A Comparative Study Of Romeo And Juliet And Butterfly Lovers

Nowadays the cross-cultural study has become one of the most important means for communication between the different cultures. In the process of cultural exchanges between China and the West, the comparative study of tragedy has become a heated topic in Chinese academic world. As early as the first half of 20th century, the term of"tragedy"began to emerge in the field of Chinese literature. At first, some scholars denied the existence of tragedy in China through the studies of Western tragedy and the analysis of the form of Chinese drama. However, from the second half of 20th century till the present, more scholars attempted to apprehend the cultural uniqueness from the cross-cultural perspective. They made systematic studies on Chinese tragedy theories and the results are fruitful.Both Romeo and Juliet and Butterfly Lovers have been very popular in the West and China. So far lots of research papers have only confined their studies to the themes, characters and styles of these two classics. It's rare to find the comparison of these two tragedies in images and structures from the perspectives of the tragic aesthetics and national psychology.Based on the previous research, this thesis is a tentative endeavor to make a comparative study of these two world-famous works by way of analysis, comparison, to discuss the cultural factors of the two different societies and to further studies of the early researchers by studying their earlier achievements.First this thesis gives a general theoretical introduction of Western tragedy and Chinese tragedy in the five aspects of tragic themes, tragic characters, tragic conflicts, tragic structures and tragic styles. And then the writer makes a comparative study of the two famous tragedies on the basis of the earlier theoretical comparison of the tragedy of the West and China. This thesis aims to makes deep explorations from the perspectives of tragic aesthetics and psychology by parallel studies. It begins to sort out their similarities and then analyzes their differences. The writer deals with them by a comprehensive comparison and systematic analysis mainly in five aspects, namely, themes, characters, conflicts, images and structures. As far as love is concerned, the love between Romeo and Juliet is fervent and blind while the love of the hero and heroine in Butterfly Lovers is mild. Concerning the tragic fate of the two works, the tragedy of the protagonists in Romeo and Juliet is necessarily made for the tragic effects, according to the tradition of Western tragedy which aims to evoke pity and fear out of the audience. The tragic fate of the protagonists in Butterfly Lovers is...