明治学院大学機関リポジトリ.

Transcription

1 明治学院大学機関リポジトリ The Role of Translation in the Ca Title of the Japanese Classics Author(s) WATSON, Michael 明治学院大学国際学部付属研究所研究所年報 = Citation Annual report of the Institute fo Studies, 18: Issue Date URL Rights Meiji Gakuin University Institutional Rep

2 The Role of Translation in the Canon Formation of the Japanese Classics 日本古典文学のカノン形成における翻訳の役割 Michael Watson The phenomenon of canon formation in literature has received increased attention in recent years. Why are certain works of literature regarded as central to one literary tradition while others are marginalized? What is the process by which certain authors are celebrated, not only by the reading public or critics of the time, but also by later generations, acquiring status and recognition denied to other writers? Paradoxically, these kind of questions are asked with more rather than less urgency as the map of significant writers in a particular language or period is being radically redrawn to accommodate voices who have been silenced or ignored, giving less prominence to voices who fail to enchant or engage modern readers. While critics like the octogenarian Harold Bloom (b. 1930) continue to champion the cause of great books of the Western tradition, scholars of world literature like David Damrosch (b. 1953) have opened up the canon to a wider range of writings from different periods and cultures. A new world canon of great books is still far from agreed upon even if it were, it would inevitably cause more problems than it solves, being flawed with many of the same defects as the older canon of Homer, Dante, Shakespeare, and company. All older cultures of the world have rich traditions of oral story-telling, poetry, song, and drama; both sexes played a role in creating such texts, performing them and handing them down orally. Only a small fraction of these tales and songs were ever put down in writing, many vanishing in the course of modernization. Of those that survive in some written form, few retain much of their original power when taken out of their original cultural context, even if the retold or rewritten versions have been translated. Eurocentrism and gender bias can thus only be corrected to a certain extent in anthologies of world literature like those in the influential series published by Norton. How can we do justice to the creative power of anonymous men and women from preliterate societies? We can move from Eurocentrism by including fine examples of writing from civilizations of the Near East and Asian, but this will inevitably slight the older traditions of the precolonial Americas, Africa, and Oceania. At attempt to redress this is found in the so-called orature section of the latest edition of The Norton Anthology of World Literature, which includes a small number of folk tales, slave spirituals, ceremonial chants, and wisdom poetry. Creating the term orature from oral and literature is a gesture in the right direction, but the anthology cannot help but prioritize written works of (generally) high culture. 79

3 Where do Japanese writings, the product of the long tradition of literacy by both men and women, fit in the larger scheme of things, in anthologies like Norton s or series like Penguin Classics, and in general literature survey courses? The Norton Anthology of World Literature was completely revamped for its third edition first published in 2012 guided by the advice of more than 500 teachers of world literature and a panel of regional experts. 1 Thanks to the work of editors like the Asianist Wiebke Denecke, its coverage of Japan is now extensive. It continues to be revised frequently, a never-ending process of reevaluation. The premodern and early modern selections included in the Norton anthologies draw heavily on works already anthologized by Haruo Shirane in the first two volumes of the series of Japanese literature published by Columbia University Press, with the recent substitution of Dennis Washburn s new translation (2015) of Genji monogatari for the Seidensticker translation (1977) used by Shirane. Norton s Volume B includes a generous selection of classical Japanese poetry (Man yōshū and Kokinwakashū), prose writings (Tosa nikki, Makura no sōshi, Hōjōki, Tsurezuregusa), courtly narrative (Genji monogatari, with selections from nine chapters), and war tale (Heike monogatari, selections in the translation by Burton Watson). Volume C contains Zeami s Atsumori and Chikamatsu Monzaemon s Love Suicides at Amijima together with Chinese and Korean dramatic works. In Volume D, works of the Enlightenment in Europe and the Americas are juxtaposed with Chinese novels, Ihara Saikaku and haiku. 2 For the Meiji period onwards, the selection of Japanese literature is somewhat patchy no Sōseki, for example. Only one work of the Meiji period is included, Higuchi Ichiyō s Separate Ways (Wakare-michi, 1896) in the section on Realism in Volume E. The editors find it easier to include later works by Japanese short-story writers and novelists: including well-known short stories by Tanizaki, Atkutagawa, and Kawabata in the section on Modernity and Modernism, Interestingly, room is also found for Memoirs of a Declining Ryukyuan Woman by Kushi Fusako 久志富左子. In Contemporary World Literature, the final section of the anthology, includes Ōe Kenzaburō s The Clever Rain Tree. together with writers translated from Hebrew, Spanish, Vietnamese, Arabic, Turkish, and Chinese. Anyone wishing to get a fuller overview of Japanese writing can of course consult the four volumes of the Columbia anthology, the two volumes edited by Shirane mentioned earlier, and two equally hefty volumes edited by J. Thomas Rimer and Van C. Gessel as The Columbia Anthology of Modern Japanese Literature, but anthologies like the Norton Anthology of World Literature are influential in North America in forming ideas of what and who is worth reading outside of English. Only 3% of books published in the United States are translations from another language, so anthologies like these perform an important function. In the early 1970s, when I was an undergraduate, Japanese literature was conspicuous by its absence in the curriculum both in North America and England, outside of survey courses in Japanese or Asian literature. It was largely absent from Norton s anthologies of the time or in series of literature like Penguin Classics, which were still heavily Eurocentric. It seems to have played little part in the reading of 80

4 someone like myself who studied literature and made an effort to read fairly widely. Only Bashō s travel diaries and Sarashina nikki were available in Penguin Classics, a series that included nearly all of the key medieval European works I needed to read for my undergraduate and graduate courses, and all of the classical and medieval Latin works that I needed to refer to. Dante s major poetic works were there, for example, as was most of Anglo-Saxon literature. While medieval French literature was only beginning to appear in the series, the three greatest works of medieval German literature (Parzival, Tristan, Nibelungenlied) had all recently appeared in fine translations. Had there been more translations of classical Japanese literature, I would surely have read more widely, with a comparative eye, in writings of approximately the same period and with some of the same genre. Looking back, I am surprised that I did not encounter Arthur Waley s translation of Genji monogatari earlier, but I did not start reading the work until 1976, when I came across volume one of the paperback edition published by Tuttle ( Tokyo, Japan, and Rutland, Vermont ) in the unlikely setting of a second-hand book shop in the back streets of Innsbruck, sitting on the shelf together with the Penguin Book of Japanese Verse. I bought both and read them intensely during the year in Europe, a gap year between undergraduate studies and graduate school. This was my first encounter with Japan s greatest prose narrative and its long poetic tradition. My study of Japanese literature began in earnest in 1980, when I came to Japan. For many years I have mantained an online bibliography of Premodern Japanese Texts and Translations ( that covers texts written before 1600 in Japan (i.e. both kanbun and wabun) with a chronological list of translations into Western languages. One of my aims has been simply to provide a quick guide to whether a specific work has been translated or not, and whether the work was translated in its entirety or in selection. The inclusion of languages other than English reveal the uneven nature of translation: certain periods or genres have been translated more fully into other European languages (kanbun diaries into French, for example). My interest in the topic of canonization and Japanese literature developed out of my research in the three areas. (1) Heike monogatari, its narrative style and structure, and its reception, both within Japan and outside. (2) Japanese classical literature and its reception history, in particular (a) its reception by the Jesuits from (b) reception and early translations from (c) foreign-language translations of all periods (3) Nō drama, particularly (a) the relationship between the so-called canonical repertoire of some 250 currently performed plays (genkō yōkyoku 現行謡曲 ) and the much larger corpus of non-canonical nō (bangai yōkyoku 番外謡曲 ) totalling more than 3000 plays. 81

5 (b) plays of specific types and themes, such as the large number of nō based on Heike monogatari or related Genpei War topics. I have published a number of specialist papers and book sections on these topics in recent years, as well as some translations of non-cannonical nō plays. A short list of related publications is given below. I continue to do research in this area, with a forthcoming article on the translation of Heike monogatari by Royall Tyler. Judging by invitations received for papers or lectures on the subject of translation of classical Japanese literature, interest in this subject is high in Japan. Related publications 3 Watson, Michael. Inside and outside the grand lineage: a study of early translations of Japanese nō plays, Asia Pacific Translation and Intercultural Studies, [15 pages] DOI: / Oyler, Elizabeth, and Michael Watson, eds., Like Clouds or Mists: Studies and Translations of Nō Plays of the Genpei War (Ithaca, New York: Cornell East Asian Series, December, 2013). 539 pages. Watson, Michael. L écho des vicissitudes humaines : The Tale of the Heike through its Translation History, in La figlia occidentale di Edo: Scritti in memoria di Giuliana Stramigioli, edited by Andrea Maurizi and Teresa Ciapparoni La Rocca (Rome: FrancoAngeli, 2012), pp ワトソン マイケル 中世日本文学における 史記 享受の実際に関する一考察 軍記物語と謡曲におけるその変容 河野貴美子 張哲俊偏 東アジア世界と中国文化 文学 思想にみる伝播と再創 ( 勉誠誠出版 2012 年 1 月 30 日 ),pp ISBN [ The Reception and Transformation of Shiji in Medieval Japan in War Tales and Noh Plays ] ワトソン マイケル 平家物語 外国語翻訳一覧 大津雄一 日下力 佐伯真一 櫻井陽子編 平家物語大事典 ( 東京書籍 2010 年 ) 頁 [Foreign translations of The Tale of the Heike] ワトソン マイケル 平家物語 外国語訳の限界と可能性 軍記 語り物 45 号 2009 年 3 月 3 17 頁. [Discusses translations of Heike monogatari, including excerpts translated into French by François Turrettini in 1871.] Watson, Michael. A Slave s Wit: Early Japanese Translations of the Life of Aesop. The Transactions of the Asiatic Society of Japan, fourth series, vol. 20 (2006), Notes 1 The quotation is from the publisher s introduction: 2 A detailed table of contents for volume one can be read at the following address: vol1_toc.pdf 3 Many of the articles are available to read online at 82