Zhou, Zuoren

Zhou, Zuoren. Zhi tang hui xang lu. [Tagebuch].
The diary of the Yisi lunar year [1905] records something of my translation of tales, which include The tale of Ali Baba and The forty thieves and The gold bug by Allan Poe....The general heading is The study of English literature. There are four or five books altogether, one of which is a long poem by Longfellow, as I now remember. All of these books were sent by Lu Xun.
....Yisi Lunar year, the first month, the fourteenth day, "Finished the translation of American Poe's tale The kidd drawing (The gold bug), about eighteen thousand words". I sent it to Ding Chuwo, and received Chuwo's return letter on the fourth day, the second month, in which he promised me a remuneration of fifty copies after it was published.
....The twenty-ninth day, "Received Chuwo's letter of the twenty-sixth, saying that The kidd drawing had been sent to the printers, and its name had been changed to Yu chong xuan (The story of a jade bug).

[Zhou, Zuoren] Zhong, Yao. Bai nian lai xi yang xue shu zhi hui gu [ID D26252].
Zhou Zuoren schreibt : "In the past one hundred years, Norway produced two writers : one is Ibsen, and the other Björnson. Ibsen is a great naturalist. His works are full of social criticism."

Yu wai xiao shuo ji. Zhou Zuoren yi. [ID D12489].
Earliest translation of Oscar Wilde was The happy prince by Zhou Zuoren in classical Chinese. In his short introduction, Zhou argues that the key point of Wilde's aestheticism is to 'transform life into an art. He himself practiced it by wearing eccentric clothes of an extraordinary shape and walking down in the street with a sunflower in hand'. According to Zhou, Wilde was an artist with a will to transcend ordinary life and elevate himself to the higher level of the kingdom of art.
Zhou Zuoren's efforts to promote Western humanist writing were unsuccessful at that time. A re-issue of these translations in 1921 was soon out of print, this time presumably because classical Chinese was now superseded by the vernacular.

Zhou Zuoren ist Inspektor des Zhejiang Provinical Education Bureau und der Educatgion Society in Shaoxing (Zhejiang). Er unterrichtet später Englisch an der Fifth Middle Zhejiang Secondary School in Shaoxing.

Zhou Zuoren schreibt über das chinesische Drama in Xin qing nian ; vol. 5, no 5 (Nov. 1918).
"On the constructive side, there is only adopting European-style New Drama. Now there are people who make a fuss over the European style and are afraid to talk about “Westernization”. Actually, transferring the literature, art, and academic studies to our country does not mean to be conquered by another country. It is only that civilized things evolving from the barbaric stage are first discovered in Europe. Therefore we make a leap and bring these things here to save much effort on our part. These things brought to our country become ours, and there is no question of Westernization or not."

Mao Dun, Ye Shengtao, Zhou Zuoren, Zheng Zhenduo und andere gründen im Januar 1921 die Wen xue yan jiu hui (Literary Association = Literary Research Association = Society for Literary Studies) in Beijing. Die Vereinigung besteht aus Schriftstellern, Übersetzern Professoren und gibt Bücher-Serien über Literatur und Übersetzungen aus der Weltliteratur heraus. Die meisten Bücher werden von der Commercial Press = Shang wu yin shu guan in Shanghai gedruckt. Ihre Ziele sind das Studium und die Verbreitung der Weltliteratur, die alte chinesische Literatur zu ordnen und einer neuen Bewegung zu unterziehen, sowie eine neue Literatur zu schaffen.

Zhou, Zuoren. San wen xiao shi [ID D22649].
Er schreibt : "Baudelaire published Les fleurs du mal in 1857, opening a new era in the history of modern literature. He uses the refined forms of the Parnassian school to write on the real experience of his disillusioned soul, an experience aptly represents the mood of modern man. He fills his poetry with the dark side of his caracter, the bitterness of his philosophy, and the grief of his despair. His vision is dark and horrible and a large part of his poems is quite unsuitable for the young and the ignorant. But the initiates can gain from his poetry the really uncommon power. He also has a volume of fifty Petits poèmes en prose, originally entitled Le spleen de Paris, which is of the same kind of exquisite language. The vogue of poem in prose in our time can be regarded as the result of his influence."

Zhou, Zuoren. Zi ji de yuan di [ID D27657].
Bonnie S. McDougall : By 1922 the new literary movement was undergoing its first internal debate, 'art for art's sake' versus 'art for life's sake'. Zhou Zuoren was among those who objected to the false distinction being made, although ultimately he had to declare himself on the side of life : “'Art for art's sake' will separate art from life and make life an appendage of art, or even make an art out of life as Oscar Wilde proposed – of course, this would not be very proper ; 'art for life's sake' will make art an appendage of life or make art into a tool for changing life and not an end in itself – surely this is separating life from art”.
Despite this disapproving tone, Zhou strongly defended Wilde's dialogue The decay of lying, and even remonstrated with one of Wilde's translators for rendering 'lying' by the more innocuous Chinese word for 'fabrication' (jia kong). Zhou Zuoren regarded beauty of Language and a ready wit as the special qualities of Wilde's plays and essays, but his favourite pieces were The happy prince and The fisherman and his soul, the tales with a strong element of fantasy. Zhou noted the thread of social compassion which ran through the fairy-tales, but he also described them as 'unchildlike', 'a poet's poem', and their author as a 'decadent aesthete'. Zhous literary sensibilities enabled him to appreciate Wilde's literary work and attitudes, but his moral seriousness was offended by the dissipation in Wilde's personal life which he read about in Western criticism.

Zhou Zuoren wird Mitglied des Nanjing Nationalist Government unter der japanischen Regierung, Mitglied der North China Political Affairs Commission, Instpektor des General Education Bureau und des Council of the North China Branch of the Sino-Japanese Cultural Association.

Zhong, Yao [Zhou, Zuoren]. Bai nian lai xi yang xue shu zhi hui gu. In : Xue bao ; vol. 1, no 19 (1908). [A review of Western scholarship in the past one hundred years ; Erwähnung von Henrik Ibsen und Bjornstjerne Martinius Bjornson].
百年來西洋學術之回顧

[Mór, Jókai]. Xiong nu qi shi lu. Zhou Zuoren yi. (Shanghai : Shang wu yin shu guan, 1908). Übersetzung von Mór, Jókai. Egy magyar nábob. (Pest :1853-1854). = Ein ungarischer Nabob : Roman. (Pest : G. Emich, 1856). = An Hungarian nabob : a romance. (London : Jarrold, 1898).
匈奴奇士录

Yu wai xiao shuo ji = Wilde and other authors: foreign famous stories. Wei'erte zhu [et al.] ; Zhou Zuoren, Lu Xun yi. Vol. 1-2. (Tokyo : Shinten insatsujo, 1909). = Erw. Aufl. (Shanghai : Zhong hua shu ju,1920). [Übersetzungen von Kurzgeschichten].
域外小說集
Einzelne Autoren siehe unter Yu wai xiao shuo ji.

[Chekhov, Anton Pavlovich]. Qi shi. Zhou Zuoren yi. In : Yu wai xiao shuo ji (1909). Übersetzung von Chekhov, Anton Pavlovich. Dom s mezoninom : rasskaz khudozhnika. In : Russkie vedomosti ; no 237 (28. Aug. 1894). = In : Chekhov, Anton Pavlovich. Rasskazy. (S. Peterburg : A.F. Marksa, 1899). = Chekhov, Anton Pavlovich. The house with the mezzanine and other stories. (New York : C. Scribner's Sons, 1917).
戚施

[Chekhov, Anton Pavlovich]. Sai wai. Zhou Zuoren yi. In : Yu wai xiao shuo ji (1909). Übersetzung von Chekhov, Anton Pavlovich. V ssylke. In : Russkie vedomosti ; no 237 (28. Aug. 1894). = Chekhov, Anton Pavlovich. In exile. In : Chekhov, Anton Pavlovich. The black monk, and other stories. (London : Duckworth, 1903).
塞外

[Haggard, H. Rider ; Lang, Andrew]. Hong xing yi shi. Luoda Hagede, Andulanju zhu ; Zhou Zuoren, Lu Xun yi. (Shanghai : Shang wu yin shu guan, 1907). (Shuo bu cong shu chi ji ; 78). Übersetzung von Haggard, H. Rider ; Lang, Andrew. The world's desire. (London : Longmans, Green, 1890).
红星佚史

[Sienkiewicz, Henryk]. Tuo lu. Zhou Zuoren yi. ([S.l. : s.n.], 1914). = (Beijing : Xin chao she, 1925). Übersetzung von Sienkiewicz, Henryk. Hania. Transl. from the Polish by Jeremiah Curtin. (London : J.M. Dent, 1897). Darin enthalten : Charcoal sketches.
炭畫

Zhou, Zuoren. Ou zhou wen xue shi. (Shanghai : Shang wu yin shu guan, 1918). (Beijing da xue cong shu ; 3). [Geschichte der europäischen Literatur]. [Darin enthalten ist ein Kapitel über Sturm und Drang-Periode, über Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Die Leiden des jungen Werther und Faust].
欧洲文學史

[Andreyev, Leonid Nikolaevich]. Chi tong. Zhou Zuoren yi. In : Xin qing nian ; vol. 7, no 1 (1919). Übersetzung von Andreyev, Leonid. Ben Tobit. In : Nizhegorodskii sbornik (St Peterburg 1905). = Ben Tobit. In : Andreyev, Leonid. Judas Iscariot. (London : F. Griffiths, 1910).
齒痛

Zhou, Zuoren. Bei xing fu wang que de ren men. In : Xin qing nian, Bd. 8, Nr. 3 (1920). Übersetzung von Pinski, David. Six plays of the Yiddish theatre. Transl. and ed. by Isaac Goldberg. (Boston : Luce, 1916). [Vermutlich die älteste Übersetzung eines literarischen jiddischen Werkes, jedoch nicht nach dem Original].

Dian di : jin dai ming jia duan pian xiao shuo. Tuoersitai zhu [et al.] ; Zhou Zuoren ji yi. Vol. 1-2. (Beijing : Guo li Beijing da xue chu ban bu, 1920. (Xin chao cong shu). [Übersetzungen von westlichen Kurzgeschichten].
點滴 : 近代名家短篇小說

[Andersen, Hans Christian]. Huang di de xin yi. Zhou Zuoren yi. In : Yu wai xiao shuo ji (1920). Übersetzung von Andersen, Hans Christian. Keiserens nye Klaeder. In : Eventyr fortalte for born (7. April 1837). = Des Kaisers neue Kleider. In : Andersen, Hans Christian. Mährchen und Erzählungen für Kinder. (Braunschweig : Fr. Vieweg und Sohn, 1840).
皇帝的新衣

[Schwob, Marcel]. Hun xi. Zhou Zuoren yi. In : Yu wai xiao shuo ji (1920). Übersetzung von Schwob, Marcel. La veillée nuptiale. In : Mimes. L'écho de Paris (1892). = In : Schwob, Marcel. La lampe de Psyché. (Paris : Marcure de France, 1906).
婚夕

[Schwob, Marcel]. Zhou shi. Zhou Zuoren yi. In : Yu wai xiao shuo ji (1920). Übersetzung von Schwob, Marcel. Le marin. In : Mimes. L'écho de Paris (1892). = In : Schwob, Marcel. La lampe de Psyché. (Paris : Marcure de France, 1906).
舟师