Xiaohong Zhang

The paper examines W.Somerset Maugham’s On a Chinese Screen through the lens of the picturesque aesthetic,unraveling the western undertone embedded in its landscape narratives.The study categorizes the picturesque scenery into three types,analyzing how Maugham’s depictions reduce China’s scenery to static,exotic and westernized visual tropes.It further argues that such scenic writing is,in essence,a projection of Western culture and value.Maugham’s Oriental imagery erases China’s subjectivit.Employing the picturesque framework,this study hope to offer a deeper critique of western undertones in Maugham’s work while reflecting on cross-cultural literary creation.Only by abandoning cultural prejudice can genuine and equitable cultural dialogue be achieved.

On a Chinese Screen; Picturesque aesthetic; Western culture; Landscape

[1] Ronghua Pang.A Study on Maugham's Exotic Travelogues.Dissertation.East China Normal University,2011. [2] Gilpin,William.An essay on prints.R.Blamire,1792. [3] Burke,Edmund."A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful 1757/1759." Eighteenth-Century British Aesthetics.Routledge,2019.249-278. [4] Price,Uvedale."An Essay on the Picturesque as Compared with the Sublime and Beautiful 1794."Eighteenth-Century British Aesthetics.Routledge,2019.431-440. [5] Said,Edward W."Orientalism."The Georgia Review 31.1(1977):162-206. [6] Maugham,William Somerset.On a Chinese screen.Vol.17.London:Heinemann,1922. [7] Copley,Stephen,and Peter Garside,eds.The Politics of the Picturesque:Literature,landscape and aesthetics since 1770.Cambridge University Press,1994.

点击下载PDF