Jane Eyre in China, 1867–1949: A Transnational Transfer and Cross-Cultural Spread

Abstract

Abstracts Although there has been growing scholarly interest in the Brontë studies in China since its Reform and Opening-up (gaige kaifang) in the late 1970s, the Brontë sisters’ initial entry to China, the translation of their works and their Chinese reception before 1949 have not been adequately mapped out. This essay first delves into the transnational journey of the Brontës to China in Shanghai-based English newspapers. It then examines how the intellectual debate over literary translation in the 1920s preconditions the quintessentially Chinese reception of Jane Eyre and its cinematic reconstruction in the coming decades, centred on whether they were of political relevance to China. I attend to the ways in which the controversial Chinese reception of Jane Eyre and its 1944 film adaptation unveils a Chinese society that was dramatically transforming itself on intellectual, socio-political, and military fronts. In so doing, the paper sheds new light on the interpretation of Jane Eyre through a Chinese lens.