Sep 2009, Volume 3 Issue 3
    

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  • Research articles
    The Chinese version of “intellectual”
    2009, 3(3): 321-347. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11702-009-0013-x
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    The source, evolution, application and characteristics of the Chinese concept “zhishi fenzi” 知识分子 are well worth further exploration. Meanwhile, the development and meaning of the Western concept “intellectual” throughout the history are discussed in the article to provide better understanding of its historical evolution and theoretical researches, and to reveal misunderstanding and mistaken views about this concept in China’s academic circles. The disparity between the concept of “zhishi fenzi” in China and in the West lies in not only the history of concept but also that of thought whereas the translation of “intellectual” into “zhishi fenzi” is the problem of understanding. The concept history of “zhishi fenzi” clearly shows that it is a self-contained notion that can stand alone with its Chinese source and characteristics.
  • Research articles
    On Qianzi wen in the Sinological literary history of Asia
    2009, 3(3): 348-364. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11702-009-0014-9
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    Qianzi wen exerted great influence in Japan. Nowadays, experts find it necessary to further study the numerous and diverse sequels of Qianzi wen, because no systematic research had actually been made on them. This article, focusing on the spread of Qianzi wen in Korean Peninsula and Japan, is intended to discuss its influence on East Asian literature, especially on Sinological literature.
  • Research articles
    Transforming Oriental classics into Western canon —Waley’s translation of classical Chinese poems and its prevalence and canonization in Europe and America
    2009, 3(3): 365-380. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11702-009-0015-8
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    As one of the greatest British translators and Sinologists of the 20th century, Arthur Waley (1889−1966) translated many Oriental classics and exerted a deep and profound impact on Western literary culture. His translations of classical Chinese poems won him the Queen’s Medal for Poetry in 1953 and were not only well received in the academic world but also highly praised by prominent contemporary poets such as Yeats, Pound, Woolf and Mervin. Indeed, his versions of Chinese poems were ranked highly as English poems in their own right and included in several popular anthologies and ESL textbooks. Furthermore, his English translations proved popular enough to be translated into various other Western languages and set to music. Both academic and commercial publishers competed for the right to publish his translations, which sold well and enjoyed high circulation in both university and public libraries. Thus, Western authors and scholars became accustomed to citing his translations, while poets looked to them as an important resource in their poetic compositions. In addition to the prevalence and canonization of Waley’s translations in the West, Waley’s translation is notable and significant when we contemplate the confluence between the East and West, the process of cultural globalization, and the role that literary translation played in this process.
  • Research articles
    The influence and misreading of Brecht in China
    2009, 3(3): 381-399. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11702-009-0016-7
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    Bertolt Brecht was one of the most famous and one the most controversial dramatists of the 20th century. Brecht, who had great influence on the development of drama in China in the New Period (the period after the end of the Cultural Revolution), also brought many problems. Those problems also made different people in Chinese theatrical circles have different opinions of Brecht. Some scholars think that the introduction of Brecht’s plays in the New Period was “a historical mistake”. Some even doubt if Brecht’s theory met artistic law, or if Brecht’s plays are of value. Why was Brecht so popular in the Chinese theatrical circles in the New Period? What does Brecht mean to Chinese drama? Why was Brecht misread in China? Did Chinese drama really need Brecht? This article offers serious reflections and analysis of those questions.
  • Research articles
    An investigation into the stylistic features and principles of the seven-characters-a-line poetry in the Han and Wei Dynasties
    2009, 3(3): 400-454. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11702-009-0017-6
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    As the Han Dynasty gave way to the Wei Dynasty, new views emerged on the practice of metrical compositions in the structural transformation of four-character and three-character phrases into expressions that were compounded from shizi 实字 (the content word), or could stand alone in the grammatical sense. The research is conducted on the rhythmical correlation between the two expressions, which accounts for the common phenomenon for both folk songs and proverbs and the poetry that emulates the style of Lisao 离骚 (The Sorrow at the Estrangement), and this forms the background with which the rhythmical patterns are in gestation for the poems with seven characters to a line. The principles that influence the patterned rhythms determine the stylistic features that characterize the artistic structure during the initial stage, which is built upon a cluster of discrete sentences to be joined or even on a single self-contained line in isolation, through which the thread of the common narrative was not likely to run. This remarkable achievement was undertaken in a few poetic works with seven characters to a line composed at the end of the Eastern Han Period, which transcended the limitations exposed in the style itself, and which prepared society for the gradual acceptance of the genre in its narrative and lyrical application. This experience did not develop fully in contrast to the poetry with five characters per line, which had a different origin and in which was fundamentally based on the belated development of poetry with seven characters to a line during the Han and Wei Dynasties.
  • Research articles
    The abridgement of famous Tang Dynasty poetry by later generations
    2009, 3(3): 455-478. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11702-009-0018-5
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    Some famous Tang Dynasty poems were once abridged by later generations. The earliest abridgements occurred in the Tang Dynasty because the music officials in charge of music intended to make the poems suitable for singing. However, the success of some abridgements was attributed to literary creation. Among the various abridgements of the famous Tang poems, the most successful instances formed a truncated verse by segmenting four lines from the original works. The author holds that this phenomenon in literary history indicated the pursuit of terseness, which was a popular feature of ancient Chinese poetic creation. Moreover, it also reflected the later poets’ criticism and amended the artistic criterion of the Tang poetry.