The Ideological Limitations on Translations of The Analects of Confucius: Inheritance and Transcendence

Abstract

There are many translation versions of The Analects of Confucius, including the first version by the foreign emissaries to China, and the following versions at home and overseas, as well as modern and contemporary works by Chinese translators. The translation of The Analects became more and more diversified, and the research on The Analects was more and more in-depth. However, the translation of The Analects of Confucius began with ideological constraints that is hard to get rid of. This paper will refer to three translation versions from James Legge, Waley and Ku Hung-ming, in order to analyze the Christian, orientalism and Confucian culture ideological limitations on the translation of The Analects of Confucius. The paper argues that the translation of The Analects must be based on inheriting classic translation principles, accurately understand the original texts, aptly add to the annotations, break the ideological limitation, so as to translate and spread essence of Confucian classics better.