著者
Keene Donald
出版者
国文学研究資料館
雑誌
国際日本文学研究集会会議録 = PROCEEDINGS OF INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON JAPANESE LITERATURE (ISSN:03877280)
巻号頁・発行日
no.6, pp.28-42, 1983-03-01

Translation of Japanese classical literature into foreign languages began late in the sixteenth century, when Portuguese missionaries used literary works as their textbooks for learning Japanese. With the expulsion of the Europeans in the seventeenth century, translation from the Japanese became extremely infrequent and erratic until the 1860s.Ever since that time there has been a steadily increasing amount of translation of Japanese literature not only into the various European languages but, especially in the case of modern literature, into Korean and Chinese. Today there are comparatively few major works of classical Japanese literature which have never been translated into any foreign language.The early translations of Japanese literature were made unsystematically. It is often not clear why particular works were chosen nor who the anticipated readers might have been. The translations made by Arthur Waley inaugurated a new era in the appreciation abroad of the Heian classics and No, and the best translators into English have tended to follow in his footsteps in writing for a general, rather than an academic audience. But the issue of literary versus academic translations is by no means settled, and we may in the future be able to enjoy the luxury of several different translations of the same classics.