英国汉学界 “中国戏剧” 观念的发生及其历史语境: 基于元杂剧《老生儿》德庇时译本相关书评的考察

With the publication of J. F. Davis’s English translation of Lao Sheng Er, there appeared intensive book reviews of this translated Chinese drama on periodicals in London, which presented certain characteristics of the concept of “Chinese drama” in early British Sinology, as well as that of its historical context. The Amherst embassy to China in 1816 was the essential historical opportunity for Lao Sheng Er to draw attention. The English translation and literary criticism of this drama may be regarded as the beginning when British Sinologists start to get rid of the dominance of the Catholic Jesuits and study Chinese literature and drama on their own. Those related review articles, integrated with political criticism, cultural criticism and literary criticism, bear a pragmatic purpose, and a discourse deeply influenced by the British “sentimental comedy” at that time. Translators, review editors, and critics have grafted the concepts of “belles lettres” and “popular literature” to the then Chinese literature, which has endowed Chinese drama and novel with a position that is totally different from the orthodox evaluation of Chinese literature of the same time. Such a cross-cultural dissemination of Yuan zaju from the perspective of the history of Sinology reminds us the necessity in paying attention to the complexity of historical context and its profound mechanism and the field of cultural production, in order to excavate the specific and subtle details.