www射-国产免费一级-欧美福利-亚洲成人福利-成人一区在线观看-亚州成人

chinadaily.com.cn
left corner left corner
China Daily Website

Crusading for recognition for 'work of literary genius'

Updated: 2013-04-23 10:20
By Kelly Chung Dawson in New York ( China Daily)

 Crusading for recognition for 'work of literary genius'

Top: David Tod Roy, professor of Chinese literature at the University of Chicago. Above: The cover of the fifth volume of The Plum in the Golden Vase, a Chinese classic literary work from the 16th century. The book has been seen as erotic and banned in China for a long time. Photos Provided to China Daily

In an office littered with thousands of notes inscribed on stacked paper flash cards, David Tod Roy has labored on what he calls his "life's work" for three decades.

Painstakingly poring over a 16th-century novel that in woodblock form ran more than 3,000 pages, the University of Chicago professor of Chinese literature has devoted the bulk of his career to the translation and annotation of Chin P'Jin Mei, or The Plum in the Golden Vase.

Written anonymously, the work focuses on a corrupt mobile merchant and his harem of six wives and concubines. While the book is most often recognized for its erotic realism, The Plum in the Golden Vase is a landmark book not only in the history of Chinese literature but world literature, Roy says. Its role in shaping the later (and arguably most famous of all Chinese novels) A Dream of Red Mansions is undeniable, he says.

"It's an extremely significant book," he says. "Every time I've taught this book, I've become more convinced of its importance and impressed by its rhetorical sophistication. Some people have viewed it purely as an erotic novel, but at the time it circulated among members of the educated elite and the literary avant-garde, who all recognized it for being a work of literary genius."

He first became aware of the novel as the teenage son of Presbyterian missionaries in Nanjing and Shanghai, where he studied at the Shanghai American School with his brother, former US ambassador to China J. Stapleton Roy. He later taught the work at Princeton University and the University of Chicago.

The Plum in the Golden Vase was groundbreaking for its focus on ordinary life in a middle-class family; earlier Chinese literature had focused only on emperors, powerful officials or figures in mythology. The book's incredibly detailed descriptions of daily life, dress, cuisine, legal malfeasance and yes, sexual activity - all make it a "rich sourcebook for any student of 16th-century society", Roy says.

As a language resource, the book is also remarkable for having documented the era's vernacular, from the refined speech of the elite to street slang and cuss words, he says.

But in keeping with a tradition that is entirely Chinese, the novel is more than the story at its surface, Roy says.

In Chinese literature, poets and novelists have often veiled their criticisms by not only changing the time period depicted in their work, but also through the use of metaphor and allusion. In The Plum in the Golden Vase, the merchant at the center of the plot likely stands for the emperor at the time the author was writing, Roy says. The six women of his household represent the six bureaus at the head of the imperial bureaucracy.

"The ancient Confucian belief was that if an emperor led a moral life, that would have a favorable effect on all of society, with the opposite being equally true: If the emperor was immoral, that would have a bad effect on the morals of the entire society, and you see that in smaller form with this family in the book," Roy says. "The author clearly believed that Chinese society at the time was corrupt from top to bottom, but employed criticism by indirection, as many writers did."

Although the novel was previously translated by Clement Egerton in 1938 (under the title The Golden Lotus), that version appeared partially in Latin (due to the sexual nature of the novel) and was more of a paraphrase of the book. With this translation, Roy has attempted to remain faithful to the original novel's text.

In the New York Review of Books, critic Jonathan Spence wrote: "Roy has made a major contribution to our overall understanding of the novel He has annotated the text with a precision, thoroughness and passion for detail that makes even a veteran reader of monographs smile with a kind of quiet disbelief."

David Rolston, a professor of Chinese literature at the University of Michigan who studied with Roy at the University of Chicago, noted the translator's mastery of both Chinese and English vocabulary and style.

"He is incredibly successful in finding dynamic equivalents between the languages," he said. "He has a magnificent control of language that you don't find in younger generations. This book has been a constant companion for him, and it's truly amazing to see someone whose entire career has been focused on one work at this level. Additionally, he has an enormous knowledge of previous literature."

The thousands of pop culture and literary references that appear in the original novel were mostly uncited. Roy traced and documented the original sources in a way that illuminates the book further than any other study has done, Rolston said. Those sources appear in Roy's translation as footnotes.

Roy compared the author's use of earlier works to the manner in which an artist might create a mosaic, and noted that the author James Joyce also injected his work with songs and references of his time.

He is extremely pleased with the increased interest in Chinese literature among Western readers, he says. He says that when he was a student, there were only four or five universities in the US with China programs.

"Things have changed very radically in the last half century, and needless to say, that's a very good thing," he says.

 

Crusading for recognition for 'work of literary genius'

Crusading for recognition for 'work of literary genius'

Death ends 'great love' for Shanghai 

'Frida Kahlo, the new face of Mexico' 

8.03K
 
 
...
...
...
主站蜘蛛池模板: 92av在线 | 久久国内精品自在自线软件 | 一二三区在线观看 | 欧美一区二区三区不卡免费观看 | 手机看片日韩日韩韩 | 日本一本黄 | 欧美成人看片黄a免费 | 日韩精品一区二区三区 在线观看 | 久久精品综合 | 偷拍小视频99在线 | 精品欧美日韩一区二区 | 亚洲精品中文一区不卡 | 成年男女男精品免费视频网站 | 亚洲图片一区二区 | 91精品国产乱码久久久久久 | 扒开两腿猛进入爽爽视频 | 国产另类视频 | 国产精品亚洲一区二区三区在线观看 | 亚洲精品综合在线 | 精品国产品香蕉在线观看 | 黄色aaaa| 在线免费观看一级片 | 欧美精品一区二区三区四区 | 亚洲第一中文 | 日韩视频在线观看 | 国产精品一区二区免费 | 草久视频在线观看 | 欧美三级黄 | 欧美中文在线 | 日本一级大毛片a一 | 中文字幕亚洲精品日韩精品 | 婷婷91 | 欧美成人高清性色生活 | 美女被爆免费视频软件 | 高清午夜线观看免费 | 国内视频一区 | 91精品成人福利在线播放 | 欧美最爽乱淫视频播放黑人 | 中文国产成人精品久久久 | 国产精品亚洲四区在线观看 | 日韩一区精品 |