Shen Chen (henceforward as Shen):You once were a nineteenth-century British literature researcher.Why did you turn to life writing studies?Craig Howes (henceforward as Howes):When I was lucky enough in 1980 to be offe...Shen Chen (henceforward as Shen):You once were a nineteenth-century British literature researcher.Why did you turn to life writing studies?Craig Howes (henceforward as Howes):When I was lucky enough in 1980 to be offered a tenure-track professorship in the English Department at the University of Hawai'i,I was finishing a doctoral dissertation on William Makepeace Thackeray at Princeton University.So I arrived in Hawai'i as a nineteenth-century British literature scholar,with an emphasis on fiction,the periodical essay (Thomas Carlyle),and longnarrative poetry (Lord Byron).展开更多
I am honored by the invitation to respond to Professor Yang's Preface for the English-language version of his 2009 theoretical work,A Modern Poetics of Biography.Before sharing my thoughts,though,I would like to o...I am honored by the invitation to respond to Professor Yang's Preface for the English-language version of his 2009 theoretical work,A Modern Poetics of Biography.Before sharing my thoughts,though,I would like to offer two comments.First,as I do not read Chinese,engaging in any way with a translation is always a risky business.To focus only on the key phrases from this preface,to what degree are"cluster,""metabiography,""we-media,"or even"biography"accurate or nuanced counterparts to the Chinese terms?In this instance,however,I feel more confident than usual,because Professor Yang is a scholar of Western literary history,criticism,and theory,and therefore acutely familiar with the aesthetic and philosophical nuances of both Chinese and English.Any obvious misunderstandings this response displays do not therefore result from the argument,but from my own ignorance.展开更多
文摘Shen Chen (henceforward as Shen):You once were a nineteenth-century British literature researcher.Why did you turn to life writing studies?Craig Howes (henceforward as Howes):When I was lucky enough in 1980 to be offered a tenure-track professorship in the English Department at the University of Hawai'i,I was finishing a doctoral dissertation on William Makepeace Thackeray at Princeton University.So I arrived in Hawai'i as a nineteenth-century British literature scholar,with an emphasis on fiction,the periodical essay (Thomas Carlyle),and longnarrative poetry (Lord Byron).
文摘I am honored by the invitation to respond to Professor Yang's Preface for the English-language version of his 2009 theoretical work,A Modern Poetics of Biography.Before sharing my thoughts,though,I would like to offer two comments.First,as I do not read Chinese,engaging in any way with a translation is always a risky business.To focus only on the key phrases from this preface,to what degree are"cluster,""metabiography,""we-media,"or even"biography"accurate or nuanced counterparts to the Chinese terms?In this instance,however,I feel more confident than usual,because Professor Yang is a scholar of Western literary history,criticism,and theory,and therefore acutely familiar with the aesthetic and philosophical nuances of both Chinese and English.Any obvious misunderstandings this response displays do not therefore result from the argument,but from my own ignorance.
