Abstract
This chapter uses world literature anthologies to show how the translations of traditional Chinese fiction have entered English-speaking academia since the late nineteenth century. The dynamic interactions between these fictional works and a world literature system constantly undergoing changes are explained. The exclusion of Chinese literature in early world literature collections may be related to the general lack of attention to non-Western literature in the English-speaking world during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The anthologies produced during the mid-twentieth century envisioned a system of Chinese literature based on Confucian ideas, and traditional Chinese fiction was excluded from these anthologies partly due to its incompatibility with this system. The expansion of canons and the extended lengths of anthologies produced during the late twentieth century, however, enabled heterogeneous materials from the same national literary tradition, such as traditional Chinese fiction, to be included in world literature anthologies.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Alden, John B., ed. Alden’s Cyclopedia of Universal Literature, Presenting Biographical and Critical Notices, and Specimens from the Writings of Eminent Authors of All Ages and All Nations. 20 vols. New York: J. B. Alden, 1885–1891.
Brewitt-Taylor, Charles, trans. San Kuo, or Romance of the Three Kingdoms. 2 vols. Shanghai: Kelly & Walsh, 1925.
Buck, Philo M., ed. An Anthology of World Literature. 1st ed. New York: The Macmillan Company, 1934.
———, ed. An Anthology of World Literature. Revised ed. New York: The Macmillan Company, 1940.
———, ed. An Anthology of World Literature. 3rd ed. New York: The Macmillan Company, 1951.
Buck, Pearl, trans. All Men Are Brothers. 2 vols. New York: The John Day Company, 1933.
Caws, Mary Ann, and Christopher Prendergast, ed. The HarperCollins World Reader. 2 vols. New York: HarperCollinsCollegePublishers, 1994.
Chen, Pingyuan. Zhongguo xiaoshuo xushi moshi de zhuanbian [The Transformation of Narrative Modes of the Chinese fiction]. Beijing: Beijing daxue chubanshe, 2003.
Chung, Ling. “Han Shan, Dharma Bums, and Charles Frazier’s Cold Mountain,” Comparative Literature Studies 48, no. 4 (2011): 541–565.
Cross, E.A., ed. World Literature. New York: American Book Company, 1935.
Damrosch, David. “From the Old World to the Whole World.” In On Anthologies, edited by Jeffrey R. Di Leo, 31–46. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2004.
———. What Is World Literature? Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2003.
Damrosch, David, et al., eds. The Longman Anthology of World Literature. 1st ed. 6 vols. New York: Longman, 2004.
Damrosch, David, et al., eds. The Longman Anthology of World Literature. 2nd ed. 6 vols. New York: Longman, 2009a.
Damrosch, David, et al., eds. Instructor’s Manual to Accompany the Longman Anthology of World Literature. 2nd ed. 2 vols. New York: Longman, 2009b.
Davis, Paul, et al., eds. The Bedford Anthology of World Literature. 6 vols. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2004.
D’haen, Theo. The Routledge Concise History of World Literature. London: Routledge, 2012.
Doren, Mark Van, ed. An Anthology of World Poetry. New York: The Literary Guild of America, 1928.
Egerton, Clement, trans. The Golden Lotus. 4 vols. London: Routledge, 1939.
Eliot, Charles W., ed. The Harvard Classics. 50 vols. New York: P.F. Collier & Son, 1909–1910.
Eliot, T.S. Introduction to Selected Poems of Ezra Pound. London: Faber and Faber, 1928.
Goethe, J.W. von and J.P. Eckermann, “Conversations on World Literature.” In The Princeton Sourcebook Comparative Literature, 17–25. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2009.
Guo, Yushi. Introduction to Zhongguo xiaoshuo shilue [A Brief History of Chinese Fiction], by Lu Xun, 1–17. Shanghai: Shanghai guji chubanshe, 1998.
Hao, Ji. “A Comparative Study of Two Major English Translations of The Journey to the West: Monkey and The Monkey and the Monk.” Journal of Chinese Humanities 2, no. 1 (2016): 77–97.
Hanan, Patrick. The Chinese Vernacular Story. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1981.
Hawke, David, and John Minford, trans. The Story of the Stone, by Cao Xueqin and Gao E. 4 vols. London: Penguin, 1973–1986.
Hegel, Robert. The Novel in Seventeenth Century China. New York: Columbia University Press, 1981.
Houston, Percy Hazen, and Robert Metcalf Smith, eds. Types of World Literature. New York: The Odyssey Press, 1930.
Hsia, C.T. The Classic Chinese Novel: A Critical Introduction. New York: Columbia University Press, 1968.
Inglis, Rewey Belle, and William K. Stewart, eds. Adventures in World Literature. New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1936.
Inglis, Rewey Belle et al., eds. Adventures in World Literature. Revised ed. New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1958.
Jones, Llewellyn, ed. Gems of the World’s Best Classics, A Collection of Complete Short Stories and Essays Chosen from the Literatures of all Periods and Countries Written by Standard Authors. Chicago: The Geographical Publishing Co, 1927.
Lawall, Sarah. “Anthologizing ‘World Literature’.” In On Anthologies, edited by Jeffrey R. Di Leo, 47–89. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2004.
Lawall, Sarah N., and Maynard Mack, eds. The Norton Anthology of World Literature. 2nd ed. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2001–2002.
Lieber, Maxim and Blanche Colton Williams, eds. Great Stories of All Nations. New York: Brentano’s Publishers, 1927.
Lodge, Henry Cabot, ed. The Best of the World’s Classics, Restricted to Prose. 10 vols. New York: Funk and Wagnalls Company, 1909.
Lu, Xun. Zhongguo xiaoshuo shilue [A Brief History of Chinese Fiction]. Shanghai: Shanghai guji chubanshe, 1998.
Ma, Ning. “When Robinson Crusoe Meets Ximen Qing: Material Egoism in the First Chinese and English Novels,” Comparative Literature Studies 46, no.3 (2009): 443–466.
Mack, Maynard, ed. The Norton Anthology of World Masterpieces: Expanded Edition. 2 vols. New York: W.W. Norton, 1995.
———, ed. The Norton Anthology of World Masterpieces: Expanded Edition in One Volume. New York: W.W. Norton, 1997.
Magill, Frank N., ed. Masterpieces of World Literature in Digest Form. 3rd series. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1960.
Mitford, A.B. Tales of Old Japan. 2 vols. London: Macmillan & Co., 1871.
Moulton, Richard. World Literature and Its Place in General Culture. New York: The Macmillan Co., 1911.
Peck, Harry Thurston, ed. Masterpieces of the World’s Literature, Ancient and Modern. 20 vols. New York: American Literary Society, 1898–1899.
Pizer, John. The Idea of World Literature: History and Pedagogical Practice. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2006.
Plaks, Andrew. The Four Masterworks of the Ming Novel. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1987.
Pound, Ezra, trans. Cathay. London: Elkin Mathews, 1915.
Pound, Ezra, and Marcella Spann, eds. Confucius to Cummings, An Anthology of Poetry. New York: New Directions, 1964.
Prendergast, Christopher, ed. Debating World Literature. London: Verso, 2004.
Puchner, Martin, et al., eds. The Norton Anthology of World Literature. 3rd ed. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2012.
Qian, Zhaoming. Orientalism and Modernism: The Legacy of China in Pound and Williams. Durham: Duke University Press, 1995.
Richardson, William L. ed. World Writers, A Book of Readings by Types. Boston: Ginn and Company, 1936.
Runes, Dagobert D., ed. Treasury of World Literature. New York: Philosophical Library, 1956.
Su, Aiqing. “Hu Shi gudian xiaoshuo yanjiu de xueshu linian luelun [A Brief Analysis of Hu Shi’s Philosophy of His Scholarship on Classical Chinese Fiction].” Mingqing xiaoshuo yanjiu [The Journal of Ming-Qing Fiction Studies], no. 4 (2009): 101–112.
Thompson, Stith, ed. Our Heritage of World Literature. New York: The Dryden Press, 1938.
Thompson, Stith, and John Gassner, ed. Our Heritage of World Literature. Revised ed. New York: The Dryden Press, 1942.
Waley, Arthur, trans. Monkey. London: George Allen & Unwin Ltd., 1942.
Wang Chi-chen, trans. Dream of the Red Chamber. New York: Doubleday, Doran & Company, 1929.
Warner, Charles Dudley, ed. A Library of the World’s Best Literature, Ancient and Modern. Special ed. 31 vols. New York: The International Society, 1896–1899.
Warnock, Robert. “A Survey of World-literature Texts.” College English 2, no. 3 (1940): 248–256.
Williams, R. John. “Modernist Scandals: Ezra Pound’s Translations of ‘the’ Chinese Poem.” In Orient and Orientalisms in US-American Poetry and Poetics, edited by Sabine Sielke and Christian Klöckner, 145–165. Frankfurt: Peter Lang, 2009.
Yu, Anthony, trans. and ed. The Journey to the West. 4 vols. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1977–1983.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2022 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Luo, J. (2022). How Traditional Chinese Fiction Entered World Literature Anthologies. In: Traditional Chinese Fiction in the English-Speaking World. Chinese Literature and Culture in the World. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-05686-4_5
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-05686-4_5
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-031-05685-7
Online ISBN: 978-3-031-05686-4
eBook Packages: Literature, Cultural and Media StudiesLiterature, Cultural and Media Studies (R0)