Old translations - how useful are they?

[wandelaar]

Currently some collections of old translations of the Tao Te Ching are being being published. For instance:

 

https://www.amazon.com/Tao-Ching-Collected-Classical-Translations-ebook/dp/B07G38H9WB/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1538515345&sr=8-3&keywords=old+translations+tao+te+ching

 

https://www.amazon.com/Tao-Te-Ching-Classical-Translations/dp/1499540388/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1538517025&sr=8-2&keywords=old+translations+tao+te+ching&dpID=41cQhZBcUhL&preST=_SY291_BO1,204,203,200_QL40_&dpSrc=srch

 

Can we still learn something from those old translations? Or are they best left to historians of sinology?

[Marblehead]

Personally, I wouldn't buy either of them.

 

[OldDog]

Its not that they are old just now really great translations, imho. Not familiar with all of the translators represented but I have read some of Legge, Borel and Giles. Found them to be rather stiff. So, I would not run right out and snap up a copy. 

 

There is one translator ... old ... that I wish they would republish ... Lin Yutang. His book,  The Wisdom of Laotse, is a great introductory book for someone new to Daoism. Each chapter of Laotse is accompanied by excerpts from Chuangtse, which he feels expands on the content of the Laotse chapter. That, plus his brief commentary, put the reader in a good place for further study. While academic in quality his translations are not stiff but have a comfortable poetic flow. Highly recommended ... if you can find it.

[dawei]

The 'old translations' are so old... "how old are they"... they are easily available online 

 

https://terebess.hu/english/tao/_index.html

 

Don't buy any that you can read online for the most part.

 

Pro: They are pre-modern textual, academic, sinologist bias in later thought

Con: They don't know the last unearthing of a 100+ years and all we could understand.

 

I will share this... one of my favorite is Chu Ta-Kao who wrote in 1904... his insight is incredibly forward thinking at times.

 

http://web.archive.org/web/20090428064824/http://home.pages.at/onkellotus/TTK/English_TaKao_TTK.html

 

 

[wandelaar]

7 hours ago, OldDog said:

There is one translator ... old ... that I wish they would republish ... Lin Yutang. His book,  The Wisdom of Laotse, is a great introductory book for someone new to Daoism. Each chapter of Laotse is accompanied by excerpts from Chuangtse, which he feels expands on the content of the Laotse chapter. That, plus his brief commentary, put the reader in a good place for further study. While academic in quality his translations are not stiff but have a comfortable poetic flow. Highly recommended ... if you can find it.

 

Already did.

[OldDog]

12 hours ago, dawei said:

They are pre-modern textual, academic, sinologist bias in later thought

 

This statement gave me pause.

 

Coincidentally, in have just begun to read Lin Yutang's book From Pagan to Christian. This in an effort to get inside of my favorite translators head ... wanting to understand why and how he wrote his translations and what caused him to first abandon his Christian upbringing to embrace his native Chinese beliefs and then ultimately return to Christianity.

 

Much of Lin's writings are from the point of view of an inquirer and observer rather than from the point of view of a sinologue academic. Most of his writings date to the mid twentieth century.

 

What gave me pause was the word sinologist which is a term that came into usage at the end of the 19th century and continues in use. In seems to be used most often to refer to the likes of Legge, Giles, Wilhelm and other from late 19th into the early twentieth century. 

 

Lin struggled with the work of these translators.

 

Chinese classics have never been well translated. The sinologues did a poor job of it, and the Chinese themselves had neglected it. The translation from Chinese to English was so difficult. The ideas were so different and, what was worse, the modes of thought were so different, and what was still worse, grammatical relations were expressed solely by syntax in Chinese, without inflections and without the usual connectives and articles and sometimes without the subject of a predicate. The very "sources" of Chinese philosophy were, and still are very much today, clothed in a twilight of hazy likenesses. (Lin, pp51)

 

 He goes on to point out examples from Giles and Legge.

 

I think this is what you find in these "old translations".  These translations were made through a lens of Euro-centric pre-modern view of philosophy and religion. Whether there is value in these translations is a matter of personal preference. 

 

Caveat emptor.

[Geof Nanto]

8 hours ago, OldDog said:

Chinese classics have never been well translated. The sinologues did a poor job of it, and the Chinese themselves had neglected it. The translation from Chinese to English was so difficult. The ideas were so different and, what was worse, the modes of thought were so different, and what was still worse, grammatical relations were expressed solely by syntax in Chinese, without inflections and without the usual connectives and articles and sometimes without the subject of a predicate. The very "sources" of Chinese philosophy were, and still are very much today, clothed in a twilight of hazy likenesses. (Lin, pp51)

 

 He goes on to point out examples from Giles and Legge.

 

As an example, here's a comprehensive analysis from a contemporary Western philosopher of cultural bias in Giles’s translation of The Dream of the Butterfly.

 

 

[OldDog]

3 hours ago, Yueya said:

As an example, here's a comprehensive analysis ...

 

I took the time to read the analysis that you had posted ... lengthy as it was. I cannot really disagree with it ... but also find it really unnecessary to go into that level of detail to make its point. Sure the likes of Giles and Legge and Wilhelm performed their translations with western philosophical bias. Its the only frame of reference thst they had for expressing themselves. No doubt Guo Xiang approached his revision with a set of biases, albeit by fewer centuries of philosophical accretion.

 

If the idea, as posed in Daoist thinking, is that there is ultimately one unified reality, then all discussions equally seek to describe that reality, however it might be percieved. How close they come to the mark is a matter of endless debate. The task that each of us undertakes is to find enough pieces of the truth that we can inform our own particular world view and in it find some sense of meaning and satisfaction with it. 

 

What makes the Daoist approach so appealing ... at least to me ... is that it does its thing by attempting to use fewer words rather than more and it utilizes metaphor and allegory to point to that which cannot be directly described by words. The benefit is that the mind does not become overwhelmed with the shear volume of words. In this way the concepts are accessible to even to the less educated of us ... perhaps even more so.

 

OP's original query was regarding the value of the old translations ... not about their correctness or incorrectness based on a particular point of view. There is a little bit of the truth in all of these translations. The lesson in all of this is that one has to understand something of the background of the translator to begin to make sense of the translation. 

 

 

[wandelaar]

Indeed - wouldn't Chinese interpreters have their own cultural biases? In my opinion each and every interpretation or translation should be evaluated on its own merits, and not on the basis of the race or upbringing of the author. I have read part of the quoted criticism of Giles's translation and found it tedious and unconvincing. Why should it be impossible that Chuang tzu wrote down some ideas that also appear in Western philosophy? In my opinion political correctness promotes a form of reverse racism that ignores the value of individual human beings and their liberty to form and express their own opinions irrespective of their race or upbringing.

 

4 hours ago, OldDog said:

The lesson in all of this is that one has to understand something of the background of the translator to begin to make sense of the translation.

 

And that is also true.

[Geof Nanto]

@OldDog

 

I added that article because I thought it would interest you, given that you quoted Lin Yutang's concern about how poorly early Daoist works have been translated and interpreted. Hence your adverse response surprises me, as does Wandelaars. I personally found that article insightful and particularly helpful in distinguishing significant differences between ancient Chinese thought from the dominant worldview we find echoed in most all interpretations of Daoist thought. It is intelligently presented by a scholar well researched in both classical Daoism and Western philosophy. 

[wandelaar]

7 hours ago, Yueya said:

 I personally found that article insightful and particularly helpful in distinguishing significant differences between ancient Chinese thought from the dominant worldview we find echoed in most all interpretations of Daoist thought. It is intelligently presented by a scholar well researched in both classical Daoism and Western philosophy. 

 

That's the problem with the article: Chuang tzu and Giles are only seen as exponents of respectively early Chinese thought and Western philosophy. As far as I read the article I didn't see how it proves anything. In my impression it's a typical postmodern piece of sloppy reasoning, that's why I stopped reading halfway. Or did I miss something?

 

 

Edited October 5, 2018 by wandelaar

[Geof Nanto]

@wandelaar

 

As far as I’m concerned, if you don’t like the article it’s your business. I feel no obligation to work at convincing you of its merits, especially as you haven’t even bothered to read it properly. I found all the Daoist books by the author of that article (Hans-Georg Moeller) very helpful when I first read them many years ago because he was outlining a worldview that resonated with my own tentative insights that I’d developed from my personal cultivation. But, having gained and considerably broadened that intellectual foundation, I’ve since moved on in my practice so that it no longer feels meaningful for me to engage in discussions about those books. As I’ve said, I only posted it thinking it may be of interest to you and Old Dog. I now fully concede that I was wrong with that assumption.  

Edited October 8, 2018 by Yueya

[Marblehead]

Different strokes for different folks.

 

[OldDog]

14 hours ago, Yueya said:

Hence your adverse response surprises me.

 

OK, so I went back and read the piece again trying to more precisely determine why I reacted to it the way I did first time around. Yes, reacted is the proper word because my response was more visceral than reasoned. 

 

Moeller's discussion was a highly detailed and lengthy analysis of the Butterfly dream passage. The crux of his analysis appears to be that Giles translation mapped western concepts of philosophy onto the story and that mapping constrained how the story should be interpreted. In doing so he missed the real meaning of the passage. He speaks of this process as if it were a conscious intentional one on the part of Giles. But this is only one side of the discussion. Moeller points to an alternative translation of the passage to support the notion that Giles interpretation misses the true meaning of the story. This alternative translation has its own conclusion in an alternative meaning of the story.

 

I felt like Moeller's analysis read more like an indictment of Giles for having intentionally twisted the story to make it align with western philosophy. While, no doubt, Giles point of view as a translator steeped in western philosophy affected his translation, I cannot imagine Giles going to such extreme, as evidenced in Moeller's analysis, to force a particular interpretation. 

 

As I read the analysis I began to feel like the point was the analysis itself rather that elucidating any particular meaning. And so, I reacted to the tedium of the analysis.

 

Was it worth my time to read and re-read Moeller's analysis. Yes, it was. It challenged my thinking and demonstrated the extreme to which western style analysis has to go sometimes to make a point. It confirmed for me the value of such literary devices as metaphor, paradox and allegory to convey complex concepts. 

 

 

 

[Geof Nanto]

@OldDog

 

 As I’ve mentioned, I’d like to bow out of this discussion. Yet I feel obliged to acknowledge your reply because of your obvious sincerity as well as my desire to defend my perspective.

 

Getting back to the OP, I feel respect those early sinologists such as Legge, Giles, and Wilhelm because they were the pioneers. Their work blazed pathways into classical Chinese thought. Those who come later are obviously at a great advantage because of the foundations these pioneers have built. We are fortunate in that we have over a century of interpretative work at our finger tips. Or you could say as you’ve implied that we are burdened by an excess of analysis.  

 

9 hours ago, OldDog said:

Yes, reacted is the proper word because my response was more visceral than reasoned. 

 

I like it that you acknowledge your visceral reaction. For me personally, my innate nature favours cognition through what I feel rather than what I think. Hence, my focus here is on exploring and refining the complex web of feelings that underlie these discussions.

 

9 hours ago, OldDog said:

I felt like Moeller's analysis read more like an indictment of Giles for having intentionally twisted the story to make it align with western philosophy. While, no doubt, Giles point of view as a translator steeped in western philosophy affected his translation, I cannot imagine Giles going to such extreme, as evidenced in Moeller's analysis, to force a particular interpretation. 

 

To my reading of that article Moeller did not think Giles was deliberately misinterpreting Zhuangzi, rather he was highlighting how Giles was unconsciously following his Western conditioning.

 

9 hours ago, OldDog said:

As I read the analysis I began to feel like the point was the analysis itself rather that elucidating any particular meaning. And so, I reacted to the tedium of the analysis.

 

The opposite for me. I found it exciting and deeply meaningful when I first read it.

 

9 hours ago, OldDog said:

Was it worth my time to read and re-read Moeller's analysis. Yes, it was. It challenged my thinking and demonstrated the extreme to which western style analysis has to go sometimes to make a point.

 

What's appears extreme for one person may well be the authentic path for  another. Bodhidharma, seven years facing a wall...

 

9 hours ago, OldDog said:

It confirmed for me the value of such literary devices as metaphor, paradox and allegory to convey complex concepts. 

 

I agree about the value of such literary devices as metaphor, paradox and allegory. I’d add that they hint at the ineffable. However, I also value the clarity of Western analysis.  Both these modes are important for me.....the interplay of light and dark; of yang and yin. 

Edited October 5, 2018 by Yueya

[OldDog]

So, it appears that we arrive close to the same point through different approaches.

 

This has been an enlightening discussion.

[wandelaar]

Just now, Yueya said:

To my reading of that article Moeller did not think Giles was deliberately misinterpreting Zhuangzi, rather he was highlighting how Giles was unconsciously following his Western conditioning.

 

Highlighting or just suggesting...? As the article went on and on without any decent argumentation being made I stopped reading. So please tell me: What actual arguments are presented that Giles "was unconsciously following his Western conditioning" in his interpretation of Chuang tzu? Wasn't Giles capable of doing some thinking of his own or of taking note of Eastern ways of thought?

 

 

Edited October 6, 2018 by wandelaar

[Marblehead]

9 hours ago, wandelaar said:

 

Highlighting or just suggesting...? As the article went on and on without any decent argumentation being made I stopped reading. So please tell me: What actual arguments are presented that Giles "was unconsciously following his Western conditioning" in his interpretation of Chuang tzu? Wasn't Giles capable of doing some thinking of his own or of taking note of Eastern ways of thought?

 

 

Actually, I feel the same way Yueya (and Moeller) feel.  However, I must first state that all things considered, Giles did an excellent job at translating.  It was something new then, translating Chinese literary work into Western (English) language.

 

However, one can clearly see the concepts transliterated into Western thought patterns.

 

And like I said, I doubt it was intentional, it was the only way he knew to translate the work.

 

 

[wandelaar]

Still no arguments are given. Apparently Giles as a Western scholar is considered guilty unless proven otherwise?

 

Now here is Giles' translation of the dream of the butterfly (see the end of the chapter): https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Chuang_Tzŭ_(Giles)/Chapter_2

 

Apparently Giles is describing the ideas of Chuang tzu as a form of pantheism. Now given the structure of the text all interpretations of the Chuang tzu are bound to be somewhat speculative, but I don't see why it should be ruled out that Chuang tzu actually saw the world from a pantheistic perspective. Moeller is doing both Chuang tzu and Giles a huge disservice by reducing them to exponents of their respective cultures and ignoring the sheer possibility that they had some thoughts of their own. Why are we to take an eccentric like Chuang tzu as an exponent of his own culture? More likely he had a mind of own and should be considered as such. So there is no reason to take traditional Chinese interpretations as more likely correct than the well informed Western ones.

 

[Marblehead]

5 minutes ago, wandelaar said:

Apparently Giles as a Western scholar is considered guilty unless proven otherwise?

IMO, guilty of only doing a good job.

 

It's not easy being first.

 

[wandelaar]

2 hours ago, Marblehead said:

IMO, guilty of only doing a good job.

 

It's not easy being first.

 

It would be understandable when Giles as a pioneer made some mistakes. So I just now tried to read the article by Moeller again. But I didn't get far, it's just too much postmodern stupidity to swallow. As I said before, no decent argument is given. Giles is accused of all sorts of things by an extremely forced reinterpretation of his translation as a piece of pseudo-Chinese Western philosophy. But in fact it is  Mueller who is caught in his tunnel vision from beginning to end. And to make things worse the surely biased traditional Chinese commentator Guo Xiang is presented as an example of how the Chuang tzu should be interpreted. Furthermore the translation of Giles hardly differs from those of other respected modern scholars, so are we to suppose that the "insights" of Mueller are superior to all others? No - I don't buy that.

 

Edited October 6, 2018 by wandelaar

[OldDog]

58 minutes ago, wandelaar said:

It would be understandable when Giles as a pioneer made some mistakes.

 

Yes, it would.

 

But mistakes, as being forgivable ... suggesting accident, slip or blunder ... usually are not systemaic, unless the error occurs in an originating premise. Moeller in his l e n g t h y analysis goes into great detail demonstrate the systematic injection of western philosophical concepts, citing ... what was it ... five examples of western "motifs" being imposed. Moeller is suggesting a systematic effort ... hardly a mistake.

 

He then goes on to further suggest a deliberate effort ... 

 

Giles "solved" this problem [ the question of the person of the narative ] by invent­ing the "I" that is not in the Chinese original—and thereby com­pletely transformed the story.

 

So, what is it that Moeller is trying to do here ... suggest that Giles translation/interpretation was indavertant, a simple by product of his western education? I don't read it that way. I saw it as something more pernicious ... and personally think it unjustified.

 

As I see it, the fault is Moellers. 

 

 

[wandelaar]

Well I have now looked at a lot of old translations, and there are (only) two that add something substantial to the modern ones I already bought:

 

https://archive.org/details/TheSayingsOfLaoTzu

 

https://www.amazon.com/Tao-Te-Ching-attributed-HuaiNanTzu-KuanYinTzu-TungKuChing/dp/1578631238

 

 

Edited October 7, 2018 by wandelaar

[Marblehead]

I'm glad you stayed with Giles.

 

I don't know the other one so I can't speak to it.

 

[wandelaar]

Well - there is Herbert Giles and there is Lionel Giles (being father and son), and both were sinologists. The Chuang tzu translation we talked about is by the father and the Lao tzu translation I am referring to is by the son.