The interlingual translation between premodern China and Japan: Bai Juyi’s poetry and Murasaki Shikibu’s The Tale of Genji

Abstract

ABSTRACTMurasaki Shikibu (c. 973 or 978 – c. 1014 or 1031) was a Japanese court lady, who wrote The Tale of Genji about a millennium ago. Her Genji is the most popular and widely read fictional narrative in the Japanese literary canon. Genji has been revered as expressing the aesthetics and identity of Japanese. Bai Juyi (772–846), one of the most admired poets from China’s Tang Dynasty (618–907), left numerous verses and influenced East Asian Literature. This paper intends to explore Murasaki Shikibu’s dialogic engagement with Bai Juyi to show a journey of literary translation and creation. It is argued that Murasaki Shikibu transforms the senses or the essence of Bai’s poetry into a poetic realm for her prose. The author argues that the interlingual translating practice of Murasaki Shikibu is not simply a matter of borrowing from literary sources; it is a rewriting that goes beyond indigenous aesthetics and then expands the possibilities for literary creation. This approach will also enable researchers of translation studies to trace tangible evidence of influence as a thread that connects traditional Japanese and Chinese literary studies with contemporary translation theories.