Passion and Passio: The Chahua nü and Late Qing Courtesan Narratives

Abstract

Lin Shu and Wang Shouchang's Bali chahua nü yishi (1899), a translation of La dame aux camélias (1848) by Alexandre Dumas fils, has usually been read with an eye to the idealized figure of the noble courtesan in the Chinese literary tradition. The resemblance of the lady of the camellias to that figure has served to explain both her popular appeal to late Qing readers and her transformation into a Chinese literary and cultural icon. Her iconic status, however, has overshadowed the complex ways in which Lin and Wang's translation retells Dumas fils's story in relation to the array of late Qing courtesan narratives that would have been known to contemporary readers. By closely reading the original story in light of these narratives, this article shows how Dumas fils's tale shares many elements with late Qing courtesan fiction, including negative images of courtesanship, which the translation omits or rewrites. I examine how the translation transforms the morally ambiguous heroine into a devoted lover and re-situates her suffering (passio) and recognition — central motifs in the original story's Christian mythos — within a nostalgic reflection on courtesan-literati culture, where the courtesan serves as the alter ego of the unrecognized literatus.