| What constitutes the relationship between World Literature and Chineseness? How has translation shaped Chinese poetry, and can translation be understood as at the foundation not only of World Literature, but of Chineseness, as well? This dissertation answers these questions by demonstrating how Chineseness as an aspect of the Chinese poetic tradition is results from translation. Looking at Chinese poetry's negotiation with concepts central to translation--- nativization and foregnization, or the work's engagement with the Chinese historical heritage or foreign literary texts and contexts, respectively---I argue not only that Chinese poetry can be understood as translation, but for an understanding of the role of such translation in the constitution of both Chineseness and World Literature. After contextualizing recent debates in the field of Sinology in the Introduction, Chapter I examines the poetic career of Bian Zhilin (1910--2000) and his implicit vision for a World Literature able to merge the Chinese literary heritage with Western influence. Chapter II, on Yang Lian (b. 1955), re-considers such positions in the light of ethnography, asking whether a Chinese writer's presentation of the Chinese tradition may itself re-cast Western superiority over its other. Since debates around World Literature, especially in Chinese literary studies, focus on the modern era, however, I contrast those chapters with a discussion of the Tang (618--907), when China had earlier become highly international, even cosmopolitan. Chapter III examines the history of Regulated Verse (lu`shi), describing not only its origins in Sanskrit but how it maintained associations with Buddhism. Chapter IV considers the work of Du Fuˇ (712--770) to understand how the canonization of his work nativized Regulated Verse through its historiography. Chapter V looks at the notoriously complex work of Liˇ Shangyiˇn (813--858), proposing that, through his writing of history and the complexity of his form, he re-foreignizes Regulated Verse, paving the way for new possibilities of World Literature. Finally, the dissertation concludes with a reconsideration of the place of World Literature and translation in the university. |
