Early Twentieth-Century Chinese Translations of Foreign Love Stories: A Case Study of Lin Shu and Zhou Shoujuan

This dissertation focuses on the Chinese translation of foreign love stories that Lin Shu and Zhou Shoujuan rendered during the early twentieth century, especially the period before 1919. My purpose is to explore the content and significance of these texts in order to provide a new perspective for the research of modern Chinese literature. By comparing the Chinese translations and the original texts, I reflect on the characteristics of traditional Chinese romance and ideas of marriage and love, along with traces of their transformation.oth the ideal of enlightenment and commercial benefit were crucial aspects to the publication of Chinese fiction in the early twentieth century. Liang Qichao argued that fiction should be enlightening and useful for the improvement of Chinese society. His theory of the “Revolution of Fiction” won the support of many Chinese intellectuals, who took fiction as a kind of “textbook for the masses” and translated numerous foreign works in order to set examples for Chinese writers. On the other hand, the power of economics on the writing and translating of literature can be observed in Shanghai, the center of fiction production in the late Qing and early Republican period. It shows a power that was stronger than the lesson that Liang preached and turned the development of fiction into something that was motivated more by financial interest. Liang’s ideal of the “Revolution of Fiction” was also challenged by the fact that the readers of these texts were highly educated instead of the illiterate people who desperately needed to be enlightened.ost of the translated works during this period follow the principle of “sense for sense,” instead of “word for word.” The translators’ strategy implies a Chinese-centered mentality and a wish for popularization: they wanted to produce translations that were easy to understand and therefore profitable. Being the most important translator of fiction in the late Qing, Lin Shu rendered over 160 foreign novels and short stories into Chinese, about a quarter of them romances. These foreign love stories are the best demonstrations of the complex relation between the enlightenment ideology and the desire for commercial profit. Most of them were translated from contemporary best-sellers, and though the authors’ intentions may not have been educational, the trivial messages of Western culture and the descriptions of heterosexual relationships and marriage in these books were eye-opening to many Chinese readers. In other words, these translated works offered an alternative enlightenment and became a kind of “textbook” for readers who were concerned about “free marriage.”n the social context of late Qing China, romantic love was not only an efficient way of selling books, but also an important mediation between China and the West. La Dame aux camélias, the first novel that Lin Shu translated, was immensely influential. It helped readers turn their eyes to world literature and begin to understand the Westerners’ “heart.” On the one hand, this love story corresponds to the traditional Chinese model of a “scholar and prostitute love affair,” so it could provide readers with a certain sense of familiarity and security; on the other, it describes an exotic European world and transforms the threatening Western culture into a commercial product that could be easily consumed, so that the readers’ anxiety could be resolved. According to many literary historians, the success of La Dame improved the social status of novelists in China and opened a new era of romance writing.he most controversial romantic novel that Lin Shu translated was Haggard’s Joan Haste. Unlike Bao Tianxiao, the first translator of this story, Lin translated it loyally, and therefore it struck many conservative critics as being immoral, because the heroine conceived an illegitimate baby. However, the major influence that this novel exerted on the young generation was not necessarily a loose attitude towards premarital sex, but a desire to sacrifice for romantic love. The same idea can be detected in another Haggard novel, Beatrice. This story celebrates the wonders and purity of spiritual love and condemns any marriage that is merely a trade. Most of the heroines in Lin Shu’s translated romances are self-sacrificial and are therefore “canonized for love” – in other words, love has such a great value in their lives that it even becomes a “religion” for them. This idea of romantic love was developed throughout the nineteenth century in the West and promoted by Lin’s translations in China; it eventually influenced thousands of Chinese readers and provoked a social reform. As for the Japanese novel Nami-Ko, its integration of a patriotic spirit into a romance inspired many modern patriotic love stories.in Shu and the Mandarin Duck and Butterfly writers are closely related in many ways, including their literary styles, their choice of certain foreign stories to be translated, the magazines that publish their works, etc. Lin was highly respected by the Butterfly writers, and the Butterfly magazines provided Lin with a secure space for his works after the May Fourth literary movement. The dynamics among Lin, the Butterfly writers and the May Fourth writers are complicated, and the most interesting case is Zhou Shoujuan, the so-called “master of melancholy romance.”hou Shoujuan was deeply influenced by Lin Shu’s translations, he inherited and expanded Lin’s territory in his own translation career and had a great impact on the young generation of the early Republican years. Zhou’s writings and translations corresponded to his own traumatic experience of love. The idea of romantic love dominates Zhou’s numerous translations and writings and created a fashion of love-worship. By various translation strategies, such as adapting the original texts, modifying the characters, embellishing the erotic-sentimental ambience, hyperbolizing descriptions, and adding exclamations, along with melodramatic presentations of love and death, Zhou created a highly charged fictional world of romantic passions and beauty that was extremely attractive to contemporary Chinese readers. Zhou’s translations of melancholy romance introduced a new vision of love: here, love is exalted above traditional Chinese morality and ethics, and thus represents a deep longing by the individual for his own independent subjectivity. In this sense, Zhou’s idea of love is comparable to that of the May Fourth writers.o conclude, Lin Shu and Zhou Shoujuan’s translations of foreign love stories show a high regard for romantic love. They clarify the relation between love and marriage and integrate the idea of romantic love and patriotic discourse. The fantastic scenes of “dying for love” in these stories, along with the contemporary media’s interests in “fate-bound mandarin ducks,” promoted the practice of “performing love” in public. The paradoxical combination of the sanctification and commercialization of romantic love was the major reason why Lin Shu’s translations of romance, Butterfly literature, and the modern popular romance flourished.