The Foreign Eyes Through Which Chinese Literature Links up with the World:Sinologist Cyril Birch as a Translator
As is exemplified by the life-long work of the late Cyril Birch,sinologists have been playing a pivotal role in making Chinese literature known and read outside of China.Taking credit for such monumental accomplishments as the first full English version of Mu Dan Ting(The Peony Pavilion)and the first comprehensive English anthology of Chinese literature,Birch had offered both panoramic and close-up views of Chinese letters to an international audience.He translated classical Chinese drama,creatively reproducing its poetic effects and musical rhythms.He published a host of essays on Chinese literature,successfully discovering its commonality at root with other literary traditions in the world.His"eyes of the foreign"thus helped to establish Chinese literature as an integral part of world literature.An in-depth examination of Birch's translation activities promises to facilitate Chinese translation scholars'efforts to find out what,how and why Chinese literary works come to be received and accepted by readers in the West.And such an examination would also help to project a mode of cultural communication for worldwide transmission of Chinese literature in general.
Cyril BirchChinese literatureEnglish translationanthology of literaturecomparative perspective
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