《续天路历程官话》中的诗歌翻译:现代白话新诗的先声

The Translated Poems in Supplement to the Pilgrim’s Progress in Mandarin

现代文学史家普遍认为,我国白话新诗肇始于以胡适为代表的五四时期。然而通过考察晚清时期西方传教士特别是宾威廉的《续天路历程官话》(1866),以及后来《圣经》文本中的诗歌翻译,表明情况并非如此。此类诗歌翻译,无论是语言形式,还是诗体形式、节奏模式,都迥异于中国传统的格律诗,基本实现了五四先驱者所倡导的"诗界革命"之鹄的。这一历史的还原有助于学界重新思考中国现代诗歌的生成。

Though it is generally acknowledged by modern literary historians that modem Chinese poetry was initiated during the May 4th Movement, with Hu Shih as the pioneer, this idea can be proved unjustifiable through a survey of those translated poems in vernacular Chinese in either William Chambers Burns＇ translation of Bunyan＇ s masterpiece The Pilgrim＇ s Progress especially or the later Bible translation, which were quite different from the classical Chinese poetry in such aspects as language, style, rhythm and sound patterning and so realized the principles of ＂poetry revolution＂ proposed by those May 4th successors. Such a historical reduction is thus expected to help us to reconsider the production of modern Chinese poetry.