Chapter 37 Translator's Notes on Meringer's "On the History of Literature" (1)

Translator's Notes on Meringer's "On the History of Literature" (1) This article by Ms. Barin is also very beneficial to Chinese readers.The publishing place of the complete works has been found in the note [2] of the first paragraph of this article, so I will not repeat them here. The Japanese translation, as far as the translator knows, is "Historical Materialism", translated by Soji Okaguchi [3]; there are two versions about literary history: "World Literature and the Proletariat" and "On Aesthetics and Literary History" , translated by Hiroshi Kawaguchi [4], both published by Congwenge in Tokyo.There is only one in China: "Literary Review", translated by Xuefeng, one of the "Scientific Art Theory Series" [5] published by Shuimo Bookstore, but it seems to be rarely seen recently.On December 3, 1931, Feng Yu translated it with notes.

※ ※ ※ 〔1〕 This article, together with the translation of "Meringer's "On the History of Literature"" in Bahrain, Germany, was originally published in the fourth issue of the first volume of the "Beidou" monthly magazine in December 1931, signed by Feng Yu. Mehring (F. Mehring, 1846-1919), a general translator of Mehring, a German Marxist, historian and literary critic.He is the author of "History of German Social Democratic Party", "Biography of Marx", "Legend of Lessing" and so on. 〔2〕Indicated in the first paragraph of this article is: Soziologische Verlags-anstalt, that is, Sociology Publishing House.

〔3〕Okaguchi Zongji is suspected to be Okada Zongji (1902-1975), a Japanese politician and doctor of economics, engaged in research on the farmers' association movement and agricultural issues. [4] Hiroshi Kawaguchi, Japanese critic and translator.Formerly known as Yamaguchi Tadayuki, he served as Secretary-General of the Central Committee of the All-Japan Proletarian Writers Union.There are translations of Merlin's "World Literature and the Proletariat" and so on. 〔5〕Scientific Art Theory Series translated Marxist literature and art theory series, edited by Feng Xuefeng, published successively from 1929 to 1931.According to the publication notice, sixteen volumes were originally planned to be published, but only eight volumes were published due to the ban by the Kuomintang authorities."On Art" (by Plekhanov), "Literature and Criticism" (by Lunacharsky) and "Literary Policy" translated by Lu Xun have all been included in this series.