Transmission And Reception Of Edgar Allan Poe’s Works In Modern Chinese Literature

Edgar Allan Poe entered Chinese readers’ sight at the beginning of the 20th century. The spread and influence of his works experienced several ups and downs. In 1920s to 1930s, Poe’s different types of fictions and poems were noticed, and some were introduced and translated again and again to the Chinese. The Gothic style and description of mental activities of the characters were the two most frequently imitated skills. Many magazines then introduced his personal experiences and literary views. He became more and more recognized that his poetic theories aroused heated discussion among some literary figures, which certainly exerted certain influence upon the development of Chinese modern poem. At the meantime, the mass also began to know more about Allan Poe. However, in the 1940s, there was an evident change of attention among many writers and poets, Allan Poe gradually disappeared in people’s reading lists. Although some classic works were translated as well, and the translation was even mature in language and form, Poe and his works had much less influence than before. This dissertation tries to make it clear about the ways and directions of the spread of his works in the period of Chinese modern literature, to find out his influence and the aesthetic and political demands of the writers and poets then behind their activities of accepting and favoring Poe.This dissertation has six part, including preface, four chapters and the closure.In the preface, Poe’s influence on World’s and Chinese literature were introduced. The researches about Poe and his works are also summarized. In western sphere of literary criticism, the value of Poe’s works and thoughts weren’t widely accepted until the beginning of the 20th century. The researches about Poe has experienced great changes from criticizing to confirming, from sensibilities to sense, from texts to culture, from single studying method to multi-methods. In this part, Poe’s influence upon French and Russian Symbolism is mentioned, as his influence to world’s literature,including Chinese literature, were partly spread by the activities of these literary schools. Then the dissertation introduced the introduction and research situation in China. Relatively speaking, the introductions of Poe during the period of Chinese modern literature were less than those in the time of contemporary literature. Especially in the beginning of the 21st century, the researches about Poe show a magnificent growth both in number and in depth. But there are still not so many related studies on his influence upon writers of Chinese modern literature. There is still much researching space left. This dissertation tries to analyze the historical and personal factors of Chinese modern writers’ when choosing Allan Poe.The first chapter of this dissertation compares different versions of the translation of Poe’s classic short stories and poems through time. And it is found that the interests of translators in the period of Chinese modern literature in Poe shifted gradually from detective stories to Gothic and psychological stories which have deeper connotations and values. Generally speaking, the translations of each work changed with time from ancient Chinese language to the modern one. They became more and more mature in translation skills and in literary content. The changes in translations of "Annabel Lee" and "The Rave" indicate that Chinese modern poetry grew more and more harmonious in both form and content. This reflects the Chinese poets’ aesthetic views and attitudes towards the development of Chinese modern poem.The second and the third decade of the 20th century were the time when the introduction to and the translation of Allan Poe’s works reached the peak. According to Poe’s relations with Chinese modern writers and works, this dissertation looks at this period as two stages, that is, around Wusi Movement and around the beginning of the third decade. Detailed comparisons between different writers, literary schools and Allan Poe are made in the second and third chapter.Chapter Two mainly illustrated Allan Poe’s relations with literary figures and schools around "Wusi Movement". Poe is compared with Detective story writer Cheng Xiaoqing, Lu Xun and Zhou Zuoren, Qiancao-Chenzhong representing most "Wusi" literary intellectuals, who were more willing to break traditions. When hey found that they could have more life possibilities and more freedom, they began to move away from the restraints of traditional literary regulations to search for their own life value. Because of these new findings, these intellectuals found mental compatibility with Allan Poe who was unique in both aesthetic views and personality. As a result, Poe’s works were introduced the most in this period and he influenced a few writers’ literary creation in form and style, especially the creation of short stories. Cheng Xiaoqing’s imitation of Poe’s detective stories prompted the development of this type of short stories in China. He learned from Poe to create a heroic figure in his stories to carry his ideals of nation, society and self. Zhou Zuoren and Lu Xun learned from Poe in different aspects. Zhou Zuoren translated Poe’s works for he found Poe’s stories could meet his views towards beauty, while Lu Xun understood Poe in a more realistic way. In this part, Lu Xun’s "Diary of the Mad Man" and "After Death" are compared with Poe’s stories, and Lu Xun’s strong criticism in different aspects is clearly shown. Lu Xun shared with Poe similar writing skills and styles. They both depicted accurately the inner part of their characters. The mad man’s passionate appeal and the dead man’s irony in Lu Xun’s works indicate Lu Xun’s adoption of skills in both aesthetic and enlightenment modernity literature. The School of Qiancao-Chenzhong tended to accept Poe’s works from the angle of self-belief and value. They found in Poe and his follower’s works comfort and self-approval against their feeling of vanity and being lost when pursing their ideals of life.From the latter years of the second decade to the out break of Anti-Japanese War, more and more writers were devoted to the creation of realistic literature. But still some writers and poems chose not to follow the herd, but to stay in the sphere of "pure art" and hold on to the independence of literature. The third chapter compares Allan Poe with Shi Zhecun, New Sensation School, the early Symbolism and Modernistic Poetry. These schools’ direct or indirect relations with Poe can partly answer the question why they could find ways to develop themselves when the majority literary figures were focusing on realistic literature. Shi Zhecun and New Sensation School’s works were mainly stories. They began to be sensible and critical after they witnessed the violence of revolution. They grasped the modernistic features in Poe and his followers’ works, applied the style of aestheticism, criticizing modern city’s alienation of people’s souls with irrational and supernatural plots. They intended to express their disapproval of the overwhelming influence of realistic literature. Symbolism and modernism poems were the imitation of those by French Symbolism, who defined poem and poetic method of making poems. They gave new meanings to poetic feelings, advocating the application of pictures, music and imagination to show poetic value. Early symbolism’s mechanic literary imitation caused the readers’ failure in understanding their poems, whereas the poems of Modernism better combined western skills and Chinese historical background. Finding in Poe’s poetic theory the features of aesthetic modernity and making use of them, they both did great contribution to the creation of modern poems in China and the theoretical development of Chinese modem poetry.The last chapter of his dissertation explains the causes of Allan Poe’s spread and influence in the period of Chinese modern literature from the angle of aesthetic modernity. The actual situation of China’s acceptance of Poe reflects the way of development of aesthetic modernity in China. This chapter first analyzed the features of aesthetic modernity in Poe’s works and theories, and the realistic background of these features. Then it studies the philosophical conditions of the happening and developing of aesthetic modernity in China by looking into the philosophical background traced back to Ming Dynasty in China and to the important philosophers in the west, such as Kant, Schopenhauer and Nietzsche. In this part, Zhou Xian’s theory is applied, in which aesthetic modernity is regarded as having four layers. This chapter analyzed the functions of each layer in Poe’s spread and acceptance in the period of Chinese modern literature. Although aesthetic modernity in modern literature can be found in many other places, China’s acceptance of Poe can not be separated from it, as it is rooted in humans’ innate needs of sensational experience, mental freedom and realization of self-worth and it shows their rebel against every constraints, such as tradition, ration, science, order and so on. It is safe to say that Chinese writers’ acceptance and disapproval of Poe is basically related with the development of aesthetic modernity in China. Those writers who were influenced by Allan Poe brought with them their aesthetic experiences into the building of Chinese modern literature and nurtured the development of aesthetic modernity in China.