Rethinking knowledge in the making of modernism through the translingual practice of Qiyun shengdong

Abstract

ABSTRACT Translingual practice in a historical context conceptualizes translation as travel; when examined in a social network, translation can be perceived as an innovative force of knowledge-making. This study is concerned with the travels of a critical artistic term in Medieval China: qiyun shengdong. Predicated on their distinct connotations, Xie He combined the meanings of qi and yun to refer to the vitality evinced in the human body, as well as the beauty of the talent and elegance emanating from the posture. Sinologists such as Herbert Giles and Laurence Binyon translated and introduced the term based on the Western cultural milieu, making qiyun commensurate with “rhythm,” eventually developing the mainstream translation of “rhythmic vitality.” With an examination of the rewriting and repositioning of qiyun from Binyon to Vortex leaders Ezra Pound and Wyndham Lewis as well as Roger Fry, a key member of the Bloomsbury circle and the pioneering modernist and formalist, the emergence of modernist discourse is highlighted with translation as an agent. This research will expose the understated process of knowledge formation through translation across cultures by analyzing the travel and reception of the term qiyun shengdong to recapture translation as an influential aspect of artistic innovation.