Cover not available
Part of
Transnational Books for Children 1750-1900: Producers, consumers, encounters
Edited by Charlotte Appel, Nina Christensen and M.O. Grenby
[Children’s Literature, Culture, and Cognition 15] 2023
► pp. 69–88

Chapter 3
“Altering the original fables
to suit Chinese notions”

A case study of Robert Thom’s Yishi yuyan
意拾喻言 (1840)

|
The Yishi yuyan, a Chinese translation of Aesop’s fables based largely on the collection by Roger L’Estrange (1616–1704), was published circa 1840 by Robert Thom (1807–1846), with his Chinese tutor as co-translator. This chapter examines the sinicization of the Yishi yuan by investigating how the translators recontextualized a culturally appropriate context for the integration of various Chinese literary sources in their narration and reflection of the fables. Following a discussion of the rendering of L’Estrange’s Aesop into Chinese, the key elements that facilitated the success of sinicization of the Yishi yuyan are analysed to illustrate the sinicization techniques and strategies employed by the translators in adapting L’Estrange’s Aesopic fables to a Chinese narrative.
Article outline
  • The adaptability of L’Estrange’s Aesop into Chinese
  • The transnational nature of the Yishi yuyan: Chinese agency at play
  • Altering “the original fables to suit Chinese notions”: A textual analysis
  • Transferring cultural narratives through adaptation
  • Conclusion
  • References
Published online: 8 August 2023
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/clcc.15.03bai
References (34)
References
Primary sources
L’Estrange, Sir Roger Kt. 1669. Fables of Aesop and other Eminent Mythologists: with Morals and Reflections (3rd edition corrected and amended). London: Printed for R. Sare, B. Took, M. Gillyflower, A & J. Churchil, G. Sawbridge, and J. Hindmarsh.Google Scholar
The Chinese Repository (1832–1851). Canton: Printed for the Proprietors. Vol. 7. 1838.Google Scholar
Thom, Robert. 1840a. Preface. Yishi yuyan. Canton Press Office.Google Scholar
. 1840b. Introduction. Yishi yuyan. Canton Press Office.Google Scholar
. 1840c. Prefatory discourse. Yishi yuyan. Canton Press Office.Google Scholar
. 1840d. References and explanations. Yishi yuyan. Canton Press Office.Google Scholar
. 1840e. A Brief Introduction to Esop’s Fables. Canton Press Office.Google Scholar
Thom, Robert & Mun Mooy (trans). 1840. Yishi yuyan (Esop’s Fables). Canton Press Office.Google Scholar
Westminster Review. 1842. 37: 231–233.Google Scholar
Secondary sources
Adrados, Francisco Rodríguez. 1999. History of the Graeco-Latin Fable. Leiden & Boston: Brill. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bai, Limin. 2019. Fusion of East and West. Children, Education and a New China, 1902–1915. Leiden & Boston: Brill. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Cottegnies, Line. 2008. ‘The Art of Schooling Mankind’: The use of the fable in Roger L’Estrange’s Aesop’s Fables (1692). In Roger L’Estrange and the Making of Restoration, Anne Dunan-Page & Beth Wynn (eds). 131–148. Aldershot: Ashgate.Google Scholar
Fairbank, John King. 1964. Trade and Diplomacy on the China Coast. The Opening of the Treaty Ports, 1842–1854. Volumes 1–2. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Fehrle, Johannes & Schmitt, Mark. 2019. Introduction: Adaptation as Translation: Transferring Cultural Narratives ([URL])
Giles, Herbert Allen. 1927. A History of Chinese Literature. New York & London: D. Appleton and Company.Google Scholar
Jacobs, Joseph. 1902 (1894). The Fables of Aesop, with Illustrations by Richard Heighway. London: Macmillan & Co.Google Scholar
Kristeva, Julia. 1980. Desire in Language. A Semiotic Approach to Literature and Art. New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Lerer, Seth. 2008. Children’s Literature. A Reader’s History, from Aesop to Harry Potter. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Lewis, Mark Edward. 2006. The Flood Myths of Early China. Albany, NY: SUNY Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Li, Xiaofan Amy. 2019. Book Review of The Organization of Distance: Poetry, Translation, Chineseness by Lucas Klein. Chinese Literature: Essays, Articles, Reviews 41: 223–227.Google Scholar
Loveridge, Mark. 1998. A History of Augustan Fable. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Morse, Hosea Ballou. 1926–1929. The Chronicles of the East India Company Trading to China, 1635–1834. Vol. 1 & 2. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Newmark, P. 1988. A Textbook of Translation. Hertfordshire: Prentice Hall International.Google Scholar
Perry, Ben Edwin. 1965. Babrius and Phaedrus. London: Heinemann; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Schleiermacher, Friedrich. 2012 (1813). On the different methods of translating. In The Translation Studies Reader, Susan Bernofsky (trans) & Lawrence Venuti (ed), 43–62. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Shapiro, Barbara J. 2012. Political Communication and Political Culture in England, 1558–1688. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Tao, Ching-sin. 2010. Yishi yuyan: Aesop’s Fables in Late Qing China. Translation Quarterly 56: 1–56.Google Scholar
Uchida, Keiichi 内田慶市. 2001a. Ōbeijin no mananda Chūgokugo: Robāto Tōmu no ‘Yishi yuyan’ o chūshin ni” 欧米人 の学んだ中国語-ロバート・トームの『意拾喩言』を中心に (The Chinese studied by Westerners, with a focus on Robert Thom and his Chinese translation of Aesop’s Fables). In Seiyō kindai bunmei to Chūka sekai 西洋近代文明と中華世界, Hazama Naoki 狭間直樹 (ed), 143–159. Kyoto: Kyōto Daigaku Gakujutsu Shuppankai.Google Scholar
. 2001b. Kindai ni okeru tōzai gengo bunka sesshoku no kenkyū 近代における東西言語文 化接触の研究 (A study of language and cultural contacts between East and West in recent centuries). Suita: Kansai Daigaku Shuppanbu.Google Scholar
. 2014. Kan’yaku Isoppu-shū 漢訳イソップ集 (Chinese translation of Aesop’s fables). Ōsaka-shi:Yuniusu.Google Scholar
Venuti, Lawrence. 1995. The Translator’s Invisibility. A History of Translation. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
. 2009. Translation, intertextuality, interpretation. Romance Studies 27(3): 157–173. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Whittlesey, Henry. 2012. A typology of derivatives: Translation, transposition, adaptation. Translation Journal 16:2 <[URL]>
Wu, Pei-lin. 2012. Aesop’s Fables in China. The Transmission and Transformation of the Genre. PhD dissertation, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.