FOREWORD

 

     This second part of the Wenshan Review’s special Walter Scott issue is a continuation of the first part published in December 2019. This special issue is dedicated to the 200th Anniversary of the publication of Ivanhoe. In the foreword of the first part, Murray Pittock included a discussion of the background to the publication of Ivanhoe and the history of the novel’s reception in Europe. In this current part, the focus will be on the reception history of Scott in China and Taiwan.

     Ivanhoe was the first of the Waverley Novels to have a Chinese translation. The novel was translated in 1905 by a classic scholar, Lin Shu (1852-1924). After Ivanhoe, Lin Shu went on to translate The Talisman and The Betrothed in 1907. Although he had only produced these three translated works of Scott, Lin Shu’s Ivanhoe was hugely influential in the first half of the twentieth century. It was through Lin Shu’s translation that most of the leading writers of the May Fourth period (1915-1921), such as Lu Xun (1881-1936), Hu Shih (1891-1962), Guo Moruo (1892-1978), Lin Yutang (1895-1976) and Mao Dun (1896-1981), began to read and study Scott. Scott was not only mentioned but was also highly regarded by those five writers. Under the influence of Scott and many other European writers, this generation of Chinese writers, also named by Leo Ou-fan Lee as “The Romantic Generation of Modern Chinese Writers,” started the modernisation of Chinese literature.

     Among these writers, Mao Dun, a novelist and literary critic, devoted the most energy to introducing Scott’s works to Chinese readers. In the year Lin Shu died (1924), Mao Dun systematically brought Scott’s works to Chinese readers through his essay, “A Critical Biography of Walter Scott,” where all of Scott’s novels and poems were discussed. As a result, Mao Dun is regarded as the first Chinese critic of Scott.{footnote}Please see Chiu Kang-yen. “Walter Scott’s First Chinese Critic – Mao Dun.” Scottish Literary Review, vol. 12, no. 1, 2020, pp. 19-34.{/footnote}

     Following Lin Shu, Chen Xiazhang (1868-1925) also produced translations of The Bride of Lammermoor and Quentin Durward in 1909 and 1917, respectively. However, Scott’s works received relatively less attention after Lin Shu and Chen Xiazhang. It was only after the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976) that more of Scott’s novels were translated; yet, to date, only [p. i] first of Scott’s novels, Waverley, had to wait until 1987 to have its first Chinese translation.

     As far as the situation in Taiwan, the history was quite different from that in China. To most of the readers in Taiwan, Ivanhoe has been the sole work by Scott they have ever heard of, and it is primarily through the film adaption of the work, instead of translation, that Scott’s name is known. The 1952 film, Ivanhoe, directed by Richard Thorpe and starring Robert Taylor and Elizabeth Taylor, is the main reason that Scott’s reputation as a world writer was established in Taiwan. Similar to the situation in China, Ivanhoe was also the very first of Scott’s novels to have a Chinese translation. The translated work was published in 1985 by Zhi Wen Publishing House. However, the work was actually pirated from Liu Zunqi and Zhang Yi’s 1978 translation, published originally in China. Liu Zunqi and Zhang Yi’s names were removed by the publisher and were replaced by Lai Yili (a forged identity). This was due to the enforcement of martial law in Taiwan during the period from 1949 to 1978, after the defeated Kuomintang (the Nationalist party) was forced to retreat to the island in 1949. Therefore, products emanating from the mainland and those particularly related to the Communist Party were restricted during those years. As a result, those who were most prominent in introducing Scott to the Chinese, such as Lin Shu and Mao Dun, remained quite unknown in Taiwan in the twentieth century. It was therefore the film adaptation of Ivanhoe that had played the key role in helping to establish Scott’s name in Taiwan. However, it is worth noting that during the time when it was under Japanese rule (1895-1945),{footnote}Since China was defeated in the First Sino-Japanese War (1894-1895), Taiwan was ceded in full sovereignty to Japan by the Treaty of Shimonoseki. The Japanese rule ended when Japan surrendered in 1945 and thus terminated the World War II.{/footnote}  Taiwan had a small number of works by Scott that were translated from Japanese to Chinese; The Lady of the Lake was such an example.{footnote}The above is a short history of the translation of Scott’s works in both China and Taiwan, without including other Chinese-speaking communities, such as Hong Kong, Macau, Singapore and Malaysia. These places have their own histories of the translation and reception of Scott’s works. This will demand further effort in order for us to complete the entire picture of this field of research.{/footnote}

     There are only a small number of research papers on Scott that had ever been produced in Taiwan. The research community in this field remains small. Thus the publication of this special issue could be seen as a representative [p. ii] contribution of this community. In this current part of the special issue, four Scott-related papers are included. Ainsley McIntosh’s “Writing the Nation” is a study of Marmion, The Vision of Don Roderick and The Lord of the Isles, viewing these poems as destabilising and even subversive with regard to the idea of union between England and Scotland. Anna Fancett’s essay on prefaces to Chinese translations of Scott’s works draws our attention to the Chinese view of Scott as a critic of bourgeois culture, and identifies Scott’s approach to exploring class struggles as “a new area of investigation.” In “Ivanhoe and Abolition,” Emma Peacocke returns persuasively to the theme of Scott’s contemporary political and social references, a side to his fiction that is sometimes underplayed, with fine effect, demonstrating the racial, radical and contemporary references of Scott in an approach which complements our understanding of the novel’s foregrounding of minorities more generally. Barbara Bell’s “‘. . . anything like the words’: how Stage Performances from Ivanhoe Brought Scott’s Characters to the Widest Audiences” offers a wealth of detail on this area of the public visibility and presence of Scott’s most globally prominent novel.{footnote}This part introducing the papers by Anna Fancett, Emma Peacocke and Barbara Bell is written by Murray Pittock.{/footnote}  Chiu Kang-yen’s review article on the Edinburgh edition of Scott’s Marmion, edited by Ainsley McIntosh, is at the end of this special issue.

     This second part of the special issue, along with the first part last December, hopes to make the latest research on Scott more accessible to Taiwanese readers. Furthermore, this special issue could also inform readers on the other side of the world the effort Taiwan has engendered in order to access this global writer. 2020 is one year after the bicentenary of the publication of Ivanhoe and the centenary of the May Fourth Movement. Reintroducing Scott to readers of Taiwan and other parts of the worlds through the publication of this special issue, is, I believe, particularly meaningful to our generation of readers.

     Before closing this Foreword, I wish to express my gratitude to the general editor of the Wenshan Review, Li-hsin Hsu, for her warm support in offering us the space for this special issue. Without her agreement, this plan to have the first ever special Scott issue in Taiwan would not have happened as quickly. I am also grateful to Murray Pittock for agreeing to work with me as guest editor of this issue at the time when his schedule was already very tight. [p. iii] Moreover, the success of this special issue is also due to the fact that Benjamine Toussaint, the organiser of the 2018 Eleventh International Scott Conference, kindly offered me time to advertise the CFP at the conference. This was invaluable since many of our contributors came from the same group of people who had also given papers at that conference. Furthermore, I am grateful to all the contributors as well as anonymous reviewers who worked closely together to make this issue a successful collaboration. Last, but not least, I am indebted to my friend Coinneach Maclean, whose sharing with me of ideas related to the history of Scotland has been absolutely invaluable. This special issue marks the beginning of this generation’s new interest in Scott, but there remains, as always, still a lot that we can explore in the future. I look forward to further collaboration with those who feel passionate about Scott’s works.

 

Kang-yen Chiu

Taipei, Taiwan [p. iv]