Shakespeare, William

Lin, Zexu. Si zhou zhi [ID D2013].
Erste Erwähnung von William Shakespeare und John Milton in China.
Er schreibt : 在感彌利赤建書館一所。有沙士比阿、彌爾頓、士達薩特彌頓四人工詩文 = Zai Ganmilichi jian shu guan yi suo. You Shashibiya, Mierdun, Shidasate, Midun si ren gong shi wen. = [In Greenwich (?) hat man eine Buchhandlung gebaut, in der es die vier Erschaffer der Literatur gibt : William Shakespeare, John Milton, Edmund Spenser, John Dryden. Pope wird in der Übersetzung nicht erwähnt].

Muirhead, William. Da Yingguo zhi [ID D2152].
Erwähnung von William Shakespeare unter dem Namen 'Shekesibi' = 舌克斯畢 in China. Muirhead erwähnt auch Sir Philip Sidney, Edmund Spenser, Francis Bacon und Richard Hooker.
Er schreibt : "Shakespeare was a well-know public figure in the Elizabethan age. His brilliant works represent both beauty and virtue. No one has outshone him so far".

Guo Songtao wird zu einer Ausstellung von englischen Druckmaschinen eingeladen.
Er schreibt im Tagebuch : "Among all the books on display, Shakespeare's was the most well known. He was an outstanding English playwright about two hundred years ago, enjoying equal popularity with the Greek writer Homer."

Guo Songtao besucht am 30. Dez. 1878 als erster Chinese ein Theaterstück von William Shakespeare : Hamlet : a tragedy in five acts as arragned for the stage by Henry Irving im Lyceum Theatre in London.
Er schreibt im Tagebuch (Jan. 1879) : "In the evening, I was invited to go to London Lyceum Theatre to see a Shakespeare production. Emphasis was placed on the lively and attractive plot design of the play, and not on florid language and ornate style".

Zeng, Jize. Shi xi ri ji [ID D7904].
Er schreibt über die Aufführung von Hamlet von William Shakespeare in London : "On the seventh day (of the third month, the fifth year of Guangxu). The play was a story about the King of Denmark who murdered his brother and married his sister-in-law. Therefore his brother's son took his revenge. The play was over at the beginning of zi shi [eleven o'clock in the evening] and then we came home."

Sheffield, Devello Z. Wan guo tong jian [ID D2406].
Li Ruru : Sheffield introduced William Shakespeare as 'Shasipier', as a great playwright as well as a poet : "pathos or mirth in Shakespeare's plays was brought to perfection, which nobody had ever matched since Homer".

Aufführung von The merchant of Venice von William Shakespeare.
Erste englische Aufführung von Studenten des Foreign Language Department des St. John College Shanghai. This was not in its original form and the purpose of performance was for practicing English language.

[Huxley, Thomas Henry]. Tian yan lun. Yan Fu yi. [ID D10307].
Yan Fu schreibt über William Shakespeare : "Shakespeare was an English poet and dramatist of the 16th-17th centuries. His works are so valuable that most of them have already been translated all over the worlds. As for the characters depicted by Shakespeare, people living today not only resemble them in their speech and laughter, but also in their conflicts, emotions and their inability to get on amicably with one another.
Shakespeare wrote a play recounting the murder of Caesar. When Antony delivers a speech to the citizens while showing the body of Caesar to the public, he uses logic to stir up the citizens cleverly because Brutus warned him that he would not be allowed to redress a grievance for Caesar and blame the murderers. The citizens are greatly agitated by the speech and their resentment against Brutus and his comrades is running high. We should attribute Antony's success to the function of logic !"

Liang, Qichao. Yin bing shi shi hua. In : Xin min cong bao ; no 5 (1902). [On poetry].
饮冰室诗话
Liang Qichao entscheidet sich für Shashibiya als chinesischer Name für William Shakespeare.
Er schreibt : "Homer, the Greek poet, was the greatest poet in ancient times ; as for later poets, such as Shakespeare, Milton and Tennyson, their poems usually contain several thousand lines. How wonderful ! Just the sublime style is brilliant enough to overwhelm you, so you no longer need to comment on the language of their poems."

William Shakespeare und chinesisches Theater = Shakespeare and Chinese theatre.
Zhang Xiao Yang : The differences and affinities between Shakespeare and traditional Chinese drama are especially obvious in their tragedies and comedies. Shakespearean political tragedies are linked by the theme of a struggle for power in a royal family or among the leading figures in the political arena, while most traditional Chinese political tragedies recount the conflict between virtuous ministers and treacherous minister. The themes of traditional Chinese love-political tragedies are more complex than those in Shakespeare's tragedies. These plays deal with not only the incompatibility of the desire for love and the desire for power, but also with the way the pleasures of love are destroyed by the great turbulence of Chinese history. Thus in the plays the lovers encounter desperate situations caused by domestic troubles and foreign invasions.
A striking contrast between Shakespearean and traditional Chinese tragedy lies in the treatment of the protagonists. In Shakespearean tragedies the chief characters are mainly great heroes of high degree such as kings, princes, or the leaders of states. They need not obey anyone nor follow any conventional moral doctrine. Since they are their own masters and can exercise great freedom of choice, they are unlikely to become victims of other people's wills. By contrast, Traditional Chinese tragedy is concerned with people in relatively lower social position. These are people who cannot decide their own actions, who are not the rulers but the ruled. They have to submit to the authority of a monarch or comply with the moral doctrine of Confucianism. Another phenomenon in the tratment of the protagonists is that Shakespeare's tragedies revolve around men and traditional Chinese tragedies encompass women. The tragic effects of Shakespeare's tragedies come from the death of the male protagonists, but the tgragic mood in the Chinese plays is created by the suffering and destruction of the women, which appeals strongly to the audience's sympathy and pity.
Shakespearean tragedy represents a general trend of the Renaissance in which people began to criticize conventional ideas and establish new ideological and value systems. To some extent, Shakespearean and Chinese tragedies demonstrate one of the main differences between modern Western and traditional Chinese cultures. Since the European Renaissance Western culture has become a dynamic 'culture of regeneration' with the ability to constantly produce new ideas. On the other hand, Chinese tragedy clearly shows that although unique and rich, Chinese culture had become a static and closed system, since Buddhism was mingled with Confucianism and Taoism during the Song and Ming dynasties.
Most Shakespeare critics classify Shakespearean comedies into three categories : romantic, problem and tragicomedy. Traditional Chinese comedies are usually classified according to two general types : they either attack vice, folly, or foolish behavior, or they describe the achievement of happiness or praise virtuous action. Most critics agree, that the major themes of Shekespearean comedy are love and friendship. Similarly almost all the Chinese laudatory comedies are concerned with love and marriage and some of them with friendship.
There is a striking similarity between Shakespearean and traditional Chinese drama in dramatic techniques. That is, both have a very free deployment of time and space. There is no fixed time limit in Shakespeare’s plays because his plays cover a time period much longer than twenty-four hours. Sometimes the events in his plays last for many years, particularly in his romances. Like Shakespeare, Chinese playwrights always felt free to determine the time length of their plots. In traditional Chinese drama, very few plays take place within twenty-four hours. Most plots proceed for several days, weeks, or months, and sometimes even for many years. The deployment of place in traditional Chinese drama is absolutly free.
Unlike Shakespeare, Chinese dramatists did not concentrate on human nature as a whole. Rather, they paid special attention to the moral and social sides of their characters. In traditional Chinese drama, the two sides of humans are presented separately. The positive characters are always perfect and the negative characters are totally vicious. Neigher resemble people in real life. While Shakespeare's characters are not immoral, representing moral principles was not his main purpose. In traditional Chinese drama, the moral virtues of the characters are emphasized and heightened. Most of the characters tend to be moral types such as loyal subjects, patriotic generals, dutiful sons, chaste wives, and faithful friends. In Shakespeare's plays we often find admiration for the nobility of humanity. Classical Chinese playwrights followed the general rule of dramatic creation, trying to mix beauty with goodness.
The colorfulness and complexity of his characters provide one of the major artistic distinctions of Shakespeare's plays. By contrast, the characters of traditional Chinese drama are relatively monochromatic and simple, having protagonists that represent certain social classes in ancient Chinese society. Shakespeare's characters are complex and the Chinese characters are comparatively simple. The main reason for this is, that Shakespeare tried to explore the depth and range of humanity's inner world, while classical Chinese playwrights were generally content to describe only the outer actions and certain emotions of human beings.
The comparison between Shakespeare and traditional Chinese drama suggests that the type of characterization found in traditional Chinese drama may not satisfy Western audiences since they are used to Western dramatists, including Shakespeare, who emphasize complex psychological depth in character portrayal in the belief that the many-sided attributes of the subject help to round out their characters and make them seem real. Yet characterization in traditional Chinese drama has its own distinctive dramatic and aesthetic merit, considering that traditional Chinese drama and Shakepseare's plays belong to different modes of dramatic art.
In any comparison between Shakespeare and traditional Chinese drama one aspect constantly commands scholarly interest : both are examples of poetic drama and both show great richness in poetic presentation and the use of imagery. Like Shakespeare's plays, the text of traditional Chinese drama consists of two parts, verse (qu) and prose (bai). Verse generally expresses emotion or depicts scenery while prose recounts stories or develops dialogue. Most classical Chinese playwrights concentrated on using verse, so that prose is frequently interspersed with short poems.
The animal images used in traditional Chinese drama and Shakespeare's plays are a good way to illustrate such a difference. Traditional Chinese plays have far fewer of these images than do Shakespeare's works. Usually only animals having conventional symbolic meaning could be used as poetic images in traditional Chinese plays. By contrast, Shakespeare used many more kinds of animals as poetic images than did classical Chinese dramatists. He seemed to be familiar with their habits and characteristics. Hence he can accommodate them properly into his metaphorical visions. When Shakespeare chooses poetic images, he shows a special interest in domestic animals such as sheep, horses, dogs, and pigs, which are rarely used by classical Chinese plawrights as poetical images. The tendency of classical Chinese playwrights to choose beautiful and graceful poetic images was so strong that they could fill their descriptions with such images even when they wrote of intimate subjects such as sexual intercourse.
Traditional Chinese writers used a very beautiful and explicit image of clouds and rain as a symbol of lovemaking. Shakespeare's bias in favor of strong and vigorous images is evident even in his description of love affairs. His plays have many symbolic images that vividly illustrate abstract concepts.
Shakespeare's plays and traditional Chinese drama stem from different geographical circumstances and cultural backgrounds. England is a country noted for its navigation tradition, so it is easy to understand why the sea, ships, and sailing became traditional poetic images and affected Shakespeare's use of imagery. By contrast, China is mainly a large landlocked and mountainous country. Chinese civilization originated drom the Yellow River Basin, thus mountains and rivers were closely associated with the cultural thinking of the ancient Chinese.
In both Shakespeare's plays and traditional Chinese drama, two opposing images are very obvious, the sun and the moon. This is not merely because the image of the sun is frequently used in Shakespeare's plays while that of the moon is employed in traditional Chinese drama ; it is mainly because these two images are profoundly associated with Western and traditional Chinese cultures.
An examination of Shakespeare's plays and traditional Chinese drama shows that the former tends toward romanticism and the latter toward classicism.

[Shakespeare, William]. Hai wai qi tan [ID D23522].
Darin enthalten sind The two gentlemen of Verona, The merchant of Venice, The twelfth night und The taming of the shrew.
Der unbekannte Übersetzer schreibt in der Einführung : "The book was written by the Englishman Shakespeare. He was a world-renowned actor, an accomplished poet, an extraordinarily popular playwright, and is considered a literary giant in England. His works have been translated into French, German, Russian, and Italien, and are read by almost everyone. Our own contemporary literati who specialize in writing verse and fiction have also joined the chorus in his praise without even having had the opportunity to read his work. To remedy this unfortunate situation, I have undertaken this translation with the hope that it will add color and splendor to the world of fiction."

Lanmu, Cha'ersi [Lamb, Charles]. Yingguo shi ren yin bian yan yu [ID D10417].
Lin Shu's translation of Tales from Shakespeare contains twenty stories based on the Bard's plays, it was the second earliest introduction of Shakespearean works into China.
Lin Shu schreibt im Vorwort : "When the Europeans criticize our country, they usually say that China is becoming increasingly weak and ill-fated because she is narrow in her view of the world, outdated in her thinking, allowing her past to dominate her present, and too fond of gods, fairies, ghosts, and demons. The young and audacious in our country are going all out for reform and change. They embrace only the new, mocking the old tradition and practice and discarding past history and heritage.
There are certainly justifications in what these people are doing. But, if they think that all things Western are new to China, they are wrong, for it would be like glorifying somebody by exaggerating his merits or destroying somebody by magnifying his faults. Aren't Hardy and Shakespeare literary giants of the great civilized England ? Look at Hardy's books that I have translated ; there are taboo snakes and condemned ghosts all over the place. Shakespeare's poetry is quite comparable to that of our [great poet] Du Fu, but he often conjures up images of gods, fairies, ghosts, and demons. If the Westerners are so civilized, then maybe these works mentioned should be banned and burned so as not to interfere with scientific knowledge. As far as I know, however, Shakespeare's poetry is held in high esteem among the well bred [in the West]. There his works are not only read and recited in every household but also performed in theaters, where men and women are moved to tears as they hold each other's hands listening to every word, where no one is ever tempted to call him old-fashioned or accuse him of having a fetish about gods, fairies, ghosts, and demons. Why is this the case ? Certainly, many old things are useless today, for example, the cooking vessels and drinking cups from the Bronze Age, heavy and rust eaten. But no expense should be spared to obtain, preserve, and display, say, a distinguished suit of armor once worn by a great personage from an illustrious family. People who are affluent and not troubled by the material needs of everyday life turn their interest to the past in pursuit of new personal enrichment. This is just like what [Su] Dongpo said, that when one has had enough rich meats and fine grains he starts to miss the snails and clams [of the old days].
Running a country and educating its people are two important matters that do not depend on arts and literature. When all is well with the country and its people, good arts and literature can add more luster; but when good arts and literature is all a country has, they do not benefit either the governing or educating. That's why the Westerners make government and education their priorities, gathering wealth and building military strength. They are so rich and powerful that no outsiders dare to humiliate them. It is only then they begin to enjoy arts and literature in their leisure time. Maybe Mr. Hardy and Mr. Shakespeare are old-fashioned and using gods, fairies, ghosts, and demons too much, but the civilized Westerners are certainly not complaining.
I am old, and I do not use the same language as Hardy and Shakespeare, but I am particularly fond of these two gentlemen's works. My good friend Mr. Wei Chunshu, from Renhe [Hangzhou, Zhejiang] —young, erudite, and a master of Western languages—and I teamed up to do translations at the Translation Studio of the Jingshi Daxuetang (Capital University). After Mr. Wei orally translated the works to me, I put them into [Chinese] literary form. In about two years we translated about three or four works, of which the most massive one is the Biography of Napoleon. We are about to graduate from the studio early this coming autumn. When free one night, Mr. Wei picked up some Shakespeare by chance; I started scribbling away by the night lamp. Twenty days later we have a book of Shakespeare's poetic tales.
The British certainly embrace new ideas in running their country, but they do not discard Shakespeare's poetry. Now that I have translated the book of Shakespeare's poetic tales, won't those blievers in new things reject it ?
There are some different versions of Shakespeare's poetic tales coming into our country. There are similarities and differences in the selections of tales as well as in the contents of actual tales themselves. My book contains bwenty tales, each of which has a new title by me for the purpose of highlighting."

Tian Han schreibt : "The novels translated by Lin Qinnan [Lin Shu] were very popular then and they were also my favourite type of publication. I was really interested in Lamb's Tales from Shakespeare which was translated als 'English poet, reciting from afar on joyous occasions'. I've been unconsciously influenced by this book. I read The tempest, Hamlet and Romeo and Juliet in the originals when I grew up, but it seemed to me that Lin's way of telling these stories as fairy tales was more appealing."

Li Ruru : Lin Shu adapted his Tales into Chinese. Taking the extract quoted earlier as an example, his version, compared to the original account by the Lambs, is tinged with more personal feelings evoked through the use of dialogue. His style is influenced by traditional Chinese story telling, which alternates freely and frequently between firs-person expression and third-person narration and commentary.

Lu, Xun. Mo luo shi li shuo = On the power of Mara poetry. [ID D26228]. [Auszüge].
Lu Xun erwähnt George Byron, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Thomas Carlyle, William Shakespeare, John Milton, Walter Scott, John Keats, Friedrich Nietzsche, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Henrik Ibsen [erste Erwähnung], Nikolai Wassil'evich Gogol, Platon, Dante, Napoleon I., Ernst Moritz Arndt, Friedrich Wilhelm III., Theodor Körner, Edward Dowden, John Stuart Mill, Matthew Arnold, John Locke, Robert Burns, Aleksandr Sergeevich Pushkin, Adam Mickiewicz, Sandor Petöfi, Wladimir Galaktionowitsch Korolenko.

Lu Xun schreibt :
"He who has searched out the ancient wellspring will seek the source of the future, the new wellspring. O my brothers, the works of the new life, the surge from the depths of the new source, is not far off". Nietzsche...
Later the poet Kalidasa achieved fame for his dramas and occasional lyrics ; the German master Goethe revered them as art unmatched on earth or in heaven...
Iran and Egypt are further examples, snapped in midcourse like well-ropes – ancient splendor now gone arid. If Cathay escapes this roll call, it will be the greatest blessing life can offer. The reason ? The Englishman Carlyle said : "The man born to acquire an articulate voice and grandly sing the heart's meaning is his nation's raison d'être. Disjointed Italy was united in essence, having borne Dante, having Italian. The Czar of great Russia, with soldiers, bayonets, and cannon, does a great feat in ruling a great tract of land. Why has he no voice ? Something great in him perhaps, but he is a dumb greatness. When soldiers, bayonets and cannon are corroded, Dante's voice will be as before. With Dante, united ; but the voiceless Russian remains mere fragments".
Nietzsche was not hostile to primitives ; his claim that they embody new forces is irrefutable. A savage wilderness incubates the coming civiliization ; in primitives' teeming forms the light of day is immanent...
Russian silence ; then stirring sound. Russia was like a child, and not a mute ; an underground stream, not an old well. Indeed, the early 19th century produced Gogol, who inspired his countrymen with imperceptible tear-stained grief, compared by some to England's Shakespeare, whom Carlyle praised and idolized. Look around the worls, where each new contending voice has its own eloquence to inspire itself and convey the sublime to the world ; only India and those other ancient lands sit motionless, plunged in silence...
I let the past drop here and seek new voices from abroad, an impulse provoked by concern for the past. I cannot detail each varied voice, but none has such power to inspire and language as gripping as Mara poetry. Borrowed from India, the 'Mara' – celestial demon, or 'Satan' in Europe – first denoted Byron. Now I apply it to those, among all the poets, who were committed to resistance, whose purpose was action but who were little loved by their age ; and I introduce their words, deeds, ideas, and the impact of their circles, from the sovereign Byron to a Magyar (Hungarian) man of letters. Each of the group had distinctive features and made his own nation's qualities splendid, but their general bent was the same : few would create conformist harmonies, but they'd bellow an audience to its feet, these iconoclasts whose spirit struck deep chords in later generations, extending to infinity...
Humanity began with heroism and bravado in wars of resistance : gradually civilization brought culture and changed ways ; in its new weakness, knowing the perils of charging forward, its idea was to revert to the feminine ; but a battle loomed from which it saw no escape, and imagination stirred, creating an ideal state set in a place as yet unattained if not in a time too distant to measure. Numerous Western philosophers have had this idea ever since Plato's "Republic". Although there were never any signs of peace, they still craned toward the future, spirits racing toward the longed-for grace, more committed than ever, perhaps a factor in human evolution...
Plato set up his imaninary "Republic", alleged that poets confuse the polity, and should be exiled ; states fair or foul, ideas high or low – these vary, but tactics are the same...
In August 1806 Napoleon crushed the Prussian army ; the following July Prussia sued for peace and became a dependency. The German nation had been humiliated, and yet the glory of the ancient spirit was not destroyed. E.M. Arndt now emerged to write his "Spirit of the Age" (Geist der Zeit), a grand and eloquent declaration of independence that sparked a blaze of hatred for the enemy ; he was soon a wanted man and went to Switzerland. In 1812 Napoleon, thwarted by the freezing conflagration of Moscow, fled back to Paris, and all of Europe – a brewing storm – jostled to mass its forces of resistance. The following year Prussia's King Friedrich Wilhelm III called the nation to arms in a war for three causes : freedom, justice, and homeland ; strapping young students, poets, and artists flocked to enlist. Arndt himself returned and composed two essays, "What is the people's army" and "The Rhine is a great German river, not its border", to strengthen the morale of the youth. Among the volunteers of the time was Theodor Körner, who dropped his pen, resigned his post as Poet of the Vienne State Theater, parted from parents and beloved, and took up arms. To his parents he wrote : "The Prussian eagle, being fierce and earnest, has aroused the great hope of the German people. My songs without exception are spellbound by the fatherland. I would forgot all joys and blessings to die fighting for it ! Oh, the power of God has enlightened me. What sacrifice could be more worthy than one for our people's freedom and the good of humanity ? Boundless energy surges through me, and I go forth ! " His later collection "Lyre and sword" (Leier und Schwert), also resonates with this same spirit and makes the pulse race when one recites from it. In those days such a fervent awareness was not confined to Körner, for the entire German youth were the same. Körner's voice as the voice of all Germans, Körner's blood was the blood of all Germans. And so it follows that neither State, nor Emperor, nor bayonet, but the nation's people beat Napoleon. The people all had poetry and thus the poets' talents ; so in the end Germany did not perish. This would have been inconceivable to those who would scrap poetry in their devotion to utility, who clutch battered foreign arms in hopes of defending hearth and home. I have, first, compared poetic power with rice and beans only to shock Mammon's disciples into seeing that gold and iron are far from enough to revive a country ; and since our nation has been unable to get beyond the surface of Germany and France, I have shown their essence, which will lead, I hope, to some awareness. Yet this is not the heart of the matter...
England's Edward Dowden once said : "We often encounter world masterpieces of literature or art that seem to do the world no good. Yet we enjoy the encounter, as in swimming titanic waters we behold the vastness, float among waves and come forth transformed in body and soul. The ocean itself is but the heave and swell of insensible seas, nor has it once provided us a single moral sentence or a maxim, yet the swimmer's health and vigor are greatly augmented by it"...
If everything were channeled in one direction, the result would be unfulfilling. If chill winter is always present, the vigor of spring will never appear ; the physical shell lives on, but the soul dies. Such people live on, but hey have lost the meaning of life. Perhaps the use of literaure's uselessness lies here. John Stuart Mill said, "There is no modern civilization that does not make science its measure, reason its criterion, and utility its goal". This is the world trend, but the use of literature is more mysterious. How so ? It can nurture our imagination. Nurturing the human imagination is the task and the use of literature...
Matthew Arnold's view that "Poetry is a criticism of life" has precisely this meaning. Thus reading the great literary works from Homer on, one not only encounters poetry but naturally makes contact with life, becomes aware of personal merits and defects one by one, and naturally strives harder for perfection. This effect of literature has educational value, which is how it enriches life ; unlike ordinary education, it shows concreteley a sense of self, valor, and a drive toward progress. The devline and fall of a state has always begun with is refusal to heed such teaching...
[The middle portion of this essay is a long and detailed description of Lu Xun's exemplary Mara poets, including Byron, Shelley, Pushkin, Lermontov, Michiewicz, Slowacki and Petöfi].
In 18th-century England, when society was accustomed to deceit, and religion at ease with corruption, literature provided whitewash through imitations of antiquity, and the genuine voice of the soul could not he heard. The philosopher Locke was the first to reject the chronic abuses of politics and religion, to promote freedom of speech and thought, and to sow the seeds of change. In literature it was the peasant Burns of Scotland who put all he had into fighting society, declared universal equality, feared no authority, nor bowed to gold and silk, but poured his hot blood into his rhymes ; yet this great man of ideas, not immediately the crowd's proud son, walked a rocky outcast road to early death. Then Byron and Shelley, as we know, took up the fight. With the power of a tidal wave, they smashed into the pillars of the ancien régime. The swell radiated to Russia, giving rise to Pushkin, poet of the nation ; to Poland, creating Mickiewicz, poet of revenge ; to Hungary, waking Petéfi, poet of patriotism ; their followers are too many to name. Although Byron and Shelley acquired the Mara title, they too were simply human. Such a fellowship need not be labeled the "Mara School", for life on earth is bound to produce their kind. Might they not be the ones enlightened by the voice of sincerity, who, embracing that sincerity, share a tacit understanding ? Their lives are strangely alike ; most took up arms and shed their blood, like swordsmen who circle in public view, causing shudders of pleasure at the sight of mortal combat. To lack men who shed their blood in public is a disaster for the people ; yet having them and ignoring them, even proceeding to kill them, is a greater disaster from which the people cannot recover...
"The last ray", a book by the Russian author Korolenko, records how an old man teaches a boy to read in Siberia : “His book talked of the cherry and the oriole, but these didn't exist in frozen Siberia. The old man explained : It's a bird that sits on a cherry branch and carols its fine songs”. The youth reflected. Yes, amid desolation the youth heard the gloss of a man of foresight, although he had not heard the fine song itself. But the voice of foresight does not come to shatter China's desolation. This being so, is there nothing for us but reflection, simply nothing but reflection ?

Ergänzung von Guo Ting :
Byron behaved like violent weaves and winter wind. Sweeping away all false and corrupt customs. He was so direct that he never worried about his own situation too much. He was full of energy, and spirited and would fight to the death without losing his faith. Without defeating his enemy, he would fight till his last breath. And he was a frank and righteous man, hiding nothing, and he spoke of others' criticism of himself as the result of social rites instead of other's evil intent, and he ignored all those bad words. The truth is, at that time in Britain, society was full of hypocrites, who took those traditions and rites as the truth and called anyone who had a true opinion and wanted to explore it a devil.

Ergänzung von Yu Longfa :
Die Bezeichnung Mara stammt aus dem Indischen und bedeutet Himmelsdämon. Die Europäer nennen das Satan. Ursprünglich bezeichnete man damit Byron. Jetzt weist das auf alle jene Dichter hin, die zum Widerstand entschlossen sind und deren Ziel die Aktion ist, ausserdem auf diejenigen Dichter, die von der Welt nicht sehr gemocht werden. Sie alle gehören zu dieser Gruppe. Sie berichten von ihren Taten und Überlegungen, von ihren Schulen und Einflüssen. Das beginnt beim Stammvater dieser Gruppe, Byron, und reicht letztlich hin bis zu dem ungarischen Schriftsteller Petöfi. Alle diese Dichter sind in ihrem äusserlichen Erscheinungsbild sehr unterschiedlich. Jeder bringt entsprechend den Besoderheiten des eigenen Landes Grossartiges hervor, aber in ihrer Hauptrichtung tendieren sie zur Einheitlichkeit. Meistens fungieren sie nicht als Stimme der Anpassung an die Welt und der einträchtigen Freude. Sobald sie aus voller Kehle ihre Stimme erheben, geraten ihre Zuhörer in Begeisterung, bekämpfen das Himmlische und widersetzen sich den gängigen Sitten. Aber ihr Geist rührt auch tief an die Seelen der Menschen nachfolgender Generationen und setzt sich fort bis in die Unendlichkeit. Sie sind ohne Ausnahme vital und unnachgiebig und treten für die Wahrheit ein… Nietzsche lehnt den Wilden nicht ab, da er neue Lebenskraft in sich berge und gar nicht anders könne, als ehrlich zu sein. So stammt die Zivilisation denn auch aus der Unzivilisation. Der Wilde erscheint zwar roh, besitzt aber ein gütmütiges Inneres. Die Zivilisation ist den Blüten vergleichbar und die Unzivilisation den Knospen. Vergleicht man jedoch die Unzivilisation mit den Blüten, so entspricht die Zivilisation den Früchten. Ist die Vorstufe bereits vorhanden, so besteht auch Hoffnung.

Sekundärliteratur
Yu Longfa : Lu Xun befasst sich zwar nicht ausführlich mit Friedrich Nietzsche, aber auf der Suche nach dem 'Kämpfer auf geistigem Gebiet', dessen charakteristische Eigenschaften, besonders die Konfiguration des Übermenschen, macht er ausfindig. Lu Xun ist überzeugt, dass die Selbststärkung eines Menschen und der Geist der Auflehnung kennzeichnend für den Übermenschen sind. In Anlehnung an den Übermenschen zitiert er aus Also sprach Zarathustra : "Diejenigen, die auf der Suche nach den Quellen des Altertums alles ausgeschöpft haben, sind im Begriff, die Quellen der Zukunft, die neuen Quellen zu suchen. Ach, meine Brüder, die Schaffung des neuen Lebens und das Sprudeln der neuen Quellen in der Tiefe, das dürft wohl nicht weit sein !"

Tam Kwok-kan : Earliest reference to Henrik Ibsen. This is the first Chinese article that discusses in a comprehensive manner the literary pursuits of the Byronic poets. Lu Xun ranks Ibsen as one of these poets and compares the rebellious spirit exemplified in Ibsen's drama to Byron's satanic tendency. Lu Xun had a particular liking for the play An enemy of the people, in which Ibsen presented his ideas through the iconoclast Dr. Stockmann, who in upholding truth against the prejudices of society, is attacked by the people. Lu Xun thought that China needed more rebels like Ibsen who dared to challenge accepted social conventions. By introducing Ibsen in the image of Dr. Stockmann, the moral superman, together with the satanic poets, Lu Xun believed that he could bring in new elements of iconoclasm in the construction of a modern Chinese consciousness. As Lu Xun said, he introduced Ibsen's idea of individualism because he was frustrated with the Chinese prejudice toward Western culture and with the selfishness popular among the Chinese.

Chu Chih-yu : Lu Xun adapted for the greater part of Mara poetry his Japanese sources (Kimura Katataro), he also added some of his own comments and speculations.

Guo Ting : Given Lu Xun's leading position in the Chinese literary field at that time, his defense of Byron was powerful and set the overarching tone for the time of Byron when he was first introduced to Chinese readers.

Liu Xiangyu : On the power of Mara poetry itself is an expression of Byronism to 'speak out against the establisment and conventions' and to 'stir the mind'. Lu Xun criticized traditional Chinese culture and literature.

Lu, Xun. Moluo shi li shou [ID D23841].
Er schreibt : "Therefore, what a society needs is not only Newton but also Shakespeare… a writer like Shakespeare can make people have a sound and perfect human nature and avoid an odd and partial humanity, making them the very people a modern civilized society needs."

Mule [Mill, John Stuart]. Mule ming xue. Yan Fu yi [ID D2763].
Yan Fu schreibt : "Shakespeare wrote a play recounting the murder of Caesar. When Antony delivers a speech to the citizens while showing the body of Caesar to the public, he uses logic to stir up the citizens cleverly because Brutus warned him that he would not be allowed to redress a grievance for Caesar and blame the murderers. The citizens are greatly agitated by the speech and their resentment against Brutus and his comrades is running high. We should attribute Antony's success to the function of logic."

Erste professionelle Aufführung von Rou quan = The merchant of Venice von William Shakespeare in der Übersetzung von Lin Shu und Wei Yi von Lamb, Charles. Tales from Shakespeare [ID D10417] durch die Xin min she (New People's Group) unter der Regie von Zheng Zhengqiu in Shanghai.

[Shakespeare, William]. Hai wai qi tan. (Shanghai : Da wen she, 1903). Übersetzung von 10 Geschichten von Lamb, Charles ; Lamb, Mary. Tales from Shakespeare : designed for the use of young persons. Vol. 1-2. (London : Printed for Thomas Hodgkins at the Juvenile Library, 1807). [Erste Übersetzung ; Übersetzer ist unbekannt].
海外奇谈

Lanmu, Cha'ersi [Lamb, Charles ; Lamb, Mary]. Yingguo shi ren yin bian yan yu. Shashibiya yuan zhu ; Lin Shu, Wei Yi yi. (Shanghai : Shang wu yin shu guan, 1904). (Shuo bu cong shu ; 1, 8). Übersetzung von Lamb, Charles ; Lamb, Mary. Tales from Shakespeare : designed for the use of young persons. Vol. 1-2. (London : Printed for Thomas Hodgkins at the Juvenile Library, 1807).
英國詩人吟邊燕語

Shashibiya [Shakespeare, William]. Hengli di liu yi shi. Shashibiya yuan zhu ; Lin Shu, Chen Jialin yi shu. (Shanghai : Shang wu yin shu guan, 1916). (Shuo bu cong shu ; 3, 1). Übersetzung von Shakespeare, William. The true tragedie of Richard Duke of York and the death of good King Henrie the sixt ; with the whole contention betweene the two houses Lancaster and Yorke, as it was sundrie times acted by the right honourable the Earle of Pembrooke his seruants. Pt. 1-3. (London : Printed by P.S[hort] for Thomas Mulligan, and are to be sold at his shoppe vnder Saint Peters Church in Cornwal, 1595). [Geschrieben um 1590-1592]. [Henry VI].
亨利第六遺事

Shashibiya [Shakespeare, William]. Hengli di si ji. Lin Shu yi. In : Xiao shuo yue bao ; Bd. 7, Nr. 2-4 (1916). Übersetzung von Shakespeare, William. The historie of Henrie the fourth. (London : A. Wise, 1598). [Henry IV].
亨利第四紀

Shashibiya [Shakespeare, William]. Kai che yi shi. Lin Shu yi. (Shanghai : Shang wu yin shu guan, 1916). Übersetzung von Shakespeare, William. The tragedie of Julius Caesar. (London : Isaac Iaggard and Ed. Blount, 1623).
凱徹遺事

Shashibiya [Shakespeare, William]. Leichade ji. Lin Shu yi. In : Xiao shuo yue bao ; Bd. 7, Nr. 1 (1916). Übersetzung von Shakespeare, William. The tragedie of King Richard the second. (London : Printed by Valentine Simmes for Andrew Wise, 1597).
雷差得紀

[Shakespeare, William]. Hamuleite. Shashibiya zhu ; Tian Han yi. (Shanghai : Zhong hua shu ju, 1922). (Shao nian Zhongguo xue hui cong shu. Sha weng jie zuo ji ; 1). Übersetzung von Shakespeare, William. The tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark. (London : Nicholas Ling and John Trundell, 1603). [Die ersten drei Szenen erscheinen in Shao nian Zhongguo ; vol. 2, no 12 (1921)].
哈姆雷特

[Shakespeare, William]. Luomi'ou yu Zhuliye. Shashibiya zhu ; Tian Han yi. (Shanghai : Zhonghua shu ju, 1924). (Sha weng jie zuo ji ; 6). Übersetzung von Shakespeare, William. An excellent conceited tragedie of Romeo and Juliet. (London : John Danter, 1597). = The most excellent and lamentable tragedie of Romeo and Juliet. Newly corrected, augmented, and amended. (London : Thomas Creede, 1599). [Uraufführung 1595 in London].
羅蜜歐與朱麗葉

Shashibiya [Shakespeare, William]. Hengli di wu ji. Lin Shu yi. In : Xiao shuo shi ji ; Bd. 12, Nr. 9-10 (1925). Übersetzung von Shakespeare, William. The chronicle history of Henry the fifth. (London : Printed by Thomas Creede, Tho. Millington, and John Busby, 1600). [Henry V].
亨利第五紀

[Shakespeare, William]. Lian ai shen sheng. Shashibiya zhu ; Miao Lanhui yi. (Shanghai : Wei ai cong shu she, 1929). (Wei ai cong kan). Übersetzung von Shakespeare, William. A most pleasant and excellent conceited comedy, of Sir Iohn Falstaffe, and the merry wives of Windsor ; entermixed with sundrie variable and pleasing humors of Syr Hugh the Welch knight, Justice Shallow and his wife Cousin M. Slender ; with the swaggering vaine of ancient Pistoll, and Corporall Nym. (London : Printed for T.C. for Arthur Johnson, 1602). [Geschrieben 1600-1601].
戀愛神聖

[Shakespeare, William]. Shashibiya de gu shi. Di Zhenzhu yu ; Wang Doukui he yi. (Shanghai : Guang xue hui, 1929). Übersetzung von Lamb, Charles. Tales from Shakespeare : designed for the use of young persons. Vol. 1-2. (London : Printed for Thomas Hodgkins at the Juvenile Library, 1807).
莎士比亞的故事

[Shakespeare, William]. Maikebeisi. Shashibiya zhu ; Dai Wangshu yi. (Shanghai : Jin ma shu tang, 1930). Übersetzung von Shakespeare, William. The tragedie of Macbeth. In : Shakespeare, William. Comedies, histories, & tragedies. Published according to the true originall copies. (London : Printed by Isaac Jaggard, and Ed. Blount, 1623). [Geschrieben um 1608].
麦克倍斯

[Shakespeare, William]. Weinisi shang ren. Gu Zhongyi yi ; Liang Shiqiu jiao. (Shanghai : Xin yue shu dian, 1930). Übersetzung von Shakespeare, William. The excellent history of the merchant of Venice : with the extreme cruelty of Shylocke the lew towards the saide merchant, in cutting a iust pound of his flesh ; and the obtaining of Portia, by the choyse of three caskets. (London : Printed by J. Roberts, 1600). [Geschrieben 1596].
威尼斯商人

[Shakespeare, William]. Di shi er ye. Shashibiya yuan zhu ; Peng Zhaoliang yi. (Shanghai : Zhonghua xin jiao yu she, 1930). (Shi jie wen xue jie zuo cong shu ; 1. Lan man cong shu ; 1). Übersetzung von Shakespeare, William. Twelfth night or what you will. In : Shakespeare, William. Comedies, histories, & tragedies. Published according to the true originall copies. (London : Printed by Isaac Jaggard, and Ed. Blount, 1623). [Geschrieben um 1601].
第十二夜

[Shakespeare, William]. Mokebaisi yu mo fu ren. Zhang Wenliang yi. (Guangzhou : Qing ye shu dian, 1930). (Qing ye wen yi cong shu). Übersetzung von Shakespeare, William. The tragedie of Macbeth. In : Shakespeare, William. Comedies, histories, & tragedies. Published according to the true originall copies. (London : Printed by Isaac Jaggard, and Ed. Blount, 1623). [Geschrieben um 1608].
墨克白絲與墨夫人

[Shakespeare, William]. Tian chou ji. Shao Ting yi. (Shanghai : Shang wu yin shu guan, 1930). (Han yi shi jie ming zhu. Wan you wen ku ; 855). Übersetzung von Shakespeare, William. The tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark. (London : Nicholas Ling and John Trundell, 1603).
天仇記

Hu, Shi. Hu Shi ri ji. ([S.l. : s.n.], 1930). [Enthält Übersetzungen von Gedichten von] : Alfred Tennyson, Robert Browning, William Shakespeare, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Rudyard Kipling, James Russell Lowell, Alfred Noyes, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Joseph Dane Miller, Denis H. Robertson.
胡適日記

[Shakespeare, William]. Gaisa da jiang. Wang Zeping yi. (Shanghai : Shen pao, 1934). (Shen bao cong shu ; 41). Übersetzung von Shakespeare, William. The tragedie of Julius Caesar. (London : Isaac Iaggard and Ed. Blount, 1623).
該撒大將

Sun, Yuxiu. Ou mei xiao shuo cong tan. In : Xiao shuo yue bao ; vol. 4, no 5 (1913). [Talks on European and American fiction ; enthält Henry Fielding, Samuel Richardson, Washington Irving, James Fenimore Cooper and Shakespeare].
歐美小說叢談

Sun, Yuxiu. Ou mei xiao shuo cong tan. (Shanghai : Shang wu yin chu guan, 1916). (Wen yi cong ke. Jia ji). [Abhandlung über europäische und amerikanische Erzählungen]. [Erwähnt werden : William Shakespeare, Giovanni Francesco Straparola, Baronne Marie-Catherine d'Aulnoy, Charles Perrault, Jacob und Wilhelm Grimm, Hans Christian Andersen].
歐美小說叢談

Tolstoy, Leo. Shakespeare and the drama. Dong Sheng yi. In : Wen yi yue kan (1931). In : The fortnightly review ; Dec. 1, 1906-Jan. 1907). = (London : Free Age Press, 1907). [Geschrieben 1903].
shakespearesallskapet.se.

Wen xue lun wen suo yin. Chen Biru, Zhang Chenqing, Li Weixu bian ji. (Beijing : Zhonghua tu shu guan xie hui, 1932-1936). Vol. 1-3 (Zhonghua tu shu guan xie hui cong shu ; 5). (Eur). [Bibliographie. Darin enthalten sind 36 Aufsätze über Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, 16 über Henrik Ibsen, 16 über Tagore Rabindrananth, 11 über Hans Christian Andersen, 8 über Honoré de Balzac, 7 über Leo Tolstoy, 3 über William Shakespeare und 1 über Dante Alighieri].
文學論文索引

Liang, Shiqiu. Wen xue yi chan. In : Yi shi bao, wen xue zhou kan ; no 51, Nov. 18 (Tianjin 1933). In : Lu Xun Liang Shiqiu lun zhan shi lu [ID D28834]. [The heritage of literature]. [Erwähnung von William Shakespeare].
文学遗产

[Morozov, Mikhail Mikhailovich]. Shashibiya zai Sulian. Mage'erxiake ying yi ; Wu Ningkun han yi. (Shanghai : Ping ming chu ban she, 1953). (Jin dai wen xue yi cong). Übersetzung von Morozov, Mikhail Mikahilovich. Shakespeare on the Soviet stage. Trad. by David Magarshack with an introd. by J. Dover Wilson. (London : "Soviet News“, 1947).
莎士比亞在蘇聯

[Morozov, Mikhail Mikhailovich]. Shashibiya zai Sulian wu tai shang. Wu Yishan yi. (Shanghai : Shanghai za zhi chu ban she, 1953). Übersetzung von Morozov, Mikhail Mikhailovich. Shakespeare on the Soviet stage. Trad. by David Magarshack with an introd. by J. Dover Wilson. (London : "Soviet News“, 1947).
莎 士比亞在蘇聯舞台上

[Wyatt, Horace Graham ; Fullerton, David]. Shashibiya di xi ju gu shi. Liang Shiqiu yi zhu. (Taibei : Ming hua shu ju, 1954). (Niu jin da xue Ying wen ming zhu qian shu cong kan). Übersetzung von Wyatt, H[orace] G[raham]. Stories from Shakespeare. (Oxford : Oxford University Press, 1932).
莎士比亞的戲劇故事

Feng, Yuning ; Rong, Ying. Zi xue cheng gong de wen xue jia. (Xianggang : Jiulong zi xue chu ban she, 1956). [Abhandlung über Maxim Gorky, A. Nikolai Ostrovsky, Jack London, Honoré de Balzac, William Shakespeare].
自學成功的文學家