Course Description
This seminar has two objectives. (1) Influence Studies on Shakespeare, namely, to examine the reception of Shakespeare in early modern China, including how Shakespeare traveled to China; the Bard’s first readers and audience in the Chinese contexts. (2) Assimilation vs. Change, namely, to consider Shakespeare as a cultural process, including Shakespeare mediated by literati such as Lin Shu and Tien Han; whether and how Shakespeare is tamed in China. By looking at Shakespeare’s canonized texts in parallel with his afterlife in early modern China we might gain an insight into the mechanisms of the whole cultural-commercial-literary-critical Shakespeare industry in our age.
The student is required to turn in a one-to-two page critique (critical summary) on an essay or a book chapter every two weeks. By the end of the term, the student is expected to have developed a critical tool toconduct a comparative or influence study between the Bard and his Chinese offspring(s).