Lin Shu

Lin Shu (, November 8, 1852 – October 9, 1924; courtesy name Qinnan was a Chinese writer. He was well known for introducing Western literature to a whole generation of Chinese readers, despite his ignorance of any foreign languages; collaborating with others including actual translators, he released over 180 Classical Chinese translations of English or French works, mostly novels, drawn from 98 writers of 11 countries.

Life

Early life and education Lin was born in Min County (now Fuzhou City) in Fujian Province, and died in Beijing. He was born into a poor family. However, he enjoyed reading Chinese books and worked hard at assimilating them. In 1882 he was granted the title of Juren, given to scholars who successfully passed the imperial examination at the provincial level. The young Lin Shu held progressive views and believed that China should learn from Western nations in order that the country might advance. In Lin Shu's time, many scholars of bourgeois inclination, such as Kang Youwei and Liang Qichao, engaged in translating literary works and political novels, with a view to promoting bourgeois reforms. Lin Shu used classical Chinese in the translation of novels in an attempt to bridge the gap between classical Chinese and Western literary languages.

On the one hand, he strengthened the narrative function of classical Chinese to adapt itself to a realistic description; on the other hand, he tried to make his translations more succinct than the original by simplification to fit the habit of the Chinese readers. As a famous translator, Lin Shu has used his imagination to communicate with the invisible text and collaborate with the foreign authors.

Lin describes, in his translator's preface to Dickens's The Old Curiosity Shop , how he worked on his translations:

Scholarly comments Lin's translations were much forgotten until the essay "Lin Shu's Translations" by Qian Zhongshu appeared in 1963. Since then, the interest in Lin's translations has been revived. In 1981, the Commercial Press , the original publisher of many Lin's translations, reprinted ten of Lin's renditions (in simplified characters, with modern punctuations).

In his essay, Qian Zhongshu quoted Goethe's simile of translators as "geschäftige Kuppler", which stated that Lin Shu served well as a matchmaker between Western literature and Chinese readers, as he himself (a most avid reader of western books) was indeed motivated by Lin's translations to learn foreign languages. Qian also pointed out that Lin Shu often made "improvements" to the original as well as abridgments. According to Qian, Lin Shu's career, which lasted almost 30 years, can be divided into two phases. In the first phase (1897–1913), Lin's renditions were mostly vigorous, despite all the mistranslations. After that, Lin's renditions were dull, serving only as a means to eke out a living.

The following is Lin's rendition of the famous opening of David Copperfield:

The sinologist Arthur Waley held a high opinion of Lin's translations, suggesting they are not inferior to Dickens' originals:

During the New Cultural Movement, Lin Shu was much considered as a defender of Literary Chinese. He did not oppose the use of Vernacular Chinese (indeed he wrote a number of poems in the vernacular language), but he could not agree on the total abolition of Literary Chinese as was proposed then.