- 期刊
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「人的文學」之「哀弦篇」：論周作人與《域外小說集》
A Miserable Chapter of Humane Literature: Zhou Zuoren and Yuwai Xiaoshuoji
並列摘要
Most studies of Yuwai xiaoshuoji (Collection of Stories from Abroad, 1909) concur that this first collaborative translation venture of Lu Xun and Zhou Zuoren was a great success and that the success was largely, if not entirely, due to Lu Xun's endeavour. It has also been a common practice to follow Lu Xun's statements about Yuwai xiaoshuoji that the works were chosen and translated because they were nationalistic and revolutionary, which were appealing to the Chinese who were then trying to overthrow the Manchu rule. However, the present paper argues that this widely-accepted evaluation of the works has been heavily influenced by politics, one which is in line with the political discourse on modern Chinese literature formulated after the establishment of the People's Republic of China. As Lu Xun has been hailed as the sage of modern China by Mao Zedong, all credits go to Lu who was quite infallible. But the paper, after analysing the various writings of Lu Xun and Zhou Zuoren, in particular those written by Zhou around the time when Yuwai xiaoshuoji was published, presents a different picture. First it was by no means an unqualified success. Rather, it was completely neglected and did not make any impact on the literary or translation scene when it first appeared. Second, it is Zhou Zuoren who was instrumental in the project, not only in that most of the pieces were translated by him, but that the selection of works and the methodology in translating also reflected his own literary thinking. More specifically, Yuwai xiaoshuoji was a first literary venture of Zhou Zuoren that exhibits his advocacy of humane literature in the late 1910s and early 1920s.