Translation
Arthur Waley's abridged translation was published in 1942, and has also been published as Adventures of the Monkey God; and Monkey: Folk Novel of China and The Adventures of Monkey, and in a further abridged version for children, Dear Monkey. Whereas previous abridged versions of Journey to the West retained the original number of chapters but reduced their length significantly, Waley adopted the opposite approach; he translated only 30 chapters out of 100 episodes, but did so nearly in full.
The structure of Journey to the West may be roughly divided into three parts; firstly, the introduction including the origin of Monkey, Tripitaka, Pigsy, and Sandy; secondly, the actual journey to the west, which has an episodic nature; and lastly, the ending, telling what happens when the pilgrims reach their destination. Waley chose to translate the entirety of the introductory and ending chapters, as well as three episodes, each several chapters long, of the journey to the west.
Read more about this topic: Monkey (novel)
Famous quotes containing the word translation:
“Well meant are the wounds a friend inflicts, but profuse are the kisses of an enemy.”
—Bible: Hebrew, Proverbs 27:6.
KJ translation reads: Faithful are the wounds of a friend.
“To translate, one must have a style of his own, for otherwise the translation will have no rhythm or nuance, which come from the process of artistically thinking through and molding the sentences; they cannot be reconstituted by piecemeal imitation. The problem of translation is to retreat to a simpler tenor of one’s own style and creatively adjust this to one’s author.”
—Paul Goodman (1911–1972)
“...it is better to marry than to be aflame with passion.”
—Bible: New Testament, 1 Corinthians 7:9.
King James translation reads, “It is better to marry than to burn.”