This book examines the development of English-translated Tang poetry and its propagation to the Western world. It consists of two parts, the first of which addresses the initial stage of English-translated Tang poetry’s propagation, and the second exploring its further development. By analyzing the historical background and characteristics of these two stages, the book traces the trend back to its roots, discusses some well-known early sinologists and their contributions, and familiarizes readers with the general course of Tang poetry’s development. In addition, it presents the translated versions of many Tang poems. The dissemination of Tang poetry to the Western world is a significant event in the history of cross-cultural communication. From the simple imitation of poetic techniques to the acceptance and identification of key poetic concepts, the Tang poetry translators gradually constructed a classic “Chinese style” in modern American poetry. Hence, the traditional Chinese culture represented by Tang poetry spread more widely in the English-speaking world, producing a more lasting impact on societies and cultures outside China – and demonstrating the poetry’s ability to transcend the boundaries of time, region, nationality and culture. Due to different cultural backgrounds, the Tang poets or poems admired most by Western readers may not necessarily receive high acclaim in China. Sometimes language barriers and cultural differences make it impossible to represent certain allusions or cultural and ethnic concepts correctly during the translation process. However, in recent decades, the translation of Tang poetry has evolved considerably in both quantity and quality. As culture is manifested in language, and language is part of culture, the translation of Tang poetry has allowed Western scholars to gain an unprecedented understanding of China and Chinese culture.

The Routledge Companion to Transnational American Studies provides scholars and students of American Studies with theoretical and applied essays that help to define Transnational American Studies as a discipline and practice. In more than 30 essays, the volume offers a history of the concept of the "transnational" and takes readers from the Barbary frontier to Guam, from Mexico's border crossings to the intifada's contested zones. Together, the essays develop new ways for Americanists to read events, images, sound, literature, identity, film, politics, or performance transnationally through the work of diverse figures, such as Confucius, Edward Said, Pauline Hopkins, Poe, Faulkner, Michael Jackson, Onoto Watanna, and others. This timely volume also addresses presidential politics and interpictorial US history from Lincoln in Africa, to Obama and Mandela, to Trump. The essays, written by prominent global Americanists, as well as the emerging scholars shaping the field, seek to provide foundational resources as well as experimental and forward-leaning approaches to Transnational American Studies.

A new expanded edition of the classic study of translation, finally back in print

In this "guided" anthology, experts lead students through the major genres and eras of Chinese poetry from antiquity to the modern time. The volume is divided into 6 chronological sections and features more than 140 examples of the best shi, sao, fu, ci, and qu poems. A comprehensive introduction and extensive thematic table of contents highlight the thematic, formal, and prosodic features of Chinese poetry, and each chapter is written by a scholar who specializes in a particular period or genre. Poems are presented in Chinese and English and are accompanied by a tone-marked romanized version, an explanation of Chinese linguistic and poetic conventions, and recommended reading strategies. Sound recordings of the poems are available online free of charge. These unique features facilitate an intense engagement with Chinese poetical texts and help the reader derive aesthetic pleasure and insight from these works as one could from the original. The companion volume How to Read Chinese Poetry Workbook presents 100 famous poems (56 are new selections) in Chinese, English, and romanization, accompanied by prose translation, textual notes, commentaries, and recordings. Contributors: Robert Ashmore (Univ. of California, Berkeley); Zong-qi Cai; Charles Egan (San Francisco State); Ronald Egan (Univ. of California, Santa Barbara); Grace Fong (McGill); David R. Knechtges (Univ. of Washington); Xinda Lian (Denison); Shuen-fu Lin (Univ. of Michigan); William H. Nienhauser Jr. (Univ. of Wisconsin); Maija Bell Samei; Jui-lung Su (National Univ. of Singapore); Wendy Swartz (Columbia); Xiaofei Tian (Harvard); Paula Varsano (Univ. of California, Berkeley); Fusheng Wu (Univ. of Utah)

Contains English translations of Chinese writings drawn from throughout a period of four hundred years, including poems, drama, fiction, songs, biographies, and early works of philosophy and history; arranged chronologically and by genre, with introductory quotes and comments.

This collected volume focuses on the history of Western translation of premodern Chinese texts from the seventeenth to the twentieth century. Divided into three parts, nine chapters feature close readings of translated texts, micro-studies of how three translations came into being, and broad-based surveys that inquire into the causes of historical change. Among the specific questions addressed are: What stylistic, generic, and discursive permutations were undergone by Chinese texts as they crossed linguistic borders? Who were the main agents in this centuries-long effort to transmit Chinese culture to the West? How did readership considerations affect the form that particular translations take? More generally, the contributors are concerned with the relevance of current research paradigms, like those of World Literature, transcultural reception, and the rewriting of translation history.

Of Mind and Machine provides a broad perspective on multi-level dialogic engagements between text and reader as seen from the use of language in presenting information to generate a discursive experience in various sociocultural settings. The book observes contexts such as national literature in translation, diplomatic speech events, visual-verbal inter-semiotic translation, second language learning, interpreter training, and computer-aided teaching of translation and bilingual writing. These present a unifying interest in textual accountability between form, function, and effect that has been examined from a dual perspective of rhetoric and pragmatics. The research embodies a significant prospect of integration of academic originality with technological innovation to advance language education in the present digital era. Theoretically well-founded, the book does not confine itself to a self-contained system of conceptions and methods. Instead, it demonstrates a rich variety of research possibilities in support of theorisation and education in the field of language and translation studies. This edited volume is primarily intended for advanced undergraduates, postgraduates, researchers, and teachers within the fields of language and translation, applied linguistics, and discourse analysis.

Lyrical translations of two famous Chinese works - Chu Sun's Three Hundred Poems of the T'ang and the Tao Te Ching - as interpreted by renowned poet Witter Bynner.

In The Making of Chinese-Sinophone Literatures as World Literature, Kuei-fen Chiu and Yingjin Zhang aim to bridge the distance between the scholarship of world literature and that of Chinese and Sinophone literary studies. This edited volume advances research on world literature by bringing in new developments in Chinese/Sinophone literatures and adds a much-needed new global perspective on Chinese literary studies beyond the traditional national literature paradigm and its recent critique by Sinophone studies. In addition to a critical mapping of the domains of world literature, Sinophone literature, and world literature in Chinese to delineate the nuanced differences of these three disciplines, the book addresses the issues of translation, genre, and the impact of media and technology on our understanding of “literature” and “literary prestige.” It also provides critical studies of the complicated ways in which Chinese and Sinophone literatures are translated, received, and reinvested across various genres and media, and thus circulate as world literature. The issues taken up by the contributors to this volume promise fruitful polemical interventions in the studies of world literature from the vantage point of Chinese and Sinophone literatures. “An outstanding volume full of insights, with chapters by leading scholars from an admirable range of perspectives, Chiu and Zhang’s The Making of Chinese-Sinophone Literatures as World Literature expertly integrates Chinese and Sinophone studies with world literature scholarship, opening numerous possibilities for future analyses of literature, media, and cultural history.” —Karen L. Thornber, Harvard University “This book is, at once, the best possible introduction to recent debates on world literature from the perspective of Chinese-Sinophone literatures, and a summa critica that thinks through their transcultural drives, global travels, varied worldings, and translational forces. The comparative perspectives gathered here accomplish the necessary and urgent task of reconfiguring both the idea of the world in world literature and the ways we study the inscriptions of Chinese-Sinophone literatures in the world.” —Mariano Siskind, Harvard University

Selected for Choice's list of Outstanding Academic Books for 1997. A comprehensive overview of China's 3,000 years of literary history, from its beginnings to the present day. After an introductory section discussing the concept of literature and other features of traditional Chinese society crucial to understanding its writings, the second part is broken into five major time periods (earliest times to 100 c.e.; 100-1000; 1000-1875; 1875-1915; and 1915 to the present) corresponding to changes in book production. The development of the major literary genres is traced in each of these periods. The reference section in the cloth edition includes an annotated bibliography of more than 120 pages; the paper edition has a shorter bibliography and is intended for classroom use.