Arthur David WaleyCH CBE (born Arthur David Schloss, 19 August 1889 – 27 June 1966) was an English orientalist and sinologist who achieved both popular and scholarly acclaim for his translations of Chinese and Japanese poetry. Among his honours were appointment as Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1952, receiving the Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry in 1953, and being invested as a Member of the Order of the Companions of Honour in 1956.[1]
Although highly learned, Waley avoided academic posts and most often wrote for a general audience. He chose not to be a specialist but to translate a wide and personal range of classical literature. Starting in the 1910s and continuing steadily almost until his death in 1966, these translations started with poetry, such as A Hundred and Seventy Chinese Poems (1918) and Japanese Poetry: The Uta (1919), then an equally wide range of novels, such as The Tale of Genji (1925–26), an 11th-century Japanese work, and Monkey, from 16th-century China. Waley also presented and translated Chinese philosophy, wrote biographies of literary figures, and maintained a lifelong interest in both Asian and Western paintings.
A 2004 profile by fellow sinologist E. Bruce Books called Waley "the great transmitter of the high literary cultures of China and Japan to the English-reading general public; the ambassador from East to West in the first half of the 20th century", and went on to say that he was "self-taught, but reached remarkable levels of fluency, even erudition, in both languages. It was a unique achievement, possible (as he himself later noted) only in that time, and unlikely to be repeated."[2]
^Johns (1983), p. 179.
^Brooks, E. Bruce (1 July 2004). "Sinological Profiles: Arthur Waley". Warring States Project. University of Massachusetts at Amherst.
Arthur David Waley CH CBE (born Arthur David Schloss, 19 August 1889 – 27 June 1966) was an English orientalist and sinologist who achieved both popular...
described as arguably the most popular literary work in East Asia. ArthurWaley's 1942 abridged translation, Monkey, is known in English-speaking countries...
incomplete. Since then, complete English translations have been made by ArthurWaley, Edward Seidensticker and Royall Tyler. The work recounts the life of...
journalist, artist and writer ArthurWaley (born Arthur David Schloss; 1889–1966), English orientalist and sinologist Daniel Waley (1921–2017), British historian...
Zeami's. The word aya means twill, but the first English translation by ArthurWaley used the word damask, and this choice is almost invariably preserved...
De Zoete, ArthurWaley & Walter Spies (1938). Dance and Drama in Bali. Faber and Faber. p. 298. OCLC 459249128. Beryl De Zoete, ArthurWaley & Walter Spies...
Other notable English translations have been the partial translation by ArthurWaley in 1928, the first complete translation by Ivan Morris in 1967, and Meredith...
symmetry of the narrative point to a single author. The British orientalist ArthurWaley, writing before recent research, in his Introduction to the 1942 translation...
acquired, along with 3,000 horses of middling or lower quality. Sinologist ArthurWaley in his article The Heavenly Horses of Ferghana made the important distinction...
Press. 3/5, 5/6, 9/14, tr. by ArthurWaley (1938), The Analects of Confucius, Vintage, pp. 94–5, 108, 141. Zhao 17, Waley (1938), p. 108. Creel (1970)...
known version of the Kutune Shirka progresses any further in the story. ArthurWaley, one of the poem's translators, felt that the yukar seems to "break off"...
Kumasaka (The Robber) is a Noh play from the 15th century attributed by ArthurWaley to Zenchiku Ujinobu, about the notable Heian period bandit Kumasaka no...
centuries. Its historicity has been disputed: the 20th-century sinologist ArthurWaley considered it a literary work with no historiographical value, but more...
many famous translators including Howard Goldblatt, Wolfgang Kubin, ArthurWaley, and Wai-lim Yip. Jonathan Stalling is the curator of Chinese Literature...
Luis Borges, The Total Library: [The Tale of Genji, as translated by ArthurWaley,] is written with an almost miraculous naturalness, and what interests...
lies primarily in its "faithful description of Mongol tribal life", and ArthurWaley even claimed that the Secret History's "historical value [is] almost...
(Six Persimmons is) passion... congealed into a stupendous calm. — ArthurWaley, It is currently in the collection of the Juko'in subtemple of Daitoku-ji...
in The Jade Mountain (1939). Although Li was not his preferred poet, ArthurWaley translated a few of his poems into English for the Asiatic Review, and...
Constant Mean, Pierre Ryckmans (aka Simon Leys) used Middle Way, while ArthurWaley chose Middle Use. Ezra Pound's translations include Unswerving Pivot...
dramatic efforts often deal with women's themes. The British orientalist ArthurWaley, in his introduction to the 1942 translation of Jin Ping Mei argued that...
dedicated to critiques of the failures of Confucianism. The translator ArthurWaley observed that [Tao] means a road, path, way; and hence, the way in which...
2014. Gao Lian, "The Tsun Sheng Pa Chien, AD 1591, by Kao Lien," tr. ArthurWaley, Yearbook of Oriental Art and Culture, 1, (1924–25), p. 86. See also...
Press, ISBN 1-55659-120-9 ArthurWaley. Yuan Mei, Eighteenth Century Chinese Poet. London: Allen & Unwin, 1956 Hummel, Arthur W. Sr., ed. (1943). "Yüan...
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