From Lamb to Lin Shu- The Early Translation and Cultural Adaptation of Shakespeare in China 1806-1906

This thesis is the first full-length study addressing the initial textual transmission of Shakespeare in China: not in the form of plays but through Mary and Charles Lamb’s adapted and abbreviated Tales from Shakespeare, first published in 1807. The Lambs’ choices played a significant part in determining how Shakespeare was initially interpreted by Chinese readers. By carefully analysing the Tales from Shakespeare and the two earliest Chinese adaptations, Xiewai Qitan and Yinbian Yanyu, through texts and paratexts, this thesis unpicks the transformations of Shakespeare’s plays and their reception in China.
Chapter One considers the adaptation of Shakespeare as the Tales from Shakespeare by Mary and Charles Lamb. I discuss the Tales from Shakespeare within the context of early nineteenth-century British historical and literary culture and examine Charles Lamb’s engagement with China. Situating the Tales in the context of 1800s’ Britain, the second part of this chapter examines the book’s structure and its paratexts, which are likely to have contributed to the book’s success in China a century later. Chapter Two engages with the Lambs’ friend Thomas Manning not merely as a traveller or scholar, but as an intellectually conflicted mediator whose life and writings illuminate the possibilities and limits of early intercultural understanding of China. Chapter Three examines the paratexts of Xiewai Qitan and Yinbian Yanyu to investigate the primary phase of Shakespeare’s reception in China. I analyse the paratext of two translations of the Tales from Shakespeare and reveal the strategies by which these texts domesticated Shakespeare within late-Qing literary norms. Chapter Four centres on the transformation of gender, morality, and cultural meaning in Yinbian Yanyu and Xiewai Qitan. I examine how the translators specifically reshaped the Lambs’ already mediated Shakespeare to align with late Qing aesthetic norms, ethical frameworks, and political purposes.