Monkey (novel)

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Monkey: A Folk-Tale of China (1942), usually known as simply Monkey, is an abridged translation by Arthur Waley of the Chinese classic text Journey to the West by Wu Cheng'en. Despite being abridged, it was, for many years, by far the most accurate and complete translation of Journey to the West available in the English language. Because of this, it has been extremely heavily cited by Western scholars of Chinese literature.

Arthur Waley translated 30 out of the 100 chapters of Journey to the West.

The structure of Journey to the West may be roughly divided into three parts:

1. the introduction including the origin of Monkey, Tripitaka, Pigsy, and Sandy;
2. the actual journey to the west, which has an episodic nature;
3. and the ending (what happens after the pilgrims reach their destination).

Waley chose to translate the entirety of the introductory and ending chapters, as well as three episodes, each several chapters long, of the journey to the west.

[edit] See also

• Journey to the West