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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Still worthy of perusal, a hundred years later!,
By Hakuyu "Ikeda" (Kyoto, Japan) - See all my reviews
This review is from: I Ching (Mentor) (Paperback)
[...] Over several runs, all I got - after keying it in, were references to a recent study of Legge's career as a Christian missionary.
That is a pity, because Legge gave us our first, full length translation of the Yi-Ching - directly into English, as part of Max Muller's 'Sacred Books of the East' series. As such, we are still indebtted to Legge. Inevitably, Legge's translation was followed by others - not least, the Wilhelm/Baynes Yi-Ching, now regarded by many as the definitive version. Others have followed - and, understandably, many would now regard Legge's rendering as somewhat passe. Two things have worked against Legge's favour here - the rather unhelpful layout of his material (complicated by an obscure transcription of Chinese names/terms) - and, Legge's occasionally pedantic manner, evident in foot-notes etc., reflecting the stiffer side of his Victorian Christian background. Still, these faults notwithstanding, Legge's translation per se was in fact quite good. As Raymond Van Over has remarked in his introduction to this revamped edition of Legge's Yi-Ching: "Some criticize Legge for his strict scholarship and point to Wilhelm's identification with the Yi-Ching . . .as evidence for preferring the Wilhelm/Baynes translation. This merely indicates a lack of familiarity with Legge's material. Although Legge was more of a sceptic and less of a mystic than Wilhelm, he was nevertheless an inspired translator - one who recognised the need for a creative identification with the original author that went beyond syntax and grammatical knowledge. As Legge explained, 'the written characters of the Chinese are not representations of words, but symbols of ideas, and not representation of what the writer would say, but of what he thinks.' Thus, the translator supplies not just equivalents, as in translating from one Western language to another, but the syntax itself - the thought of the writer. This is a difficult task and takes scholarship, empathy and humility. As Raymond Van Over goes on to say - " To make his translation readable and at the same time indicate what he had supplied himself, Legge enclosed in parentheses his own connective words and phrases. This convention is at first glance disturbing to the reader, but one soon becomes accustomed to it and has the satisfaction of knowing what is in the original and what is merely the translator's reading of the source. In his description of the translator's mood, Legge describes the attitude not only of the wise translator, but also of the questioner of the Yi- Ching. "When the symbolic characters have brought his mind en rapport with that of his author - there is not so much an interpretation of the characters employed by the writer as a participation of his thoughts - there is a SEEING OF MIND TO MIND " (reviewer's capitals). To say the least, this is a far cry from some of our latter-day Yi-Ching translator/interpreters, who seem to be working with the motto 'obscurem per obscuris' - that the more ill formed and chaotic a translation of Yi-Ching text happens to be, the closer it must be to the original. Happily, not all contemporary Yi-Ching scholarship is conducted in this manner. Scholars the calibre of Richard Rutt impart a genuine sense of continuity to Western Yi-Ching studies. But we might divest ourselves of the thought that everything new is better. For all his Victorian traits, Legge was an astute and gifted translator, his version of the Yi-Ching having life in it yet. Convinced of its merits as a translation, but aware of its drawbacks, vis-a-vis layout, transcription etc., Raymond Van Over has effectively re-arranged the order of Legge's Yi Ching material, modified the transcription etc.- to make it more amenable to contemporary readers. He has provided the text with a fresh introduction (Legge's original Preface and Introduction appears at the back), notes about divination etc. The text comes complete with Legge's appendixes, the Ta-Chuan etc., and extensive references to the Chinese classics cited in the Yi-Ching, which Legge had translated as independent works. Facsimiles of Legge's manuscript published under 'Sacred Books of the East' are fairly easy to get. But for sheer handiness, Raymond Van Over's revamped p/back edition, put out by Mentor Books, is highly recommended.
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