Imitation as rewriting: Zhou Zuoren’s approach to William Blake’s poems on children in May Fourth China

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article intends to incorporate imitation, the creative emulation of existing texts, into the framework of André Lefevere’s rewriting theory. Building on past translation theories, recent scholarship in translation studies, and the findings of related academic fields, it distinguishes two different meanings of the term imitation: the free method of translation commonly used in translation studies and the creative emulation of earlier models fruitfully explored in the study of hypertextuality and poetic influence. It argues that imitation in the second sense, offering illuminating insights into textual relations and literary influence, deserves to be conceived as a distinctive type of rewriting, since Lefevere habitually uses the word without purging it of the second meaning and readily acknowledges the possibility of new rewriting forms. By analyzing the celebrated Chinese intellectual Zhou Zuoren’s (1885–1967) appropriation of the English poet William Blake’s (1757–1827) poems on children in the May Fourth era (1915–1927), this essay demonstrates that imitation can not only exhibit the distinguishing features of Lefevere’s rewriting, but also provide fresh insights into translation studies and beyond through its assistance in identifying hitherto unknown borrowings from foreign literature.