The Reception Of Simone De Beauvoir In China

From the1980s to the present, Simone de Beauvoir’s works and personallifestyle have greatly influenced Chinese feminist literary creation, gender studies andsocial lives. Therefore, the study of Beauvoir’s reception in China provides importantrevelations on contemporary feminist literature and social practice.The selected subject of “Beauvoir’s reception in China” and the historical reviewof previous studies include the critical review at home and abroad; the innovation andvalue of this subject; the research extents and contents, etc.The introduction and translation of Beauvoir in China began in1981. During thisperiod, it experienced existentialism boom that emerged in the1980s, Beauvoir’sdeath in1986, the fourth World Conference on Women that held in Beijing in1995,and the100thanniversary of Beauvoir’s birth in2008. Driven by the current of thetimes, the works of introduction and translation began to take shape after the threestages of beginning, development and climax. However, there are still a lot ofproblems. Take the translation of Beauvoir’s Le Deuxième Sexe as an example. Thetranslation of Le Deuxième Sexe is quite late, and on most occasions the Chinesetranslation deviates from the original work on account of re-translations, abridgedtranslations, and adapted translations which are mainly due to translators’ qualitiesand interests, the publisher’s standard of choice, and China’s cultural context. Theacceptance of Beauvoir’s main identities, such as feminist, Sartre’s faithfulcompanion, existentialist writer and American lover’s “little girl”, has rich culturalconnotations behind it.Beauvoir has direct influence on the formation of contemporary Chinese womenwriters’ female consciousness, their conception of literary creation, the theme of theirworks, their concept of literary criticism, and their choices of personal lifestyles. Thewell-known woman poet Zhai Yongming holds that gender social construction theoryhas great significance for women artists. Zhai Yongming inherits Beauvoir’s aestheticvalue criterion and literary creation of which Zhai makes development andtranscendence. The theme of her poems is influenced by the disenchantment ofmotherhood myth. The ethnic minority writer Zhao Mei focuses on Beauvoir’s role asthe female intellectual and her relation with Sartre. Zhao’s interpretation of Beauvoirreflects the contemporary female intellectuals’ perplexity of their roles. Beauvoir exerts influence on feminist criticism and the development of womenstudies in China. Li Xiaojiang, the founder of women studies in China, accepts andcriticizes Beauvoir’s theories. She amends Beauvoir’s “social gender” theory, andemphasizes the dialectical relationship between women’s liberation and social reform,as well as between women’s liberation and reproduction. Her academic viewpoint isgreatly influenced by Beauvoir’s gender social construction theory. Huang Lin, arepresentative of the third generation of women studies in the mainland, holds thatBeauvoir provides a new paradigm for sexual relations through her own lifestyle.Huang critically inherits Beauvoir’s view of gender social construction theory anddisapproval of female maternalization, and further makes those ideas localized so asto promote the course of reasonable gender culture construction in China.On the whole, the criticism made by the experts in French literature representsBeauvoir’s evaluation and location in China, and guides public opinions. Liu Mingjiubelieves that Beauvoir’s works have greatly high historical value, her workssuccessfully realize the self-image construction of rebelling against tradition andpursuing freedom, but she is subordinate to Sartre. Liu’s comment on Beauvoir is animportant reference for the studies of Beauvoir, and however is restricted bymale-centered thought at the same time. Zhen Kelu makes the first full Chinesetranslation of Le Deuxième Sexe from the French original work, which is veryimportant and meaningful for the dissemination and research of Beauvoir in China.His comments on the significance and literary achievements of Beauvoir’s works areinsightful, and meanwhile have some masculine misreadings.