Translating erased history: Inter-Asian translation of the national Changgeuk company of Korea’s Romeo and Juliet

1. Introduction: inter-Asian translation of Shakespeare at the Asian Shakespeare Intercultural Archive

The translation of Shakespeare in East Asia has been related to the national venture of modernization in each country. In spite of his origins in Elizabethan England, Shakespeare was received as a symbolic author of the modern and advanced west in East Asian countries when they started their national projects of modernization in the late nineteenth century. Korean Shakespeare scholar Lee Jongsook writes, “Like most western things Shakespeare came to us not only as a cultural influence but also as a part of political and economic pressure” (1997, 66).

For more than a century, Shakespeare’s plays have been translated and staged in the region in various ways. James Brandon categorized Shakespeare in Asia into three types – Canonical, Indigenous and Intercultural Shakespeare – according to the strategy used to translate and adapt Shakespeare’s text by Asian artists (2010, 30–31). It is striking that what is at stake in Brandon’s model is the textual canonicity of Shakespeare, and that the authenticity of eastern performative forms and styles are contrasted to counterbalance that canonicity, although the approaches vary greatly. The negotiations occurring between west and east reflect the colonial and postcolonial experiences in each country.

At the same time, in the field of Translation Studies, the impact of translations in the process of colonization and decolonization has become an important topic. Michaela Wolf points out

[W]e can also find the growing concern in questions regarding “the social” in translation, which discuss not only the networks of agents and agencies and the interplay of their power relations, but also the social discursive practices which mould the translation process and which decisively affect the strategies of a text to be translated (Wolf 2011, 2).

Reflecting such a positionality, studies have accumulated that discuss the role of translation in postcolonial social conditions (Robinson 1997; Gentzler 2002).

Nevertheless, as Judy Wakabayashi argues, what is remarkable, yet often overlooked in the west and in Asia itself, are the different translation traditions within Asia (2005, 17). There were complex negotiations among the East Asian translators and theatre practitioners in the early stages of their endeavours in modern theatre, and the translation and staging of Shakespeare became an important sphere for such negotiations.

The doubleness of Japanese colonialism – which first behaved as the “east” that absorbed western culture and later took the position of the “west” that provided advanced modern culture and technology to the neighbour countries – is the most notable element in inter-Asian cultural negotiation in the early twentieth century in general, and in the translation and staging of Shakespeare in particular. Japan, as the first non-western hegemonic power in East Asia after China, led the modernizing process of the region by the total westernization of the country as a national project. Its defeat of China in the Sino–Japanese War (1894–95) that resulted in the annexation of Taiwan (1895), and its subsequent victory over a western power in the Russo–Japanese War (1904–5) that prompted the annexation of Korea (1910) boosted its prestige, leading to translations from Japanese in other parts of Asia (Judy Wakabayashi, 35).

The “different translation traditions within Asia” inevitably become visible when a Shakespeare production that was translated, adapted and staged in an East Asian country is translated into another East Asian language. This occurs regularly in an online digital archive project, the Asian Shakespeare Intercultural Archive (A|S|I|A),¹ of which I am the translation editor. With the aim of providing access to contemporary intercultural practices in East and Southeast Asia, A|S|I|A presents original scripts and script translations in English and several East Asian languages, including Chinese and Japanese, that are shown in the text box below streaming videos of recordings of full productions.²

In this kind of multilingual archive, translation plays a crucial role. Translations between East Asian languages happen as a standard part of the archival process, and they are juxtaposed in the archive as the languages can be switched easily in the user interface of A|S|I|A. This naturally and inevitably reveals the complexity of the translation of Shakespeare in East Asia, reflecting the historicity of the translation, and adding another layer to the existing discourses on translation that have mainly focused on the east-west binary. In this essay, I will examine the inter-Asian negotiations in the practice of translation and suggest the potential of the multilingual digital archive as a platform to explore it.

I acknowledge from the start, however, that the topic is too broad to be examined within the limits of this article. As a preliminary attempt, I will discuss a Korean Changgeuk adaptation of Romeo and Juliet produced by the National Changgeuk Company of Korea, which has been published on A|S|I|A. Because of the annexation, Japan’s influence in the reception of Shakespeare and the development of modern theatre was enormous in Korea. At the same time, South Korea’s postcolonial discourses have demonstrated a stark response to Japanese imperialism as a part of its national identity building. I will examine presentation strategies of the National Changgeuk Company to stress the authenticity of the performance form in the next section, and this is followed by a discussion of the Japanese influences in both the translation of Shakespeare in Korea and Changgeuk as a genre. I will then discuss the translation strategies employed by the A|S|I|A team to reflect the complexity of this production.

2. Translating into the “tradition”: the National Changgeuk Company of Korea’s Romeo and Juliet

Romeo and Juliet was produced as part of the Young Changgeuk series by the National Changgeuk Company of Korea in 2009. Changgeuk (literary “Song Drama”) is Korean opera in the singing style of Pansori epic chant, which was enroled in the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity by UNESCO in 2008. The Young Changgeuk series was an ambitious attempt to introduce fresh stories and topics to Changgeuk, which had conventionally staged a limited number of Korean folk tales that were typically chanted in Pansori performance.

Shakespeare’s play was adapted by the playwright Park Sung-Whan to a setting in Korea during the Koryo Dynasty (918–1392). The feud of the Capulets and Montagues is recontextualized as the regional conflict between the Cheolla and Gyeongsang provinces, which have long been traditional rivals. Romeo is changed to Romyo, son of the feudal lord Mun Taegyu, and Juliet in this production is Juri, daughter of the wealthy Choi family.

It is notable that the plot of the play closely follows Shakespeare’s original in spite of the heavy adaptation of characters. The English translation of the script donated by the company to A|S|I|A combines Shakespeare’s lines and quasi-Shakespearean verse. Using Shakespeare’s original text has been a common practice for translating the scripts of Asian Shakespeare productions that closely follow the original plot into English because it is considered a guarantee of the performance’s authenticity (Yong 2009, 286).

In the case of the Changgeuk version of Romeo and Juliet, Shakespearean language was also intended to highlight the canonicity of Shakespeare’s text. Romeo and Juliet was the first production in the history of Changgeuk that adapted a western work to this performance form (Killick 2010, xxvi). As it had not been established in Korea’s traditional arts for as long as Pansori, Romeo and Juliet had to prove that Changgeuk was an authentic tradition of Korean culture that could confront a western canonical text by employing various strategies to stress the traditional nature of the performance form.

First, the production featured not only Pansori but also a considerable variety of indigenous Korean performing arts. The first scene was set in a Madang (an open space) where Korean indigenous performances have traditionally been staged and referred to Talchum (mask dance) and Kkokdu Noleum (puppetry). Scene 4 was also framed as a feast held in a Madang, and audience members were invited onto the stage to participate in Ganggangsulae (group dance). This kind of interaction between the performers and the audience is typical of Korean folk performances. Ho Kyu, who was the general director of The National Theatre of Korea from 1981 to 1989, advocated the “Madanization” of Changgeuk to incorporate the immediacy and vibrancy of the indigenous art forms (Killick 2010, 134). Romeo and Juliet concretized Ho’s idea of Madanization and thus underlined the innate Koreanness in its aesthetics.

Second, the entire performance was bookended by the Pansori chants performed by a solo singer. The opening chant provided a traditional Pansori-style narration that framed the performance:

Narrator Singer. Long long ago, in a place called Hamyang-Namwon

Located at the foot of Jiri mountain,

There lived a fine man and a beautiful woman from two houses

Who had borne deep grudges against each other for generations.

Their names are Romyo and Juri.

Oh, what a pitiful couple they are!

The two young lovers met their death

Before their love was able to bear fruit.

Only this tragedy put an end

To the raging flame of the ancient wrath between the two houses.

Let us hear their sad but beautiful story. (Park 2009)

Adding this authentic Pansori chant on top of the Pansori-style singing in Changgeuk underlined the orthodoxy of the performance. In postcolonial Korea, after the liberation from Japanese rule in 1945, Pansori was regarded not merely as a traditional performance style but also a symbol of the national spirit because of its status under Japan’s colonial rule (Jang 2014, 124). The colonial regime in Seoul enforced the usage of Japanese in all theatre performances in order to promote usage of the language under proposals adopted in 1942 (Inoue 1997, 147), but Pansori was an exception because of the impossibility of adapting Pansori to a foreign language (Suh 2009, 174).

Third, Korean shamanism, from which Pansori is often said to have originated (Um 2008, 25), was highlighted in the performance. Elemire Zolla states that “Korea is one of the few conservatories of shamanic perceptiveness, which ceremonialism keeps alive” and “[t]he survival of shamanism in Korea is a kind of miracle” (1985, 101). Rituals are still performed in contemporary society, and this makes shamanism the most familiar and intimate source of tradition in Korean daily lives.

In the Changgeuk adaptation of Romeo and Juliet, Friar Laurence in Shakespeare’s original was altered to a shaman named Aunt Guryong, and Act 3 Scene 3 at Friar Laurence’s cell in the original was set in the Temple of Rituals in the adaptation. This “Madanized” scene was framed as a ritual initiated by Aunt Guryong, and she quietly stayed upstage to keep her eye on the songs and dances performed by the characters as if everything in this scene was happening in her spiritual sphere.

By stressing the value of Changgeuk as an inclusive form of Korean traditional performing arts, the Romeo and Juliet adaptation suggests that Korea has a traditional performance genre with the potential to confront the canonical western text. For that purpose, adapting Shakespeare’s play is a desirable strategy as he had represented the west for more than a century since his plays’ initial reception in Korea.

3. Shakespeare as Japanese

In spite of the emphasis on the western canonical status of Shakespeare in the National Changgeuk Company of Korea’s Romeo and Juliet, the sizeable influence of Japan on the reception and translation of Shakespeare in Korea cannot be ignored. As Lee Jongsook states, Shakespeare “came to Korea not merely through, but from, Japan, with other exports of the Japanese empire” (1997, 70). To reiterate Judy Wakabayashi, one of the remarkable developments in the history of translation in East Asia in the early twentieth century was that Japan became a major source of translation. Japan was the country that had been implementing nationwide modernization the most thoroughly and aggressively in East Asia, which included the modernization of its arts and culture. The project of modernization in the Meiji period (1868–1912) was almost synonymous with westernization, and various approaches were taken towards this goal. Leading the modernization process in the region, Japan had accumulated a large number of translations of western texts by the time other East Asian countries started their own extensive projects of modernization, which made Japan a focal point of modern technology and culture among other East Asian countries.

In the field of performing arts, the first approach adopted by the Japanese government to modernize its culture was to “reform” Japanese traditional theatre, Kabuki in particular, into more westernized theatrical forms. Theatrical reform was spearheaded by the Engeki Kairyō Kai (Society for Theatre Reform) established in 1886 with the involvement of influential politicians, including Japan’s first Prime Minister Itō Hirobumi,³ and top-ranking officials and businessmen. The Society urged Kabuki actors and playwrights to incorporate western theatrical styles so that the theatre would appeal to the upper class audience and intellectuals (Yamamoto 1992, 11). The movement was aimed at raising the position of theatre in Japanese society from popular culture to high culture, and at persuading the western powers that Japan had a theatre that was comparable to western theatre. Western plays started to be introduced into Japan in the 1870s to be performed as the reformed Kabuki (23).

In the translation of western plays in Meiji Japan, the most popular author was Shakespeare. As many as 35 translations of Shakespeare were published between 1877 and 1890 (Yamamoto 1992, 40). The earliest translations were not direct translations but adaptations into the literary style of Kabuki and Jōruri puppet theatre known as Inpon, because “it was beyond their [i.e. Japanese performers and audiences of that period] imagination that there could be other forms of plays than Inpon” (Katō 1991, 443).

The first translation of Shakespeare by Tsubouchi Shōyō (1859–1935), one of the most influential Shakespeare translators in Japan, was also in the Inpon style. In the foreword to Jiyū No Tachi Nagori No Kireaji (The Sorrowful Sharpness of the Sword of Freedom), which was an adaptation of Julius Caesar published in 1884, Tsubouchi states:

The original script is in a format with … actors’ lines only. It is not a play script we know. I translated it into Inpon style in spite of the huge difference in the format for the convenience of Japanese readers. Thus, it will look very different when compared to the original … My priority is on readability and comprehensibility, and I adapted it into Jōruri narrative style when that was practical, and kept the speeches so long as they were comprehensible. I simply tried to convey what the original text meant. (Tsubouchi 1884, n/p)⁴

By the 1890s, a new style of theatre initiated by students who were not properly trained in the Kabuki tradition emerged. Politically motivated, practitioners of this new stream of theatre called Shinpa (New School) staged plays themed with contemporary political issues. The leader of this movement, Kawakami Otojirō (1864–1911) staged Othello in 1903, which was the first staging of the play in Japan, but it was adapted into a local context in the characteristic style of Shinpa. The setting of the play was shifted to Taiwan, annexed by Japan in 1895, and the Moorish general Othello became a Japanese Governor General sent to suppress a rebellion by the natives. In spite of Kawakami’s emphasis on a departure from the old school Kabuki, in reality, Shinpa’s approach to translation was not dissimilar from that of Inpon-style translation because of its heavy localization. Wakabayashi Masaya points out that Kawakami’s success relied on his unintentional adaptation to the expectations of his contemporary audiences who were familiar only with Kabuki performances (2004, 114). Shinpa was a hybrid theatre in between the traditional Kabuki and the subsequent attempts of the truly modern theatre free from the Kabuki tradition.

Around the turn of the century, both the performance styles that maintained elements of Kabuki and the translations with heavy localizations started to become less relevant to the urban audience, especially for the intelligentsia who had already been well exposed to modern and westernized cultures for a number of decades. This is the reason Tsubouchi decided to employ colloquial and contemporary language in his later translations of Shakespeare that was more accessible and comprehensible for his educated audience. He also set up his own theatre company the Bungei Kyōkai (Literary Arts Society) with amateur actors in 1910 to stage the plays in a style that departed from Kabuki tradition: what was later called Shingeki (Modern Drama). The Bungei Kyōkai also set up an institution for actor training which trained more than 80 students until it was disbanded in 1913 (Ōzasa 1985, 81). It was a remarkable attempt to develop a corps of performers who were totally free from the Kabuki tradition, and more importantly actresses, that have never existed in Kabuki performances in which traditionally female roles are performed by Onnagata (female impersonators).

Tsubouchi translated five Shakespeare plays into colloquial Japanese starting around 1909 for use in the Bungei Kyōkai’s productions. These versions still had elements of Inpon because the audiences and performers were not entirely used to the new colloquial language. Tsubouchi nevertheless constantly revised his translations, reflecting the rapidly developing theatrical and cultural environment in Meiji Japan, to provide the most approachable translation for the Japanese readership and audience (Tsubouchi 1953, 185). Linguistic change was accomplished over a period of 40 years by an amalgamation of the colloquial and classical written forms (Gallimore 2011, 3).

As we have seen, Tsubouchi introduced a range of styles to the Japanese translation of Shakespeare and even set up a theatre company to stage his translations. His linguistic innovations were accompanied by a transformation in performance styles. Such extensive explorations established Shakespeare as the most canonical and authoritative western author in Japan, and Tsubouchi’s principle of translating into the most approachable and comprehensible language for his contemporary audience became an authoritative approach to the translation of Shakespeare in Japan.

In contrast, in Korea, the name “Shakespeare” was first publicly mentioned in a magazine article only in 1906, and the first translation of his text, although only two lines from Julius Caesar, appeared in 1909. By then, a large number of translations of Shakespeare had been done in Japan, and Shakespeare’s early reception in Korea shows the substantial influence of Japanese translations. In a 1906 article, Shakespeare’s name was not properly transcribed in Korean but written as “Saygusbeea”, in imitation of the Japanese pronunciation of “Shakespeare” (Kim 1992, 5). The translator of the 1909 translation, Choe Nam-sun, had studied at Waseda University where Tsubouchi Shōyō taught Shakespeare. Lee Jongsook suggests that it was during his stay in Japan that Choe first discovered Shakespeare (1997, 69).

Japanese influence on the Korean translation of Shakespeare became even more extensive after Korea’s annexation by Japan in 1910. Notably, the rise in the number of Korean exchange students to Japan in the 1920s played a critical role in boosting the translation of Shakespeare in Korea. The number of Korean students studying in Japan dramatically increased due to the relaxation of passage restrictions by the Japanese Governor General in Korea, and an education boom that advocated higher and advanced education to resist colonial rule after the March 1st Movement, a nationwide resistance against Japanese colonial rule in 1919 (Kim 1997, 81).

In 1919, Ku Lee-byung translated The Tempest from Charles and Mary Lambs’ Tales from Shakespeare.⁵ The Lambs’ text in narrative form was more accessible to Koreans than faithful translations of Shakespeare’s originals would have been, and thus allowed Shakespeare’s plots to begin to circulate more widely in Korea (Kim 1995, 39). Most of the translations of Shakespeare in Korea in the 1920s were not from Shakespeare’s original text but from the Lambs’ Tales, and it was to Japanese translations of the latter that the Korean translators referred (Kim 1992, 11).

The first complete translation of a scene from Shakespeare’s original text was the trial scene from The Merchant of Venice by O Chon-won in 1920. Lee Jongsook assumes that “[i]t is more than likely that O had consulted them [Japanese translations] while preparing his translation” (1997, 73). Following that, complete translations of two Shakespeare plays – Hamlet (by Hyun Chul in 1921) and The Merchant of Venice (by Lee Shang-soo in 1924) – appeared in the 1920s, both of which were retranslations from Tsubouchi’s Japanese translation published in 1909. Hyun Chul (1891–1965) studied drama in Tokyo and was taught by Tsubouchi. Though it was not translated directly from the original, Hyun’s translation of Hamlet was considered the standard translation in Korea until Sul Chung-sic’s direct translation was published in 1949 (Kim 1992, 15–16).

The influence of Japanese translations on the early reception and translation of Shakespeare in Korea was substantial. Indeed, Shakespeare came to Korea as a Jaanese, demonstrating Japan’s duality in the process of modernization in East Asia as a vulnerable “east” that extensively absorbed western culture to survive on the one hand and, on the other, as an imperial power that possessed military and cultural strength equal to the “west”. In Korea, under Japan’s colonial rule, the latter aspect of Japan was underlined, and Japan was a provider of advanced modern knowledge.

This does not mean, however, that Koreans took the Japanese model as the one they had to blindly follow. Rather, the motivation of the Korean exchange students in Japan was to acquire what Japan had acquired from the west in order to overcome Japanese domination. Choe Nam-sun, who first translated Shakespeare in Korea, later drew up the Korean Declaration of Independence during the March 1st Movement (Lee 1997, 71). At the same time, it cannot be denied that there were profound exchanges between Korean intellectuals and their Japanese counterparts, and Japanese translators, including Tsubouchi, contributed to the development of translation in Korea. Shakespeare stood between the two sides, not only as a representative of the western canon but also the struggles for modernization in East Asia.

4. The erased tradition: Japan’s influence on Changgeuk

The strategies employed in the National Changgeuk Company of Korea’s Romeo and Juliet eloquently stressed the traditional value of Changgeuk, but the production was completely lacking in one element, namely “Japan”. The same absence is noticeable in the discourse on the origin of Changgeuk. It is widely believed that the first Changgeuk performance was directed by a master Pansori singer Gang Yonghwang at Wongaksa Theatre in Seoul, established in 1908. Gang adapted a classic Pansori piece, Song of Chunhyang, into a style that copied Chinese opera (Suh 2009, 162).

Andrew Killick nevertheless has questioned this lacuna by observing a number of factual contradictions (Killick 2008, 101) and argues that the most important model and impetus for the creation of the genre came from Japan during the process that led to its annexation of Korea in 1910 (Killick 2010, 86). In contrast to Japan, where any attempt to establish a modern theatre was in one way or another focused on the traditional theatrical form of Kabuki, in Korea, there was no such theatrical form that could be a base for developing the modern theatre. As discussed earlier, traditional performances of Korea were performed in open spaces such as a market place or courtyard, meaning that there was no drama comparable to western theatre (Kim 1992, 9). Although the development of Changgeuk was advocated as an attempt at kaeryang (reform) when the form was invented (Killick 2010, 51), kaeryang was quite different from kairyō in Japan⁶ because the aim was not simply to reform a traditional style of performance that had been staged in proper theatre venues but to construct a new theatrical form for a mode of staging that had never previously existed in that culture.

In the late nineteenth century, Japanese residents in Seoul built several theatres and started to invite Japanese Kabuki and Shinpa companies to perform there. This was the first time that venues designed specifically for theatrical performances were built and performances for the stage played in Korea. Although they were primarily meant for the Japanese community, Korean audiences, including Pansori performers, watched these performances as well (Suh 2009, 139). Korean-owned theatres started to be built in the first decade of the twentieth century. One of these theatres was Wongaksa Theatre, where the first Changgeuk performance was staged in 1908 as I have mentioned. The manager of Wongaksa at the time was a writer and pro-Japanese politician Yi Injik (1862–1916) who organized performances using a group of Pansori singers at Wongaksa. Just before he took the position, Yi had studied in Japan during the heyday of Japanese Shinpa. His experience in Japan, Killick points out, would certainly have had an impact on the early productions of Changgeuk (Killick 2010, 62).

As it affected the translation of Shakespeare, Korea’s annexation by Japan also brought an extensive Japanese influence on Korean theatre. Korean practitioners of theatre set up more than 20 theatre companies that adapted and staged Japanese Shinpa theatre in the 1910s, and many of these practitioners either invited Japanese actors to Korea or visited Japan for training. These companies copied the star-based production system in Japan and often used translated Japanese scripts of Shinpa (Suh 2009, 140–141). Korean Shinpa companies⁷ even initiated the development of a popular melodramatic film genre that shared the same name (Min, Joo, and Kwak 2003, 33).

The influx of Korean exchange students to Japan, which I discussed earlier, provided these students with an opportunity to observe the experiments in modern theatre happening in Japan. For Korean exchange students, Japan was a gateway to modern and western knowledge. It is notable that western culture, which could be extremely alien to Asians in the early twentieth century, became more accessible after being digested by the Japanese. Discussing the profound influence of Japanese Shinpa on the early Huaju (Spoken Drama) initiated by Chinese exchange students in Japan,⁸ Liu Siyuan points out that Shinpa worked as “a filter for western theatrical ideas” for Chinese audiences who were not familiar with western theatrical aesthetics, topics and acting styles (2006, 343). The hybrid nature of Shinpa, which was generated through the struggles of Japanese artists to absorb the alien culture, made it digestible for them. The same applied to Korean practitioners.

In 1920, a group of Korean exchange students in Tokyo set up the Tongwuhoe (Society of Comradeship) Theatre Troupe, which is considered the first Singuk company, a Korean equivalent of Shingeki. One of Tongwuhoe’s first productions was The Death of Kim Yong-il, directed by Hong Haesung. This play realistically portrayed the lives of Korean exchange students in Japan in the 1920s, and the company braved a 40-day long nationwide tour to Korea in 1921. Tongwuhoe’s realist theatre largely appealed to Korean audiences, who were used to the popular melodramas of Shinpa(Oh 2007, 88–89). Hong later joined Osanai Kaoru (1881–1928)’s Tsukiji Shō Gekijō (Tsukiji Little Theatre), which was arguably the most influential Shingeki company ever.⁹ He worked there as an actor from 1924 to 1929 and set up his own company after his return to Korea with the intention of establishing Singuk as a genre.

Under the influence of artists who had studied in Japan, including Hong Haesung, Changgeuk underwent generic reforms in the 1930s (Killick 2010, 91). In spite of reform, however, Changgeuk could not compete with the popularity and dynamism of Shinpa and Singuk during Japan’s colonial period. Thus, the position of Changgeuk was unclear in society and culture, since it had begun as a new type of reformed Pansori, but theatrical innovativeness was generally allocated to the Korean equivalents of Japanese modern theatres. Rather, one might even argue that reform made it difficult for Changgeuk to gain legitimacy in its own culture because of the strong influence of the colonizer’s culture at that time.

It was after the liberation from Japan in 1945 that the conditions surrounding Changgeuk drastically changed. As a theatrical form that was suitable for built theatres, yet maintained sufficient indigeneity, Changgeuk became a target of national support. The National Changgeuk Company of Korea was set up in 1962 as one of five resident companies of The National Theatre of Korea¹⁰ to establish Changgeuk as a traditional Korean theatre. The establishment of an official theatre company dedicated to Changgeuk was a national project of identity building underscored by strong nationalist sentiment.

Lee Nam-hee observes how the Korean experience of modernity has been described as “truncated”, “reactionary”, “imposed” and “negative” in most historical narratives and argues

This sense of negative modernity informed the central political-ideological dilemma of South Korea’s postcolonial consciousness: Korea’s colonial experience as the epicenter of the contemporary ideological, social, political, and intellectual fault lines intersecting all the variegated dimensions of Korean life. (Lee 2003, 557)

Establishing Koreanness through a traditional art form was a project for erasing the country’s negative modernity and setting up a firm foundation for postcolonial nation building. Thus, all trace of the former colonizer had to be removed from the discourses on Changgeuk. The dismissal of Japanese influence in discussions on the origin of Changgeuk is an example of the erasure of the former colonizer.

While the Changgeuk Romeo and Juliet marked an achievement of Korea’s postcolonial project in that sense, the historicity of the genre was largely ignored. What was ignored was not only the direct influences of Japanese culture but also the contributions of the Korean artists who developed Shinpa and Singuk and were instrumental in establishing the format of Changgeuk in the 1930s.

5. Translating Romeo and Juliet into Japanese

With the rich yet complex history of Changgeuk and the early translation of Shakespeare in Korea and Japan in mind, how should the National Changgeuk Company of Korea’s Romeo and Juliet be translated into Japanese? This was the challenge the translator and the editor of A|S|I|A faced when the production was collected in the online archive. To reflect the historicity behind the production, the A|S|I|A team adopted two strategies in the translation into Japanese.

First, the features of the script that could be found in Japanese translations of different periods were incorporated in the translation to reflect the history of the reception of Shakespeare in Japan and its influences in Korea. Although the English translation donated by the company stressed the performance’s authenticity by its extensive use of Shakespeare’s text, the original Korean script is in the contemporary vernacular, following the standard practice in recent Pansori performances (Um 2008, 33). In that sense, the script does not necessarily claim authenticity on its own merit but highlights a tension between the traditional and contemporary, which can be seen in the entire history of Changgeuk as well.¹¹ Referring to the historical development of the translation of Shakespeare in Japan was a strategy to reflect such a tension.

The first Japanese translation of Romeo and Juliet, published in 1886, was by Kawashima Keizō in the Inpon style. This translation followed the style developed by Tsubouchi Shōyō in his first Shakespeare translation of Julius Caesar (Sano 2006, 40). Tsubouchi’s translation published in 1884 has two distinctive features. First, it is almost completely restructured according to the Inpon style in which the story is narrated by a single narrator. For example, the speeches of Citizens and Brutus in Act 3, Scene 2 in Shakespeare’s original are translated into a narration as follows (retranslated into English):

(Source text)

Enter BRUTUS and CASSIUS, and a throng of Citizens.

Citizens: We will be satisfied; let us be satisfied.

Brutus: Then follow me, and give me audience, friends. (3. 2. 1–2)

(Tsubouchi’s translation)

On the main street in front of the forum, there was a huge crowd making a noise like bees. Surrounding Brutus and Cassius, they requested explanations: “We want answers. Give us answers. We want to know the reason why you killed Caesar.” Their voices were so loud that all the buildings in great Rome seemed to shake and collapse at once. Brutus raised his voice and said, “Then follow me and listen to my speech, friends. I shall explain everything to you at the pulpit” (Tsubouchi 1884, 161).

Second, most of the phrases in Tsubouchi’s translation observe the seven-five syllabic scheme which is typical of the Inpon style. A speech by Brutus in the same scene, “Who is here so vile that will not love his country? If any, speak; for him have I offended. I pause for a reply” (3. 2. 31–33) is translated into a line of eight sentences and the syllabic metre in Japanese, which does not necessarily follow the conventional syllabic metre strictly yet still sounds syllabic in the dramatic narrative, runs as follows:

Matta zansho no [7] kōei ni [5] kokka eien no [8] kei o wasure [6] aikoku no shisō [8] nōri ni munashiki [8] hito ya sōrō. [7] Araba nanotte [7] iderare yo. [5] Burūtasu sunawachi [9] zainin nari. [6] Gojin no teki ni [7] sōrō zo. [5] Kokka ni sasageshi [8] kono inochi, [5] kokujin no i ni [7] tagō toki wa [6] ikite nan no [6] kai aran. [5] Hentō shidai ni [8] shozon ari. [5] Iza hentō [6] uketamawaran. [7] Ika ni ika ni. [6] (Tsubouchi 1884, 166)

As I discussed earlier, Tsubouchi continued revising his translation to reflect the tastes and expectations of his audience. His later translation into more colloquial Japanese sounds much softer as the citizens to whom Brutus is talking are framed as rational and intelligent people. This is a reflection of the popularity of Tsubouchi’s translation among the Meiji intelligentsia as a fictional reference to the contemporary political situation in Japan¹² (Yamamoto 1992, 48). The comprehensibility and performability of the text were key principles, and the translations following Tsubouchi have continued to use the contemporary vernacular idioms of each period.

In translating Park’s Romeo and Juliet into Japanese, contemporary vernacular language was mostly used, following the standard approach in Japan. Although the choice of words by the translator Lee Jung Ja was respected, the editor adjusted tones and nuances by referring to the major postwar Japanese translations. The versions used were for the most part the relatively recent translations by Odashima Yūshi (1983) and Matsuoka Kazuko (1996); two other versions by Nakano Yoshio (1951) and Fukuda Tsuneari (1968) were also consulted.

In addition, the translator inserted lines in seven-five syllabic metre, which sound archaic, at the beginning or end of paragraphs that are sung rhythmically in the Changgeuk version. Here are some examples from Scene 3 [the lines are in the order of (1) the English translation, (2) the Japanese translation and (3) the transcription of the Japanese with the number of syllables]:

Chorus: In the dead of the night with the moon shining bright,

My love kept saying that he would come.

But as dawn is about to break, he still has yet to come.

合唱：月夜の丑三つ時 明るい月夜、

来るよ 来るよと言葉だけ、

夜はもう明けるのに、

あなたの消息 とんと聞こえず。

Tsukiyo no [4] ushi mitsu doki [6] akarui tsuki yo [7]

kuru yo kuru yo to [7] kotoba dake [5]

yoru wa mō [5] akeru no ni [5]

anata no shōsoku [8] tonto kikoezu [7]

…

Juri: Pitapat, pitapat, what could it be, thump, thump.

It is pointless, thump, pitapat, thud, thump

Thump, thump …

ジュリ：どきどき なぜかどきどき 意味もなく

どきどき どきどき そわそわ、

どきどき きゅんきゅん…

doki doki [4] naze ka doki doki [7] imi mo naku [5]

doki doki [4] doki doki [4] sowa sowa [4]

doki doki [4] kyun kyun [4]

By adding the seven-five rhythms, the Japanese translation was able to recreate an indigenous element that had been adopted in the early twentieth century movement to reform Kabuki and Shinpa, which influenced Changgeuk in its early years.

The second strategy adopted in A|S|I|A’s Japanese translation was to maintain and even highlight the foreignness of the source text to reflect the estrangement of Japan in Korea’s postcolonial discourses. This strategy was adopted not only in the Japanese translation of Romeo and Juliet but also in the translation of other Korean productions collected in the archive that emphasize their cultural specificities.

A|S|I|A’s video player allows translators and editors to add notes to the script, which are time coded and appear as the video reaches that time code. In the Japanese translations of Korean productions, culturally specific elements are explained in detail in the notes. For example, in Cho Munju’s translation of Theatre Company Michoo’s Merchant Hwang of Mapo (Bae 2005), which is an adaptation of The Merchant of Venice and Romeo and Juliet into Madang theatrical style that employs a range of indigenous art forms, all names of the performance styles referred to in the performance, traditional musical instruments used by the musicians on stage, and myths, legends and folktales quoted in the production are transliterated into Japanese Katakana characters and annotated with translator’s notes.

It is critical that these terms are not translated into Japanese using Kanji characters, which easily enable Japanese readers to guess what they mean, but transliterated in Katakana characters that do not make any sense in themselves, so readers are forced to refer to the notes. The extended series of Katakana words make the Japanese translation rather hard to follow and alien to the audience. This very lack of smoothness can be a strategy to translate the postcolonial project of Korea that has estranged the former colonizer.

In The Translator’s Invisibility: A History of Translation, Lawrence Venuti argues that the priority given to translator invisibility in the history of English language translations can be seen as “an amazingly successful concealment of … the multiple hierarchies and exclusions in which it is implicated” (1995, 16–17). Referring to Schleiermacher’s concept of “foreignizing translation” that opposes an ethnocentric reduction of the foreign text to target language cultural values and highlights the linguistic and cultural difference of the foreign text, Venuti suggests

[I]nsofar as foreignizing translation seeks to restrain the ethnocentric violence of translation, it is highly desirable today, a strategic cultural intervention in the current state of world affairs, pitched against the hegemonic English-language nations and the unequal cultural exchanges in which they engage their global others. (1995, 20)

His argument provides, as Anthony Pym points out, a concrete strategy to negotiate differences and thus to resist Anglo-American cultural hegemony (Pym 1996, 166–67).

Venuti’s key example of foreignizing translation is Francis Newman’s controversial archaic version of The Iliad published in 1856. According to Venuti, Newman’s strategy of using archaic words in his translation is an effective strategy to reveal the foreignness of the source text and culture, which can highlight the resistance of the source culture to being assimilated into the hegemonic target culture. At the same time, however, Newman provided glossaries attached to his translation to reduce the incomprehensibility of the translated text that sounds foreign and alien to his readers (Venuti 1995, 124).

This strategy is particularly effective when there is a historical power imbalance between the source and the target cultures, as in the case of Korea and Japan. The lack of smoothness in Japanese translation would represent the postcolonial resistance in Korea against Japan’s hegemonic position in the history of the two countries. A|S|I|A’s time-coded annotation system provides an effective way of creating “glossaries” to assist the readers in comprehending the transliterated Korean words. The notes on the concepts, aesthetics and traditions of the source culture that may be foreign to the target audience appear as the line is spoken in the video, while the translation can maintain the foreignness that highlights its historicity. At the same time, the presentation format in A|S|I|A, in which the translated text appears in the box below the video and the notes appear in the Notepad located on the side of the video, juxtaposes the different translations – Korean translation and adaptation of Shakespeare on the video screen, its Japanese translation in the text box and the annotations in the Notepad – on the same screen and even highlights the complexity of the inter-Asian translation practice.

In the translation of Romeo and Juliet into Japanese, the A|S|I|A team adopted several translation strategies, each of which responded to the historicity of the translation and the performance style. Through combining them, they tried to find a balance between the reflection of the politics behind the Korean invention of a “traditional” performing arts genre and the considerations on history of inter-Asian translation.

6. Conclusion

As a multilingual online digital archive, A|S|I|A creates translations between East Asian languages. This process requires the investigation of historicity in various layers of translation of Shakespeare in the region. The productions collected in the archive have already gone through a process of translation from the text in Shakespeare’s English into an Asian performance language. As the example of the Changgeuk version of Romeo and Juliet illustrates, the Korean translation not only demonstrates the negotiations between east and west, but also reflects postcolonial national projects of identity building. The translation of such a production into the language of the former colonizer is thus a challenging and sensitive task that requires historical investigations as well as a balanced approach to reflect the historicity of translations.

The historicity observed in the translation of Romeo and Juliet is rich and complex, yet it represents merely a small portion of the history of inter-Asian translation practices. Among the collections in A|S|I|A alone, there are a number of productions translated and adapted into East Asian languages and performance forms, such as the Huaju and Beijing Opera of China, Madang theatre of Korea and Noh and Shingeki in Japan, that have been translated into other East Asian languages. Examinations of these would reveal the even more complex negotiations between cultures that stand to challenge the simple framework of the east-west binary.

The flexibility of a digital platform like A|S|I|A provides a means to deal with this complexity. Various ways to make annotations can accommodate a strategy of foreignizing translation as practised in the Japanese translations of Korean productions in A|S|I|A, while maintaining comprehensibility for the audience. The metadata of each production provided by the editors is a further tool for contextualizing the development of the translation by providing additional information on the historical and cultural points of reference. The platform enables the complex historicity to be juxtaposed, thus enabling the multiplicity of discourses on the translation to be observed, considered and explored.