Xu Mingjie Comments on "Gothic"|The Western History Behind "Gothic"

Xu Mingjie, Department of History, Fudan University

The Goths: Lost Civilizations, David M. Gwynn, Reaktion Books, 2017

"From History to Legend: Gothic Being "Defined", [English] David M. Gwen, translated by Cao Lei, China Social Sciences Press • Gulou Xinyue Published in December 2020, 298 pages, 82.00 yuan

One

In the years of studying Western history, "Gothic" has always been a familiar and unfamiliar word. I say familiar because the word can be seen everywhere in related books on Western history and culture. Take the major I am involved in - European Medieval History as an example. Almost all textbooks will definitely mention this word, especially two parts: one is the "Goths" who were active in European history from the fourth to eighth centuries. They once invaded It plundered the Roman Empire and established a new kingdom; the second is the Gothic architecture popular in the 12th to 16th centuries, which is characterized by tall, magnificent and beautiful. Moreover, the use of the word "Gothic" has broken through the historical category of the Middle Ages, and is often used to describe a culture with a thrilling or gloomy color since modern times, involving many fields such as literature, film and television, music, and fashion. For example, many films of Hollywood ghost director Tim Burton reflect the influence of this culture. For example, the dark and weird castle in "Edward Scissorhands" is a typical representative of Gothic elements.

Castle from the movie "Edward Scissorhands"

However, such a seemingly simple common word often makes people feel "strange". Although Gothic culture is called "Gothic", it has no direct relationship with "Gothic people". For example, Gothic architecture was not created by the "Goths", because this architecture was first popular in the middle ages, when the "Goths" as an independent nation had long since disappeared in history. Many other elements of Gothic culture that are popular in modern times are even more distant from "Goths", that is, there is not much connection between the original meaning of the word "Gothic" and its extended meaning. That being the case, why does Gothic culture have the name "Gothic"?

"The Goths: Lost Civilizations" (The Goths: Lost Civilizations, hereinafter referred to as "Goths") written by British scholar David M. The complete history of "Goths" from ancient times to the present is told. The book is divided into two parts: the first half deals with the real Goths in history, and tells the history of the rise and fall of this Germanic people group, that is, how it migrated from Scandinavia to various parts of Europe, then invaded the Roman Empire and Under the leadership of the leader Alaric, he plundered the city of Rome in 410 AD, and then established the Ostrogothic and Visigothic kingdoms, but in the end it was inevitable that the kingdom would perish and the nation would be dispersed. The second half deals with the history of how Europeans understood the "Goths" after the Gothic Kingdom perished and the Goths disappeared as an independent nation. During the Renaissance and Reformation, two distinct interpretations of the Goths emerged, sometimes portrayed as "destructive savages" and sometimes hailed as representatives of the "vitality and freedom" of the Germanic peoples . Then, the impression of "Goths" in the field of public cognition became farther and farther away from the real "Goths" in history, so the word "Goths" gradually broke away from the scope of history, and was used in literature, architecture, film, music and fashion. Trends and many other fields have been greatly interpreted and played, and then formed many new meanings. By tracing the history of "Goths" from ancient times to the present, the author not only fully presents the multiple meanings of the word "Goths", but also explains the root of the difference between the original meaning and the extended meaning of the word.

two

Although "The Gothic" is a popular historical reading, it is written by a professional historian. The author is a professor (Reader) of the History Department of Royal Holloway College, University of London. He has written a lot, especially good at the study of ancient Roman history , so he is naturally quite familiar with the history of the Goths who invaded and contributed to the decline of the Roman Empire. The chapters of the book are arranged in chronological order, telling the development story of the "Goths" from ancient times to the present, various original historical materials at your fingertips, as well as the historical chronology, extended reading guide and index other than the main text, reflecting the rigor Academic research attitude and rational view of history. It is worth mentioning that the extended reading guide of the book lists all kinds of important academic works related to the topic of the chapter. These works are the basic documents for writing this book, which shows the author's academic taste. The author's style of writing is also quite particular, and while the writing is popular and fluent, it can also be rigorous and standardized.

Most of the research works on "Goths" often only involve a part of its history, even a small fragment of it. "Second", it cannot eliminate the question of why the word "Gothic" has such multiple and complex meanings. And "Gothic" is a history that connects ancient and modern times and integrates disciplines, so it can meet the needs of readers who want to see the whole picture. As mentioned above, the book consists of two parts, namely the real history of the Goths and the cultural heritage left by the Goths after their disappearance as an independent nation. However, there is a clear historical divide from the point of view. The first half roughly covers the period from the fourth to the eighth century, and the research on related issues often has a strong historical research color, while the second half covers the time period from the fifteenth century to the present, because it involves cultural heritage, which is often the category of cultural and artistic research . From the perspective of academic research, the author Gwen breaks through his own research expertise and transcends professional restrictions, and includes the second half of the content into his writing, thus forming a "Gothic" about two thousand years from ancient times to the present. Complete history, this kind of courage to try is to be appreciated.

Not only that, but this work also embodies the charm of "conceptual history" research. "Concept history" is a branch of Western new historiography in the 20th century. Its advocates emphasize that "concepts" in language are similar to unearthed cultural relics and historical classics, and are also carriers of historical accumulation. By studying the formation of various basic concepts in language , evolution, application and its social influence can reveal the historical change process from a new dimension. The research proposition of "Conceptual History" is similar to Mr. Chen Yinke's statement that "Any interpretation of a word is a cultural history". As for the book "Goths", the author revolves around the concept of "Goths", and through historical tracing from ancient times to the present, fully presents the evolution of the historical memory of "Goths" in different eras. Especially in the second half, the author combines the changes of the Western world since modern times, especially the Renaissance, the Reformation, and later major historical events such as the British Revolution, the American Revolution, the French Revolution, the Industrial Revolution, and the development of nation-states. How molecules reinterpret the legacy of the "Goths", and then form complex impressions of "Goths", and these impressions are getting farther and farther away from the real "Goths" in history. It can be said that the past has passed for thousands of years, and the meaning of words has changed. In other words, the author establishes a close connection between the "thousands of years" of Western history and the "change in meaning" of the concept "Gothic", so "Gothic" is not only a "Gothic" book. It is a complete history, and to some extent, it is also a Western history from a "Gothic" perspective.

As a professional researcher of Western medieval history, I have special feelings when reading this book. The activities of the Goths from the fourth to the eighth centuries, including the invasion and plunder of the Roman Empire and the establishment of new kingdoms, are an important chapter in the history of medieval Europe. Since then, the Goths have disappeared as an independent nation, but the history of the "Goths" still has an important influence on Western history for a long time, and has become a long-lasting memory of Westerners, which continues to this day. In fact, the historical memory of the "Goths" in modern times is to a large extent a clear representation of Westerners' medieval concepts. Many intellectuals in the Renaissance decried the "Goths" as the "cruel destroyers" of Roman civilization, and these people also often regarded the Middle Ages as the "Dark Ages". The opponents portrayed the "Goths" as a symbol of "vigor and freedom" of the Germanic people and even as a pursuer of constitutionalism. Naturally, this group of people also tended to think that the Middle Ages was an important stage of development of Western civilization. The views of the two schools are praised and criticized, although their positions are completely different, and they are constantly arguing with each other, but this just shows the important position of the "Goths" and the Middle Ages in Western history. The author concluded at the end of the book: "The real Goths in history have long gone, but the cultural heritage they left behind exists so widely that it is impossible to completely disappear." Although this sentence refers to "Goths", but It seems equally apt to describe the Middle Ages.

Three

Of course, this book is not without shortcomings. As a "general history" of the "Goths", although the content is complete, there are occasional omissions. The most obvious flaw is that the content of the second half is relatively weak. On the one hand, this is due to chapter design issues. The main part of the book has eight chapters, and the two parts have four chapters each. The author's intention is to achieve a balance, but the historical clues involved in the second half are much more complicated than the first half. The historical documents are also much richer, so the even allocation of space leads to the restriction of the second half of the discussion. On the other hand, the author's academic expertise is ancient history, and he will inevitably be unfamiliar with modern Western history. This also makes the writing in the second half less sophisticated than the first half, and it seems a bit powerless. A typical example is Chapter 7 "The Struggle for Gothic Identity", which discusses how various countries in early modern Europe, especially Spain, Britain, Germany and the United States, regarded the Gothic cultural heritage as the core content of their national identity be reinterpreted and reshaped. Obviously, this topic involves a lot of content, not only covering many countries in the West, but also spanning hundreds of years. However, due to the limited space, the author can only give an overview of the complex history. It's just superficial, not deep enough. Another outstanding example is Chapter 8 "Gothic Culture", which introduces various forms of Gothic culture from ancient times to the present, but it is a pity that the important content of "Gothic fonts" is omitted. It should be noted that this is a very popular form of manuscript font in medieval European history.

Gothic Typefaces in Medieval European Manuscripts

Although the book has some problems, it is still a good historical reading on the whole. Readers who are interested in Gothic history and culture may wish to read it. Unfortunately, this evaluation only applies to the original book, not the Chinese translation (published by China Social Science Press in December 2020). I read through the Chinese translation against the original book, and found that there were many mistakes and omissions, which were completely unexpected.

First of all, the translation of the title is too flippant. The English title of the original book is "The Goths: Lost Civilizations", which should be translated as "The Goths: Lost Civilizations" in order to adhere to the rigorous attitude of being an academic work, but the Chinese translation has more additional translations "From History to Legend: Defined by " "The Gothic", which is far from the original text, and this extension does not fit the theme of the whole book. In addition, the translation of chapter titles has the same problem. For example, the original English title of the second chapter is "Alaric and the Sack of Rome", which should be translated as "Alaric and the Sack of Rome", but the Chinese version is translated as "Alaric and the Sack of Rome". Not exactly. The original English title of Chapter 7 is "The Struggle for Gothic Identity", which should be translated as "Struggle for Gothic Identity", but the Chinese version is translated as "Struggle for Gothic Identity", which is obviously different from the original meaning.

There are many omissions in the translation of the text. Let's take the sixth chapter "The Liberty of the Barbarian" that I read intensively as an example. The translation on page 147 mentions that the lineage of the Goths "emerged in Visigothic Spain in the 17th century", which is obviously wrong, since the original mentions the "7th century". The translation on the same page indicates that the original historical material of a quotation comes from "The History of Gothic Kings and Etymology", but the original text is actually ""Etymologies (Etymologies)" 9.2.26-7", which shows that the translator not only put the title of the book The translation is wrong, and important information of the relevant chapter entries of the cited works are omitted. Pages 156 and 160 mention that the Goths plundered Rome under the leadership of "Attila the Hun", but the original text mentions the leader of the Goths "Totila". Page 174 quotes a poem by the famous British writer John Dryden, but the translation misses the last sentence "And Rhyme began t’enervate Poetry", which may be translated as "The melody of the poem is also dull".

In addition, the translator will not only misunderstand the meaning of the specific sentences in the original text, but also lack the necessary common sense of relevant history, resulting in a serious discrepancy between the meaning of the translated text and the original text. For example, it is mentioned on page 167 that "the Anglo-Saxons, as a branch of the Germanic people, have never succumbed to any external forces, and their descendants dominate the entire Western European region." Unfamiliar, as Anglo-Saxon rule was limited to England. I checked the original book and found out that the original text of this sentence is "The Anglo-Saxons in turn were just one branch of the Germanic tribes who had resisted any foreign yoke and whose descendants ruled over western Europe", which should be translated as "The Germanic tribes from The Anglo-Saxons were only one of those races whose descendants had not succumbed to any foreign power and ruled the whole of Western Europe." What's more, the translation of a sentence on page 178 completely misinterpreted the meaning of the original text. The translation says: "At the same time, the concepts such as the Gothic constitution and free parliament contained in the cultural image of 'Gothic' appear to be less important", which does not match the context. In fact, the original text of this sentence is "But the 'Gothic constitution', and the parliamentary liberty that it enshrined, was no less significant", it should be translated as "But the 'Gothic constitution' and the parliamentary liberty that it advocates are equally important." .

The translation problems mentioned above are not limited to Chapter 6, but actually appear generally in other chapters as well. In addition, the most puzzling thing is that, for some unknown reason, the translator often expounds or modifies the content of the original book at will, adding many "translator's notes". Of course, these annotations also have positive effects, and many of them involve the explanation of proper nouns, which really help non-professional readers understand the content of the whole book, but there are also some inexplicable contents in these "translator's notes". For example, Note 1 on page 3 says “The theoretical basis of this book is knowledge archeology and genealogy, and readers are advised to refer to related works by Foucault.” However, the original book does not mention Foucault at all, and the two concepts of knowledge archaeology and genealogy do not appear in the main text. It can be seen that the translator interprets it completely according to his own understanding, which does not conform to the original author’s original intention. . In addition, the original book originally had an "Index" column, but in the Chinese translation, it has become an "important translation comparison". What is also puzzling is that the segmentation of the Chinese translation is also quite different from the original book. The original complete paragraphs are often artificially split into two or more scattered paragraphs, although the shorter paragraphs are easier to read. Easy, but this move will also cut off the original complete writing ideas, which in turn will affect the readers' reading experience.

These problems in the translation of "The Gothic" are not isolated cases. In fact, we can more or less see them in many foreign language translations. The root cause is that the current fast food culture is prevalent and lacks a cautious attitude. Recently, there has been an upsurge in introducing translated foreign language history books in my country's book publishing industry, including both professional academic monographs and popular best-selling books. This phenomenon is naturally gratifying, but the fly in the ointment is that the standards of these translations are often uneven, and many works of average or even poor quality flood the book market, which not only wastes resources, but also spreads wrong knowledge and harms readers. Introducing translations of works in foreign languages ​​is a good thing to benefit scholars and readers, but translation work is not easy, so we must be cautious and serious!

Editor in charge: Zheng Shiliang

Proofreading: Zhang Yan