Cross-Cultural Encounters: A Feminist Perspective on the Contemporary Reception of Jane Austen in China

Abstract

This article examines the changing nature of Austen's reception in China since the 1950s, in particular the growth of feminist critical approaches to her work among contemporary Chinese scholars. Among Austen's works, Pride and Prejudice has remained at the centre of scholarly and popular attention and has had a major impact on Chinese readers’ view of Austen as a feminist writer. Anglo-American scholarship commonly considers Austen's feminism in relation with her contemporary Mary Wollstonecraft's feminist thought. Unfamiliar with Wollstonecraft, Chinese scholars and general readers tend to read Austen rather differently, and their exploration of her engagement with ‘the woman question’ is instead closely connected with the development of Marxism and gender studies in contemporary China.