The Complete Works of Feng Zhi's Translations, published by the Shanghai People's Publishing House Beijing Century Wenjing, were published, and the translations were all masterpieces of classicism and realism such as Goethe and Rilke. On the 18th, the "Rereading 'Foreign Nutrients' - "Feng Zhi Translation Complete Works" New Book Launch Conference jointly organized by Century Wenjing and the Institute of Foreign Literature of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences was held in Beijing.
Feng Zhi is an outstanding poet, writer, scholar and translator in China, and a pioneer and founder of the translation and research of Chinese German literature. He served as the first head of the Department of Western Language and Literature of Peking University after the adjustment of faculties, the first member of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and the first director of the Institute of Foreign Literature, and was later elected as the vice chairman of the Chinese Writers Association. He was awarded the Goethe Medal, the Literary and Artistic Prize, the Grand Cross, and the Brothers Grimm Prize of the GDR. Feng Zhi devoted his life to the teaching, research and promotion of foreign literature, and cultivated a group of outstanding German literature researchers for China.
Group photo of some of the participants.
"The Complete Translations of Feng Zhi" made a stunning appearance
The four-volume Complete Translations of Feng Zhi cover poetry, novels, letters, essays and other genres, with a rich and complete range of works, from which you can get a glimpse of the appearance of German classic literature, and can also study the development trajectory of early German literary translation in China. The book is also the first time that Feng Zhi's translations have been published in the form of a complete collection, which contains several translations that are currently out of print on the market, and some precious pictures that witness his academic career have made their debut, which has a high collection value.
Volume 1 contains the works and folk songs translated by Mr. Feng Zhi of Poets such as Goethe, Hölderlin, Heine, Nietzsche, Georg, Rilke, Brecht, etc., including excerpts from Goethe's most famous poems "Prometheus" and "Faust", as well as Feng Zhi's representative research works "Thirteen Brief Interpretations of Goethe's Poems", "Selected Poems of Heine", "Germany, a Winter Fairy Tale", etc., as well as the works of Rilke, the greatest German-speaking poet of the twentieth century and influenced generations of Chinese poets.
Volume II contains "Ten Letters to a Young Poet" and "A Brief Book of Aesthetic Education". The former is a brief letter written by Rilke to a young poet when he was about thirty years old, revealing the esoteric nature of aesthetic, faith, loneliness, love, sorrow, and other topics. The latter is 27 letters written by Schiller to the Duke of Augustenburg in Denmark between 1793 and 1794, in which Schiller argued that in order to reform the country and gain political freedom, it was necessary to first perfect the character of the times and restore human nature and integrity.
Volume III is Goethe's novel The Age of Learning of Villien Mestre. Born into a family of citizens, Vilian Meister was dissatisfied with the mediocrity and mercenary interests of the civic class, and hoped to transform society through theatrical arts and aesthetic education, and fell in love with the handsome Mariana. After a misunderstanding with Mariana, William wanders around and encounters all kinds of characters...
Volume IV contains Feng Zhi's translations of the Goethe Chronicles, The Travels of the Harz Mountains, The Songs of the Distant Distance, and seven translations from outside the collection. Among them, the foreign translations include translations that Feng Zhi published but did not include in his various anthologies during his lifetime, including short stories, van Gogh's letters, and Kierkegaard's feelings.
In the binding design, the publisher chose blue as the main color, using a retro style, the envelope presents a visual effect of "the mountains are silent, the sea is far-reaching" with different levels of blue, and the cover of the volume is matched with pure light blue. The overall style is elegant and calm, which echoes Mr. Feng Zhi's deep, simple and humble personality charm.
The first person to focus on the study of German literature
At the press conference, Feng Zhi's family and many heavyweight scholars in the field of Chinese-language literature translation and research were invited, and everyone reviewed their exchanges with Feng Zhi, talked about Feng Zhi's translations, and studied Feng Zhi's governance and translation process, all of which gave high praise.
Chen Zhonghui, a member of the Faculty of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and a researcher at the Institute of Foreign Languages, praised Feng Zhi as the first person to focus on the study of German literature. He said: "At that time, Mr. Feng maintained the establishment of the Institute of Foreign Languages in the wind and rain and the blue wisps of the road, and the two carriages of him and Zhang Weilian laid the foundation for all the German language and literature work of the Institute of Foreign Languages and Literature, and of course, the foundation of the entire discipline of foreign language and literature in the foreign Chinese languages and literatures." He summed up his admiration and understanding of Feng Zhi in eight words: taking into account the overall situation and being humble.
Feng Zhi's eldest daughter Feng Yaoping spoke.
Feng Zhi's eldest daughter, Feng Yaoping, reviewed her father's lifelong process of translation and creation, mentioning Feng Zhi's views on translating foreign literature: "The positive aspect is to enrich and inspire oneself, and the negative aspect is to correct oneself. She said that on the basis of inheriting the excellent traditions of Chinese literature, her father constantly absorbed "foreign nutrients" to enrich his creations. In his later years, even when he was plagued by illness, he continued to translate and study, and it was under such circumstances that The Treatise on Goethe, the Book of Aesthetic Education, and the Age of Study of Villien Meister were written and published.
Yao Yingran, general manager of Century Wenjing, introduced that the reason for Wenjing's publication of "Feng Zhi's Complete Translations" was that some of Feng Zhi's previous translations were only met with readers in a scattered and fragmented manner, and even some heavyweight translations have been broken, "In view of this, Wenjing is determined to make this set of "Feng Zhi Translation Complete Collections" and fully present the valuable wealth left by Mr. Feng in the field of translation to the readers. ”
The precious nutrients brought by Feng Zhi
Li Jingze, vice chairman of the China Writers Association, said that in the last century, translators represented by Feng Zhi participated in the construction of modern Chinese through translation, which played a very important role in the construction of modern Chinese. Feng Zhi translated from the German Romantic School to modernism, in fact, injecting a modern lyrical language and way into the Chinese language. In this sense, the contribution of this generation of translators has not yet been fully recognized. The German literature translated by Feng Zhi is closely related to his own life experience, life confusion, and the national and ethnic situation in the era. "It's not that this work is important in the history of literature, I'm going to translate it, but in fact there is a kind of spiritual echo." He also mentioned The Biography of Du Fu, which Feng Zhi studied in the 1930s and published in the 1950s, and believed that Feng Zhi was a poet and a researcher of German literature, from the translation of Goethe to the translation of Rilke, and finally the fundamental spirit of Du Fu.
Li Jingze, vice chairman of the China Writers Association, made a speech.
Zhang Hui, a professor in the Department of Chinese of Peking University, used Feng Zhi's translation as a clue to study Feng Zhi's translation context and ideological changes. He said that people's understanding of Feng Zhi's richness and complexity is far from enough, and it may even be just beginning. Through these translations, Feng Zhi was "seen" in at least two ways. The first is how Feng Zhi gradually grew from an early emotional poet to an empirical poet, and after that, he tried to explore and become a "complete person". "We can see the important role played by German-speaking poets, especially Goethe and Rilke, in his spiritual transmutation. This process, naturally, also reminds us of another parallel spiritual thread from his early years of liking late Tang poetry to loving Du Fu. On the other hand, we can more or less see a Feng Zhi who is different from the current of time and different from the mainstream of modern thought. Feng Zhi's choice of translation does not seem to be random. Not only is it determined by the atmosphere of the times, but it also reflects his self-spiritual exploration, as well as his reflection on the times and modernity.
Liang Zhan, a researcher at the Institute of Foreign Languages of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and director of the Sino-Northern European Research Office, believes that Feng Zhi has always advocated the planning of literary translation, rather than blind translation, and his view has always been consistent. In 1989, Feng Zhi also said at the "World Literature" symposium that "it is necessary to strengthen the planning of (literary translation), rather than blindly translating according to american awards and films", which has great enlightenment significance for our current publishing choices.
Researcher Li Yongping, a disciple of Feng Zhiguan, made a speech.
Li Yongping, a researcher at the Institute of Foreign Languages of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and a closed disciple of Feng Zhi, stressed, "Mr. Feng can say that he put a lot of effort into Rilke in his early years, but then the name Rilke disappeared from Feng Zhi's writings, of course, there are historical reasons for this." But in his mind, Rilke never disappeared. Li Yongping recalled that the poet Feng Zhi most wanted to translate in his later years was Rilke, and he most wanted to translate Rilke's "Sonnets to Orpheus". "Although Mr. Feng did not completely translate the Sonnets, which is a little more than ten poems in this complete collection, he translated it very concisely, paying special attention to rhymes, and it is very difficult to do this."
Professor Huang Liaoyu, Head of the Department of German at Peking University, delivered a speech.
Professor Huang Liaoyu, head of the German Department at Peking University, believes that Feng Zhi is very high in choosing the content of translation. He has a big picture view, a feeling, and the launch of each of his translations obviously asks himself "Why translate this". This involves two issues, one is the combination of the demands of the times and local consciousness, and the second is a comprehensive grasp of German cultural history, "As a translator, whether it is looking at domestic needs or looking at the overall grasp of German literary history, I admire his vision."
Column Editor-in-Chief: Fan Jianghong Text Editor: Fan Jianghong Title Image Source: Wen Wei Po Photo Editor: Shao Jing
Source: Author: Fan Jianghong