摘 要

老舍是中国20世纪杰出的长篇小说大师之一，狄更斯是英国19世纪伟大的批判现实主义作家。在英国期间阅读的大量的英文小说，使老舍在创作手法上受到狄更斯的直接影响。

本文从文学接受和文化过滤的角度分析狄更斯对老舍文学创作的影响。文学接受是整个文学活动系统中的一个必不可少的环节，对于激励作家的创作，对于推动文学事业的进一步发展具有重要的意义。狄更斯作品中的幽默文风、对故乡伦敦的描写以及小人物的描写都契合了老舍的创作倾向。文化过滤指文学交流中接受者的不同的文化背景和文化传统对接受信息的选择、改造、移植、渗透的作用。随着老舍创作的不断成熟，他的作品更多地立足于中国社会的现实，体现着浓郁的“北京市民文化”特色。将狄更斯的风格进行变异，创作出别具特色的幽默风格以及小人物形象。

论文分为五个章节。第一章介绍老舍的生活经历以及狄更斯作品对老舍的影响，分析对狄更斯和老舍关系的研究现状，最后阐明论文的研究框架和意义。第二章解释文学接受和文化过滤两个理论的概念。第三章立足于文化接受的基础上，从幽默风格、城市题材、小人物形象三个角度论述狄更斯对老舍文学创作的影响。第四章立足于文化过滤的基础上，分析了老舍在借鉴的同时，选择以中化民族的特色为创作根基。打造出独具特色的京味幽默和北京市井小人物。最后一章总结全文。

关键词：老舍；狄更斯；文学接受；文化变异

Abstract

Lao She is one of the most outstanding novel masters of the 20th century in China, while as Dickens is the great realist writer in the 19th century in the world. In the course of lecturing in British, Lao She read a large number of English novels and was directly influenced by Dickens on the creative approach.

The paper, from the angle of literary reception and cultural filtering, makes a detailed analysis of Dickens’ influence on Lao She’s literary creation. Literary reception, an indispensable part of the whole literary movement system, which is of great significance to stimulating the writer’s creation and promoting the further development of the literary career. The usage of humorous style, the description of the hometown of London and the nobody in Dickens’ works were both appealed to Lao She’s creative tendency. Cultural filtering refers to the role of selecting, changing, transplanting and infiltrating the reception during the literature communication with the recipients in different cultural backgrounds and cultural traditions. As Lao She’s creation matures, his works are mainly based on the reality of Chinese society, with strong Beijing civic culture characteristics. He was altered Dickens’ writing style and integrating into his own creative practice to produce an unique humorous style and the nobody characters.

The paper is divided into five chapters. Chapter one introduces the life experiences of Lao She and Dickens’ influence on Lao She after he went to British, analyzes the existing studies on Lao She and Dickens. Then it expounds the structure and significance of the paper. Chapter two mainly explains the concepts of literary reception and cultural filtering. Chapter three is based on literary reception to discuss Dickens’ influence on Lao She’s literary creation from the angle of humorous style, urban subject and the nobody theme. Chapter four is based on cultural filtering to analyze that Lao She choices the Chinese cultural characteristics as the basis for his creation. He created the Beijing-flavor humor and Beijing’s nobody images. Chapter five sums up the whole paper.

Key Words: Lao She; Dickens; literary reception; cultural filtering

Contents

1 Introduction 1

1.1 The background of Lao She 1

1.2 Lao She’s trip to England 2

1.3 Literature review 2

2 Literary Reception and Cultural Filtering 4

2.1 Theoretical basis 4

2.2 Literary reception 4

2.3 Cultural filtering 5

2.4 The relationship between literary reception and cultural filtering 6

3 Dickens’ Influence on Lao She’s Creation on the Basis of Literary Reception 7

3.1 Literary reception in Lao She’s creation 7

3.2 Humorous style 7

3.2.1 Dickens’ humorous style 7

3.2.2 Lao She’s humorous style 8

3.3 The choice of urban subject 9

3.3.1 Dickens’ London 9

3.3.2 Lao She’s Beijing 9

3.4 The nobody theme 10

3.4.1 The nobody in Dickens’ writings 10

3.4.2 The nobody in Lao She’s writings 11

4 Dickens’ Influence on Lao She’s Creation on the Basis of Cultural Filtering 12

4.1 Cultural filtering in Lao She’s creation 12

4.2 The development of humorous style 12

4.3 The differences of the nobody 13

5 Conclusions 15

References 16

Acknowledgements 17

Dickens’ Influence on Lao She’s Works from the Perspective of Literary Reception and Cultural Filtering

1 Introduction

Lao She is one of the most representative writers in the history of Chinese literature in the 20th century. He went to England as early as at the age of 25 and began his creative career during that time. Despite living in a foreign country, but he created a series of lifelike Chinese native image characters in his novels, they were all deeply broken the imprint of Chinese traditional culture.

1.1 The background of Lao She

Lao She lived in the period of great change in China, the May Fourth Movement freed people’s mind and mobilized their initiative. People of insight began to seek the recipe for salvaging the country and the nation. In the face of strong aggression from the West, they also saw the necessity of learning the advanced social institutions to the west. Thus, China’s ideological field unfolded a great upsurge of studying the advanced capitalist countries in the West. At this time, a lot of intellectuals traveled and studied abroad. In a foreign country they were experienced the painful which brought from they were the people from the weak country, but more firmly the faith to learn from the West to enrich the motherland. Lao She is one of the most representative writers among them.

The profound Chinese traditional culture embodied in Lao She’s work is closely relevant to his life experience. In 1899 Lao She was born in Beijing, a lower Manchu family. He was born in an impoverished family, in his life there were two persons who had significant influence on his personality were his mother and Zong Yue Master. In his My Mother, Mr. Lao she once said, if I don’t have such a mother, I deem that I’m going to make a big discount. His mother was a traditional Chinese woman who faced difficulties calmly and was willing to help others. In Lao She’s another prose Zong Yue Master, he wrote that I could have never been able to go to school without him. Zong Yue Master was always doing everything possible to help the poor in need. Being influenced by his mother and Zong Yue Master, Lao She determined the conviction of a lifetime for goodness. In 1922, Lao She was baptized into Christianity as a lower class intellectuals and in the absence of any Christian background.

1.2 Lao She’s trip to England

It was precisely because of the Christian that he met Bao Guanglin, who was graduated from Seminary in the University of London. Through his introduction, Lao She got the chance to study English via following the British Professor in Yanjing University. By their two’s recommendation, Lao She received the opportunity to teach Chinese Mandarin in the Oriental Academy of London University in 1924. So that he was able to go abroad in Britain, and began his literary creation in Britain.

Although Lao She was a university professor during the time in Britain, his annual salary was low which was not able to sustain even the most basic life, therefore, there was no excess money for socializing. And at that time, he suffered discrimination in Britain as a weak country’s people. In order to enrich himself, he did an array of reading in the library, expect for the working time. He systematically read a large number of Western history and literary works in this period, which provided a wealthy Western literary literacy for Lao She’s future creation career.