英汉双解莎士比亚大词典︱APPENDICES 附录 VI.Shakespeare in China (A Brief Survey)莎士比亚在中国(简况)

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APPENDICES 附录 VI.Shakespeare in China (A Brief Survey)莎士比亚在中国(简况)

Shakespeare has been introduced to China for 140 years and has become now the best-known western dramatistamong Chinese readers and audience. 　In 1856,William Muirhead, then a British missionary in China, mentioned Shakespeare in his Chinese transla-tion of a history of England. In 1897-1898, Yan Fu, the famous translator of western books of social sciences, men-tioned Shakespeare as a great poet and dramatist in his free translation of T. H. Huxley's “Evolution and Ethics”.In 1904, Lin Shu, translator of a great number of western literary works, published his translation of “Tales fromShakespeare” by Mary and Charles Lamb. In 1916, he translated or rather adapted Shakespeare's “Henry IV”，“Henry VI”， “Richard II” and “Julius Caesar” into Chinese prose novels. The standard Chinese translation ofShakespeare's name (莎士比亚) was made by Liang Qichao, sometimes called “the first enlightener of modern Chi-na”， almost a century ago. 　But these facts merely constitute a prelude or prologue to the formal introduction of Shakespeare to Chinesereaders and audience, about which I would like to talk from 3 aspects, i.e. translation, performance and study.I. Translation of Shakespeare's Plays: 　1. After the May 4th Movement in 1919, which has sometimes been called the beginning of the Chinese Re-naissance, the translation of Shakespeare entered a new stage, and reached its first high-tide during the 20's and 30'swhen Chinese translators usually rendered Shakespeare's dramatic poetry into vernacular Chinese prose. But duringthe 40's, some of them made experiments in translating Shakespeare's blank verse into somewhat similar rhythmicChinese poetry. 　Tian Han, one of the founders of modern Chinese drama, first translated Shakespeare's plays into vernacularChinese plays. His versions of “Hamlet” (1921) and “Romeo and Juliet” (1924) ushered in a new stage in the trans-lation of Shakespeare. Another important translator of Shakespeare is Liang Shiqiu, whose translating career begani mid-30's, carried on during the 40's and 50's, and finally resulted in the publication of a complete Chinese versionof all Shakespeare's works, drama, poetry and all, in 1967, in Taiwan. 　Zhu Shenghao, a college graduate and young poet of the late 30's, embarked on translating Shakespeare's com-plete works into Chinese during the years of the War Against Japanese Aggression. Under unspeakable difficultiesand in serious illness, he succeeded, before his death at 33, in translating 31 of Shakespeare's plays into beautifulChinese prose verging on poetry. His translation has been most widely read and loved by Chinese readers, and he isjustifiably regarded as a hero and martyr in the translation of Shakespeare, just as William Tyndal was a hero andmartyr in the translation of the English Bible. 　In 1944, Cao Yu. the most famous dramatist of modern China, made a translation of “Romeo and Juliet” invernacular Chinese poetry. His version remains one of the most beautiful renderings of Shakespeare in China. 　Sun Dayu, a veteran poet and learned scholar of Shakespeare, published his monumental Chinese translation of“King Lear” in late 40's. His work marked a higher stage in the translation of Shakespeare, i.e. the stage of trans-lating Shakespeare's blank verse into Chinese poetry of somewhat similar metre and rhythm. 　2. After 1949.the year of the founding of the Chinese People's Republic,the two most important events in thetranslating of Shakespeare were the publication of Liang Shiqiu's version of Complete Shakespeare in Taiwan in1967, and the publication of another Chinese version of Complete Shakespeare in Beijing in 1978,mainly translatedby Zhu Shenghao but revised and completed by some other scholars. But these two versions are both prose transla-tion. There were other translators working conscientiously and achieving better results. The most notable of thenew translators of Shakespeare is Bian Zhilin, the famous poet who, following the example of Sun Dayu, devotedhimself to the most difficult task of translating Shakespeare into rhythmic Chinese poetry. His translation of “Ham-let” has become an authorized Chinese version of that play. When Laurence Olivier's film “Hamlet” was dubbed inChinese, the only choice was to use Bian Zhilin's version. 　Sun Dayu the veteran poet carried on his translating work under difficult conditions. He translated 8 plays in-cluding the 4 great tragedies, which have been published in Shanghai, and recently won the “Rainbow Prize”. 　Other eminent translators of Shakespeare include Professor Wu Xinghua of Beijing University, whose “HenryIV” is the best Chinese version of that play, and Fang Ping, the poet in Shanghai, whose major achievement is hisrendering of Shakespeare’s great comedies into Chinese poetry. 　At present, the task in consideration and preparation among Chinese translators is to make a poetry translationof complete Shakespeare, which may be accomplished at the turn of the new century. (In fact, the first Chinese po-etry translation of Complete Shakespeare, with Fang Ping as chief translator and editor, was published in 2001, in 　Hebei. ) 　II. Performance of Shakespeare’s Plays on the Chinese Stage: 　The performance of Shakespeare’s plays on the Chinese stage began in early 20th century. At that time, therewas a kind of immature form of modern drama called “civilized drama”， in which the director gave the actors amere outline of some story instead of a play, and each actor had to invent his own words, impromptu, on the stageaccording to the development of the plot. The earliest performance of Shakespeare’s plays in China adopted thisform of “civilized drama”， taking the “Tales from Shakespeare” as its foundation. In this way. “The Merchant ofVenice”， “Hamlet”， “Othello”， “King Lear” and “Macbeth” were performed in Shanghai in 1916. 　With the introduction and translation of Ibsen and Bernard Shaw after 1919, modern Chinese drama becamemore mature. The first attempt in putting a play of Shakespeare, “The Merchant of Venice” as a whole, on theChinese stage was made in 1930 by a drama society in Shanghai. Then in 1937, an amateur drama troupe performed“Romeo and Juliet” in Shanghai, with Zhao Dan, the famous actor, playing Romeo. The 30’s and 40’s were thefirst high-tide in performing Shakespeare’s plays. Even during the War Against Japanese Aggression, Cao Yu’sbeautiful version of “Romeo and Juliet” was put on the stage with great success in Chongqing in 1943, with BaiYang, the famous actress, playing Juliet. All these were regular performances of complete plays with expert direc-tion, repeated rehearsal, beautiful scenery and costumes. These performances played an important role in populari-zing Shakespeare among Chinese audience. 　With the founding of the Chinese People’s Republic, the performance of Shakespeare’s plays entered a newphase. The most important factor was the introduction of the Stanislavsky system of directing plays. According toStanislavsky, an actor should study the personality, psychology, thoughts and feelings of the character he is to play,thus making himself intermingling with his part. An actor should experience or even live through the life of his roleon the stage. This dramatic theory helped Chinese actors to better understand Shakespeare’s characters and raise thelevel of their performance of Shakespeare’s plays. In this way, Chinese dramatists put Shakespeare’s “Much Ado A-bout Nothing“(1957, in Shanghai), “Romeo and Juliet” (1961, in Beijing), and “Twelfth Night” (1962, in Shang-hai) on the stage during the late 50’s and early 60’s. This was the second high-tide in performing Shakespeare’splays. 　After the end of the calamitous Cultural Revolution, the performance of Shakespeare’s plays revived with thenew period of reform and opening, which began from 1978. But the performances have been so numerous that Ineed not count them one by one. Three things call for special attention. One: British and American directors havebeen invited to assist Chinese dramatists in performing Shakespeare’s plays,and this made such performances bearan atmosphere of international co-operation. Two: Chinese scholars co-operated with directors and actors in pre-paring for these performances. Three: the performances of Shakespeare’s plays of the new period assumed manyforms and styles instead of the single realistic style of the Stanislavsky system. 　An epoch-making event in the history of China’s performance of Shakespeare’s plays was the Shakespeare Fes-tival held in in Beijing and Shanghai, in April, 1986. It was unprecedented in China. and it has left a far-reachinginfluence on the art and literary history of our country. The most important feature of this Festival is that, besidesthe performing of 24 plays of Shakespeare in the usual style of modern drama, it gave five performances ofShakespeare’s plays in the style of traditional Chinese opera. They are the Beijing opera “Othello”， the ancientKunqu opera “Macbeth”， the Zhejiang operas “Twelfth Night” and “The Winter’s Tale”. and the Anhui opera“Much Ado About Nothing”. The Kunqu opera “Macbeth” was a highly artistic performance with the story ofMacbeth and Lady Macbeth adapted into that of an ancient Chinese usurper and his beautiful but hard-hearted wife.The Zhejiang opera “Twelfth Night” was also a beautiful performance in which a talented young actress played Vio-la with ease and elegance, and the stage design and music accompaniment happily blended Chinese style with west-ern style. These two performances were highly successful. The development in this sphere during the recent yearsincludes “Hamlet” performed as a Zhejiang opera, renamed “The Revenge of a Prince”， in 1994. and “King Lear” 　performed as a Beijing opera in 1996. 　There has been some controversy about the advisability of performing Shakespeare's plays in the style of tradi-tional Chinese drama or, more exactly, in the styles of our various local operas. I am for “letting a hundred flowersbloom” in performing Shakespeare's plays. The main reason is that there are many similar points between the Eliza-bethan theatre and the traditional Chinese stage. In an Elizabethan theatre, the stage was almost naked. There wasno front curtain and no painted scenery. There were few stage properties or furniture. The bare stage might repre-sent any place, domestic or foreign, indoors or out. So the changes of scenes were very convenient. As soon as allthe actors retire, the stage would represent a different place. Symbolism was much used: a king in armour signifiedthat he was on the battlefield, and a man in spurred boots entering meant that a messenger came to report news.Under such crude conditions. the most important thing was the actor's declamation and performance. But therewere no actresses. Female parts were played by boys. All these features very much resemble the old Chinese drama.So I believe there are great potentialities hidden in traditional Chinese opera in performing Shakespeare's plays.though some technical and artistic problems should be solved in practice.III. Learning and Studying Shakespeare in Present-day China: 　Every Chinese pupil can learn from the textbook of Chinese language and literature a few scenes fromShakespeare's plays, such as the court scene of “The Merchant of Venice”. The students at middle schools can bor-row Zhu Shenghao's pleasant prose version of Shakespeare from the libraries. At college and university, thestudents of Chinese department study Shakespeare through Chinese versions. while the students of English depart-ment read Shakespeare in the original,and once in a while put a few scenes from Shakespeare on the stage. 　Shakespeariana has become a popular study in China. Scores of articles on Shakespeare are written and pub-lished here every year. The Shakespeare Society of China was established in 1984. The cause of such an enthusiasmlies in the fact that the Chinese people. who were liberated from under the yoke of feudalism of old China and havejust been awakened from the ten years of calamitous cultural revolution. look to Shakespeare for the spirit of hu-manism, emancipation and social change which may help us to break up with the backward things of the old times.In a word, Chinese people's love of Shakespeare is closely combined with our warm aspiration and protracted strug-gle for the modernization of our country.