New folio brings Shakespeare closer to Chinese

Gu Zhengkun,chief editor of William Shakespeare: Complete Works.[Photo provided to China Daily]

In 2014, the first complete Chinese translation of Shakespeare in poetic style, led by Fang, was published to commemorate the dramatist's 450th birth anniversary.

"One of the most prominent differences in our translation is that we employed a poetic style for all Shakespearean plays except The Merry Wives of Windsor, which was written in prose," Gu says.

Both Zhu and Liang used prose in translation, but Fang used a poetic style to translate.

"Shakespeare is first a poet. So if we use a poetic style to translate his works, we should not only consider the form but also the diction, as well as the rhythm and rhyme," Gu adds.

The latest translated collection is also the closest to Shakespeare's original writing, he says.

"After all, the original version was created for performances," Gu says.

"So in China, readers will see Shakespeare more as a dramatist through our translation."

In Zhu's translation, due to constraints of time, Shakespearean humor was either deleted or translated in an ambiguous manner.

"Just like in the opening scenes from Romeo and Juliet, where two helpers are chatting, many Chinese in the past didn't get the point of the conversation in previous translations," Gu says. "It was all bawdy talk."

In Zhu's time, Gu says, the Chinese could not accept such sexual allusions, but now we have come to a time when Shakespeare's "bawdiness" pales in comparison with some of the language in popular culture like films and TV shows.

"We not only translated the ribald jokes directly, but also help readers understand them with annotations," says Gu.

"Some scholars say that Shakespeare was proud of his ability to make such jokes. Audiences are supposed to laugh."

The new collection keeps all the annotations of the original RSC edition and incorporates lines in Chinese and English, making it easier for readers to relate to Shakespeare in both languages.

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