The Chinese Enigma in Anglo-American Popular Literature, 1900-1939
Abstract
i ... introduction Implicit within the pages of our ephemeral popular literature are certain themes which reach out and receive an unquestioning unity of perfect understanding. These are the universals, the Everymen of popular art, reflecting in bold blacks and whites the tenets of the culture they serve. Passion and honor, the challenge and conquest of evil, are some of the motifs - familiar verities striking an immediate response - around which our popular fiction has been built. Another such theme concerns the Chinese. For over four decades the vast audiences for what may be termed America's popular arts have unhesitatingly accepted as axiomatic a portrait of the Chinese involving, at its worst, malevolence and the sinister, dark raptures and the diabolic occult. The appearance of such stereotypes in our popular literature, their waning and transformations, and the enigma of their relationship to our culture, will be the subjects of this study.
Subject Area
Literature|American literature
Recommended Citation
Steinbrunner, P. Christian, "The Chinese Enigma in Anglo-American Popular Literature, 1900-1939" (1958). ETD Collection for Fordham University. AAI28673342.
https://research.library.fordham.edu/dissertations/AAI28673342
