A History of Chinese Literature
A History of Chinese Literature is a history of Chinese literature written by Herbert Giles, and published in 1901.
| Author | Herbert Giles |
|---|---|
| Country | British |
| Language | English |
| Subject | History |
Publication date | 1901 |
| Pages | 448 |
Although there had been surveys of Chinese literature in Japanese, it was the first such survey to appear in English.[1] In his preface, Giles claims that such a work of history was not already available, even in Chinese, [2] since Chinese scholars realized the "utter hopelessness" of "achieving even comparative success in a general historical survey of the subject". But he adds that "It may be said without offence that a work which would be inadequate to the requirements of a native public, may properly be submitted to English readers as an introduction into the great field which lies beyond". A large part of the book is devoted to translations, "enabling the Chinese author, so far as is possible, to speak for himself".[3]
Reception and influence
The scholar and writer Lin Yutang commented that "'History of Chinese Literature' was a misnomer; it was a series of attempted essays on certain Chinese works, and was not even an outline covering the successive periods.” [4]
Qian Zhongshu noted what he called an "amusing mistake" in Giles' "very readable book." Giles
- Giles gives a complete version of Ssu-k'ung Tu's 'philosophical poem, consisting of twenty-four apparently unconnected stanzas'. This poem, according to Professor Giles, 'is admirably adapted to exhibit the forms under which pure Taoism commends itself to the mind of a cultivated scholar.' This is what Professor Giles thinks Ssu-K'ung Tu to have done, but what Ssu-K'ung Tu really does is to convey in imageries of surpassing beauty the impressions made upon a sensitive mind by twenty-four different kinds of poetry—'pure, ornate, grotesque', etc. [5]
Ezra Pound used Giles' translations as the basis for what have been called his English "translations of translations".[6]
Editions
- Giles, Herbert A. (1901), A History of Chinese Literature, New York and London: Appleton Available online at: Google Books; A History of Chinese Literature Internet Archive; A History of Chinese Literature Project Gutenberg.
References
- Wang (2013), p. 9.
- J. Dyer Ball (1901). "Dr. Giles's History of Chinese Literature" (PDF). The China Review. 25 (4): 207–210.
- Giles (1901), p. v-vi.
- quoted in Wang (2013), The Alter Ego Perspectives of Literary Historiography, p. 9
- "On 'Old Chinese Poetry," The China Critic, VI:50 (14 December 1933): 1206-1208., reprinted at The China Heritage Quarterly 39.31 June September 2012
- Kern (1996), p. 173.
References and further reading
- Jay, Elizabeth, The "Ishmael" of Sinology: H. A. Giles' History of Chinese Literature (1901) and Late Victorian Perceptions of Chinese Literature and Culture, in Jasper, David and Geng, Youzhuang and Hai, Wang. A Poetics of Translation: Between Chinese and English Literature. Waco: Baylor University Press, 2016. https://muse.jhu.edu/ (accessed June 5, 2017)
{{citation}}: External link in|others= - Kern, Robert (1996). Orientalism, Modernism, and the American Poem. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-49613-6.
- Wang, Min (2013). The Alter Ego Perspectives of Literary Historiography: A Comparative Study of Literary Histories by Stephen Owen and Chinese Scholars. Berlin: Springer. ISBN 9783642353895.
Reviews
- Candlin, George T. "A HISTORY OF CHINESE LITERATURE (Review)" The Monist 11, no. 4 (1901): 616–27.
- Suzuki, Teitaro. "PROFESSOR GILES'S HISTORY OF CHINESE LITERATURE (Review)." The Monist 12, no. 1 (1901): 116–22.