Translators in the making, the work of David Hawkes in the making of the Hawkes-Minford translation of The Story of the Stone, with special reference to Hawkes' Translator's Notebooks

Abstract

This empirical study looks at translators at work, examines how accomplished translators become who they are, and studies the intricate scholarly process involved in the making of The Story of the Stone, the Hawkes-Minford translation of Hongloumeng.

The focus of this study is The Story of the Stone: A Translator's Notebooks, informal working journals kept by Hawkes during ten years' work in the making of The Story of the Stone. This is supplemented by various primary source materials (e.g. correspondence between Hawkes and Minford, drafts, etc.) which were in the custody of Minford as Hawkes' literary executor, and have been deposited in the Hawkes archive at the Chinese University of Hong Kong Library.

Chapter 1 provides the context for our understanding of the making of The Story of the Stone, including brief biographies of the two translators, the inception of their collaboration, and the establishment of the Translator's Archive which provides so much valuable insight into their work.

The Story of the Stone: A Translator's Notebooks chronicles in detail Hawkes' concerns, insights and sources consulted, and so enables researchers to revisit his translation process. The path involved him in many detours into various classics of Chinese literature, and a wide range of sinological works in English, Chinese, Japanese, French, and Latin, etc. One can thus compile a bibliography illustrating the encyclopedic scope of his work on Hongloumeng. This is examined in Chapter 2, the longest by far of the four chapters, which shows how Hawkes himself, an invisible bibliographer, benefited from his multilingualism and broad scholarship. Informed by his rigorous research and resourcefulness, he embedded into his translation incorporated footnotes (explanations of cultural, historical, and literary background, etc., as necessary) to make his translation intelligible to the English readers.

The textual history of Hongloumeng is extraordinarily complex. The Story of the Stone: A Translator's Notebooks documents Hawkes' editorial choices among the variant texts of the novel, and his meticulous emendations. So, Chapter 3 shows the intricate details of how Hawkes, in effect, created his own version of the Chinese text in order to produce the best possible English translation.

Chapter 4 consolidates the findings from previous chapters to identify the achievements of the translation,The Story of the Stone, providing valuable insight into the translators' art, which has enabled The Story of the Stone to become a contribution to world literature in its own right, worthy of the original Chinese literary masterpiece. Show more