Arthur Waley

Arthur David Waley, Arthur David Schloss actually, ( born August 19, 1889 in Tunbridge Wells, England, † June 27, 1966 in Highgate, London ) was a British sinologist.

Life

Arthur David Schloss was the middle of the three sons of the economist David Frederick Schloss. During the First World War, the family took the name at birth in 1912 widowed mother Rachel Waley.

Waley visited the boarding school rugby. He earned there sound knowledge of ancient literature and won the Latin Prize. From 1907 to 1910 he studied with a scholarship ( classical fellowship ) at King's College in Cambridge, the classical literatures and learned a little Sanskrit. In a one-year stay in France and Germany he learned the languages ​​and literatures of these countries know. Finally, he got a job at the British Museum, where he was employed in the Print Room ( Prints and Drawings ).

First in him long because as European Directorate employs under Campbell Dodgson, he was in June 1913 Laurence Binyon assistant in the subdivision for Oriental Prints and Drawings ( Oriental Art ). His first task was to catalog the collection of Sir Aurel Stein. He taught himself Chinese and Japanese and deepened his knowledge of Sanskrit. It is not clear how Waley managed to learn two languages ​​so difficult, but, as John De Gruchy notes Waley had knowledge of eleven languages, including Portuguese and Dutch. He read the works of Karl Florence on Japanese grammar and philology.

1929 was Waley his position as Assistant Keeper in the Department of Prints and Drawings in the British Museum for health reasons, and to devote more attention to his literary interests. He arranged irregularly seminars on Chinese poetry at the School of Oriental Studies. At the age of 77 years Arthur Waley died on 27 June 1966. He has never visited China and Japan.

Translations

Waley created an extensive translate oeuvre. He translated from the Chinese, among others, the anthology of classical Chinese poetry, Li Bai, the Tao Te Ching, the Analects of Confucius and the popular novel xiyouji ( The Journey to the West ), which is about the monk Xuanzang and the Monkey King Sun Wukong. For the Japanese, he transferred the most important classic Japanese novel, Murasaki Shikibu's Tale of Genji, Lady Be Shonagons Pillow Book (selection). His English translations were used as templates for further transfers to other European languages, among others German. His work " The No - Plays of Japan" was enthusiastically received in the translation by Elisabeth Hauptmann Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht. From the translation of " The Taniko or throw into the valley ," the lesson was The Yes Man. Today Waleys translations themselves as an important part of English literature are considered, and in the case of the Genji Monogatari, there will be even votes (according to Ivan I. Morris), for the successful holding his translation than the original.

Works

• Index of Chinese Artists Represented in the British Museum. 1922
• Zen Buddhism and Its Relation to Art Luzac, London, 1922.
• Introduction to the Study of Chinese Painting. London 1923.
• The Originality of Japanese Civilization. Oxford University Press, London, 1929
• Catalogue of Paintings Recovered from Tun-huang by Aurel Stein. 1931
• Chinese Poems. Unwick, London 1983, ISBN 0-04-895027-0
• Japanese Poetry. Lund Humphries, London 1946
• The Real Tripitaka. London 1952
• The Poetry and Career of Li Po. Allen & Unwin, London 1959, ISBN 0-04-895012-2
• Three Ways of Thought in Ancient China. Allen & Unwin, London 1939 ( Engl. under the title. Wisdom in Ancient China Schröder, Hamburg 1947)

Translations

• One Hundred and Seventy Chinese Poems. 1918
• More Translations from the Chinese. , 1919.
• Japanese Poetry: The Uta '. Clarendon, Oxford, 1919. With Notes on grammar and lexicon.
• The No Plays of Japan. Allen & Urwin, London, 1921.
• The Tale of Genji. Allen & Urwin, London, 1925 The first of six volumes, later collected in: . The Tale of the Genji: A Novel in Six Parts 1935
• The Pillow -Book of Sei Shonagon. Allen & Unwin, London 1928. ( Part translation ).
• The Lady Who Loved Insects. Black Amore, London 1929
• The Travels of an Alchemist. The Journey of the Taoist Ch'ang- Ch'un from China to the Hindukush at the Summons of Chingiz Khan. Recorded by his disciple Li Chih- Ch'ang London 1931 ( The Broadway Travellers )
• The Book of Songs. London 1937 (2 volumes)
• Confucius: The Analects of Confucius. . New York, 1938 reprint: Vintage Books, New York, 1989, ISBN 0-679-72296-3
• The nine songs. Schroeder, Hamburg 1957
• The Secret History of the Mongols. 1963
• Cheng'en Wu: Dear Monkey. Collins, London 1973