chapter 33
百度搜索 The Spirit of the Chinese People 天涯 或 The Spirit of the Chinese People 天涯在线书库 即可找到本书最新章节.
That the work of translating the ese Classics had to be done, was also a y of the time, and Dr. Legge has aplished it, and the result is a dozen huge, ponderous tomes. The quantity of work done is certainly stupendous, whatever may be thought of the quality. In presence of these huge volumes we feel almost afraid to speak. heless, it must be fessed that the work does not altogether satisfy us. Mr. Balfour justly remarks that in translating these classics a great deal depends upoerminology employed by the translator. Now we feel that the terminology employed by Dr. Legge is harsh, crude, ie, and in some places, almost unidiomatic. So far for the form. As to the matter, we will not hazard our own opinion, but will let the Rev. Mr. Faber of ton speak for us. "Dr. Legges own notes on Mencius, "he says, "show that Dr. Legge has not a philosophiderstanding of his author." We are certain that Dr. Legge could not have read and translated these works without having in some way tried to ceive and shape to his own mind the teag of fucius and his school as a ected whole; yet it is extraordinary that her in his notes nor in his dissertations has Dr. Legge let slip a single phrase or senteo show what he ceived the teag of fucius really to be, as a philosophic whole. Altogether, therefore, Dr. Legge s judgment on the value of these works ot by any means be accepted as final, and the translator of the ese Classics is yet to e. Sihe appearance of the two works above mentioned, many books have been written on a: a few, it is true, of really great scholastic importance; but none, we believe showing that ese scholarship has r<u></u>eached an important turning point.First, there is Mr. Wylie s "Notes on ese Literature. " It is, however, a mere catalogue, and not a book with any literary pretension at all. Another is the late Mr. Mayerss "ese Readers Manual . " It is certainly not a work that lay claim to any degree of perfe. heless, it is a very great work, the most ho co<cite></cite>ious and uending of all the books that have been written on a. Its usefulness, moreover, is inferior only to the Tzu-Erh-Chi of Sir Thomas Wade.
Another ese scholar of note is Mr. Herbert A. Giles of the British sular Service. Like the early French sinologues, Mr. Giles possesses the enviable advantage of a clear, vigorous, aiful
style. Every object he touches upon bees at once clear and luminous. But with one or two exceptions, he has not been quite fortunate in the choice of subjects worthy of his pen. One exception is the "Straories from a ese Studio," which may be taken as a model of what translation from the ese should be. But the Liao-chai-chih-i, a remarkably beautiful literary work of art though it be, belongs yet not to the highest spes of ese literature.
ges labours, Mr.Balfours ret translation of the Nan-hua King of g-tzu is a work of certainly the highest ambition. We fess to have experienced, when we first heard the work announced, a degree of expectation and delight which the ann<tt></tt>ou of an Englishmaering the Hanlin College would scarcely have raised in us. The Nan-hua King is aowledged by the ese to be one of the most perfect of the highest spes of their national literature. Sis appearawo turies before the Christian era, the influence of the book upoerature of a is scarcely inferior to the works of fucius and his schools; while its effect upon the language and spirit of the poetical and imaginative literature of succeeding dynasties is almost as exclusive as that of the Four Books and Five ese upon the philosophical works of a. But Mr.Balfours work is not a translation at all; it is simply a mistranslation. This, we aowledge, is a heavy, and for us, daring judgment to pass upon a work upon which Mr. Balfour must have spent many years. But we have ve, and it will be expected of us to make good our judgment. We believe Mr. Balfour would hardly desend to join issue wit<big>.?</big>h us if we were to raise the question of the true interpretation of the philosophy of g-tzu. "But,"_we quote from the ese preface of Lin Hsi-g, a ret editor of the Nan-hua King_"in reading a book, it is necessary to uand first the meaning of each single word: then only you strue the sentehen only you perceive the arra of the para-graphs; and then, last of all, you get at the tral proposition of the whole chapter." Now every page of Mr. Balfour s translation bears marks that he has not uood the meaning of many single words, that he has not strued the sentences correctly, and that he has missed the arra of the paragraphs. If these propositions which we have assumed be proved to be true, as they easily be done, being merely points regarding rules of grammar and syntax, it then follows very clearly that Mr. Balfour has missed the meaning aral proposition of whole chapters.
But of all the ese scholars of the present day we are ined to place the Reverend Mr. Faber of ton at the head. We do not think that Mr. Fabers labours are of more scholastic value or a higher degree of literary merit than the works of others, but we find that almost every sentence he has written shows a grasp of literary and philosophic principles such as we do not find in any other scholar of the present time. What we ceive these principles to be we must reserve for the portion of the present paper, when we hope to be able to state the methods, aims, and objects of ese scholarship.
百度搜索 The Spirit of the Chinese People 天涯 或 The Spirit of the Chinese People 天涯在线书库 即可找到本书最新章节.