Abstract
The study of Ulysses’ reception and translation in China not only provides an example of actually-existing “global modernism”, but also constitutes a key site for understanding the dynamics of world literature in its historical, ideological, and political dimensions. One of the main vehicles shaping the dynamics of world literature is translation. This is particularly clear in the history of Ulysses translation in China, which can help us discern this dynamics all the more clearly. The present article traces the journey of Ulysses to China’s Mainland, exploring how and why the Irish novel for a long span of time was ignored and rejected in the country, but finally acquired the status of a masterpiece in China’s realm of literature. The author attempts to examine the history of Ulysses translation in terms of André Lefevere’s ideology, patronage and poetics, paying special attention to the shaping force of political ideology, which was responsible not only for the overall neglect of the novel in China’s Mainland before 1949, its rejection and condemnation before the 1980s, but also its gradual legitimacy of translation and total acceptance after 1976.
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Notes
- 1.
The Modernism Lab at Yale University, please refer to http://modernism.research.yale.edu/wiki/index.php/Joyce_and_Ulysses.
- 2.
In the words of Booker (2000, p. 1), “…despite his perceived position at the center of the canon of British modernism, Joyce himself was a colonial, and later postcolonial, writer. The British imperial domination of Ireland is therefore understandably one of the important subtexts of Joyce’s work. In fact, a close examination shows that imperialism may be far more central as a political focus of Joyce’s writing than critics have generally appreciated until very recently. In Ulysses, the locus classicus of this observation is Stephen Dedalus’s bitter complaint to the visiting English scholar Haines that he (and presumably the Irish in general) is “a servant of two masters, … an English and an Italian” (1.638). Stephen then explains that by this answer he means “the imperial British state …and the holy Roman catholic and apostolic church” (1.643–4). Stephen thus succinctly diagnoses the two major sources of oppression in Ireland, an identification that will remain crucial throughout Ulysses.”
- 3.
Fiction Monthly, or Xiaoshuo Yuebao in Chinese, was initiated for its first publication in July 1910 in Shanghai, with Commercial Press as its main publisher. Before May 4, 1919, it was a magazine for the literary school of “Mandarin Ducks and Butterflies”, who are well-known for their populist and romantic writing. From the first issue of Volume 12 in 1921, with Mao Dun working as its chief editor, the content of the magazine was entirely transformed, for he promoted a literature representing life, and improving people’s life, and turned away from literature for entertainment. Fiction Monthly, the first of its kind with the greatest influence for new literature in China, has since become the official magazine of China’s Institute of Literary Studies.
- 4.
Monthly of Literature and Art, or Wenyi Yuekan (《文艺月刊》) in Chinese, started publication on August 15, 1930 in Nanjing, and was edited and published by China’s Art and Literature Society which was under the direct leadership of the Central Publicity Department of the Kuomintang (KMT), the Chinese Nationalist Party. It remained an influential magazine for its large scale and length in mainland China until its last issue in November 1941.
- 5.
Shenbao Newspaper, or Shenbao, was initiated by the British businessman Ernest Major and started publication on April 30, 1872 in Shanghai during the Qing Dynasty, and had several consecutive owners in history. The last owner of the newspaper was the Chinese Nationalist Party. From the very beginning, Shenbao Newspaper had been the most influential commercial newspaper of the country and with the greatest circulation in China for 78 years until 1949 when the newspaper stopped publication as part of the legacy of the Nationalist Party with the downfall of the Nationalist Party.
- 6.
Reading Life, or Dushu Shenghuo in Chinese, was a biweekly in the 1930s created by Li Gongpu and so on influenced by “Left Wing Writers” under the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party. At that time, Shenbao Newspaper, the most influential newspaper whose voice against the Japanese invaders had been most loud and clear, came to be controlled by the Chinese Nationalist Party. So Li Gongpu started Reading Life to educate the readers at the bottom of the society with revolutionary ideas as well as knowledge in various areas.
- 7.
This quotation as well as the following ones from Chinese sources has been translated from Chinese into English by the author of the present paper.
- 8.
http://www.marxists.org/subject/art/lit_crit/sovietwritercongress; accessed on July 31, 2014.
- 9.
“The Gang of Four” was the name given to a political faction composed of four people who came to prominence during the Cultural Revolution (1966–76) and were subsequently charged with a series of crimes including culture autocracy. The members consisted of Mao’s wife Jiang Qing, the leading figure of the group, and her close associates Zhang Chunqiao, Yao Wenyuan, and Wang Hongwen.
- 10.
Foreign Literature Review, or Waiguo Wenxue Pinglun in Chinese, created in 1979 by the Foreign Literature Research Institute of China’s Academy of Social Science, one of the leading and authoritative academic journal devoted to the study of contemporary foreign literature.
- 11.
Dushu, or Reading, is a Chinese literary magazine. First published in April 1979 with its leading article “No forbidden zone in Reading”, it has great influence on Chinese intellectuals. Circulation rose from 50,000 to 80,000 in five or six years.
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Acknowledgements
I would like to thank Nathan Hensley in Georgetown University, for his inspiring guidance and his perceptive readings of several drafts of this paper, without whom the paper would not have been written. I also want to thank Qianchun Yu who provided encouragement and welcome advice. I also wish to express my heart-felt appreciation to Ronald Schleifer for his insightful critique and invaluable guidance on this paper in his academic seminar in Shanghai International Studies University in July, 2014.
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Sun, H. (2019). The Journey of Ulysses to China’s Mainland. In: Han, Z., Li, D. (eds) Translation Studies in China. New Frontiers in Translation Studies. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-7592-7_14
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