Arthur David Waley (born Arthur David Schloss, 19 August 188927 June 1966) was an English orientalist and sinologist who achieved both popular and scholarly acclaim for his translations of Chinese and

Japanese poetry Japanese poetry is poetry typical of Japan, or written, spoken, or chanted in the Japanese language, which includes Old Japanese, Early Middle Japanese, Late Middle Japanese, and Modern Japanese, as well as poetry in Japan which was written in th ...

. Among his honours were appointment as

Commander of the Order of the British Empire The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding valuable service in a wide range of useful activities. It comprises five classes of awards across both civil and military divisions, the most senior two o ...

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. 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 is a classic work of Japanese literature written by the noblewoman, poet, and lady-in-waiting Murasaki Shikibu around the peak of the Heian period, in the early 11th century. It is one of history's first novels, the first by a woman to have wo ...

'' (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."

Life

Arthur Waley was born Arthur David Schloss on 19 August 1889 in

Tunbridge Wells Royal Tunbridge Wells (formerly, until 1909, and still commonly Tunbridge Wells) is a town in Kent, England, southeast of Central London. It lies close to the border with East Sussex on the northern edge of the High Weald, whose sandstone ...

Kent Kent is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South East England. It is bordered by Essex across the Thames Estuary to the north, the Strait of Dover to the south-east, East Sussex to the south-west, Surrey to the west, and Gr ...

, England. The son of an economist, David Frederick Schloss, he was educated at Rugby School and entered

King's College, Cambridge King's College, formally The King's College of Our Lady and Saint Nicholas in Cambridge, is a List of colleges of the University of Cambridge, constituent college of the University of Cambridge. The college lies beside the River Cam and faces ...

, in 1907 on a scholarship to study

Classics Classics, also classical studies or Ancient Greek and Roman studies, is the study of classical antiquity. In the Western world, ''classics'' traditionally refers to the study of Ancient Greek literature, Ancient Greek and Roman literature and ...

, but left in 1910 due to eye problems that hindered his ability to study. Waley briefly worked in an export firm in an attempt to please his parents, but in 1913 he was appointed Assistant Keeper of Oriental Prints and Manuscripts at the

British Museum The British Museum is a Museum, public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is the largest in the world. It documents the story of human cu ...

. Waley's supervisor at the museum was the poet and scholar

Laurence Binyon Robert Laurence Binyon, Member of the Order of the Companions of Honour, CH (10 August 1869 – 10 March 1943) was an English poet, dramatist and art scholar. Born in Lancaster, Lancashire, Lancaster, England, his parents were Frederick Binyon, ...

, and under his nominal tutelage, Waley taught himself to read

Classical Chinese Classical Chinese is the language in which the classics of Chinese literature were written, from . For millennia thereafter, the written Chinese used in these works was imitated and iterated upon by scholars in a form now called Literary ...

and Classical Japanese, partly to help catalogue the paintings in the museum's collection. Despite this, he never learned to speak either modern

Mandarin Chinese Mandarin ( ; zh, s=, t=, p=Guānhuà, l=Mandarin (bureaucrat), officials' speech) is the largest branch of the Sinitic languages. Mandarin varieties are spoken by 70 percent of all Chinese speakers over a large geographical area that stretch ...

or Japanese and never visited either China or Japan. Waley was of

Ashkenazi Jewish Ashkenazi Jews ( ; also known as Ashkenazic Jews or Ashkenazim) form a distinct subgroup of the Jewish diaspora, that Ethnogenesis, emerged in the Holy Roman Empire around the end of the first millennium Common era, CE. They traditionally spe ...

ancestry. He changed his surname from Schloss in 1914, when, like many others in England with German surnames, he sought to avoid the anti-German prejudice common in Britain during the

First World War World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...

. Waley entered into a lifelong relationship with the English ballet dancer, orientalist, dance critic, and dance researcher Beryl de Zoete, whom he met in 1918, but they never married. Waley left the British Museum in 1929 to devote himself fully to writing and translation, and never held a full-time job again, except for a four-year stint in the Ministry of Information during the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

. In September 1939, he had been recruited to run the Japanese Censorship Section at the Ministry of Information. Assisted by Captain Oswald Tuck RN, he was responsible for checking the dispatches of Japanese journalists in London, private mail in Japanese and intercepted diplomatic signals from the Japanese Embassy in London. Waley lived in

Bloomsbury Bloomsbury is a district in the West End of London, part of the London Borough of Camden in England. It is considered a fashionable residential area, and is the location of numerous cultural institution, cultural, intellectual, and educational ...

and had a number of friends among the

Bloomsbury Group The Bloomsbury Group was a group of associated British writers, intellectuals, philosophers and artists in the early 20th century. Among the people involved in the group were Virginia Woolf, John Maynard Keynes, E. M. Forster, Vanessa Bell, a ...

, many of whom he had met when he was an undergraduate. He was one of the earliest to recognise Ronald Firbank as an accomplished author and, together with the writer Osbert Sitwell, provided an introduction to the first edition of Firbank's collected works. The poet

Ezra Pound Ezra Weston Loomis Pound (30 October 1885 – 1 November 1972) was an List of poets from the United States, American poet and critic, a major figure in the early modernist poetry movement, and a Collaboration with Nazi Germany and Fascist Ita ...

was instrumental in getting Waley's first translations into print in '' The Little Review''. His view of Waley's early work was mixed, however. As he wrote to Margaret Anderson, the editor of the ''Little Review'', in a letter of 2 July 1917: "Have at last got hold of Waley's translations from Po chu I. Some of the poems are magnificent. Nearly all the translations marred by his bungling English and defective rhythm. ... I shall try to buy the best ones, and to get him to remove some of the botched places. (He is stubborn as a donkey, or a ''scholar''.)" In his introduction to his translation of ''The Way and its Power'', Waley explains that he was careful to put meaning above style in translations where meaning would be reasonably considered of more importance to the modern Western reader. Waley married the poet Alison Grant Robinson in May 1966, one month before his death on 27 June. He is buried in an unmarked grave (plot no. 51178) on the western side of Highgate Cemetery in front of the grave of the sculptor Joseph Edwards. The writer Sacheverell Sitwell, who considered Waley "the greatest scholar and the person with most understanding of all human arts" that he had known in his lifetime, later recalled Waley's last days,

Honours

Waley was elected an honorary fellow of King's College, Cambridge in 1945, was appointed a

(CBE) honour in 1952, received the Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry in 1953, and was appointed a Member of the Order of the Companions of Honour (CH) in 1956.

Works

Jonathan Spence Jonathan Dermot Spence (11 August 1936 – 25 December 2021) was a British-American historian, Sinology, sinologist, and author specialised in History of China, Chinese history. He was Sterling Professor of History at Yale University from 199 ...

wrote of Waley's translations that he His many translations include ''A Hundred and Seventy Chinese Poems'' (1918), ''Japanese Poetry: The Uta'' (1919), ''The No Plays of Japan'' (1921), ''

'' (published in 6 volumes from 1921 to 1933), ''

The Pillow Book is a book of observations and musings recorded by Sei Shōnagon during her time as court lady to Fujiwara no Teishi, Empress Consort Teishi during the 990s and early 1000s in Heian-period Japan. The book was completed in the year 1002. The wor ...

Sei Shōnagon , or , was a Japanese author, poet, and court lady who served the Empress Teishi (Sadako) around the year 1000, during the middle Heian period. She is the author of . Name Sei Shōnagon's actual given name is not known. It was the custom amon ...

'' (1928), The '' Kutune Shirka'' (1951), ''

Monkey Monkey is a common name that may refer to most mammals of the infraorder Simiiformes, also known as simians. Traditionally, all animals in the group now known as simians are counted as monkeys except the apes. Thus monkeys, in that sense, co ...

'' (1942, an abridged version of ''

Journey to the West ''Journey to the West'' () is a Chinese novel published in the 16th century during the Ming dynasty and attributed to Wu Cheng'en. It is regarded as one of the Classic Chinese Novels, great Chinese novels, and has been described as arguably the ...

''), ''The Poetry and Career of Li Po'' (1959) and ''The Secret History of the Mongols and Other Pieces'' (1964). Waley received the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for his translation of ''Monkey''. His translations of the classics, the ''

Analects The ''Analects'', also known as the ''Sayings of Confucius'', is an ancient Chinese philosophical text composed of sayings and ideas attributed to Confucius and his contemporaries, traditionally believed to have been compiled by his followers. ...

Confucius Confucius (; pinyin: ; ; ), born Kong Qiu (), was a Chinese philosopher of the Spring and Autumn period who is traditionally considered the paragon of Chinese sages. Much of the shared cultural heritage of the Sinosphere originates in the phil ...

'' and ''The Way and Its Power'' (

Tao Te Ching The ''Tao Te Ching'' () or ''Laozi'' is a Chinese classic text and foundational work of Taoism traditionally credited to the sage Laozi, though the text's authorship and date of composition and compilation are debated. The oldest excavated por ...

), are still in print, as is his interpretive presentation of classical Chinese philosophy, ''Three Ways of Thought in Ancient China'' (1939). Waley's translations of verse are widely regarded as poems in their own right, and have been included in many anthologies such as the '' Oxford Book of Modern Verse 1892–1935'', '' The Oxford Book of Twentieth Century English Verse'' and the '' Penguin Book of Contemporary Verse (1918–1960)'' under Waley's name. Many of his original translations and commentaries have been re-published as

Penguin Classics Penguin Classics is an imprint (trade name), imprint of Penguin Books under which classic works of literature are published in English language, English, Spanish language, Spanish, Portuguese language, Portuguese, and Korean language, Korean amon ...

and Wordsworth Classics, reaching a wide readership. Despite translating many Chinese and Japanese classical texts into English, Waley never travelled to either country, or anywhere else in East Asia. In his preface to ''The Secret History of the Mongols'', he writes that he was not a master of many languages, but claims to have known Chinese and Japanese fairly well, a good deal of Ainu and Mongolian, and some

Hebrew Hebrew (; ''ʿÎbrit'') is a Northwest Semitic languages, Northwest Semitic language within the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family. A regional dialect of the Canaanite languages, it was natively spoken by the Israelites and ...

and Syriac. The composer Benjamin Britten set six translations from Waley's ''Chinese Poems'' (1946) for high voice and guitar in his

song cycle A song cycle () is a group, or cycle (music), cycle, of individually complete Art song, songs designed to be performed in sequence, as a unit.Susan Youens, ''Grove online'' The songs are either for solo voice or an ensemble, or rarely a combinat ...

'' Songs from the Chinese'' (1957).

Selected works

Translations

* ''A Hundred and Seventy Chinese Poems'', 1918 * ''More Translations from the Chinese'' (Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 1919). ** ''The Story of Ts'ui Ying-ying'' ('' Yingying zhuan'') – pp. 101–113Nienhauser, William H. "Introduction." In: Nienhauser, William H. (editor). ''Tang Dynasty Tales: A Guided Reader''.

World Scientific World Scientific Publishing is an academic publisher of scientific, technical, and medical books and journals headquartered in Singapore. The company was founded in 1981. It publishes about 600 books annually, with more than 170 journals in var ...

, 2010. , 9789814287289. p
xv
** ''The Story of Miss Li'' ('' The Tale of Li Wa'') – pp. 113–136 * ''Japanese Poetry: The Uta'', 1919. A selection mostly drawn from the and the '' Kokinshū''. * '' The Nō Plays of Japan'', 1921 * ''The Temple and Other Poems'', 1923 * ''

'', by Lady Murasaki, 1925–1933 * ''

'', 1928 * ''The Way and Its Power: A Study of the

and its Place in Chinese Thought'', 1934. A commentary on ''Tao Te ching'', attributed to

Laozi Laozi (), also romanized as Lao Tzu #Name, among other ways, was a semi-legendary Chinese philosophy, Chinese philosopher and author of the ''Tao Te Ching'' (''Laozi''), one of the foundational texts of Taoism alongside the ''Zhuangzi (book) ...

, and full translation. * ''The Book of Songs'' ('' Shih Ching''), 1937 * ''The

'', 1938 * ''Three Ways of Thought in Ancient China'', 1939 * ''Translations from the Chinese'', a compilation, 1941 * ''

'', 1942, translation of 30 of the 100 chapters of Wu Cheng'en's ''

'' * ''Chinese Poems'', 1946 * ''77 Poems'', Alberto de Lacerda, 1955 * ''The Nine Songs: A Study of Shamanism in Ancient China'', Qu Yuan, 1955 * '' Yuan Mei: Eighteenth-Century Chinese Poet'', 1956 * ''Ballads and Stories from Tun-Huang'', 1960

Original works

* ''Introduction to the Study of Chinese Painting'', 1923 * ''The Life and Times of Po Chü-I'', 1949 * ''The Poetry and Career of Li Po'', 1950 (with some original translations) * ''The Real Tripitaka and Other Pieces'', 1952 (with some original and previously published translations) * ''The Opium War through Chinese Eyes'', 1958 * ''

The Secret History of the Mongols The ''Secret History of the Mongols'' is the oldest surviving literary work in the Mongolic languages. Written for the Borjigin, Mongol royal family some time after the death of Genghis Khan in 1227, it recounts his life and conquests, and parti ...

'', 1963 (with original translations)

References

Sources

"Arthur Waley, 76, Orientalist, Dead; Translator of Chinese and Japanese Literature"
''New York Times''. 28 June 1966. * Gruchy, John Walter de. (2003). ''Orienting Arthur Waley: Japonism, Orientalism, and the Creation of Japanese Literature in English''. Honolulu:

University of Hawaii Press A university () is an institution of tertiary education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. ''University'' is derived from the Latin phrase , which roughly means "community of teachers and scholars". Uni ...

. 1ISBN 0-8248-2567-5. * * Johns, Francis A. (1968). ''A Bibliography of Arthur Waley''. New Brunswick, New Jersey: Rutgers University Press. * * Morris, Ivan I. (1970). ''Madly Singing in the Mountains: An Appreciation and Anthology of Arthur Waley''. London:

Allen & Unwin George Allen & Unwin was a British publishing company formed in 1911 when Sir Stanley Unwin purchased a controlling interest in George Allen & Co. It became one of the leading publishers of the twentieth century and established an Australian ...

. * * * Spence, Jonathan. "Arthur Waley", in, ''Chinese Roundabout'' (New York: Norton, 1992 ), pp. 329–336

* Waley, Alison. (1982). ''A Half of Two Lives''. London: George Weidenfeld & Nicolson. (Reprinted in 1983 by McGraw-Hill.)

External links

* E. Bruce Brooks
"Arthur Waley"
Warring States Project, University of Massachusetts.
Waley's translation of ''The Way and Its Power''
* * * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Waley, Arthur 1889 births 1966 deaths 20th-century English male writers 20th-century English poets 20th-century British translators Academics of SOAS University of London Alumni of King's College, Cambridge British Japanologists British sinologists Burials at Highgate Cemetery Chinese–English translators Commanders of the Order of the British Empire Corresponding Fellows of the Medieval Academy of America Employees of the British Museum English male poets Fellows of King's College, Cambridge James Tait Black Memorial Prize recipients Japanese–English translators Scholars of Japanese literature Literary translators Members of the Order of the Companions of Honour People from Royal Tunbridge Wells Scholars of ancient Chinese philosophy People educated at Rugby School