英文摘要 |
This paper looks at the translation of Thomas à Kempis's Imitation of Christ into Chinese by Emmanuel Diaz, a late Ming Jesuit. The Imitation of Christ is a medieval European tour-de-force of prose that illuminates the spiritual path of union with Christ through the Eucharist. I approach the translated text of the work, titled Qingshi jinshu, from four perspectives. First I explore the textual history of the translated text and the decisive role Diaz played as the translator. Second, I investigate the source text of Diaz's translation, which has long been identified as Luis de Granada's Spanish rendition of the Imitation of Christ, entitled Contemptus mundi. My research shows that even if Diaz based his translation on Granada's version, he also consulted the Latin original of à Kempis.The third section of the paper addresses both à Kempis's and Diaz's theories of reading expressed in the Chinese translation; both authors emphasize the textual search for divine Truth. Matching the terse style of à Kempis's Latin original, Diaz's Chinese translation employs an archaic style similar to that ofthe Shangshu or the Book of Documents. The fourth and final section of this paper examines several annotated editions of the Qingshi jinshu, which circulated prior to the Republican era, in order to showcase the significance of Diaz's efforts. |