Liang Shih-chiu

Liang was born in Beijing in 1903. His father, Liang Xianxi ({{lang|zh|梁咸熙}}), was a xiucai in the Qing dynasty.{{cite web|url=http://www.china.com.cn/chinese/CU-c/1130338.htm|title = Liang Wenqian Talks About Her Father|work=Wen Hui Bao|date=February 21, 2006|access-date=November 4, 2008|language=zh}} He was educated at Tsinghua College in Beijing from 1915 to 1923. He went on to study at Colorado College and later pursued his graduate studies at Harvard and Columbia Universities.{{cite encyclopedia | title = Liang Shiqiu | encyclopedia = Merriam-Webster's Encyclopedia of Literature | pages = 679 | publisher = Merriam-Webster | year = 1995 | url = https://books.google.com/books?id=eKNK1YwHcQ4C | isbn = 0-87779-042-6}}

At Harvard, he studied literary criticism under Irving Babbitt, whose New Humanism helped shape his conservative literary tenets.{{cite book | last = Fairbank | first = John K. | author-link = John K. Fairbank |author2=Albert Feuerwerker |author2-link=Albert Feuerwerker |author3=Denis Twitchett |author3-link=Denis Twitchett | title = The Cambridge History of China | publisher = Cambridge University Press | year = 1986 | url = https://books.google.com/books?id=Fxs3ROaIhPMC | volume = 13 | isbn = 0-521-24338-6| page = 431}}

After his return to China in 1926, he began a long career as a professor of English at several universities, including Peking University, Tsingtao University, and Jinan University. He also served as the editor of a succession of literary supplements and periodicals, including the famous Crescent Moon Monthly{{cite book | last = Denton | first = Kirk | title = Modern Chinese Literary Thought | publisher = Stanford University Press | year = 1996 | pages = 49–50 | url = https://books.google.com/books?id=19ZCZhSav94C | isbn = 0-8047-2559-4}} (1928–1933). During this period he published a number of literary treatises which showed the strong influence of Babbitt and demonstrated his belief that human life and human nature are the only proper subjects for literature. The best known among these are The Romantic and the Classical, Literature and Revolution, The Seriousness of Literature, and The Permanence of Literature. In each of these treatises, he upheld the intrinsic value of literature as something that transcends social class and strongly opposed using literature for propagandist purposes. These pronouncements and his dislike for the excessive influence of Jean-Jacques Rousseau and other Romanticists in China triggered a polemic war between him and Lu Xun and drew the concerted attacks of leftist writers. His major works as a translator included James Barrie's Peter Pan, George Eliot's Silas Marner and Mr. Gilfil's Love Story, and Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights.{{cite book | last = Chan | first = Tak-hung Leo | title = Twentieth-Century Chinese Translation Theory | publisher = John Benjamins Publishing Company | year = 2004 | url = https://books.google.com/books?id=9op-38v2oPkC | isbn = 0-521-24338-6| page = 198}}

In 1949, to escape the civil war, Liang fled to Taiwan where he taught at Taiwan Normal University until his retirement in 1966. During this period, he established himself as a lexicographer by bringing out a series of English-Chinese and Chinese-English dictionaries. His translation works included George Orwell's Animal Farm and Marcus Aurelius' Meditations.

Liang is now remembered chiefly as the first Chinese scholar to single-handedly translate the complete works of Shakespeare into Chinese. This project, which was first conceived in 1930, was completed in 1967.{{cite web|url=https://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9B0DEEDF1F39F935A35752C1A961948260 |title=Liang Shih-chiu, a Shakespeare Translator, Dies|work=The New York Times|date=November 6, 1987|access-date=November 4, 2008}} He then embarked on another monumental project – that of writing a comprehensive history of English literature in Chinese, which was completed in 1979 and consists of a three-volume history and a companion set of Selected Readings in English Literature in Chinese translation, also in three volumes. Liang’s literary fame rests, first and foremost, on the hundreds of short essays on familiar topics, especially those written over a span of more than four decades (1940–1986) and collected under the general title of Yashe Xiaopin, now available in English translation under the title From a Cottager’s Sketchbook.{{cite book |title=From a Cottager's Sketchbook, Vol.I |last=Liang |first=Shih-chiu |others=trans. Ta-tsun Chen|year=2005 |publisher=Chinese University Press |isbn=962-996-218-7 }} and {{cite book |title=From a Cottager's Sketchbook, Vol.II |last=Liang |first=Shih-chiu |others=trans. Ta-tsun Chen|year=2006 |publisher=Chinese University Press |isbn=962-996-219-5 }}

• "The Fine Art of Reviling". English translation by W.B. Pettus. Los Angeles : Auk Press, 1936.
• From a Cottager's Sketchbook, vol. 1. Tr. Ta-tsun Chen. HK: Chinese University Press, 2005.
• "Fusing With Nature." Tr. Kirk Denton. In K. Denton, ed., Modern Chinese Literary Thought: Writings on Literature, 1893–1945. Stanford: Stanford UP, 1996, 213–17.
• "The Generation Gap." Tr. Cynthia Wu Wilcox. The Chinese Pen, (Autumn, 1985): 33–39.
• "Haircut" [Lifa]. Tr. David Pollard. In Pollard, ed., The Chinese Essay. NY: Columbia UP, 2000, 230–33.
• "Listening to Plays" [Ting xi]. Tr. David Pollard. In Pollard, ed., The Chinese Essay. NY: Columbia UP, 2000, 233–37.
• "Literature and Revolution." Tr. Alison Bailey. In K. Denton, ed., Modern Chinese Literary Thought: Writings on Literature, 1893–1945. Stanford: SUP, 1996, 307–15.
• "Men." Tr. Shih Chao-ying. The Chinese Pen (Spring, 1974): 40–44.
• "On Time." Tr. King-fai Tam. In Goldblatt and Lau, eds., The Columbia Anthology of Modern Chinese Literature. NY: Columbia UP, 1995, 660–63.
• "Sickness" [Bing]. Tr. David Pollard. In Pollard, ed., The Chinese Essay. NY: Columbia UP, 2000, 227–30.
• Sketches of a Cottager. Tr. Chao-ying Shih. Taipei, 1960.
• "Snow." Tr. Nancy E. Chapman and King-fai Tam. In Goldblatt and Lau, eds., The Columbia Anthology of Modern Chinese Literature. NY: Columbia UP, 1995, 6664–67.
• "Women." Tr. Shih Chao-ying. The Chinese Pen (Winter, 1972): 23–29.

• Chinese Writers on Writing featuring Liang Shih-chiu. Ed. Arthur Sze. (Trinity University Press, 2010).

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• [http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/338823/Liang-Shiqiu "Liang Shiqiu"], Encyclopædia Britannica Online
• [http://www.nhinet.org/bai17-1&2.pdf Babbitt's Impact in China: The Case of Liang Shiqiu]
• [http://140.109.8.45/sinorama/content/EnIm.asp?chptnumber=121208 The Great Master Liang Shih-chiu Has Not Left Us]{{dead link|date=December 2017 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}
• [http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/feat/archives/2015/11/01/2003631405 Much ado about translation]

• [https://lib-linux2.hkbu.edu.hk/scadb/pgcw/purl.php?&did=pgcw008 Liang Shiqiu. A Portrait by Kong Kai Ming] at Portrait Gallery of Chinese Writers (Hong Kong Baptist University Library).

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Liang, Shih-Chiu}}

Category:1903 births

Category:1987 deaths

Category:English–Chinese translators

Category:Tsinghua University alumni

Category:Colorado College alumni

Category:Harvard University alumni

Category:Columbia University alumni

Category:Boxer Indemnity Scholarship recipients

Category:Writers from Beijing

Category:Educators from Beijing

Category:Academic staff of Beijing Normal University

Category:Academic staff of the National Taiwan Normal University

Category:20th-century Chinese essayists

Category:Academic staff of Jinan University

Category:20th-century Chinese translators

Category:Academic staff of Peking University

Category:Academic staff of Qingdao University

Category:Taiwanese people from Beijing