Yan, Fu

Yan Fu studiert Englisch, Arithmetik, Geometrie, Algebra, Trigonometrie, Physik, Mechanik, Chemie, Geologie, Astronomie und Navigation an der englisch-sprachigen Abteilung der Fuzhou Arsenal School in Fuzhou (Fujian).

[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 !"

[Huxley, Thomas Henry]. Tian yan lun. Yan Fu yi. [ID D10307].
Yan Fu writes in the preface about translation :
1. Translation involves three requirements difficult to fulfill : faithfulness (xin), comprehensibility (da) and elegance (ya). Faithfulness is difficult enough to attain but a translation that is faithful but not comprehensible is no translation at all. Comprehensibility is therefore of prime importance…
2. Terms in Western language texts are defined as they occur, somewhat similar to digressions in Chinese…
3. The Book of changes says : "Fidelity is the basis of writing". Confucius said : "Writing should be comprehensible". He also said, "Where language has no refinement, its effects will not extend far"… My translation has been criticized for its abstruse language and involved style. But I must say this is the result of my determined effort at comprehensibility. The treatise in the book is largely based upon logic, mathematics and sciences as well as astronomy…
4. New theories have been advanced in quick succession, giving rise to a profusion of new terms. No such terms could be found in Chinese. Though some Chinese expressions approximate the original, there are yet discrepancies…
5. The book deals mainly with the schools of thought since ancient Greece. Included are the renowned thinkers of various periods whose thoughts have influences the minds of the people of the West for some two thousand years…
6. The pursuit of truth is akin to the practice of government in that both place a premium on the pooling of ideas…

He writes in the preface about Huxley :
"The purpose of this book of Huxley's is to correct the abuses of Spencer's 'laisser-faire'. Many of its arguments are in accord with what our ancient sages have said. Furthermore, matters such as self-strengthening and the preservation of the race are reiterated in it. Tha is why I spent the long, wary days of the past summer to translate it. If there were people who regarded it as empty talk and useless to practical affairs, they would certainly be beyond my care."
In chapter 13, Yan Fu writes : "Huxley's discussion on the preservation of the society is indeed penetrating. But we should know that his statement that sympathy is the origin of human society has reversed the result to be the cause. Man's motive in forming a society is primarily for his self-interest, which is similar to those of lower animals. Therefore, Huxley's discussion on sociology is not as thorough as that of Spencer. Furthermore, the theory that sympathy is the origin of human society was first advocated by Adam Smith, the economist. It is not a new theory contributed by Huxley."
In chapter 14, Yan Fu writes : "What Huxley intends to point out in this chapter is that in order to preserve the society as well as the individual, self-assertion should not be completely abolished."

Sekundärliteratur
Chen Tzu-yun : Yan Fu decides to use in his translation classical Chinese (gu wen). According to Yan himself, his choice is made on the basis that 'where language has no refinement, the effect will not extend far' and that the classical Chinese has richer vocabulary than that of the vernacular. There are more terms applicable to the new Western ideas.
Yan divides the text into seventeen chapters with the result that each chapter is about of the same length. He makes the structure of his translated work similar to that of the tzu genre with which the Chinese literati are familiar. The divergence from the original work is necessitated not only by his desire to make his readers at home, but also by the fact in Yan's time the practice of paragraphing was not popularly adopted.
Yan Fu does not translate Huxley's notes on the lecture and makes no acknowledgement of their existence. He is inconsisten in some of his transliterations. There are interpolations, questionable substitutions and sometimes inadverted mistranslations. As a whole, Tian yan lun is a successful translation. Its shortcomings are of little consequence. Politically, the work is significant in that it has filled the need of the time. Literarily, it is the first major translation of Western works.
Benjamin Schwartz : The reason why Yan Fu chooses classical Chinese : 1. Classical Chinese is an appropriate medium to interest the literati of his time. 2. A dignified style can prove that Westerners are not inferior to Chinese in matter of literature and political science. 3. Yan's flair for elegance may reflect his own aesthetic bent and his pride in his own virtuosity. 4. The whole bai hua (vernacular) movement still lay in the future.

[Montesquieu, Charles de Secondat de]. Mengdesijiu fa yi. Yan Fu yi. [ID D2849].
Hou Hongxun über Yan Fu : Yan Fu believed that the secret behind the wealth and power of the various countries of the West was that they adopted a system of government and social organization in which 'the essence is freedom and the application is democracy'. He considered the British system of constitutional monarchy to be the most ideal political system. Montesquieu's idea of rule by law most certainly had a considerable influence on Yan Fu. Yan agreed with Montesquieu's view that the law is 'the principal thread of the system of putting the country in order'. Where there is law, the 'actions of all, from the top to the bottom, from the monarch and sovereign to the common people, will have restraints'. Yan Fu believed that only those that understood how to rule the country with law could be considered to 'know the essence of government'. In his opinion, if China were to adopt the Western methods of law and implement of new legal system, then the item of greatest priority would be to carry out the system of the separation of powers and checks and balances. He pointed out that the secret behind the fact that Britain's constitutional system could 'work for such a long time without failing' and maintain 'such peace and harmony between those above, the sovereign, and those beneath, the subjects' was that Britain adopted the theory of the separation of powers advocated by John Locke and Montesquieu. He proposed that the judiciary must be independent. He said, that the essence of despotism and an autocratic monarchy was that the sovereign was 'transcendent of the law, above the law, could arbirarily use the law as he wished or change it, and was not bound by the laws'.

Yan Fu wird zweiter Ratgeber des Committee for Drawing up Regulations for Constitutional Government, Ratgeber des Committee for the Reorganization of the Financial Affairs of the Empire und Ratgeber der Regierung der Provinz Fujian.

Mike [Michie, Alexander]. Zhina jiao an lun. Yan Fu yi ; Zheng Kaocheng jiao. ([S.l.] : Nanyang gong xue yi shu yuan, nach 1891). Übersetzung von Michie, Alexander. Missionaries in China. (London : E. Stanford, 1891).
支那敎案論提要

Hexuli [Huxley, Thomas Henry]. Tian yan lun. Yan Fu yi. (Mianyang : Lu shi shen shi ji zhai, 1896). Übersetzung von Huxley, Thomas Henry. Evolution and ethics : the Romanes lecture. (New York : Humboldt Publishing Co., 1894). The Humboldt Library of Science ; no 177).
天演論

Yan, Fu. Yuan qiang ; Jiu wang jue lun ; Lun shi bian zhi ji. (Nanchang : Du you yong shu zhi zhai, 1901). (Qing mo min chu shi liao cong shu ; 16. Hou guan Yan shi cong ke ; 3). [Darin enthalten die erste chinesische Erwähnung des westlichen Sozialismus].
原強 ; 救亡決論 ; 論世變之亟

Simi, Yadang [Smith, Adam]. Yuan fu. Yadang Simi zhu ; Yan Fu yi. Vol. 1-8. (Shanghai : Nanyang gong xue yi shu yuan, 1902). Übersetzung von Smith, Adam. An inquiry into the nature and causes of the wealth of nations. (London : Printed for W. Strahan and T. Cadell, 1776).
原富

[Spencer, Herbert]. Qun xue yi yan. Sibinsai zhu ; Yan Fu yi. (Shanghai : Wen ming shu ju, 1903). = [Spencer, Herbert]. Gai ding qun xue yi yan. Sibinsai ; Yan Fu yi. (Shanghai : Shang wu yin shu guan, 1915). Übersetzung von Spencer, Herbert. The study of sociology. (London : King, 1874).
群學肄言 /群学肄言

[Montesquieu, Charles de Secondat de]. Mengdesijiu fa yi. Mengdesijiu yuan ben ; Yan Fu fan yi. (Shanghai : Shang wu yin shu guan, 1904). Übersetzung von : Montesquieu, Charles de Secondat de. De l'esprit des lois, ou du rapport que les lois doivent avoir avec la constitution de chaque gouvernement, les moeurs, le climat, la religion, le commerce, etc., à quoi l'auteur a ajouté des recherches nouvelles sur les lois romaines touchant les successions, sur les lois françaises et sur les lois féodales. (Genève : Barillot et fils, 1748).
法意

Yefangsi [Jevons, William Stanley]. Ming xue qian shuo. Yefangsi chu ; Yan Fu yi. (Shanghai : Shang wu yin shu guan, 1909). Übersetzung von Jevons, William Stanley. A primer of logic. (London : Macmillan, 1870).
名學淺說

Mule [Mill, John Stuart]. Mule ming xue. Mule zhu ; Yan Fu yi. Vol. 1-3. (Shanghai : Shang wu yin shu guan, 1912-1921). Übersetzung von Mill, John Stuart. A system of logic, ratio cinative and inductive, being a connected view of the principles of evidence and the methods of scientific investigation. (London : John W. Parker, West Strand, 1843).
穆勒名學

Debon, Günther. Ts'ang-lang's Gespräche über die Dichtung : ein Beitrag zur chinesischen Poetik. (Wiesbaden : Harrassowitz, 1962). Habil. Univ. Köln, 1959. [Darin enthalten ist die Übersetzung von Yan, Fu. Canglang shi hua zhu = 滄浪詩話注].

[Schwarz, Benjamin]. Yan Fu. Shi Huazhe yuan zhu ; Shen Wenlong yi. (Tainan : Changhe chu ban she, 1977). (Changhe wen ku ; 4). Übersetzung von Schwartz, Benjamin. In search of wealth and power : Yen Fu and the West. (Cambridge, Mass. : Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1964).
嚴復

Schwartz, Benjamin. Xun qiu fu qiang : Yan Fu yu xi fang. Ye Fengmei yi. (Nanjing : Jiangsu ren min chu ban she, 1995). (Hai wai Zhongguo yan jiu cong shu ; 3). Übersetzung von Schwartz, Benjamin. In search of wealth and power : Yen Fu and the West. (Cambridge, Mass. : Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1964).
寻求富强