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The Study of Chinese Literature in the West: Recent Developments, Current Trends, Future Prospects

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 March 2011

James J. Y. Liu
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To make a global survey of the study of Chinese literature today would hardly be possible within the space of a single article; apart from the sheer amount of material to be covered and the linguistic competence required, it would be very difficult to discuss—in the same breath—works carried out in radically different social and cultural environments and under radically different assumptions about the nature and purpose of literary scholarship. This survey, therefore, will be limited to the study of Chinese literature in the Western world, which, however, is not to be understood in a strictly geographical sense but rather in a cultural-linguistic one. Thus, works written in or translated into a Western language, and with a predominantly “Western” orientation, may be included irrespective of the author's nationality or the place of publication—whereas works by Chinese, Japanese, Soviet, and Eastern European scholars in their own languages will not be discussed. It should also be made clear—obvious though it may be—that this survey, not being a bibliography, cannot be exhaustive; it can only concentrate on works that appear to represent significant trends. Failure to mention a work, therefore, does not necessarily imply lack of esteem, nor does mention of a work necessarily imply unreserved agreement. Chronologically, this survey will cover works completed since i960, as well as a few works in progress and planned works. Finally, we may venture to take a glance at future possibilities and problems.

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The Journal of Asian Studies , Volume 35 , Issue 1 , November 1975 , pp. 21 - 30
Copyright
Copyright © The Association for Asian Studies, Inc. 1975

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References

This paper is the first in a series of “state of the art” studies commissioned by the China and Inner Asia Regional Council of the A.A.S., with assistance of a grant made by the American Council of Learned Societies.

1 Berkeley: University of California Press, 1974.

2 New York: Twayne, 1971.

3 Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1974.

4 Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies (hereafter cited as HJAS), Vol. 29, 1969.

5 Ph.D. dissertation, Princeton, 1972.

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7 Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1970.

8 Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1975.

9 E.g., Crump, “The Conventions and Craft of Yüan Drama,” journal of the American Oriental Society (hereafter cited as JAOS), Vol. 91, No. 1, 1971, (reprinted in Birch—see note 1); Dolby, “Kuan Han-ch'ing, \“Asia Major (hereafter AM), Vol. 16, Pts. 1–2, 1971; Johnson, “One Aspect<of Form in the Arias of Yüan Opera,” Michigan Papers in Chinese Studies, No. 3, 1969, and “The Prosody of Yüan Drama,” Toung Pao (hereafter TP), Vol. 56, Nos. 1–3, 1970; Liu Chun-jo, “Some Observations on the Parallel Structure in Ma Chih-yüan's Hsiao-ling,” Tsing Hua Hsüeh-pao (hereafter THHP), n.s., Vol. 7, No. 2, 1969.

10 Some of Prūšek's earlier articles have been reprinted in his Chinese History and Literature (Prague: Academia, and Dordrecht: Reidel, 1970)Google Scholar.

11 Dudbridge, The Hsi-yu chi: a Study of Antecedents of the Sixteenth-Century Chinese Novel (Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1970)Google Scholar; Hanan, “The Early Chinese Short Story: a Critical Theory in Outline,” HJAS, Vol. 27, 1967, (reprinted in Birch—see note 1) and The Chinese Short Story (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1973)Google Scholar; Hsia, The Classic Chinese Novel (New York: Columbia University Press, 1968)Google Scholar; Idema, “Storytelling and the Short Story in China,” TP, Vol. 59, Nos. 1–5, 1973, and “Some Remarks and Speculations concerning P'ing-hua,” ibid., Vol. 60, Nos. 1–3, 1974; Li, T. Y., Chinese Fiction: a Bibliography of Books and Articles in Chinese and English (New Haven, Yale University Far Eastern Publications, 1968)Google Scholar; Tsun-yan, Liu, Wu Ch'eng-en: His Life and Career (Leiden: Brill, 1967Google Scholar—reprinted from TP, Vol. 53, Nos. 1–3, 1967); Prusek, , The Origin and the Authors of the Hua-pen (Prague: Academia, 1967)Google Scholar.

12 The Ts'ang-lang shih-hua by Yen Yü (thirteenth century) had been translated into German by Debon, Günther as Ts'ang-lang's Gespruche Über die Dichtung (Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz, 1962)Google Scholar; the Jen-chien tz'u-hua by Wang Kuo-wei (1877–1927) has been translated into English by Tu, Ching-I as Poetic Remarks in the Human World (Taipei: Chung Hua Book Co., 1970)Google Scholar.

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19 Berkeley: University of Californi a Press, 1973.

20 Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1968.

21 Vol. 16, No. 3 (1972 issue, which actually appeared in 1974).

22 Donald Gibbs, “Literary Theory in the Wenhsin-tiao-lung,” Ph.D. dissertation, University of Washington, 1970. The biographical part has been published as “Liu Hsieh, Author of the Wen-hsin tiao-lung,” in Monumenta Serica, Vol. 29, 1970–71.

23 Richard J. Lynn, “Tradition and Synthesis: Wang Shih-chen as Poet an d as Critic,” Ph.D. dissertation, Stanford, 1971.

24 Adele A. Rickett, “Wang Kuo-wei's jen-chien tz'u-hua, a Study of Chinese Literary Criticism,” Ph.D. dissertation, University of Pennsylvania, 1967; Ching-I Tu, “A Study of Wang Kuo-wei's Literary Criticism,” Ph.D. dissertation, University of Washington, 1967. Tu has published an article: “Some Aspects of the Jen-chien tz'u-hua,” JAOS, Vol. 93, No. 3, 1973.

25 Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1975.

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27 The Poems of Li Ho (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1970).

28 One of these, South's, Margaret T.Li Ho: a Scholar-official of the Yüan-ho Period (806–821), has been published (Adelaide: Librarie s Board of South Australia, 1967)Google Scholar. The others are: Maureen A. Robertson, “Poetic Diction in the Works of Li Ho,” University of Washington, 1970; Michael B. Fish, “Mythological Themes in the Poetry of Li Ho, “Indiana University, 1973; and Kuo-ch'ing Tu, “Th e Poetry of Li Ho: a Critical Study,” Stanford, 1974. For an earlier dissertation comparing Li Ho with Keats, see note 66 below. See also E. G. Pulleyblank, “The Rhyming categories of Li Ho,” THHP, n.s., Vol. 7, No. 1, 1968; and Kudo, Naotaro, The Life and Thoughts of Li Ho (Tokyo: Waseda University, 1968)Google Scholar.

29 Diana Yu-shih Chen Mei, “Han Yü as a Kuwen Stylist,” Ph.D. dissertation, Yale, 1967 (abridged version published as an article in THHP, n.s., Vol. 7, No. 1, 1968); Stephen Owen, “The Poetry of Meng Chiao and Han Yü,” Ph.D. dissertation, Yale, 1972; and Russell McLeod, “The Poetry of Meng Chiao in the Chinese Baroque Tradition,” Ph.D. dissertation, Stanford, 1973.

30 Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1969.

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32 Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1971.

33 The one in German by Peter Leimbigler has been published (Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz, 1970); the one in English is by Jonathan Chaves, Columbia, 1971.

34 New Haven: Yale University Press, 1961.

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37 Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1970.

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39 See note 3 above.

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41 See note 30 above.

42 I discussed the implications of these tendencies in a paper called “Polarity of Aims and Methods: Naturalization or Barbarization?,” presented at the Sixth Conference on Oriental-Western Literary Relations, Indiana University, October 1974; it will be published in Yearbook of Comparative and General Literature.

43 Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1966.

44 See note 32 above.

45 Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1964.

46 Kuala Lumpur: University of Malaya Press, 1967.

47 Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1971.

48 Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1973.

49 London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, and Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1967.

50 HJAS, Vol. 24, 1962–63.

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60 Paris: Mouton, 1970.

61 All mentioned earlier; see notes 30, 3, and 5 above.

62 Ph.D. dissertation, Princeton, 1972.

63 Ph.D. dissertation, Stanford, 1973.

64 THHP, n.s., Vol. 10, No. 2, 1974.

65 See notes 22, 23, 19, and 18 above.

66 Ph.D. dissertation,;Indiana University, 1962; abridged version published as an article in THHP, n.s., Vol. 5, No. 1, 1965.

67 Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 1970.

68 Comparative Literature, Vol. 24, No. 3, 1972.

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70 Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1971.

71 Tamkang Review, Vol. 2; No. 2 and Vol. 3, No. 1, 1971–72.

72 See D. W. Fokkema, “Cultural Relativism and Comparative Literature,” ibid., Vol. 3, No. 2, 1972.

73 Scheduled for publication by New York: Doubleday in October 1975.

74 To be published in the Twayne World Authors Series.

75 Edinburgh; Edinburgh University Press, 1973. '

76 To be published by the University of California Press.

77 Harmondsworth, England: Penguin, 1973.

78 The first volume is to be published in 1976.

79 With introduction by Robert Ruhlmann (Saigon: Société des études indochinoises, 1960-).

80 Information supplied by Professor Rober t Ruhlmann.

81 Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1950.

82 See note 43 above.