The Study of American
Literature in China:
American Content and
Chinese Perspective
 1,
A Brief Introduction to the
Translation of American Literature in
China
 2,
A General Introduction to the
Study of American Literature in
China (with a focus on the New
Period Time: since 1979)
 3,The
Trend of Reading (American )
Literature: Personal Perspective
1, A Brief Introduction to the Translation of
American Literature in China:
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1910: Uncle Tom’s Cabin， Harriet Beecher
Stowe (translated as The Appeal of the Black
Slaves (黑奴吁天录)
1929：“The Killers“， Ernest Hemingway
1930-1949: An American Tragedy, Theodore
Dreiser, The Main Street, Sinclair Lewis, The
Wrath of Grapes, John Steinback, Farewell to
Arms, Ernest Hemingway, etc……
The special issue of American literature in
the literary journal: Modern , Oct., 1934
 the
development of American novels
 modern American drama
 modern American poetry
 modern American literary criticism
 writers discussed: Jack London, Upton
Sinclair, Theodore Dreiser, Eugene O’Neill, Ezra
Pound, Ernest Hemingway, John Dos Passos,
William Faulkner, etc……
 issues:
modernity, national identity and
originality
 1978-:
Fitzgerald, Faulkner, Cheever,
Ellison, Bellow, Updike, Morrison,
Frost, Williams, Stevens, Ginsberg,
Plath, Kingston, Tan, etc…….
2, A General Introduction to the Study of American
Literature in China (with a focus on the New Period Time:
since 1979)
2.1: case studies (major books published
on American literature)
A Brief History of American Literature ,
1978/1982, 2003 (董衡巽 《美国文学简史》
1978，1982，董衡巽《美国文学简史》2003)
 On Contemporary American
Novelists,1987 (钱满素《美国当代小说家论》
1987)
 A Survey of Modern American Fiction,
1990 (王长荣《现代美国小说史》1992)

Contemporary American Drama (汪义群
《当代美国戏剧》1992)
 A History of American Drama （郭继德《美
国戏剧史》1993）
 A History of Twentieth Century American
Poetry, 1995 (张子清《20世纪美国诗歌史》
1995)，
 A History of Twentieth Century American
Literature, 1999 (杨任敬《20世纪美国文学
史》)
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A Study of Contemporary American Novels, 2000
(黄铁池 《当代美国小说研究》2000)
A New History of American Literature, 2003-2004,
(刘海平，王守仁《新编美国文学史》2003－2004)
American Postmodernist Novels, 2003（扬任敬《美
国后现代派小说论》2004)
A History of Popular American Literature, 2003
(黄禄善《美国通俗文学史》2003)
Selected Readings of American Literature, 2000
(陶洁《美国文学选读》2000)
Selected Readings of Twentieth Century American
Literature, 2006 (陶洁《20世纪美国文学选读》2006)
2.2: merit and demerit
 Case
Studies :
 1, A Brief History of American
Literature , 1978/1982, 2003 (董衡巽
《美国文学简史》1978，1982，董衡巽 《美国
文学简史》2003)
 eg:
the comment on Allan Poe in
1978 edition of the book: a
representative of the reactionary
southern American aristocratic class
 In
the 2003 edition: “Poe took pains
to write about beautiful images
through the exploration of the
unconscious, the irrational and the
morbid, focusing on the other end of
life”
 comment
on Edward Taylor(16451729) : “madly advocating the
Christian doctrine and the so-called
the original sin”
 Norman
Mailer: “his novels reveal the
abnormal psychology and sexuality
in a way of naturalism, but at the
same time, they also launch a
criticism and satire on the social
illness and capitalist system in
contemporary America, thus one can
say they are still of some social
significance.”
 E.L
Doctorow, Ragtime: “the book
teems with the sympathy for the
oppressed, and concerns with the
revolutionaries and revolution”
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2, A New History of American Literature
(2003-2004), (刘海平，王守仁《新编美国文学
史》2003－2004) (four volumes)
The original texts for reference: William
Trent, et al, eds. The Cambridge History of
American Literature, 1917, Robert Spiller,
Literary History of the Untied States, 1948,
Emory Elliott, Columbia Literary History of
the United States, 1988, Sacvan
Bercovitch, Cambridge History of
American Literature, 1994.
Salient characteristics with Chinese
Perspective:
 the
special focus on the Indian
literary tradition
 the interactive or dynamic exchange
between American literature and
Chinese culture: Emerson,
Thoreau ,transcendentalism & classical Chinese
philosophy
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eg: “大学之道，在明明德，在亲民，在止于至
善。” “renew thyself completely each
day; do it again and again, and forever
again”
Thoreau: “ I got up every early and
bathed in the pond; that was a religious
exercise, and one of the best things which
I did. They say that characters were
engraven on the bathing tub of king
Tching-thang to this effect…”

acceptance and influence: Whitman and
Chinese literature
1918: introduced into China by Tian Han,
translated into Chinese by Guo Moruo later and
influenced his Goddess
1945: the first complete translation of Leaves of
Grass
1987: the second
1991: the third
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The appropriation of Democracy vs the neglect of
eroticism
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the stress on Chinese American writers
literary theories and the incorporation into
analysis
eg: the reception of Emily Dickinson

“Dickinson does not care about the national affairs like the Civil War,
thus in comparison with Whitman, Dickinson is too self-centered,
which also prevents her from writing poems with more significant
themes.”
3, A History of Popular American
Literature (2003)
19th century: seductive fiction, gothic fiction,
religious fiction and women’s
fiction…Susan Warner, Maria Cummins,
George Lippard ……
20th century: cowboy western fiction,
political expose fiction, historic romantic
fiction, detective fiction, science fiction,
new fantasy fiction…Upton Sinclair, Sidney
Sheldon …….
new century: cyberpunk fiction, horror
fiction….Steven King, William Gibson …….
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3.The Trend of Reading (American )
Literature: Personal Perspective
 3.1:
the use of literary theories in
textual analysis:
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The Repressed Otherness in As I Lay Dying
The Power of Repetition in Poe’s Pim
The Loss of Freedom: A Foucaultian Genealogical
Reading of The Portrait of A Lady
Masculinity in Two of Updike’s Novels
Theories: Bakhtin, dialogisim, Freud, the death
instinct, Foucault, genealogy, femininity &
masculinity
 Defect:
the justification of theories
through textual analysis
meaning is intention, Shakespeare
did not intend the Oedipus motive or
anything less than Hamlet; if
meaning is effect, then it is Hamlet
which affects us, not the Oedipus
motive.” (Lionel Trilling)
 “if
3.2: The foregrounding of main stream
American mind (against Chinese context):
 the
cultural contradiction & a reading
of John Updike
 Texts:
 Daniel Bell: The Cultural
Contradiction of Capitalism, 1978,
 John Updike：Rabbit Tetralogy, 1995
(Rabbit Run, 1960, Rabbit Redux,
1971, Rabbit Is Rich, 1981, Rabbit at
Rest, 1990)

The former (the economic) is ruled by an
economic principle defined in terms of efficiency
and functional rationality, the organization of
production through the ordering of things,
including men as things. The latter (the cultural)
is prodigal, promiscuous, dominated by an
antirational, anti-intellectual temper in which the
self is taken as the touchstone of cultural
judgments, and the effect on the self is the
measure of the aesthetic worth of experience.
The character structure inherited from the
nineteenth century, with its emphasis on selfdiscipline, delayed gratification, and
restraint, is still relevant to the demands of the
techno-economic structure; but it clashes sharply
with the culture, where such bourgeois values
have been completely rejected—in part,
paradoxically, because of the workings of the
capitalist economic system itself.
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“(The) ‘new capitalism’ (the phrase was first used
in the 1920s) continued to demand a Protestant
Ethic in the area of production—that is, in the
realm of work—but to stimulate a demand for
pleasure and play in the area of consumption ”
“It is the breakup of this ethic and (the Puritan)
temper, owning as much to changes in social
structure as to changes in the culture that has
undercut the beliefs and legitimations that
sanctioned work and reward in American society”
The result: the rise of “fun morality”
The purpose of the study:
Literature as History
 A Reflection on Contemporary Chinese
Society:
--- Marx Weber: The Protestant Ethic and
The Spirit of Capitalism & the discussion of
Culture in the 80s in China,
---the Protestant Ethic & the “Puritanism” in
Chinese Tradition and Culture (frugality,
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sobriety, self-discipline and selfrestraint, abstinence )
WASP: the core constituent of the main stream American
culture
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C Wright Mills, White Collar: The American Middle
Classes. 1951.
William H. Whyte, The Organization Man. 1956.
Daniel Bell, The Cultural Contradictions of Capitalism.
1978.
Robert N Bella, et al. Habits of the Heart: Individualism
and Commitment in American Life. 1985.
Christopher Lasch, The Culture of Narcissism: American
Life in an Age of Diminishing Experience. 1979.
Samuel P. Huntington, Who Are We?—America’s Great
Debate. 2004.
R. H.Tawney, Religion and the Rise of Capitalism. 1926.
Marx Weber, The Protestant Ethic and The Spirit of
Capitalism. Trans. Talcott Parsons,1958.
3.3, The Influence and Confluence: A
Comparative Perspective
1,“The (Mis)Reading of Uncle Tom’s Cabin”
(Tao Jie)
---a short history of the translation, study and
criticism of Uncle Tom’s Cabin in China
2, “The Influence and Confluence: A
Deconstructive Approach to Mo Yan’s Big
Breasts, Big Hips”
---writing strategy, deconstruction, ideology

3, “Theory, Reality and the Writing in the
Context of Globalization”
texts:
Frederic Jameson: “Postmodernism or the
Cultural Logic in Late Capitalism (1984)”,
Terry Eagleton, After Theory (2003),
John Updike: In the Beauty of the Lilies (1996),
Philip Roth: Human Stain (2000),
Yu Hua: Brothers (2004-2005)
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Ye Xing: A City Of Desire (Hua Tu) (2004)
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Questions to ask:
 1, how much has globalization
coupled with commercialization
covered up truth from reality?
 2, what can theories and literary
writing do to see through the
globalized illusion to reveal the real
political and cultural scenario around
us?