Yan Fu

Yan Fu

Yan Fu ( Chinese  嚴復  /  严复 , Pinyin Yán Fù , W.-G. Yen Fu , born February 8, 1853 in Fuzhou , Fujian ; † October 27, 1921 ) was a famous translator and scholar of China in the 19th century. In particular for the translation of Western works and the associated introduction of these ideas into the Chinese culture, he gained the greatest possible attention.

Life

Yan Fu was born in Fujian on February 8, 1853 . In Fuzhou he graduated from the Naval School and then went to Greenwich, England in 1877, where he took political, sociological and ethnological courses at the Royal Naval College of the Navy.

With the translation of Thomas Huxley's "Evolution and Ethics" and "Natural Selection" by Charles Darwin , he introduced new ideas in China which, especially received by the intellectuals, developed a great influence. The defeat in the Sino-Japanese War seemed to confirm these theories (“Survival of the Fittest” ...) and so he translated Herbert Spencer (1820–1903) “The Principles of Sociology”.

Translation activity

With the translation of other works, including "On Liberty" and "A System of Logic" by John Stuart Mill (1816–1873), he advocated a form of socialism and democracy. His participation in the Gong Zhe Shangshun movement also revealed his political ambitions.

From 1902 he headed the Translation Institute of the National University of Beijing , which was renamed the National Peking University in 1912 and whose first director Yan should become. He also taught at various other schools.

After his hopes for a democratic China were not fulfilled, after 1911 he seemed to lean more towards conservatism. He supported Yuan Shikai and did not want to participate in the May Fourth Movement .

In the foreword to his translation of "Evolution and Ethics", he named the problem areas in the preparation of good translations: "faithfulness, expressiveness and elegance" (Eng .: "Sincerity, expressiveness and elegance"; chin .: 譯 事 三 難 ：信 達雅). The fulfillment of these principles became the aim of his work and after heated discussions in academic circles they gradually became the standard for translation work. This was not what Yan Fu intended, but it did lead to significant improvements in this area. Yan Fu died on October 27, 1921.

credentials

• Benjamin I. Schwartz (1964): "In Search of Wealth and Power: Yen Fu and the West", Cambridge: Belknop Press of Harvard University Press.
• Shen Suru (1998): "Lu Xin Da ya: Yan Fu Fanyi Lihun Yanjiu", Beijing: Commercial press.

Web links

Commons : Yan Fu  - album with pictures, videos and audio files

• Literature by and about Yan Fu in the catalog of the German National Library
• About Yan Fu (Chinese; accessed November 25, 2008)
• More about Yan Fu (Chinese; accessed November 28, 2008)

Note: This article places the family name before the person's first name. This is the usual order in Chinese. Yan is the family name here, Fu is the first name.