Chapter Emotion and Female Authority: A Comparison of Chinese and English Fiction in the Eighteenth Century
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ArtikelSerie: Utgivningsinformation: Florence Firenze University Press 2023Beskrivning: 1 electronic resource (10 p.)Innehållstyp: - text
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- 9791221502428
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This essay considers how early modern Chinese romance novels conceive of female agency and how this conception was received by prominent cultural elites in eighteenth-century England. In his notes to Hau Kiou Choaan, the first English translation of a full-length Chinese novel, Thomas Percy referred to the novel's heroine as a "masculine woman", displaying a peculiar misreading of its trope of female cross-dressing. The essay argues that the increasing association of women with the private sphere in eighteenth-century English culture is a crucial context to consider when we study the initial spread of Chinese fiction in England.
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