The language instinct

Tian Qinxin's staging of Romeo and Juliet keeps the fire burning between the star-crossed lovers, but preserves only the most important lines from the original text. CHAI MEILIN/CHINA DAILY

All the world's a stage

How I discovered the lure of Will power

The Bard in Beijing and beyond

Nowadays, a Chinese reader or stage producer has many choices. Both Zhu's and Liang's collections are frequently republished, sometimes in a bilingual format, with the English original side by side with the Chinese.

As Chinese translations of Shakespeare have proliferated, the core readership seems to have shrunk over the decades. Like many literary giants, Chinese or foreign, Shakespeare is a name people revere, but not many actually bother to open the books. The two references that have percolated into public use are both from Hamlet: "There are a thousand Hamlets in a thousand people's eyes," in Chinese, and "To be or not to be", in English. The deceptive simplicity has made it virtually impossible to render in a different language, thus providing legitimacy for numerous riffs and send-ups.

As Shakespeare continues to attract translators who see his work as the ultimate challenge in bridging the linguistic divide, readers and theatergoers can expect new revelations when coming face to face with his immortal lines.