nature and built with it the second world of metaphor, but has, through its very pictorial visibility, been able to retain its original creative poetry with far more vigor and vividness than any phonetic tongue.” 12.1 Fenollosa and the Chinese Written … 179

Besides presenting such a powerful conception of the Chinese language for sharpening poetic performance, Fenollosa also commented about the English translation of Chinese poetry. He proclaimed: “The purpose of poetical translation is the poetry, not the verbal deﬁnitions in dictionaries.” Talking about the practice of translation, he insisted that they “should beware of English grammar, its hard parts of speech, and lazy satisfaction with nouns and adjectives,” and look more closely at the vividness in the radicals of the Chinese character, “to inquire how those universal elements of form which constitute poetics can derive appropriate nutriment.” His suggestions are far too idealistic, even though he expressly dis- sociated himself from academic scholarship. It is technically impossible to dismantle all Chinese characters into radical components with distinct meanings. When it is possible, it would still be unreasonable to expect these detached components—as if they were carrying extra information—to correlate with the context of an already existing poem. Perhaps conﬁned by these limitations, Fenollosa did not follow his own suggestions. There is no evidence of him translating a whole text by himself, even though he had studied Chinese poetry for several years. Upon its publication, Fenollosa’s essay triggered a heated discussion. One side consisted of sinologists who, steeped in both the Chinese language and culture, held Fenollosa’s view in contempt, arrogantly asserting that, “Fenollosa’s essay is a small mass of confusion. Within the limits of 44 pages he gallops determinedly in various directions, tilting at the unoffending windmills” (Kennedy 1958, p. 25). The other side included poets and artists headed by Andrew Welsh, who supported Fenollosa’s view, believing that his essay incorporated Pound’s talent and passion and raising contemporary poetic creation and poetry studies in the United States to a new height (Welsh 1978, p. 10). Here we see that sinologists and poets held two diametrically opposed opinions. The major topic of this essay was to explore the implications of the structure of Chinese characters beyond their literal meanings by dismantling each one of them individually. Fenollosa’s illustrations and expositions were not strictly academic studies but summaries of intuitive personal judgments and recognition. Differing from rigorous and rational academic research, they were duly criticized by sinologists. Besides the linguistic matters of fact, Chinese poems, just like poems in other languages, are created to be recited, whispered, and/or sung, but not to be dissected. While American poets were trumpeting his new visual interpretations of a foreign language, what Fenollosa presented was rather the result of an excavation which had been done by a philologist. His association of thoughts may produce a new poetic method, but this new method may also completely overshadow the natural inspiration of a poet or a translator. Nevertheless, in his brief introduction to the essay, Pound said: “We have here not a bare philological discussion, but a study of the fundamentals of all esthetics. In his search through unknown art Fenollosa, coming upon unknown motives and principles unrecognized in the West, was already led into many modes of thought since fruitful in ‘new’ Western painting and poetry” (Pound 1920, p. 192). Fenollosa became known to poetic circles through Pound, and from Fenollosa’s discoveries Pound got typical illustrations and theoretical support to develop his 180 12 The Beginning of Studies on Chinese Poetic Theories aesthetic thoughts about poetics, from which he deduced some practical principles of poetic creation for himself and for the whole school of the Imagists. Fenollosa’s achievement in promoting the broad dimensions of Chinese poetry in America and even in the whole Western world was accomplished through his posthumous editor.

12.2 Victor Purcell and The Spirit of Chinese Poetry

Referring to pioneering works in English that discussed Chinese poetic theory, Qian Zhongshu (钱钟书, 1910–1998), when he delivered a speech to an American audience in Shanghai on December 6, 1945, entitled “A Discussion of Chinese Poetry,” made an interesting observation. He said: “If my textual research is correct, the earliest Western literary criticism on Chinese poetry was seen in Art of Poesies by George Puttenham in 1589. Puttenham, who was well known in the English literary circle, got to know from an Italian friend who had visited the Far East that Chinese poetry was rhymed, very concise and could be typeset into various shapes. He also translated two Chinese pyramid poems into English as an illustration, in which the same pyramid shape was retained.” The book Art of Poesies, which consists of three parts, is a monograph on the creation of English poetry. Its second part deals with the poetic form. The two pyramid poems were literally translated into English as illustrations because of their novel format so that English poets could make reference to them in their own poetic creations. But neither Chinese poets nor their poems were introduced or evaluated any further. To my knowledge, the earliest English monograph on the appreciation of Tang poetic theory was The Spirit of Chinese Poetry, published in Shanghai in 1929, the author being Victor William Williams Saunders Purcell (1896–1965), a British sinologist with a military and political background. Purcell once served in the Malayan Civil Service and was sent to Guangdong (广东) to study Chinese due to demands of his job, later acting successively as the China and Asia counselor in the Green Howards Regiment, the British Military Administration in Malaya, and in the United Nations, as well as advisor to various other organizations. He paid two visits to China and left his footsteps throughout various Far-Eastern countries. His books were reprinted many times both in the United Kingdom and in the United States. They were An Index to the Chinese Written Language on a New Non-Radical System (1929), Problems of Chinese Education (1936), Malaysia (1946), The Chinese in Modern Malaya (1948), and The Chinese in Southeast Asia (1951). Purcell lived in Malaysia for a long time, where, with his good command of the Chinese language, he exercised, in particular, a role with the local minority Chinese and published signiﬁcant works on this subject. Purcell gave full credit to the Chinese immigrant groups for their contributions to the development of the local economy, and provided valuable historical data as to the distribution of Chinese immigrants in Malaysia and in other Southeast Asian countries. 12.2 Victor Purcell and The Spirit of Chinese Poetry 181

The Spirit of Chinese Poetry is a booklet with fewer than 60 pages. It discusses the English version of Tang poetry, with “Li Po” as a “dominant example.” The booklet includes Purcell’s explanation of the universal value of culture, his comparison of Chinese and Western cultures, a discussion of his understanding of the lyric themes of Tang poetry, and his evaluation of the English translations of Tang poetry. What is more, the appendix of the book has brief introductions to two major collections of Tang poetry and to several anthologies of representative poets such as Li Bai, Du Fu, Bai Juyi, Han Yu (韩愈), and Du Mu (杜牧). Like all the Westerners, Purcell was captivated by Chinese characters. He said in the preface to his book: “The genius of China is in its written language, in the curves and squares and dashes of its mystic signs.” He believed that Chinese poetry was “the purest spirit” of the Chinese language. And the spirit, like “the singing and ﬂying blue bird” in the mythical play by M. Maeterlinck, intoxicated and fascinated Purcell but allowed him no time to capture it. He merely expected to catch a feather of this blue bird in his hand by writing this small volume. Purcell clearly indicated that it would be a tough job for English speakers to study Chinese poetry. The key point in interpreting Chinese poetry lies in the recognition and understanding of the cultural background, rather than in the accurate literal transfer between Chinese and English. When the heterogeneous Chinese poems written in the alien Chinese characters are turned into the alpha- betized English poems, they become colorless and tasteless, and it is hard to believe that they contain “the honesty of the revelation.” With cultural and linguistic barriers, even littérateurs themselves could not properly interpret Chinese poetry, let alone general Western readers. Translation without cultural context could not succeed in establishing communication between the two languages. Purcell held that the reason why the English version of Faustus and the French version of King Lear were so successful in England and France, respectively, was that all European languages were homolo- gous and that they shared a common cultural background. However, if these literary works were translated into another language like Chinese and performed in China, the region, history, and ideology of which are totally different, it would be hard to ensure that the Chinese audience would capture the essence of the work. Of course, “universal ideas” always exist in literary works which are shared by the entire human race, and these ideas should be retained in the process of textual transfer. Unfortunately, this concept has been misunderstood by those whose worldview has been centered on the West. Purcell pointed out: “What are known as ‘universal ideas’ are common to the world at large, and that these at least are susceptible of translation. But ‘universal’ in this sense is really ‘European’ and ‘idea’ is unconsciously limited to the idea of Plato. Besides, ideas through abstract things are but a mosaic of experience, partly of the race in creating the language, and partly of the individual whose mind receives the idea.” Actually, people of different nations have their own languages, and their recognition of the objective world and of “universal ideas” may not be identical with European perceptions. Purcell took an example from Twelfth Night to further illustrate his point: 182 12 The Beginning of Studies on Chinese Poetic Theories

From Twelfth Night Purcell cited from Shakespeare Make me a willow cabin at your gate, And call upon my soul within the house; Write loyal cantons of contemned love, And sing them loud even in the dead of night; Halloo your name to the reverberate hills, And make the babbling gossip of the air Cry out “Olivia!” O, You should not rest Between the elements of air and earth, But you should pity me!

With a happy ending, Twelfth Night is a love story of two couples finding their path to each other in a strange combination of circumstances. This drama, with a vivid and optimistic plot, is full of passion and confidence. The lines here cited by Purcell are taken from the scene in which Miss Viola, who disguises herself as a man, proposes to Olivia for her master, Duke Orsino. These passionate lines by Viola express an obstinate romance. Viola, a female herself, could not possibly have such feelings for Olivia. Her words express her fervent conviction of true love, which is not odd or hard to understand for the European audience. But these Eurocentric examples of “vaunting hyperbole” to express the patter of love are “mere farce, and improper farce” to a Chinese audience. For in China, where the emphasis was laid on the reconciliation between the positive and negative elements in male-female relations, women were regarded as “dutiful and negative,” and Chinese society would not tolerate such bold women with overflowing enthusiasm. Even beautiful women like Yang Guifei, a concubine of a Tang emperor, were “no more than the smooth plaything of an idle hour,” although they were idolized and worshiped by a myriad of Tang poets. So Purcell stated that if such a literary work were accurately translated into Chinese, “its spirit would fly away like the psyche from the mouth of a corpse” and would not be popular with a Chinese audience. Purcell’s ideas, stated in beautiful language, are a pleasure to read. Traditional Chinese women regarded reserved and decorous appearance as beauty, but this does not mean that they lacked enthusiasm for true love. The love expressed from a female perspective, as we find in The Book of Songs is not always “obedient and negative.” Chinese women had unfailing love, such as that depicted in “Sǐshēng Qìkuò,Yǔzǐ Chéngshuō.Zhízǐ Zhīshǒu, Yǔzǐ xiélǎo” (死生契阔, 与子成说。执子之手, 与子偕老), courageous and resolute as in “Dōngléizhènzhèn, Xià yǔxuě, Tiāndì hé,Nǎigǎnyǔjūnjué” (冬雷震震, 夏雨雪。天地合, 乃敢与君绝), and like a dreadnought, as in “Qiè nǐ jiāngshēnjiàyǔ,yīshēng xiū.Zòngbèiwúqíng qì, bùnéng xiū” (妾拟将身嫁与, 一生休。纵被无情弃, 不能羞). Purcell might not have gotten a chance to know these poems, otherwise he would not have drawn the conclusion that the Chinese cannot understand Twelfth Night. From “love,” Purcell moved to “death, P another common literary theme. He stated that for Westerners, death was “a great cleaving, a dislocating stroke, a and their egos were “pendent over an abyss of uncertainty.” But the Chinese, edified by 12.2 Victor Purcell and The Spirit of Chinese Poetry 183

Confucianism, Buddhism, and Taoism, would care more about this worldly life, and would regard death as “the melancholy cadence” which marked “the end of a phase, and life would exist as other beings. He believed that Chinese poetry about death would leave people the impression of “sweet melancholy,” as if sentimental for a brief absence, with no excitement or desire for heaven, and neither with awe nor fear. The awareness of death expressed in Chinese poetry was witty and light-hearted. So only in Chinese poetry could the “emperor’s concubine,” who died long ago, exist outside the netherworld. From Purcell’s point of view, Europeans and Chinese hold different cultural attitudes towards almost everything in this world due to different historical experiences, life experiences and patterns of thought. They could not make full sense of each other. In a word, the literary sense of words could be mutually translated but the cultural essence could not be interpreted. Purcell quoted a passage from Cranmer-Byng to support his statement: “To the Chinese, such commonplace things as marriage, friendship and home have an infinitely deeper meaning than can be attached to them by us. Civilization which practically lives abroad, in the hotels and restaurants and open house of others, where there is no sanctuary of the life within, no shrine set apart for the hidden family reunion and the cult of the ancestral spirit. To the Western world, life, save for the conventional hour or so set aside on the seventh day, is a thing profane. In the Far East the head of every family is a high priest in the calling of daily life” (Cranmer-Byng 1909, p. 24). Cranmer-Byng pointed out that the life and values of people living in Christian cultures differed from those living in a non-Christian setting. Purcell added: “If our notion of the motive force of life has no meaning for the Chinese, there are none the less Chinese conceptions of this same force which have no meaning for us.” He tried to underscore the fact that the vast differences between the East and the West, from living habits to religions, could cause great obstacles in communication, especially in literary communication, for “even in the conception of the universal concrete things the difference is remarkable.” For example, at the sight of stars in the sky, European writers would think of Pythagoras and Galileo, but Chinese poets might think of karma in Buddhism, the relative universe; the moon reminds Western people of the Goddess Diana, but in the East it is Chang’e; the Hero constellation and Andromeda in the West were like the Weaving Girl and the Cowherd in the East… Purcell tried to explain that some Chinese words do not find their correspondence in English and some cultural concepts in Chinese differ from those in the West, and this lack of correspondence causes great obstacles in translation. A lack of adequate knowledge of traditional Chinese thought patterns and cultural values would render any attempt at translating Tang poetry to cause the fresh flower to wither. Even with only one touch of a petal, its English version would no longer be vivid or poetic, like a dry flower with no distinct colors or fragrance. Briefly reviewing the English translation of works of Tang poetry, which were scarce at that time, Purcell affirmed that Davis’ translation was out of date, that Edkins’ version ought never to have been made, that James Legge and Giles rescued Chinese verse for English literature, that Cranmer-Byng’s translation was overly personal although full of emotion, and that Waley was the most 184 12 The Beginning of Studies on Chinese Poetic Theories conscientious and scholarly translator with the best-quality translations. His review of these translators is representative of Purcell’s thinking, is reasonable, and shows great perception. Ever since the publication of 170 Chinese Poems, Waley’s translation was well received in both the field of sinology and the literary world. In terms of the English translation of Li Bai, Waley’s version remained unsurpassed until Shigeyoshi Obata’s appeared. Purcell preferred Shigeyoshi Obata’s version, which was selected for the illustrations in his book. It is universally agreed that no translated literature can compare with the original. However, texts written in a different language must be translated before they can be presented in another culture. As pioneers in cultural exchange, the aforementioned translators should be well credited for their work, for a translated work is never a rival of the original. Although their translations may not be perfect, they are by no means useless. To reproduce the aesthetic features of the original poems both in form and in content depends on the translators’ dual knowledge of both language and culture, as well as on his or her skill in the revelation of poetry. English readers, as the target audience of the translated works, should be aware of the basic elements of the Chinese language and culture, if they are to get to the essence of the English versions of Tang poetry. So Purcell began with the basic features of classical Chinese poetry, with its emphasis on the beauty of content as well as of form. By citing some Tang poems, he proceeded to explain how to appreciate Tang poetry from both angles. In terms of content, to Purcell, the greatest difference between Chinese and Western poetry lay in the expression of inner feelings, the Chinese being indirect and the Western, direct. The emotions expressed by Shakespeare and Shelly are tangible, while the emotions expressed in Tang poetry are subtle. The lines in Tang poems are to present, not to explain, and to indicate, not to express directly. Whatever form he adopted and whatever emotion he expressed, the poet would not exhaust his feelings. Instead, he would create an ambiguous impression, leaving infinite room for the readers’ imagination. Purcell deemed that the themes of Tang poetry were usually wars, palatial gardens, friendship, departures and reunions, feasting and hunting, and love of nature. Such themes as “Fúshì rú liúshuǐ” (浮世如流水, the world floating like water [never stops and cannot be modified], and “Yǒuhuā kānzhé zhíxū zhé” (有花堪折直须折,gathering the rosebuds while you may [when they are still there]) could be found repeatedly in poems by different poets in various periods. Many poets in the Tang dynasty, such as Li Bai, were skilled at expressing their delight in nature in their poems. Even the strictly regulated short verses they wrote ended with an unceasing flow of emotions. Many translators managed to transmit delicate and sensitive Chinese emotions by translating pastoral poems and evoking the wafting of unfamiliar aromas, the shadows of the pavilions and pagodas, the caves in the bamboo groves, and the beautiful land of China. With the universal appreciation for natural beauty, Tang pastoral poems seem to be easier for non-Chinese readers to understand and accept. Talking about poetic forms, Purcell insisted that English readers should also make a point of appreciating the formal beauty of Tang poetry, or rather the “look” of Chinese characters. His notion of the “formal beauty” was different from the 12.2 Victor Purcell and The Spirit of Chinese Poetry 185 common poetical concepts of rhyme and stress or tempo. What he meant was, coinciding with Davis and Fenollosa, the structure of Chinese characters. He stated that Western poetry, as the most impressive and influential exemplary of the use of alphabets, stressed musicality and rhythms. One needed to “listen” to a poem rather than “read” it, and the emotional ups and downs could best emerge with the alternation of the vowels and the consonants, and of the stressed or unstressed syllables. Although possessing prosody and a rhythmic structure of its own, Tang poetry had fixed rhyme and stress patterns, and had to follow what had been “stereotyped after the ancient model.” Restricted by this ingenuity, the syllables appropriate to the poets’ creation were so limited that Tang poetry might lack musicality and was inappropriate for “recital,” since the natural property of Chinese characters placed Tang poetry outside of music. Purcell’s perception of an absence of rhyme and stress in Tang poetry is an obvious misunderstanding. Based on this conclusion, he inferred that the key to the appreciation of Tang poetry was to “read” rather than to listen. Here, what he meant by “to read” was not to recite at all, but to stare at it the characters in deep concentration for a long time. He stated: “But what remains, namely the associative power of the ideographic character, is much more intense than we with an alphabetical language, can readily believe. There is no grammatical construction to hold the words together (especially in poetry when the logical order of the words is often sacrificed to suit the verse) each square ideograph is detached, floating in the sea of the reader’s vision” (Purcell 1929, p. 20). In Purcell’s view, poetry in the alphabetic writing system is a “definite woof,” but in Chinese writing it is a “fleet of pictorial ideas.” The former gives an impression of a sound effect, while the latter forms a combination of graphic interfaces. The historical and etymological elements in words bring the reader to understand wider and deeper implications of the poems, whether in the process of textual interpretation or in the artistic perception of the poetry. But the etymological constitution of Chinese characters differs from the roots of alphabetic words. Purcell gave a lengthy and elaborate explanation of the ancient Chinese methods of constructing characters—ideographs, pictographs, pictophonetic characters, associative compounds, mutually explanatory characters, and phonetic loan characters—to help English readers to understand the implied meanings of Tang poetry from the structures of Chinese characters. Taking “Lùshuǐ Qǔ” (渌水曲) by Li Bai as an example, Purcell illustrated to readers the great disparities between English versions of the same Tang poem. Here are the texts translated by Fletcher and Obata, respectively:

The Boating Party The Blue Water By Fletcher (1918, p. 25) By Obata (1922, p. 28) The River clear—the Autumn Moon so bright— Blue is the water and clear the moon, We pluck the South Lake’s bridal flowers white. He is out on the South Lake, The maiden water lilies seem to speak: Gathering white lilies. And tinge with shame each boat borne wanton’s The lotus flowers seem to whisper love, check. And fill the boatman’s heart with sadness. 186 12 The Beginning of Studies on Chinese Poetic Theories

Fletcher’s version has been discussed previously in the other chapters. Although the sense of the translated poem differed greatly from the original due to his insufﬁcient interpretation of the allusion of the “white ﬂowers” (白蘋), the scene of boating female narrators, or, one female narrator, gathering water-cross under the autumn moonlight deviated from Li Bai’s description. Obata changed the narrator into a male boatman in his translation, thus completely changing the primary focus of the original, let alone the degree of correspondence between other elements in this poem. Purcell did not compare the two versions in enough detail to be able to determine which was better. According to his theoretical framework of “appreciating Tang poetry by reading Chinese characters,” the essence of Tang poetry could not possibly be brought out by literal string transfer. So a word-for-word contrast was given to the reader as follows:

By Purcell (1929, p. 27) Blue water bright autumn moon 渌水明秋月 South Lake pluck white rance (frogbite) 南湖采白蘋 Lotus ﬂowers beautiful wishes speak 荷花嬌欲語 Melancholy (shame) kill vast boat man (woman) 愁殺蕩舟人

Then Purcell disassembled every character in the poem down to its radicals and components and explained their meanings and functions one-by-one, as well as the meanings when combined together. He saw in “bright” (明) the character “moon” (月), in “anxiety” (愁) the character “autumn” (秋), and in “pluck” (采) the hand movement on top. Also, he deduced “harmony” from the euphony of “lotus” (荷) and the constitution of “flower” (花); and he saw the meaning of “killing with a weapon” from the character pattern of “kill” (殺). These detailed analyses were intended to explain the sources of his word-for-word contrast, as shown above, and more important, were to reveal how individual characters in a poem would extend the meanings of a verse, giving supporting evidence to his statement that “the alphabetic language could not adequately express the artistic conception and implication of Chinese poetry.” In addition, Purcell illustrated his point with Obata’s translations of Li Bai’s “Yuànqíng” (怨情, “Aggrieved Sentiment”) and “MèngyóuTiānmǔ YínLiúbié” (梦游天姆吟留别, “A Song of Farewell about the Dream of Tianmu Mountain”), and Fletcher’s translation of “ShǔdàoNán” (蜀道难, “The road to Shu”), by per- forming the process of disassembling and explaining once again. In the end, he said: “The Chinese written character, indeed, is so beautiful in itself and its units so wrought about with subtleties that a poem is but an elegant stringing together of minor poems—each one character long.” Believing that this function of Chinese 12.2 Victor Purcell and The Spirit of Chinese Poetry 187 characters had a great effect on literature, especially on poetry, he stated: “With its call upon visual imagery the Chinese language has a more complete roundness, a higher relief than is possible in a language of phonetic construction.” Purcell stressed repeatedly the significance of Chinese characters to the appreciation of Chinese poetry, and he held that translation seemed so awkward in face of these magical characters. He claimed: “No translator can force the rigid, square form of a Chinese character into the envelope of an alphabetical word.” For those sinologists who would attempt to get to the essence of Chinese poetry in their translation, he gave the following practical advice: Choose one poem by Li Bai or Du Fu, ask a Chinese calligrapher to write it down with a writing brush, and then let your forefinger run along the strokes in the order this calligrapher followed in writing them, and, stroke by stoke, try to trace and imagine all its genuinely poetic emotions. “The way is hard,” said Purcell, “but at the end is a rich reward.” Literary appreciation is the first and most basic step in the study and evaluation of literary works. At the height of the English translation of Chinese poetry, Purcell realized that the communication of the cultural values of translated Tang poetry could only be accomplished through their acceptance by Western readers. He advocated for his method of appreciating Tang poetry in an attempt to guide English-speaking readers beyond finite, literal meanings to get to the infinite poetic emotions. In general, his idea of experiencing and imagining the poetic connotation dynamically from the content and the form, was a sincere suggestion to reach a better understanding of themes and emotions contained in Tang poetry. It must be stressed again that poetry is to be perceived, not analyzed; to be imagined, but not narrated, and it is a metaphor for human feeling rather than an exact reference. Whether creating or to appreciating a poem, one needs imagination and perception apart from understanding. It is not only the form of poetry, but also the connotation and extension of the assembled words that contribute to its aesthetic significance. On this issue, Purcell made a clear analysis of the concepts of the linguistic signs of Tang poetry, and he also noticed the age-old features of traditional Chinese poetic aesthetics, which were marked by the lingering charm of implicit and reserved expressions. Unfortunately, misunderstandings arose because he placed too much emphasis on the ideographic function of Chinese characters and their small components. The unique method of appreciation that he provided, “tracing the calligrapher’s strokes and imaging,” is not only “hard” as he said, but also radical and impossible. Yes, Chinese characters as a group of cultural symbols represent Chinese culture, thoughts, and the Chinese attitude toward life, the world, and the universe. It is an integral cultural organism that deserves deeper and broader discussion. However, characters are used as a tool by Chinese poets to compose their artwork, and the validity of their works was not imbedded in the shapes of those characters. Purcell’s great sensitivity to language found full expression in The Spirit of Chinese Poetry. It was this sensitivity that allowed him to become fascinated with Chinese characters, which are entirely different from the letter of his native language. His method of appreciation, which he himself formulated after he had 188 12 The Beginning of Studies on Chinese Poetic Theories studied the Chinese language and Chinese culture seriously, is virtually incredible even to Chinese-speaking readers. Be it correct and feasible or not, it is the result of his earnest pursuit of the genuine meanings and essence of Tang poetry.

References

Cranmer-Byng, L. A. (1909). A Lute of Jade: Being selections from the classical poets of China. Wisdom of the East Series, London: John Murray. Davis, J. F. (Sir). (1870). The poetry of Chinese. London: Asher & Co. Fletcher, W. J. B. (1918). 英译唐诗选/Gems of Chinese verse. Shanghai: Commercial Press LTD. Kennedy, G. (1958). Fenollosa, pound, and the Chinese characters. Yale Literary Magazine, 126 (5), 24–36. Obata, S. (1922). The works of Li Po. Boston: E.P. Dutton & Company. Pound, E. (1920). Instigations of Ezra pound: Together with an essay on the Chinese written character by Ernest Fenollosa. New York: Boni and Liveright. Purcell, V. W. W. S. (1929). The spirit of Chinese poetry. Shanghai: Kelly & Walsh Ltd. Welsh, A. (1978). Roots of lyric: Primitive poetry and modern poetics. Princeton: University Press. Chapter 13 Fir-Flower Tablets and Its Authors

Amy Lowell (1874–1925), an American poet and poetry critic, was the leader of the Imagist movement in poetry after Pound. She wrote more than 650 poems in her life, but she was not given much attention until she was posthumously awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1926. During her lifetime, she gave lectures as a “demon saleswoman of poetry,” advocating for free verse in Imagist poetry. She made free verse widely known through her own practice of poetic creation and her support for other new poets in the same period, forcefully promoting the progressive development of the New Poetry movement. The poetic propositions she set forth in her speeches, which appealed to numerous listeners, were originally derived from the influence of Pound, and from the outset bore a large number of Oriental elements as filtered by Pound’s interpretations (Heymann 1980, p. 217). Lowell became directly acquainted with Chinese literature through her contact with Florence Wheelock Ayscough (1878–1942), and since then she was “beginning to understand a good many things that she did not understand before” (MacNair 1945, p. 77). Fir-Flower Tablets, a collection of Chinese poetry first translated by Ayscough and revised and polished by Lowell, has exerted a lasting influence since the time of its publication. Different from Lowell, Ayscough, the original translator of Fir-Flower Tablets, was not a poet but a scholar who, as a long-term sojourner in China, was engrossed in the study of classical Chinese poetry and even of the whole of traditional Chinese culture, dedicating herself fully to Sino-American cultural exchange. The unique- ness of her knowledge—the fruits of her experiences of studying, reading, and translating Tang poetry and her singular translation and introduction of Du Fu— deserves further appreciation and exploration. Her work of co-translation with Lowell is a much-told story and is also one of the examples of successful joint efforts by sinologists and poets in introducing Tang poetry into English. Lowell was born in Brookline, near Boston, Massachusetts. Her father, Augustus Lowell, was a successful businessman, horticulturist, and social activist, and her mother, Catherine Lowell, was a well-known musician and linguist. The prominent New England aristocratic family, which was lived in an atmosphere of literary and

© Foreign Language Teaching and Research Publishing Co., Ltd 189 and Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany 2018 L. Jiang, A History of Western Appreciation of English-translated Tang Poetry, China Academic Library, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-56352-6_13 190 13 Fir-Flower Tablets and Its Authors artistic refinement, nurtured not only a famous poet like Amy Lowell but also the poet, literary critic, and diplomat James Russell Lowell (1819–1891) and the winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1947, Robert Lowell (1917–1977). As the daughter of a wealthy family, Lowell received homeschooling before she went to a number of private schools first in her town and then in Boston to complete her formal secondary education. Since higher education was not a choice for a woman of her time, Lowell began her life as a socialite while she implemented a “strict” reading plan, and made use of her father’s library with a collection of more than 7000 books and the resources of the Boston Museum (her great-grandfather was one of the founders of the museum). In October 1902, she found “near the ceiling” of her father’s library the book Imagination and Fancy: Selections from the English Poets by the English Romantic poet, critic, and essayist Leigh Hunt (1784– 1859). This unexpected discovery opened for her the door to poetic creation, and since then, her childhood interest in poetry was increased greatly on account of her love for this book. In 1910, four sonnets by Lowell were published in the Atlantic Monthly, marking the beginning of Lowell’s career as a professional poet. In 1912, her first anthology, A Dome of Many-Coloured Glass, was published. The following year, Lowell stumbled upon a poem by the Imagist poet Hilda Doolittle (1886–1961) from Poetry. Deeply impressed by this poem, she felt that she had found the poetic style of her dreams and was determined to explore Imagism further. Introduced by the editor of Poetry, Lowell met Pound in London. During her trip to England, Lowell learned creative ideas of Imagism from Pound and also became acquainted with a number of contemporary poets, who all exerted considerable influence on her later. She also generously provided financial support to neophytes, including Robert Frost (1874–1963), who later won the Pulitzer Prize four times. At this time, Lowell’s works were frequently seen in newspapers, and she became a prolific poet, essayist, and critic. Around 1915, a disagreement over the developing trends of Imagism occurred between Pound and Lowell, which Pound shifted into Vorticism, leaving Lowell to be the sole leader and spokesperson of Imagism. Taking the “renewal of poetry” as her mission, she traveled around to market new poems. At the same time, she also displayed quite exuberant creativity and had new books published every year, including collections of both short and long poems. In 1921, a collection of the poems translated from Chinese, Fir-Flower Tablets, polished by Lowell on the basis of Florence Ayscough’s translations, was published, a book which was to become one of her most famous works. Born in 1878 in Shanghai, Florence Ayscough spent most of her childhood in that city and left for Boston at the age of nine to receive her education. Ayscough began learning Chinese as a child, so from this perspective, Chinese in the strict sense cannot be regarded as a “foreign language” to her. During the period of her studies in Boston, Ayscough frequently came back to China to continue learning the Chinese language, and Chinese history and culture. In her 20s, Ayscough met in Shanghai Harley MacEnery Harley, an American businessman who later became her husband. After they were married, Ayscough settled in Shanghai and began a systematic study of classical Chinese literature. Actively devoting herself to 13 Fir-Flower Tablets and Its Authors 191

Sino-Western cultural exchange all her life, Ayscough lectured all around China, Japan, the United States, and Canada, and she became a sinologist with an honorary membership at the Library of the North China Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society. The Fir-Flower Tablets she co-translated with Lowell is one of her famous early translations. Later, she wrote or translated more for young American readers, such as Chinese Mirror: Being Reflections of the Reality behind Appearance (1925), Firecracker Land: Pictures of the Chinese World for Young Readers (1932), Chinese Women, Yesterday and Today (1937), and other works. In 1917, Ayscough returned to the United States to hold an exhibition with of many Chinese artworks, including some calligraphic artworks, which she called “Written Pictures.” She knew well that her prospective audiences had to understand the meanings of the characters in order to appreciate the various strokes. Therefore, Ayscough made a “rough translation” of the texts in these calligraphic works into English. For fear that her own draft might fail to convey the artistic sense of these poems, Ayscough invited Lowell, her long-term friend who by then had become a famous poet, to revise her translation a “more poetic form.” Lowell became fascinated with these “new and magnificent” verses as soon as she came upon them, so the two became close. In this exhibition, the Chinese poems translated by Ayscough and revised by Lowell helped visitors to get a better understanding of the art of Chinese calligraphy, while displaying its artistic charm at the same time. Beyond Ayscough’s expectations, a publisher who was fascinated by the exhibit advised the two to cooperate further in the translation of Chinese Poetry into English. Encouraged by the suggestion, Ayscough in China, and Lowell in Boston, began their cooperation: the former was responsible for selecting poems, literally translating them into English and giving her comments where necessary, while Lowell was responsible for modification and revision. Four years later, in 1921, their “long and arduous” cooperation finally came to an end after overcoming all sorts of difficulties, such as war, distance, and communication, and the Fir- Flower Tablets was submitted for publication in the United States.

13.1 Contents of Fir-Flower Tablets and Ayscough’s Preface

The contents of Fir-Flower Tablets are quite impressive. The book is divided into two parts, and the first part contains 119 poems selected by the author, including 109 Tang poems, mostly by Li Bai totaling 83, 13 by Du Fu, three by Wang Wei, and the rest were for other Tang poets. The original sources of these poems are not identified, but from Ayscough’s brief introduction, there is a high possibility that they were taken directly from the complete anthology QuánTángshī (全唐诗)or alike. The second part, the “Written Pictures,” is rather special. There are 18 poems translated from inscription rubbings and calligraphy works. Also, their sources were not indicated. Maybe they were picked up randomly from the rubbings and 192 13 Fir-Flower Tablets and Its Authors calligraphy works Ayscough had seen in China, and they were probably written in the Ming and Qing dynasties. Lowell’s Foreword and the table of contents were followed by a 77-page long introduction by Ayscough. This lengthy essay was the summary of Ayscough’s reflections and experiences of her persistent study of Tang poetry. Although her summary was not yet formed into a systematic theory, it was nonetheless conducive to our understanding of Ayscough’s academic ideas. This part is also an important reason for taking Fir-Flower Tablets as a significant book that cannot be ignored in studying the process of the westward transmission of Tang poetry. Considering the great elegance of Chinese poetry, Ayscough said, the first problem she encountered was which poems to choose for translating and introducing to the West. And the greatest difficulty in selecting poems lay not in which to choose but in which not to. She declared that she shared Waley’s view of the work of translation that extensive use of allusions was a common problem with Chinese poetry. Therefore, she would purposely pick poems in which this problem was less in evidence. The second criterion was to choose poems that had never been translated into English before. Of course, some poems in her book were not translated for the first time, but she believed that, “except for Mr. Waley’s admirable work” the English translations she had seen so far “usually failed to convey the flavor of the originals.” So, she deliberately tried to avoid poems which had already been translated by Waley. As a result, there is only one poem by Bai Juyi in Fir-Flower Tablets, because most of Bai’s works had been translated by Waley’s already. The third criterion was to choose better poems “from the perspective of Chinese people,” that is, poems had been popularly recognized as the essence of poetry by generations in China. Tang poetry is the highlight of classical Chinese poetry, so she opted to focus on Tang poetry. Among many of the Tang poets, Li Bai, Du Fu, and Bai Juyi are the most representative, and hence, she could have focused on all three of them. However, restrained by the second criterion, she advised the reader to refer to “Mr. Waley’s translation work” to get to know Bai Juyi and his works. In the starting phase, all translators of Chinese poetry had to go through a process of poem selection before they translated. But few of them explicitly stated their standards of selection. It is understandable that translators outside of China, who selectively introduced classical Chinese poems to the West, had their own standards of choosing poems for translation. It is neither necessary nor possible to expect them to keep their standards in line with those of Chinese people or with conventional Chinese poetics. The three criteria listed by Ayscough, of course, were not the common standards of all translators, but they were, nevertheless, quite typical. As for the first criterion, Ayscough’s method of choosing poems revealed a marked subjectivity in the process of translators’ poem selection. Various subjective factors such as poetic concept, artistic viewpoints, values and attitudes toward life, and other concerns of each translator converged to form his or her distinct aesthetic requirements for selecting classical Chinese poems. These aesthetic requirements determined the individual’s selection of Chinese poets and poems, as well as the 13.1 Contents of Fir-Flower Tablets and Ayscough’s Preface 193 narrow glimpse of Chinese poetry made accessible to English readers at that time, as these available poems had been filtered through the translator’s aesthetic appreciations. Second, Ayscough’s criteria also showed a negative view on the use of allusions in Chinese poetry. The use of “allusions,” in fact, is meant to condense the rich historical and cultural implications of a poem into one or two Chinese characters, and it is an important means for Chinese poets to express their thoughts and feelings in their poems. In classical Chinese poetry, with the soul of its wit in expresses in its brevity and refinement of language, historical events and their extended realistic meanings contained in allusions played an important role in the presentation of the deep thought, emotions, and imagery of the poems. These allusions posed difficulties to Western readers who lacked the adequate knowledge of traditional Chinese culture required to understand the poems, and even became obstacles to translators in introducing Chinese poems. However, the positive role of “allusions” as a rhetoric device and poetic technique cannot be denied. The use of allusions is not a problem with classical Chinese poetry but a “feature.” It was after the 1950s that knowledge of Chinese history and cultural attainment by Western scholars and writers began to improve greatly, and some senior overseas Chinese intellectuals started to participate in translation, such that the important role of allusions in Tang poems began to receive positive treatment. Comparing Li Bai and Du Fu, Ayscough said, although the Westerners would think of the name of Li T’ai-po when they mentioned Chinese poetry, Du Fu was the greatest poet of all to the Chinese people because Du Fu was a “poet of scholars” while Li Bai was just a “people’s poet.” In Chinese social classes, only “scholars,I including officials, were ranked as the most respected members of the upper class. This is where Ayscough proclaimed her admiration for Du Fu, an attitude that remained. At that time, translations of Du Fu’s works were still rare, apart from Fletcher’s. In order to help readers in the English-speaking world to have a better understanding of Du Fu, Ayscough provided biographies and evaluations of the works of both Li Bai and Du Fu. Ayscough introduced Li Bai first and mentioned many key details of Li Bai’s life. She also mentioned that, entrusted to him by Li Bai, Li Yangbing [the book misspelled his name as “Lu Yang-ping”] collated Li Bai’s manuscripts into Li Bai: Poem Collections of the Thatched Cottage and wrote a preface for it, and it went to press in the year Li Bai died. In her writing, Ayscough portrayed Li Bai as talented and yet unruly. As a son of a wealthy family, he liked wandering with a sword, showing his arrogance to influential officials and spending money like water. She also pointed out the falsehood in the previous works of Giles and other writers that Li Bai was drowned when he got drunk and tried to catch the moon in a pond, saying that the record was a false rumor from folklore. She herself did not completely get out of the influence of folklore and unofficial stories. The entire preface did not make any mention of Li Bai’s ambition for great achievement, his passion for “relieving the masses from hardship,” or his critical stance against political corruption. 194 13 Fir-Flower Tablets and Its Authors

Ayscough also criticized two major flaws in Li Bai’s poems: one was that his themes were narrowed down to the sorrow of parting, lovesick women, nostalgia, and drinking; the other was that his creative style was constrained by his overflowing passion, which was easy to release but hard to curb. Many of his poems, such as “ShǔdàoNán” (蜀道难, “The Road to Shu”), for example, had very impressive beginnings but the endings were rather sloppy, and entire poems often lacked clear themes. However, she did not entirely agree with Waley’s opinions about Li Bai and his works. She believed that Waley’s quotation and endorsement of Wang Anshi and others’ comments on Li Bai’s poems with such words as “dirty and poor knowledge and experience, nine out of 10 about women and wine” showed, more or less, the pedantic prejudices of political reformers. In her view, Li Bai wrote poems out of his true nature, and his exciting works were filled with “dash and surprise.” For example, “Xínglù Nán” (行路难, “Traveling Is Hard”), “ZhànChéngnán” (战城南, “Fighting in the South of the City”), and others received nothing but praise from the readers. Furthermore, Li Bai was not “a didactic poet.” His distinctive poetic style held such a strong appeal that his works were still well received and loved by many American readers in the twentieth century. Ayscough summarized her comments on Li Bai thus, “No low or mean attitude indeed, but a rather restricted one we may, if we please, charge against Li T’ai-po. He was a sensuous realist, representing the world as he saw it, with beauty as his guiding star. Conditions to him were static; he wasted none of his force in speculating on what they should be. A scene or an emotion was, and it was his business to reproduce it, not to analyze how it had come about or what would best make its recurrence impossible” (Ayscough and Lowell 1921, p. lxxx). Talking about Du Fu, Ayscough began with his birth in 713 A.D. and recounted his life details: he came to Chang’an City at the age of 36 and obtained praise from Emperor Xuanzong for writing and offering the three pieces of Dàlǐ Fù (大礼赋, The Great Etiquette) at 40. He was very unlucky in his political career. He was later stuck in a flood for a fortnight during his tour in Yue Temple and he died at 55 from overeating, after being rescued by the Magistrate of Laiyang (耒阳) County. The outline of Du Fu’s life was introduced with relative clarity. Besides the slight inaccuracy of the date of his birth and death and his age, her introduction generally tallies with the biographical information of Du Fu in the new and old versions of Book of the Tang Dynasty. Ayscough subsequently translated and quoted many commentary remarks on Li Bai and Du Fu made by noted Chinese scholars of later dynasties. Because these citations had such a strong power of “penetration,” she did not make a comparison between Li and Du; instead, she just pointed out that she most appreciated the beauty of Du Fu’s description of the scenery and his precision in depicting the reality of life. From these words, it seems that her knowledge of Du Fu and his poems was not profound enough to reach the level of understanding his loyalty to the monarch, his concern for the country, his sympathy for laborers, or his love for humanity. Although Ayscough selected many more poems of Li Bai than Du Fu, the fact was that she still favored Du, possibly due to the influence of her Chinese teacher, Nung Chu, who greatly admired Du Fu’s poems. She believed that the only reason 13.1 Contents of Fir-Flower Tablets and Ayscough’s Preface 195 that Du Fu was less well known than Li Bai in the West was that many fewer of his poems were translated into English. But it was not the case in China. A few years later, she chose to translate a part of the book Dùshī Jìngquán (杜诗镜铨, Interpreting Du Fu’s Poetry) by Yang Lun (杨伦) of the Qing dynasty. Taking Du Fu’s life experiences as the clue, she made a detailed description of his family background and life. In all, she translated nearly 60 poems and collected them in Du Fu: The Autobiography of a Chinese Poet (1929), a book published simultaneously in England and America, an event which further established Ayscough’s historical status in the westward transmission of Tang poetry. Interestingly, Ayscough herself thought this book was the first monograph to introduce Du Fu and his works in the English-speaking world. However, in the same year, namely 1929, Tu Fu: Wanderer and Minstrel under Moons of Cathay, coauthored by Huang Chu-Chi, a native, and Edha Worthley Underwood, was also published in the United States. According to the Encyclopedia of Literary Translation into English, published in 2000, the co-translation of Huang and Underwood was published earlier. Hence, Ayscough’s version moves to the second place. In 1934, Ayscough published another book, Travels of a Chinese Poet: Tu Fu, Guest of Rivers and Lakes, as a sequel to Tu Fu: The Autobiography of a Chinese Poet. Ayscough excessively focused on the reproduction of the contents of Du’s poems from the perspective of “Chinese people,” thus turning away more English readers who had different aesthetic values and reducing the circulation of her books. However, there is no doubt that Ayscough is regarded as a pioneer who made serious studies in the English-speaking world about Du Fu and his works. As with other translators, Ayscough deemed it necessary for English readers to understand the cultural background of Tang poetry. She divided her lengthy introduction of cultural background into three parts, including (1) the Chinese language background, (2) historical background, and (3) social background. Her elaboration, particularly the analysis and presentation of the social background of Tang poetry, displayed her unique perspective with a much clearer focus. (1) Language background In that era, most people in the English-speaking world, including some famous scholars, had very limited knowledge of classical Chinese poetry. And some of them even had a prejudice against it. They believed that Chinese poetry was merely telling commonplace, practical, and daily routines in plain language. Ayscough sharply criticized some critics for their indifference and their contemptuous remarks in this regard. She believed these claims only showed that these critics’ adverse judgments and opinions were formed beforehand and without knowledge or examination of the facts. Here, through years of research on Chinese culture and practical experience of studying and translating classical Chinese poetry, she found an issue which had not been identified by previous translators: there was a great difference between the spoken and written expressions in the classical Chinese language. In addition, she 196 13 Fir-Flower Tablets and Its Authors also recognized that different styles in classical Chinese literature had distinct structures, with their own wording and phrasing. Therefore, Chinese scholars were very particular about the use of language from the beginning of their studies. In terms of poetry, Chinese poets attached great importance to words, phrases, and sentences, and focused on consistency in rhyme, stress, and poetical content. They were stringently trained in these aspects. Great Chinese poets were adept at extracting poetic topics from real life and telling the commonplace of everyday life, but the language of Chinese poetry could never be “plain words.” Instead, poetic words for portraying real-life and the objective world had been weighed very carefully, each of them having its own image. What Chinese poetry presented to readers, through these extremely refined words, was the perception of the truth and essence of life. This must be recognized by anyone who attempted to translate and interpret Chinese poems. (2) Historical background Ayscough indicated that China was a big feudal, self-contained nation with agriculture as her fundamental industry. “In rendering Chinese poetry, the translator must constantly keep in mind the fact that the architectural background differs from that of every other country, and that our language does not possess terms which adequately describe it.” For example, Chinese people’s unique and strong feelings of “nostalgia” and “homesickness” were inseparable from the feudal agricultural social structure of the Chinese style. It would be impossible to understand why there were so many poems describing nostalgia if one knew little about China’s unique agricultural social structure. When reviewing the historical origin of Chinese culture, she also mentioned the special cultural significance of the “Yangtze River,” the “Yellow River,” and “The Great Wall,” and other things as well as the achievements and contributions of “Yao, Shun and Yu” (尧,舜,禹), “The First Emperor” (秦始皇), “Emperor Wu of Han” (汉武帝), “Emperor Taizong of Tang (唐太宗),” and other monarchs and their impact on later generations. Since her selection of poems ended with Tang poetry, her introduction accordingly ended with the Tang dynasty. Then, Ayscough insightfully stressed, “Though these poems deal largely with what I have called the historical background, they deal still more largely with the social background and it is, above all, this social background which must be understood” (Ayscough and Lowell 1921, p. xlviii). (3) Social background Ayscough subdivided the social background of Tang poetry into political background and real-life background, each discussed in detail. She first mentioned the imperial examination system of the Tang dynasty, and she indicated that the most noteworthy part of this examination system for selecting civil servants at all levels was in its content “purely focusing on literature,” including poetry. Whether one could be admitted through the progressive layers of selective examinations and start his official career was directly related to his skills in creating poems. This system “forced” all potential politicians to become poets first. Therefore, the politicians of 13.1 Contents of Fir-Flower Tablets and Ayscough’s Preface 197 the Tang dynasty had certainly attained considerable achievements in poetry, and excellent poets must have received a good education and gone through rigorous training. She also pointed out that the importance attached to the writing of poetry by the ruling class of all Chinese dynasties was rarely seen in European countries. Many supreme rulers of China not only personally joined in poetic creation but also vigorously selected outstanding poets. The national policy of selecting officials and the imperial advocate directly stimulated and guided the nation’s passion for poetry, and encouraged a social trend of respecting poets, valuing poetry and honoring the practice of writing poems. Ayscough’s point of view was also confirmed by native Chinese scholars. She further pointed out that such a political background also led to the assembly of distinguished poets in the royal court and their intimate association with the emperor. Many Tang poems celebrated the scenery of royal courtyards, but this did not mean that the emperors and courtiers only soaked themselves in romance all day long. Their actual living situation was to get up at dawn every day to deal with state affairs. Poets were generally more concerned about the affairs of state than those of their families and paid more attention to social events than to their personal routines when they were outside of the royal court. Therefore, it was quite common to see such scenes as poets mutually judging and reviewing each other’s poems, going together for sightseeing, playing chess and drinking together, and collectively engaged in other activities. Due to the unique cultural role of wine in Chinese socialization, Ayscough particularly took wine as an example to illustrate the misinterpretation in the previous English translations of Chinese poetry of there being a “culture of alcohol,”“From the character of the men and the lives they led, it is fairly clear that most of the drinking kept within reasonable bounds. Unfortunately, in translation, the quantity imbibed at these wine-parties becomes greatly exaggerated. That wine was drunk, not merely for its taste, but as a heightener of sensation, is evident; but the ‘300 cups’ so often mentioned bear no such significance as might at first appear when the size of the cups is taken into account. Undoubtedly, also, we must regard this exact number as a genial hyperbole” (Ayscough and Lowell 1921, p. xlvii). The abundant descriptions of “drinking” in Tang poetry caused many Western readers to mistake the great poets of the Tang dynasty for unrestrained alcoholics. Anyone who did not have any personal cross-cultural experiences like Ayscough could hardly tell that some of the same terms in English and Chinese contained quite different notions. When Li Bai “drank 300 cups,” the tiny Chinese wine cup he used was totally different in its capacity from that of the Western wine glass. In an attempt to prevent similar misunderstandings, Ayscough, in addition to listing many specific vocabulary terms in the preface, attached a sketch of a Chinese domicile as in appendix of this book to illustrate that words, like “jade window” (玉窗), “boudoir” (兰闺), “room” (房间), “balcony” (月台), and others, which were frequently seen in poems and were closely related to the daily domestic environment. Many of these things did not necessarily exist in the West or, if they did, had very different connotations. 198 13 Fir-Flower Tablets and Its Authors

Western scholars observed societies from the perspective of history and anthropology, and they had always been sensitive to gender differences between men and women and the social division of labor. As a female, Ayscough herself was very sensitive to women’s roles in family relationships in the Tang dynasty and paid special attention to all kinds of detailed depictions of women in poetry. Compared with men, who were able to travel to mountains and rivers, to display talent in the royal court, and to enjoy the fun of social communication, in Ayscough’s eyes, Chinese women lived in a much narrower sphere. For example, a young woman never met the man to whom she would be married before the wedding, but she showed a kind of “touching” dependence on her husband after marriage, and in a traditional Chinese family, the daughter-in-law had to serve and obey her mother-in-law. Ayscough did not approve of this phenomenon, which appeared odd to her, but she gave very detailed explanations of images or words related to females and offered descriptions of things in their lives that had a derivative signiﬁcance, such as “dresser” (妆台), “bright mirror” (明镜), “arched eyebrows” (娥眉), and other concrete objects. For example, she mentioned that regardless of marital status, only young women would wear red clothes in China. If a poem contained a line like “My tears soak my dress of coarse red silk,” the heartbroken heroine must be relatively young in age. Concerning the background of spiritual belief, Ayscough covered the inﬂuence of religion, mythology, and folklore on Tang poetry. Instead of narrating these like a sermon, she selected some nouns common in poems, such as “immortal” (仙人), “god” (神), “ghost” (鬼), “dragon” (龙), “phoenix” (凤), “crane” (仙鹤), “mandarin duck” (鸳鸯), “tree peony” (牡丹), “lotus” (荷花), and several others to explain their origins, and their original and associative meanings, one by one. Ayscough also made an elaborative introduction to the Chinese lunar calendar, which to many translators, “nothing has been more of a stumbling-block.”

13.2 The “Literariness” Manifested Translation in Fir-Flower Tablets

Ayscough believed that if being “accurate and complete” was taken as the requirement of translating, then the translator would have to render different thoughts and feelings of a poet in different time periods and his/her poems in different styles. However, this goal was almost impossible to reach in practice. Since individual personalities and individual experiences varied greatly, the thoughts and feelings exchanged between the translator and the author through typeface could only be partial and fractured. Therefore, in order to “endeavor to obviate this rupture of the poetic current,” she and Lowell had the following goals in the methods of their translations: First, “accuracy” should be achieved regardless of the restrictions of rhythm. Ayscough believed that the linguistic characteristics of the Chinese language could 13.2 The “Literariness” Manifested Translation in Fir-Flower Tablets 199 not be ignored in translating. Chinese characters possessed fewer syllables but more meaningful visual units, and each syllable had different tones with level and oblique distinctions. So in translation, it was impossible to preserve the prosodic features in the combination of those characters and convert them to a corresponding English rhythm. If something in the original poem had to be abandoned in the translation process, then it had to be something minor instead of the essence of the poem. Hence, in order to convey the original poetic conception and flavor more properly, she advocated abandoning the rhyme and making literal translations by adopting free verse. Second, because the Chinese poets showed exquisite skill in the refinement of words and expressions as well as in the creation of artistic images, there was a big gap between the written language in poems and words of everyday use. Thus, rigid and mechanical translation of Tang poetry according to the explanations in the dictionary would not possibly produce the desired effects. Then, how exactly could the translator achieve maximum “accuracy”? Ayscough pointed out, “It must not be forgotten that Chinese is an ideographic, or picture, language.” Chinese culture was manifested partly in the art of calligraphy, which did not exist in Western cultures. “These marvelous collections of brushstrokes which we call Chinese characters are really separate pictographic representations of complete thoughts.” Poetry and calligraphy are interdependent in Chinese people’s aesthetic concepts. And those “written pictures” included in the second part of the book were meant to explain this point visually. This cultural phenomenon of integrating the art of poetry with painting demanded that Westerners attach great importance to the functions of each Chinese character and its combinations in expressing ideas and feelings. “It cannot be too firmly insisted upon that the Chinese character itself plays a considerable part in Chinese poetic composition.” Ayscough further explained that Chinese characters can be divided into two categories—simple and complex characters based on their structures. Simple characters, which have unique meanings and usages, can be used as components and organically combined with each other to form more complex composite characters. Each component, as an independent entity in the combination, plays a phonetic or ideographic role in expressing the different levels of meaning of a composite character. And ultimately, all components harmoniously present the overall meaning of the character. Translators might ignore the origin of a Chinese character, but it is this combina- tional characteristic of characters that has paved for Chinese poets a pathway to “poetic expression of personality.” So, Ayscough concluded, “It is, therefore, clear that to grasp a poet’s full intention in a poem there must be knowledge of the analysis of characters” (Ayscough and Lowell 1921, p. xxxviii). Her so-called “split-up” method of character analyzing offered a different approach to the similar topic from the previously discussed propositions of Fenollosa, Pound, Purcell, and others. However, the approach they highlighted was the same, which was to try to dismantle characters in verse lines one by one, to analyze the meaning of each component, and then to further derive their combined meaning. Fenollosa unfolded the meaning of dismantled Chinese characters from 200 13 Fir-Flower Tablets and Its Authors the perspectives of poetics and aesthetics, thereby deducing a whole poetic theory. Purcell even advocated taking each character of the poem as a “secondary text.” Ayscough focused more on digging into the meaning of each component of one Chinese character and its potentially expressive effect on the whole of the original poem. “Split-up” was one of the most important steps in Ayscough’s interpretive practice together with Lowell. Though these steps could be detected in only a few places in their translation, the translators did organically blend the resulting character analysis into their English version to represent the “literariness” of the original completely. As a collaborator, Lowell totally agreed with Ayscough’s ideas. In her preface to Fir-Flower Tablets, Lowell says, “Very early in our studies, we realized that the compound parts of the Chinese written characters counted for more in the composition of poetry than had generally been recognized; that the poet chose one character rather than another which meant practically the same thing, because of the descriptive allusion in the make-up of that particular character; that the poem was enriched precisely through this undercurrent of meaning in the structure of its characters.” Of course, “split-up” analysis only helped them to interpret the original poem more accurately, but it did not mean that they could translate all radical components in isolation. In fact, only when no proper English equivalent could be found to match the original would they apply the results of “split-up” analysis to maintain the vividness and fullness of the poetic feature. Lowell believed that following Chinese poetic rhythm and the rules of form was certainly of great importance, but it was impossible to require the English verse to be in line with original rhyme and rhythm. Once all “rules” of form became obstacles to poetic interpretation, translators would have to preserve the poem’s poetic beauty and give up its form, because “it is more important to reproduce the perfume of a poem than its metrical form, and no translation can possibly reproduce both” (Ayscough and Lowell 1921, p. viii). Taking the following as an example, in their practice of translation, Ayscough and Lowell analyzed the merits and demerits of their method of translation, and indeed, made some amazing progress in their work:

A Letter of Thanks for Precious Pearls Bestowed by One Above 谢赐珍珠 By Ayscough and Lowell (1921, p. 143) 江采蘋 It is long since my two eyebrows were painted like cassia-leaves. 桂叶双眉久不描, I have ended the adorning of myself. My tears soak my dress of 殘妆和泪污红绡。 coarse red silk. All day I sit in the Palace of the High Gate. I do not wash; 长门尽日无梳洗, I do not comb my hair. 何必珍珠慰寂寥。 How can precious pearls soothe so desolate a grief. 13.2 The “Literariness” Manifested Translation in Fir-Flower Tablets 201

It is said that the author Jiang Caipin (江采蘋) was selected by eunuchs from Fujian province and admitted into the palace to serve Emperor Xuanzong. She was absolutely in good form and possessed a quietly elegant posture, proficiency in poetry, and was especially well known for her “Jinghong Dance” (惊鸿舞). After she resided in the imperial palace, Emperor Xuanzong had plum trees planted everywhere around her residence because she was very fond of plum blossoms, and accordingly, she was called “Concubine Mei” (梅妃) and became the Emperor’s sole favorite for a period of time. When Yang Yuhuan entered the palace, Concubine Mei fell into disfavor and moved to the East Shangyang (上阳) Palace. One day the Emperor accidentally thought of her, so he sent her a bin of precious pearls. Jiang Caipin, then, returned the pearls to him with this poem. Xuanzong felt sad after reading the poem, so he ordered musicians to compose a new song with the poem as its lyrics. This song was named “Yīhú Zhū” (一斛珠, “A Bin of Precious Pearls”). The word “xie” (谢) in the title of Jiang Caipin’s original means “politely decline something.” Ayscough and Lowell translated it into “thanks,” which is quite different. Still, the English verse completely conveys the solitude and melancholy of Jiang Caipin since she fell into disfavor. The word “changmen” (长门) in the original poem was intended to compare herself to Queen Chen (陈皇后) who was snubbed by Emperor Wu (汉武帝) of the Han dynasty, but it is literally translated into “the Palace of the High Gate,” which fails to convey the implication of the allusion. An annotation “Concubine Mei of Emperor Xuanzong” was placed under the English title, so the omission of this allusion here did not matter as much. The word “hébì” (何必, there is no need) at the end verse was translated into “how,a which conveys sadder feelings with rapid acoustic effect, but loses Concubine Mei’s arrogant attitude of self-esteem. This issue was similar to the mistranslation of the title. The biggest change to the original is the translation of the word “cánzhuāng” (殘妆, fading makeup) in the line “I have ended the adorning of myself.” It can be seen that the translators deduced this meaning by splitting the character “殘” in standardized form into “歹” (wicked, bad) and “戈” (spear), and then synchronized the meaning of these radical components with the original stanza. In the case of this poem, we must admit that the translation does more properly reflect the effect of the original emotion than its literal translation. However, during their long evolution, many components of Chinese characters have lost their earliest meanings. Ayscough and Lowell speculated that the dismantling of the characters of the original poem would inevitably cause misunderstanding by adding something superfluous, and would further distort the overall taste of the original. Here is yet another example:

The Song of the White Clouds 白云歌送刘十六归山 Saying Good-Bye to Liu Sixteen on His Return to the Hills 李白 By Ayscough and Lowell (1921, p. 36) The hills of Ch’u, The hills of Ch’in, 楚山秦山皆白云, White clouds everywhere. 白云处处长随君。 (continued) 202 13 Fir-Flower Tablets and Its Authors

(continued) White clouds follow my Lord always, 长随君, From place to place. They always follow My Lord, When my Lord arrives at the hills of Ch’u. 君入楚山里, Clouds also follow my Lord when he ﬂoats 云亦随君渡湘水。 In a boat on the river Hsiang, 湘水上, With the wild wisteria hanging above 女萝衣, The waters of the river Hsiang. My Lord will go back To where he can sleep Among the white clouds, 白云堪卧君早歸。 When the sun is as high As the head of a helmeted man.

This poem by Li Bai was written in Chang’an City for his friend, Liu Shiliu (刘十六), upon his retirement from his official post and his return to Hunan province. The repetitious intoning of words gives the poem a flowing rhyme and profound emotions of friendship. Ayscough and Lowell, having a good grasp of this feature, produced a smooth and fluent English version which overflows with natural and true feelings. However, some words might still be misleading. For example, they translated “君” into “My Lord” instead of “you,” which mistook the friendship between Li Bai and Liu for a guest–host relationship. Moreover, “My Lord” with its first letter capitalized might easily cause readers to associate it with its specific reference in English, namely, God or Jesus. If there were no specific Chinese geographic nouns like “the hills of Ch’in,”“the hills of Ch’u,” and “the river Hsiang,” this poem would read very much like one of the Psalms of the Bible. The words “white clouds” (白云) linked with a hermit, because of their association with uninhibited freedom and refined nobleness, originated from a poem created by Tao Hongjing (陶弘景) of the Southern dynasty, a hermit in the hills. When he was summoned into the palace by his Emperor, he refused politely in verse, “What’s in the mountain? Plenty of white clouds. I can enjoy them myself. But I cannot bring them to you as gifts.” The word “nǚluó” (女萝), which originated from a line of Qu Yuan’s “Nine Songs” (九歌), refers to a mountain ghost. Li Bai borrowed it to apply colors further to the beauty of the hermit’s place and to stress the necessity of seclusion, also figuratively alluding to the fact that the idyllic and carefree lifestyle of Liu was much like the nobleness of Qu Yuan. It was not surprising that implications of these allusions were not presented in the poem’s English translation, for avoiding allusions was a conventionalized practice for Ayscough and Lowell. In the last line, “báiyúnkānwò” (白云堪卧) means that the royal court is not a proper place for a long stay; lying on “white clouds” like a hermit in the hills would be a much better choice. Thus, the phrase “jūnzǎoguī” (君早歸, you should go do it as soon as possible) displays subtle but firm strength in its advice. In the English verse, Ayscough and Lowell obviously considered the characters with great 13.2 The “Literariness” Manifested Translation in Fir-Flower Tablets 203 deliberation, but unfortunately, they failed to recognize the profound meaning of the word “kān” (堪, could) and only focused on the phrase “zǎoguī” (早歸). As a result, the character “早” was translated into the high “sun,” and a side component “marshal” (帥) was derived from the word “歸” in its standardized form. Then finally, the last line of the English verse was completely irrelevant, “When the sun is as high as the head of a helmeted man.” Interestingly, regardless of its Chinese original, this ending line in English did have a reasonably logical relationship with the image of “My Lord.” And the English verse, which was nearly perfect, fully displayed Lowell’s capacity for poetic creativity. Considering Fir-Flower Tablets as a whole book, Ayscough and Lowell’s method of interpretation, on the one hand, was beneficial to “accuracy.” While interpreting a term “chígānsǒu” (持竿叟, an old man holding a fishing rod) in the line “yuànwéichígānsǒu” (愿为持竿叟) into “an old man holding a bamboo fishing-rod,” the insertion of “bamboo” was derived from the character “竿.” It could help English readers who were not familiar with Chinese daily life to understand the artistic conception of the poem. However, this practice also resulted in much overinterpretation. For example, they completely split the verb phrase “弥漫” in “shēngshì qiě mímàn” (生事且弥漫, How complex things in this world) and translated it into “a swiftly moving space of water, a rushing, propagationing water” which apparently was an over-translation. Ayscough and Lowell spent four years co-translating Fir-Flower Tablets. Meanwhile, Ayscough, who had a much more in-depth understanding of the Chinese language and culture, sometimes doubted that their “split-up” method was of much help in achieving their desired result of “accuracy.” Later, in her foreword to Du Fu: The Autobiography of a Chinese Poet, she admitted that there were many discrepancies between the final draft of Fir-Flower Tablets and her understanding of original poems. But during Ayscough and Lowell’s cooperation, many technical problems were discussed only through correspondence, and their exchange was restrained by objective conditions, so it was inevitable that they could not reach an agreement on some details. Furthermore, Ayscough’s permanent residence in China estranged her from American sinological and literary circles. Therefore, to achieve the objective of introducing classical Chinese poems to American readers, she had to avail herself of Lowell’s reputation.

13.3 The Statues of Fir-Flower Tablets on the Propagation of English-Translated Tang Poetry

Lowell’s leadership in the New Poetry Movement of that time did cause people to become immediately interested in Fir-Flower Tablets. Zhao Yiheng mentioned, “Mrs. Colum, wife of the famous Irish poet Padric Colum, said in her letter [referring to a letter addressed to Lowell, author’s note] that Colum loved this book so much that he took it with him all day long to read it. He also said that in their 204 13 Fir-Flower Tablets and Its Authors opinions, the book would have a huge impact on young poets” (Zhao Yiheng 2003, p. 24). In American universities today, some students still want to study Lowell for their writing of poetry. Dismantling individual images one by one from the Chinese characters, they try to fit these images into their own English verse, like “playing spelling games.” The appearance of the “split-up” method, with its obvious flaws in interpreting Chinese poetry, would inevitably meet with criticism from sinologists. “The French sinologist Paul Pellot published a commentary article in Toung Pao the same year on this book, and retranslated Li Bai’s Song of the Frontier: May Snow in Mount Tianshan. Later, Austrian sinologist Erwin von Zach put forward his personal opinions about Paul Pellot’s translation, and Paul Pellot responded to him by writing another article” (Qin Huanming 2000, p. 2). All translators, without exception, in both sinology and literary circles, emphasized that the core of their work was to convey the “spirit” of the Chinese originals. However, different people had different understandings of this “spirit” and also had different approaches to conveying it. In the discussion about a certain translator, opinions were also divided. The sinology circle disagreed with literary circles, and within each circle, there was no consensus either. Yet their discussions and exchanges of ideas objectively produced the effect of publicizing Chinese poetry. If we all agree that Pound and his Cathay played a key role in the transitional process from sheer appreciation of Tang poetry to learning, referencing, and applying its aesthetic ideas and artistic skills in the English-speaking world, then Lowell and Ayscough and their Fir-Flower Tablets, with its larger quantity and much wider selection of poems, greatly expanded the accessibility of Tang poetry to Western audiences. Other than making English verses of Tang poetry more diverse and colorful, the appreciation of Du Fu’s works in Fir-Flower Tablets was also unique and commendable. Although the number of translations of Du Fu’s poems was limited, Ayscough’s evaluation of Du Fu and his works greatly promoted Du Fu’s reputation as well as his status in the minds of English readers. Through working on Fir-Flower Tablets, Lowell also directly recognized the exquisiteness and fineness of Tang-based classical Chinese poetry. These poems provided a fresh reference for her, so that she was able to break through limitations of the traditional emphasis on narrative or direct emotional expression in English poetry and to start directly from the description of the object, focusing on more freely creating a vivid poetic conception through juxtaposing and superimposing the images. Her Chinoiseries, a suite of poems expressing Oriental exoticism, was exactly her new artistic attempt after learning about Chinese poetry:

Falling Snow Hoar-frost By Lowell (1919, p. 28) The snow whispers about me, In the cloud-gray mornings And my wooden clogs I head the herons ﬂying; (continued) 13.3 The Statues of Fir-Flower Tablets on the Propagation … 205

(continued) Leave holes behind me in the snow. And when I came into my garden, But no one will pass this way My silken outer-garment Seeking my foot steps, Trailed over withered leaves. And when the temple bell rings again A dried leaf crumbles at a touch, They will be covered and gone. But I have seen many Autumns With herons blowing like smoke Across the sky.

Both poems are concise in words and beautiful in artistic conception. Without much exposition or narrative, the memorable poetic quality is embedded in repeated and natural images, which are full of distinctive Oriental ﬂavor. A later sinologist and poet, Kenneth Rexroth (1905–1982, with the Chinese name Wang Honggong, 王红公), argued that Chinoiseries was the best of all Lowell’s poems. Lowell successfully integrated Chinese poetic elements into her own poetic creation, thus pushing the inﬂuence of Tang poetry on the Imagist poets to a peak.

References

Chinese References

Qin Huanming:《中国文化的西传与李白诗-以英、美及法国为中心》,《美国唐学会会刊》, 2000 (Vol.2)。 Zhao Yiheng:《诗神远游:中国如何改变了美国现代诗》,上海:译文出版社,2003年版。

English References

Ayscough, Florence. Lowell, Amy. (1921). Fir-Flower Tablets, Poems translated from the Chinese. Boston and New York: Houghton Mifﬂin Company. Heymann, C. D. (1980). American Aristocracy: The Lives and Times of James Russell Lowell, Amy, and Robert Lowell. Boston: Seaver Books. Lowell, A. (1919). Pictures of the ﬂoating world. New York: The MacMillan Company. MacNair, H. F. (1945). Florence Ayscough and Amy Lowell: Correspondence of a friendship. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Chapter 14 Contributions by Chinese–American Scholars

One distinct characteristic that marked the developing stage of the transmission of English-translated Tang poetry was the participation of native Chinese scholars in the practice of translation. In 1927, French, a well-known American writer, translator, and critic, sharply pointed out in preface to his book Lotus and Chrysanthemum that he expected that more American Chinese, by taking full advantage of their linguistic and cultural competence, would contribute to the English translation of classical Chinese poetry. Fortunately, some native Chinese scholars soon began to follow French’s call. Among them was Kiang Kanghu (江亢虎, i.e., Jiang Kanghu), whose work was the most inﬂuential, and whose The Jade Mountain: Being 300 Poems of the Tang Dynasty (618–906), which he co-translated with the American poet Harold Witter Bynner, has remained to this day the most popular of work of its kind. In 1929, the same year when The Jade Mountain was published, another book Du Fu: A Vagrant and Bard Below the Moon in the Divine Land, which has been previously mentioned, was published, co-translated by native Chinese Huang Zhuqi and the American poet Edha Underwood. This book was the very ﬁrst exclusive English version of Du Fu’s poetry, before which Li Bai’s poetry had dominated all English translations of classical Chinese poetry. It is said that 300 poems by Du Fu were translated, but in fact, some poems were repeatedly placed on different pages, some were made up from pieces of different original poems, and some were converted from Le Livre de Jade by Judith Gautier instead of from Du Fu’s original. Therefore, this book was not very well received by the general public. Besides, Underwood refused to follow the current trend of free verse translation, which consequently hindered the popularity of this book. In 1925, a translation of select poems, Flower Shadows: Translations from the Chinese, was published in London. This book included 35 poems chronologically selected from The Book of Songs to modern times, from certain notable poets, such as Li Bai, Su Dongpo (苏东坡) and Hu Shi (胡适), and even some folk songs and poems from popular novels like the Dream of the RedChamber. Not a single Chinese character appeared in the whole book, and the titles were freely translated

© Foreign Language Teaching and Research Publishing Co., Ltd 207 and Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany 2018 L. Jiang, A History of Western Appreciation of English-translated Tang Poetry, China Academic Library, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-56352-6_14 208 14 Contributions by Chinese–American Scholars or transliterated, nor was any introduction given to either the translated poems or the poets. All in all, the translation was not very well done and had very limited influence. The translator, Alan Simms Lee, was probably a descendant of immigrants from China or Southeast Asia, but this cannot be confirmed until more data of his biography are discovered. Regarding the first English version of classical Chinese poetry translated independently by a native Chinese, what can be confirmed so far is Chinese Poems in English Rhyme by Tsai Ting Kan, and published in (1932), holds this title. In addition, a Chinese name, Bai Dashan (白大山), appeared frequently in subsequent English versions of Chinese poetry, and was sometimes regarded as the author of original poems and sometimes as a translator. In fact, Bai Dashan was merely the pseudonym of the American writer Frederic Peterson rather than the name of a Chinese.

14.1 The Jade Mountain and Its Translation

Published in New York in 1929, The Jade Mountain was the earliest English version of Tángshī SānbǎiShǒu (唐诗三百首, 300 Tang Poems). First compiled around 1763 by Sun Zhu (孙洙, 1711–1778), also known as Héngtáng Tuìshì (蘅塘退士), 300 Tang Poems is the most popular Tang poetry anthology in China. Various later editions also exist, but all editions contain over 300 poems: in this case, “three hundred” means not exactly 300 but refers to an estimated quantifi- cation. Influenced by anthologies of Ming dynasty poetry, Sun selected the poems based on their popularity and educational value. The collection has been popular ever since its publication, and can be found in almost every Chinese household. For centuries, elementary students memorized the poems and used them to learn to read and write. Similar to the procedure of making Fir-Flower Tablets, The Jade Mountain was first translated by those who knew the Chinese language and then refined by American poets. The former was co-translated by two females and the latter was by two males, and both books were significant in different ways to the westward-moving process of Tang poetry. Ayscough, the first-hand translator of Fir-Flower Tablets, was an American who was familiar with Chinese society and fascinated by Tang poetry. Kiang Kanghu, the first translator of The Jade Mountain, was a Chinese scholar who received a college education and moved to the United States. Kiang’s contribution was the earliest attempt of mingling the styles of the East and the West, in the true sense of voluntary participation from Chinese. Kiang Kanghu (1883–1954), whose original name was Shao Quan (绍荃), and who was also known as Hong Shui (洪水) or Kang Lu (亢庐), was born into a wealthy family of officials in Taowan (陶湾), Jiangxi province. He was intelligent, had an extraordinarily retentive memory since childhood, and was well educated. At the end of the Qing dynasty, Kiang served as the Director of the Compiler Bureau, chief editor of the Beiyang Official Journal (北洋官报), a teacher in the 14.1 The Jade Mountain and Its Translation 209

Imperial Academy, and a high-ranking clerk of the Ministry of Law. Starting in 1901, he traveled to and studied in Japan and European countries several times and acquainted himself with various schools of socialism. And from 1905 to 1910, he taught Chinese and Japanese history in Peking University, and established the Peking public schools, serving as principal. In 1911, Kiang organized the Socialist Board in Shanghai and founded the magazine Social Star (社会星). In the same year, he founded the Chinese Socialist Party, promoting the idea of combining so-called socialism with traditional Chinese feudalism and advocating for a utopianism with “no religion, no country and no family.” Kiang took refuge in the United States when the Chinese Socialist Party was dismissed by the government. From 1914 to 1920, he taught Chinese language and culture at the University of California, Berkeley. In 1922, Kiang returned to Nanjing to teach, soon after founding Shanghai Southern University and becoming the president. In 1928, he returned to America as the Chinese counselor at the Library of Congress. Two years later, he was appointed as the Director of Chinese Studies at McGill University. Based on the historical record of the university, Kiang went back to China when the university was closed down due to financial difficulties. The record noted that Kiang’s reported year of death as 1945 was just a guess, for he was out of touch with the university. In fact, Jiang surrendered to the Japanese in 1937 and held the post of the State Councilor in Wang Jingwei’s(汪精卫) government. After the Sino-Japan War, Kiang was prosecuted as a traitor and sentenced to lifelong imprisonment. In 1954, he died of disease in a prison in Nanjing. The book Studies on Jiang Kanghu (江亢虎研究 1998) by Wang Peiwei (汪佩伟), is a valuable reference to the study of Kiang’s life. Leaving aside his political position, Kiang was an intelligent scholar who had produced a good number of works. He wrote in Chinese, Japanese and English in order to introduce Chinese history, culture, and politics. His works in English, including The Chinese Civilization: An Introduction to Sinology, is not difficult to find on the market today. The Jade Mountain appears to be one of his best-received works in America. Harold Witter Bynner, an American poet, writer, and scholar, who was also known by the pen name Emanuel Morgan and the Chinese name Tao Youbai (陶友白), was born in Brooklyn, New York, in 1881. He entered Harvard University in 1898, where he became the first member of his class to be invited to join the student literary magazine, The Advocate, by its editor, Wallace Stevens. He was also published in another of Harvard’s literary journals, The Harvard Monthly. During his college years at Harvard, Bynner and his classmate Arthur Davison Ficke became fascinated with the abundant Eastern artworks stored in the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. In the early 1917, they went to Japan, doing pioneering work in the communication of poetic creation between America and Japan. In 1918, Bynner returned to America, and had a short spell in academia for a year to teach oral English, poetry appreciation and poetic creation at the University of California, Berkeley. Later, Bynner traveled to China in 1920 and intensively studied Chinese literature and culture there for about one year. He embarked on another lecture tour soon after his return to the United States, which took him to Santa Fe, New Mexico, in February, 1922. Exhausted and suffered from a lingering cold, he decided to 210 14 Contributions by Chinese–American Scholars cancel the remainder of his tour and rest in Santa Fe, residing that that city per- manently thereafter. Bynner published more than 10 anthologies of poetry in his life. His poems are full of passion and elegance, and were adored by American youths for nearly half a century. He clearly stated that he had learned more from Chinese poetry than from traditional Greek or Hebrew. Apart from The Jade Mountain, he also translated The Way of Life, according to Lao Tzu in 1944. Bynner died in 1968, having donated his legacy to found the Witter Bynner Foundation of Poetry, to support the creation and translation of American poetry. Bynner met with Kiang Kanghu during his one year spent at the University of California, Berkeley, and began an 11-year collaboration with him on the translation of Tang poems. Joseph French, the editor of The Lotus and Chrysanthemum (1927), indicated that the works co-translated by Bynner and Kiang had been published in periodicals and magazines; however, not much attention was paid to their translations until the publication of The Jade Mountain. Opening with a well-known quotation by Li Shangyin (李商隐), “Literature endures like the universal spirit. And its breath becomes a part of the vital of all man” (盖天地有自然之文章,随我之所触而发宣之,Gàitiāndì yǒuzìránzhī wénzhāng, Suí wǒzhī suǒchùérfāxuānzhī), The Jade Mountain is divided into two main sections. The first section includes the preface entitled “Poetry and Culture,” written by Bynner in Santa Fe and the foreword entitled “Chinese Poetry,” authored by Kiang in Beijing. The second section is the body of translated poems, sequenced by the original poets’ last names. The appendix contains the Chinese names and the dates of the original poets, detailed annotations, and titles and first lines of the poems in Chinese. Its professional layout made this book an excellent reference for the study and research of Tang poetry. At the very beginning of his preface, Bynner expressed his preference for Oriental poetry, especially Chinese, because poetry had been an indispensable consolation in Chinese people’s everyday life since the era of Confucius. From his point of view, the ubiquitous inscriptions in ancient temples, the brands in restaurants and tea houses, and even the shouts of street vendors were full of poetic meaning. Even though not every Chinese had the knowledge of the forms or rhythms of poetry, their childlike innocence protected by their adult wisdom enabled them to perceive the relationship between the natural beauty of the world and the imaginary beauty of poetry. Poetry was very popular in China, and it was precisely the masses and excellent readers who continuously pushed forward the development of Chinese poetry. As a poet, Bynner was quite sensitive to the distinguishing quality of Chinese poetry and the literary views of Chinese poets. He said that Western readers tended to look for the rhetorical flourishes in the verses, such as the shine of diamonds and the rays of the sun. On the contrary, Chinese poetry allowed no surpassing of objective existence by poets in order to preserve the natural poetic image in its entirety. Although Western poets tried their best to exaggerate beyond the boundaries of objective existence, or regarded it as a reference point for impractical flights of imagination, Chinese poets would simply accept this existence and at the 14.1 The Jade Mountain and Its Translation 211 same time draw sufficient solace from this profound simplicity. Chinese poets displayed their brilliance in defining miracles in nature with common sense, indicating that what was simplest was exactly the most respectable and the closest to universal concepts. Their common sense about beauty in nature-inspired people’s desire for tender feelings. Therefore, once a metaphor was used in a Chinese poem, it had to be closely related to the theme and meaning of the poem, making human feelings and natural existence an “integral part” of the whole poem. As short as it is, the preface displays Bynner’s accurate grasp of fundamental aesthetic concepts of traditional Chinese poetry. Kiang’s 19-page-long foreword first sketched the evolutionary process of classical Chinese poetry from its beginnings to the Qing dynasty, and then introduced the basic information of Completed Collections of Tang Poems (全唐诗,QuánTáng Shī) and 300 Tang Poems. Although these 300 Tang poems were often known by heart by the Chinese, Kiang remarked that the poems selected in this smaller volume varied in representative forms and styles of Tang poetry, and were relatively easy to understand: “As a textbook for tutoring school, one could clearly remember these poems even in old age, since they were recited in childhood.” This feature of the book is precisely the reason for its popularity in China and, for the same reason, why it was chosen for translation. In the last section of “Chinese Poetry in General,” Kiang points out the differences in definition between Chinese “poetry” and Western “poetry.” According to him, “poetry” in English is more like the “verse” in Chinese literature, while Cí (词), Qǚ (曲), Fù(赋) and ballads in “verse” do not belong to traditional Chinese “poetry.” Hence, it might be somewhat unreasonable to criticize Chinese “poetry” as being too short or inflexible by the definition of “poetry” in English because Fu actually could qualify as “a long poem” and Cí,Qǚ and ballads are more flexible in form than many English poems. Here Kiang corrected long-standing misconcep- tions about Chinese poetry that had existed since the time of Giles. Kiang was the only person who, with his upbringing in the native cultural background and his knowledge of Western literature, could detect this kind of error. Kiang made no mention of his principles or methods of translation. Bynner, though having been to China, had no knowledge of the language and relied on Kiang’s interpretation of the original poems in the translation process. Bynner believed that the four tones and pronouns gave readers “considerable leeway” in understanding Chinese poetry. This statement of his is hard to understand, because, compared with English, Chinese characters, though having more than one tone, reveal their exact meaning in a sentence or in a verse. What, then, is this so-called “considerable leeway”? Reading deeply into their English texts, Bynner might be referring to the uncertainty of pauses in between words in a certain poetic line. For example, he interpreted “碧海青天-夜夜心” (Bìhǎiqīngtiānyèyèxīn, Lonely left with green cloudy sky night after night) in “Chang’e” (嫦娥, “Cháng’é”)byLi Shangyin as “碧海-青天-夜夜心,” and translated it into “Over the purple seas and blue skies, to brood through the long night.” It is definitely not an incorrect interpretation, but it is quite liberal, indeed giving “considerable leeway” from the original meaning. 212 14 Contributions by Chinese–American Scholars

Bynner also speculated that it was a universal law for different readers to interpret the same poem differently, even with no language transfers involved. In his process of collaborative translation, he would often discuss one poem again and again with Kiang in order to reach an agreement and a rational interpretation. It is obvious that whether or not a translation was “faithful” and “smooth” ﬁrst relied on the translator’s interpretive ability, and then on his/her skill in creative writing. Let us consider one of their translations as an example:

Crossing the Han River 渡汉江1 By Kiang and Bynner (1929, p. 52) 宋之问 Away from home, I was longing for news. 岭外音书断, Winter after winter, spring after spring. 经冬复立春。 Now, nearing my village, meeting people, 近乡情更怯, I dare not ask a single question. 不敢问来人。

This four-line poem describes the anxiety of a man who, having been away from home for years, came back and ventured to inquire about his friends and relatives. The complex feelings are expressed in concise and memorable words. In his literary and prose translation, Bynner did not pursue a correspondence with the original in style or rhyme. In most cases, he translated titles and annotated the preface thoroughly, but was quite liberal in translating the content of the poems. In the last example, he liberally translated the first line into “Away from home, I was longing for news.” In order to avoid reading obstacles, Bynner omitted the proper names of people and places that he did not deem important to the whole poem. “岭外” (lǐngwài), the south of Nanling (南岭), was relegated to the list of omissions in his translation. But “岭外” (lǐngwài) is not only a geographical concept; it also has deeper implications. For centuries, if a well-educated poet was in “岭外” (lǐngwài) for years, he must have been deported for political reasons. Once this proper noun was omitted, Bynner could only adopt an even more liberal translation for this line. The second line was precise and appropriate; the meaning in the last two lines was mixed and expressed in another way. “Anxiety” in the original was not reflected literally, but hidden in the English version. On the whole, Bynner had rendered a smooth and natural conveyance of the inner emotion of the original. Most translations in The Jade Mountain are, as demonstrated above, not equivalent on the level of words, but serious misinterpretations could hardly be found, thanks to Kiang’s first draft. However, Kiang was a Chinese politician after

1This poem is ascribed both to Song Zhiwen (宋之问) and to Lin Pin (李频) in the book A Complete Collection of Tang Poetry. Scholars tend to believe that this poem was written by Song, based on the historical records of his biography. Kiang and Bynner ascribed it to Li, just as it was in 300 Tang Poems. It was the same with the translation of “The Gold-woven Dress,” which was ascribed both as being anonymous and to Bai Juyi in A Complete Collection of Tang Poetry, while in The Jade Mountain it was credit to Du Qiuniang (杜秋娘), even though Du Qiuniang was actually a heroine in one of Du Mu’s poems instead of being a poet of Tang. 14.1 The Jade Mountain and Its Translation 213 all, not a professional scholar of classical poetry. When he failed to interpret some lines accurately, Bynner’s English translation was either too shallow or overdone:

A Spring View 春望 By Kiang and Bynner (1929, p. 148) 杜甫 Though a country be sundered, hills and rivers endure. 国破山河在, And spring comes green again to trees and grasses. 城春草木深。 Where petals have been shed like tears, 感时花溅泪, And lonely birds have sung their grief. 恨别鸟惊心。 …After the war-ﬁres of three months, 烽火连三月, One message from home is worth a ton of gold. 家书抵万金。 …I stroke my white hair. It has grown too thin 白头搔更短, To hold the hairpins any more. 浑欲不胜簪。

In June, 756 A.D., An Lushan’s rebel force captured Chang’an, the capital city. In July, Emperor Suzong (唐肃宗) ascended the throne in Lingwu (灵武). Hearing this, Du Fu, after getting his family settled in Luzhou (鄜州), went alone to Emperor Suzong. He was caught by the rebels en route and taken back to Chang’an. Though not in jail, Du Fu was anxious about his family and worried about the fate of the country while he was living in the ruined capital. “A Spring View” was written after he received a letter from his family. Rendering “万金” (wànjīn) literally into “a ton of gold” was a skillful translation. The last line, “It has grown too thin/to hold the hairpins any more,” is off-track a little but still acceptable. But the translations of the third and fourth lines are far from satisfactory. In the original poem, the sight of early spring stirs up the poet’s feelings, hence the blossoms only made him tear up and the birds singing reminded him of loneliness. The grammatical structures of these two lines are typical in written classical Chinese. Rending them into “tears of petals” and “grief of birds,” could only come from Kiang’s understanding, as a modern Chinese. Similar limitations are not hard to ﬁnd throughout the whole book. For more example, “暂伴月将影,行乐须及春” (Zànbànyuèjiāngyǐng, Xínglèxūjíchūn, Yet the moon and my own shadow shall be my companion, enjoying life right in this spring time.) in “Yuèxià Dúzhuó Zhī Yī” (月下独酌之一, “Drinking Alone Under the Moonlight I”) by Li Bai was translated into “But still for a while I had these friends, to cheer me through the end of spring.” The character “及” means “on time, right now” in written classical Chinese, while it carries the meaning of “till, until” or “get to” more commonly in modern Chinese. No seriously twisted representations are to be found in the work. Apparently, Kiang’s active participation and Bynner’s exquisite style of writing made for a successful collaboration. Many poems in this book, such as Bai Juyi’s “The Song of a Pipa Player” (琵琶行, “Pípá Xíng”), Li Bai’s “A Sign from a Staircase of Jade” (玉阶怨, “Yùjiē Yuàn”), Wang Wei’s “A Song at WÊI-CH’ÊNG”(渭城曲, “Wèichéng Qǔ”) and “Viewing the Hanjiang River” (汉江临眺, “Hànjiāng Líntiào”), among others, were quite well translated. 214 14 Contributions by Chinese–American Scholars

At the time when The Jade Mountain was published, Witter Bynner had already attained his respected status in American poetic circles. It was a foregone conclusion that Bynner was strongly inﬂuenced by Chinese poetry. Like the celebrity charm brought to Fir-Flower Tablets by Lowell, The Jade Mountain enjoyed the same popularity. The book was reprinted in 1964, and is still popular with general readers. Referencing and utilizing Tang poetry, this book followed the norms of poetic creation of Imagism since Pound, which greatly enriched and enlarged the range of availability of English-translated Tang poetry. During his cooperation with Kiang, Bynner made such a big step forward in his understanding of Chinese culture, language and literature that he could later translate The Way of Life, according to Lao Tzu (1944) independently. Bynner’s translation, via his own creative style of gradual transformation, further expanded the inﬂuence of Chinese poetry and even Chinese culture in American poetic circles. From the perspective of either the style or the artistic conception of his work, many of his later poems manifested the expressive strategies of Chinese poetics and the spiritual guidance of Confucianism. The following poem was by Witter Bynner in (1955):

Island By Witter Bynner There is an island where a man alone, Alive beyond the selﬁshness of living. Knows the whole world around him as his own, Without resenting and without forgiving.

This brief poem has only four lines, with one rhyme for every two lines. The rhythm of each line and the introduction and elucidation of the theme from image to image, line to line, are all essentially in accord with the “Stop-short” technique. And while the words come to an end, the meaning is inexhaustible, reminding readers of the philosophical thought of Tao Te Ching: “The eternity of the earth and heaven lies in their lack of property to regenerate. No wonder the saints place themselves behind before they are placed forward and they exclude themselves before they are included.” (天地之所以能长且久者,以其不自生也,故能长生。是以圣人后其身而身先,外其身而身存,非以其无私邪?故能成其私。Tiāndì zhī suǒyǐ néng chángqiějiǔ zhě,yǐ qí búzìshēng yě,gù néng chángshēng. Shìyǐ shèngrén hòuqíshēn érshēnxiān, wàiqíshēn érshēncún, fēiyǐ qí wúsī yē?Gù néng chéngqísī.) Witter Bynner also actively encouraged and guided other American poets to absorb nutrients from Tang poetry. After the 1970s, the American poet Kenneth Rexroth, one of the later leaders of the westward advance of Tang poetry, was introduced to Tang poems by Bynner, and found the charm of Du Fu’s works from Bynner’s translation. Later, Du’s work became Rexroth’s focus in translating Tang poetry, and also became one of the most important factors that affected his poetic creation for the remainder of his life. 14.1 The Jade Mountain and Its Translation 215

Bynner said in the preface to The Jade Mountain that in the near future, young Americans were going to learn and understand more of Chinese poetry, just as they had done with Ancient Greek, Hebrew, and other traditional European poems. Today, Chinese poetry and other classical literature appreciation courses have gradually entered the classroom of American colleges and universities. This phenomenon shows the rapid development of his prediction, something which would console this outstanding poet who had vigorously promoted English-translated Tang poetry.

14.2 Tsai Ting Kan and Chinese Poems in English Rhyme

In 1854, Yung Wing (容闳), one of the earliest Chinese students to have studied in America, returned to his home country to join the Westernization Movement, which strongly advocated saving the nation through education. With the initiative of Yung Wing and other far-sighted officials, the Qing government agreed to select intelligent children from all over the country to participate in the English Preparatory Class, and the outstanding ones who could pass the selective examination would be sent to the United States to study. From 1872 to 1875, a total of 120 children were sent in four batches to the United States. Many of them later became very important figures in the history of the late Qing dynasty and of the early Republic of China, including Tsai Ting Kan (蔡廷干), who was the first to translate classical Chinese poems into English independently and publish them in the United States. Tsai Ting Kan (1861–1935), courtesy name Yaotang (耀堂), was born in Xiangshan county (now Zhuhai City), Guangdong province. In 1873, as one of the selected young students, Tsai went with the second batch to study in the United States. He lived and studied there for eight years, and was deeply influenced by the Western education. In 1881, the Qing government ordered the withdrawal of all these students from America, and accordingly Tsai was nominated to return to learn the theory and techniques of naval warfare. After finishing his study, he participated in the war with France as a petty officer in the Fujian Fleet, and then he was transferred to the Beiyang Fleet to be on active service. At the beginning of 1895, he was captured in the Sino-Japanese War, and was later imprisoned in Osaka, Japan. In 1901, Tsai was recommended by Yuan Shih-kai (袁世凯) after he was dismissed. Tsai was closely aligned with Yuan Shih-kai for a long time in the changing political arena of the times. In February, 1912, soon after Yuan Shih-kai officially became the president of the Republic of China, Tsai was promoted to “the higher military council, Deputy Commander of the Navy and Deputy Ceremonial Officer of the Presidential Palace” and was awarded “second-class Golden Grain” with preferential treatment. But over time, Tsai became increasingly disgusted with Yuan’s perfidious actions. After Yuan’s death, Tsai was rehired by the new Beiyang Government because of his fluent English and abundant international knowledge. In May 1927, a financial crisis occurred in the Beiyang government, and then Tsai retreated to Dalian for seclusion, withdrawing from politics forever. 216 14 Contributions by Chinese–American Scholars

Tsai went back to Beijing and settled there in 1931. Tsai had attained distinguished achievements in both civil administration and military affairs, and was, at that time, a well-known general who possessed literary grace. In his later years, he was invited from time to time to teach Chinese literature in Tsinghua University and Yenching University (now Peking University) as a visiting professor, and he was engrossed in the English translation and annotation of classical Chinese literature in his spare time. His book in English A Synthetic Study of Lao Tzǔ’s Tao-Tê-Ching, has remained a bestseller in the United States to this day. In addition to the unfinished English versions of Notes of the Yuewei Hermitage (阅微草堂笔记) and Selected Articles from A Dream of Red Mansions (红楼梦选篇), his Chinese Poems in English Rhyme, published by the University of Chicago Press in September 1932, further established Tsai’s reputation as the first native Chinese intellectual to translate classical Chinese poems into English independently. On September 20, 1935, Tsai passed away in Beijing. The book Chinese Poems in English Rhyme has a Chinese title given by Tsai himself as Tángshī Yīngyùn (唐诗英韵), literally meaning “Tang Poems in English Rhyme,” which caused confusion among later generations, who mistook this book for the English translation of Tang Poetry only. In fact, the word “Tángshī” (唐诗) in the Chinese title refers to Chinese poems in general, instead of those of the Tang dynasty precisely. The character “Táng” (唐) stands in place as a pronoun for “China” in modern Chinese, just as “Chinatown” could be “TángrénJiē” (唐人街, Streets of Tang people) and “Chinese people” could be “Tángrén” (唐人, people of Tang). All poems translated in this book were selected from the anthology Poems by 1000 Masters (千家诗, Qiānjiā Shī) for the same reason as Kiang and Bynner chose 300 Tang Poems: These two classical anthologies were written for children in China, and offered illuminating readings as well as popular content. The main body of Chinese Poems in English Rhyme consisted of 122 poems, all of which were five-character and seven-character verses; Tang and Song poems each accounted for half the book, respectively. Each poem had a corresponding original verse, making the layout a feast for the eyes. The part on Tang poetry included 67 poems by 47 poets, with works by Li Bai and by Du Mu being the most commonly selected. Annotations and a list of poets were annexed to the main body. For the convenience of European and American readers who were unfamiliar with the historical background, a comparative chronological table of the corresponding periods in China, Rome, and England was also appended. The preface to this book was written by L. T. Chen, Secretary-General of the China Branch of the Institute of Pacific Relations. Chen said at the beginning of the preface that all the poems in this book had been selected from the Tang period, which was clearly inconsistent with the facts. Chen indicated that Tsai spent 15 years on this book, making repeated revisions and modifications before finally presenting it to English readers. This small anthology “not only maintains the original spirit and musical beauty, but also is in fluent language.” Meanwhile, Chen 14.2 Tsai Ting Kan and Chinese Poems in English Rhyme 217 also fully affirmed the historical significance of this volume as the first independently English-translated version of classical Chinese poetry by a native Chinese. In his preface, Tsai said that his method of translation was to draw a correspondence between one Chinese character and an English syllable or two, sub- jecting the rhyme to the convention of English poetry, and striving for metrical reproduction of Chinese poems. This showed that he deliberately used rhyme in the English text, trying to represent the musicality of classical Chinese poetry, which was very similar to Giles’ idea of translation. The following is a comparison between their translations of Li Bai’s famous “Night Thoughts”:

Night Thoughts Midnight Thoughts By Giles (1898. p. 60) By Tsai Ting Kan (1932, p. 16) I wake, and moonbeams play around my bed, My bed was radiant with a shining light Glittering like hoar-frost to my wondering Which I, in wonder, took for frost so bright. eyes. Up towards the glorious moon I raise my head With upraised head the shining moon I spied, Then lay me down, —and thoughts of home With drooping head I thought of home and arise. sighed.

Giles used rhyme in every other line while Tsai used rhyme in every two lines, and both English versions were generally faithful to the original. From the perspective of details, the first line translated by Giles, in which “I” wake up from a dream and see the moon “play around” my bed, was slightly different from the scene described by Li Bai in the original. Giles translated the last two lines into “Up towards the glorious moon I raise my head. / Then lay me down, —and thoughts of home arise,” while the action of “lay me down” was an add-on. Tsai translated the same two lines into: “With upraised head the shining moon I spied, / with drooping head I thought of home and sighed.” The last word “sighed” was an add-on, but it was conformed to the syllable iambic of the previous line, and necessary for developing poetic quality and sense, communicating Li Bai’s continuous nostalgia during his trip on an autumn night. Nonetheless, the limitation of Tsai’s method of translation, like that of Giles, which considered word correspondence and rhyme, restrained his freedom of interpretation into English to a great extent. Giles might be able to give up absolute faithfulness to the original for the sake of rhyming, but with his profound knowledge of the context and the content, it was impossible for Tsai to drift too far away from the original. So he would have to face the difficulty of finding exactly-corresponding English words to match the Chinese characters. Tsai’s favorite way to resolve these difficulties was to extend the verses or to offer a “complete” rendition. Consequently, his English version might turn out to be too wordy: 218 14 Contributions by Chinese–American Scholars

A Song at WÊI-CH’ÊNG Farewell to an Envoy on His Mission to Kucha by Kiang and Bynner (1929, p. 191) by Tsai (1932, p. 32) A morning—rain has settled the dust in The morning rain has washed the Wei-ch’eng Wêi-Ch’êng; dust away, Willows are green again in tavern The willows’ round the inn their fresh green dooryard… robes display. Wait till we empty one more cup— I urge thee, friend, another cup of wine to drain, West of Yang Gate there’ll be no old Since west of Yang-Kwan Pass you’ll seek for friends. friends in vain.

In the above illustration, Kiang and Bynner followed the title of the Yuefu poem “渭城曲” (“Wèichéng Qǔ”), while Tsai followed Wang Wei’s own title “Sòng Yuán’èrShǐ Anxī” (送元二使安西, “Seeing Yuan’er on embassy to An’xi”), though both were translated from the same original by Wang Wei: “Wèichéng zhāoyǔ yì qīngchén, Kèshè qīngqīng liǔsè xīn. Quànjūngèngjìnyībēijiǔ,Xīchū yángguānwúgùrén.” (渭城朝雨浥轻尘,客舍青青柳色新。劝君更尽一杯酒,西出阳关无故人。) Kiang and Bynner’s version was fresh and natural, enabling readers to see picturesque scenery and experience a sentiment of reluctant farewell in the poem. Some details in the translation were proper and providential, such as the adoption of “settled the dust” to correspond to the phrase “浥轻尘” (yì qīngchén), implying that the road was cleaned instead of made wet by the spring shower. The translation of “劝君更尽一杯酒” (Quànjūngèngjìnyībēijiǔ) into “Wait till we empty one more cup” was also a very elegant transfer. In contrast, Tsai’s version seemed to be dilatory and wordy. The biggest distinction between the two translations lay in the concluding line. From the previous line, “Wait till we empty one more cup,” Kiang and Bynner, intentionally or unintentionally by delaying the separation, turned his hesitant utterance into a multitude of emotions in one line of sentiments: “West of Yang Gate there’ll be no old friends.” The rich and complex emotions implied in Wang Wei’s poem were fully represented. Tsai concluded the line with “Since west of Yang-Kwan Pass you’ll seek for friends in vain,” which was ambiguous and unnatural in a scenario of seeing off an old friend, and was contrary to the heartfelt and honest emotions of the original poem. In the 1930s, the propagation of Tang poetry in the West began to take shape, and volumes related to the subject sprang up like mushrooms. Looking at both the quantity of poems that was translated and the overall quality of English verses, Chinese Poems in English Rhyme might not be outstanding among similar works. However, its exceptional value was embodied in the fact that Tsai Ting Kan single-handedly became the first native Chinese to introduce traditional Chinese poetry and culture to the Western world actively. In the beginning stage of translating Tang poems into English, all participants were European and American scholars or poets. No matter what methods they adopted and from which perspective they interpreted Tang poems, their participation itself showed their strong will to learn classical Chinese poetry and Chinese culture. Nevertheless, their translation was a passive entry of Tang poetry from the Chinese cultural context into the Western cultural context. Cultural barriers caused 14.2 Tsai Ting Kan and Chinese Poems in English Rhyme 219 a variety of unavoidable refractions and deformations in the distorting mirrors of translation, even though the styles and features of the originals could still be seen. As a military commander and by virtue of his self-confidence and love of his own cultural background, Tsai presented to the English-speaking world more of the “true colors” of classical Chinese poetry. His work provided a different perspective from those of Cathay, Fir-Flower Tablets, The Jade Mountain and many other volumes, for English readers who did not know any Chinese but were eager to learn classical Chinese poetry. He brought English readers the native interpretation of Tang poetry as a frame of reference, so that they could learn to appreciate fully its charm through contrast and comparison. Tsai Ting Kan also ended the long absence of native Chinese in the process of introducing Tang poetry in English. He and his work proved that the absence was not because native Chinese intellectuals failed to remember the artistic charm of Tang poetry—which lasted for a dozen of centuries—or did not believe that it could go beyond cultural and national boundaries. They were confined by historical conditions. Once this limitation was surpassed, Chinese scholars demonstrated that they were competent enough and were possessed of a sufficiently high degree of consciousness of cross-cultural communication, to be able to introduce the essence of their national culture to the rest of the world.

References

Chinese Reference

Wang Peiwei:《Kiang Kang-Hu研究》,武汉:武汉出版社,1998年版。

English References

Bynner, W. (1955). Book of lyrics. New York: A. A. Knopf. Bynner, W., & Kiang, K.-H. (1929). The Jade mountain, a Chinese anthology: Being three hundred poems of the T’ang dynasty (618–906). New York: Alfred A. Knopf Inc. French, J. L. (1927). Lotus and Chrysanthemum: An anthology of Chinese and Japanese poetry. New York: Liveright Publishing Corporation. Giles, H. A. (1898). 古今诗选/Chinese poetry in English verse. London: Bernard Quaritch; Shanghai: Kelly & Walsh. Lao, T. (1944). The Way of Life, according to Lao Tzu. Tsai, T. K. (1932). 唐诗英韵/Chinese poems in English rhymes. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Chapter 15 Development After the 1950s

Abstract There was no substantive progression in the propagation of Tang poetry during World War II and the postwar period. There was no substantive progression in the propagation of Tang poetry during World War II and the postwar period. Although a few works of translation appeared, this ﬁeld remained quiet until the late 1960s, when the rather active period of postmodernism in American literature arrived. Then, Tang poetry and its internal cultural elements produced a wider and deeper impact in the English-spoken world.

15.1 The “Beat Generation” and Tang Poetry Translation

In the 1970s, when it entered the postindustrial era, America experienced great technological and economic development. Triggered by the Vietnam War, the anti-war movement, the black civil rights movement, and the feminist movement stormed the country. The painful memory of the war, worries about environmental pollution, and drug addiction, among other things, all brought about drastic changes in the American mentality and values. These great changes in politics, economy, and social circumstances saw the emergence of new schools of thought, brought new subjects to the American literary arena, and pushed writers to find new ways to express their life and experiences in the new era. Consequently, the more than 40-year-old Modernism declined, and the era of postmodernism arrived, leading to great structural changes in American poetic circles. A variety of poetic schools sprang up, such as Black Mountain, the Beat Generation, and the Confessional Movement, among others. Though differing in opinions, these schools shared one common attribute, which was to try to break away from the existing principle of impersonality set by T. S. Eliot and the New Criticism, and to establish a new, much more flexible poetic form. Among these new poetic schools, Black Mountain converged with the Beat Generation in the late 1950s, which caused a big sensation in the literary field. The Beat Generation refers to those who, dissatisfied with the social reality of America after the Vietnam War, and pressed by McCarthyism, chose to express their protest with an indulgent and dispirited lifestyle. John Clellon Holmes, an American writer, once wrote an article for the Times entitled, “This is Beat Generation,” in which he

© Foreign Language Teaching and Research Publishing Co., Ltd 221 and Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany 2018 L. Jiang, A History of Western Appreciation of English-translated Tang Poetry, China Academic Library, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-56352-6_15 222 15 Development After the 1950s explained in particular the meaning of “beat.” According to Holmes, this word implied not only their boredom at being taken advantage of, their exhaustion with life and their disappointment with reality, but also their compliance with inescapable fate, their wry humor about their poverty, and their longing for a sacred soul. His explanation described the features of this unique group, who, long tramping at the bottom of society, disdained conventional concepts, and redirected their philosophy of life. Some poets blended this lifestyle into their works, creating a rebellious mood and philosophy of life, which was actually an expression of open rebellion against academic literature, which they perceived as being detached from social reality. The search for the ego pushed the Beat Generation poets to amend the orthodox norms of Eliot by incorporating Pound’s style. At the same time, they also turned to the Oriental style, including classical Chinese poetry, for inspiration and resources. Among the great poets of the Beat Generation, Kenneth Rexroth was one of the leading theorists who was deeply influenced by Buddhism. Gary Snyder (1930–) was also one of the important representative figures, who was converted to Buddhism and called himself a “Zen poet.” Admiring the monk and poet Han Shan (寒山, i.e., Cold Mountain), he devoted himself to translating Cold Mountain poems. Rexroth and Snyder distinguished themselves from the previous generation represented by Pound and Lowell. They had, with the progression of the times and the increasing communication between Eastern and Western cultures, acquired knowledge of Chinese and enhanced their comprehension of Chinese culture. This knowledge enabled them to convey poetic aesthetics with ease to other poets and to the general public, and enriched their own creative work with internal cultural elements from Tang poetry. As leading translators and outstanding poets, they brought about a second climax in the propagation of English-translated Tang poetry in the West. I Kenneth Rexroth As a poet, translator and painter, Kenneth Rexroth had a great passion for Far Eastern culture since his childhood. In his youth, he became attached to Buddhism and interpreted Zen Buddhist implications both in Chinese and Japanese painting and literature. With his knowledge of many languages, he compiled and translated a plethora of Chinese, Japanese, French, Portuguese, and Greek poems, and published 13 translated anthologies of poetry. Four of them were translations of classical Chinese poetry. 100 Poems from the Chinese (1956) consists of two parts: the first was a translation of 34 poems by Du Fu, and the second was a translation of Song poets, such as Su Dongpo (苏东坡) and Li Ch’ing-Chao (李清照, i.e., Li Qingzhao). 100 More Poems from the Chinese: Love and the Turning Year (1970) covered a longer time span in its selection, including poems written by the Tang poets Wang Wei, Han Yu, Gao Shi, Meng Haoran, and others. The other two works of translation by him, Orchid Boat: Women Poets of China (1972)1 and Complete Poems of Li Ch’ing-Chao (1979), were based on Ci poems of Song dynasty.

1This is a co-translated work by Rexroth and the native Chinese scholar Ling Chung. The book title changed to Women Poets of China for the reprinted version in 1982. 15.1 The “Beat Generation” and Tang Poetry Translation 223

In his autobiography, Rexroth mentioned that it was Pound’s Cathay that acquainted him with Chinese poetry. While studying at the Art Institute of Chicago, he met with Wen Yiduo (闻一多), who was at that time studying there. In Rexroth’s opinion, “the Far Eastern poetry had a greater influence than French poetry on American poetry in the nineteenth and twentieth century, that is, much greater than the influence from the nineteenth century British and American poetry” (Chung 2003, p. 22). As Chung Ling (钟玲), a modern native scholar who once cooperated with Rexroth and knew him well noted, Far Eastern (including Chinese) poetry did indeed have an impact on modern American poetry, but Rexroth exaggerated its influence. Nevertheless, it is true that Chinese poetry had more of an effect on Rexroth’s creative writing than any traditional European poetry. In 1942, he became acquainted with Witter Bynner, and, upon his recommen- dation, began to study Du Fu’s poetry. Du Fu’s ingenuous and realistic style influenced his poetic creation for the rest of his life. He admitted in his autobiography that his heart was filled with Du’s poems, which were to some extent better than Shakespeare’s or Homer’s. Conceived in ancient times, in the rich and perfect ancient Chinese culture, Du’s poetry deeply expressed the aspirations in man’s innermost soul and wholly presented the kaleidoscope of the real world. Therefore, Du’s poetry had a strong appeal for him and changed him entirely. William Carlos Williams, a modern American poet, thought highly of Rexroth’s translation of Du Fu’s poetry, holding that Rexroth’s interpretation of Du Fu could not be matched by any other translators. Let us examine one of Rexroth’s translations of a poem by Du Fu:

Full Moon 月圆 By Rexroth (1971, p. 28) 杜甫 Isolated and full, the moon 孤月当楼满, Floats over the house by the river. 寒江动夜扉。 Into the night the cold water rushes away below the gate. 委波金不定, The bright gold spilled on the river is never still. The brilliance of my quilt is greater than precious silk. 照席绮逾依。 The circle without blemish. The empty mountains without sound. 未缺空山静, The moon hangs in the vacant, wide constellations. 高悬列宿稀。 Pinecones drop in the old garden. 故园松桂发, The cassia trees bloom. The same clear glory extends for ten thousand miles. 万里共清辉。

This poem was written in 766 A.D. by Du Fu during his sojourn in Kuizhou (夔州). It could be inferred that it was written in autumn since “寒江” (hánjiāng, cold water) and “桂花” (guìhuā, cassia trees) were mentioned in the poem. The cold and lonely night aroused nostalgia, homesickness, and melancholy in the sleepless poet. His depiction changed from looking upward to looking around, from near to far, and from the real to the imagined. The poetic sentiments gradually converged before they were suddenly raised to a higher level. “万里共清辉” (Wànlǐgòng 224 15 Development After the 1950s qīnghuī, the same clear glory extends for ten thousand miles) expressed not only the poet’s affection for his hometown but also his best wishes for his hometown, as well as his search for self-consolation. Rexroth’s translation was fluent and elegant, retaining all the images of the original, such as the moonlight, the waves, the water, the shadow of the house, the mountains, and the trees. But, different from the original, in which these images were continuous and interwoven, the translation advances progressively by inter- vals. All the images in the English version were superimposed over one another and leaping from one to the next. The ninth and tenth lines were quite a different interpretation, which departed further from the original. Rexroth rendered “故园” (gùyuán, hometown) as “the old garden,” which was actually a misunderstanding, changing the poetic sentiment of Du Fu’s nostalgic emotions. As mentioned before, the abstract concept of nostalgia in Chinese tradition was very difficult to represent with one or two English words, and satisfactory translations of this concept were rarely found. Since Rexroth knew the Chinese language and had a good knowledge of traditional Chinese culture, his translation of “故园” (gùyuán, hometown) into “the old garden” (旧-花园) may have been deliberate. He said in the preface to 100 More Poems from the Chinese that it was impossible to translate classical Chinese poetry into modern English poetry. At first, he translated these poems out of his personal preference, hoping that his English readers would love them as much as he did. He omitted some typical Chinese concepts, including nostalgia from his translation, when he realized that it was too hard for English readers to relate to this concept. In other words, he paid more attention to presenting readers with his personal aesthetic preferences than to representing the original poetic expressions, which also reflected the free, open, and individualistic poetic approach of the Beat Generation. In addition, Rexroth was a gifted English poet. With his translation, classical Chinese poetry was polished into a work of art, like antique china vases that were not collected by museums but by common people, and was unbelievably elegant, beautiful, and characteristically Chinese and yet easily accessible. Therefore, once published, 100 Poems from the Chinese was very well received, especially by young people. The book even became a popular gift on Valentine’s Day among the young. Generally speaking, Rexroth favored poems that described natural scenes and some of his translations vividly represented the original poetic images, such as we see in the following:

Deep in the Mountain Wilderness 鹿柴 By Kenneth Rexroth (1970, p. 58) 王维 Deep in the mountain wilderness 空山不见人, Where nobody ever comes, Only once in a great while 但闻人语响。 Something like the sound of a far off voice, The low rays of the sun 返景入深林, Slip through the dark forest, And gleam again on the shadowy moss. 复照青苔上。 15.1 The “Beat Generation” and Tang Poetry Translation 225

It seemed that in Wang Wei’s poetic realm the silence in the mountain was broken by a human voice, and this temporary sound in contrast with the silence reflected the long-term quietness of nature. Rexroth’s translation represented this poetic change, but in his translation, there was perhaps audible or inaudible sound from the distance, yet it might not be a human voice. Seen from the previous lines of the English version, this sound was probably the chirping of birds, the buzzing of insects or the sound of wind or water. By translating this sound vaguely, Rexroth created a more silent and desolate mountain and a much lonelier poetic image, which reflected the strong influence of Buddhism on him, since Buddhism advocated quietness and emptiness. It was very hard for him, in his English cultural context, to interpret Wang Wei’s thought patterns as formulated by nature, and then to infuse Buddhist concepts into that artistic conception. Moreover, the combination of the poetic meaning, the colors, and the sounds in Wang Wei’s poem came from his careful observation of nature as a poet, painter, and musician. Rexroth accurately interpreted them in his English version, as also a poet and painter, which was close to the original poem. Rexroth’s persistent dedication to translating Chinese poems and studying Buddhist classics had an invisible influence on his poetic creation. He complied with the so-called “Chinese Rule” to write poems and emphasized the direct use of images to create poetic situations. This was something he had in common with Pound and Lowell. However, his interpretation of the Chinese poetic situation and his use of images in Chinese ways were unparalleled among American poets. Like Pound in the creation of his Cantons, Rexroth occasionally used Chinese characters in his lines. In addition, he adopted verses from Tang poems in his works. Most important, he not only imitated classical Chinese poetry in form but also absorbed its spirit. Especially in his later years, his thorough understanding of classical Chinese culture was more obviously displayed in his works:

As the Full Moon Rises… In the Dark Forest the Whisper By Rexroth (1991, p. 67) By Rexroth (1991, p. 113) As the full moon rises In the dark forest the whisper The swan sings Of a million leaves. In sleep On the deep sea the sigh On the lake of the mind. Of a million waves.

The verses of the two poems above are simple in structure and are pithy in language, and the artistic conception was created by brilliant and outstanding poetic images without the introduction of any personally emotional words; all the feelings and thoughts are included in the natural imagery. The style of combining emotions with scenes is similar to that in regulated verse: it is simple and concise, yet has lingering implications. In this respect, Pound and Lowell made similar attempts at imitation, but the “Chinese Rule” adopted by Rexroth was a better imitation than the merely reiterative use of images by Pound and Lowell. 226 15 Development After the 1950s

The poem The Whisper in the Dark Forest, in which the lines are carefully and neatly paralleled, reminds readers of the Chinese poetic technique of antithesis. In the poem, the rhythm of the leaves and the waves of the sea embodied the whispers and sighs of people. There were no hysterical shouts or undulating moves in the lines; the images are like a sigh filled with emotion in a hollow and distant milieu. And the short poem “As the Full Moon Arises…,” with only a dozen words, has a more lingering flavor. The contrasts between the night and the moon, the lake and the swan, and the silence and the song of the swan supplement each other in a natural way, forming a sharp contrast between black and white, the dynamic unity with the static and slight silence and sound. The English syllables, so beautiful and melodious, show the same sadness as the scene of the original poem. With the Buddhist metaphor of “the moon,” which stands for wisdom, the poem successfully creates an empty realm free from any worldly impurities. This shows that Rexroth not only knew well the tenets of Zen Buddhism but had the skill to combine them with poetic creation. This poem can be called Rexroth’s masterpiece of the “Chinese Rule,” which later became his epitaph. II. Gary Snyder’s Translation of Cold Mountain As a poet, Cold Mountain (寒山, i.e., Han Shan) was not so well known in the galaxy of eminent poets of the Tang dynasty, nor was his poetry among the numerous poems of classical Chinese poetry. However, Cold Mountain accorded with the Beat Generation in spirit because of his secluded lifestyle, unrestrained personality, and otherworldly thoughts. Cold Mountain himself became an idol of young Americans after the mid-twentieth century, and the translations of his works also became classic works of translated literature in America, with their influence still being felt in cultural circles in America. Waley was the first to translate Cold Mountain and his poems and to introduce them to the Western world, and he published 27 Poems by Han-shan in the magazine Encounter (Vol. 12, 1954 [9], pp. 3–8), although it did not enjoy great success at the time of its publication. By 1958, Gary Snyder had translated 24 poems in his Cold Mountain Poems and published them in the American magazine Evergreen Review (sixth issue, second vol, fall); thus, Cold Mountain’s poetry became a focus in American literary circles. In 1958, Snyder included his translation of Cold Mountain’s poetry in his anthology: Riprap and Cold Mountain Poems and A Range of Poems, which were published in succession. The 24 translated Cold Mountain poems “became a classic in America poetry, and the writer of the Beat Generation Jack Kerouac adapted Snyder’s experience of translating Cold Mountain poems and the Cold Mountain spirit as an important plot in his novel The Dharma Bums, thus Cold Mountain and Snyder both became the idols of American youth. In addition, as early as 1950, Snyder used the Cold Mountain’s literary allusions, but it was not until the 1970s that Cold Mountain became a popular literary allusion” (Chung 2008, p. 53). In 1965, Cyril Birch, an eminent American Professor of Comparative Literature, included the 24 translations of Cold Mountain’s poems in his Anthology of Chinese 15.1 The “Beat Generation” and Tang Poetry Translation 227

Literature: From Early Times to the Fourteenth Century, which marked the classical status of the translation of Cold Mountain’s poems in the American literary arena. Since then, various translations of Cold Mountain’s poems have been published, among the most prominent of which include: (1) Cold Mountain: 100 Poems by the T’ang Poet Han Shan compiled by Burton Watson. This book was first published in New York and republished in London in 1970. Influenced by the Japanese scholar Yoshitake Iriya, Watson’s translation, although not as simple and explicit as Snyder’s, conveyed the essence of Cold Mountain. From the 24 translations by Snyder, one could conclude that Cold Mountain was a vagrant seeking a spiritual home. However, the poetic translations by Watson showed the whole emotional world of Cold Mountain as a poet. (2) View from Cold Mountain (1982), translated collaboratively by American literary critic Arthur Tobias. This book included 34 translations of Cold Mountain’s poems translated by James Sanford and J. P. Seaton, among which 19 were poems written to his fellow monk Shide (拾得) by Cold Mountain. This translation was not as simple and smooth as Snyder’s, nor as poetic and beautiful as Watson’s. (3) The Collected Songs of Cold Mountain (1983), translated by Red Pine (Bill Porter), an American translator and poet. Red Pine translated almost all of Cold Mountain’s poems and the corresponding poems with Han Shan by Shi-De and Feng Gan (丰干). The bilingual Chinese-English version of this book was published in America in 2000. (4) The Poetry of Han Shan: A Complete, Annotated Translation of Cold Mountain (1990), translated and annotated by Robert G. Henricks. Professor Henricks was a well-known sinologist and expert in theological studies. In 26 pages, the preface to the book introduces the background and life of Cold Mountain. The translation is quite readable and contains detailed annotations explaining the Buddhist items, metaphors, and allusions in the original text. Besides this, this book also includes translated texts from Chinese, Japanese, and European languages, which proved valuable for the study of Cold Mountain and his poetry. Waley’s translation was reprinted in London in 1982 as a reaction among British poetic circles to the “Cold Mountain Craze” in America. Ever since the 1970s, Cold Mountain’s poems could be seen in almost all of the anthologies of Zen poetry published in England and America. This is hard proof of the extended and enduring influence of the “Cold Mountain Craze.” In academic circles, there have been many discussions about the canonization process of Cold Mountain and his poetic works in America, to which Chung Ling made remarkable contributions. In her books Chinese Poetry and American Dreams (2003), Snyder and Chinese Culture (2006), and in many related papers, she has discussed in detail and with great insight the process of translating Cold Mountain’s poems into English and the influence of Cold Mountain on contemporary American poetic circles, as well as the status of the English translation of Cold Mountain in American poetic history. 228 15 Development After the 1950s

Cold Mountain’s poetry, which has been collected in American literary anthologies and taught in university classes in Asian Studies, is part of the English translation of Tang poetry. The English translations of Cold Mountain and Snyder, who launched the “Cold Mountain Craze,” deserve recognition for their role in the transmission of Tang poetry to the West. Before evaluating the contributions made by Snyder to the transmission of Tang poetry to the West, let us read one of his translations of a poem by Cold Mountain:

Clambering up the Cold Mountain path, Original Poem By Snyder (1969, p. 25) 寒山 Clambering up the Cold Mountain path, 登陟寒山道, The Cold Mountain trail goes on and on. 寒山路不穷。 The long gorge choked with scree and boulders, 谿长石磊磊, The wide creek, the mist-blurred grass. 涧阔草濛濛。 The moss is slippery, though there’s been no rain, 苔滑非关雨, The pine sings, but there’s no wind. 松鸣不假风。 Who can leap the world’s ties 谁能超世累, And sit with me among the white clouds? 共坐白云中。

Snyder added a title to the original poem, which read “Clambering up the Cold Mountain Path.” The text of this translation was simple and straightforward, having a compact rhythm, an idyllic and unfettered artistic conception, and a vivid and lively tone which expresses a frank disinterest toward worldly affairs. Snyder’s concern for nature and for rich experiences in the wilderness, his excellent translation skills, and his refined understanding as a poet translator all contributed to the English version, which won an extensive readership for his translated works. On the other hand, the language of Cold Mountain was simple and fluent with very few allusions, which was another important factor that made the translated version close to the original. The 24 poems of Cold Mountain translated by Snyder were all hermit poems, most of them describing a withdrawn, inactive, idle, and unhurried life free from worldly worries, honor, or disgrace. This fact itself reflected that in the specific cultural background of the time, Snyder expressed his cultural attitudes through the works of Cold Mountain: to introduce Oriental cultural qualities into American mass culture, and extend the influence of classical Chinese poetry in modern American poetry in order to consolidate the great tradition of American culture. Some scholars even hold the opinion that in order to achieve this purpose and bridge the aesthetic gap between Western readers and the poetry of Cold Mountain, Snyder would sometimes misread Cold Mountain on purpose when translating. Snyder’s translation, with an open and freestyle, catered to the trend of the time, and also met American readers’ aesthetic expectations and the requirements of absorbing nutrition from foreign cultures, as advocated by many insightful scholars in American cultural circles. Therefore, his goals of his translation were fulfilled. There was indeed a trace of cultural transplantation in both the popularity of Cold Mountain’s poems and in American poets’ absorption of his poetry. What is more, 15.1 The “Beat Generation” and Tang Poetry Translation 229

Snyder’s translation earned a good reputation in literary translation and sinological circles, a rare phenomenon in the cosmos of English translation of Chinese poetry. It is generally accepted in academia that Snyder’s own poetry was influenced deeply by Cold Mountain. Scholar Zhang Dezhong (张德中) once wrote a paper to discuss the common themes, artistic conceptions, and ideologies that were shared by Snyder’s poems and Cold Mountain’s poems. Other scholars, such as Chung Ling, have also discussed these similarities from different perspectives. However, Snyder’s translations were not limited to Cold Mountain, nor did the cultural elements of Tang poetry in his works come only from Cold Mountain. Snyder once said that he was influenced by Yeats and Pound, as well as by the English translation of Chinese poetry and the original Chinese poetry. But in an interview with a Californian press, when he was asked if he strongly loved some poets’ works, he mentioned 12 poets, including such Tang poets as Du Fu, Li Bai, and Li He. Snyder not only loved those poets and their works but was also very familiar with them. Apart from Cold Mountain, Du Fu, Li Bai, and Li He, Snyder also translated some other Tang poets’ works, which can be found in certain anthologies of classical Chinese literature. For instance, Meng Haoran’s poem Passing the Night on Jiande River (宿建德江), which was translated by Snyder, was included in the book The New Directions Anthology of Classical Chinese Poetry (2003), which was coedited by Eliot Weinberger and Wilhelm William. III. Academic Evaluation of Kenneth Rexroth and Gary Snyder In the developing stage of the transmission of Tang poetry to the West, the Imagist poets learned new forms of expression from classical Chinese poetry and carried out a reform in their own style of writing. Kenneth Rexroth and Gary Snyder worked together to promote the influence of Tang culture on the spiritual temperament of American poetic circles. They were no longer content to stay on the level of presenting objective images to reflect pure feelings or experiences, and they aspired to reach a transcendental realm through imagistic structures. In other words, they were influenced and inspired by classical Chinese poetry in creative ideas, poetic conceptions, linguistic forms, and artistic skills. Thus, the ingenious ideology of Tang poetry partly permeated into mainstream American poetic creation, further deepening the cultural context for American poetry to accept Tang poetry. Under the influence of Rexroth and Snyder, a growing number of American poets and writers found in Chinese literature elements with which they could identify. During this period, the transplantation of cultural elements of Tang poetry in the West was in full swing, which was reflected not only in individual poets’ creations but also in overall literary trends. When the historical progression of the transmission of Tang poetry to the West proceeded beyond the stage of forms and entered the stage of absorbing and integrating the cultural spirit, Rexroth and Snyder were important figures in furthering the transmission of Tang poetry to the West. In previous studies of the whole of Tang literature in China, “Cold Mountain Studies” were not very conspicuous and not much effort was devoted to this research by academia; research findings were rather scanty. In recent years, 230 15 Development After the 1950s however, this situation has changed a lot. An increasing number of scholars have written articles to discuss Cold Mountain and his poetry as well as the circulation and readership of his poems. At the same time, many literary anthologies have moved away from the simplified practice of skipping Cold Mountain or introducing him very briefly, and some even devote a whole chapter to introducing him as an important writer, which has established his status in literary history. The dynamic research on Cold Mountain’s poems in the United States, which has been introduced in academic theses by scholars like Chung Ling, has prompted the reassessment of the artistic charm and cultural value of Cold Mountain’s poems in China’s domestic academic circles. This is to say that, within their own cultural framework, by interpreting and using Cold Mountain’s poems, British and American poets like Snyder, provided a new perspective for domestic Chinese scholars to observe and understand their own culture, with which they are familiar. This phenomenon is an index of the progress of the era, and of the dialogue and exchange between the East and the West, which had entered the stage of two-way communication, in which both cultures can express their opinions more freely, more effectively, and more equally.

15.2 Translation and Research on Tang Poetry Resumes in Academia

For a long time after World War II, American scholars’ areas of research and funds were directly influenced by the “National Interest.” These scholars mainly concentrated on modern and contemporary Chinese society. Professor John King Fairbank, a historian at Harvard University, who was honored as the “Father of China Studies,” advocated for new China studies to break down the constraints of traditional sinology, to alter the previous situation in which history took precedence over contemporary periods, more attention was paid to humane studies than to social science, and Western ideas were valued more than the real situation in China. Professor Fairbank appealed for establishing a new research model for China studies. In 1959, the Joint Committee on Contemporary China of America was established, an important event that marked the institutionalization of the American approach to China studies and represented the long-standing division between traditional “sinology” and contemporary “China Studies.” In the 1980s, China implemented policies of reform and opening and normalized its diplomatic relations with the United States. As its economy developed quickly and its international status was increasingly improved, China communicated more frequently with the United States in all fields, including politics, economy, trade, and culture. With the progress of the times, American scholars widened the scope of China studies and deepened the themes of their research. In this process, these scholars gradually realized that although the eastward transmission of Western culture since the May Fourth Movement brought all sorts of changes to Chinese society, the internal factors that determined the approaches of reform and their 15.2 Translation and Research on Tang Poetry Resumes in Academia 231 results still stemmed from traditional Chinese culture. It was impossible to learn about and understand modern China without an in-depth knowledge of Chinese history and traditional Chinese culture. Therefore, sinological circles in America began to reflect upon the missing piece in their approach to China Studies and came to realize that it was arbitrary and inadequate to separate the internal cultural continuity and consistency of modern China from traditional China. In 1982, the Joint Committee on Contemporary China of America and the Committee on the Studies of Chinese Civilization were combined and the new Joint Committee on China Studies was established. “Contemporary China” was deleted from the name of the organization, which indicated some changes in the scope and content of “China Studies” in the United States. Afterwards, the American Council of Learned Societies no longer particularly emphasized research on Contemporary China. American research on China gradually went back to the field of humane studies and returned to traditional sinology. This change in the academic atmosphere led to renewed attention to traditional Chinese philosophical thought and classical Chinese literature. Of course, although China Studies still maintained its main status, many obscure American scholars, attracted to its beauty, devoted themselves to the study of traditional Chinese culture. Although they were scattered in different fields such as traditional Chinese operas, novels, poetry, painting, and philosophy, in comparison with other groups of scholars who were engaged in China Studies, they were still rather weak as a single and exclusive research power. However, their plentiful contributions in some ways made up for the weakness and insufficiency of China Studies. In 1981, the T’ang Studies Society, an institution dedicated exclusively to research on the Tang dynasty, was established at the University of Colorado in Indiana, U.S.A. The T’ang Studies Society, a nonprofit academic organization which was open to all, attracted many scholars from all eminent universities. In 1982, the society began issuing a journal named T’ang Studies, which was an academic newsletter for internal communication within the T’ang Studies Society at the beginning but was later turned into a full-fledged scholarly journal. It mainly publishes peer-reviewed interdisciplinary articles about Tang Studies, and at present most issues are about Tang poets and research on poems. Currently, this journal, the only scholarly journal in Tang Studies, is edited and published at Cornell University once a year. The founding of the T’ang Studies Society and the publication of the journal T’ang Studies marked the establishment of scholarly studies in the United States exclusively on Tang poetry, signifying the arrival of the in-depth stage in the transmission of Tang poetry in the English-speaking world. At present, the members of T’ang Studies Society are from America, England, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and many other nations. Thus, America has become the center of Tang studies in the sinological circles of the West. It must be noted here that considering the amount and results of translation and research on Tang poetry, as well as the numbers of academic groups, England is greatly inferior to America. This is one of the objective reasons why America emerged as the center of the study of Tang poetry. 232 15 Development After the 1950s

In 1985, Sir Peter Parker, consigned by university committees in England, led a survey group to investigate the demand by British diplomacy and commercial systems for research on Asia and Africa. The report submitted by the survey group the next year condemned the British government for neglecting research on Asia and Africa since the 1970s, causing a brain drain and a shortage of funds in this field, and pointed out that the field of sinology in Britain was overstaffed, and that there was no need for the government to expand its support for sinological research. In the beginning of the nineteenth century, Sir John Francis Davis, an early diplomat and sinologist, criticized the British government for its attitude toward sinological research. He held that in spite of the British government’s great interest in attaining real profit from China, it nevertheless neglected the importance of sinological research. Therefore, sinological circles in Britain lagged far behind their industrious and hardworking French counterparts. In his old age, Davis still sharply criticized the British government for its attitude of quick-and-instant-profit, which reflected nothing but its ignorance. However, for a whole century, the British government did not show much improvement and consequently, some scholars who aspired to make some contribution to sinological research went to the United States for their academic pursuits. The Comparative Literature expert Cyril Birch, who was mentioned previously, and who was famous for compiling a classical and a modern Selection of Chinese Literature, was a typical example of the flight of a British sinologist to pursue academic research in the United States.

15.3 Characteristics of Contemporary Tang Poetry Studies

After the accumulation of translations and research for over a century, the United States had gained incomparable advantages in Tang poetry studies over any other Western country in terms of textual resources and talent. Some British sinologists, as preachers and diplomats in earlier times, had initiated the translation of Tang poetry. Their work might have had some limitations, as they were inevitably constrained by the times in which they lived, but they left a number of fundamental textual materials for later researchers. Some early sinologists researching Tang poetry and classical Chinese literature from the point of view of their own life experiences became old during the in-depth stage of the westward transmission of Tang poetry. They were replaced by a group of new sinologists who had serious academic training and a strict, academic attitude. This new group had as good a command of Chinese as earlier sinologists, and they admired traditional Chinese culture all the more. They had a broader comprehension of China as an entity than their predecessors had had. Benefitting from their comprehension of Western culture and their knowledge of American research methods, which give priority to interdisciplinary training, they were able to inject concepts from many disciplines, including philosophy, sociology, psychology, and history into their sinological 15.3 Characteristics of Contemporary Tang Poetry Studies 233 research. Since their research was not constrained by traditional Chinese thought, they had a broader vision and a greater freedom to see, analyze, and ponder different dimensions of traditional Chinese culture. I. Rapid Advancement of the Scope and Level of Translation During this period, a great number of scholars translated classical Chinese literature, including Tang poetry, although the exact number of published translations is hard to determine. We can see from the selections of translations of classical Chinese literature usually used as textbooks in many Western universities that their scale outnumbered the previous ones. Professor Pak-Chi was one of Waley’s outstanding students, and also the first scholar to translate into English completely Emperor Xianzu of Tang’s The Peony Pavilion. Anthology of Chinese Literature: Volume I, which he edited and which was published in 1965, being reprinted many times afterwards. It was the earliest representative selection of its kind in both Britain and the United States. This book selected translations of classical Chinese literary works before the fourteenth century, which covered all textual styles systematically and comprehensively, and focusing on poetry and prose, of which Tang poetry made up a major part. Names of such famous Tang poets as Li Bai, Wang Wei, Du Fu, Li He, and Li Shangyin were quite conspicuous. Drawing on the strengths of various sources, this anthology was very intelligible, an important characteristic which gained lasting popularity for it. Not only were Waley’s, Pound’s, and Snyder’s translations included in this book but also a large number of quality works by other translators who were hardly influenced by academic theories of translation. Among the later selections of similar types of classical Chinese literary works was The Columbia Anthology of Chinese Literature, edited by Victor Mair. This book selected translations of classical Chinese literary works before the thirteenth century. Although it covered a shorter time span than Pak-Chi’s selection, its volume was larger than double the size of the latter, with more than 1300 pages. Furthermore, excerpts from this book were published later to bring convenience to general readers and to university classes. Professor John Minford, a famous contemporary British sinologist, was also a lineal successor of Waley. In recent years, together with Joseph S. M. Lau, a famous Hong Kong professor and writer, he edited an anthology of classical Chinese literary works translated by famous translators and gave it the Chinese name “含英咀华集” (Hányīng Jǔhuá Jí) and the English title Classical Chinese Literature: An Anthology of Translations, Volume I: From Antiquity to the Tang Dynasty. This book was copublished by the Columbia University Press and the Hong Kong University Press. Professor Pak-Chi wrote a preface to the anthology. It consisted of three parts: (1) before the Han dynasty (221–206 B.C.); (2) from the Han dynasty to the Northern and Southern dynasties (206 B.C.–589 A.D.); and (3) the Sui and Tang periods and the Five dynasties (589–960 A.D.).With 30 chapters in total, the third part took up 13 chapters. This book, collecting the finest English versions of classical Chinese literature, referred to more than 90 English translations of classical 234 15 Development After the 1950s

Chinese literary works, and not only took in translations by such eminent scholars as Legge, Waley, Stephen Owen, Watson, and Rexroth but also included translations of comments on the original works by translators from different periods at home and abroad. This book had illustrations, which included several famous works of calligraphy, traditional woodcarvings, seals, and stone inscriptions, thus helping readers to appreciate the artistic charm of the original works. Sunflower Splendor: 3000 Years of Chinese Poetry was a very remarkable book among the English anthologies of classical Chinese poetry. Irving Yucheng Luo, a professor at Indiana University and editor-in-chief of the series of “Chinese Literature in Translation” and “Studies in Chinese Literature and Society” at the university press since 1975, and having been long engaged in the translation and research of classical Chinese literature and comparative literature, collaborated with Wu-chi Liu, another Chinese scholar, and coedited this book. This anthology had two versions: a Chinese version and an English one. The English version contains translations of Chinese poems by over 50 translators in Britain and the United States, Cí and Qǚ (lyric in plays) from different dynasties in China. The third part of the book was exclusively dedicated to Tang poetry, including more than 300 poems by a multitude of Tang poets, making up nearly half the total volume of the book. This book, with its abundant content and scholarly style, was very well received in America after its publication and was reprinted in 1975, 1983, 1990, and 1998, respectively. Burton Watson, a famous contemporary sinologist in the United States and a translator of classical Chinese poetry, translated many Chinese classics, including Sima Qian’s Shǐ Jì (史记, Records of Historians). His style was plain and beautiful. He translated and edited The Columbia Book of Chinese Poetry. First published in 1984, this book selected works of representative poets from different dynasties and introduced the artistic characteristics of classical Chinese poems, Cí,Qǚ, and Fù (prose poems) before the thirteenth century. With a total of 12 chapters, three were devoted to Tang poetry: (1) important Tang poets part 1: Wang Wei, Li Bai, and Du Fu; (2) important Tang poets part 2: Han Yu, Bai Juyi, and Han Shan (Cold Mountain); and (3) other works of Tang poetry. It can be seen from these three chapters that American Sinologists had expanded their scope in the study of Tang poets. The great work An Anthology of Chinese Literature: Beginnings to 1911, translated and edited by Stephen Owen, a famous sinologist of Harvard University, introduced different kinds of outstanding works of Chinese literature in different dynasties before the advent of the Republic of China. Apart from its stereotyped writing, it contained literary works of almost all styles and even jokes, which conventionally did not belong to literature. A large portion of the book was dedicated to introducing the Tang dynasty, general knowledge of Tang poetry and Tang poets, and translations of Tang poems. The Anthology of Chinese Poetry: 3000 Years’ Tradition from Antiquity to Modern Times was an English translation of selected classical Chinese poems and was coedited by Tony Barnstone, a contemporary American sinologist, and Chou Ping, a Chinese scholar. Although the poems selected in this book covered a longer time span, poems before the Tang dynasty and those from the Song dynasty 15.3 Characteristics of Contemporary Tang Poetry Studies 235 together made up half of the whole book, and the other half was exclusively Tang poetry, with over 600 poems by more than 130 poets. In this book, there were more poems by Wang Wei, Li Bai, Du Fu, Han Shan, and Li He than by other poets. With a long history, classical Chinese literature is a big genre, with many famous writers and great works, so any cross-age anthology could present only a general consideration of it. English anthologies of classical Chinese literary works should not be expected to be perfect. Oftentimes, they could hardly demonstrate the general cultural inheritance and historical continuity of classical Chinese literature. However, these selections not only reflected British and American scholars’ outstanding accomplishments in different periods in their endeavor to promote classical Chinese literature to the world, they also showed the significance of Tang poetry within the full range of classical Chinese literature accepted by the British and American culture. A great number of theme-selected translations and edited selections of Tang poetry appeared one after another. The Boat Untied and Other Poems: A Translation of T’ang Poems (1971), edited and translated by Wang Huiming, and 55 T’ang Poems (1976), translated by Hugh M. Stinson, were both texts exclusively of translated Tang poems. Based on the translations accumulated in earlier times, the classifications of these translations were more detailed and the styles varied widely. It was very common to see exclusive translations of carol poems, exclusive translations of some poets and translations of eminent Tang poets, and even monographs of comparisons between translations of the same poems by different translators, and translations into different languages were published in succession. In 1965, Poems of the Late T’ang by Angus Charles Graham (1919–1991), a sinologist and professor in the Oriental and African Research Department of London University in Britain, was published in Britain and the United States at the same time. This book contained over 90 poems, some composed by Du Fu in his old age and others by late Tang poets such as Meng Jiao, Han Yu, Li He, Du Mu, and Li Shangyin, almost all for the first time, were translated into clear, fluent, and intelligible English. This was the first translation to direct readers’ attention to poets beyond the initial and prosperous Tang periods since the translation of Tang poetry was begun. This book greatly promoted all of the late Tang poets who had long been ignored by Western readers and systematically presented their works. Obviously, this new generation of sinologists was not contented with merely translating, annotating, and appreciating Tang poems; they would rather carry out exclusive, in-depth research into Tang poetry. II. Augmentation of Exclusive Translations and Research on Tang Poets In terms of the quantity and frequency of being translated, Li Bai took the absolute lead position among Tang poets whose poems had been translated before the 1950s and the 1960s. The next was Bai Juyi, and then Du Fu. During the in-depth stage of the westward transmission of Tang poetry, Synder started a “Cold Mountain Craze,” which ushered in an upsurge of interest in translating Cold Mountain’s poems. This was quite a legendary event at that time. Research on Cold 236 15 Development After the 1950s

Mountain’s poems in American sinology circles was focused on preserving American society and culture from the influence of Cold Mountain’s poems on American poets, but lacked the research horizon to place Cold Mountain’s poems against the complete historical and cultural background of the early Tang period. This situation began to improve with the publication of Stephen Owen’s The Poems of Initial Tang. During this stage, the most representative works in the upsurge of exclusive translations of Tang poets was “Twayne’s World Authors Series” published by Twayne Publishers in Boston, U.S.A. It was a large series with William Schultz, Professor of the Chinese Language Department at the University of Arizona, as the editor-in-chief, and included a series of Chinese writers and poets from different periods. The translations of Tang poets in this series were: Tu Fu (1971) by Albert Richard Davis (1924–), Liu Tsung-Yuan (1973), coauthored by William H. Nienhauser, Jr., with five other scholars and his own translation Pi Jih-Hsiu (1979), The Poetry of Meng Chiao in the Chinese Baroque Tradition (1973) by Russell McLeod; Yuan Chen (1977) by Angela Jung Palandri (1926–), Kao Shih (1978) and Ts’en Shen (1983) by Emerita Marie Chan, Li Ho (1979) by Kuo-ch’ing Tu, Meng Hao-Jan (1981) by Paul W. Kroll, Wang Wei (1981) by Marsha Wagner, Wang Ch’ang-ling (1982) by Joseph J. Lee, and Hsieh T’iao (1983) by Ronald Miao. Participants in the editing and translation of the series were all contemporary American scholars, and as can be seen in this book list, some important poets over different periods of the poetic progression of the Tang dynasty began to be focused upon exclusively. More scholars were involved in translating Tang poems, among whom were some excellent young sinologists, including native scholars. In 2000, Taylor & Francis, Inc., in America launched the Encyclopedia of Literature Translation into English, a classic work in circles of American translation. Edited by Olive Classe, this book listed in its first volume almost all the accessible English versions of Chinese literary works and provided brief introductions and comments on the important translations. This volume, translations of Chinese literature, as an independent part, presented a general introduction of the Chinese language and the English translation of Chinese literature. What is more, this book contained some independent parts that introduced selected translations of several important writers’ works in the English world, among which Tang poets took up half of the total Chinese writers, and they are listed here in the order in which they appeared in the table of contents: Bai Juyi, Du Fu, Han Yu, Cold Mountain, Li Bai, Li Shangyin, and Wang Wei. This again reflected that American sinological circles had moved beyond the prosperous Tang period in its studies of Tang poets. (1) Exclusive Translation and Research of Wang Wei With the Zen thought gradually being accepted by more and more people in America, the poetic feelings and beautiful images of the serene country landscape and secluded life as well as the Zen feeling of peace and harmony of man with nature in Wang Wei’s poems became increasingly popular. Wang Wei’s poems 15.3 Characteristics of Contemporary Tang Poetry Studies 237 were noted for their plain and intelligible language, and they had hardly any allusions but conveyed distinct and delicate images which did not require any annotations for comprehension. Therefore, translation of his works was produced the fastest in the last few years of the twentieth century, during which some important texts were produced, including: Poems of Wang Wei (1958), translated by Chang Yin-nan and Lewis C. Walmsley. With 167 poems by Wang Wei, this book was the first exclusive translation of Wang Wei, outnumbering all the other books of a similar type. Unfortunately, there were many mistranslations in this book and the style of translation imitated that of some earlier sinologists, like Giles in the nineteenth century, making the translations seem dull and outdated. Lewis Calvin and Dorothy Brush Walmsley coauthored the book Wang Wei: The Painter Poet (1965), which mainly introduced his artistic style: “picture inside the poem,”“sound in silence.” They adopted a unique perspective in their translation. The Chinese scholar Ye Weilian translated 50 of Wang Wei’s poems and had them published in book form in Hiding the Universe: Poems of Wang Wei (1972). The translation strove to convey faithfully the literal meanings and retain the rhymes of the original verses, resulting in rigid forms, but it accurately interpreted the Buddhist meaning of Wang Wei’s poems. G. W. Robinson’s Poems of Wang Wei collected 127 scenic poems and seclusion poems by Wang Wei. It was acclaimed as one of the most popular translations of Wang Wei’s works because of its accurate grasp of Wang Wei’s poetic images as well as its use of delicate and fluent English. The famous Chinese-American sinologist Pauline Yu, in her book The Poetry of Wang Wei: New Translation and Commentary (1980), divided Wang Wei’s poems into juvenile poems, palace poems, Zen poems, and pastoral-landscape poems. Combining the works with the author’s intention of creation and the readers’ interpretation, she made a detailed analysis of Wang Wei’s poetry with her profound cultural insights and keen cultural criticism. Willis Barnstone and his son Tony Barnstone, both sinologists, collaborated with the Chinese scholar Xu Haixin in producing Laughing Lost in the Mountains: Poems of Wang Wei (1991). They classified these poems about Wang Wei’s experiences and the contents of his works and translated more than 160 of his poems, some of which were translated for the first time. However, the style of this translation was not unified or even faithful to the original, which weakened the delightful and idyllic artistic images of Wang Wei’s poetry, which were well known to Chinese readers. The contemporary sinologist and translator David Hinton translated 100 poems by Wang Wei in his The Selected Poems of Wang Wei, all of which were well translated. Among the plethora of books, translations, commentaries, and research on Wang Wei’s works, the most interesting was 19 Ways of Looking at Wang Wei: How a Chinese Poem Is Translated by Eliot Weinberger. The content of this booklet was simple, listing 19 different textual comparisons of Wang Wei’s The Deer 238 15 Development After the 1950s

Enclosure. The first text was Wang Wei’s original poem, followed by two French translations, one Spanish translation, and 15 English versions. Weinberger analyzed and commented on the diction, rhythm, style, poetic images, and meanings of the translations, respectively. The language was stratified and interesting. This book clearly demonstrated not only the differences in cognitive perspectives and methods of interpretation between different translators but also the influence of the translators’ different interpretations of the source text and on the different levels of proficiency evident in the target language. Since its publication, this booklet has been very well received because of its vivid and unique form of analysis. Not only have great scholars like Stephen Owen studied it seriously, but also college students majoring in literature, translation, comparative literature, and even in history and philosophy love to read this book. (2) Exclusive Translation and Research of Han Yu Apart from Wang Wei, Han Yu was among those poets of the Tang dynasty who attracted more and more attention in Sinology circles during this period. In the era of Giles, translation of Han Yu’s works was restricted to his essays in order to emphasize his important role in the “ancient prose movement.” In 1965, four poems by Han Yu were included in The Late Tang: Chinese Poetry of the Mid-Ninth Century. Since then, these poems, translated by William T. Graham, Jr., have attracted some scholars’ attention for their rich poetic flavor and freedom of arbitrary manipulation by the translator. In 1975, the English translations of Han Yu’s poems were included in Sunflower Splendor: 3000 Years of Chinese Poetry. Although they were not as accurate as Graham’s, the style of the translations was freer and better suited the aesthetic tastes of ordinary Western readers. The same year witnessed the publication of the monograph The Poetry of Meng Chiao and Han Yu by Stephen Owen, a great American scholar engaged in research on Tang poetry. In this book, his doctoral dissertation, Owen took English translations of poems of both poets as examples, and taking their experiences as clues, he revealed the developing tracks of their poetic styles against the historical backdrop of the whole mid-Tang dynasty. Considering that they pioneered an innovative tradition in the developing process of Chinese poetry, he affirmed their high status in the history of Chinese poetry. Furthermore, by analyzing their works, Owen came to the conclusion that Han Yu was most likely inspired by Meng Chiao before he developed his exotic poetic style. This book was Owen’s first monograph in his series on Tang poetry. Although translations of poems by Han Yu and Meng Chiao were somewhat plain and straightforward and lacked rich poetic flavor, this was the first academic monograph resulting from a comprehensive, systematic, and in-depth study of these two poets. Owen outlined in detail the life stories of Han Yu and Meng Chiao, and also incisively expounded on the significant inner link between the “ancient prose movement” and the development of poetry, so it immediately drew much attention in academic circles. In 1977, Charles Hartman published his monograph Han Yu and T. S. Eliot: A Sinological Essay in Comparative Literature, Renditions 8, which discussed the 15.3 Characteristics of Contemporary Tang Poetry Studies 239 allusions in Han Yu’s series Thoughts in the Autumn (秋怀) and their function in poetic expression, and compared the characteristics of Han Yu’s phraseology with that of T. S. Eliot. Several years later, Hartman published his book Han Yu and the T’ang Search for Unity (1986). Since then, the study of Han Yu has become his exclusive area of research. Canadian scholar Jerry Schmidt’s book Han Yu and His Poetry (1996), expounded on the great difference between Han Yu’s poetic style and his prose style, revealing more clearly the real-life and inner world of Han Yu. All the work that these scholars did better acquainted American sinologists with Han Yu’s achievements in Chinese literature. Compared with previous periods, exclusive translations of Li Bai during this period were relatively skimpy. William Hung’s Tu Fu: China’s Greatest Poet (1952), was an exclusive translation of Du Fu’s poems; 374 poems by Du Fu were translated with prose style and arranged in chronological order to facilitate the analysis of the historical background of Du Fu’s poems. David Hawkes wrote A Little Primer of Tu Fu (1967), in which he translated, commented, and annotated Du Fu’s poems. Moreover, doctoral dissertations on exclusive research of Li Bai, Du Fu, and other famous Tang poets emerged one after another. For example, there was Arthur Cooper’s Li Bai and Tu Fu (1979), and also of many works by Li Bai, Du Fu, Wang Wei, Bai Juyi, and Li He. After Arthur David Waley, only Howard S. Levy was engaged in the exclusive translation of Bai Juyi, but Levy’s Selected Poems of Bai Juyi, with four volumes compiled in succession, made Bai Juyi very conspicuous. Furthermore, some monographs such as the Chinese scholar Liu Ruoyu’s Research on Li Shang-yin (1969), J. D. Frodsham’s translation work The Poems of Li Ho (1970), and Michael Bennett Fish’s doctoral dissertation Mythological Themes in the Poetry of Li Ho (1973), added radiance and beauty to the poetic anthologies of the Tang dynasty as contained in the “Tyne World Famous Series of Books.” What is more, works by Yu Xuanji (鱼玄机), Xue Tao (薛涛), and other women poets also drew some attention, and related discussions arose now and then. In American sinological circles, exclusive research on Tang poets involved the poets’ life experiences, creative activities, ideological levels, and artistic characteristics, often yielding original insights. III. Gradual Improvement in the Level of Poetic Research In the process of gradually broadening and improving their research, American sinological circles at present have been carrying out comprehensive research on Tang poetry. From the perspective of topics, there is research on history, artistic style, and the classification and evolution of Tang poetry, as well as research on poetic groups and schools, so research perspectives were multifarious. Basing their studies on the theories of Western literary criticism, American sinologists usually came up with novel ideas by using different research methods such as literary aesthetics, cross-cultural comparisons, and the analysis of textual structure. Chinese scholars Gao Yougong and Mei Zulin researched classical Chinese poetry and poetics, with a focus on Tang poetry. They both researched the use of 240 15 Development After the 1950s language in Tang poetry by applying theories of Western linguistics. They coauthored two papers “Sense, Metaphor and Allusion of Tang Poetry” and “Syntax, Diction and Image of Tang Poetry,” which complemented and correlated with each other. With their profound understanding of Tang poetry, they intensively analyzed language features and word structures of poems one by one. They offered pene- trating discussions about certain issues, and also horizontally compared Tang poetry with English poetry in order to discuss the syntactic features of Chinese and Western poetry in depth. Later, the Chinese versions of these two papers and their other articles were all collected into the book The Charm of Tang Poetry— Structuralist Criticism of Poetic Language, which was published by Shanghai Ancient Works Press in 1986. This book provided a new reference for Chinese scholars to analyze theories, methods, and perspectives on classical Chinese poetry. Stephen Owen can be said to be an expert in the research and translation of Tang poetry who has produced the most in the field internationally. After publishing the book Poems of Han Yu and Meng Chiao, he sought to clarify the development of Tang poetry during some 100 years in order to comprehend Tang poetry thoroughly, so he started a chronological study of the history of Tang poetry. (1) Stephen Owen’s Research on the Evolutionary History of Tang Poetry In 1977, Stephen Owen finished his book The Poetry of the Early T’ang, in the light of literary history. He thoroughly analyzed and carefully investigated the rules for the creation of “palace style poems” (宫体诗) and their relationship to the development of poetic styles of the early Tang and the high Tang periods. He subdivided the poetry of the early Tang period into three parts: palace poetry, off-palace poetry, and pre-high Tang poetry. He held that “the palace poetry,” restricted by the setting of its composition and by all sorts of norms and conventions, was boring to read at first, but it was not hard to find its charm against the backdrop of its dynamic and developing historical background. Owen affirmed the artistic value of “palace poetry,” and became convinced that these poets were strictly trained in applying the rules of poetic creation that governed rhythm, antithesis, graphic description, and image correlation. Only through the skillful composition of palace poets could “both the rhythm and the essence” of the prosperous Tang poetry be achieved. In 1981, Owen published The Great Age of Chinese Poetry: The High Tang. Within the framework of the historical process, he re-explored the poetry of the high Tang period by following the research methods he employed in The Poetry of the Early Tang. In this book, he applied such terms as “palace poets,”“capital poets,” and “southeastern poets,” which were very strongly regional concepts, to survey a broad range of high Tang poems. He argued that in the past Li Bai and Du Fu would surely be mentioned by scholars when they talked about the poetry of the high Tang period. But Li Bai and Du Fu were outstanding representatives of all Tang poets, and their brilliance transcended the high Tang period. On the other hand, the two great poets were not the whole of Tang poetry. He believed that the high Tang as an age witnessed the inheritance and development of a mainstream poetic style which was restrained by the aesthetic norms of first-generation poets 15.3 Characteristics of Contemporary Tang Poetry Studies 241 such as Meng Haoran (孟浩然), Wang Wei, Li Bai, and Gao Shi (高适); second-generation poets such as Cen Shen (岑参) and Du Fu; and then by third-generation poets of the Dali (大历) period. The system of promotion by composing poems directly led to the boom in orthodox poetic training, and this training tended to mature in the high Tang period and affected the creative approaches and styles of the poets. In this book, Owen broke away from the traditional narrative framework, making some comments on a few great poets. The first one was Wang Wei. He argued that Wang Wei mastered the excellent creative skills of “palace poetry,” and his simple poetic language and ethereal images were, instead of an expression of mysterious or detached tastes, a rhetorical skill which recovered an original simplicity that was close to perfect, which he called “simple skill.” Owen suspected that Wang Wei’s “simple skill” also forced readers to explore the implied meaning beyond the concrete meaning of his poems. Owen’s “analysis of Wang Wei” was quite unique. The second was Li Bai. He claimed that Li Bai was the only “professional poet” in the Tang dynasty. Li Bai’s strong desire for self-expression was the fundamental cause for his unique style. His unrestrained, undulating, poetic language flowed out of his natural talent and could not be imitated. The third was Du Fu. Although Owen claimed that he had no preference among the Tang poets, he had a special reverence for Du Fu. He believed that Du Fu had a special natural endowment for rapidly changing themes in poems. His diverse creative characteristics transcended the limited range of conventions and norms of literary history. Accomplishing his epic probe into early Tang and high Tang poetry, Owen claimed that during the mid-Tang period literary development was complex, varied, and creative, and was no longer suitable to be researched from the perspective of literary history. In 1996, his book The End of the Chinese “Middle Ages”: Essays in Mid-Tang Literary Culture and some relative essays all discussed some cultural phenomena of the mid-Tang period, in which scholars aspired to pursue individual values, tried to build up personal spheres and dared to challenge the limits of traditional ideas. The objects of research were no longer confined to poetry, but extended to prose and legend. This book gave priority to textual analysis and comparison, and argued that the poetic groups of the Dali period should belong to the high Tang, and that the “ancient prose movement” promoted by Han Yu was the beginning of the mid-Tang, which began a new social trend for the Song dynasty. In 2006, Owen finished his book The Late Tang: Chinese Poetry of the Mid- Ninth Century. In this book, he went back to the method of probing the evolutionary patterns of poetic styles as culled from poetic texts. Taking Du Mu, Li Shangyin, and Wen Tingyun (温庭筠) as classical examples, he argued that literary creations were more or less inherited from literary heritage, and upon this inheritance, many poets and writers built their unique styles. However, poets of the late Tang period were so stubborn and rigid in their inheritance of the high Tang and mid-Tang period that they refused to alter their poetic styles and refused to innovate, so poems of the late Tang were shadowed by dead poets whose chants were echoed. 242 15 Development After the 1950s

From The Poetry of the Early Tang to The Late Tang: Chinese Poetry of the Mid-Ninth Century, Owen, with almost 30-years’ of unremitting effort, finally completely and systematically outlined the historical prospectus of Tang poetry, and within this historical prospectus, the poetic styles of the Tang dynasty which had evolved with the passage of time. With a broad vision of literary history, he grasped the traces of change in poetic style in the historical process, while emphasizing his insights into the temporal features of the poetry. His overall understanding of the development and evolution of Tang poetry reached a very high level. Of course, as a non-Chinese sinologist, he could not possibly break away from his Western literary background. His discussions differentiated and analyzed the textual content, but sometimes they inevitably lacked considerations of social backgrounds and historical contexts, such that some of his views and conclusions were not free from errors. But with his rigorous scholarly attitude, he dared to question accepted theories. His series on the literary history of Tang poetry not only fully displayed to the Western world the rich and refined world of Tang poetry, but his novel points and unique research views on the history of Tang poetry also opened a new path for scholars to research Tang poetry. (2) Owen’s Translation and Theoretical Research on Tang Poetry With a broad academic vision, Stephen Owen was also very diligent, and his research on Tang poetry was not confined to only one area—the evolution of Tang poetry. Most of the previous English dissertations about classical Chinese literature tended to apply views, and even terms of Western literary theories to analyze and elaborate on Chinese literary phenomena. But Owen believed that Chinese literary thought and traditions were different from those of the West. Chinese poetry was produced on the basis of the Chinese literary tradition and could not be interpreted by Western aesthetic concepts and tastes. In his preface to the Chinese version of The Poetry of the Early Tang, Fu Xuancong (傅玄琮) praised Owen highly for his point of view, “This attitude fully showed respect for the differences in cultural traditions between different nations, and only with this attitude could a truly clear understanding of the other nation’s literature be achieved. It was a natural result produced by a serious scholar free from stereotyped Western views in his independent research, and it was also an insightful idea.” Based on this knowledge, Owen always made original and logically solid interpretations of Tang poetry by flexibly using diverse research methods to rec- oncile Chinese and Western literary theories. For example, in his book Remembrances: The Experience of the Past in Classical Chinese Literature, Owen analyzed from the perspective of aesthetics a special creative impulse and literary aesthetic feeling of poets who faced passed things, and he expounded how literary works dealt in the way of “Remembrance” with the fragments and estrangements caused by time. Reading Owen’s poetic comments, one feels that he was always focused on one central theme. In fact, his point of view constantly varied with changes of poetic features, and now and then he even revealed his own insights taken from the poems, 15.3 Characteristics of Contemporary Tang Poetry Studies 243 many of which were quite refreshing. Because of his very high respect for the original text, he also emphasized the reader-oriented “Freedom of Reading,” and although he did not publish any monographs on translations of Tang poetry, he did translate many Chinese poems in his writings. Owen’s English translations of some Tang poems had been included much earlier as classical texts in the English translations of classical Chinese literature. A large number of his translations can be found in his series on the evolutionary history of Tang poetry. He held that since “over-reading,”“re-creating,” and “re-using” had been such a common practice in translating Tang poetry, he seldom assimilated the results of others into his own process of translation, lest they impede the “free understanding” of the original texts. He did not care how others interpreted Tang poetry, or how others believed Tang poetry should be understood; “I just care what Tang poetry is,” he said. It must be admitted that he was gifted in gaining perceptions of Tang poetry. His translations of Tang poetry could always convey subtle elements and the delicate aesthetic feelings of the original texts, and thus his excellent ability in cross-cultural poetry reading was displayed.

15.4 Outstanding Contributions of Native Chinese Scholars

Viewing the producers of the aforementioned translations and research findings, it is not hard to see that half of them were Chinese and the other half non-Chinese scholars. This is an unprecedented phenomenon in the present stage of the westward transmission of Tang poetry. This phenomenon is, on the one hand, due to the fact that since the 1920s and 1930s the proportion of higher intellectuals among Chinese immigrants to the United States has drastically increased, and on the other hand, due to the fact that, as a country of immigrants, American sinological research enjoys unrivaled advantages over that in other countries. James J. Y. Liu (刘若愚, Liu Ruoyu) was a great scholar who enjoyed an excellent reputation in Chinese and Western academia for establishing the theoretical system of comparative poetics. His first English work, The Art of Chinese Poetry, was published in London in 1962 and reprinted in Chicago in 1966. This book consists of three parts: the first part, “The Chinese Language as a Medium of Poetic Expression,” explains the structures of Chinese characters, features of poetic language, rhythm types, and common poetic themes; the second part, “Some Traditional Chinese Poetic Views On Poetry,” introduces some views such as preaching, expression, skill, and intuition; the third part, “Towards a Synthesis,” mainly states the author’s own poetic views. Based on concentrated research on traditional Chinese poetic theories, Liu came up with his unique poetic view and critical criteria by combining different Western literary theories. Then, by using terms that could be easily accepted by Western readers, he introduced and explained traditional Chinese poetics in order to facilitate Western readers’ understanding. 244 15 Development After the 1950s

With systematic critical methods which were of Western academic quality, he broadened the vision of Oriental readers who were familiar with the terms of traditional Chinese literary theories and thinking patterns. In this book, Liu translated many Tang poems as illustrations. On special subjects of Tang poetry, Liu’s most immediate contribution was his monograph The Poetry of Li Shangyin: Ninth-Century Baroque Chinese Poet (1969), which presents his research on the late Tang poet Li Shangyin. With the English translations of 100 poems by Li Shangyin, Liu studies and criticizes Li Shangyin’s poems with his comparative poetic concepts. This volume surpassed the work of earlier translators and laid a solid foundation for the acceptance of Li’s poetry in the English-speaking world. With commentaries and annotations as its main part, this book includes historical background, scrutiny and correction of data, appreciation and criticism of poems, and comparisons between Chinese and Western literature, thus establishing a new systematic approach for the study of Li Shangyin on the mainland. During his life, Liu devoted himself to exploring academic approaches by applying Western literary theories to explain traditional Chinese poetics. Meanwhile, with a multitude of monographs on translations and research of Song lyrics and Yuan songs, he introduced classical Chinese literature to the West. To know more about his academic approach and ideology, a valuable resource is Zhan Hanglun’s recent book Liu Ruoyu: The Road to Mixing Chinese and Western Poetics (Chinese version, Beijing, 2005). In 1972, The Four Seasons of Tang Poetry was simultaneously published in the United States and Japan. It introduces the evolution of Tang poetry and includes appreciations of Tang poetry. Its author was also Chinese, John C. H. Wu, who was once an envoy to the Vatican to represent the Republic of China, and then a Professor of Law at Seton Hall University. From April 1938 to August 1939, the contents of The Four Seasons of Tang Poetry were printed in Taiwan’s monthly magazine Commonwealth Magazine in six issues. Translated by Xu Chengbin into Chinese, they were serialized as of March 1940 in the magazine The Cosmic Wind. In his book, Wu generalized the evolutionary process of Tang poetry with the analogy of the four seasons—spring, summer, autumn, and winter. In the preface he said, “Spring consists of poets of the early Tang—Li Bai and Wang Wei; Summer consists of Du Fu and wartime poets; Autumn consists of the generation of Bai Juyi and Han Yu; Winter consists of Li Shangyin, Du Mu, Wen Tingyun, Han Wo (韩偓) and other poets.” This book, written in forthright language, has great literary value and a strongly entertaining quality to it. It compares Tang poetry with English poetry and interweaves the introductions of poets from such classical works as Tángshī Jìshì (唐诗纪事, Chronicle of Tang Poetry), supplemented with the author’s perceptual comments on and introductions to Tang poets and their poems. For example, he introduced poems by Li Bai, Wang Wei, and other poets in this way: “Wang Wei is a melodious serenade; Li Bai is a symphony. A magnificent denouement which concludes the foregone sceneries preceded the end of the spring of Tang poetry. As happy and active as Wang Fanzhi (王梵志), and as self-satisfied as Du Shenyan (杜审言), Li Bai was as rich in poetic creation and universal 15.4 Outstanding Contributions of Native Chinese Scholars 245 recollections as Chen Zi’ang and Zhang Ruoxu. He could perceive women’s mentality as well as Wang Changling (王昌龄) and other poets who composed odes to the spring, and his descriptions of nature were not inferior to those by Wang Wei and Meng Haoran.” Because of its fresh perspective and fluent writing, the book The Four Seasons of Tang Poetry appeals to numerous readers, although it only briefly introduces Tang poetry. In addition, as more and more Chinese scholars are now teaching in American colleges and universities, by writing books and teaching related courses they are vigorously popularizing classical Chinese literature, including Tang poetry. Different from Kiang Kanghu and Tsai Ting Kan, who took part in the translation of Tang poetry in the developing stage of the westward transmission of Tang poetry, Chinese scholars of this generation have all received strict training in classical literature, and they are all competent scholars with proven academic accomplishments. Chinese and non-Chinese scholars in America may use the same academic resources or even engage in analogous research, but in their research, non-Chinese scholars generally lay particular emphasis on poetry or exclusive research on poets, while Chinese scholars are more accustomed to analyzing Tang poetry within the categories of macroscopic history and philosophical thought, areas of unique richness. In American sinological circles, translations and collaborative research on Tang poets by Chinese and non-Chinese scholars could make up for insufficiencies of cultural background and/or linguistic knowledge. Meanwhile, due to disparities in cultural backgrounds and thinking patterns, they inspire each other through the collisions of their differing thought patterns and consequently produce new ideas to bring freshness to the research and translation of Tang poetry. Comprehensive research achievements by Chinese and non-Chinese scholars not only further promote the propagation of Tang poetry in America but also expand the influence of Chinese literature in the United States.

15.5 Conclusion

The transmission of Tang poetry to the Western world is a significant event in the history of cross-cultural communication. Placed in the cultural context of the English-speaking world, and beginning in the late nineteenth century, translation of and research on Tang poetry have evolved over 100 years from the random, sporadic, and general stage to becoming more systematic and specialized. In traditional Chinese culture, which has now been partially integrated into the mainstream of Anglo-American culture, the reason why Tang poetry was able to become a prominent entity with special significance was that it integrates the essence of the Chinese language, ideology, and poetic concepts, and it shows unique charm in its finest artistic achievements. In its home country of China, Tang poetry has been on people’s lips for thousands of years. With its strong vitality and enduring influence, the Chinese poetic 246 15 Development After the 1950s treasure of Tang poetry came to the attention of Anglo-American missionaries as well as of diplomats who had long sojourned in China. On the basis of their knowledge of China, they would translate Tang poetry and act as intermediaries when introducing Chinese society and traditional Chinese culture to Western countries. These early British and American sinologists initiated the transmission of Tang poetry to the West. At the same time, they blazed a path for its subsequent development. However imperfect their English translations of Tang poetry might have been, these poems, written in the hieroglyphs of an ancient Oriental nation, were rendered for the first time into English and read in a completely different cultural setting through their persistent efforts. Through these translated poems, cultural explorers of the English-speaking world were given an opportunity to take a distantly occidental look at the summit of Oriental poetry. Once it began, the impact of the English translation of Tang poetry quickly spread to literary and cultural circles of the Anglo-American world. With conser- vative and exclusively British cultural traditions, the English translation of Tang poetry was not given adequate attention in Britain. But thanks to the inclusive immigrant culture of the United States, the English translation of Tang poetry infused fresh and vigorous inspiration into American poetry and prompted American poetry to break away from traditional European constraints and create its own cultural characteristics. With their fresh, natural, and flexible writing style, translators extracted and produced a romantic and beautiful world of Tang poetry beyond the seeming vulgarity of the present. This world might neither be the one created by Tang poets nor the one appreciated by native Chinese readers, but its unique aesthetic appeal was equally powerful. Through the English translation of Tang poetry, Western readers were sincerely impressed by Tang poetry as if they had been communicating with those poets in the Tang dynasty. In this world of Tang poetry, adapted from the Western literary experience, the mysterious Oriental poetic images became vivid and lively, and no longer appeared remote or unapproachable. Generally, translators of poetry possessed extraordinary poetic creativity. In the long course of their study, interpretation, and translation of Tang poetry, they were not only fascinated by the concise language, lingering implications, and unique artistic style but were also nurtured by traditional Chinese poetics and even by traditional Chinese philosophy. From simple imitation of poetic techniques to acceptance and identification of poetic conceptions, they gradually immersed themselves in the aesthetic thought of Tang poetry and constructed a classic “Chinese style” in modern American poetry. Since then, the traditional Chinese culture represented by Tang poetry spread more widely in the English-speaking world, producing a more lasting impact on the societies and cultures outside China. This phenomenon proved again that the lasting aesthetic value of Tang poetry could transcend times, regions, nationalities, and cultures. It also proved that, as the essence of the world’s traditional cultural resources, the aesthetic ideals of Tang poetry could be perceived and accepted by the modern Western world and effectively promote cultural complementarity and a respect for multiculturalism. 15.5 Conclusion 247

Poetry is both a personal expression of individual minds and a symbol of national culture. As Tang poetry has been passed on from the Tang dynasty to the modern times, and from the East to the West through successive translators’ aesthetic filtering, it is inevitable for the final English version of Tang poetry in modern times to bear the imprints of translators’ experience and emotions. The translators’ knowledge of Western traditions and literary backgrounds, especially the poetic background, shaped their aesthetic orientation to poetry, and this established orientation would sway their attitude in selecting and interpreting Tang poetry and would determine the angle and method they preferred to have in interpreting Tang poetry and in presenting it to the target reader. Among so many Tang poems, which poems could be put on the reading list of the average English reader through translation and which poets could be known earlier or better by the English-speaking world were entirely subjective decisions of the translators according to their aesthetic orientation. Those Tang poets who are admired by Western readers may not necessarily be those who received high acclaim in China, and those recurring Tang poems in translated texts may not necessarily be recognized in their home country. This was especially obvious in the beginning stage, when the translation of Tang poetry was not so systematic and specialized. First, the Romantic tradition of Western poetics respects individual emotional expression. Wordsworth, one of the “Lake Poets,” held that poetry is a spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings that originated in the emotions and were recalled in peace, and that poets usually produce poems out of their passions, which were aroused by real-life events. Among Tang poets, Li Bai’s poems were the closest to the literary views of the West, displaying his unusual talent in poetic creation and his vibrant lines and lofty sentiments. Therefore, Li Bai was the first to receive particular attention from Western translators. As his works entered the Western world, Li Bai was honored with soaring fame. The image of Li Bai producing wonderful poems in high spirits had been well known to the English-speaking world, and even to the whole Western world, where he was regarded as the epitome of classical Chinese literature and even traditional Chinese culture. Meanwhile, Western translators could not understand the themes of some Tang poems, which expressed the poets’ aspirations or conveyed moral messages, and even if they did understand them, they might not identify themselves with this conventional concept of classical Chinese literature, because a large number of Tang poems expressed personal thoughts and aspirations. For example, in his lines “Should I get mansions covering ten thousand miles, I’d house all the poor and make them beam with smiles,” Du Fu expressed his yearning, which arose from his difficult experiences, and his poems carried a fiery passion that expressed his sincere sympathy for the people and deep concern for the country’s future. However, Western readers may not empathize with his emotions. Likewise, Bai Juyi’s poems “GuānYìmài” (观刈麦, “Watching Harvesting Wheat”)or“Màitànwēng” (卖炭翁, “An Old Charcoal Man”), which contained numerous descriptions of hard reality and expressed sincere personal feelings, were not valued as much in the West as 248 15 Development After the 1950s such legendary and romantic poems as “ChánghènGē” (长恨歌, “ASongof Everlasting Sorrow”)or“Pípá Xíng” (琵琶行, “Song of a Pipa Player”). Western translators were very much impressed by the clear conscience and lofty ideals of the traditional Chinese literati as revealed through Tang poetry. Fletcher compiled and translated hundreds of Tang poems in his two books, since he viewed Tang poetry as an integrated entity: “all combine here to form China’s great ideal, great charm—peace.” Poets of the Tang dynasty were imbued with passionate love for their motherland and her magnificent scenery, inherited immortal spirits of previous generations, and integrated the ideological essence of Confucianism, Taoism, and Buddhism into their daily lives. Their poems essentially portrayed the beauty of nature with poetic images of tranquil, serene, and peaceful views. “There is no girding up of the lions to slay, no enthusiasm for destruction; no great greed for wealth or possessions; no social distinctions of caste. There is just human life portrayed in terms of Nature” (Fletcher 1918, preface). This is the chief reason why Fletcher not only devoted himself to the translation of Tang poetry but also why many other translators chose to translate pastoral poems over those on other subjects. Of course, whether in China or in other countries, in ancient or modern times, there are common aspects of human life, dreams, and emotions. In the process of translating Tang poetry, translators had come to understand Chinese culture and Chinese people through Tang poems and attempted to convey the core ideas of the originals to Western readers from different approaches. But, due to obstacles in the cultural communication between the East and the West and the great discrepancies between Chinese and English, translators inevitably failed to represent certain key words and sentences correctly in the process of their translation. One feature of Tang poetry is the use of allusions to express thoughts and feelings. However, because of different cultural backgrounds between the East and the West, frequently used allusions and cultural and ethnic words, which are readily understood by Oriental readers, are beyond the comprehension of Western readers, and even of scholars who were quite steeped in sinology. Furthermore, the range of allusions had been expanded to cover a wider area than did our usual concept of allusions. In general, allusions can be classified into the following kinds: The first are nouns with specific cultural implications, such as names and places from legendary tales. For example, “牵牛织女” (qiānniú zhīnǚ, the cowherd and the weaving girl) form the line “如今直上银河去,同到牵牛织女家” (Rújīn zhíshàng yínhé qù,Tóngdàoqiānniú zhīnǚ jiā); the designations of some special items, such as “鸿雁” (swan goose) and “砧杵” (the washing stone and stick) from “落日鸿雁度,寒城砧杵愁 (Luòrì hóngyàndù,Hánchéng zhēnchǔ chóu)” or “红叶” (red leave) and “砚台” (inkstand) from “夕阳照个新红叶,似要题诗落砚台” (Xīyáng zhàogè xīnhóngyè,Sìyàotíshī luò yàntái); some Chinese calendric terms, such as “寒食” (Hanshi), “清明” (Qingming), and “惊蛰” (Jingzhe), among others. The second kind of allusion includes objects with special or derived meanings. For example, the peacock is a symbol of joy and auspiciousness in the Chinese culture, but in English it has a derogatory sense, meaning pride and vanity, or being conceited. Similar objects include “moon,”“dragon,”“cuckoo or azalea” (杜鹃), 15.5 Conclusion 249 and “chickens and dogs” (鸡犬). Although there are also cultural references to these objects in the West, their meanings are totally different. The metonymic and metaphorical use of such objects as the “lotus” (荷花/莲花/芙蓉), the “willow” (杨柳), the “sailing boat” (行舟/行船), “cloud and rain” (云雨), and the “Blues of Annals” (青史) were also regarded as independent of and unrelated to anything familiar to Western readers. The third kind of allusion is abstract ideas implying deep cultural traditions, such as loyalty to the sovereignty, as expressed in “为主坚能不顾身,赴汤蹈火见忠臣” (Wèizhǔjiānnéng búgùshēn, Fùtāngdǎohuǒ jiànzhōngchén, risking our lives to protect the lord and getting ready to jump into boiling water and plunge into raging fire—going through hell and high water), a strong sense of homesickness, as in “若为化得身千亿,散上峰头望故乡” (Ruòwèihuàdéshēnqiānyì,Sànshàng fēngtóu wànggùxiāng, I would rather turn into a breeze, lingering on top of the mountains as long as I can, to take a look at my hometown from a long distance), and blood and bone kinship, as in “谁言寸草心,报得三春晖” (Shuíyáncùncǎoxīn, Bàodé sānchūnhuī, such kindness of the warm sun cannot be repaid by the grass). These sensations, as expressed in Tang dynasty poems, are hard for Western readers to empathize with to a satisfactory degree. Culture is manifested in language, and language is part of the culture. Those words loaded with traditional Chinese culture, whether through free translation or transliteration, would confuse English readers if no further explanation was made in the target text. Therefore, when translators encountered allusions, they chose to ignore them, would resort to transliteration, gave a rough, free translation with simple annotations, or would simply avoid poems with allusions when they selected poems for translation. Such practices ruled out numerous famous poems in the choice of poems for translation. A fine example of this is Wang Wei’s quatrain “Jǐuyuèjǐurì Yì Shāndōng Xiōngdì” (九月九日忆山东兄弟, “Thinking of My Brothers on Mountain Climbing Day”), which may be considered to be one of the most widely circulated poems of Tang poetry. The line “每逢佳节倍思亲” (Měiféng jiājié bèi sīqīn, I am twice as homesick on a holiday) is known to everyone in China. Yet, English versions of the poem are very rare. This poem involves not only the folk custom of climbing mountains to view the distance on the Double Ninth Festival (ninth day of the ninth lunar month), but also the typically nostalgic feelings of the Chinese, so it is hard to convey these culture-specific notions for which no corresponding words could be found in English. And confined by the number of words and the rhythmic patterns of the poetic genre, this poem is rather ambiguous. Generally, poems with fewer allusions and plainer language are easier to translate. Allusions were also the direct cause of misunderstanding and misinterpretation in the translation process. For example, in the line “名花倾国两相欢” (Mínghuā qīngguógliǎngxiānghuān, both the precious flower and the lady are beautiful and lovely), “名花” (mínghuā, the precious flower) refers to the peony flower specifically; however, the word “peony” would not completely convey the implied meaning of the original work. “Peony” in English refers to both the tree peony and the herbaceous peony, while the tree peony and the herbaceous peony give two 250 15 Development After the 1950s different cultural indications in traditional Chinese culture. The word “倾国” (qīngguó), similar to “倾城” (qīngchéng), which literally means causing the fall of a state or of a city, refers to women of unsurpassed beauty. It would be a great mistake if the phrase were literally interpreted as an “overturned kingdom.” However, in the English versions of Tang poetry, such mistranslations are not rare. Even today, both Chinese and English translators who are interested in classical Chinese poetry translation are still cudgeling their brains trying to solve these problems. Out of their strong love for Tang poetry and its profound cultural connotation, British and American scholars and poets of successive generations make persistent efforts to promote Tang poetry in the West through their translations. Since the 1920s and the 1930s, the translation of Tang poetry developed in both quantity and quality. By the end of the twentieth century, with the direct participation of overseas Chinese intellectuals, this transmission began to thrive. Since the 1980s, American studies on Tang poetry have involved translation, annotation, and appreciation. American scholars, by combining Western theories and research methods, now view Tang poetry as a specialized and independent academic field of study. Over the past decade, they have indeed made remarkable progress. Today in the English-speaking world, the study of Tang poetry in sinology or Chinese Studies is just regarded as a branch of Chinese literature. It is hard to find an authoritative academic institution like the Tang Literary Society, which does research exclusively on the subject of Tang literature. In the curricula of universities, “Tang Poetry Appreciation” is still a sub-subject affiliated with higher research subjects. That is to say, research on Tang poetry and even on traditional Chinese poetry has not yet become an independent discipline. Since the beginning of the twenty-first century, with the sustainable growth of China’s economic power and international status, sinology and Chinese Studies have once again become hot subjects in the West. Since 2004, a “Mandarin craze” has been on the rise, which shows that Westerners’ interest in China has extended from literary and cultural areas to various areas of society. In 2007, the Federal Government of the United States announced its “National Security Language Project,” which regulated government departments in allocating special funds to promote ten traditional foreign languages. Chinese ranked second. With the increasing scale of Chinese language teaching, the number of people learning the Chinese language is rapidly increasing. More and more people who are interested in traditional Chinese culture are now able to overcome language barriers to explore traditional Chinese culture more directly and deeply. The close relationship between language and culture has also contributed to an upsurge of interest in academic circles and the general public in studying traditional Chinese culture. In such a climate, Tang poetry, as the classic part of the traditional Chinese culture, will receive wider attention. Thanks to convenient modern transportation and communications, cultural communication, exchange, and reference in various fields between the East and the West have overcome visible geographical restrictions. Scholars have acquired unprecedented knowledge about China and Chinese culture, and consequently, cultural misunderstanding has been largely eliminated. However, the study of Tang 15.5 Conclusion 251 poetry, based on the previous translation and research achievements of the last century, leaves much room in the Anglo-American countries for further development, but offers promising prospects for the future.

References

Chinese References

Chung Ling. 《美国诗与中国梦》,桂林:广西师范大学出版社,2003年版。 Chung Ling: 寒山与美国诗歌作品》,《寒山子暨和合文化国际学术讨论会论文汇编》,浙江天台,2008年5月11-13日。

English References

Fletcher, W. J. B. (1918). 英译唐诗选/Gems of Chinese Verse. Shanghai: Commercial Press, Ltd. Rexroth, K. (1971). Love and the turning: One hundred more poems from the Chinese. New York: New Directions Publishing Corporation. Rexroth, K. (1970). 100 poems from the Chinese. New York: New Directions Publishing Corporation. Rexroth, K. (1991). An autobiographical novel. New York: New Directions Publishing Corporation. Snyder, G. (1969). Riprap and cold mountain poems. San Francisco: Four Seasons Foundation. Waley, A. D. (1918). 27 Poems by Han-shan. Encounter, Vol. 12, 1954 [9], pp. 3–8. Conclusion

© Foreign Language Teaching and Research Publishing Co., Ltd 253 and Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany 2018 L. Jiang, A History of Western Appreciation of English-translated Tang Poetry, China Academic Library, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-56352-6 254 Conclusion translators extracted and produced a romantic and beautiful world of Tang poetry beyond the seeming vulgarity of the present. This world might neither be the one created by Tang poets nor the one appreciated by native Chinese readers, but its unique aesthetic appeal was equally powerful. Through the English translation of Tang poetry, Western readers were sincerely impressed by Tang poetry as if they had been communicating with those poets in the Tang dynasty. In this world of Tang poetry, adapted from the Western literary experience, the mysterious Oriental poetic images became vivid and lively, and no longer appeared remote or unapproachable. Generally, translators of poetry possessed extraordinary poetic creativity. In the long course of their study, interpretation, and translation of Tang poetry, they were not only fascinated by the concise language, lingering implications, and unique artistic style but were also nurtured by traditional Chinese poetics and even by traditional Chinese philosophy. From simple imitation of poetic techniques to acceptance and identification of poetic conceptions, they gradually immersed themselves in the aesthetic thought of Tang poetry and constructed a classic “Chinese style” in modern American poetry. Since then, the traditional Chinese culture represented by Tang poetry spread more widely in the English-speaking world, producing a more lasting impact on the societies and cultures outside China. This phenomenon proved again that the lasting aesthetic value of Tang poetry could transcend times, regions, nationalities, and cultures. It also proved that, as the essence of the world’s traditional cultural resources, the aesthetic ideals of Tang poetry could be perceived and accepted by the modern Western world and effectively promote cultural complementarity and a respect for multiculturalism. Poetry is both a personal expression of individual minds and a symbol of national culture. As Tang poetry has been passed on from the Tang dynasty to the modern times, and from the East to the West through successive translators’ aesthetic filtering, it is inevitable for the final English version of Tang poetry in modern times to bear the imprints of translators’ experience and emotions. The translators’ knowledge of Western traditions and literary backgrounds, especially the poetic background, shaped their aesthetic orientation to poetry, and this established orientation would sway their attitude in selecting and interpreting Tang poetry and would determine the angle and method they preferred to have in interpreting Tang poetry and in presenting it to the target reader. Among so many Tang poems, which poems could be put on the reading list of the average English reader through translation and which poets could be known earlier or better by the English-speaking world were entirely subjective decisions of the translators according to their aesthetic orientation. Those Tang poets who are admired by Western readers may not necessarily be those who received high acclaim in China, and those recurring Tang poems in translated texts may not necessarily be recognized in their home country. This was especially obvious in the beginning stage, when the translation of Tang poetry was not so systematic and specialized. First, the Romantic tradition of Western poetics respects individual emotional expression. Wordsworth, one of the “Lake Poets,” held that poetry is a spontaneous Conclusion 255 overflow of powerful feelings that originated in the emotions and were recalled in peace, and that poets usually produce poems out of their passions, which were aroused by real-life events. Among Tang poets, Li Bai’s poems were the closest to the literary views of the West, displaying his unusual talent in the poetic creation and his vibrant lines and lofty sentiments. Therefore, Li Bai was the first to receive particular attention from Western translators. As his works entered the Western world, Li Bai was honored with soaring fame. The image of Li Bai producing wonderful poems in high spirits had been well known to the English-speaking world, and even to the whole Western world, where he was regarded as the epitome of classical Chinese literature and even traditional Chinese culture. Meanwhile, Western translators could not understand the themes of some Tang poems, which expressed the poets’ aspirations or conveyed moral messages, and even if they did understand them, they might not identify themselves with this conventional concept of classical Chinese literature, because a large number of Tang poems expressed personal thoughts and aspirations. For example, in his lines “Should I get mansions covering ten thousand miles, I’d house all the poor and make them beam with smiles,” Du Fu expressed his yearning, which arose from his difficult experiences, and his poems carried a fiery passion that expressed his sincere sympathy for the people and deep concern for the country’s future. However, Western readers may not empathize with his emotions. Likewise, Bai Juyi’s poems “GuānYìmài” (观刈麦, “Watching Harvesting Wheat”)or“Màitànwēng” (卖炭翁, “An Old Charcoal Man”), which contained numerous descriptions of hard reality and expressed sincere personal feelings, were not valued as much in the West as such legendary and romantic poems as “ChánghènGē” (长恨歌, “ASongof Everlasting Sorrow”)or“Pípá Xíng” (琵琶行, “Song of a Pipa Player”). Western translators were very much impressed by the clear conscience and lofty ideals of the traditional Chinese literati as revealed through Tang poetry. Fletcher compiled and translated hundreds of Tang poems in his two books, since he viewed Tang poetry as an integrated entity: “all combine here to form China’s great ideal, great charm—peace.” Poets of the Tang dynasty were imbued with passionate love for their motherland and her magnificent scenery, inherited immortal spirits of previous generations and integrated the ideological essence of Confucianism, Taoism, and Buddhism into their daily lives. Their poems essentially portrayed the beauty of nature with poetic images of tranquil, serene and peaceful views. “There is no girding up of the lions to slay, no enthusiasm for destruction; no great greed for wealth or possessions; no social distinctions of caste. There is just human life portrayed in terms of Nature.” (Fletcher, 1918, preface) This is the chief reason why Fletcher not only devoted himself to the translation of Tang poetry but also why many other translators chose to translate pastoral poems over those on other subjects. Of course, whether in China or in other countries, in ancient or modern times, there are common aspects of human life, dreams, and emotions. In the process of translating Tang poetry, translators had come to understand Chinese culture and Chinese people through Tang poems and attempted to convey the core ideas of the originals to Western readers from different approaches. But, due to obstacles in the 256 Conclusion cultural communication between the East and the West and the great discrepancies between Chinese and English, translators inevitably failed to represent certain keywords and sentences correctly in the process of their translation. One feature of Tang poetry is the use of allusions to express thoughts and feelings. However, because of different cultural backgrounds between the East and the West, frequently used allusions and cultural and ethnic words, which are readily understood by Oriental readers, are beyond the comprehension of Western readers, and even of scholars who were quite steeped in sinology. Furthermore, the range of allusions had been expanded to cover a wider area than did our usual concept of allusions. In general, allusions can be classified into the following kinds: The first are nouns with specific cultural implications, such as names and places from legendary tales. For example, “牵牛织女” (qiānniú zhīnǚ, the cowherd and the weaving girl) form the line “如今直上银河去, 同到牵牛织女家” (Rújīn zhíshàng yínhé qù,Tóngdàoqiānniú zhīnǚ jiā); the designations of some special items, such as “鸿雁” (swan goose) and “砧杵” (the washing stone and stick) from “落日鸿雁度, 寒城砧杵愁 (Luòrì hóngyàndù,Hánchéng zhēnchǔ chóu)” or “红叶” (red leave) and “砚台” (inkstand) from “夕阳照个新红叶, 似要题诗落砚台” (Xīyáng zhàogè xīnhóngyè,Sìyàotíshī luò yàntái); some Chinese calendric terms, such as “寒食” (Hanshi),”清明” (Qingming), and “惊蛰” (Jingzhe), among others. The second kind of allusion includes objects with special or derived meanings. For example, the peacock is a symbol of joy and auspiciousness in the Chinese culture, but in English it has a derogatory sense, meaning pride and vanity, or being conceited. Similar objects include “moon,”“dragon,”“cuckoo or azalea” (杜鹃), and “chickens and dogs” (鸡犬). Although there are also cultural references to these objects in the West, their meanings are totally different. The metonymic and metaphorical use of such objects as the “lotus” (荷花/莲花/芙蓉), the “willow” (杨柳), the “sailing boat” (行舟/行船), “cloud and rain” (云雨) and the “Blues of Annals” (青史), were also regarded as independent of and unrelated to anything familiar to Western readers. The third kind of allusion is abstract ideas implying deep cultural traditions, such as loyalty to the sovereignty, as expressed in “为主坚能不顾身, 赴汤蹈火见忠臣” (Wèizhǔjiānnéng búgùshēn, Fùtāngdǎohuǒ jiànzhōngchén, risking our lives to protect the lord and getting ready to jump into boiling water and plunge into raging fire—going through hell and high water), a strong sense of homesickness, as in “若为化得身千亿, 散上峰头望故乡” (Ruòwèihuàdéshēnqiānyì,Sànshàng fēngtóu wànggùxiāng, I would rather turn into a breeze, lingering on top of the mountains as long as I can, to take a look at my hometown from a long distance), and blood and bone kinship, as in “谁言寸草心, 报得三春晖” (Shuíyáncùncǎoxīn, Bàodé sānchūnhuī, such kindness of the warm sun cannot be repaid by the grass). These sensations, as expressed in Tang dynasty poems, are hard for Western readers to empathize with to a satisfactory degree. Culture is manifested in language, and language is part of the culture. Those words loaded with traditional Chinese culture, whether through free translation or transliteration, would confuse English readers if no further explanation was made in the target text. Therefore, when translators encountered allusions, they chose to Conclusion 257 ignore them, would resort to transliteration, gave a rough, free translation with simple annotations, or would simply avoid poems with allusions when they selected poems for translation. Such practices ruled out numerous famous poems in the choice of poems for translation. A fine example of this is Wang Wei’s quatrain “Jǐuyuèjǐurì Yì Shāndōng Xiōngdì” (九月九日忆山东兄弟, “Thinking of My Brothers on Mountain Climbing Day”), which may be considered to be one of the most widely circulated poems of Tang poetry. The line “每逢佳节倍思亲” (Měiféng jiājié bèi sīqīn, I am twice as homesick on a holiday) is known to everyone in China. Yet, English versions of the poem are very rare. This poem involves not only the folk-custom of climbing mountains to view the distance on the Double Ninth Festival (ninth day of the ninth lunar month), but also the typically nostalgic feelings of the Chinese, so it is hard to convey these culture-specific notions for which no corresponding words could be found in English. And confined by the number of words and the rhythmic patterns of the poetic genre, this poem is rather ambiguous. Generally, poems with fewer allusions and plainer language are easier to translate. Allusions were also the direct cause of misunderstanding and misinterpretation in the translation process. For example, in the line “名花倾国两相欢” (Mínghuā qīngguógliǎngxiānghuān, both the precious flower and the lady are beautiful and lovely), “名花”(mínghuā, the precious flower) refers to the peony flower specifically; however, the word “peony” would not completely convey the implied meaning of the original work. “Peony” in English refers to both the tree peony and the herbaceous peony, while the tree peony and the herbaceous peony give two different cultural indications in traditional Chinese culture. The words “倾国” (qīngguó), similar to “倾城” (qīngchéng), which literally means causing the fall of a state or of a city, refers to women of unsurpassed beauty. It would be a great mistake if the phrase were literally interpreted as an “overturned kingdom.” However, in the English versions of Tang poetry, such mistranslations are not rare. Even today, both Chinese and English translators who are interested in classical Chinese poetry translation are still cudgeling their brains trying to solve these problems. Out of their strong love for Tang poetry and its profound cultural connotation, British and American scholars and poets of successive generations make persistent efforts to promote Tang poetry in the West through their translations. Since the 1920s and the 1930s, the translation of Tang poetry developed in both quantity and quality. By the end of the twentieth century, with the direct participation of overseas Chinese intellectuals, this transmission began to thrive. Since the 1980s, American studies on Tang poetry have involved translation, annotation, and appreciation. American scholars, by combining Western theories and research methods, now view Tang poetry as a specialized and independent academic field of study. Over the past decade, they have indeed made remarkable progress. Today in the English-speaking world, the study of Tang poetry in sinology or Chinese Studies is just regarded as a branch of Chinese literature. It is hard to find an authoritative academic institution like the Tang Literary Society, which does research exclusively on the subject of Tang literature. In the curricula of 258 Conclusion universities, “Tang Poetry Appreciation” is still a sub-subject affiliated with higher research subjects. That is to say, research on Tang poetry and even on traditional Chinese poetry has not yet become an independent discipline. Since the beginning of the twenty-first century, with the sustainable growth of China’s economic power and international status, sinology, and Chinese Studies have once again become hot subjects in the West. Since 2004, a “Mandarin craze” has been on the rise, which shows that Westerners’ interest in China has extended from literary and cultural areas to various areas of society. In 2007, the Federal Government of the United States announced its “National Security Language Project,” which regulated government departments in allocating special funds to promote ten traditional foreign languages. Chinese ranked second. With the increasing scale of Chinese-language teaching, the number of people learning the Chinese language is rapidly increasing. More and more people who are interested in traditional Chinese culture are now able to overcome language barriers to explore traditional Chinese culture more directly and deeply. The close relationship between language and culture has also contributed to an upsurge of interest in academic circles and the general public in studying traditional Chinese culture. In such a climate, Tang poetry, as the classic part of the traditional Chinese culture, will receive wider attention. Thanks to convenient modern transportation and communications, cultural communication, exchange, and reference in various fields between the East and the West have overcome visible geographical restrictions. Scholars have acquired unprecedented knowledge about China and Chinese culture, and consequently, cultural misunderstanding has been largely eliminated. However, the study of Tang poetry, based on the previous translation and research achievements of the last century, leaves much room in the Anglo-American countries for further development, but offers promising prospects for the future. Afterword

We are very much honored to have had the opportunity to be the translators of the monograph Tang Poetry in the West: A Historical Perspective by Dr. Lan Jiang, and the process of translation was such an arduous one leaving with us a great deal of bitter sweet memories. The bitter memories revolve mainly around the eruditeness of the book and the “untranslatability” of most of the sporadic verses, if not all, in it. Poetic, profound, and mysterious as it is, Tang poetry is considered an engaging and yet daunting genre for most contemporary readers to touch upon. And to translate a monograph as such may be an area only fools rush in while angels fear to tread. The book covers a time span of over 500 years ranging from the sixteenth century to the twenty-first century, during which missionaries, merchants, diplomats, and sinologists all made their significant contributions to the introduction and translation of Tang poetry to the western world. The extensive citation of sources in both English and Chinese definitely adds much to the academic value of the book, but meanwhile it brings the translators a pile of hard nuts to crack: proper names spelt in the Wade-Giles romanization system and in pinyin, back translation needed here and there, and the unavoidable sacrifice of meaning for rhyme or vice versa, to name just a few. Despite the countless challenges we went through, we have certainly tasted the sweetness of the translation job as well. Amid the hustle and bustle of modern-day life, we enjoyed the serenity and peacefulness so much when we sat down to translate a monograph on Tang poetry and Chinese culture at large. We feel fortunate to have got acquainted with a number of historical figures who made their indelible contributions to the translation of Tang poetry to the west. While we admired the extraordinary versatility and rigorous scholarship of Herbert Allen Giles who compared translations to “moonlight and water” and originals to “sunlight and wine,” we were also amazed by the infectious enthusiasm and literary gift of the poet, Launcelot Alfred Cranmer-Byng, who proclaimed that “the time has come when the literary man should stand forth and claim his share in the revelation of truth and beauty from other lands and peoples whom our invincible European ignorance has taught us to despise.” Interestingly, we let our Chinese students majoring in English here in Xi’an, China, compare Cranmer-Byng’s translation of

© Foreign Language Teaching and Research Publishing Co., Ltd 259 and Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany 2018 L. Jiang, A History of Western Appreciation of English-translated Tang Poetry, China Academic Library, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-56352-6 260 Afterword

Du Fu’s The Never Ending Wrong with that of Giles in their translation class and approximately 90% of them tend to appreciate the latter. In the meantime, an experiment conducted by one of our graduate students in her research abroad shows that Cranmer-Byng’s translation was much better received than Gile’s among her students in the Confucius Institute in Trinidad and Tobago. Last but not least, the insight of the author of the monograph into Tang poetry and her research approach beneﬁt us tremendously. Her continuing encouragement and unfailing support were never absent throughout the long journey. Good or bad, this is all that we can put in front of you, our dear readers, for judgment and criticism at your own discretion. Manliang Wang Fangjun Li Bibliography

Chinese Bibliography

An, Q, ed. 李白全集编年注释, 成都: 巴蜀书社, 2000年版. Chen, B. 唐诗学史稿, 石家庄: 河北人民出版社, 2004年版. Chen, C. 融入美国文化中的中国文化一瞥, 四川外语学院学报, 2006(3). Chen, T. 中国文学对越南文学发展进程的历史意义, 文化艺术杂志, 1993(2). Cheng, Z. 魏理的汉诗英译及其与Ezra Pound的关系, 南京大学学报 Á 人文社科版, 2003年第3期. Cheng, Z. 汉诗英译与英语现代诗歌——以魏理的汉诗英译及跳跃韵律为中心, 江苏行政学院学报, 2003年第3期. Cheng, Z. 魏理眼中的中国诗歌史——一个英国汉学家与他的中国诗史研究, 鲁迅研究月刊, 2005年第3期. Dai, W. 地域文化与唐代诗歌, 北京: 中华书局, 2006年版. Ding, G. 西方人误读的中国, 环球时报2006年12月29日. Dong, M. 美国文学史, 北京: 译林出版社, 2002年版. Dong, N. 中华历史通览Á唐代卷: 流金岁月, 北京: 中华书局, 2001年版. Emperor Xuanzong of the Tang Dynasty, Li Linfu et al.: 唐六典, 北京: 中华书局, 1982年版. Fang, P. 欧美文学研究十论, 上海: 复旦大学出版社, 2005年版. Fu, X. 唐代科举与文学, 西安: 陕西人民出版社, 1986年版. Fu, X. 唐代诗人丛考, 北京: 中华书局, 2003年版. Gu, Z. 中西文化比较导论, 北京大学出版社, 2007年版. Hengtang, T, ed. 唐诗三百首, 北京: 中华书局, 2003年版. Hou, Q. 费正清与中国学, 国际汉学漫步(上卷), 石家庄: 河北教育出版社, 1997年版. Hu, A. 文本旅行与经典建构——寒山诗在美国翻译文学中的经典化, 寒山子暨和合文化国际学术讨论会论文汇编, 浙江天台, 2008年5月11–13日. Hu, Y. 诗薮Á内编, 上海: 上海古籍出版社, 1979年版. Hu, Y. 英国汉学家伟烈亚力的生平与学术交往, 汉学研究通讯, 总第98期, 2006. Hu, Z. 唐音癸签, 上海: 上海古籍出版社, 1981年版. Hu, Z. 苕溪渔隐丛话, 北京: 人民文学出版社, 1962年版. James, L., & Du, G. 中国文学理论, 杜国清译, 台北: 联经出版事业公司, 1985年版. Ji, Y. 唐诗纪事, 上海: 上海古籍出版社, 1987年版. Jiang, C., Xiang, X., & Li, J. (Eds.) 20世纪欧美文学史, 武汉大学出版社, 2007年版. Jiang, J. 美的感悟, 南宁: 广西人民出版社, 1999年版. Li, B, ed. 唐代文化, 北京: 中国社会科学出版社, 2002年版. Liu, B. 杜威论中国思想, 学衡, 1922年2月第5期. Li, H. 唐诗的美学阐释, 合肥: 安徽大学出版社, 2000年版.

© Foreign Language Teaching and Research Publishing Co., Ltd 261 and Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany 2018 L. Jiang, A History of Western Appreciation of English-translated Tang Poetry, China Academic Library, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-56352-6 262 Chinese Bibliography

Liu, J. 唐诗题材类论, 北京: 民族出版社, 2005年版. Liang, S. 中国文化要义, 上海: 上海人民出版社, 2005年版. Lin, G. 唐诗综论, 北京: 清华大学出版社, 2006年版. Liu, S. 1950年以来韩国唐诗研究之动向, 南京师范大学学报Á社科版, 2003(4). Liu, X. et al. 旧唐书, 北京: 中华书局, 1975年版. Lu, S. 诗镜总论, 民国5年本. Luo, S. 唐诗演进论, 南京: 江苏古籍出版社, 2001年版. Luo, S, ed. 杜牧集, 南京: 凤凰出版传媒集团, 2007年版. Luo, X. 唐代文化史研究, 上海: 上海文艺出版社, 1992年版. Lv, S. 中诗英译比录, 中华书局, 2002年版. Oswald, S., & Wu, Q. 西方的没落, 吴琼译, 上海: 三联书店, 2006年版. Ouyang, X., Song, Q. 新唐书, 北京: 中华书局, 1975年版. Peng, D. et al. (Eds.) 全唐诗, 北京: 中华书局, 1960年版. Qian, M. 文化与教育, 桂林: 广西师范大学出版社, 2004年版. Qian, M. 中国文学论丛, 北京: 三联书店, 2005年版. Qian, Z. 钱钟书散文, 杭州: 浙江文艺出版社, 1997年版. Qu, T., & Zhu, J. 李白集校注, 上海: 上海古籍出版社, 2003年版. Que, W. 剑桥汉学的形成与发展, 汉学研究通讯, 总第81期, 2002. Shang, Y. 唐诗艺术讲演录, 广西师范大学出版社, 2008年版. Shen, D, ed. 唐诗别裁集, 北京: 中华书局, 1975年版. Shen, F. 中西文化交流史, 上海: 世纪出版集团, 2006年版. Shen, S., Hu, K., & Tao, R. 唐诗研究, 杭州: 浙江大学出版社, 2006年版. Shi, H. 冷斋夜话, 北京: 中华书局, 1987年版. Song, M. 唐大诏令集, 上海: 学林出版社, 1992年版. Tao, M., & Li, Y. 隋唐五代文学史料学, 北京: 中华书局, 2001年版. Wang, N. 文化翻译与经典阐释, 北京: 中华书局, 2006年版. Wang, S. 西方汉学界的“公敌”——英国汉学家翟理斯(1845–1935)研究, 福建师范大学, 专门史专业2004年度博士论文. Wang, H. 唐朝十讲——千古诗话里的绝唱, 哈尔滨: 哈尔滨出版社, 2006年版. Wang, X. 唐代的七言古诗, 南京: 江苏教育出版社, 1991年版. Wang, Y. 唐诗合解笺注, 台北: 文化书局, 1956年版. William, W., & Cao, B. 抒情歌谣集, 古典文艺理论译丛第一册, 曹葆华译, 北京: 人民文学出版社, 1962年版. Wu, G., & Dong, N. 唐代文学史(上、下卷), 北京: 人民文学出版社, 1995年版. Xie, S. 白居易诗集校注, 北京: 中华书局, 2006年版. Xin, W. 唐才子传, 香港: 海啸出版事业有限公司, 2005年版. Yan, Y. 沧浪诗话, 北京: 中国文史出版社, 1999年版. Yang, J, ed. 中国文化史词典, 杭州: 浙江古籍出版社, 1987年版. Ye, W. 道家美学与西方文化, 北京: 北京大学出版社, 2002年版. Yi, F, ed. 唐宋八大家全集, 香港: 新世纪出版社, 1997年版. Yu, S. 唐诗风貌, 合肥: 安徽大学出版社, 2003年版. Zbigniew, W. 美国汉学研究的概况, 汉学研究通讯, 总第102期, 2007(2). Zhang, D. 寒山与斯耐德禅诗赏析, 寒山子暨和合文化国际学术讨论会论文汇编, 浙江天台, 2008年5月11–13日. Zhan, H. 刘若愚: 融合中西诗学之路, 北京: 北京出版集团, 2005年版. Zhang, X. 汉学研究三题, 新华文摘, 2003(10). Zhang, Z., & Nakajima, T. (Eds.) 唐诗类苑, 上海: 上海古籍出版社, 2005年版. Zhao, J., & Lun, B. 早期欧洲汉学线索, 文史哲, 1998(04). Zheng, Y. 论中国古典诗歌对肯尼斯Á雷克思罗斯创作的影响, 外国文学研究, 2006 (4). Zhu, J. 白居易集笺校, 上海: 上海古籍出版社, 1988年版. English Bibliography 263

English Bibliography

Axelrod, S. G., Roman, C., & Travisano, T. J. (2003). The new anthology of American poetry: Traditions and revolutions. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press. Bamford, M. E. (1899). Ti: A story of San Francisco’s Chinatown. Chicago: D.C. Cook Pub. Co. Barnstone, T., & Chou, P. (2005). The anchor book of Chinese poetry: From ancient to contemporary, the full 3000-year tradition. New York: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group. Birch, C, ed. (1965). Anthology of Chinese literature: Volume I: From early times to the fourteenth century. New York: Grove Press. Bloom, H. (1988). Twentieth-century American literature. Langhorne: Chelsea House Publishers. Bosworth, C. E. (2001). A century of British orientalists 1902–2001. British Academy: Oxford University Press. Carus, P. (1902). Chinese philosophy: An exposition of the main characteristic features of Chinese thought. Chicago: The Open Court Publishing Company. Chisolm, L. W. (1963). Fenollosa: The far east and American culture. New Haven: Yale University Press. Classe, O. (2000). Encyclopedia of literary translation into english. Oxfordshire: Taylor & Francis Ltd. Cranmer-Byng, L. A., & Kapadia S. A. (Eds.). (1905–1923). Wisdom of the east series. London: John Murray. Dictionary of American Biography. (1929). New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons. Far Eastern Association (U.S.). (1969). The journal of Asian studies: Vols. for 1956–1968. Association for Asian Studies. Fogel, J. A. (2004). Herbert A. Giles and China: Introduction. Japan: Kurodahan Press c/o Intercom. France, P. (2000). The oxford guide to literature in english translation. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Giles, H. A. (1894). Chinese poetry in english verse. The nineteenth century, No. 203. Giles, H. A. (1923). 古文选珍/Gems of Chinese literature. London: Kelly & Walsh. Giles, H. A. (2002). China and the Chinese. Boston: Adamant Media Corporation. Girardot, N. J. (1999). Finding the way: James Legge and the victorian invention of taoism. Religion, 29, 107–121. Goodrich, J. K. (1913). Our neighbors: The Chinese. Browne & Howell Company. Hamill, S., & Morrow, B. (2003). The complete poems of Kenneth Rexroth. Washington: Copper Canyon Press. Hay, S. N. (1970). Asian ideas of east and west: Tagore and his critics in Japan, China, and India. Boston: Harvard University Press. Hopkins, L. C. (1917, October). Pictographic reconnaissance. London: From the Journal of the Boyat. Asiatic Society. Hsieh, C. L. (2004). Chinese poetry of Li Po set by four twentieth century British composers. Ph. D. Dissertation & the Ohio State University. Kern, R. (1996). Orientalism, modernism, and the American poem. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Kraft, J. (1995). Who was Witter Bynner?. New Mexico: University of New Mexico Press. Lehman, D., & Brehm, J. (2006). The oxford book of American poetry. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Leung, K. C. (1999). Chinese courtship: HuaJian Ji 花笺记 in english translation. Chinoperl Papers, 20–22. Lindsay, R. O. (1967). Witter Bynner: A bibliography. New Mexico: University of New Mexico Press. Liu, J. (1962). The art of Chinese poetry. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 264 English Bibliography

Liu, W., & Lo, I. Y. (1975). Sunﬂower splendor: Three thousand years of Chinese poetry. Tullamore: Midland Books. Mair, V. H, ed. (1994). The columbia anthology of traditional Chinese literature: From early times to the thirteenth century. New York: Columbia University Press. Mathers, E. P. (1918). Coloured stars: Love songs of Asia. New York: Alfred A. Knopf; Oxford: Basil Blackwell. Mathers, E. P. (1920). The garden of bright waters: One hundred and twenty Asiatic love poems. New York: Alfred A. Knopf; Oxford: Basil Blackwell. Miłosz, C. (1998). A book of luminous things: An international anthology of poetry. Toronto: Harcourt Brace & Co. Minford, J. L, & Joseph S. M, eds. (2000). Classical Chinese literature: An anthology of translations, volume I: From antiquity to the tang dynasty. New York and Hong Kong: Columbia University Press and the Chinese University of Hong Kong. Minford, J., & Lau, J. S. M. (2002). Classical Chinese literature: An anthology of translations. New York: Columbia University Press. Oriental Institute (Woking, England), East India Association (London, England). (1904). The imperial and Asiatic quarterly review and oriental and colonial record. Oriental Institute. Ousby, I., & Lessing, D. (1993). The Cambridge guide to literature in english. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Owen, S. (1977). The poetry of the early T’ang. New Haven: Yale University Press. Owen, S. (1981). The great age of Chinese poetry: The high T'ang. New Haven: Yale Univ Press. Owen, S. (1986). Remembrances: The experience of past in classical Chinese literature. Boston: Harvard University Press. Owen, S. (1996). An anthology of Chinese literature, beginnings to 1911. New York: W.W. Norton & Co. Owen, S. (1996). The end of the Chinese “middle ages”: Essays in mid-tang literary culture. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Owen, S. (2006). The late tang: Chinese poetry of the mid-ninth century (827–860. Boston: Harvard University Press. Pound, E. (1916). Lustra of ezra pound. London: E. Mathews. Pound, E. (1917). Passages from the letters of John Butler Yeats. Selected by ezra pound. Churchtown: Dundrum Cuala Press. Rexroth, K. (1991). Flower wreath hill: Later poems, (combines new poems and the morning star). New York: New Directions. Robbins, K. (1996). A bibliography of British history, 1914–1989. American Historical Association, Royal Historical Society (Great Britain): Oxford University Press. Ross, E. A. (1920). The changing Chinese, the conﬂict of oriental and western cultures in China. New York: Century Publication Company. Singleton, E. (1912). China as described by great writers. New York: Dodd, Mead and Company. Snyder, G. (1969). Riprap, & cold mountain poems. San Francisco: Four Seasons Foundation. Snyder, G., & McLean, W. S. (1980). The real work: Interviews & talks, 1964–1979. New York: New Directions Publishing. Speer, W. Rev. (1870). The oldest and the newest empire: China and the U.S. D.D. Hartford. The China review, or notes & queries on the far east, vol. 15 no. 4 (1887 Jan), pp. 239–240; Vol. 16 No. 3 (1887 Nov). Tietjens, E. H. (1934). Poetry of the orient: An anthology of the classic secular poetry of the major eastern nations. New York: A.A. Knopf. Townley, S. L. (1904). My Chinese note book. London: Mehtuen & Co. Untermeyer, L, eds. (1921). Modern American poetry. Harcourt: Brace and Company. Van Brooks, W. (1962). Fenollosa and his circle; with other essays in biography. New York: Dutton. Waley, A. D. (1919). The poet Li Po: A.D. 701–762. London, East and West Ltd. Waley, A. D. (1949). The life and times of Po Chu-I. London: George Allen & Unwin Ltd. English Bibliography 265

Watson, B. (1984). The columbia book of Chinese poetry: From early times to the thirteenth century. New York: Columbia University Press. Watters, T. (1889). Essays on the Chinese language. Shanghai: Presbyterian Mission Press. Webster, N. (1950). Dissertations on the english language: With notes, historical and critical, to which is added, by way of appendix, an essay on a reformed mode of spelling, with Dr. Franklin’s arguments on that subject. Springﬁeld, Mass: G. & C. Merriam Co. Weinberger, E., & Williams, W. C. (2004). The new directions anthology of classical Chinese poetry. New York: New Directions Publishing. Williams, O., & Honig, E. (1962). The mentor book of major American poets. New York: Penguin Group (USA) Incorporated. Wu, J. C. H. (1972). The four seasons of tang poetry. Rutland and Tokyo: Charles E. Tuttle Company. Xie, M. (1999). Ezra pound and the appropriation of Chinese poetry: Cathay, translation, and imagism. Routledge: Psychology Press. Yu, P. (2007). Travels of a culture: Chinese poetry and the European imagination. https://www. amphilsoc.org/sites/default/ﬁles/proceedings/1510206.pdf.