A Cultural History of Translation in Early Modern Japan

The translation of texts has played a formative role in Japan's history of cultural exchange as well as the development of literature, and indigenous legal and religious systems. This is the first book of its kind, however, to offer a comprehensive survey of the role of translation in Japan during the Tokugawa period, 1600?1868. By examining a wide range of translations into Japanese from Chinese, Dutch and other European texts, as well as the translation of classical Japanese into the vernacular, Rebekah Clements reveals the circles of intellectual and political exchange that existed in early modern Japan, arguing that, contrary to popular belief, Japan's 'translation' culture did not begin in the Meiji period. Examining the 'crisis translation' of military texts in response to international threats to security in the nineteenth century, Clements also offers fresh insights into the overthrow of the Tokugawa shogunate in 1868.

Acknowledgements; List of names with Sinitic characters; A note on dates, transliteration, and names; Introduction; 1. Language and society in Tokugawa Japan; 2. Classical Japanese texts; 3. 'Chinese' texts; 4. Translation of Western languages; 5. Late Tokugawa 'crisis translation'; Conclusion; Bibliography; Index.

Dr Rebekah Clements is a Research Associate at the University of Cambridge, and Research Fellow of Queens' College. She has degrees from the University of Cambridge, Waseda University, Japan and the Australian National University, Canberra. She grew up in Cowra, Australia, a small country town with a long connection to Japan, having been the site of a mass breakout of Japanese POWs during WWII. From tragic beginnings a friendship between the townspeople and Japanese representatives developed in the post-war period, leading to numerous exchanges, and the Japanese language being taught to a high level at the local high school. Dr Clements' own interest in Japanese history and culture, and her fluency in Japanese date from this time.