Examining translation errors and cultural misrepresentation in dream of the red chamber: a TQA-based literary assessment with insights into intercultural communication

Mr. Shu Huai pointed out that "A Dream of Red Mansions" implies the pursuit of a new ideal of life, is to seek the full play of human nature, beyond the real life, to lead life to an ideal world [Editor: Lv Qixiang, Lin Donghai] "A Compilation of Rare Materials in a Dream of Red Mansions", People's Literature Publishing House, December 2006, page 1267. See Wang Shuhuai's "Talk about the Ideal of Life in a Dream of Red Mansions", published in the fourth and fifth combined issues of Cultural Pioneer, Vol. 7 (September 30, 1947). Mr. Zhang Jun also said that a Dream of Red Mansions has found poetry in daily life and children's leisure. A Dream of Red Mansions is a poetic novel, a poetic life and a poetic character. It clearly puts forward the fresh and beautiful ideal of life and social model, which is the reason why a Dream of Red Mansions is higher than Jin Ping Mei and other novels about the world [Zhang Jun, Shen Zhijun, Comments on a Dream of Red Mansions, Commercial Press, The first edition, August 2013, preface]. Combined with the senior scholar's research thinking and I read the experience of a dream of red mansions, which can I think cao xueqin is through to the family chores, leisure poems of complete record to think and reflect on, for life, this points to the pursuit of new ideal life, "is, in fact, a kind of equality and fraternity of humanities spirit, a free life of individual character make public, An ideal of a society of peace, justice and abundance, a form of life with dignity, morality, passion and poetry." [up] readers, is now in a dream of red mansions cao xueqin writing after 200 years, today's social system, cultural environment and the people material life level has been changed a lot, at the individual freedom, equality between men and women, rich life has achieved many aspects, such as tso that hope, then, What else can we learn from a Dream of Red Mansions today? In 200 years of time and space, what else have we lost that can still nourish our lives? What can we learn from our daily life? What can we change with The Times to warm our life? For several years, often read "a Dream of Red Mansions", character events and plots of sadness and happiness, heart with the circumstances, different opinions. The unique grand View Garden features elegant living, elegant dining, camellia, poetry and wine, piano, chess, calligraphy and painting, all of which are lively and lingering in the heart, inspiring people with admiration and admiration. In this process, involuntarily, trying to start from the basic life and emotion of people, to experience the fate of the masters of the book, experience their daily life, but also experience their emotional sadness and happiness. At this, with fine and elegant life a dream of red mansions "is a word to outline impression, in the grand view garden, this article first capture life jia baoyu's way of life, life attitude and life interest, life thinking for expressing" a dream of red mansions of pure elegant life "to try, hope that through the jia baoyu Jin Pu embroidered account, flower LiuFanHua, gentle prosperous life outlook, Insight into the author Cao Xueqin's view of life.

《紅樓夢》的研究，為中國古典文學研究中最饒富趣味的課題，各個層面的探討，均為紅學探微抉奧。本文從佛教治療學的角度，探討《紅樓夢》作者透過病／罪的書寫，一方面警戒世人，一方面自我療癒。文中呈現幾項重點：一、心病佛藥的治本作用：如黛玉的痴病、寶釵的熱毒、賈瑞的邪思妄動等心病，均由一僧一道應病予藥，對世人的貪、瞋、痴三毒作根本性治療。二、冤孽因果的還報作用：前世的情感冤孽，此生以眼淚、死亡、中邪等方式加以償還；前世種惡因、造惡業，今生即必須承受果報。前者如馮淵／甄英蓮／薛蟠、寶玉／黛玉、寶玉及鳳姐／趙姨娘；後者如鳳姐及尤二姐。三、懺情悔罪的淨化作用：作者一則愧對天恩祖德，一則懺悔生命中歷歷有人之女子，對一己的深情摯愛，故以書寫《紅樓夢》來自悔罪愆，投射到小說主人翁賈寶玉的心理，則是對家族罪惡的咎責，以及大觀園中所有因他而死亡或遭受苦難的姐妹們，深懷愧疚與追悔。四、以情悟道的昇華作用：作者以「情」來書寫創傷記憶，以「悟」來昇華苦痛，以「道」作為療傷止痛之藥方。儒家經濟之道是作者及賈寶玉所深惡憎厭的；神仙莊子之道又無法安頓身心靈；作者遂逐漸走上佛教空性思考的道路。綜合上述四者，《紅樓夢》作者援用佛教經論中的夢、幻、水月、鏡花等意象，來展現明空不二的覺性能量，以對治世人的病苦罪業。唯有佛法的「空性」證悟，對《紅樓夢》作者而言，才是終極的療癒之道。

Studies on the poetry of ”The Dream of the Red Chamber” should carefully distinguish between ”poetics” and ”poetry”: while the novel claims high Tang poetry, which emphasizes gediao 格調 as ideal models, in practice it adopts themes of mid-late Tang poetry, which scarifies elegance for rich variations and emphasizes xingling 性靈. This paper focuses on the poetic practice in ”The Dream of the Red Chamber”, covering aesthetic paradigms through style trends and image formations, to adoption and transformation of previous poetic works. Through detailed analysis it is clear that ”The Dream of the Red Chamber” in practice uses mid-late Tang poetry as its aspiration and source. Lastly, I discuss the psychological similarity between the poets of mid-late Tang and the characters in the novel to further illuminate the narrative background and the deep motivation of ”The Dream of the Red Chamber”.

As one of the four great classics of China, "The Dream of the Red Chamber" is the pearl of the treasure of the world classical literature. With the development of film and television technology, the masterpiece has been repeatedly put on the screen, and has gained great national popularity. In particular, the writing of the fate of some women indicates the plot of the novel, shapes the characters, creates the tragic atmosphere and the helpless tone, which not only guides the overall direction of the novel, but also greatly enriches the ideological and cultural connotation of "The Dream of the Red Chamber". To some extent, it is under the guidance of the ancient philosophy of fatalism that "The Dream of the Red Chamber" has such great charm. Today, although the rise of national consciousness, the public has their own understanding of breaking through the shackles of destiny. So this paper will start with the fatalistic view and discuss the influence of focusing on the Dream of Red Mansions and its expression on gender.

The paragraph of ”Miao-Yu's Meditation” is crucial in The Dream of the Red Chamber. Miao-Yu, who fails to be purified, has struggled from the conflict of the reality and transcendence; that is, tge decline of the flesh and the destruction of the infinite prayer. When the path to transcendence is blocked, the trial based on ”Meditation” becomes bigger frustration. In The Dream of the Red Chamber, Miao-Yu practices practises Buddism with her hair. She is so isolated, eccentric that she cannot escape from conflict between the body and the soul. The Long Tsuei Nunnery is not only her shelter but prison, which symbolizes the secular manners. Her ultimate calamity implies the separation of reality and wish as well as an eternal prediction about the co-existence of good and devil and of transcendence and decline. Does the impasse represent a journey of no return or the path to relief? The distancing effect (time and space) in Miao-Yu's event filters the terrifying element and extract the metaphor of beauty. In terms of the familiarity of plots of Miao-Yu, reader's rational contemplation goes beyond emotional movement; yet, it does not mean that the former replaces or represses the latter. Yang-Mu's adaptation of ”Meditation of Miao-Yu” sinks the content and reveals the form. The attention paid to Miao-Yu has always been less than that t Bao-Chai and Dai-Yu; however, the separation of body and soul after ”Meditation” offers, in fact, much room for discussion. In addition to the historical relationship of the context, the eighteenth-century masterpiece The Dream of the Red Chamber and Meditation of Miao-Yu, published in 1985, also interpret each other. Based on poetics, this article aims, in the first place, to explore the track linking two pieces and, referring to ”Nomadism” of Deleuze (Gilles Deleuze, 1925~1995), to open a new way of reading relating to the deep concern for the connection of the subject and the object.

Within the theories of Deconstructive reading, this essay is to focus on the writing intention of Dream of the Red Chamber. To introduce the deconstructive perspective of Dream of the Red Chamber, the ”double reading skills” are adopted to collapse the texture. The author embedded the prosperity, which is ”texture deconstructs itself” in the novel. And that will simulates the readers deconstruct the texture naturally. Designed by the author, the remarks on Dream of the Red Chamber of Zhi Yanzhai is the trace connected two worlds between truth and illusion. This arrangement enhances the deconstructions in the texture, and further, extends the endless readings and interpretations.

The Dream of the Red Chamber. English trans. Florence and Isabel McHugh of the German translation by Dr. Franz Kuhn, Der Traum der roten Kammer. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1958. 50s. - Dream of the Red Chamber. By Ts'ao Hsüeh-ch'in. Trans. Chi-chen Wang. Preface by Mark Van Doren. New York: Twayne Publishers, 1958. $6.00. - Volume 18 Issue 3

Reviewed by: Reflections on “Dream of the Red Chamber” Ying Wang (bio) Liu Zaifu. Reflections on “Dream of the Red Chamber.” Translated by Shu Yunzhong. Amherst, NY: Cambria Press, 2008. xviii, 301 pp. Hardcover $109.95, ISBN 978-1-604975-24-6. The 2008 English translation of Liu Zaifu’s book Reflections on “Dream of the Red Chamber” offers a delightful, fascinating, and enlightening reading of Cao Xueqin’s eighteenth-century masterpiece Honglou meng (Dream of the red chamber). Liu’s reading, which tries to be free of the conventions of scholarship and scholarly writing, is described as an “intuitive approach of Zen” (p. xiii) by Gao Xingjian (winner of the 2000 Nobel Prize for Literature) in his foreword to the book. Consisting of casual literary notes jotted down by the author over the period of a decade and some of his topical essays written for speeches and publications, Liu’s [End Page 347] book is, indeed, unconventional in format and structure. However, the author does not take his critique of Cao Xueqin’s novel lightly, and at least two important theoretical and aesthetic questions are repeatedly raised, discussed, and expounded in this book, showing the author’s serious intention to contribute further to the scholarship of Honglou meng. Both of Liu’s questions are generated from Wang Guowei’s (1877–1927) salient study titled A Critique of “Dream of the Red Chamber.” While challenging Wang Guowei’s classification of Honglou meng as a work of mere tragedy, Liu Zaifu applauds Wang’s emphasis on the “existence of a spiritual realm” in Cao Xueqin’s novel and makes a further exploration of this “spiritual realm” the central task of his reappraisal (pp. 137–140). In his 1904 critique, Wang Guowei praises Honglou meng’s successful use of tragedy on the grounds that it is subversive to both the Chinese literary tradition and the conventional reader’s taste. Analyzing Cao Xueqin’s novel according to Schopenhauer’s three types of tragedy, Wang identifies Honglou meng as the most tragic type—in which characters “are so situated with regard to one another that their position forces them, knowingly and with their eyes open, to do one another the greatest injury without any one of them being entirely in the wrong”1—in comparison to the type of tragedy that is caused either by exceptional wickedness of a character or by a colossal accident or error. Deeply influenced by Shopenhauer’s vision of the world as a ceaseless, destructive struggle for existence, Wang Guowei’s concept of tragedy and his interpretation of the underlying philosophy of Honglou meng are permeated with a pessimistic view of life and the conviction of release (or renouncing of the world). According to Liu Zaifu, Wang’s appraisal is only partial in terms of the literary modes employed in the eighteenth-century novel. To Liu, Honglou meng is not merely a “tragedy of tragedies” as defined by Wang; it is also a work revealing absurdity in the human world—therefore, a novel of comedy with a modern flavor. As indicated by Liu, “the predominantly tragic tone in Dream of the Red Chamber is mixed with traces of the absurdity in the human world. Drama of absurdity is an extreme form of comedy. Originating from traditional comedy and yet different from traditional comedy, it displays the worthlessness and meaninglessness of life in an extreme manner. . . . [T]he absurd is not just a strategy but also an insightful and critical reference to reality” (p. 147). Cao Xueqin’s effort at revealing the absurd nature of the human world can be observed, according to Liu, from his numerous examples that mock futile pursuit of worldly gain in the novel, including allegorical verses and stories, such as “Won-Done Song,” sung by the lame Taoist priest in chapter 1; “Mandarin’s Life Preserver” in chapter 4; and “Precious Mirror of Desire” in chapter 12. There are, of course, characters of absurdity portrayed by Cao Xueqin as well. Jia Yucun, Liu claims, “constitutes the most absurd part of the novel,” as he makes absurd judgments about his life and political career as a result of being “entangled in [a] web of social relationships...

The purpose of this article is to explore the historical and artistic connections between the novel and opera «Dream of the Red Chamber». Cao Xueqin (a Chinese writer of the Qing Dynasty) wrote the novel “Dream of the Red Chamber” based on his life experiences, family history and the realities of feudal society. Chinese-Americans Bright Sheng and David Henry Hwang created the self-titled opera based on Cao Xueqin’s novel, which is an ideal example of Chinese and Western cultural integration. The novel and opera “Dream of the Red Chamber” use some moments from Cao Xueqin’s family history. The prototypes of the main characters were Cao Xueqin himself and his three wives. The plot of the novel and opera, which is based on the relationship between Baoyu, Daiyu and Baochai, shows different sides of the relationship, as well as the peculiarities of people’s lives in a feudal society. Set designer Ye Jintian created the costumes for the characters in the opera based on the description of clothes made by Cao Xueqin in the novel “Dream of the Red Chamber”, which allows us to understand the social culture, customs, and personalities of the Qing Dynasty better. The novel and the opera are based on true history, depicting the rise and fall of families in Chinese society, love stories between characters, and traditional Chinese customs and traditions. At the same time, the plot of the novel and the opera criticizes the principles of feudal society, which is aimed at constant political rivalry and the harsh, peremptory enslavement of the people.

The art of ”The Dream of the Red Chamber” is deeply rooted in lyrical tradition, wherein the poem genre plays the single most important role. This paper studies the poetic theory and practice as revealed in ”The Dream of the Red Chamber” and shows that the practice of poetry in the novel contradicts the poetic theory expressed there. The identified contradiction between theory and practice of the poetry is named ”pseudomorphosis”. Via both diachronic and synchronic approaches, and in the context of both historical and textual analyses, I clarify the respective correspondence of poetic practice of ”The Dream of the Red Chamber” and Xing-Ling 性靈說 on the one hand, and the poetic theory and Ge-Diao 格調派 on the other hand. In addition, many multi-dimensional contrasts between poetic theory and practice in ”The Dream of the Red Chamber” are exposed, such as orthodoxy/heresy, form/content, dominance/protest, mainstream/latent-flowing and poetic civilization/poetic mind. These contrasts are investigated in the context of the fundamental struggle of ”The Dream of the Red Chamber”, the confrontation between canonic convention and individual freedom.

”Suiyuan Shihua” 隨園詩話, edited by Yuan Mei 袁枚, was one of the most widely-circulated poetry collections during the Qing Dynasty. The section which concerns the ”Dream of the Red Chamber” 紅樓夢 in ”Suiyuan Shihua” is a subject of a heated debate, since it is thought to be the key foundation to the Neo-Redology 新紅學 advocated by Hu Shi 胡適 (1891-1962) - its reliability is tightly connected to the credibility of Neo-Redology. This study examines the changes between various editions of ”Suiyuan Shihua”, as well as the process of editing, with an attempt to solve this issue. I shall argue that the mention of the Dream of the Red Chamber in ”Suiyuan Shihua” is not based on any actual knowledge. Yuan Mei mentioned it only to show off that his garden, ”Suiyuan”, was the main setting of the famous story. This study also investigates the reason why considerable differences were present and offers possible explanations for the mistakes in the text.

There are three key points in this paper: first, it discusses the function of literature about nirvana referred in ”Commentaries on The Dream of the Red Chamber” by affiliating the meaning of the word ”nirvana” in tantra. Second, it points out that the function of literature about nirvana referred in ”Commentaries on The Dream of the Red Chamber” is actually a kind of consolation by analyzing the reason why Guo-Wei Wang committed suicide. Lastly, the paper summarizes the contention that has been mentioned to prove that ”nirvana” is the topic of philosophy, not the topic of literature.

Feelings in interpersonal relations, particularly those concerning the constitution of self and the subjective emotion, of the Chinese people have received much critical attention from modern psychologists. Taoism and Buddhism offer religious doctrines and practices to transcend the sense of angst brought on by affection. In religious Taoism, the human world is viewed from the perspective of that of the immortals--through the device of people becoming devotees and fables about immortals being cast down to the mortal world--in an attempt to bring attention to the enormous weight of affection, especially those felt between men and women, in the worldly folks. This feature, while having both similarities to and differences from the Buddhist approach, is a clear manifestation of the alternative life view of the Chinese: relations between people and between the sexes are portrayed against the backdrop of a deterministic fatalism to explain the role of destiny and fate therein. Even though the arena in which the contrast between affection and its transcendence is played out is that of the mortal world, such fables as used in fiction and drama are able to give a profound insight into the religious essence of affection insofar as they portray affection in the form of debt that the immortals have to pay off before they could return to the realm of immortals. Examples of this sort of karmic understanding can be found in fictional works from the T'ang dynasty right down to the ”Dream of the Red Chamber” in Ch'ing times. Where the Buddhist perspective focuses on the doctrinal aspects of emptiness and illusion, the Taoist use of these fables inculcates an understanding both that emotional hardships in this life are a type of penance and that going from being ensnared by affection to understanding it is a type of initiation and redemption. From this we can see that these fables have a religious aspect to them, and the writing and popularity of a work like ”Dream of the Red Chamber” proves that classical Chinese fiction was certainly not lacking in the area of religious overtones.

In the twentieth century China, with the introduction of Balzac's literature and the rise of philosophers such as Engels, ＂elegy＂ gradually became synonymous with The Human Comedy. While the comparative literature turned into noticeable, The Dream of the Red Chamber was also categorized into the elegiac literature. However, after half a century, such an argument arouses a controversy: is The Dream of the Red Chamber the same as The Human Comedy that sings the dirge for the nobility? In this thesis, we will be focusing the problem of ＂nobility＂ by examining points made by scholars from both sides, and then try to come up with a reasonable conclusion. First, we will try to comprehend how ＂nobility＂ is defined by both sides and how it works for them; next, the discussion will be on the relation between Balzac's literature and elegiac literature. Lastly, we will distinguish the likes and differences between the two pieces through the problem of ＂nobility＂ as presented in the novel.

The advent of the digital humanities era has brought new perspectives to the study of cultural classic translation. This paper, using the multilingual data-base of "Dream of the Red Chamber" as an example, deeply analyzes collabora-tive innovation models for cultural classic translation from a digital humanities perspective. By integrating digital humanities technologies with the translation process, this paper finds that multilingual databases transcend temporal and spatial constraints, enable interdisciplinary learning, and promote the produc-tion of high-quality translations. The paper argues that collaborative innovation models in the digital humanities can promote the diversification of translation subjects, the diversification of translation processes, and the sharing of transla-tion results, thereby providing new solutions for the international promotion of cultural classics. Furthermore, this paper points out that collabo-rative innova-tion models in the digital humanities face challenges in standard-ization and the dilemma of technological and cultural differences. These chal-lenges can be ad-dressed through the construction of a standard system, the im-provement of technical capabilities, and the deepening of cross-cultural communication.