The Reception of <i>The Catcher in the Rye</i>: A Paradigm for “Countercanon”

Abstract

The study investigates the acceptance of J. D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye in China based on David Damrosch’s concepts of world literature which presented mainly in his influential book What is World Literature. Damrosch elaborates the notion by focusing on a threefold definition, namely the world, text and reader, therefore the discussion of this research is divided accordingly into three subchapters: the circulation, translation, and reading. It is found that the reception of Catcher in China shows three stages, which originated from the intrinsic nature of the novel and the complicated phasic social condition of socialist China; the findings also show how an alienated “countercanon” has been accepted by foreign readers from the perspective of translation distinction; analyzes the reason why it could be appreciated by Chinese readers of different backgrounds who have long been nurtured by Confucianism and meet their horizon of expectations. In this way, the study hopes to contribute to overcoming the barriers encountered by literary works stepping into the world literature realm and setting a paradigm for literature, especially “countercanon” literature dissemination.