English rendition of Dream of the Red Chamber by Chinese translators
« previous post | next post »
[This is a guest post by William Jinbo WANG (王金波), associate professor of English and translation studies at Shanghai Jiao Tong University]
Over the past 22 years I have been researching the translation of classical Chinese novels, with concentration on The Dream of the Red Chamber (also known as The Story of the Stone; 18th-century) in the English- and German-speaking worlds. I have published more than a dozen research articles about the translation of the novel and received several research grants concerning the novel from various provincial and national grant-giving bodies.
I am writing to ask a puzzling question that has haunted me for more than two decades: Why did very few scholars (with the possible exception of Andre Levy, to the best of my knowledge) write a review of Yang and Yang's A Dream of Red Mansions when it came out between 1978-1980 while so many spoke so highly of David Hawkes and John Minford's version The Story of the Stone in scholarly journals? Howard Goldblatt, David Pollard, Ellen Widmer and John C. Y. Wang, to name just a few.
W. J. F. Jenner, in his essay entitled "Insuperable Barriers—Some Thoughts on the Reception of Chinese Writing in English Translation" (in Worlds Apart edited by Howard Goldblatt 1990) points out some problems of marketing and promotion when it comes to the Foreign Languages Press's translations. "Had the translations of Chinese classics by Yang Xianyi and Gladys Yang been properly published, some of them would have found their way into the category of books that educated readers feel they ought to have read even if in fact they have not."
Why was Yang and Yang's version not so well-received in the Anglophone sphere? Did you ever read this translation during your student days or early-stage professional career?
I would greatly appreciate it if you could oblige me with your opinion.
——————————
Afterword
Along with the text of his guest post, Professor William Jinbo WANG sent two recent articles exemplifying recent Chinese textual scholarship on A Dream of Red Mansions that is innovative and, to the best of my knowledge, has not yet been carried out in the West. Since this is new and valuable research that many readers may not be familiar with but are interested in, I will undertake to make available my pdfs to colleagues who want to look at them, or you may follow the DOI links provided below.
1.
Fan Shengyu (2018). "The Lost Translator’s Copy: David Hawkes’ Construction of a Base Text in Translating Hongloumeng," Translation Review, 100:1, 37-64.
Routledge / Taylor and Francis
DOI: 10.1080/07374836.2017.1399489
To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/07374836.2017.1399489
To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/07374836.2017.1399489
2.
Wang Jinbo (2020). "Back-Translation in Bilingual Editions of Chinese Classics: Creating an Original for Hong Lou Meng (A Dream of Red Mansions / The Story of the Stone)." Translation and Literature, 29 (2020), 355–71.
Edinburgh University Press Ltd
DOI: 10.3366/tal.2020.0436
(Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/utrv20
Selected readings
- "Hu Shih and Chinese language reform" (2/4/17)
- "Etymologizing and fantasizing: economy and relish" (2/26/22)
- "Nouns, verbs, and ontological metaphors" (1/5/17)
- "Perry Link on Chinese 'rhythm, metaphor, politics'" (5/13/13)
Chas Belov said,
March 27, 2025 @ 1:29 am
I'll admit to having only read The Story of the Stone. While I enjoyed it, it took me five years to complete it.
Mark Bender said,
March 27, 2025 @ 6:18 am
When living in China in the 1980s I read a number of works by translators in China, including Yang ang Yang and Sidney Shapiro issued by Beijing Foreign Languages Press. I always appreciated their work. Today, many versions of Chinese epics and folk literature (many from ethnic minority cultures) are published in various venues in China (often at provincial level), but receive little attention abroad — with some exceptions. I believe this is in part due to marketing and integration to global distribution systems.
Jonathan Smith said,
March 27, 2025 @ 7:58 am
"by Chinese translators"? Gladys Yang née Taylor was British. As was Hawkes of course. Also, the cited articles are centrally in translation studies.
But IDK HLM and don't know the answer to the author's interesting question. Academic snobbishness could be involved, or perhaps its simply the factors mentioned by Mark Bender (I am also familiar with Yang & Yang basically only in the form of translations of Lu Xun and such from bookstores/libraries in China.)
Or I guess Hawkes could just be clearly better? I can't find much to look at online fer free. I notice Gladys Yang's own review of Hawkes presents his version as far superior and their own as a "crib" by comparison — could be modesty of course but the Yangs are said to have run a speedy operation whereas Hawkes seems to have up and quit work for a decade or so to work on his (!?).
Jonathan Smith said,
March 27, 2025 @ 7:58 am
*Tayler
Robert Hegel said,
March 27, 2025 @ 9:59 am
I read the Yang and Yang version when it first appeared; it seemed that it concentrated on conveying the plot without addressing the nuances of language and characterization so central to this great novel. Its advantage was that it was complete, while the Hawkes-Minford version appeared over a span of years. Penguin books are available globally; FLP publications requires some special effort to find. Reviews of Story of the Stone would thus reach far more readers who could then access this translation through their local bookstore. That may not be the only reason, but it is a major reason that Red Mansions received far fewer reviews.
M. Paul Shore said,
March 28, 2025 @ 7:33 am
Does anyone know of any opinion that Patrick Hanan, with his great expertise on vernacular and semi-vernacular Chinese fiction, expressed regarding the relative merits of these translations?