Abstract
The book On the Poetry of the Chinese was the first monograph attempting to introduce and translate Chinese classical poetry comprehensively and systematically in the history of British Sinology. With its popularity and significant influence in Europe, the book was regarded as the foundation stone on the research of the Chinese poetics in the West. It attaches great importance to the Chinese folk poems, and displays undue favor toward Western-style poems written by Chinese, it also involves some initiative and highly constructive views on Chinese epics, pastoral poetry and poetic dramas. Especially, the view that the Chinese has no epics is similarly found in Hegel's Esthetics. It is generally believed that Hegel's book that spreads the claim about Chinese epics around the world, but the paper proposes that the claim had been explicitly enunciated in John Francis Davis's book as early as in 1829. This paper examines and identifies 100 Chinese poems cited in the book, thus to analyze Davis's concept on the Chinese poetry, and evaluate on the merits and demerits of the book and its academic impact. It is hoped that the paper will contribute to the understanding of the early European Sinologists' perception and interpretation of Chinese poetry as well as provide reference to the study of the early overseas dissemination of the Chinese Poetry.
First Page
45
Last Page
52
Recommended Citation
Wang, Yan, and Yan Fang. 2012. "On the Poetry of the Chineseand Early Overseas Dissemination of the Chinese Classical Poetry." Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art 32, (3): pp.45-52. https://tsla.researchcommons.org/journal/vol32/iss3/9
