Eternal Waiting:Beckett's Drama In China

Samuel Beckett is one of the greatest playwrights of the 20th century,who won 1969 Nobel Prize for Literature "for his writing,which-in new forms for the novel and drama-in the destitution of modern man acquires its elevation." As a typical representative of the Theatre of the Absurd,Beckett innovated drama structure,narrative style,characters image and language use,overturning the western drama tradition and promoting its development from modernism to postmodernism.He was the milestone that made a change in the world theatrical developing process.The dissertation,with Beckett's Drama in China as the research object,taking the Reception Study and Influence Study of Comparative Literature as the basic research methods,accompanied by Variation Theory and text analysis,is designed to conduct research into the reception of Beckett's drama in China,including its translation,criticism,performance,and his influence on Chinese contemporary playwriting.These chapters constitute an organic and supportive wholeness:The reception of Beckett's drama began with its introduction and translation.Through diachronic research and study of China's introduction and translation of Beckett's drama,the dissertation finds out that Beckett's drama experienced rejection,critical reception and overall acceptance.Translation shows the internal needs in a certain social and historical context.The thesis,taking Waiting for Godot as case study,demonstrates the subjectivity of the translator,both as the receptionist and interpreter,in the process of text-oriented translation and stage-oriented translation.It also analyzes how the two kinds of literature identify with and reject,understand and misunderstand each other in translation.It is on the basis of translation that Chinese scholars can do research on Beckett's drama,which is also an important part on Beckett reception in China.The thesis attempts to do systematic combing and detailed analysis of Chinese criticism on Beckett's drama from diachronic and synchronic aspects,so as to retrospect,summarize and reflect Chinese criticism on Beckett's drama.The final completion of a drama is on the stage,so performance is an inseparable part of theatrical reception,which suggests the director's understanding of the original work and thinking of the time and society.By collecting and sorting out a great number of first-hand materials,the dissertation analyzes several typical Chinese performance of Beckett's drama,aiming to study different features and expressions demonstrated in different historical and cultural contexts with different directors and audiences.Reception and Influence are two sides of one problem.Beckett's influence on China has been embodied in Chinese playwrights or directors' works.Through interviewing and close reading,the dissertation finds out how Beckett's drama influenced Chinese contemporary playwriting in absurd technique,waiting theme,and language dissolution.But in the process,Chinese reception subject plays his subjective role,resulting in variation in reception and influence.What comes after variation has been integrated into Chinese drama creation and theatre production,exhibiting different features,gaining the capability to converse with the world drama.The dissertation summarizes the reception and influence of Beckett's drama in China,arguing that Beckett experienced ideological criticize to critical reception and then to general acception.Through his unique theatrical idea and creative technique,Beckett influenced Chinese contemporary playwriting deeply,promoting the innovation and development of Chinese contemporary drama creation.