ACTA UNIVERSITATIS CAROLINAE PHILOLOGICA 4/2017 AUC_Philologica_4_2017_5640.indd 1 12.03.18 13:59 AUC_Philologica_4_2017_5640.indd 2 12.03.18 13:59 ACTA UNIVERSITATIS CAROLINAE PHILOLOGICA 4/2017 Editors OLGA LOMOVÁ and LUKÁŠ ZÁDRAPA CHARLES UNIVERSITY KAROLINUM PRESS 2017 AUC_Philologica_4_2017_5640.indd 3 12.03.18 13:59 Editors: prof. PhDr. Olga Lomová, CSc. doc. Mgr. Lukáš Zádrapa, Ph.D. http://www.karolinum.cz/journals/philologica © Charles University, 2017 ISSN 0567-8269 (Print) ISSN 2464-6830 (Online) AUC_Philologica_4_2017_5640.indd 4 12.03.18 13:59 TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction. 7 Lukáš Zádrapa: Structural Metaphor at the Heart of Untranslatability in Ancient Chinese and Ancient Chinese Texts: A Preliminary Study of the Case of the Lexical Field of ‘Norm’. 11 Kateřina Gajdošová: The Turn Towards Philosophy in the Earliest Cosmologies: A Comparative Study of Selected Excavated Warring States-Period Manuscripts and Pre-Socratic Fragments . 51 Dušan Vávra: Translating Early Chinese Texts and the Problem of Contextualization: The Example of Chapter 1 of the Lǎozǐ . 63 Marcin Jacoby: Parable as a Tool of Philosophical Persuasion: Yùyán 寓言 in the Zhuāngzǐ in the Context of Late Warring States Period Chinese Literature . 85 Barbara Bisetto: Commentary and Translation: Exploring the Du lü yanyi 杜律演義 . 97 Frank Kraushaar: Fighting Swaying Imbalances of Powers: The Transformation of Spiritual Freedom in Tang Tales into Individual Freedom in Hou Hsiao-hsien’s The Assassin . 109 Ondřej Klimeš: China’s Cultural Soft Power: The Central Concept in the Early Xi Jinping Era (2012–2017). 127 Tribute to Jaroslav Průšek (1906–1980) Leo Ou-fan Lee: Unpacking Průšek’s Conception of the “Lyrical”: a Tribute and Some Intercultural Reflections . 151 Contributors. 167 AUC_Philologica_4_2017_5640.indd 5 12.03.18 13:59 AUC_Philologica_4_2017_5640.indd 6 12.03.18 13:59 INTRODUCTION The present volume brings together seven articles by scholars from the Czech Repub- lic, Italy, Latvia, and Poland. Some were recently presented at two conferences organized by the Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation International Sinological Center at Charles Uni- versity in Prague held to commemorate the twentieth anniversary of its existence. The article by Barbara Bisetto was first presented at a conference organized by Ca’Foscari University in Venice in collaboration with Beijing University, in which Charles University was also involved as a partner to both institutions. The first four articles deal with translation issues associated with ancient Chinese texts, approaching them from different perspectives and with different further agendas. In doing so, the authors attempt to mediate a better understanding of ancient Chinese cul- ture. The starting point of these explorations is the awareness of the limits of our present knowledge. Contextualized close reading is employed as the main tool for exploring the possibility of translating ancient Chinese culture into our current conceptual frameworks and making better sense of ancient China today. Lukáš Zádrapa, translator of the complete Hanfeizi and Xunzi into the Czech lan- guage, outlines a vast lexical field of terms within the broadly defined concept of ‘norm’ in his exploration of the (un)-translatability of ancient Chinese texts. The author dubs this study an “introductory survey,” even though it is highly detailed and draws from a vast amount of material. In it he indicates directions for further research, gathers basic material, and outlines a broadly based complex methodology rooted in the methods of cognitive linguistics as well as in classical philology. The author uses rich data from a variety of sources important for the history of Chinese thought and society, which enable him to present a broad picture of the distribution of the “norm-words” under investigation and their different usages in different textual contexts. On this basis he also proposes a tentative typology reflecting different streams of early Chinese thought. In the appendix he provides all relevant ancient Chinese ‘norm’ terms with a translation and brief explanation. Kateřina Gajdošová’s research adds to the ongoing debate about the nature of “philoso- phy” in ancient China. She sides with those who have recently challenged the assumption that ancient Chinese thought is “acosmotic” and somehow radically different from West- ern philosophy. Through close readings of relevant passages in excavated manuscripts she offers a microstudy of cosmological inquiry in early Chinese thought and juxtaposes it with Greek pre-Aristotelian traditions. She demonstrates the analogous points between 7 AUC_Philologica_4_2017_5640.indd 7 12.03.18 13:59 early Chinese and Greek thought and in doing so implicitly suggests the possibility of translating between these two cultures. Questions related to understanding and translating ancient Chinese concepts are also at the core of the second article by Dušan Vávra. His exploration, however, is much nar- rower; it concentrates on the much discussed first chapter of the Laozi and its key con- cepts. The main argument here is that proper understanding of a concept can be arrived at only by its proper contextualization. This means going beyond the usually adopted framework of a sentence, a chapter, or a book. For Vávra the syncretic nature of the Laozi is the point of departure for his inquiry, and he theorizes that given the presumed discursive diversity of the Laozi, specific passages have to be interpreted in relation to different discourse traditions presented in a variety of other ancient texts. Thus, he aligns the passage under discussion with the Guanzi and the Hanfeizi, and through comparison he arrives at a possible innovative understanding of the meaning of the key concepts in this chapter. He also critically examines existing translations and eventually proposes his own English version of this proverbially enigmatic text. Marcin Jacoby also proposes innovative translations of the word yuyan 寓言, which is both an ancient term encountered in the Zhuangzi and a concept that emerged in modern Chinese literary history. Jacoby approaches Chinese yuyan from a comparative perspective and uses Ruben Zimmermann’s study of the parables of Jesus as his point of reference. By examining the contents and function of yuyan-type narratives in early Chi- nese philosophical texts within this framework, the author proposes that a more suitable translation of this term is “parable” instead of the more common “fable.” A closer look at the “parables” in the Zhuangzi follows, in which their content, the embedding of yuyan in wider literary structures, and the systematic construction of the central persona of the presumed author, Zhuangzi, are all analyzed. This study reveals the book’s literary and philosophical achievements. These four probes into ancient Chinese philosophy, each with a relatively well-devel- oped comparative dimension, are followed by two articles addressing the phenomenon of translation within Chinese language and culture itself. Barbara Bisetto explores a four- teenth-century explicatory commentary on the poetry of eighth-century poet Du Fu as a case of intralingual translation. She places her discussion informed by general theories of intralingual translation within the context of the Chinese commentarial tradition. Examining in detail the commentaries that explain the meaning of Du Fu’s “Qiu xing ba shou 秋興八首” or “Autumn Meditations” cycle, she observes two main tendencies: either a direct explanation with mainly pedagogical aims, or a kind of translation of the poetic original into prose, where also new literary preoccupations are involved. In the end, she also assesses the impact of these tendencies on the way they make the original understood. Frank Kraushaar’s article discusses a recent Taiwanese film adaptation of a medieval Chinese story about the female assassin Nie Yingniang 聶隱娘. The author offers a new interpretation of the film informed by intimate knowledge of the original story (or rather stories, because the film adopts motifs and themes from at least two sources) and its his- torical background. Unlike Barbara Bisetto, Frank Kraushaar does not ponder theoretical translation issues, although his comparative reading of the source texts and the film in fact also presents a special type of translation that is made within the same language 8 AUC_Philologica_4_2017_5640.indd 8 12.03.18 13:59 space between different artistic forms and much more distant moments in time than the commentaries in Bisetto’s article. The last contribution to this volume by Ondřej Klimeš turns to contemporary China and explores the cultural soft power of the People’s Republic of China and its national image-building project. The author engages in a close reading of Chinese texts as the basis for further analysis. Working mainly with official sources from the period of Xi Jinping’s leadership, the author presents the rationale, values, and instruments of Chi- na’s cultural soft power strategy. He details how the explicit subordination of culture to political goals has so far undermined the CPC’s efforts to present China as a major cultural power. In the addendum to this volume an article by Leo Ou-fan Lee dedicated to Jaroslav Průšek is included, in which the author offers a rereading of groundbreaking research on modern Chinese literature by Jaroslav Průšek whose theoretical insights have made profound impact on the discipline and have remained a constant source of inspiration for Chinese literature studies. This essay is based on the author’s presentation during a gath- ering in Prague organized by the Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation International Sinologi- cal Center to commemorate Jaroslav Průšek’s anniversary in 2016. Olga Lomová 9 AUC_Philologica_4_2017_5640.indd 9 12.03.18 13:59 AUC_Philologica_4_2017_5640.indd 10 12.03.18 13:59 2017 ACTA UNIVERSITATIS CAROLINAE PAG. 11–50 PHILOLOGICA 4 / ORIENTALIA PRAGENSIA STRUCTURAL METAPHOR AT THE HEART OF UNTRANSLATABILITY IN ANCIENT CHINESE AND ANCIENT CHINESE TEXTS: A PRELIMINARY STUDY OF THE CASE OF THE LEXICAL FIELD OF ‘NORM’ LUKÁŠ ZÁDRAPA ABSTRACT The article is an initial complex study of the lexical field norm in Ancient Chinese with focus on the classical (Warring States) period.