sample-literature review.pdf.doc

Sample Literature Review of Study on Chaucer and His Works in China As the father of English literature, Geoffrey Chaucer is not only renowned among researchers from English-speaking countries, but also enjoys world-wide popularity. Compared with the 600-year history of comprehensive and systematic Chaucerian studies in western countries, China has only about a 100-year history of English literature study and Chaucer, as an important English poet, is touched on only in general terms. However, Chinese scholars and translators shed a new light on Chaucer and his works with different voices and angles. In China, research on Chaucer began one century ago, with Sun Yuxiu (孙毓 修)1, the student of a priest teaching in China. He was the first Chinese person to systematically introduce Chaucer and his works to Chinese people in the Chinese language. Lin Shu (林纾), though acclaimed in China as a translator, was much less a translator than a famous story-rewriter who adapted Chaucer’s stories into Chinese with the help of the English translator’s dictation because he did not know much English. His stories changed exotic Chaucerian names and places into familiar Chinese terms which could be better received at that time in China. The 1920s in China saw the publication of selected texts of Chaucer’s works and introduction of European literary history in which there was a chapter comprising a critical essay on Chaucer of over 20,000 words, which was remarkable at that time. Between the 1920s and 1940s, studies of Chaucer in China mostly focused on extracts in anthologies and literary history, but it was during this time that schools and the study of western literature were introduced and China for the first time became acquainted with western literary trends. However, Chaucerian studies in China began in a real sense with Fang Chong  1曹航：“乔叟在中国的译介与研究”，《外语教学》。第 34 卷，2013（5），89。  (方重) (1902-1991). He was the first scholar to translate Chaucer’s works into prose base