ABSTRACT
The translation of classical Chinese literature not only is a sinological concern for premodern specialists but offers much food for thought on translation in the Chinese context broadly speaking. Translating classical Chinese into modern Chinese – a standardised language based on spoken Mandarin – inevitably involves translating across significant linguistic and historical differences, although both are considered Sinitic languages. The twentieth-century turn to focus more on modern and contemporary Chinese literature and its English translations should not obscure the fact that classical Chinese literature has been highly visible in pre-twentieth-century East Asia and Southeast Asia and formed a paradigm of literature-in-circulation. Reflections on intralingual translation and the distance between classical and modern Chinese lead to an examination of the Chinese commentarial tradition in relation to translation. The comparative reading of multiple translations is not only ‘important for the study of classical Chinese texts’ but also enriches our understanding of the original text as ‘potentially plural’.
