| Judith Gautier is one of the exotic writers in late 19th and early 20th century, and also the first woman writer of Goncourt Academy. She composed a great quantity of works around the oriental background, and she is keen on the Far East especially China, her novel The Imperial Dragon is one of the representative ones who make China as the subject. In this work, Judith Gautier depicts the image of china. This paper mainly studies the above novel, combined with the theories of imagologie, to analyze and to interpret the image of China, revealing the author's cultural psychology, which is hidden behind the image. Through the analysis of the chinese elements and author's cultural psychology, we can better comprehend the cultural exchanges between China et France in late 19th and early 20th century, and understand the meaning of the cultural transmission.This paper is divided into four parts:introduction, body, conclusion and bibliography.In the introduction, I resume the reason for choosing this study, the contemporary research, the theoretical approaches and the scope of research.The body consists of three chapters:Chapter one includes two parts. The first part which begins with the introduction of Judith-the writer, mainly elaborates from her life experience and her orientalism, because writer study is a significant part in imagologie study, the writer is the creator of the texte, her experience, as well as her orientalism, place a decisive role in the building of exotic images in her works. The second part summarizes the content of The Imperial Dragon and its literary criticism in history. One purpose of this part is to give readers a better understanding of the general content of The Imperial Dragon so as to lay a foundation for the content analysis in Chapter three, the other purpose is to prove the value of the research about the novel The Imperial Dragon and confirm its importance on the study of Judith.Chapter two sorts out China in western literature, to investigate the different cultural psychology of writers in different times behind the image of China, to discuss the reason for the formation of China, and get the conclusion that the China in western literary works is not the real China.Chapter three is the main body of the paper, systematically depicts the fiction The Imperial Dragon, and then analyzes China image in the novel from two levels:Chinese people, and The Chinese Empire. In this paper, I further subdivide the two levels:the Chinese people whose characters are idealized in Judith's works, Chinese female and Chinese people in ideology. And the Chinese Empire is subdivided into three types:quiet, beautiful and harmonious Chinese Empire; brilliant, mysterious and colorful Chinese Empire; and bloodthirsty, cruelty and full of death Chinese Empire. The two parts both entries by the self and the others, to analyze Judith's subjective intention, constructive mode and the images of the others which are decided by them, to summarize reasons of the formation of China image, and gradually reveals her understanding and her construction of the China.Chapter four in which I research the cultural psychology behind her creation from the double influences of Chinese ancient poems and Chinese thoughts on Judith Gautier from two viewpoints of art and spirit, that is, some writers like Judith Gautier desperate the pursuit of poetry and the pursuit of spiritual country.The conclusion part is a summary of the previous parts, making the structure clear, explicating that the China portrayed by Judith Gautier is not real China; it is the self-created and imagined China. The intention of Judith is approve others and self-reflection, which reveals the author's ideal for seeking the art and the spiritual homeland. Ultimately, the author states the significance of exotic expression of "China image" in the study of today's culture comparison. |
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