Variation in the Translation of Jin Ping Mei

ABSTRACT

World literature has been defined as translated literature in circulation. Jin Ping Mei, the 16th-century Chinese classic novel, has been translated into dozens of foreign languages. It is through translation that Jin Ping Mei could circulate widely in the English-speaking world. Therefore, it is of significance to investigate Jin Ping Mei’s journey into the English-speaking world and the variation phenomena that appeared in the process. Professor Cao Shunqing developed the variation theory in his book The Variation Theory of Comparative Literature, in which he emphasized that the variation theory is an applicable framework for studying the dissemination and reception of Chinese literature in the English-speaking world. This paper aims to provide a general picture of the variations shown in the translated texts of Jin Ping Mei in terms of the literary and cultural differences between the East and the West. The author argues that The Golden Lotus translated by Clement Egerton is a deeper variation of literary translation, which realizes Jin Ping Mei’s literary domestic appropriation. Egerton’s The Golden Lotus has become an organic part of English literature, while David Roy’s translation still has a long way to go before being integrated into the English culture.

摘要

世界文学通常被定义为流通中的翻译文学。《金瓶梅》是中国16世纪的一部经典小说，它在国外已有多个翻译版本。正是通过翻译，《金瓶梅》才得以在英语世界广泛流传。因此，考察《金瓶梅》的英语世界之旅及其在此过程中出现的变异现象具有重要意义。曹顺庆教授在《比较文学变异学》一书中强调，变异学理论是研究中国文学在英语世界的传播和接受的一个有效路径。本文旨在从东西方文学差异和文化差异的角度，对《金瓶梅》的两个英文全译本所呈现出的变异现象进行研究。作者认为，克莱门特·埃杰顿的译本《金莲》是《金瓶梅》在文学翻译中一种更深层次的变异，实现了《金瓶梅》的文学他国化。埃杰顿的《金莲》已经成为英国文学的有机组成部分，而由芮效卫翻译的另一《金瓶梅》英语全译本要想融入英语文化，仍然还有很长的一段路要走。

KEYWORDS:

• Jin Ping Mei
• translation
• variation
• literary domestic appropriation

关键词:

• 《金瓶梅》
• 翻译
• 变异
• 文学他国化

1. Introduction

Jin Ping Mei金瓶梅, the 16th-century Chinese classic has produced a host of topics for both scholars and readers since its publication. Although the novel was condemned for its explicit and vulgar sexual descriptions, its literary value never faded in the eyes of critics. It is renowned as one of “The Four Masterpieces of the Ming Dynasty Novels” 明代四大奇书 for the sprawling panorama of life and times it exposes. Zhang Zhupo, the famous scholar in the Qing Dynasty who focused on Jin Ping Mei studies ranked it as “The No.1 Master Book” 第一奇书 surpassing its three counterparts (Sanguo Yanyi 三国演义, Shuihu Zhuan 水浒传, and Xiyou Ji西游记). In the modern literary world, discussions concerning Jin Ping Mei have been extended both in China and abroad. Lu Xun, one of the most influential writers in 20th-century China, took Jin Ping Mei as the most outstanding novel of its time which “shows the most profound understanding of the life his time” (222). In addition, the novel is praised as “the Ming dynasty’s greatest novel” by the authors of The Cambridge History of Chinese Literature (Chang and Owen 104). David Roy, an English translator and a devoted researcher of Jin Ping Mei, states that the novel is a world-class classic and that “with the possible exception of The Tale of Genji (1010) and Don Quixote (1615), there is no earlier work of prose fiction of equal sophistication in world literature” (xvii-xviii). In fact, Jin Ping Mei has been translated into dozens of foreign languages, including English, French, German, Latin, Italian, Russian, Japanese, and Korean (Wang, 1980). C. T. Hsia introduced the novel in his monograph The Chinese Classical Novel: A Critical Introduction that “compared with the other three among the four classical novels in Ming dynasty, the translation and research of Jin Ping Mei is the best in Western world” (170). Obviously, the novel has gained popularity not only in its homeland but also around the world. With years of circulation and discussion, Jin Ping Mei has been recognized as one of the classics in world literature.

World literature has been defined as translated literature in circulation, which has been widely acknowledged by many scholars both in the East and the West (Cao, 2018). Jin Ping Mei is mainly disseminated in the form of translations among readers in foreign countries. While examining from the perspective of comparative literature, variation is inevitable for the translated works (Cao, 2014). Professor Cao Shunqing developed the variation theory in his book The Variation Theory of Comparative Literature, in which he classified variation phenomena into four types at different levels, namely, cross-national variation, cross-language variation, cross-culture variation, and cross-civilization variation. Among the four types of variation, as he mentions, interlingual variation is a red line that runs throughout the other three types. Thus, the interlingual variation has an essential influence on revealing the other three types of variation in the translated works, and variation theory is an applicable framework for studying the dissemination and reception of Chinese literature outside China (Cao, 2015). It is through translation that Jin Ping Mei could circulate widely in the English-speaking world. Therefore, it is of significance to investigate Jin Ping Mei’s journey into the English-speaking world and the variation phenomena that appeared in the process. This paper aims to provide a general picture of the variations shown in the translated texts of Jin Ping Mei in terms of the literary and cultural differences between the East and the West. The author will explore the variation phenomena in the translated Jin Ping Mei by probing into its two complete English translations. After studying the variation phenomena of the translated Jin Ping Mei, the author argues that The Golden Lotus translated by Clement Egerton is a deeper variation of literary translation, which realizes the novel’s literary domestic appropriation, while David Roy’s scholarly translation of the novel is a kind of “imposed interpretation.” In this way, Egerton’s The Golden Lotus has become an organic part of English literature, while Roy’s The Plum in the Golden Vase still has a long way to go before being integrated into the English culture.

2. Every translation has its own advantages

In traditional translation studies, scholars usually pay attention to the studies at the linguistic level such as translation skills and strategies, the equality of language conversions, and the values of the translated texts. While in comparative literature studies, we try to leave these issues alone and respect the differences in translated works published in different periods. In other words, the translated works, in the case of comparative literature, are equal and of the same value in literary and cultural communications (Cao, 2005). Comparatists take translations as literary phenomena and accept every translated text as a literary truth (Cao, 2014). By far, there are two complete English translations of Jin Ping Mei, namely, The Golden Lotus: A Translation from the Chinese Original of the Novel Chin P’ing Mei,¹ translated by Clement Egerton and published in 1939, and The Plum in the Golden Vase or Chin P’ing Mei,² translated by David Roy and published from 1993 to 2013. Recently, with the accomplishment of his five-volume translation project, Roy’s English translation of Jin Ping Mei has launched a wide range of debate among scholars and readers. Xueqin Jin contends Roy’s “translating everything” approach to translating Jin Ping Mei sets a good example for translators who translate Chinese literature for foreign readers. He strongly suggests that the “detailed, encyclopedic endnotes will shed light on our endeavors in translating Chinese literary works into foreign languages” (103). On the other hand, widely known as the most “faithful” translation of the novel, The Plum has also received some“criticisms” in this aspect. Both Shuhui Yang and Junjie Luo, the reviewers of the third and the fourth volumes of the The Plum, express their disapproval of Roy’s “translating everything” principle (Yang, 2008; Luo, 2012), especially when “the sources of many phrases remain in common use in contemporary Chinese language” (Luo 180). Junjie Luo expresses his concern by asking, “is knowledge of these sources essential to our understanding of Jin Ping Mei?” (180). Besides, the different recensions that the two translators chose as the source texts have also been a point of dispute. For instance, a reader of both English versions of Jin Ping Mei harshly condemned Egerton’s translation by speaking highly of Roy’s:

This (Roy’s) is an accurate translation, or as accurate as possible, of recension A(cihua) of this novel, published in 1618. It is far superior to the translation by Clement Egerton, “The Golden Lotus,” which follows the later, and inferior, B and C recensions (xiuxiang text). (Dewberry)

Generally, Jin Ping Mei has three recensions: the A recension Jin Ping Mei cihua 金瓶梅词话, the B recension Jin Ping Mei xiuxiang text 金瓶梅新刻绣像本, and the C recension diyi qishu 第一奇书 commentary by Zhang Zhupo. Cihua (the A recension) and xiuxiang text (the B recension) differ from each other drastically in text, but the last two editions (the B and C recensions) are identical textually. Therefore, Jin Ping Mei exists roughly in two systems, that is, the cihua version originated from the Wanli period and the xiuxiang version was revised during the Chongzhen period. Accordingly, David Roy’s The Plum and Clement Egerton’s The Golden Lotus made two different choices by the two systems. Clement Egerton’s translation was based on the Chongzhen version, which was later commented on and annotated by Zhang Zhupo, namely, the above mentioned diyi qishu recension, and David Roy the cihua version (Egerton, 2008; Roy, 1993). Obviously, the above mentioned reader above holds that Roy’s edition is more “superior” just because Egerton chose the “inferior” C recension as the source text. Egerton and Roy also showed disagreements when choosing the source texts. David Roy agrees with the reader that “the B edition is an inferior recension of the text, published several decades after the author’s time” (xx). However, Clement Egerton points out that the C recension actually makes Jin Ping Mei more compact and the language more succinct by deleting the verses and the story about Wusong in the A recension (2008). Although disaccord in qualities of the two recensions, Egerton and Roy chose their source texts based on the considerations of the source language culture, their life experiences, and the culture of the targeted language. They sought a state of relative balance in the process by constantly comparing and contrasting linguistic and non-linguistic elements of different cultures. As Tian Xiaofei has pointed out that “no less than the cihua recension, the xiuxiang text is a self-conscious, fully-intentional, and well-thought-out literary construct” (351). That is to say, the two recensions that Egerton and Roy took as the source texts are indeed equal in their textual qualities.

As stated above, the different recensions of Jin Ping Mei that Egerton and Roy took as their source texts are equal textually as are the two different translated versions. Within the framework of comparative literature, there is no “inferior” translation compared with the other versions. Junjie Luo has compared and contrasted the two translations of Jin Ping Mei and has demonstrated in his paper that each translation should be examined as a full package. The Golden Lotus and The Plum reflect the different views that Egerton and Roy had in mind when translating Jin Ping Mei within the context of their time periods and cultures (Luo, 2014). Every translation is the recreation of the translator, and their translations should be considered within the specific time and space. Published in 1939, The Golden Lotus is 54 years ahead of Roy’s first volume that appeared in 1993. David Roy decided to translate Jin Ping Mei as fully as he could, which in his words was to “render all such passages in exactly the same way whenever they occur or recur” (Roy xlviii). Consequently, the most original A version is the best choice for him. While for Egerton, who was intrigued by Jin Ping Mei’s “utmost economy in the use of the literary devices,” the abridged C recension is no doubt a better choice for him (Egerton 23). Though Egerton translated Jin Ping Mei as early as 1926 when there was not much dissemination and discussion in the English-speaking world about the novel, with the help of the famous Chinese writer Lao She (C. C. Shu), his translation “is a classic of its time and is very readable today. It was an expurgated, though complete, version” (Egerton 17). In contrast, Roy promised he would provide an appendix of translations of the lyrics of songs, or song suites in the novel and he would even go further than the earlier translator “in attempting to identify the sources of quoted material” (xxi). All of Roy’s efforts seem to make his translation of Jin Ping Mei more “superior” to the former Golden Lotus. But the truth is that many phrases he annotates in the novel remain in common use in the contemporary Chinese language, and mistranslations also exist in his translation. For example, he translated the Chinese length unit “cun寸” into “inch,” which is not equal to “cun” (1 inch = 0.762cun). Thus, although Roy points out the “drawbacks” of Egerton’s translation that it “contains no annotation,” his work still can never be the same as the source text. As exemplified by professor Cao, because of the factors such as cultural heterogeneity, the translator’s subjectivity, and the reader’s expectation, there is by no means a complete equivalence between the source text and the target text (Cao, 2018). Egerton and Roy’s translations are destined to be different because of the time and space differences. While based on the textually equal source texts, they are of the same value in the process of literary and cultural communications.

Hence, every translation has its own advantages. Translations generated in different periods reflect different values and choices. It is concerned with what is the unique value and significance of the translated texts (Cao, 2014). With the idea that the two translations are indeed equal to each other, Egerton and Roy do confront the common cultural filtering process in arriving at their completions, among which the most evident part is their distinct style in translating the obscene parts in Jin Ping Mei.

3. Domestication or foreignization

Cultural filtering refers to the mechanism of selection, transformation, appropriation, and infiltration of culture-specific norms in a specific cultural context or tradition. Owing to cultural differences, Chinese literature will inevitably meet cultural filters when entering the English-speaking world, producing variations in aspects of form, content, and thought. Professor Cao states that because we grow up in a specific period set in a distinct place, each individual is nurtured by his own “cultural luggage” in a social-historical context. Therefore, cultural filtering cannot be neglected when reading translated works (2015). The most controversial part of Jin Ping Mei is its obscene descriptions. The latest version of The Golden Lotus even makes its statement on the cover of the book that it is “the greatest novel of physical love which China has produced.” While Clement Egerton and David Roy lived in different times and spaces, both of them went through cultural filtrating in translating the obscene parts in Jin Ping Mei.

3.1 Egerton’s domestication of obscene scenes as human Power

During Egerton’s time, the British Empire held a considerably conservative attitude toward obscene books despite being the most powerful country in the world: concerned about “the thriving London pornography trade” in England, the Lord Chief Justice, Lord Campbell, proposed what later became the Obscene Publications Act of 1857. And over the course of the following century, the Act was used precisely against a variety of books. Until 1959, obscene scenes in the books were finally re-judged by the Revised Obscene Publications Act, which decreed that works must be taken as a whole rather than inculpated based on passages taken out of context, and allow for mitigating factors such as historical interest and literary merit (Suarez and Woudhuysen, 2013). Although the Victorian age was a golden era of English erotica, the Obscene Publications Act was still in effect: among the long list of its victims in the twentieth century were D. H. Lawrence’s The Rainbow (1915), Lady Chatterley’s Lover (1929) and James Joyce’s Ulysses (1922) (Suarez and Woudhuysen, 2013). Then why did Egerton decide to translate Jin Ping Mei, a novel which was notorious for its obscene descriptions? After all, all the novels mentioned above were not allowed just because they had a few scenes of sexual descriptions. In the preface of the 1972 version of The Golden Lotus, Robert Hegel discloses the answer. He finds that Egerton is greatly interested in human social behavior, specifically sexual behavior. Egerton likewise adimitted his interest in his first African expedition:

I was very eager to find out, so far as I could, the attitude of the Bangangte people to what we call the problem of sex. We, ourselves, seem to have gone more wrong on sex than on anything else, and that is saying a great deal. It absorbs our energies out of all measure. It permeates every department of our lives. It arouses the bitterest controversies. It is the most popular form of amusement. It saturates our art and literature. It fills our gaols; it lurks in the background of most of our murders and suicides. Even the advertisers who try to sell us motor-cars or cigarettes endeavor to do so by appealing to our sex interest. When all other topics of conversation fail, there is always sex to fall back upon. And, most amazingly, we conventionally behave like ostriches and keep up a polite pretence that sex is not really important or, if it is important, it is too disgusting to be mentioned in decent society. With all this atmosphere behind me, I cannot pretend to be uninterested, or even purely scientifically interested, in the matter of sex. (16–17)

Similar to the era of Prohibition in the United States during the 1920s-1930s, more prohibition equals more smugglers of alcohol: anyone who read Fitzgerald’s Great Gatsby will understand the situation. In this case, although living in the age of the obscene ban, people like Egerton are more curious about sex and eager to seek the true appearance of human sexual behavior. In translating Jin Ping Mei, Egerton insists that the sexual descriptions in the novel are not going to be deleted: “I am convinced that such details were included in the original not for the purpose of titillating the reader’s palate for the salacious, but because they, too, indicate shades of character which, given the author’s stylistic limitations, could not be indicated by any other means” (24). For Egerton, sexual descriptions are indispensable parts of Jin Ping Mei. There are no other means to display the novel’s literary art other than with the obscene parts. What’s more, Egerton stressed the importance of sexual power not only in the literary side but also in the social aspect. He attached great importance to sexual power in response to social problems. As disclosed, the British empire was unraveling in the age of Egerton: “ … it was obvious that a crisis was in the making … . There was increasing unemployment and social unrest at home, while independence movements in the colonies were growing widespread” (Witchard 58–59). Egerton’s contemporary writers such as D. H. Lawrence also exposed the deteriorated social condition in his novel: “our civilization is going to fall. It’s going down the bottomless pit, down the chasm. And believe me, the only bridge across the chasm will be the phallus!” (73). It seems that Lawrence found the cure for their “falling civilization,” that is, “the phallus”—the male sexual power. In his opinion, human sex is a kind of impulse and the symbol of human power, only by sexual power can they rescue the British civilization. Lawrence constantly showed his admiration toward human sexual power and its beauty in his novel Lady Chatterley’s Lover:

Ah, too lovely, too lovely! In the ebbing she realized all the loveliness. Now all her body clung with tender love to the unknown man, and blindly to the wilting penis, as it so tenderly, frailly, unknowingly withdrew, after the fierce thrust of its potency. As it drew out and left her body, the secret, sensitive thing, she gave an unconscious cry of pure loss, and she tried to put it back. It had been so perfect! And she loved it so! (175)

For Lawrence, the human sexual organ is beautiful and potent, and the sexual intercourse is an enjoyment of life. In responding to his contemporary, the sexual descriptions translated in Egerton’s Golden Lotus are far from the vulgar and disgusting scenes like in Jin Ping Mei, rather reflect but the beauty of sex as a part of human life. In The Golden Lotus, Ximen Qing’s sexual organ is translated as the symbol of human power rather than the agent of his evil sexual desire:

Upstanding, it was, and flushed with pride, the black hair strong and bristling.A mighty warrior in very truth.

A warrior of stature not to be despised

At times a hero and at times a coward.

Who, when for battle disinclined,

As though in drink sprawls to the east and west.

But, when for combat he is ready,

Like a mad monk he plunges back and forth

And to the place from which he came returns.

Such is his duty.

His home is in the loins, beneath the navel.

Heaven has given him two sons

To go wherever he goes

And, when he meets an enemy worthy of his steel,

He will attack, and then attack again (121).

In translating the obscene part of Jin Ping Mei, Egerton indicates his admiration for human sexual power and his understanding of sex as man’s natural impulsion. Ximeng Qing’s sexual organ is “a mighty warrior” which is “not to be despised” here, and sexual intercourse is not just an activity but a way to regain human power. Besides, Egerton continues to express his belief that sexual life is a necessary part of human beings in the case of Li Pinger. Li is Ximen Qing’s 6^th concubine, who betrays her husband because he cannot satisfy her sexual desire. Her blatant adultery is defended in Egerton’s translation:

His life (Li Pinger’s husband) was one long dream, and he was still dreaming when he died. I had never any desire to act with him in this way. Day after day he went out and played the fool, and when he returned I would never allow him to come near me. … But who could satisfy the carvings of my heart as you do? You act upon me just like a drug. I can think of nothing else by day or night (397).

For Li Pinger, she suffered an unfulfilled sexual life because her husband always fools around outside with other women. It is Ximen Qing who fulfills her and makes her life complete. In this way, unlike the ruthless wife who cruelly betrayed her husband before, Li Pinger is reborn into a loving and caring woman after she was satisfied with Ximen Qing’s sexual comfort. In this way, Egerton’s translation shows his pity for Li Pinger. He does not use any words of condemnation or animosity toward their adulterous conduct. Egerton’s translation also could be verified by Lawrence’s novel. When Lady Chatterley betrays her husband by having sex with the gamekeeper, their adultery is not condemned by the author either, but is described as the way Lady Chatterley regains her life: “The voice out of the uttermost night, the life! The man heard it beneath him with a kind of awe, as his life sprang out into her” (Lawrence 133).

Lin Yutang in his essay “Talking about Lawrence” says that Jin Ping Mei describes sexual intercourse only as an activity, but when Lawrence describes sexual intercourse it is another thing. In describing the obscene scenes in his novel, Lawrence dissects the human mind and shows us the combination of the spirit and the flesh in the process. The sexual scenes are full of meaning with more delicate and subtle descriptions, and this is the difference between Lawrence’s novel and Jin Ping Mei (2014). While in Clement Egerton’s translation, Jin Ping Mei’s obscene descriptions are not merely displayed as sexual activity, but transcend into Lawrence’s “delicate and subtle descriptions.” Sex is beautiful rather than disgusting; sexual organs are powerful rather than an object. As narrated in his dairy, Egerton contends that the British people “seem to have gone more wrong on sex than on anything else… .It permeates every department of our lives … When all other topics of conversation fail, there is always sex to fall back upon” (16–17). But under the enforcement of the Obscene Publications Act, Egerton’s belief in the importance of sex for human life has never been successfully conveyed in his time. His translation of the obscene scenes was required to be converted into Latin, and it was not until 1979 that the Latin obscene parts were finally translated into English (Qi, 2016).

3.2 Roy’s foreignization of obscene scenes as human evilness

The era of routine literary censorship in the West came to an end during the 1960s with the movement of sexual liberation (Suarez and Woudhuysen, 2013). There is no more bandage for David Roy when he translated a novel like Jin Ping Mei featuring various obscene descriptions. While living in different times and spaces, the translator’s understanding of the source text can also influence his translation of a novel (Cao, 2015). As a devoted researcher of Jin Ping Mei, David Roy contends that the novel indeed embodies “ideological and philosophical coherence” provided by Xunzi 荀子, the representative of conservative orthodox Confucianism. Roy believes that Xunzi’s assertion that human nature is evil is the key to understanding Jin Ping Mei (xviii). Therefore, sexual descriptions for Roy are indications of the need for restraint from sexuality advocated by the Confucian concept of restraint rather than the humanistic view of enjoying sex as insinuated in Egerton’s translation. Roy insists on this notion before the beginning of his translation. In the preface to his translation, he elaborates that:

It was never any part of the author’s intent to celebrate the pleasure of sex and the sexual acts that he explicitly describes, and which have won the novel such notoriety, are intended, in fact, to express in the most powerful metaphor available to him the author’s contempt for the sort of persons who indulge in them. (xxvii)

In this way, when Roy translated the episode of Pan Jinlian’s adultery with Ximen Qing into English, he applies words to emphasize their guilt and condemns the illegality of adultery: “Despite the fact that they are both well matched and compatible;/How true it is that “Stolen delights always taste the best” (Roy 85). Besides, Roy admits in the introduction that Jin Ping Mei can be read in the same way as Charles Dicken’s Bleak House, in which the naturalistic descriptions are used to criticize society (xxix). Thus, other than producing a novel admiring sexual conduct, Roy’s scrupulously exact translation brings the readers a vulgar and explicit impression of the obscene scenes as in Jin Ping Mei. The translation of Ximen Qing’s sexual organ proves his point of view:

It was:

Dark red, with black whiskers;

Straight standing, firm, and hard;

a fine object,indeed! There is a poem about its characteristics that testifies to this:

There is an object that has always been about six inches long;

Sometimes it is soft and at other times it is hard.

When soft, like a drunkard, it falls down either to the east or the west;

When hard, like a mad monk, it runs amok either above or below.

It makes it’sliving by traveling in and out of virgin territory;

It makes its home beneath the navel in the Province of the Loins.

It has two sons who always accompany it wherever it goes;

In how many skirmishes, with how many beauties, has it emerged the victor? (90-91)

In Roy’s translation, Ximen’s sexual organ is no longer a “warrior” but a “drunkard,” a “mad monk” which symbolizes the unrestraint of his sexual behaviors. In describing Pan Jinlian’s sexual organ, Roy seems to apply more passive words such as “yielding” and “old garden” to suggest his negative attitude toward sex:

Warm and tight, fragrant and dry, it tastes better than lotus root;

It knows how to be soft and yielding and to make itself agreeable.

When happy, it sticks out its tongue, opens its mouth, and smiles;

When tired, it collapses lazily into itself and takes a nap.

The name of the place it makes its home is Crotch County;

Its old garden is to be found beside the sparsely wooded slopes.

If it should ever encounter a dashing young gentleman;

It will engage him in battle, without a word, on the slightest pretext. (91)

Roy believes that Jin Ping Mei’s connotative meaning is Xunzi’s moral philosophy that human nature is evil, and people should restrain their sexual desire rather than indulging in it. Therefore, his translation of the descriptions of the sexual organ and sexual activities is generally negative. While Egerton as a contemporary of Lawrence, who lived under the suppression of the Obscene Publications Act, holds that human sexual power is a necessary and important part of human life. Each of the translators adopted their translation strategy according to their own experience, but they both gave birth to a new reading when introducing them to their audience with different strategies. Referring to the specific time and space that Jin Ping Mei circulated in the English-speaking world, Egerton and Roy’s diverse attitudes in translating the obscene descriptions in the novel undergo the inescapable process of cultural filtering because of their cultural backgrounds. Therefore, under the influence of cross-cultural translation, the two English translations of Jin Ping Mei are bound to experience a different reception history in the English-speaking world.

3.3 Literary domestic appropriation of the golden lotus

In translating the obscene scenes in Jin Ping Mei, both of the translations have undergone the process of cultural filtering but have had different reception responses because of the opposite translation strategies that the two translators applied. In the introduction of his translation, Egerton suggests that he will render Jin Ping Mei into a form that the English readers may gain the same impression of a masterpiece of novel writing as he does (2011). He employs the domestication strategy and tries to translate Jin Ping Mei into an English “masterpiece novel.” In this sense, Jin Ping Mei experiences a deeper variation of comprehensive effects including cultural filtering and domestication, which realized its literary domestic appropriation. According to professor Cao’s definition, literary domestic appropriation is a deeper variation after the literature of one country “has been filtered, translated, and received by another country’s culture. That is to say, the receiving country localizes the received literature by its own literary traditions, literary theories, and cultural rules” (Cao, 57). Through literary domestic appropriation, The Golden Lotus translated from Jin Ping Mei becomes part of British literature by disrupting and liberating itself from the Chinese context. In contrast to Egerton’s strategy, David Roy makes “translating everything” his goal. Unconcerned about the targeted readers’ cultural barriers when reading the novel, Roy employs the strategy of foreignization. In this way, The Golden Lotus and The Plum have brought two distinct reading experiences to the readers:

This (Egerton’s The Golden Lotus) is an amazing read. The story itself is fundamentally simple. The life of a man and his wives, concubines, party girls and his avarice. The big challenge is keeping pace with the huge number of characters. But it is worth it. The conniving, duplicity, disloyalty all make for a wide range of truly interesting stories within the main plot. (Reid)

While contradictory to the view that the novel is “simple” to read, the reader of The Plum holds a different opinion and finds the novel is in a mess with complex lists of characters and complicated plots:

It’s (The Plum) like the Chaucer, or Trollope, or Sex and the City of medieval China. It’s totally bawdy, but more than that, it’s a finely-wrought portrait of life for a nouveau-riche social climber. Clothes, food, manners, LACK of manners. … One problem: Like War and Peace, it’s long, with hundreds of characters … As it is, I had to make index cards for certain sections to be sure if it was Wife 1 or Wife 5 talking. (Bennett)

It is hard to say which translation is better because each has its advantages and disadvantages. In Roy’s translation, he decided to “translate everything” accurately from the original text of Jin Ping Mei. As a result, his translation tends to preserve the style of the original Chinese classic novel, but it foreignized the novel to the English readers at the same time, whereas Egerton adopted a more friendly strategy for foreign readers. He appropriated the novel according to the English reading habits, particularly in helping the readers solve the “name problem” during their reading. We can have a quick review of Egerton and Roy’s translation of the main characters’ names in Jin Ping Mei:

Table

	The Golden Lotus	The Plum in the Golden Vase
吴月娘	The Moon Lady	Wu Yüeh-niang
孟玉楼	Tower of Jade	Meng Yü-lou,
潘金莲	Golden Lotus	P’an Chin-lien
李瓶儿	The Lady of the Vase	Li P,ing-erh
庞春梅	Plum Blossom	P,ang Ch’un-mei

The main characters’ names translated in The Golden Lotus and The Plum

In Roy’s translation, a long name list of forty pages of all the characters is placed before the story, and the more outdated Wade-Giles system (in China we use the pinyin system since the 1990s) is used in translating these names. Roy tends to translate the names in Jin Ping Mei according to the traditional transliteration strategy, which can help in preserving the original sounds of Chinese names. While The Golden Lotus only gives a 3-page name list with the domesticated English versions, and all of the names are translated into the typical English female character names such as “Lady Chatterley”, which are easily remembered and recognized by English readers. Besides, different from the novels in the West, each chapter of Roy’s translation has been titled in a similar way to the original Chinese version all are made up of two lines, each corresponds to the other in structure and number of characters, and the two lines together convey an idea of what is happening in the chapter. On the contrary, Egerton domesticated the chapter titles of Jin Ping Mei, translating them into the popular way of English novels that the character names and main plots are usually made into the chapter names. The difference can be verified through the two authors’ translations of Jin Ping Mei’s chapter titles:

Table

	The Golden Lotus	The Plum in the Golden Vase
Chapter 1	The Brotherhood of Rascals	Wusong Fights A Tiger on Ching-Yang Ridge;P’an Chin-Lien Disdains Her Mate and Plays the Coquette. P’an Chin-Lien Disdains Her Mate and Plays the Coquette.
Chapter 2	Golden Lotus	Beneath the Blind His-men Ch’ing Meets Chin-lien;Inspired by Greed Dame Wang Speaks of Romance. Inspired by Greed Dame Wang Speaks of Romance.
Chapter 3	The Old Procuress	Dame Wang Proposes A Ten-part Plan for “Garnering the Glow”;His-men Ch’ing Flirts with Chin-lien in the Teahouse. His-men Ch’ing Flirts with Chin-lien in the Teahouse.
Chapter 4	His-men Ch’ing Attains His End	The Hussy Commits Adultery Behind Wu the Elder’s Back;Yun-ko in His Anger Raises A Rumpus in the Teashop. Yun-ko in His Anger Raises A Rumpus in the Teashop.
Chapter 5	The Murder of Wu Ta	Yun-ko Lends A Hand by Cursing Dame Wang;The Hussy Administers Poison to Wu the Elder. The Hussy Administers Poison to Wu the Elder.

The chapter titles from The Golden Lotus and The Plum (chapter 1–5)

As exhibited above, The Plum is more inclined to a literal translation of Jin Ping Mei than the domestication translation of The Golden Lotus. Roy’s translation of the chapter titles is faithful to the original version in Jin Ping Mei, but Egerton translated the chapter names into typical English novel’ chapter titles. Obviously, for English readers, Egerton’s translation tends to be more recognizable. We can find similar devices to name chapter titles in Charles Dickens’ Bleak House. For example, Chapter 1 In Chancery, Chapter 5 A Morning Adventure, Chapter 10 The Law – writer, Chapter 18 Lady Dedlock, Chapter 20 A New Lodger, and Chapter 22 Mr. Bucket (1853). As we can see, the chapter names of Dickens’ novel share a common idea of devising in Egerton’s translation of The Golden Lotus. They are largely based on the characters’ names and the main plots in each chapter. In addition, to conclude the chapter and hold the audience’s interest in the story, the author of Jin Ping Mei usually employs means to attract the readers’ interests in the next chapter at the end of each chapter. In Roy’s translation, each chapter ends with “If you want to know the outcome of these events, pray consult the story related in the following chapter,” which is accurately translated from the novel, while Egerton just left it out to keep the English readers from feeling “foreignized”. Egerton states in his note of the translation that “it is not easy to make a smooth English version and, at the same time, to preserve the spirit of the Chinese” (22). In this way, his translation is set to assimilate Jin Ping Mei into the English literary tradition without “Chinese spirit” and literary domestic appropriation is an indispensable way in the process.

In comparative literature, literary domestic appropriation is variation at a deeper level in literary translations. Professor Cao Shunqing points out that literary domestic appropriation is an ideal case to show that variation in translation can transform foreign literature into a part of one’s national literature. Therefore, if the translator intends to reduce heterogeneous traces of the original text and adjusts it to the target cultural context, he will largely transform the original discourse into the target one. When the target readers feel intimacy by reading a translated work, then the work would be accepted naturally and even be adopted as a part of local literature (Cao, 2018). The case in point is Egerton’s domestication strategy that we discussed above. Jin Ping Mei, when translated by Egerton into The Golden Lotus, undergoes this sort of deeper variation. His deletion of a great many of the poems from Jin Ping Mei in his translation cannot be ignored, either. As we know, the Chinese ideographic system differs greatly from the alphabetic system of writing in the West. In Chinese, an equal number of words in a couplet expressing a complete idea can easily be realized, but it is another story in English, and below is the reason why Egerton decides not to render some poems in the book:

It would, doubtless, have been possible to escape some of the difficulties by omitting the passages in which they occur, but I could not bring myself to do this or even to cut down occasional passages which seem to me a little dull. I made the best I could of them. The position was not quite the same with the poems. Nobody would, I think, claim that they are masterpieces of Chinese poetry, and some of them, turned into English, seemed very much like gibberish. I have allowed myself much more liberty with them and have omitted a great many. (Egerton 37)

Having realized that the poems in Jin Ping Mei are not attractive to the English readers, Egerton decides to delete a great many of them with “much more liberty” and “omitted a great many.” His translation is not just a word-for-word transport of the novel, it is a kind of recreation to cater to the English readers’ habits. In this sense, he is identified as having a Chinese counterpart in translation. Lin Shu, whose translation at the time was sought after by the general public, figures prominently in the process of translation to erase the differences between two different cultures. He engaged in translation in a manner acceptable to the general public in the context of Chinese. In the way of literary domestic appropriation, Linshu’s translation became a part of Chinese national literature (Cao, 2014). In addition, by working together with the famous Chinese writer Lao She, Egerton’s translation is fluent and readable for English readers. Hanan once talks about this kind of cooperation in the early prominently translation of the Bible into Chinese. He exemplifies that during the process, there were always two people working together, one more familiar with English, the other more skilled in Chinese composition. And consequently, this kind of translation is more smooth and readable to the audiences (2003). Similarly, with Lao She’s Chinese proficiency and Egerton’s English proficiency, Jin Ping Mei has been domesticated into a popular English novel. Robert Hegel also points out that Lao She’s assistance with the translation contributed to a far more widespread appreciation of the Chinese novel (Egerton, 2011). In this sense, Egerton’s translation has transcended Jin Ping Mei into an English novel.

After literary domesticated appropriation, The Golden Lotus has evolved into a part of English readings. David Roy’s translation is undoubtedly more complete and academic, but for Egerton, his goal is quite clear that he has “made no attempt to produce a ‘scholarly’ translation” (Egerton 22). The fluent and English-style language adopted by Egerton has made the Chinese classic become a popular book in the English-speaking world. Through Egerton’s domesticated appropriation approach, The Golden Lotus has undergone 25 editions since its first publication in 1939. It has been published in London, New York, Singapore, and Tokyo, and was introduced back to China by Renmin Wenxue Press (People’s Literature Publishing House) in 2008. Besides, the online bibliographical source WorldCat lists that 366 separate printings of Egerton’s Golden Lotus can be found in participating libraries around the globe (Egerton, 2011). In this regard, through the literary domestic appropriation of Jin Ping Mei, Egerton’s The Golden Lotus finally achieved a rebirth in the English-speaking world.

4. Conclusion

Followed by the British cultural and literary tradition, Egerton’s translation of Jin Ping Mei is bound to a deeper variation. Egerton’s The Golden Lotus has experienced comprehensive variations from the initial level of language variation in translation to the level of literary traditions in the domestic culture and finally to the level of the variation in literary discourse. In this way, The Golden Lotus finally become an organic part of English literature after the process of literary domestic appropriation. Egerton’s translation presents the historical truth of British people’s interests in sexual issues in human life. By deleting the Chinese verse and poetry, and adapting the characters’ names and chapter titles which are foreign to the English readers, The Golden Lotus introduces Jin Ping Mei to the English readers in a way similar to their modern English novels. The Golden Lotus is a successful practice of the Chinese novel’s domestic appropriation in the English-speaking world. On the other hand, David Roy’s The Plum is faithful to the original text of Jin Ping Mei, but it is difficult to be accepted by English readers because of his foreignization strategy. It still needs time to integrate into English culture and can hardly be a part of English literature because of its foreignized translation of the Chinese classic novel.

More than a millennium ago, Cao Pi says that the Chinese literati usually disparages that in which he is weak by the criterion of those things in which he is strong (Owen, 2002). However, it is fortunate that by referring to the theory of comparative literature, the translated works no longer confront such predicaments. We cannot compare The Golden Lotus’ completeness and academic value with The Plum, while in turn neither can we neglect The Golden Lotus’ contribution in helping Jin Ping Mei’s domestic appropriation into the English-speaking world. David Roy also admitted Clement Egerton’s great contribution in his translation of Jin Ping Mei in an interview. It was Egerton’s translation that introduced Roy to the Chinese classic novel, and it is safe to say that without reading Egerton’s translation, Roy might never pay attention to the 16th-century classic, and further decided to spend a life time studying and translating the masterpiece in his way (Zhang, 2017). Therefore, rather than a negation in Egerton’s translation of Jin Ping Mei, Roy’s The Plum is a continuity and development of Egerton’s The Golden Lotus. Both of their translations act as the “matchmaker” which introduces Chinese literature to English-speaking readers and arouses the readers’ interest in learning Chinese culture and literature.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Additional information

Funding

This paper is supported by the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities, the project number is 2682023WQD16.

Notes on contributors

Du Hongyan

Du Hongyan is an assistant professor at Southwest Jiaotong University. Her interests in scholarship include comparative and world literature and translation studies. Du’s publications include “Variation in Literary Exchanges and the Formation of World Literary Canons” Revue de Litterature Comparee (2020), “The Dream Narrative in Jin Ping Mei Xiuxiang Text” Inquiry and Criticism (2020), “Review of the Panel of The Variation Theory of Comparative Literature, XXII. Congress of the ICLA,” Contemporary Foreign Literature (2020).

Notes

1. Hereafter, it is referred to as The Golden Lotus or Golden Lotus in this paper.

2. Hereafter, it is referred to as The Plum in the Golden Vase or The Plum in this paper.