The true identity of the first Chinese translator of Lady Chatterley's Lover
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There has long been a suspicion that the first Chinese translator of Lady Chatterley's Lover (1928/1932), Ráo Shùyī 饒述一, about whom next to nothing is known, was actually the scholar and theoretician of aesthetics, Zhū Guāngqián 朱光潛 (1897-1986).
To give a little bit of background about the nature of the two translations of the novel, here is the abstract of a recent scholarly article comparing them:
This article discusses how sex-related content is rendered in two Chinese translations of D. H. Lawrence's Lady Chatterley's Lover: Rao Shuyi (1936) and Zhao Susu (2004). It is found that Rao's translation features explicitness, flexibility and Europeanization, while Zhao's translation features conservativeness and domestication. And the observed features in the two translations regarding sex-related content are explained from perspectives of social and historical background, translation purpose and intended readership, and patronage. Index Terms–Lady Chatterley's Lover, translation, sexuality
Zhu, Kun. "The Translation of Sex-related Content in Lady Chatterley's Lover in China." Theory and Practice in Language Studies, vol. 10, no. 8, Aug. 2020, pp. 933+. Gale Literature Resource Center.
For those who are interested, the title of D. H. Lawrence's novel in Chinese is 《Chátàilái fūrén de qíngrén 查泰萊夫人的情人》.
Decades ago, I was aware of this controversial mystery over who the first Chinese translator was, and I poked around a bit to try to solve it, but got nowhere fast. Furthermore, my mentor, Patrick Hanan, who was extremely learned about Chinese esthetics and esoteric fiction, though he solved many other problems surrounding the authorship of Chinese literary works, to the best of my knowledge never attempted to figure this one out. So I have decided, rather than flailing around undertaking deep research on Zhu Guangqian, to put it to the collective readership of Language Log, where surely there are others who are far more qualified to work on it than I, including my close friend and colleague, also surnamed Zhū 朱, namely, Zhū Qìngzhī 朱慶之.
Selected readings
- "Linguistic divergence and convergence" (4/17/18) — Lady Chatterley's Lover, which despite its reputation has more in it about linguistic ideology than about sex
- "'We are all the other now'" (11/8/12) — [(bgz) OED has the sexual euphemism from 1922, in two quotes from Joyce's Ulysses: "They would be just good friends like a big brother and sister without all that other" and "Bit light in the head. Monthly or effect of the other." It's also in Lady Chatterley's Lover: "She loved me to talk to her and kiss her… But the other, she just didn't want."]
- Roger Shuy, "Code-Switching in Lady Chatterly's Lover", York Papers in Linguistics 1980.
[h.t. shaing tai]
Mirlo said,
July 15, 2024 @ 8:50 am
The mystery is, while Zhū Guāngqián was still alive, and the Cultural Revolution has ended, apparently no scholars have brought forward this mystery to Zhū. I suppose Zhū Guāngqián could give a direct answer to this question.