East Asian Modern Knowledge and the Topography of Translation. Edited by Ewha Institute for the Humanities, Somyung Books, 2015

235 Book Review East Asian Modern Knowledge and the Topography of Translation. Edited by Ewha Institute for the Humanities, Somyung Books, 2015.1 Heekyoung CHO (University of Washington) This edited volume, which includes fifteen articles on translation and related topics, resulted from the international conference titled “(Re)translate Knowledge: The Mapping of Korean, Chinese, and Japanese Translation in the Early 20th Century,” organized by Ewha Institute for the Humanities (이화인문과학원) and held at Ewha Womans University in 2013. Some of the articles in the volume are revised versions of the conference presentations while others are newly added. It is very meaningful that the discussion that took place at the conference has been crystalized in book form. This book is the first volume of a book series of the Institute, which are planned to be published onward. The book consists of three sections, each of which has five articles. The articles are grouped together by shared topic, but one can also draw many thematic connections across different sections of the volume. Part One, titled “The Imagination and Intellectual Horizon of Modern Literary Translation” (근대 번역문학의 상상력과 사유의 지평), begins with an article by Komori Yōichi (小森陽一), titled “Translated Style and the Formation of Modern Japanese Novelistic Style” (일본 근대 소설 문체의 성립과 번역 문체). It discusses 1. 『동아시아 근대 지식과 번역의 지형』. 이화인문과학원 엮음, 소명출판, 2015. 양장본. ₩35,000. Trans–Humanities, Vol.9 No.3, October 2016, 235–40© 2016 Ewha Institute for the Humanities 236 TRANS–HUMANITIES late 1880s–90s Japan when Japanese intellectuals attempted to create a new style distinguished from existing novel forms while learning the styles and structures of Western novels. The writer emphasizes that the specific styles that each intellectual tried to create (for instance, whether it is the genbun itchi style or something else) should not be the main focus in the discussion on this era in Japan. What is more significant for him is the shared experiment of searching for a new style through which writers desired to express their ideas, and he stresses that this shared experiment was mediated by the translation of foreign texts. JinYoung Park (박진영)’s “The Historicity and Imagination of Modern East Asian Literary Translation” (근대 동아시아 문학 번역의 역사성과 상상력) addresses the symptomatic phenomenon that Chinese and Japanese literatures were hardly translated in colonial Korea, notwithstanding their obvious significance to Korean society. This helps us reconceive what “world literature” and “world” meant (and means) to Korea. Park points out that the concept of “world literature” as something that excludes East Asian countries, which persisted for some time and in the age of post-liberation as well. Jinhee Kim (김진희)’s “Translation and the Original Form of Modern Lyric Poetry: Kim-eok’s Translation of Foreign Poems and the New Understanding of Tradition” (번역과 근대 서정시의 원형: 김억의 외국 시 번역과 번역의 재인식) discusses Kim So-weol and Han Yong-un in order to describe the process of inventing a new type of lyrical poetry in the Korean language. Kim compares traditional Korean lyrical form, western poetry, its Korean translation, and the innovations by Kim So-weol and Han Yong-un to give an understanding of the interweaving layers that shaped the creation of new literary form. JiYoung Park (박지영)’s “The Abyss of ‘Untranslatability’: Kim So-un’s Japanese Translation of Traditional Korean Children’s Songs” (‘번역불가능성’의 심연: 식민지 시기 김소운의 전래동요 번역[日譯]을 중심으로) deals with Kim So-un’s translation of traditional Korean children’s songs into Japanese during the colonial period, speculating on the untranslatability of those songs. She argues that the children’s songs that include many onomatopoeia, mimetic words, and proper nouns, were particularly untranslatable because they were far from a modern, standardizedlanguagethatismoresuitedtodeliveringmodernknowledgethan oral literary forms. EunJu Song (송은주)’s “Rethinking Comparative Literature Through Untranslatability” (번역불가능성을 통한 비교문학의 재사유) outlines a variety of scholars’ discussions on the direction comparative literature should take in light of its relation to translation (untranslatability). She draws on her own Korean translation of Salman Rushdie’s text for an example. 237 East Asian Modern Knowledge and the Topography of Translation Part Two, titled “The Reception of Discourses of the Modern and the Emergence of New Knowledge” (근대담론의 수용과 새로운 지식의 출현), begins with SeonHee Kim (김선희)’s chapter, “The Movement of Knowledge and Perspectives on Borders: Choe Han-gi’s Reception of Western Science” (지식의 이동과 경계에 관한 시선들: 최한기의 서양과학 수용을 중심으로). This chapter introduces Choe Han-gi’s use of Western scientific knowledge in the process of developing his own theories. The author argues that evaluating how accurately Choe Han-gi understood Western science misses the...