Jane Austen in popular culture
The novels of Jane Austen were unknown in China until 1917 when Wei Yi mentioned Austen in her book "Brief Profiles of Famous Western Novelists" where she was described as "one of the celebrated English novelists". Only a few western novels were translated in China during the 19th century, and it was not until 1898 when Lin Shu translated "Camille" by Alexandre Dumas, which unexpectedly become a bestseller, that Chinese publishers became interested in western books. Austen was first translated into Chinese in 1935, when two editions of "Pride and Prejudice" were published in Beijing and Shanghai. After 1949 Austen was out of favor in the People's Republic of China as a "bourgeois" author whose work was considered frivolous. In the 1950s most of the foreign books published in the People's Republic were translations of Soviet books, and Western authors were only translated into Chinese if they were "revolutionary" writers like Lord Byron or if their books portrayed Western societies in an unflattering light like Charles Dickens; Austen did not serve either purpose very well. In 1956, Austen was first translated in the People's Republic when "Pride and Prejudice" was published in Beijing, with an introduction by the translator explaining how the translation was justified on Marxist grounds as the novel showed the decline of feudalism and rise of capitalism in England. In 1965 Dong Hengxun, an academic, condemned Austen in an article titled "The Description of Love in "Pride and Prejudice"" in the "Guangming Daily" as "artistically insignificant". Austen was banned along with other Western authors in China during the Cultural Revolution and during the 1980s, translations of Austen were grudgingly allowed, though officially Austen remained out of favor. The first Chinese academic in the People's Republic to write favorably of Austen was Zhu Hong, who complained in his 1986 essay "The Pride and Prejudice against Jane Austen" that ordinary people liked Austen well enough, but academics had to condemn her because of the Party line, which led him to ask for books to be judged on artistic grounds only. In the 1990s Communist Party condemnations of Austen ceased, and a number of Chinese students produced dissertations on Austen, with Austen being very popular with female students. In 2011 one Chinese academic, Zhang Helong, wrote about Austen's "huge popularity" in modern China. In 2017, "The Economist" noted that in China: "... Austen is seen as having a particular affinity with Chinese culture, where “manners matter” as they did in Georgian England." "Pride and Prejudice" has been translated into Chinese at least 50 times while "Sense and Sensibility" has been translated 10 times in the last decades. Austen's ideal hero as a property-owning gentleman has resonance in China, where a well-off man with good education and manners who owes land is the considered the ideal man. In 2010, Sadoff wrote that the growing appeal of Austen in Asia ensures that market for Austen films continues to grow, and it is possible Asia would soon replace the United States as the largest market for Austen films, if it has not already done so.
Styles and themes of Jane Austen
Jane Austen famously wrote to her nephew James Edward Austen that his "strong, manly, spirited Sketches, full of Variety and Glow" would not fit on "the little bit (two Inches wide) of Ivory on which I work with so fine a Brush, as produces little effect after much labour." Austen novels have often been characterized as "country house novels" or as "comedies of manners". Comedies of manners are concerned "with the relations and intrigues of gentlemen and ladies living in a polished and sophisticated society" and the comedy is the result of "violations of social conventions and decorum, and relies for its effect in great part on the wit and sparkle of the dialogue." However, Austen's novels also have important fairy tale elements to them. "Pride and Prejudice" follows the traditional Cinderella plot while ""Persuasion" rewrites the Cinderella narrative, as it shifts the fairy tale's emphasis from the heroine's transformation into a beauty to the prince's second look at her face." However, Fanny, in "Mansfield Park", rejects the Prince Charming character and at least one scholar has suggested that in this Austen is signalling "a general attack on the dangers of 'fiction'".
Austen's novels can easily be situated within the 18th-century novel tradition. Austen, like the rest of her family, was a great novel reader. Her letters contain many allusions to contemporary fiction, often to such small details as to show that she was thoroughly familiar with what she read. Austen read and reread novels, even minor ones. She read widely within the genre, including many works considered mediocre both then and now, but tended to emphasize domestic fiction by women writers, and her own novels contain many references to these works. For example, the phrase "pride and prejudice" comes from Burney's "Cecilia", and the Wickham subplot in "Pride and Prejudice" is a parody of Henry Fielding's "Tom Jones".