A Study on Peach Blooms Painted With Blood From the Perspective of Foreignization

This research analyzes the drama, Peach Blooms Painted with Blood, as translated by Xu Yuanchong in light of Lawrence Venuti’s foreignization translation theory. The four elements influencing the foreignization translation method: purpose of the translator, type of text, poetics, and ideology are introduced, defined, analyzed, and illustrated in the translations by employing foreignization translation in linguistic, religious, and sociocultural contexts based on the five cultural contexts put forward by Eugene A. Nida. Following discussion of Nida’s contexts, the cases are analyzed through comparison and contrast of the connotations, implications, and situations existing between Chinese and Western cultures with the aim of enhancing the understanding of classical Chinese poetry and prose, thus enabling translators to interpret and advance Chinese classical works in a more effective way.

The lyric oeuvre of Afanasy Fet and Chinese idyllic poems

There are compelling similarities between Afanasy Fet’s lyric poetry and classical Chinese lyric poetry. This connection is traced in the article with specific examples. Fet, carried away by the ideas of Schopenhauer, argued that thepoetic feeling lives in every person and can be called the sixth and highest feeling. In classical Chinese poetry, the Confucian concept of ‘the sense of things,’ the Taoist formula ‘words and forms’ and the idea of the unity of man and nature played an important role. With characteristic fixation of subtle changes of light and shadow, with the transmission of flushed feelings, Fet’s oeuvre reminds the readers of the ancient Chinese lyric poetry. Like classic Chinese texts, Fet’s poems are textbooks where the idea of the unity of man and nature is developed. In both Chinese poetry and Fet’s works, human life goes into natural life, gaining eternity in the nature. As a result, although Fet was not familiar with Chinese culture, the intuitions that fed his work surprisingly coincided with pictorial techniques as a way of conveying emotion in classical Chinese poetry, separated from him by many centuries.

Non-forgetfulness and forgetfulness 忘 (wang) in ancient Chinese philosophical texts

In this study, I examine conceptualizations of memory in classical Chinese philosophical texts with the purpose of encouraging the inclusion of ideas of non-Western cultures in memory studies. The texts selected for this study are Kongzi’s Analects, Mengzi, the Xici commentary on the Book of Changes, the Zhuangzi, and the Xunzi. Methodologically, I differentiate between the mnemic process and its goal. My point of departure is the complementary relation that marks the non-forgetfulness and forgetfulness sequence. This study proposes the paradigm of an axis and margins to represent the yin- yang reasoning implied by the complementary relation in conjunction with the narrativity of the mnemic process. Two major consequences of this model are the understanding of non-forgetfulness and forgetfulness in terms of attentive and suspended awareness, and the supportive role of forgetfulness or suspended awareness in enhancing the function of memory.