In the wartime China of the 1940s, Yang Jiang 楊􄴛 wrote two very popular
comedies: As You Desire 稱心􂤪意 (1943) and Swindle 弄真􃆸假 (1943). The genre of these
two comedies and their relation to Western literature is discussed, and the connection
between the styles of Yang and Austen is noticed and established on the ground that their
works are regarded as belonging to the genre of the comedy of manners. This study focuses
on Yang's reception of Austen's comedic style in her own comedies and examines how she
receives and transforms the comedic elements of Austen's works onto the stage of the 1940s
wartime Shanghai theatre.
This thesis is divided into three parts. Part I discusses the background and horizon of
expectations of Yang's reception of Austen's comedic art. Yang's direct reception of Austen's
comic style is observed in her critique of Austen, in which her interpretation of Austen's style
is generically related to the comedy of manners. Yang's reading experience of the familiar
works of the comedy of manners in classical Chinese literature, as well as the comedies of
manners written by Chinese playwrights in the China of the 1920s to 1940s, is the significant
key to comprehending her horizon of expectations in the reception of Austen's style.
Part II examines Yang's reception of Austen's style of the comedy of manners. The
similarities between the styles of these two writers are discovered in the contexts of the
Cheung depiction of female laughter, the spatial settings and anti-romanticism.
Part III discusses Yang's transformation of Austen's comedic art in her own comedies.
Living in a more turbulent environment than did Austen, Yang transforms Austen's comedic
art in accordance with wartime Shanghai's socio-historical and socio-literary context. This
transformation is demonstrated in two aesthetic orders of Yang's comedies: disillusionment
and detachment.