Transformation of French literature into Ho Bieu Chanh’s work from the perspective of the polysystem theory

Abstract

Around the middle of the 17th century, the national language script was born and developed thanks to the merits of Western missionaries such as G.D. Amaral and A. Barbosa (Portugal); A.D. Rhodes (France). However, Catholic literature in Vietnam over the next 200 years was still mainly written in Nom, Chinese, or Latin. When the French tried to consolidate their rule in Vietnam, the Quoc Ngu script was made official throughout Vietnam in the early 20th century in order to eliminate the influence of anti-French Confucianism in Vietnam. Among the writers of this period, Ho Bieu Chanh was the most successful. Commenting on Ho Bieu Chanh’s position in Vietnamese literature, the book Vietnamese Literature from the beginning of the 20th century to 1945 by the Publishing House of the University of Pedagogy wrote: “Ho Bieu Chanh is a pioneer writer of modern fiction. Vietnam in the first steps before the period of prosperity (since 1932) and also a strong writer with many merits. Ho Bieu Chanh’s novel has contributed significantly to the preparation for the formation of critical realism in Vietnamese literature in the following decade” [1]. This article studies Ho Bieu Chanh’s work as a case of how Vietnamese intellectuals received creatively French literature in particular and Western culture in general. This research inspects Ho Bieu Chanh’s works from the perspective of the polysystem theory to find out the acquisition of French literature as well as the author’s creativity in comparison with the original ones. As a result, the contribution of Ho Bieu Chanh in modernizing Vietnamese literature and his success will be affirmed.