Qian And English Literature

The dissertation setting out to explore the relationship between Qian Zhong-shu and English Literature can be affiliated with "Qian Zhong-shu Study" in China, though away from the current pattern of domestic academia. Endeavors are made to set Qian's literary creation, academic work and intellectual propensity against a background of English literature to make the study more comprehensive. Qian emerged on the literary stage in the 1940s and excelled in both literary creation and criticism, which have attracted academic attention since then. Qian's work typifies in a good blending of the east and west scholarship, for he boasts of a remarkable family education in Chinese classical works, which sharpens his sensitivity in literature and cultivates a receptive and tolerant mind. Lin Shu's translations of western fiction motivate Qian to major in English literature at Tsing Hua University and later Oxford University. The six years'learning and studying sheds a decisive influence on his creation and research. His academic identity as an expert of English literature makes it important to understand his relation with English and other western literatures, so it justifies my research into such a complex relation.The dissertation is composed of seven parts, with the body in for chapters, an introduction, a conclusion and a significant appendix of significant literary events. The part of Introduction includes a sum-up of relative research in the field and a justification of the significance of my study in China. This part also set a methodological framework for the following work and stresses that English literature may mean an influence on Qian's fiction writing, but it also serves as a referential background to his academic pursuit.Chapter 1 centers on Qian's school years of English literature learning and studying with a specific purpose of tracing the way of his acceptance, assimilation and transformation of English literature. The courses he took and the paper he wrote in this period receive a full historic review.Chapter 2 addresses to his short story anthology Human, Beast, Ghost and his novel Fortress Besieged to strike a comparison between his literary writings and some English works, which have fallen into his interest and been read and carefully studied. The comparative work is carried out on five themes, including scenes design, traits of major figures, comic spirit, conversational art and rhetoric competence. Qian can always channel east and west on some literary questions, so the 3rd part of this chapter attempts to channel both Chinese and English influence on Qian's work.Chapter 3 explores the relationship between Qian's literary criticism and English literature criticism, for his critic work reflects an immediate reference to English literature theories. Qian keeps with the development of the west scholarship and devotes to introduction and evaluation of theories of English literature. He also puts into his academic practice such theories, among which are mainly theories of poetry, with classicism, romanticism and modern poetics of I. A. Richards and T. S. Eliot on the top.Chapter 4 departs a little from Qian's literary and academic texts and turns to Qian's real life to study his intellectual propensity from a dual view of Chinese and English. After a historic retrospect of intellectual propensity in both English and Chinese literati, case analysis is carried out between Qian and two modern English writers Aldous Leonard Huxley and T. S. Eliot to show their similarities.