Chinesische Romane in deutscher Sprache im 18. und 19. Jahrhundert: Zur frühen Kenntnis chinesischer Literatur in Deutschland ed. by Hartmut Walravens

Abstract

Reviewed by: Chinesische Romane in deutscher Sprache im 18. und 19. Jahrhundert: Zur frühen Kenntnis chinesischer Literatur in Deutschland ed. by Hartmut Walravens Natascha Gentz (bio) Hartmut Walravens, editor. Chinesische Romane in deutscher Sprache im 18. und 19. Jahrhundert: Zur frühen Kenntnis chinesischer Literatur in Deutschland. Asien- und Afrika-Studien der Humboldt-Universität Berlin, Band 43. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2015. iix, 206 pp. Paperback $65.00, isbn 978-3-447-10438-8 While knowledge about Chinese literature circulated in Germany and Europe earlier, Chinese literature in translation became known in Germany only in the eighteenth century, with first translations by Jesuits, followed by more established Sinologists in the nineteenth century. Hartmut Walravens’s collection presents excerpts of some of these first translations, including the Hao Kjöh Tschwen (The Fortunate Union, Haoqiuzhuan 好 逑傳), Die Geschichte der Drei Reiche (Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Sanguo yanyi 三國演義), Die Geschichte der Verschiedenen Reiche (History of the Various Kingdoms, Lieguo zhizhuan 列國誌傳), Die Räuber vom Liang Shan Moor (The Water Margin, Shuihuzhuan 水滸傳), Die Leifeng Pagode (The Thunder Peak Pagoda, Leifengta 雷夆塔), and Der Traum der Roten Kammer (Dream of the Red Chamber, Hongloumeng 紅樓夢). The last chapter presents comments and a literary analysis of the Ju=Kiao=Li oder die beyden Basen (The Two Fair Cousins, Yujiaoli 玉嬌梨). Walravens selected these works not for their Sinological achievements in philology and translation but because they made Chinese literature popular and known to a broader audience. Many of these translations were not from Chinese originals but earlier European translations, particularly French, and some experienced curious additions and alterations. While literary studies of Chinese literature [End Page 84] began to flourish in the nineteenth century, only the twentieth century witnessed completed and critically annotated translations of full-text novels. As novels were not highly regarded as a subject of study for those earlier Sinologists, many of these translations were not published as monographs but appeared in popular magazines. Thanks to Walravens’s meticulous study, this collection presents unknown excerpts of these novels, introduced with bibliographical data, including information about the publication history, various editions, other translations, and brief synopses of the entire novels. The Hao Kjöh Tschwen. Die angenehme Geschichte der Haoh Kjöh (The pleasant story of Haoh Kjöh) was translated in 1766 by the German customs officer Christoph Gottlieb Murr (1733–1811), a prolific writer and private scholar. The edition contains a short section of this novel, which became known in Europe as the first Chinese novel translated into a European language, and inspired Schiller to write an adaptation. The translation is followed by a fragment of this Schiller version with some comments in a letter from 1800 by Schiller to Johann Friedrich Unger (1753–1804), Schiller’s publisher. The next chapter presents two little-known German translations from the Romance of the Three Kingdoms, the Death of Dong Zhuo episode translated by Stanislav Julien (1797–1873) in 1833, and an abridged version of chapters 1–15 by Richard Wilhelm (1873–1930), probably published in 1908—the translation/publication date remains a bit unclear in this section. A comparatively substantial part of the edition is “Das schöne Mädchen von Pao” (The beautiful girl from Pao) taken from the History of the Various Kingdoms, found in the library of Wolfenbüttel. The translation from 1876/80 by Carl Arendt (1838–1902) had a particular impact in Germany, as it inspired Otto Julius Bier-baum to write a novel with the same title and Hermann Hesse to use the story’s motive in his novella “König Yu’s Untergang” (The fall of King Yu), written in 1929. The Qu Song episode from The Water Margin that follows is the first translation from this novel into a European language, which hitherto has escaped the attention of bibliographers of this famous novel. The translator, Wilhelm Schott (1802–1889), was an autodidact in Chinese and one of the early German Sinologists, but because the translation appeared in a popular magazine, it was forgotten for a long time. “Der Apotheker und die Natter” (The pharmacist and the viper) is a very brief excerpt from the novel The Thunder Peak Pagoda, translated by the French Sinologist Stanislav Julien in...