An event organized by the British Council, China Radio International NewsPlusRadio & Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press has been held at the China Millennium Monument in Beijing to launch Shakespeare's Folio In Translation.

Carma Elliot, Director of the British Council in China says the book launch has been eagerly anticipated.

"The folio contains a complete translation of Shakespeare's works in 39 volumes, containing 12 tragedies, 14 comedies, 10 histories, with 2 plays which were not in the First Folio, poems and sonnets. It has been translated by some of the most eminent translators in China, and we know that it will play an important part in the ongoing conversation about Shakespeare this year."

莎士比亚逝世400周年

Shakespeare Lives is a major global programme for 2016, celebrating Shakespeare's works and his influence on culture, education and the global society.

The program will run in more than 70 countries, led by the British Council and the "GREAT Britain" campaign.

Carma Elliot says this programme aims to enhance cultural, educational and economic exchanges.

"It's something very close to our hearts in the British Council, as 2016 marks a year-long programme called Shakespeare Lives here in China and around the world, which is an innovative showcase of the UK's rich cultural heritage and contemporary UK creativity in China. This year will be an incredible opportunity for millions of people of all ages in China to actively experience Shakespeare's works through brand new productions of his plays, through film, music, public talks, educational resources and online. The programme is sparking cultural, educational and economic exchange, through the shared language and shared love of Shakespeare."

Shakespeare played a critical role in shaping the modern English language and helping to make it the world's language.

Three thousand new words and phrases all first appeared in print in Shakespeare's plays.

Many famed Chinese scholars such as Zhu Shenghao and Liang Shiqiu devoted their whole lives to translating Shakespeare's works.

Professpr Gu Zhengkun of Peking University, Chief Editor of the Chinese version of William Shakespeare: Complete Works, elaborates on the differences of this new edition of translation compared to previous ones.

"The most outstanding feature of this version of translation is that it translates Shakespeare's poems in the form of poems and prose in the form of prose. We all know poetry is the crown of literature. Shakespeare is a poet before he is a playwright. The project is also a proof that the Chinese reading public has reached a turning point in appreciating Shakespeare's works. That is from the level of enjoying them as merely vernacular dialogues and stories to the level of appreciating them as elegant poetic creations."

Nick Marchand, Director of Arts and Creative Industries of the British Council in China, also highlights the role of translation in distributing Shakespeare's works in China.

"Shakespeare's has been translated into over 100 languages already. I suppose if we think about the arts, the act of translation occurs every time and presented in many forms. Think about it. Shakespeare, even though he's been dead for four hundred years, we have one thousand film credits to his name as well. The active translation is continuous. I think what is particularly special is that four hundred years later we have come here together with passion to share that experience of Shakespeare."

Beside language, one of the most notable legacies of Shakespeare is his capacity to educate.

Deng Zhulang, a reader who has come all the way from Qingdao in east China's Shandong Province to Beijing, shares his experience with Shakespeare's works.

"I get to know Shakespeare by a sentence familiar to many people: 'To be, or not to be, that is the question'. I wondered many times in my life and found this sentence very magical. When we try to do something, we should think before we act. And when I read his poem the Sonnet 18, I realize he expresses something deep about love, about life. So I really want to know more about Shakespeare. "

Thanks to the Bard's supreme ability to capture the essence of the human condition, Shakespeare's work is as vital and relevant today as it was 400 years ago.

As one of his contemporaries Ben Jonson wrote, Shakespeare is not of an age, but for all time.

For CRI, this is Yu Yang.