SOAS Research Online

A Free Database of the Latest Research by SOAS Academics and PhD Students

[skip to content]

Barrett, T.H. (2016) 'Michael Pye, Translating Drunk – and Stark Naked: Problems in Presenting Eighteenth Century Japanese Thought.' Journal of the Irish Society for the Academic Study of Religions, 3. pp. 236-249.

[img] Text - Published Version
Available under License Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0).

Download (375kB)

Abstract

In 1990 Michael Pye published a full translation of the writings of the Japanese scholar Tominaga Nakamoto (1715-1746), to which I responded in a 1993 review illustrating a possible alternative approach by retranslating one chapter. In 1997 Michael Pye defended his original work. Here I show that this defence misunderstands at least some of the rationale for suggesting an alternative translation method, and provide a short passage of translation with commentary from Hattori Somon (1724-1769), a very similar but much less wellknown scholar, in order both to introduce his thought and to illustrate further the translation method I prefer. Finally some broader questions about the interpretation of Japanese eighteenth century thought are briefly indicated.

Item Type: Journal Article
Keywords: Tominaga Nakamoto; Hattori Somon; Japan; translation
SOAS Departments & Centres: Departments and Subunits > School of History, Religions & Philosophies
Departments and Subunits > School of History, Religions & Philosophies > Department of Religions & Philosophies
ISSN: 20097409
Copyright Statement: Each individual issue of JISASR, produced by The Journal of the Irish Society for the Academic Study of Religions in collaboration with the Department of Study of Religions, University College Cork is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
Date Deposited: 23 Mar 2025 09:43
URI: https://eprints.soas.ac.uk/id/eprint/43654

Altmetric Data

There is no Altmetric data currently associated with this item.

Statistics

Download activity - last 12 monthsShow export options
Downloads since deposit
6 month trend
2Downloads
6 month trend
9Hits
Accesses by country - last 12 monthsShow export options
Accesses by referrer - last 12 monthsShow export options

Repository staff only

Edit Item Edit Item