On the afternoon of October 24th, 2024, at the invitation of the School of Foreign Studies (SFS) of Nankai University, Professor Fu Hao, a researcher of the Institute of Foreign Literature of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS), and Professor Ke Yanbin from the English Department of Peking University gave wonderful lectures to the teachers and students of the SFS. Teachers from the English Department, Russian Department and Spanish Department of SFS, as well as postgraduate and undergraduate students, participated in this academic activity.
First of all, Prof. Fu Hao gave a wonderful lecture on the topic of “Talking about English Modern Poetry”. With opening questions of “What is modern poetry” and “What are the aspects of modernity in modern poetry”, he made a detailed interpretation of English modern poetry from three aspects: “Why to write modern poetry”, “How to write modern poetry” and “What to write modern poetry”. Prof. Fu Hao first pointed out that the Industrial Revolution had caused a great break between modern poetry and traditional poetry. Before the 19th century, literature and art were mostly grounded in realism. However, following the 19th century, these fields experienced a modernization transformation, which was reflected in the choice of form, language and content of poetry. In addition, in terms of imagery, contemporary poetry primarily portrays common people and urban life rather than myths, heroes, and villages.
Afterwards, Prof. Ke Yanbin gave a wonderful lecture entitled “David Copperfield: Textual Close Reading and Literary Translation” to students and teachers. Starting from content and form, Prof. Ke pointed out that there is an inseparable relationship between the form and content of literature, and that the form of a work itself is also the content. By comparing the three translations of Dickens’s (Lin Shu and Wei Yi's version The life of an orphan, Dong Qiushi's version, and Zhang Guruo's version), Prof. Ke analyzed and compared the three versions in terms of the characteristics of the novel of exuberance and conciseness, the conversion of the character’s viewpoints and the narrative perspective, the use of deixis, register and the wording, etc. He also took his “self-translated” version as an example and put forward suggestions for re-translation.
In the interactive session, teachers and students asked questions enthusiastically, and Prof. Fu Hao and Prof. Ke Yanbin answered brilliantly. The teachers and students present expressed that they had gained a lot and were greatly benefited. Finally, Prof. Fu Hao and Prof. Ke Yanbin presented two new works to SFS, and the lecture ended successfully with thunderous applause.
