A Comparative Study On Liangzhu And Romeo And Juliet From Cultural Perspective

Love is an ever-lasting theme in the literary works all over the world. Many works, both ancient and modern, Chinese and foreign, have been focused on this theme.However, few studies have been made to compare them from the perspective of cultural differences.This thesis intends to make a comprehensive comparison between Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet and Shaoxing opera Liangzhu to show that the cultural background is the critical cause that decides the nature of a work.Liangzhu and Romeo and Juliet are two well-known literary works in the Chinese and Western literatures.These two works share many similarities, for example, eulogy of love, praise of women and anti-feudalism. So at the very beginning of the thesis, I will discuss the similarities between two plays from these three aspects. The essence of the thesis discusses their differences from the different cultural backgrounds, including the following four aspects:their attitudes to love and marriage, their social values, personality differences and different aesthetic attitudes. The next part is a new comment on the cultural differences of these two plays under the background of the globalization and intercultural communication. At last, the conclusion introduces the value of the comparison of the two plays.To a large degree, the nature of a play is closely related to its culture. That is to say, certain culture produces certain play. So in order to understand a work better, we should know more about its cultural background. But at the same time, we should also read it with an ever-increasing point of view, that is, from the perspectives of the globalization and intercultural communication. Thus, it will enhance our understanding of works from different countries,it will be good for the communication between different cultures..