Prof. Dr. Dorothea Wippermann
Richard Wilhelm is one of the actors “in the transfer of knowledge with China since the middle of the 19th century”, who “are understood in their complex identities and global networks” and “who have contributed to the creation of knowledge in both directions and through translation processes constructed the universality (and locality) of the sciences.” (quoted from the Abstract of the 2021 trilateral conference)
Wilhelm is best known for his translations of the Chinese classics and philosophy. His expertise in Chinese philosophy was based on the one hand on extensive readings and studies of Chinese and Western sources and research literature, and on the other hand also profited to a great extent from the direct exchange with contemporary Chinese scholars. As is well known, his Chinese network included actors with traditional education background – e.g. Lao Naixuan – as well as protagonists of the modern, western-oriented or influenced intellectual life, such as Kang Youwei, Liang Qichao, Hu Shi or Cai Yuanpei. The references in the notes and bibliographies of his translations and relevant monographs also reflect this spectrum.
It is not unknown that Wilhelm was also interested in Chinese literature – narrative literature, poetry and the dramatic genre, but his contribution to these fields have so far received less attention and research than his more extensive contributions to the classics. While his volume of Chinese narrative texts of various types with the title Chinesische Volksmärchen (Chinese Folk Tales, 1914) was reprinted again and again during his lifetime and to this day, his anthology of Chinese poems (from the pre-Qin period to the Song period) Chinesisch-deutsche Jahres- und Tageszeiten (Chinese-German Seasons and Times of Day, 1922) has not received too much attention, although many of the poems translated therein were included in numerous later anthologies of Chinese poetry. In addition to the poems contained in the volume from 1922, Wilhelm also translated quite a few other poems and published them in magazines and in his monographs on Chinese literature (1926) and culture (1928). A manuscript with illustrations in four volumes entitled Gedichte der Tang-Zeit (Poems of the Tang Period, 1923), which has recently been made available from a private property, gives rise to closer study of Wilhelm’s poetry translations, especially of Tang poetry.
Building on the rather detailed, but incomplete inventory of Gu Zhengxiang (see „Richard Wilhelm als Übersetzer chinesischer Lyrik“, in Interkulturalität im frühen 20. Jahrhundert: Richard Wilhelm – Theologe, Missionar und Sinologe, Dorothea Wippermann, Klaus Hirsch, Georg Ebertshäuser eds., Frankfurt: Iko-Verlag für Interkulturelle Kommunikation, 2007, p. 153-174) my project “Richard Wilhelm as a translator of Chinese poetry” takes stock of Wilhelm’s published and unpublished translations of Tang-poetry. In addition, it attempts to find out the motives and circumstances of his engagement with Chinese poetry and to investigate questions such as the following:
- When and in which phases of his life did Wilhelm deal with Chinese poetry?
- What Chinese sources and Chinese and Western specialist literature did he use?
- What were his selection criteria for the poems to be translated?
- Did he communicate about poetry with educated Chinese? Did he get support and advice from them with his poetry translations?
- To what extent did Chinese contributors play a role in the supply of pictures and illustrations and in the artistic/aesthetic and manufactural production of the manuscript Gedichte der Tang-Zeit?
- Did he explain – as with his classic translations – the goals and methods of his poetry translations with regard to introducing Chinese poetry to a German-speaking audience?
- How did he comment on the connection between text/poetry and image in the Chinese tradition and in his German poetry translations?
- Did he comment on any further plans regarding his poetry translations and their publication?
- What role did existing poetry translations by other translators as well as German or Western input and exchange play in Wilhelm’s preoccupation with Chinese poetry?
- How did his translation methods differ from those of previous or contemporary translators?
- How can the poems be classified from the perspective of translation studies? What kind of literary and cultural transfer as well as “intertextuality” do they manifest?
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OpenEdition schlägt Ihnen vor, diesen Beitrag wie folgt zu zitieren:
Editor (6. Oktober 2021). Prof. Dr. Dorothea Wippermann. Chinawissen vernetzt / Sinologia in rete / Savoirs sur la Chine en réseau. Abgerufen am 15. Juni 2025 von https://sinonet.hypotheses.org/195