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Criticisms of Richard Wilhelm

dannyl

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Hi there

I joined this board a while back, but hardly ever posted. I have more net time at the moment so I thought I'd ask a question or two.

I noticed in another thread someone said that Richard Wilhelm's translation of the Yi had received a lot of criticism round here. Could someone be so kind as to either point me in the direction of threads criticising Wilhlem, or summarise the main cricisms for me? I ask because Wilhelm is my favoured translation, the only one I really use. Thanks in advance.

Secondly, what is the translation that's mostly refered to around here - in Hilary's newsletter and so on? Am I right in assuming it's Steven Karcher's?

Thanks again

Danny
 

heylise

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There is criticism on Wilhelm, but most here think he is very good. Me too, even though I also have criticism on some things.

Karcher is a big favorite for some, but others cannot do that much with it. It is a special approach, and it depends if you have the kind of mind which jumps up at what he says, or the kind which just reacts like "huh??"
I myself usually wonder where all the festivals and ghosts come from, and that kind of questioning mind makes the answer run away.

An excellent one is the big one Ritsema and Karcher made together, but it is also a bit the opposite of Wilhelm: nothing poetic. Which I appreciate so much in Wilhelm.
Everybody has his/her own favorites. There has been a thread about it. I tried to find it, but I get an error message when I hit 'perform search', so you will have to search yourself, or ask someone else.

My favorites:
Wilhelm
Ritsema-Karcher
Balkin
Lynn
Cordiglia
Wu Jing-Nuan
Jou Tsung-Hwa
and everybody who took the trouble of actually translating from the Chinese.

But since not one satisfied me entirely, I ended up making my own.

LiSe
 
B

bruce

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Hi Danny,

That may have been me who most recently mentioned something about Wilhelm receiving criticism, and I was sort of corrected.

While Wilhelm is still my ?go to? translation (force of habit, possibly), I?ve made a couple of critical adjustments in reading him. For one, terms such as ?the Superior Man? have been modified to read as ?young noble?, the male superiority which is shown throughout Wilhelm, and the whole good/bad representation has been modified with yang/yin, light/dark, etc. There is a strong Judeo/Christian and Confucian influence throughout Wilhelm, which is no longer useful to me.

All that said, Wilhelm, for me, is still rich in useful metaphor, and with the above exceptions, has proven accurate in real life scenarios for the better part of my lifetime.

Karcher does seem to be a favorite of Hilary, Kevin and some others here. Perhaps they can offer more to you on that.
 

dannyl

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Thanks very much folks.

LiSe, thanks very much. I haven't read any of Karcher's stuff myself, I don't like haven't too many translations and so on. I've rather just divine and then try and connect it too my life. I think this is where the "poetry" comes into it. That said, I'm defintely going to check out your site a bit more.

Anyone else help me with the thread that LiSe mentions?

Bruce, thanks for your comments. I'll try and bear your adjustments in mind as I read.

"has proven accurate in real life scenarios for the better part of my lifetime".

Me too! Well, the last few years at least, and many more to come I hope.
 
E

ewald

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While working on my own translation, I've had a chance to compare Wilhelm's work to the original Chinese. I find that he took quite some liberties in translating that original text, he's not really faithful to it. Karcher is IMO much better in that respect, though he has some weird things with ghosts and the like.

Wilhelm's translating of the Chinese character Fu with "sincerity" is one of these ways the Confucian influence shows, as sincerity is valued a lot by Confucians. (The Yi predates Confucius, by the way.) I find that the text makes a lot more sense by translating that with "trust" or "confidence."

Wilhelm has had a really big influence on the modern interpretation of the Yi Jing. Perhaps not in an academic sense, but his translation seems to be the one that is most read and used for divining. Also people writing new translations intended for divining, are usually influenced by him - and are bound to repeat his mistakes. I've personally found it a lot of work to get beyond his interpretations of the Chinese, for instance the places where he placed comma's in the text that is originally without interpunction.
 
J

jesed

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Hi Danny

Just in case the comment could be useful

I always think that contrasting interpretation against empirical facts is the best test for translations and comments about Yi Jing.

In the "Friend's area" is a post about line 22.3. ("Job oportunity" http://www.onlineclarity.co.uk/I_Ching_community/messages/92/5916.html?1139838080)


If you take the translation and comments about that line fo several books (I had do it with Wilhelm; Yuan; Ni; Docurant; Brown; Karcher and Cleary) and contrast them against the final development of the real situation, you can find that the more accurate was Wilhelm... and Karcher (I took "Signs of Love" and not Ristema-Karcher) was definetely wrong

So, even if several times I've hear about "too much confucio" and things like that, I continuously find that Wilhelm helps better.
 

matt

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Hey Dannyl
happy.gif


I'm not as familair with many translations/interpretations as others around here, there are only a handful I have looked into, so I apolgise to anyone out there whom I've missed. But Wilhelm is very much focused on the rights/wrongs and goods/evils of a situation, and his interpretation of 'Great' and 'Small' is also biased towards 'Great' being the better of the two. So it didnt feel right to me. Karcher's approach is fresh and bright, although like LiSe said, he does seem to have a few anomlaous things in his books, like spirits.

I only know of two translations that are very balanced - when I say 'balanced'I mean that they do not favour positive over negative or good over evil, they simply take each energy as an experience, which feels right to me - and those are the Eranos Edition by Ritsema and Karcher, the one I have worked with (its a very neutral approach and invokes the reader to be creative rather than TELL the reader what is happening). And LiSe's site, which has quite beautiful ways of explaining each line and hexagram, that can be both inspiring and non-intrusive. Again, sorry If I've missed anyone out, you have to remember I'm a complete dunce in the world of I Ching literature.
 
P

peace

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Hi Danny:

I've used Wilhelm as first choice for many years and also Carol Anthony - who I think is good for the deeper insights.

Most recently I've picked up Bradford's work which I like very much and it provides me with the most well rounded interpretations of all - but I find I need to read the other's first to get the most I can from him.

Rosalie
 
M

micheline

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look under My Yijing Bookshelf, a thread in divination discussions dated Dec 2005...

lise's site is so full of poetic beauty that I tape her commentaries all over my kitchen
 

jte

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Wow, I think the answer above are really quite good, so I'll make a different point entirely.

It's my layman's understanding that ancient Chinese is ambiguous enough that most statements in the Yi could be translated multiple ways. So, different translations "reasonate" with different people.

It's also worth considering that a given hex/image/line's "meaning" as an answer can be quite different in the context of different questions. For each translation, though, it's still ultimately "the author's take" on the particular hex/image/line.

IMO, no one understands the whole Yi perfectly. So, each translation will have different strengths and weaknesses depending on the author's particular insights vis-a-vis your particular questions and way of understanding. But ultimately you start seeing what the hex/line means *to you* and I think that's where you really start understanding it on a deeper level.

This takes a long time, and even so for most lines there's still a range of meanings and new ones continue to emerge. But ultimately this deeper understanding becomes more valuable than anyone (else)'s translation.

- Jeff
 

dannyl

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Wow, thanks all for your comments. I think it's a testament to the strength of Wilhelm's work that he's still so widely read and used all these years later. Interesting to see the criticisms also.

Jeff, thanks very much for your last point. I often take a few days over a divination mulling it over until it "fits" the situation in hand. Incidentally, it always seems to be the source text that speaks directly to me here, rather than Wilhelm's secondary comments. (By source text, I mean the actual translation, the judgement and the lines, the part of the text which is indented).

Does anyone else find this? I always seem to get a lot more out of the judgement and the lines rather than the Image (which I often skip entirely)

Micheline, thanks for digging out that thread. Out of interest, the other ones I've got are Richard Rutt's and Hsung Wwa Jou's. I may pick up another at some point but I'm not in a hurry - might muddy the waters a bit. (I'll probably do so when I see something cheap!)
 

hilary

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A snag with Wilhelm that no-one has mentioned is that a lot has been discovered in the last 50+ years. So many stories and meanings are naturally missing from Wilhelm - just as, with any luck, many more will turn out to be missing from more recent translations in another 50 years.

The power I find in Wilhelm/Baynes is the quality of the language. Even though it's not my primary reference, nor the book through which I got to know the Yi, W/B's phrasing tends to be what sticks in my mind. Not many writers in the world have that kind of gift. (Hm - what are our chances of a Steve Marshall translation?)
 

heylise

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Bradford!! One of my favorites, forgot to mention him in my list. He shares the first place with Wilhelm.

LiSe
 

heylise

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Umm, don't know which one I am right now. "Taping my comments all over her kitchen".. wow!!
bounce.gif

cello.gif

Maybe dancing AND making music...
 

bradford_h

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Hi Dannyl-
I wouldn't be too quick to dismiss the Image (Da Xiang). Sure, it was written later, and it isn't so good for predicting the future, but I find it extremely valuable for understanding the Hexagram itself and the ethical (behavioral) implications of the natural images.

Hi LiSe-
Thank you.

b
 

dannyl

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Cheers Bradford,

I've often thought I should check them out more than I do, that gives me some good motivation for doing so. Ta.
 

jte

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Dannyl, I'll just second Brad's advice on the images - I found it took a long time for them to grown on me, but now they have. Sometimes they seem to be "the answer that really fits" when you get a Hex with no moving lines.

- Jeff
 

hope

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I like John Blofeld. His is very interesting with little footnotes too.
 

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