Nicai zai Zhongguo (Nietzsche in China) (review)

104 China Review International: Vol. 1, No. 2, Fall 1994 continues to discuss the different characteristics ofWaley and Pound as translators of the Shijingin chapter 1 1, applying his tripartite model of surrogate, contingent, and coeval translations developed in chapter 8. The author concludes from this analysis that Waley is generally a contingent translator and the more reliable for students of Chinese, while Pound is a surrogate translator and the more interesting for students of poetry. The last two chapters are more or less digressions from the main focus of the book. Chapter 12 discusses the concept of"Aavor" in Chinese literary criticism , while the last chapter deals with some polar paradigms in Chinese and Western poetics. The digressions are incorporated into the book not without some inconsistency despite the subtide of the book, which says "ReAections on Translation, Chinese Literature, and Comparative Poetics." Nevertheless, they are well-researched and well-argued essays on a promising field in comparative literature, namely, comparative poetics. After all, this book looks more like a collection of essays than a monograph, though I can see efforts have been made to make it an integral whole. Since eleven of the thirteen chapters of the book are on translation, it is reasonable to see this book essentially as reAections on literary translation with a focus on Chinese-English poetic translation. Precisely as such, this book is an invaluable contribution to the emerging discipline of translation studies. Peide Zha The University of British Columbia F Cheng Fang. Nicai zai Zhongguo (Nietzsche in China). Nanjing: Nanjing Chubanshe, 1993. 491 pp. Paperback. The reception of Nietzsche in China is a topic that was first explored by Professor M. Gálik in 1972. In the 1980s, it became one of the popular areas of research in both China and the West. Its popularity was mainly due to the relaxation of ideological control and the dramatic change in the political climate in mainland China. When Aie "Nietzsche Renaissance" spread widely among Chinese students and young scholars, the enAiusiasm for "Nietzsche in China" went beyond purely© 1994 by University intellectual or academic interest. It became the basis for the study of current soofHawaii Presscial and political phenomena in China, and eventually Nietzsche became a target of Communist authority in a so-called campaign against bourgeois "thought pollution ." Whenever there was any campus unrest, the Chinese propaganda machine Reviews 105 would not hesitate to search for any piece of evidence to blame his "negative" inAuence . For obvious reasons, things worsened after the "June Fourth Incident." At the beginning ofthe 1990s, ideological policy in China still shifted with uncertainty. The number of Nietzsche publications dropped, and most of them could only find their way into journals published in remote areas or outside the mainland. Signs ofideological relaxation appeared when the long-awaited translation of The Will to Power was printed in 1991, but it was not made available until 1993. In 1992, more Nietzsche publications appeared, including Xu Fancheng's revised translation of Thus Spoke Zarathustra and Yang Hengda's Nietzsche's Aesthetics (Nicai de meixue sixiang). Cheng Fang's Nietzsche in China is a product of this new political relaxation. Nietzsche in China is organized according to the history of the Nietzsche reception in China beginning in 1902, when he was first mentioned by Liang Qichao. It is divided into five chapters: "Nietzsche's Early Influence," "The first 'Nietzsche Fad,'" "After the first 'Nietzsche Fad,'" "The Second 'Nietzsche Fad,'" and "The Third 'Nietzsche Fad.'" It also contains three appendixes: Mao Dun's "The Theory of Nietzsche" (Nicai de xueshuo),1 Li Shicen's "A Critique of Nietzsche's Thinking" (Nicai sixiang zhi pipan) and a twenty-page bibliography. Cheng Fang is not the first to write the history of Nietzsche's reception in China. Compared to his predecessors, for example Jin Wände,2 he provides us with more information through extensive citations—perhaps too extensive sometimes—of original materials. As a product of the 1990s, Alis work has the advantage ofbeing able to cover all explored topics. By revealing some new materials, it demonstrates its originality. The first "Nietzsche fad" covers roughly the first two decades of this century, the most moroughly...