Abstract
Since world literature is represented in different languages, translation has played an important role in reconstructing such world literatures in different languages and cultural backgrounds. In the past decades, the postcolonial literary attempts have also proved that even in the same language, for instance, English, literary writing is still more and more diversifying, hence the birth of international English literature studies. Thus the concept “world literature” is no longer determinate, for it has evolved in the historical development of literature of all countries. Today’s literary historiography is thereby pluralistically oriented: not only by means of nation-state, for instance, British literature and American literature, but also by means of language, such as (international) English literature(s), and (international) Chinese literature(s). Walter Benjamin, in dealing with the task of the (literary) translator, pertinently points out that translation endows a literary work with “continued life” or “afterlife”, without which many literary works of world significance will remain dead or marginalized. Inspired by Benjamin’s thinking of translation and Damrosch’s emphasis on the role played by translation in constructing world literature, the author lays particular emphasis on the translation of literary works which may well help form such a world literature. The reason why Chinese literature is little known to the world is largely for lack of excellent translation. The author thereby calls for translating Chinese literature into some of the major world languages.
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Notes
As far as the modernity of different forms, especially the so-called alternative modernity of Chinese characteristics is concerned, cf. Wang (2010a), especially pp. 13–20.
Moretti (2000, p. 54).
Ibid., p. 55.
Ibid.
I am particularly indebted to Damrosch’s threefold definition of world literature focused on the world, the text, and the reader. Cf. Damrosch (2003, p. 281).
Wang (2010b, p. 4).
Cf. Fokkema (2007, pp. 1290–1291).
Ibid., p. 1291.
Jameson (2008, p. 380).
Quoted from Haugen (1979, p. 3).
In order to commemorate the centennial of Ibsen’s death, the Center for Ibsen Studies at the University of Oslo and the Institute for Theater Studies at Freie Universität Berlin organized an international symposium on global Ibsen on October 2–5, 2006. Dozens of literary and theater scholars from Asia, Africa, Latin America, Europe and North America were invited to present the performance of Ibsen’s plays in their own countries. Cf. Fischer-Lichte et al. (2010). In the same year, there also appeared an “Ibsen fever” with three international conferences held and four of his major plays performed in China.
Derrida (1985, p. 176).
Cf. Wang (2010b, pp. 1–14)
For instance, in the Chinese context, the great reputation of M.H. Abrams is more based on his general editorship of the prestigious Norton Anthology of English Literature, used by many Chinese universities as one of the major references for English major, than on his authored book The Mirror and the Lamp which was not translated into Chinese until the end of the 1980s.
Of many such anthologies of world literature in Chinese, this version is most authoritative as it was formulated by the Ministry of Education as the national standard textbook on world literature for many years. Unlike the similar anthologies published in English, this anthology includes literatures of all the other countries except those from China. The general editor Zhou Xiliang (1905–1984) was a well-known literary professor from East China Normal University.
Moretti (2000, p. 66).
Jameson (2008, p. 379).
A Dream of Red Mansions, trans. Yang Xianyi and Gladys Yang, 4 vols. (Beijing: Foreign Languages Press, 2001), first published in three volumes in 1978–1980; The Story of the Stone (first eighty chapters translated by David Hawkes and last forty by John Minford, Penguin Classics or Bloomington: Indiana University Press, five volumes, 1973–1980).
Cf. Wang (2010c).
Venuti (1995, pp. 300–301).
As for the debate on the reevaluation of contemporary Chinese literature, cf. “Zhuanfang Chen Xiaoming: Chonggu Zhongguo dangdai wenxue jiazhi”(Reevaluating Contemporary Chinese Literature: An Interview with Chen Xiaoming), http://www.literature.org.cn/Article.aspx?ID=52383.
References
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Derrida, J. (1985). Des Tours de Babel. In Difference in translation (J. F. Graham, Ed., Trans.). Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
Fischer-Lichte, E., et al. (2010). (Eds.), Global Ibsen: Performing multiple modernities. New York: Routledge.
Fokkema, D. (2007). World literature. In R. Robertson & J. A. Scholte (Eds.), Encyclopedia of globalization. New York: Routledge.
Haugen, E. (1979). Ibsen’s drama: Author to audience. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Jameson, F. (2008). New literary history after the end of the new. New Literary History, 39(3), 375–387.
Moretti, F. (2000). Conjectures on world literature. New Left Review, 1, 54–66.
Venuti, L. (1995). The translator’s invisibility: A history of translation. New York: Routledge.
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Wang, N. (2010b). World literature and the dynamic function of translation. Modern Language Quarterly, 71(1), 1–14.
Wang, N. (2010c). Zhongguo wenxue ruhe youxiao di zouxiang shijie? (How Chinese literature effectively moves toward the world?), Zhongguo yishu bao (China Art Gazette), March 19, 2010.
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Wang, N. “Weltliteratur”: from a utopian imagination to diversified forms of world literatures. Neohelicon 38, 295–306 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11059-011-0098-5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11059-011-0098-5