Professor Xu Yuanchong
Wilson T.S. Wang – New Method College Visiting Professor
Chan Sin-wai
Chairman of the Department
The Wilson T.S. Wang – New Method College Visiting Professor in Language Education at The Chinese University of Hong Kong for this academic year will be famous translation scholar Professor Xu Yuanchong of Peking University . Professor Xu's writings and translations come to more than 40 volumes and his views on literary translation are particularly noteworthy. On 13 th October Professor Xu will give a lecture in Putonghua entitled “Cultural Exchange and Globalization of Poetry.” The session will be chaired by Professor Richard Ho, University Registrar. Professor Ho is not only a language expert, but also a leading authority on Chinese poetry and prose.
The current issue of the Bulletin of the Department of Translation carries a special report on Professor Xu, which introduces his academic work and publications and provides background material on the public lecture he will give on 13 th October.
Professor Xu Yuanchong was born in Nanchang , Jiangxi , in 1921. After graduating from Southwest Associated University , he continued his literary studies at Tsinghua University before going to the University of Paris in 1948 where he obtained a Diploma of Literature specializing in Shakespeare and Racine. He has served as Visiting Professor in the Department of Western Languages at Peking University, and is serving concurrently as Professor of International Culture in the Department of Intercultural Studies and Professor of Literary Translation in the Department of English at Peking University.
Professor Xu is equally adept in Chinese, English and French, and all his works have enjoyed great acclaim in literary and translation circles. His English publications include On Chinese Verse in English Rhyme – From the Book of Poetry to the Romance of the Western Bower, which was selected by Peking University for inclusion in their series on the famous works of well-known writers, while Vanished Springs was prefaced by C.N. Yang, the 1957 Nobel Prize winner for physics. His Chinese publications, The Art of Translation, Literary Translation, Vanished Springs and Literary Translation Theories, have contributed greatly to the creation of a new school in Chinese translation theory. In addition to the Songs of the Immortals, which was published by Penguin Books, his translations from Chinese into English include a number of works in classical Chinese literature such as The Book of Poetry, The Songs of the South, Golden Treasury of Chinese Poetry from Han to Sui, 300 Tang Poems, 300 Song Lyrics, Selected Poems of Li Bai, Poems and Lyrics of Su Dongpo, The Romance of the Western Bower and 150 Poems from Yuan to Qing. His translation of The Songs of the South was acclaimed as “a peak of English and American literature” while that of The Romance of the Western Bower was said to be able to “vie with Shakespeare.” His French translations include 300 Classical Chinese Poems and The Selected Poems of Mao Zedong. He has also translated many world masterpieces into Chinese such as Dryden's All for Love, Scott's Quentin Durward, Selected Plays of Victor Hugo, Stendhal's Le Rouge et le Noir, Balzac's Un Debut dans la Vie, Flaubert's Madame Bovary, Maupassant's Sur L'Eau, Rolland's Jean -Christophe, Colas Breugnon and Henry Taylor's Flying Change.
Not only has Professor Xu's success been widely acknowledged by his entry in the Comprehensive Dictionary on Chinese Literature published by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, he has also been proclaimed by Chinese Culture News as the only expert in the world who can translate Chinese poetry into English and French rhyme. |
