Table Of ContentWestern Theory in East
Asian Contexts
Literatures, Cultures, Translation
Literatures, Cultures, Translation presents books that engage central issues
in translation studies such as history, politics, and gender in and of literary
translation, as well as books that open new avenues for study. Volumes in
the series follow two main strands of inquiry: one strand brings a wider
context to translation through an interdisciplinary interrogation, while
the other hones in on the history and politics of the translation of seminal
works in literary and intellectual history.
Series Editors
Brian James Baer, Kent State University, USA
Michelle Woods, The State University of New York, New Paltz, USA
Editorial Board
Paul Bandia, Professeur titulaire, Concordia University, Canada, and
Senior Fellow, the W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for African American Research,
Harvard University, USA
Susan Bassnett, Professor of Comparative Literature, Warwick
University, UK.
Leo Tak-hung Chan, Lingnan University, Hong Kong, China
Michael Cronin, Dublin City University, Republic of Ireland
Edwin Gentzler, University of Massachusetts Amherst, USA
Carol Maier, Kent State University, USA
Denise Merkle, Moncton University, Canada
Michaela Wolf, University of Graz, Austria
Volumes in the Series
Translation and the Making of Modern Russian Literature, Brian James Baer
Interpreting in Nazi Concentration Camps, edited by Michaela Wolf
Exorcising Translation: Towards an Intercivilizational Turn,
Douglas Robinson
Literary Translation and the Making of Originals, Karen Emmerich
The Translator on Stage, Geraldine Brodie
Transgender, Translation, Translingual Address, Douglas Robinson
Western Theory in East Asian Contexts: Translation and Transtextual
Rewriting, Leo Tak-hung Chan
The Translator’s Visibility: Scenes from Contemporary Latin American
Fiction (forthcoming), Heather Cleary
The Relocation of Culture: Translations, Migrations, Borders (forthcoming),
Simona Bertacco and Nicoletta Vallorani
Western Theory in East
Asian Contexts
Translation and Transtextual Rewriting
Leo Tak-hung Chan
BLOOMSBURY ACADEMIC
Bloomsbury Publishing Inc
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50 Bedford Square, London, WC1B 3DP, UK
BLOOMSBURY, BLOOMSBURY ACADEMIC and the Diana logo are trademarks of
Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
First published in the United States of America 2020
Copyright © Leo Tak-hung Chan, 2020
For legal purposes the Acknowledgments on p. ix constitute an
extension of this copyright page.
Cover design by Daniel Benneworth-Gray
Cover image: A meeting of Japan, China, and the West,
Shiba Kokan, Late 18th century
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Chan, Tak-hung Leo, 1954- author.
Title: Western theory in East Asian contexts: translation and transtextual rewriting /
Leo Tak-hung Chan.
Description: New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 2020. | Series: Literatures,
cultures, translation | Includes bibliographical references and index. |
Summary: “A major contribution to translation and adaptation studies as
well as to our understanding of East Asian culture and literature”--
Provided by publisher.
Identifiers: LCCN 2020029929 (print) | LCCN 2020029930 (ebook) |
ISBN 9781501327827 (paperback) | ISBN 9781501327834 (hardback) |
ISBN 9781501327841 (epub) | ISBN 9781501327858 (pdf)
Subjects: LCSH: Translating and interpreting–East Asia. |
East Asian literature–Translations–History and criticism. |
Literature–Adaptations–History and criticism.
Classification: LCC P306.8.E27 C53 2020 (print) | LCC P306.8.E27 (ebook) |
DDC 418/.02–dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020029929
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020029930
ISBN: HB: 978-1-5013-2783-4
PB: 978-1-5013-2782-7
ePDF: 978-1-5013-2785-8
eBook: 978-1-5013-2784-1
Typeset by Deanta Global Publishing Services, Chennai, India
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To Sandy Jen Hai-hua
vi
Contents
List of Illustrations viii
Acknowledgments ix
Introduction 1
1 The Transtextual Triad, Similar but Not the Same 10
Part I
2 Freely Rendered: Aesop’s Fables in Nineteenth-Century China 37
3 A Higher Loyalty? The (Ab)uses of Aesthetic Theories of
Translation 57
Part II
4 Adaptation Studies through a Translation Lens 75
5 Accommodation and Adaptation: The Case of East Asia 91
6 Boys over Flowers: Localization in a Web of (Re)adaptations 109
Part III
7 The Vicissitudes of Imitatio, Historically 131
8 “New Wine in Old Bottles”: Two Sino-Japanese Traditions
of Imitation 145
9 Receptive Transcreation: Simulating James Joyce’s Narrative Style 162
10 The Aggregate Monkey: Parody and Pastiche in Japanese Manga 179
Conclusion 198
Bibliography 205
Index 227
Illustrations
Figures
5.1 “The Peony Lantern” with Kundoku Notations 100
8.1 A “Popular” Version of Water Margin: Tsūzoku chūgi suikoden
(Chapter 1) 153
10.1 Sanzō, Monkey, Gojō, and Hakkai 192
Tables
4.1 Translation and Adaptation from a Semiotic Perspective
(Adapted from Gottlieb 2005) 85
6.1 Names of Characters in the Japanese, Taiwanese, and Korean
Versions 113
6.2 Names of Characters in Let’s Go Watch the Meteor Shower
(2009) and Meteor Garden (2018) 118
6.3 Major Taiwanese TV Adaptations of Japanese Manga and Novels 121
6.4 Major Korean TV Adaptations of Japanese Manga and Novels 122
8.1 Translations and Imitations of Water Margin in Edo Japan
(Selected) 156
10.1 Categories of Imitations (Revised from Genette 1997) 181
Acknowledgments
For a book dealing with the twin subjects of Western theory and East Asian
reality, it is only apposite that the main parties to be thanked should come
from the two geographical regions at almost opposite ends of the world.
The major theoretical portions of the present book were presented at three
CETRA Research Summer Schools, beginning with my Chair Professorial
lectures in 2017, and then in the seminars that I conducted as regular staff in
2018 and 2019. I owe a great debt to the opportunities offered by the Center
for Translation Studies at KU Leuven to learn through teaching. In fact, I was
inducted into translation studies some twenty years ago there, through the
most indefatigable of teachers, José Lambert, who commented extensively on
my written work as supervisor at the time. Despite his hectic schedule divided
between Belgium and Brazil last year, he also provided much insightful
feedback on my manuscript right before it went to press. Special thanks go
to Dirk Delabastita, Yves Gambier, and Luc van Doorslaer for their input on
my theoretical framework; their views are apparent in the preceding pages.
Luc’s many kindnesses during my several trips to the Antwerp campus, too,
will always be remembered.
Over to the East Asian side. The roots of my fascination with “East
Asianness” go back to my postgraduate studies at Indiana University in the
1980s. Against the lively intellectual atmosphere fostered by the department
faculty and students there, I was able to take advantage of the excellent
Japanese language instruction and the wide-ranging courses on East Asian
Studies. I recall with fondness the courses on modern Japanese literature
that I took from Kenneth Yasuda, and on Japanese religions from Toyoaki
Uehara. They were the subliminal driving forces behind this book.
More direct support came from Daniel Gallimore, my host during the
semester that I spent in spring 2014 at Kwansei Gakuin University. I enjoyed
tremendously the bi-weekly, one-on-one sessions in his office on Japanese
literary and translation history from a Western Japanologist’s perspective. It
was Narita Shizuka, at the same university, who alerted me to the potentials
of researching Japanese manga adaptations of classical Chinese literature.
Among my other Japanese friends, my gratitude goes to Nana Sato-Rossberg,
for her invitation to the First East Asian Translation Studies Conference in
Norwich, where at a roundtable the central thesis of the present study had its
inception, and to Emiko Okayama, who taught me much about Edo textual
