擇選眼光與翻譯策略：德庇時「中國戲劇推薦書單」初探

本文論述主體，為英國第一代漢學家德庇時（John Francis Davis, 1795-1890）於1829 年元雜劇《漢宮秋》譯本之「序言」末，所附的一份中國戲劇推薦書單，共開列三十二部中國劇本名目。這是中西文學/ 戲劇交流史上，第一份正式被提出的中國劇本參考書目。在此之前，歐洲人對《趙氏孤兒》出處的《元曲選》頗有耳聞，其餘劇作則幾乎未見涉獵。雖然德庇時於文脈中針對「語言學習」而發，因他本人就是大量閱讀中國小說、戲曲而強化中文能力者；這份書單所潛藏的課題，如「中國戲劇時況」、「英人欣賞中國戲劇的品味」、及其為何特地翻譯近一頁半的中文書目置於譯本之前，卻遠比學習語言之說更加值得玩味。奇特的是，這份書單被忽視了將近兩個世紀，幾乎未見學者將其還原、耙梳、考證，故本文實從啓封、拂塵開始，進行初步考察，希冀為十九世紀早期跨文化的戲劇交流、傳播與接受，提供可能的探討依據。

關鍵字

中國戲劇；英國漢學；翻譯研究；德庇時；元雜劇

並列摘要

This paper explores the book list from the preface of the earliest English translation of the Yuan drama Hangong qiu (The Sorrows of Han) by the 19th century sinologist John Francis Davis in 1829. Davis wrote at the end of this preface ＂The following list of Chinese Play-Books may perhaps be useful to students of the language＂ and then provided a list of thirty-two titles of Chinese plays. This is the first recommendation of Chinese plays for Westerners in the history of literature/ drama transmission between China and Europe; before this, the Europeans had only heard of the Selection of Yuan Plays, which were translated and printed in 1735 and included The Orphan of Zhao. Davis claimed that this list was compiled for language learning as he himself had benefitted from reading a number of novels and plays to learn Chinese. More interestingly, this list revels the popularity of Chinese drama around 1829, foreigners' interest in Chinese drama, and the reason why the particular items on this list were selected. It is curious that this list had been ignored by scholars for nearly two centuries. As a preliminary study of this list, this paper tries to dig out the underlying issues of the cross-cultural transmission of drama in the early nineteenth century.