The Chinese Gong’an Genre as World Literature: A Case Study of the Judge Dee Series

Damrosch defines world literature as an “elliptical refraction” of national literature, with the source and host cultures being the two foci of the ellipse. It means national literature will be refracted by the host culture when it circulates into the global literary space. This thesis, drawing on Damrosch’s theory and comparative genology, discusses the “refraction” of the Chinese gong’an genre under the influence of the detective conventions when it was introduced to Anglophone countries. This thesis uses the Judge Dee series as a case study. It was written by the Dutch sinologist Robert H. van Gulik (1910–1967). I analyse the book series’ “refraction” of the gong’an genre in structure, content and the representation of justice which is the theme of crime fiction. I also analyse the reception of the book series in Englishspeaking countries to illustrate the advantages and disadvantages of generic “refraction”. I conclude that the gong’an features were preserved in the Judge Dee series in the first few books, but they were gradually changed, and the book series became increasingly similar to English detective fiction. This case study proves Damrosch’s theory, but the host culture exerts a stronger influence than his theory suggests, which means the global literary space is not always an ellipse which is a stable and symmetrical shape. Through the study of the Judge Dee series, this thesis examines Damrosch’s definition of world literature and reiterates the importance of genre in the study of world literature.