Narrating the Bizarre and Preaching Christianity in China: Samuel Woodbridge's English Translation of <i>The Mystery of the White Snake: A Legend of Thunder Peak Tower</i> in 1896

YAO Dadui

Volume 3 Issue 1

Mar. 2021

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YAO Dadui. Narrating the Bizarre and Preaching Christianity in China: Samuel Woodbridge's English Translation of The Mystery of the White Snake: A Legend of Thunder Peak Tower in 1896[J]. International Comparative Literature, 2020, 3(1): 136-150.

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YAO Dadui. Narrating the Bizarre and Preaching Christianity in China: Samuel Woodbridge's English Translation of The Mystery of the White Snake: A Legend of Thunder Peak Tower in 1896[J]. International Comparative Literature, 2020, 3(1): 136-150.

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Narrating the Bizarre and Preaching Christianity in China: Samuel Woodbridge's English Translation of The Mystery of the White Snake: A Legend of Thunder Peak Tower in 1896

YAO Dadui

Sun Yat-sen University

Received Date: 2019-10-11
Rev Recd Date: 2019-12-24
Publish Date: 2021-03-09

Abstract

Abstract

Samuel Woodbridge, an American missionary, translated the Chinese folktale The Legend of the White Snake into English in 1896 as The Mystery of the White Snake:A Legend of Thunder Peak Tower, incorporating aspects of a novel written by a Qing writer the Master of Jade Mountain (Yushan Zhuren) into the translation. Woodbridge's work is in fact a rewriting in three ways:it reorganizes the plot, changes the narrative style, and removes content. To attract Western readers, Woodbridge adopted narrative forms of modern Western novels and incorporated Western values in his translation. Meanwhile, Woodbridge's critique of Chinese beliefs and society is also legible in his translation. Woodbridge believed that the Chinese were given to fanatical idolatry, and that the state of Chinese minds needed to be clarified through the Christian Gospel. This article critically examines how Woodbridge's translation narrates an exotic and bizarre China and criticizes China's social status quo in order to convey to the Western reader the urgent need of preaching Christianity in China.
- Samuel Woodbridge,
- missionary in China,
- The Mystery of the White Snake:A Legend of Thunder Peak Tower,
- translation studies

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References(21)

References

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