Bulletin Autumn‧Winter 2003

his pen, he gives vent to bo th feelings and goals, mingling sense and sensibility; he is now humo r ous and witty, like his true self, then bold and passionate, giving magnificence to his works. F r om factual description to soaring i m a g i n a t i o n : h i s t o p i c s are i n d e e d indescribably comprehensive. From the early l e f t - h a n d ed w o r k s w r i t t en at ‘ t i mes n ot occupied by verse' to Haunted by the Rain, The Untrammeled Traveller and April on a Deserted Battlefield in the mid-sixties, his skills matured in all aspects, be it pace, density, or flexibility. He has a total mastery of language and wants to 'cut off the pigtail of prose', put ‘the square bricks of Cangjie' into ‘the oven of Yin-Yang' and melt t hem into ‘the colourful stones of Nuwa' in the furnace. Yu Kwang Chung's more recent wo r k s, such as Memory is where the Railway Reaches,All by a Map, Calling for the Ferry Boat, and A Family on which the Sun Never Sets, are just like the lushest of w i ne at its maturity, mellow and lucid. In the domain of literary criticism, Prof. Yu Kwang Chung excels in the critiques of literary history, genres, authors etc., where he discusses ma i n ly poetry, b ut also prose, translation, language, and painting. When he writes about the past and the present, our native country and foreign lands, w i t h poetic sensitivity and historical awareness, his originality is indeed imp r es s i ve. Past the m i d d l e age, he was frequently invited to write forewords for his friends, which almost invariably became book reviews as he wo u ld view the genres of such books, w h i c h were categorized i n a comprehensive way and he wo u ld probe into their very origin. I n his critiques, not only are his opinions precise and profound but his style is also excellent, never avishing stock jargons or translationese as many other academics are wont to do. Yu's published critiques include Rain on the Cactus, On the Watershed, F rom Hsu Hsia-ke to van Gogh, The Lower Reachesof Blue Ink, ToChew English with Chinese and the others, while Prefaces in Order published in 1996 is a special collection of forewords. Prof. Yu Kw a ng Ch u ng also translates. Although he modestly says that ‘translation is on ly my sideline', his performance i n this ‘sideline' is actually better than that of many professionals. I n his opinion, an outstanding translator should have both the erudition of a scholar and the talent of a writer. Throughout his life he has been d o i ng creative w r i t i ng i ndu s t r i ou s l y. On the other hand, he also started his translation very early, and i n his l i t e r a r y career f o r o v er h a lf a c e n t u r y, translation and creative w r i t i ng are like t wo resilient s i lk threads, m i n g l i ng to make a dazzling embroidery. His translation covers an extremely w i de area: those f r om English to Chinese include Anthology of Modern English and American Poetry, Anthology of Modern Turkish Poetry etc.; those f r om Chinese to English include New Chinese Poetry, Acres of Barbed Wire, TheNight Watchman etc.; translated novels include The Old Man and the Sea, Bartleby the Scrivener, Lust for Life; as for plays, he has translated Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest, Lady Windermere's Fan and An Ideal Husband. The novels and plays Yu Kw a ng Chung has translated have become the t wo newly acquired domains in his literary empire, stretching its boundaries even farther. Prof. Yu has a meticulous attitude to and an exceptional understanding of translation, and feels himself responsible for the dissemination of culture and the translation of wo r ld classics. He has an elaborate style of his own, wh i ch usually shows a brilliant representation of the form and the essence of the source language. He is forever alert to the sense of rhyme and r hy t hm and the beauty of colours, always maintaining the charm of the ‘ m i ng l i ng of east and west, infusion of the vernacular and the classic'. Prof. Yu Kwang Chung holds a BA degree f r om the Foreign Languages Department of Taiwan University and an MFA from Iowa State University, USA, and has taught in universities in Taiwan, Hong Kong and the USA. From 1985 Chinese University Bulletin Autumn • Winter 2003 54