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Chung-Wai Literary Monthly
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Launched in 1972 by the Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures, National Taiwan University, Chung-Wai Literary Monthly is a pioneering journal on comparative studies of Chinese literature and literatures from other parts of the world. When cultural studies were emerging as a new field of studies in Taiwan in the late 1980s, Chung-Wai was instrumental in promoting the new scholarship by devoting several special issues to cultural studies around the world. Ranking as a first-rate academic journal according to the evaluation of Taiwan’s National Science Council, Chung-Wai has consistently won the recognition and recommendation of Chinese-language scholars and researchers worldwide Each issue of Chung-Wai features a theme, such as Native North American Literature, Transnational Culture and Taiwanese Literature, Urban Space and Cultural Governance, Economy of Exchange, Minor Theatre, Literary Studies and Biblical Tradition, Chinese Perspectives on Shakespeare, Gustave Flaubert and His Fiction, Chinese Culture in an Inter-Asian Context, Literary London, Biosemiotics, and so forth. Most of the special issues are edited by guest-editors, all distinguished scholars of the featured themes. In addition to themed articles, every issue also includes research articles on cutting-edge theories and practices in literary and cultural studies. All submissions to Chung-Wai are subject to a double-blind review process by specialists in related research fields. A meeting place for a wide range of disciplines and theoretical approaches, Chung-Wai is the most recognized Chinese-language literary/cultural studies journal in Taiwan and has continued to provide a forum for challenging disciplinary boundaries, fostering innovative connections, and examining the relevance of comparative literary studies to our contemporary society. |
Fourth Centenary: Many Faces of Don Quixote , Vol. 34, No. 6
Appreciation of Don Quixote: From Seventeenth Century to Twenty-First Century (Trans. Wen-Juin Kuan)
Post-Colonial In-Betweenness: James Fenimore Cooper's Leatherstocking Series and Early American National Subjectivity
The “post-colonial” dilemma the Americans faced in the early nineteenth century is of a different nature from that of Third-World countries. Unlike those countries, which have a pre-colonial cultural tradition to appeal to, European Americans share the same languages, religion, skin color, and even blood with their European forefathers. How could the former colonists be able to feel their new identity? To distinguish themselves from their European forefathers, the political leaders launched a cultural nativism. But the movement was greatly threatened by the existence of native Americans. European Americans had an unspeakable fear that the putting on of a local color might taint their white quality and turn them into barbarians. To strike a balance between the European and the Indian Other became the source of the identity crisis confronting the new republic in search of an American self. James Fenimore Cooper’s Leatherstocking series can be seen as a sign of this “in-between” national subjectivity. Exploring the shift of narrative framework in different phases of the Leatherstocking series, this paper will discuss the plight in American nationalism and the ideological ambivalence Cooper reveals in the attempt to produce a national narrative.
“China” in Cervante’s Don Quixote: A Pretext of Noble Image (Trans. Wen-Juin Kuan)
On Richard Strauss’s Don Quixote: An Intertextual Study on Literary Genre and Musical Form
Among the multitude of musical adaptations of Cervantes’s Don Quixote, the symphonic poem which bears the same title by Richard Strauss (1864-1949) enjoys the most popularity and reputation. Though premiered as early as 1898, most of the studies on Strauss’s Don Quixote are limited to analysis on motif, theme, tonality, and instrumentation, while little has been done to examine and explore the aesthetics of “Fantastische Variationen,” a subtitle which the composer himself has carefully chosen for his masterpiece. This article will look into the relationship between the literary text and its musical adaptation in order to probe into the implications generated by the term “Fantastische Variationen” as well as the meanings created by the intertextuality between word and music.
Burlesque Drama, Tragicomedy and Complex Play: Don Quijote in Musical Theater throughout the Centuries (Tran. Cheng-Fan Chen )
Miguel de Cervantes’s Don Quijote (1605/1615) is a truly universal work; many composers have been inspired by it since the 17th Century. Some representative musical works from the great quantity of the repertoire—the lyrical theater in this case—can demonstrate certain tendencies in the musical reception of Don Quijote. A comparison of operatic adaptations of Don Quijote throughout the centuries shows that each epoch has its own interpretation and musical vision, shown in the various forms adopted, such as burlesque, tragicomedy, experimental musical theater, and so forth.
Rewriting the Classic El Quijote: Ideologies in the Intercultural Transfer of Children’s Literature
The problems invoved in the rewriting of classical works into children's literature are complicated, as the rewriter's ideologies often infiltrate the rewritten work. A close look at the adaptations of the Spanish classic El Quijote may uncover the social attitudes, moral convictions, and mainstream ideologies embedded in the rewritten versions. When the readers are children and young adults, the patron's manipulations often preside over the text and compromise its literary expression. This paper seeks to examine some translators' strategies to see through their ideologies and restore the literariness of those children's versions translated from world classics.
The Poetry in Don Quijote de la Mancha
Much research has been done on various aspects of Miguel de Cervantes’s Don Quijote de la Mancha, but relatively little has been done on the poetry in the novel. There are eighty-two poems or verses in the novel. The present study examines this poetry in terms of the content, form, tradition and function. The opening poems and epitaphs are examined first, followed by the poetry through which characters express their emotions and philosophies. Finally, the paper looks at how the traditions of Spanish ballads (romances) and sonnets (sonetos) have been adopted by the author. Seven poems will be analyzed as examples to show the significance of poetry in Don Quijote.
Don Quixote: Tragedy of Hidalgo
In spite of his apparent craziness, Don Quixote sticks to his ideals. Although he knows that his dreams will vanish, he still fights for his destiny; therefore he falls into the Sisyphus metaphor, and becomes a symbol of an absurd person. Dulcinea is the perfect anima of Don Quixote; she gives him courage and power to conquer the evil. Don Quixote and Dulcinea present an impeccable image: a heroic knight and a beautiful lady. Don Quixote represents a binary world of ideals and facts. Indeed, this great novel is a mirror of the times Cervantes lived in, which reflects the mission of a knight errant, the manners and morals of the Golden Age of the Spanish Empire. Starting from a historical point of view, this essay will focus on the knight archetype of Quixote, from whom the life of the Spanish conquerors in the sixteenth century was revealed. I also explore the heroic deeds, which include the respect for ladies, the help to the poor, the Catholic crusade spirit in the self-contradictory feudal society.
Don Quixote in the Movie of Manuel Gutiérrez Aragón
This article studies the movie The Knight-errant Don Quixote (El caballero Don Quijote, 2002, by Spanish director M. Gutiérrez Aragón), an adaptation of the second part of Cervantes's Don Quixote. It aims to analyze the difference between the personality of Don Quixote and that of Sancho Panza in both the novel and the movie, as well as Gutiérrez Aragón's leitmotiv. While Gutiérrez Aragón projects certain Spanish image and nationalism through the mise en scène, color symbols and shooting techniques, evoking the Golden Age of Spanish Empire in the 16th and 17th centuries, he also offers his distinct interpretations as a Spanish director in relation to many Quixote movies shot in the past by other directors. In addition, this article also focuses on the comic effect shown by Sancho Panza in order to appreciate Cervantes's talent in drama and Gutiérrez Aragón's investment in theatrical representation. Moreover, the different ways of thinking about the madness of Don Quixote between Cervantes's times and the modern society cause Gutiérrez Aragón to present a more human and comprehensible Don Quixote.
Ideology and Translation: A New Perspective on the Chinese Translations of English Poetry before 1919
Is translation inspired or proscribed by certain ideological motivations or constraints? Do these ideological factors also function in poetry translation? If they do, then how do they constrain the translators in the process of translating poetry? This paper uses the polysystem approach to address the above questions through the study of the Chinese translations of English poetry before 1919. Modern translation studies have it that translation is a rewriting of an original text. All rewritings, whatever their intention, reflect a certain ideology and a poetics and as such manipulate literature to function in a given society in a given way. The present study examines how the early Chinese translators were manipulated by a certain ideology in the production of poetry translations. It depicts the self-centeredness in the state of mind of the translators in the host culture, and the role of patronage through the case study of certain individuals and institutions. It also investigates the selection of source text and adequate translational strategies used by the early translators. A detailed analysis of the early translations shows how they vary between the ever-changing norms of acceptability and adequacy to serve the conflicting ideological and poetic interests of two different systems. Finally, it explains how rewriting, under the constraints of certain ideology, has turned an aesthetic and poetic endeavor, born of the emotions, to be an instructive and didactic cultural transmission.
Other Issues
Contemporary Native North American Literature in Metamorphosis: A Voice from the Margins, Vol. 33, No. 8
Urban Cultural Governance
, Vol. 33, No. 9
Literary Studies and Biblical Tradition: 28th National Conference on Comparative Literature
, Vol. 33, No. 10
“For All Time”: Some Chinese Perspectives on Shakespeare
, Vol. 33, No. 11
Gustave Flaubert and His Fiction
, Vol. 33, No. 12
Chinese Culture in an Inter-Asian Context
, Vol. 34, No. 1
Literary London: Cityscape, Boundaries and London's Urban Literature
, Vol. 34, No. 2
Special Issue on Digital Culture
, Vol. 34, No. 3
Chinese-Language Literature in the United States
, Vol. 34, No. 4
New Perspectives on Japanese Literature
, Vol. 34, No. 5
Biosemiotics: Nature in Culture or Culture in Nature?
, Vol. 34, No. 7