China and the West

Henry Fielding 1921-2000
Han Jiaming : Henry Fielding was one of the first English novelists introduced to the Chinese reader. From the earliest translation of his works in the 1920s through the official commemoration of the two-hundredth anniversary of his death in 1954 to the numerous translations of Tom Jones in the reform period late in the century, the reception of Fielding serves as a good representation of the response to English literature in modern China.
In general studies on Fielding there are articles about his realistic narrative technique, his comic or humorous presentation, his treatment of characters, his panoramic social coverage, and his narrative theory. There are also critics who try to use modern or postmodern theories to examine Fielding's novels. In discussing individual novels, most critics focus on Tom Jones, and only very few pay attention for Joseph Andrews or Jonathan Wild. One explanation for this is that in literary history or selected reading courses most students have learned something about Tom Jones, but rarely about any other Fielding novel. In the study of Tom Jones, there are articles discussing the issue of morality, the picaresque tradition, the marvelous plot, and social satire, but the nature of Fielding's comic art and the intricacies of his social ideas remain to be further explored.