Politics vs. poetics

Abstract



Up to now, in the field of translation studies, late Qing translated fictions have still been termed by many scholars as “liberal translation” or “domesticating practice” lacking literary values, or generalized by some others as “rewriting” or “manipulation” completely distorting the originals, which has led to an undervaluation of those works. In the field of historical studies, although researchers have attached much importance to late Qing translations like Yan Fu’s renditions of social and political theories which had profound impact on Chinese intellectual history, translated fictions are still beyond their sight. Based on my critique of previous studies, this research attempts to study five late Qing Chinese translations of Robinson Crusoe from the perspective of intellectual history to explore the historical significance of those works.

As one of the most frequently translated fictions at that time, Robinson Crusoe drew the attention of many Chinese intellectuals because of its ideological significance rather than literary values. On the one hand, aiming at publicizing new ideas to readers under influence of Chinese tradition, late Qing translators tried to deal with the contradictions between new ideas and traditional ideas, thus showing their cultural stance. On the other hand, influenced by the elites’ proposal of enlightening common people with fictions, translators endeavored to bridge the gap between elite discourse and popular culture, thus reflecting the extent of the reception of elites’ ideas.

Based on textual and contextual comparisons, it is easy to see that the translators all looked to the novel, Robinson Crusoe, for national salvation, believing that their renditions would be able to arouse adventurous spirit among Chinese people, and tried to reshape the relation between citizen, nation, family and the self in their renditions. First, they either made Crusoe a patriot or linked the adventure with national salvation although in the original, Crusoe’s adventure has no relation with nationalism. Second, the translators all advocated a new ethical idea by, on the one hand, defending Crusoe’s disobedience to his father and, on the other hand, changing his lack of filial affection. Third, as the economic and puritan individualism Crusoe embodied in the original conflicted with Chinese ethics, all translators transformed the individualist into either Confucian or altruist. Thus the translators’ changes, additions, deletions and explanations in and out of the renditions fully showed the trend of thought in late Qing from the perspective of intellectual history.

Obviously, different late Qing translators of Robinson Crusoe tackled the same cultural conflicts in similar ways, which offers us an opportunity to study late Qing translated fictions systematically. In so doing, the new mode of study enhances our understanding of the general trend of thought in late Qing and the historical significance of late Qing translated fictions.