Article,
Translating eroticism in traditional Chinese drama: Three English versions of The Peony Pavilion
Babel: Revue internationale de la traduction/International Journal of Translation, (2012)
Abstract
As with many other languages, Chinese exhibits euphemistic tendencies when dealing with the subject of sex. This is evidenced in the poetic treatment of the relevant lexis, as for example, the metaphorization of the act of romantic dalliance as fenghua xueyue “flower in the breeze, snow under the moon” and of sexual intercourse as yunyu “cloud-and-rain” (Kao 1994: 173). The presence of such euphemisms in the language does not, however, mean that sex is a much evaded subject in Chinese literature. Traditional Chinese literature has in its repertoire a fair share of sexually suggestive and erotically charged content. The latter part of the Ming dynasty, in particular, witnessed a proliferation of such works. At this critical juncture in Chinese cultural history, indulgence in sensual gratification among the literati existed alongside deeply-rooted Confucian values, culminating in what Timothy Brooks (1998) calls the “confusions of pleasure”.
