Displaying items by tag: comparative literature

Space and spatiality have been significant coordinates in the study of translation in the West. The concept has long been included in humanities and social sciences too by scholars like Edward Soja (1989); Warf & Arias (2009). This panel aims to question how the concept of “geo” features in translation and analyse translation as a point of intersection and relationality that redefines our concepts of spatial axis and territorial coordinates. This panel will try to bring in disciplines of geometry and geography to the terrain of translation studies and thus include alternative models to expand the field. The etymological origin of ‘geometry’ traces back to the Greek word geometria or “measurement of earth or land”. Similarly ‘geography’ originates from Greek word geographia which means “description of the earth's surface”. The prefix trans- of ‘translation’ means ‘to go beyond’, ‘on the other side’. Thus, when taken together, translation from the geographical and geometrical perspective alludes to the question of movement in terms of land or space. If we take the model of Euclidean Geometry, then the western concept of translational act as a spatial flow can be understood from a geometrical angle as a process of distance-preserving/distance-altering transformation between two metrical/geographical spaces. Again, translation, as a political activity, determines how communities are mapped by their cultural other and as such points out how the binaries of the centre and periphery construct our worldviews based on asymmetrical power relations. Michael Cronin (2000), while exploring the relationship between translation and geographical spaces, has meticulously considered movement both in the context of territorial and narrative space and analysed it through the lens of language. Federico Italiano (2016) has examined how Western spatial imaginations constructed through literary works have been translated across languages, media and epochs and created the idea of the world through cultural differences.

This book investigates the English translations and adaptations of the sixteenth century classic Chinese novel Jin Ping Mei. Acclaimed the ‘No.1 Marvellous Book’ of the Ming dynasty, Jin Ping Mei was banned soon after its appearance, due to the inclusion of graphically explicit sexual descriptions. So far there have been more than a dozen English adaptations and translations of the novel.

Working within the framework of descriptive translation studies, this book provides a translational history of the English versions of Jin Ping Mei, supported by various paratexts, including book covers, reviews, and archival materials. It also conducts textual comparisons to uncover the translation norms at work in the only two complete renditions, namely The Golden Lotus by Clement Egerton and The Plum in the Golden Vase by David Roy. The notions of agency, habitus and capital are introduced for the examination of the transference of linguistic, literary and cultural aspects of the two translations.

The book represents the first systematic research effort on the English Translations of Jin Ping Mei. Given its pioneering status and interdisciplinary nature, the data, structure and findings of this book will potentially enrich the fields of Translation Studies, Comparative Literature, Chinese Studies, Cultural Studies and Book History.

This book investigates the English translations and adaptations of the sixteenth century classic Chinese novel Jin Ping Mei. Acclaimed the ‘No.1 Marvellous Book’ of the Ming dynasty, Jin Ping Mei was banned soon after its appearance, due to the inclusion of graphically explicit sexual descriptions. So far there have been more than a dozen English adaptations and translations of the novel.

Working within the framework of descriptive translation studies, this book provides a translational history of the English versions of Jin Ping Mei, supported by various paratexts, including book covers, reviews, and archival materials. It also conducts textual comparisons to uncover the translation norms at work in the only two complete renditions, namely The Golden Lotus by Clement Egerton and The Plum in the Golden Vase by David Roy. The notions of agency, habitus and capital are introduced for the examination of the transference of linguistic, literary and cultural aspects of the two translations.

The book represents the first systematic research effort on the English Translations of Jin Ping Mei. Given its pioneering status and interdisciplinary nature, the data, structure and findings of this book will potentially enrich the fields of Translation Studies, Comparative Literature, Chinese Studies, Cultural Studies and Book History.