Hans Fränkel (1916 – 2003), usually Anglicized to Hans Frankel, was a German-American sinologist noted for his studies of Chinese poetry and literature. His father, Hermann Fränkel, was a renowned scholar of Classical Latin and Greek.
Hans Frankel was born in Berlin in 1916. Because of the family's Jewish ancestry, the Fränkels fled Germany during the Nazi Party's rise to power in the early 1930's and settled in Palo Alto, California, where his father Hermann taught as professor of Classics at Stanford University. Hans attended Stanford as an undergraduate, graduating with a BA in 1937. He then attended Berkeley as a graduate student, earning an MA in Spanish in 1938 and a PhD in Romance literature in 1942.[1]
During World War II, Frankel worked for the US military as a translator of German, Spanish, and Italian. Military commanders recognized his linguistic talents, and he was encouraged to begin studying Chinese. After the war ended, Frankel moved to China, teaching Western languages at Peking University from 1947 to 1949. While at Peking University, Frankel met Zhang Chonghe (Chinese: 張充和; Wade–Giles: Chang Ch'ung Ho), a well-known teacher of Chinese calligraphy and kunqu. They married and had two children.[1]
Frankel and his wife returned to the United States in 1949, where he lectured and did research at Berkeley. He became assistant professor of Chinese at Stanford in 1959, then went to Yale University in 1961, where he taught until retiring in 1987. He published a large number of books and articles on Chinese poetry and literature, and his translation of the Ballad of Mulan was the used in Disney's 1998 animated film.[1]