Meiwen Appreciation: Say Wu Mi

Text/Hu Zongfeng

Wu Mi, who is a master of ancient and modern Chinese and Western, said of the foreign language learners of that year:

"Today's learners of Western languages in our country do not investigate their beautiful characteristics, but only a rough understanding is possible. First, because his original intention was to borrow literature to understand things, rather than focusing on literature; second, because the age of the western scholar was not very long, his degree was not very high, and he failed to fully peek into the whole leopard for a while; third, because he had little study of his own literature, the concept of literature was very shallow, and once he obtained the jewel, he could not distinguish its non-rubble. For this reason, foreign literature is rarely transmitted to us. ”

I think I'm learning a foreign language now

Many people, still "only with rough understanding as a skill", "can not fully see the whole leopard" of the language they learned. Of course, the transmission of foreign literature to us is not "rare", but a lot. However, many translators "have little research on their own literature, so the concept of literature is very shallow." The current situation is exactly the opposite of what Mr. Wu Mi said back then, that is, "once the rubble is obtained, it is impossible to distinguish between non-precious treasures and jade."

In the spring of 1948, Wu Mi returned to her hometown and gave a lecture entitled "The Origin of the University from the Ideal" at the National Northwest University on April 6, and held a special lecture on world literature, introduction to literature and Chinese novels for students from the three departments of Chinese, foreign languages and history. In his speech, he elaborated on his responsibility to the university. Revisiting some of his words back then makes people sigh to this day. As a university teacher, whenever someone asks me what major I studied in college to find a job, I am often speechless. If I were familiar with it, I would say that college is first and foremost generalist education, and if you learn what you graduate, you will do anything, which is called "×× technical school". At that time, Wu Mi had already said in his speech: "Universities are a place for teachers and scholars to be lazy and idle: the words 'school', 'scholar', 'scholar', 'scholarship' in English are originally from the Greek language, and their original meaning is 'leisure'. ”

The English word "university" is derived from Latin, and this word in Latin means "big group", that is, people from all over the world, gathered together to talk about learning, is the beginning of the university. However, since the university is a group of intelligent people, and when it comes to scholarship, it is impossible not to have a vision in the vision, a state of perfection in the ideal, and the educators, philosophers and far-sighted scholars of all history have used their ideals to formulate a system to explain the university they envision.

Universities are academic institutions that produce generalists and scholars, universities are not junior colleges, let alone vocational schools, focusing on the study of advanced scholarship and the integration of knowledge from relevant departments. The purpose of the university is to cultivate "knowledgeable and promising" academic generalists, not to train "professional" and "technical" talents.

Universities are places where the spiritual and cultural heritage of humanity is preserved. One country and one nation have their own glorious cultural heritage, and all mankind has the public industry of all mankind. Generally, high-level cultural heritage has little utility, so it must be preserved and enlarged by the highest academic institutions. ”

——Quoted from Yao Yuan's "The Order of the East: Speaking of the Northwest United Congress"

It is said that someone once mobilized Wu Mi to go to the United States, but his answer was: "Mi was born as a Chinese, and died in China." ”

Wu Mi is a native of Shaanxi, then there must be a fate with the universities in Shaanxi, in fact, in the early 1940s, hu Shuhua, the president of the National Northwest University at the time, had signed a letter of appointment to appoint Wu Mi as a professor and dean of the Faculty of Letters of national Northwest University, and Wu Mi's name had been impressively listed in the list of faculty members, but in the end Wu Mi did not accept the appointment. Wu Mi also lectured at Shaanxi Normal University in 1961. The information I had at hand was sent to me from WeChat by Professor Ma Jiajun, who had received Mr. Wu Mi. Elder Ma has passed his old age, but he still writes and publishes articles every day, and there are many very valuable materials.

Here we record a poem translated by Mr. Wu Mi into the English poet Christina Rossetti (1830-1894), giving us a glimpse of mr. Wu Mi's miraculous translation in five ancient scripts.

May the King always remember me

May the King always remember me, and depart from the throne;

Meet and yellow springs, faint sound dust;

In the past, there were often parties, holding hands and deep knots;

Before going and turning back, a thousand words are still meaningful;

The words are commonplace, and the white head looks like a match.

This scene is difficult to hurt again, and my life is suddenly easy;

Blessings are useless, and the heart is like iron.

But the period always remembers me, from zi to eternal tips;

Junru temporarily forgets me, and thinks back and does not resent himself;

I wish you pleasure, not hardship.

I am born of innocent thoughts, and I am clean and dusty;

Leave the shadow in the heart of the king, and endure the loss of the king's truth;

Forget the time jun laughs, remember the time jun sadly;

May the King always remember me, that is, this is the word.