In the finale of this public lecture series, Professor John Minford explored the brilliant ideas of Professor David Hawkes when translating The Story of the Stone. The “cultural sleight of hand” that Hawkes employed, as Professor Minford pointed out, was inspired by the influential people that he admired. Although Hawkes was a highly regarded sinologist at that time, he was never bound by any constraints in the academia. As manifested in the various examples given during the talk, Hawkes’s translation is a showcase of his ingenuity in drawing literary allusions from his profound readings of Western literature.

Please click here for the lecture notes and presentation slides.