When he was five years old, his father sent him to Fengshan primary school in 12. From then on, he trained a pair of "iron feet", went home for dinner at noon and walked 48 miles back and forth every day. He is intelligent and studious. Graduated from primary school and admitted to Shunping County. Because he is far from home, his father will not let him go. During his stay at home, fortunately, his well-read uncle taught him arithmetic and made him recite ancient poems and essays. He recited them fluently and liked them. It was also during this period that he read 300 Tang Poems, China's View on Ancient Literature, Water Margin, Dream of Red Mansions and other classic works, and became interested in literature. 12 years old, admitted to Baoding Yude Middle School. This time, his father, pushed by his relatives and friends, allowed him to live on campus. In middle school, he likes learning English and reading famous foreign literature. At that time, he first read the Divine Comedy translated by Qian Daosun and left a deep impression.
1925, graduated from middle school and was admitted to the liberal arts class of Peking University. A teenager from a remote mountain village was admitted to the most famous university in Beijing, and he was very excited. I studied in the preparatory course and entered the undergraduate course, but because of my poor family, I had to leave Peking University and was admitted to the Foreign Languages Department of Tsinghua University with a grant.
1927 to 193 1, majoring in English with a minor in German in Tsinghua University. Every morning, he would read Shakespeare's King Lear or Milton's Paradise Lost in the quiet and elegant campus. In the evening, he sneaked into the brightly lit library to catch up with the foreign language homework assigned by the teacher. In senior three, he took French and Italian, especially the latter. Whenever he listens to Professor Pollard Urquhart, a British teacher, explaining the long poem The Divine Comedy and reading the fragments of the Divine Comedy, he is always moved by this rhythmic poem. In the end, this shocking masterpiece fascinated him. His four years in Tsinghua were four years of diligent study, 193 1 year. When he graduated from the Department of Foreign Languages, he was promoted directly to the Institute of Foreign Languages and Literature of Tsinghua University Research Institute with high marks. Master students don't have to pay tuition fees, but also enjoy the living allowance of 30 yuan every semester. One year, because of his different academic performance, he won a scholarship of Zhou Yichun (then president of Tsinghua University) 100 yuan. This scholarship is enough to pay for three semesters, and only one graduate student wins this honor every year. His master thesis is a comparative study of metaphors between Dante and Milton. In the same year that the master's thesis was passed, Tian was sent abroad by Tsinghua University. At that time, most people chose to go to Britain and America. Perhaps attracted by Dante's divine comedy, I decided to go to Italy (which also included the consideration of saving some tuition fees) and chose Dante's hometown Florence. Before going, he used his summer vacation to go home to visit relatives. He made an appointment with Liu (the daughter of Tsinghua University's former vice principal) who had been in contact for many years.
After arriving in Florence, he specialized in Italian literature. He carefully read the works of Dante, Petrarch and Boccaccio, three outstanding literary figures in the Italian Renaissance, and also read15-16th century Italian important humanist writer Aristo's narrative poem "Crazy Roland", Machiavelli's cartoon works that wrote "The Prince" and the poet Tasso's "Liberation". In addition, he also dabbled in a large number of works of Italian aestheticism and grotesque in 19-20 century. What impressed him most was the most important humanist scholar and poet Poliziano (Angelo Politiano1454-1494), who decided to write his doctoral thesis on Poliziano. His tutor, Professor Momigliano, is a Dante scientist. He had hoped that he could write an article about Kyle Poirot and China. In order to test his writing ability, the tutor asked him to write a report on the Italian philosopher benedetto croce (1866- 1952).
At this time, Tian heard the landlord say that Italians learn Divine Comedy in middle schools, which made him realize that he had to improve his Italian. In order to write a good paper, he specially invited a tutor to tutor for two hours every day, which not only improved his Italian reading and writing ability, but also learned to speak. In the meantime, he carefully pondered an academic report about Croce, which was quickly recognized by his tutor. Since then, in addition to taking some special classes and listening to the necessary academic reports of his tutor Mu Migliano, he began to concentrate on studying the life and achievements of Polic Yano and collecting comments from Polic Yano's works and literary historians everywhere. It takes three years or more to write a doctoral thesis, even for domestic students. As an international student, Tian wrote his thesis "A Study on Poliziano's Criticism" in just two years, and passed the defense in the autumn of 1937. At the age of 28, he obtained a doctorate in literature from the University of Florence.
Will you go or stay after you get your doctorate? He misses his parents and fiancee in his hometown. At the beginning of 1938, he bid farewell to his tutor and the University of Florence and prepared to return to China via Germany and Switzerland. However, when passing by the University of G? ttingen in Germany, he felt that the opportunity was rare, so he used the money saved from studying in Italy to listen to German and Italian classes and improved his German and Italian level. From 1939 to 10, the European war was everywhere, and the motherland was occupied by the Japanese invaders. He arrived in Haiphong, Vietnam by boat from England, then entered Liuzhou, Guangxi from Haiphong, entered Kunming via Yishan, and took a long-distance bus to Zunyi. On the recommendation of Professor Wu Mi, he was hired as a professor of foreign languages at Zhejiang University, where he moved, aged 3 1. Tian majored in English and minored in German and Italian in his early years in China. Major in Italian and minor in French and Latin in Italy; However, in Zhejiang University and Wuhan University, he has always regarded his minor in German as a second foreign language professor, and only after he entered Peking University did he become one of the key professors in the German teaching and research section in the west of Peking University. Since then, German has become his main teaching content, including advanced languages and literature. He is very satisfied, and explaining German literature seems to be his spiritual destination.
Because he comes from the countryside, he is particularly interested in the works describing rural life, which is why he is deeply attracted by the pastoral "Bibian". As early as 1950s and 1960s, when he read the works of Keller, a Swiss writer, describing the countryside, he immediately produced a * * * song, which was quickly translated into Keller's.
Five or six novellas, such as Romeo and Juliet in the Country and Thelma Devilla's Man, reveal their profound literary connotations and talents with their accurate translation and elegant writing. After translating several novellas, he found that Keller's masterpiece The Green Henry was unknown to readers in China, so he planned to use his spare time to translate it. Unexpectedly, just with the idea of writing, the department actually let him go to the countryside to participate in the "four clean-ups" movement. Soon, the "Cultural Revolution" broke out. They transferred back to the school, and the leader informed him to go to the Foreign Languages Bureau to participate in the German translation of Mao Xuan. Only after reporting for duty did I know that I had translated a little red book first, and then translated other works. He works hard. Every time he goes to the Foreign Languages Bureau, he always squeezes the bus at the west gate of Peking University at 6: 30 in the morning and arrives at 7: 30. Twice, the bus couldn't wait, and he was afraid of being late. He simply walked from the west gate of Peking University to the Baiwanzhuang Foreign Languages Bureau, which was about ten kilometers away and took nearly two hours. He thinks hiking is normal, because he grew up in walking to school, returned from abroad to Zhejiang University in Zunyi, Guizhou, and often walked. He worked hard for the German translation of Mao Xuan for more than two years. At first, he thought it was the "trust" of the leader. Who knows that he 1969 just returned to school from the translation post in the autumn, but he was treated as a "white expert" and was "coldly treated". At the beginning of 1970, according to the requirements of the "Central Cultural Revolution", the superior asked a scholar of foreign languages to take a math test, and as a result, he got 0. This is obviously ultra vires, making candidates lose their dignity and changing the law to ugliness.
197 1 Ask Tian and other teachers to compile English textbooks for primary and secondary schools; And ask them to attend classes in the primary school attached to the middle school of Peking University; Because of the sudden plane crash in Lin Biao, the matter was abandoned.
It was not until 1974- 1975 that "classes resumed and there was a revolution" that he was able to use his holiday to "hide in a small building" and quietly translate "Green Henry" with a pen. This is an "educational novel" that describes the ups and downs of the protagonist's life and finally wins public recognition through his own efforts. It is also an "educational novel" in which the protagonist tries to reflect on himself after experiencing the success or failure of art and love in life. The protagonist is a "peasant child" and the translator is also a rural person. This translation permeates the translator's enthusiasm and efforts. This novel is divided into two parts, published by People's Literature Publishing House in 1980 and 1983 as a series of foreign literary masterpieces. Zhou Yang, then vice president of China Academy of Social Sciences, entrusted Mr. Feng Zhi, director of the Institute of Foreign Languages of the Academy of Social Sciences, to find a translator to retranslate the Italian literary masterpiece Divine Comedy. Tian, who is over 70 years old, is one of the two translators that Mr. Feng Zhi appreciates most (the other is Mr. Bian). Therefore, Professor Tian was appointed as a "special researcher" by the School of Foreign Languages, and entrusted him to specialize in the translation of The Divine Comedy, which Tian Lao readily accepted. Previously, there were seven translations of Divine Comedy in China, from Qian Daosun during the May 4th Movement to Zhu after liberation, either abridged or complete, but most of them were translated from other languages. Now, 74-year-old Tian wants to translate directly from Dante's Italian original, but he lacks the latest version of scientific research results after World War II. At this time, Professor Blanca, President of the International Italian Language and Literature Society, visited China and met Tian. During the chat, he was overjoyed to find that they were students of the same teacher. Tian teacher told the other party that there was no updated version of Divine Comedy, and Blanca readily promised to send a brand-new version as a gift after returning home. Soon, Tian began his grand translation project.
However, he also encountered many difficulties when he started translating. Because the original poem is poetic, he consulted many translations of Indo-European languages. Considering the rhythm of China's poetic style, he thinks Dante himself has discussed that it is difficult to achieve the poetic rhyme of the original poem. So after careful consideration, he decided to use prose translation. It is not easy to translate the profound connotation and writing style of the original work with prose. Reading Tian Lao's Chinese translation carefully, it is hard not to admire his sharp translation and beautiful wording, but this beautiful prose, which flows from the translator's pen, is as hard as creation. The first episode of The Divine Comedy translated by Tian Lao included 70,000 words of text and notes of160,000 words, which took more than three years to complete from the autumn of 1983 to the month of 1986. Since the winter of 1986, the translation of the second episode of the Divine Comedy "Purgatory" has a text of 70,000 words, while the annotated text has as many as 340,000 words, and the full text is * * * 4 1 10,000 words. Few people know what happened to Tian Lao when he translated: as early as the end of the first episode, he got cancer, and after three months of radiotherapy, he had to go home and rest for more than a year. Later, his physical strength recovered slightly, and he continued to devote himself to translation with high enthusiasm and amazing perseverance. By 1995, the translation of purgatory took nearly ten years to succeed. At this time, Mr. Feng Zhi, the poet who entrusted him to translate The Divine Comedy, has passed away.
When the third episode of the Divine Comedy "Heaven" was put on the translation agenda, his wife, who loved him deeply, fell ill. Taking care of his wife and doing complicated housework all fall on his beloved daughter Tian Hui and his diligent son-in-law. After careful treatment by the hospital, his wife turned the corner, and he made a final sprint to the third episode with peace of mind, but the translation speed was greatly reduced. After three years,180,000 words of "The Kingdom of Heaven" was completely translated into 1998, but he only completed the first six chapters of the annotation part, and the remaining 2 1 chapters all depended on his assistant with 30 years of working experience in Italy.
By then, Tian was an 89-year-old man. This divine comedy of nearly 900,000 words is the most important milestone in his literary translation career. After the publication of the first episode of The Divine Comedy "Hell" 1993, the Italian government awarded Tian the "National Translation Award", but he kept his mouth shut in front of his friends and colleagues.
In the New Year message of Journal of Peking University from 65438 to 0994, there is an evocative remark by Tian: "Looking back on my life, there are many experiences worth summing up. I think that if a person wants to succeed in a certain subject, although talent is very important, it is more important to have a stable social environment. I come from the old society. In the war-torn era before liberation, there was no learning environment. Therefore, I especially cherish the great situation of political stability, people living and working in peace and contentment, and the country's growing prosperity ... "These words can be said to be a wise old intellectual in China who has gone for nearly a hundred years.
1March, 998 19, the Italian president expressed his heartfelt thanks to Professor Tian and decided to award him the highest meritorious medal to express Italy's gratitude and appreciation. The president said that he hoped to meet Professor Tian during his visit to China.
This meeting was realized during the Italian President's visit to China in 1999, and the President also awarded Tian Italy the "First-class Knight Medal".
On October 6th, 65438/kloc-0, Mr Tian died suddenly at the age of 9 1.