City University of Hong Kong Dep
Department of Chinese, Translation and Linguistics
Research Seminar
Joyce’s Kaleidoscopic Styles
in his Ulysses
Presented by
Prof. Jin Di
Date: 1 Feb 2008, Friday
Time: 4:30pm - 6:00pm
Venue: B5209 (5/F, Blue Zone), Academic Building, CityU
Abstract
The stylistic variations Joyce built into Ulysses, recognized as an astonishing artistic achievement as soon as the novel was published, have attracted the attention of literary critics with the most acute sense of language. This paper is not an attempt to add to their critical discussion of “Joyce’s voices,” but rather one to present a relatively simple scheme of four types that may hopefully make it a little easier for readers to fully appreciate Joyce’s complex art:
I. More or Less Normal Narrative Styles
II. Superimposed Structural Forms
III. Parodic Styles
IV. Various Levels of the Stream of Consciousness
Speaker
Prof. Jin Di is both a translator and a translation theorist. His translations include the very first collection of Shen Cong-wen’s stories in English (in collaboration with Robert Payne, The Chinese Earth, Allen & Unwin 1947; Columbia Univ. Press 1982) and English, American and Russian works in Chinese, including James Joyce’s Ulysses (Beijing and Taipei 1980-1996) and Richard Ellmann’s James Joyce (with collaborators, Beijing, 2006) . For his Chinese Ulysses he has been awarded Best Book Prize (Taipei, 1994) and first-class National Prize for Foreign Literary Work (Chinese Bureau of Publications and Society of Publishers in Foreign Literature, 1998). For his career achievements he has won the National Rainbow Award for Superior Literary Translation (Chinese Association of Writers, 1997). And he was awarded Honorary Membership of the Irish Translators’ and Interpreters’ Association in Dublin, 2005, as its first honorary member from Asia. His works on translation include studies in Babel, Translation Review, James Joyce Quarterly and the prize-winning On Translation (in collaboration with Eugene Nida, Beijing, 1984; expanded edition, Hong Kong 2006), collections of Chinese essays (Beijing and Taipei), Shamrock and Chopsticks (City Univ. of Hong Kong Press, 2001), and Literary Translation, Quest for Artistic Integrity (Manchester UK and Northampton MA, 2003). Retired from his professorship in Tianjin, he has been working as fellow or visiting fellow at Oxford, Yale, Notre Dame, Univ. of Virginia, National Humanities Center, Univ. of Washington, Univ. of Oregon, and the City Univ. of Hong Kong.
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