杨金才-美国文学的中国视野_英文_(3)

Another signi cant feature of this period’s Twain studies is that scholars began to incorporate disciplines other than literary studies such as anthropology and ethnology into a diversi ed frame of criticism. In 1999, for instance, the 4th issue of the Journal of Zhejiang University published

Yang Jincai: American Literature in Chinese Perspectives 27

an anthropological study of Twain titled “Huckleberry Finn and the Rites of Passage”, revealing the “conflicts between culture and personality, society and individual, selfness and otherness”, and the primitive unconscious positioned in the writer’s mind (张德明 91-97). This study offers another thought-provoking observation of the work’s local cultural features in question. In 2006, there appeared in the 5th issue of Foreign Literature Studies a study of racism in American literature entitled The Indians in the 19th-Century White American Literary Classics, in which Twain is critiqued as an advocate for “white colonialism” (邹惠玲 45-51). Obviously, such a view is oversimpli ed as regards Twain’s sympathetic attitudes towards other ethnic minorities such as African Americans and Chinese immigrants. In 2003, Foreign Literature Review released an article probing into Twain’s perception of China from a post-colonial perspective. For the rst time in China, Twain was seen as both a humanitarian and an Orientalist (崔丽芳 123-130).

It may be claimed that Chinese observation of Twain since the mid-1980s has gradually departed from a simplistic political/ideological reading and become more committed to an exploration of a true Twain. In short, Twain’s writings, as these and other critical studies suggest, are now commonly read as comprehensive manifestations of a variety of nineteenth-century American cultural phenomena.

Looking back on Twain’s centennial passage in China, we find that Twain has earned a large measure of Chinese popularity though he often stands at the crossroads, just like a statue, frequently passed by and quite well known to us, but far from being perused. There is still in Twain’s literary hoard plenty of treasure that may be worthy of further exploration. While we read notable fruits of academic Twain studies in the United States, especially in recent years, when American Twain scholars have begun to incorporate into their approaches the results of innovative criticism of the writer, there has also occasioned the most intense period of the critical reception of Twain in China, which provides readers with comprehensive analyses of the major writings and motifs of a canonized master of world literature.

Third, Toni Morrison. Reception of Morrison in China shows a reading of the author which is not univocal. From the highly autobiographical reception, characterized rst by Hu Yunhuan, who notes Morrison’s potential to be a “great culturally rooted African American writer” (胡

exive author, to a variety of theoretical 允桓 241), to a more close reading of Morrison as a re

perspectives and a fully edged academic approach, the reception of Morrison in China has come full circle. A recently released paper titled “A Mercy and the Ideal Home under Construction” by Hu Jun is illustrative of this. It offers a new perspective into the novel, arguing that Morrison unfolds in it her thoughtful reflection on the United States as a nation. Here, Hu contends that Morrison is not satisfied with the United States as an immigrant nation and interrogates provocatively the identity of American citizens, for she strongly believes American history does not belong to the Whites only, but to all races instead (胡俊202-203).

In terms of text selection and theoretical approaches Morrison studies in China in the 1980s, 1990s, and the 2000s is quite varied. Chinese readers were not unanimous about Morrison during those periods of burgeoning interest, and ideology strongly in uenced the reception of the African American author, whose humanistic values and art were sometimes totally misunderstood.

28 外国文学研究 2013年第4期

This was of course the case in China in the 1980s when Chinese critics were still driven by the tenets of orthodox socio-realism. Many critics of the day were keen on how an American author exposed social evils in capitalist and racist America. Unexceptionally, they would approach racial discrimination and social oppression in Morrison’s ction while her aesthetics was largely ignored. Not until the 1990s did Chinese scholars gradually give up their traditional mindset and begin to perceive Morrison as a literary artist. It is just this monumental change that has brought about an abundance of Morrison scholarship in China.

There has occurred a brisk publication of individual monographs on Toni Morrison in the past decade or so. 12 individual books have been published on her since the 2000s, many of which are in fact expanded versions of their doctoral dissertations in addition to a collection of critical essays titled Critical Essays on Toni Morrison’s Fiction. This fruitful scholarship on Morrison reveals that Chinese critics have made a great deal of efforts in promoting Morrison in China. Their individual discussions are precise and useful in providing a gateway into Morrison’s ction for both students and general readers who might not be familiar with her work. In these books, one can encounter various comprehensive analyses of the major writings and motifs of the African American woman writer.

At the turn of the Twenty-first century, it appears that American literary studies in China gradually follow the general movement beyond poststructuralism. Rehistoricization and recontextualization are at work, and anti-formalist enterprises are associated with development of cultural and gender studies. The best readings of American literature are still trying to reconcile textual investigation and cultural considerations and this is the reason why careful attention has been paid to the semiological contiguity between verbal and non-verbal languages.

The future of American literary studies in China is grounded in many of the works I consider here. Any study of American literature by a Chinese scholar, of course, necessarily privileges some writers over others. As has been demonstrated in the previous case studies, I have tried to include in each part important voices in shaping an author’s reputation. The number of degree theses on American authors and their works has been growing steadily in China since 1980, yielding unprecedented outputs of scholarship. Today, editions of various American works are generally available in Chinese bookstores and libraries. English editions with Chinese footnotes are standard texts in Chinese colleges and universities. Reviewers, scholars, and degree candidates in China are now joining hands to fathom the complexities in American literature. Hence the uniqueness of this critical trend might be envisioned in its attempt to reinstate the cultural symmetry between Anglo-American and Chinese studies on American literature. While responding to the Anglo-American tradition of criticism, Chinese scholars are also making efforts to found their own.

引用作品【Works Cited】

崔丽芳：“马克 吐温的中国观”，《外国文学评论》4 (2003): 123-130。

[Cui Lifang. “Mark Twain’s Perception of China.” Foreign Literature Review 4 (2003): 123-30.]

Yang Jincai: American Literature in Chinese Perspectives 29

董衡巽：“马克 吐温短篇小说三篇”，《外国文学》1 (1988): 3。

[Dong Hengxun. “Three Short Stories of Mark Twain’s.” Foreign Literature 1(1988): 3.]

胡俊：“《一点慈悲》：关于‘家’的建构”，《外国文学评论》3 (2010): 200-210。

[Hu Jun. “A Mercy and the Ideal Home under Construction.” Foreign Literature Review 3 (2010): 200-10.]

胡允桓：“黑色的宝石——黑人女作家托妮 莫瑞森”，《美国当代小说家论》，钱满素编。北京：中国

社会科学出版社，1987年。225-243。

[Hu Yunhuan. “A Black Star—Approaching the African American Writer Toni Morrison.” Critical Essays on

Contemporary American Novelists. Ed. Qian Mansu. Beijing: China Social Sciences Press, 1987. 225-43.]“现代美国文学专号导言”，《现代》5-6 (1934): 834-838。