Reimagining Female Authority in Shakespeare&#x02019;s The Merchant of Venice: Portia&#x02019;s Voice in Bao Tianxiao&#x02019;s The Lawyeress

C&#x000e9;sar Guarde-Paz

PDF(765 KB)

Journal of Translation Studies ›› 2025, Vol. 9 ›› Issue (1) : 131-158.

Reimagining Female Authority in Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice: Portia’s Voice in Bao Tianxiao’s The Lawyeress

César Guarde-Paz

Author information +

History +

Abstract

This paper offers a critical analysis of the reinterpretation of female authority in William Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice by exploring the role of Portia and her transformation in early Chinese translations. First, it provides a brief survey of recent interpretations of Portia’s role in The Merchant to familiarize the reader with current debates and the different readings. The objective is to present a concrete understanding of Shakespeare’s intentions regarding sexual dynamics in order to assess how these elements were recontextualized in Chinese translations for specific cultural purposes. Next, the paper examines the first Chinese translations of the play to determine how faithfully they preserved the original portrayal of female characters. Finally, this paper analyzes Bao Tianxiao’s adaptation, The Lawyeress, considering how deviations from Shakespeare’s original text reflected evolving attitudes toward sexual equality in early twentieth century China and contributed to the creation of a uniquely feminist reading of Portia’s character.

Key words

William Shakespeare / The Merchant of Venice / Lin Shu / Bao Tianxiao / The Lawyeress / feminism

Cite this article

EndNote

Ris (Procite)

Bibtex

Download Citations

César Guarde-Paz. Reimagining Female Authority in Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice: Portia’s Voice in Bao Tianxiao’s The Lawyeress[J]. Journal of Translation Studies. 2025, 9(1): 131-158

References

Allen, Young,Timothy Richard (eds.) (1877). “Lun Youtairen sandun buyi benxin” 論猶太人散遁不易本心 [On the Jews’s dispersal and their unwavering convictions]. Wanguo gongbao 萬國公報 7: 305a-306b.
Auden, Wystan H. (1962). “Brothers and Others.” In The Dyer’s Hand and Other Essays, by W. H. Auden, 218-237. Faber and Faber.
Aughterson, Kate,Ailsa Grant Ferguson (2020). Shakespeare and Gender: Sex and Sexuality in Shakespeare’s Drama. Bloomsbury.
Bao, Tianxiao 包天笑 (1911). “Nü lüshi” 女律師 [The lawyeress]. Nüxuesheng zazhi 女學生雜誌 2: 104-110.
—(1912). “Ku er liulang ji” 苦兒流浪記 [The wandering of a miserable child]. Jiaoyu zazhi 教育雜誌 4(4): 13-16.
—(1971). Chuanyinglou huiyi lu 釧影樓回憶錄 [Reminiscences of the bracelet shadow chamber]. Dahua chubanshe 大華出版社.
Belliotti, Raymond A. (2012). Shakespeare and Philosophy: Lust, Love, and Law. Rodopi.
Berger, Harry Jr. (1981). “Marriage and Mercifixion in The Merchant of Venice: The Casket Scene Revisited.” Shakespeare Quarterly 32(2): 155-162.
Birkett, Audrey (2013). “Theoretical Questions and Critical Answers in The Merchant of Venice.” In New Readings of The Merchant of Venice, ed. by Horacio Sierra, 15-41. Cambridge Scholars.
Cao, Xueqin 曹雪芹 (1958). Honglou meng bashi hui jiaoben 紅樓夢八十回校本 [Variorum edition of the Dream of the Red Chamber, vol. 2]. People’s Literature Publishing House 人民文學出版社 .
Chevrier, Yves (2012). “Elusive Democracy (1915-1937).” In China, Democracy, and Law: A Historical and Contemporary Approach, ed. by Mireille Delmas-Marty, and Pierre-Etienne Will, 459-539. Brill.
Cohen, Walter (1982). “The Merchant of Venice and the Possibilities of Historical Criticism.” ELH 49(4): 765-789.
Dikötter, Frank (1992). The Discourse of Race in Modern China. Hong Kong University Press.
Dover Wilson, John (ed.) (1968). The Merchant of Venice. The Cambridge Dover Wilson Shakespeare. Cambridge University Press.
Edwards, Louise (2008). Gender, Politics, and Democracy. Women’s Suffrage in China. Stanford University Press.
Falcón y Tella, María José,Juan Antonio Martínez Muñoz (2021). Challenges to Legal Theory: Essays in Honour of Professor José Iturmendi Morales. Brill.
Gimpel, Denise (2002). Lost Voices of Modernity: A Chinese Popular Fiction Magazine in Context. University of Hawaii Press.
Gohlke, Madelon (1983). “‘I wooed thee with my sword:’ Shakespeare’s Tragic Paradigms.” In The Woman’s Part: Feminist Criticism of Shakespeare, ed. by Carolyn Ruth Swift Lenz, Gayle Greene, and Carol Thomas Neely, 150-170. University of Illinois Press.
Guarde-Paz, Cesar (2017). Modern Chinese Literature, Lin Shu and the Reformist Movement: Between Classical and Vernacular Language. Palgrave Macmillan.
Hill, Michael G.(2013). Lin Shu, Inc. Translation and the Making of Modern Chinese Culture. Oxford University Press.
Holloway, Sally (2019). The Game of Love in Georgian England: Courtship, Emotions, and Material Culture. Oxford University Press.
Huang, Alexander Cheng-Yuan (2009). Chinese Shakespeares: Two Centuries of Cultural Exchange. Columbia University Press.
Hudson, Henry N. (ed.) (1906). The New Hudson Shakespeare—The Merchant of Venice. Ginn and Company.
Jankowski, Theodora A. (2016). “…in the Lesbian Void: Woman-Woman Eroticism in Shakespeare’s Plays.” In A Feminist Companion to Shakespeare, ed. by Dympna Callaghan, 318-338. Wiley Blackwell.
Jiaoxin 蕉心 (1914). “Nüzi dang you putong yixue zhishi” 女子當有普通醫學知識 [Women should have basic medical knowledge]. Funü shibao 婦女時報 14: 3-5.
Judge, Joan (2018). “Foreign Knowledge of Bodies: Japanese Sources, Western Science, and China’s Republican Lady.” In Women and the Periodical Press in China’s Long Twentieth Century: A Space of Their Own?, ed. by Michel Hockx, Joan Judge, and Barbara Mittler, 255-281. Cambridge University Press.
Kahn, Coppélia (2016). “Family Quarrels: Feminist Criticism, Queer Studies, and Shakespeare in the Twenty-First Century.” In Rethinking Feminism in Early Modern Studies: Gender, Race, and Sexuality, ed. by Ania Loomba, and Melissa E. Sanchez, 43-57. Routledge.
Kemp, Theresa D. (2010). Women in the Age of Shakespeare. Greenwood.
Lamb, Charles,Mary Lamb (1807). Tales from Shakespear, vol. 2. London.
Lanier, Douglas M. (2019). The Merchant of Venice: Language and Writing. Bloomsbury.
Lee, Haiyan (2006). Revolution of the Heart. Stanford University Press.
Lin, Shu 林紓 (trans.) (1904). Yinbian yanyu 吟邊燕語 [Swallowtales sung at the border]. Shangwu yinshuguan.
Link, Perry (1984). “An Interview with Pao T’ien-hsiao.” In Chinese Middlebrow Fiction: From the Ch’ing and Early Republican Eras, ed. by Liu Ts’un-yan, 241-254. The Chinese University of Hong Kong Press.
Liu, Jane Qian (2017). Transcultural Lyricism: Translation, Intertextuality, and the Rise of Emotion in Modern Chinese Love Fiction, 1899-1925. Brill.
Luan, Meijian 欒梅健 (1996). Tongsu wenxue zhi wang: Bao Tianxiao zhuan 通俗文學之王:包天笑傳 [The king of popular literature: A biography of Bao Tianxiao]. Yeqiang.
Luo, Lie 羅列 (2008). “Fanyi wenxue yu nüquan huayu de jiangou: Baoxiya xingxiang zai ershi shiji chuye Zhongguo de fanyi yu chong gou” 翻譯文學與女權話語的建構:鮑西婭形象在二十世紀初葉中國的翻譯與重構 [Translation literature and the construction of the feminist discourse: The translation and reconstruction of Portia’s image in China in the early twentieth century].Journal of Translation Studies 11(1): 105-132.
Maguire, Laurie E. (2016). “Feminist Editing and the Body of the Text.” In A Feminist Companion to Shakespeare, ed. by Dympna Callaghan, 75-97. Wiley Blackwell.
Mailloux, Steven (1985). “Rhetorical Hermeneutics.” Critical Inquiry 11(4): 620-641.
Mann, David (2007). “Female Play-going and the Good Woman.” Early Theatre 10(2): 51-70.
McKewin, Carole (1983). “Counsels of Gall and Grace: Intimate Conversations between Women in Shakespeare’s Plays.” In The Woman’s Part: Feminist Criticism of Shakespeare, ed. by Carolyn Ruth Swift Lenz, Gayle Greene, and Carol Thomas Neely, 117-132. University of Illinois Press.
Newman, Karen (1987). “Portia’s Ring: Unruly Women and Structures of Exchange in The Merchant of Venice.” Shakespeare Quarterly 38(1): 19-33.
Norris, Christopher (1987). Derrida. Harvard University Press.
Oldrieve, Susan (1993). “Marginalized Voices in ‘The Merchant of Venice.’” Cardozo Studies in Law and Literature 5(1): 87-105.
Orgel, Stephen (1996). Impersonations: The Performance of Gender in Shakespeare’s England. Cambridge University Press.
Packer, Tina (2015). Women of Will: Following the Feminine in Shakespeare’s Plays. Penguin.
Pang-White, Ann A.(trans.) (2018). The Confucian Four Books for Women. A New Translation of the Nü Sishu and the Commentary of Wang Xiang. Oxford University Press.
Park, Clara Clairbone (1983). “As We Like It: How a Girl Can Be Smart and Still Popular.” In The Woman’s Part: Feminist Criticism of Shakespeare, ed. by Carolyn Ruth Swift Lenz, Gayle Greene, and Carol Thomas Neely, 100-116. University of Illinois Press.
Qian, Xuantong 錢玄同 (1918). “Jin zhi suowei ‘pingjujia’” 今之所謂「評劇家」 [The contemporary so-called “theater critics”]. Xin qingnian 新青年 5(2): 187-188.
—(1919). “‘Heimu’ shu”「黑幕」書 [“Black-screen” fiction]. Xin qingnian 新青年 6(1): 74-75.
Rackin, Phyllis (2005). Shakespeare and Women. Oxford University Press.
—(2016). “Misogyny Is Everywhere.” In A Feminist Companion to Shakespeare, ed. by Dympna Callaghan, 60-74. Wiley Blackwell.
Raffel, Burton (ed.) (2006). The Annotated Shakespeare: The Merchant of Venice. Yale University Press.
Sang, Tze-Lan (2003). The Emerging Lesbian. Female Same-Sex Desire in Modern China. University of Chicago Press.
“Shencha Nü lushi ju” 審查女律師劇 [Investigating the play The Lawyeress] (1915). Shuntian shibao 順天時報 4192: 7.
Shiji vol. 10 史記卷十 (1959), Zhonghua shuju 中華書局 .
Simon, Ernest (1993). “Re: ‘The Taming of the Jew.’” Cardozo Studies in Law and Literature 5(2): 325-330.
Sinfield, Alan (2006). Shakespeare, Authority, Sexuality: Unfinished Business in Cultural Materialism. Routledge.
Singh, Jyotsna G. (2016). “Gendered ‘Gifts’ in Shakespeare’s Belmont: The Economies of Exchange in Early Modern England.” In A Feminist Companion to Shakespeare, ed. by Dympna Callaghan, 162-178. Wiley Blackwell.
Stones, Rob (1996). Sociological Reasoning: Towards a Past-Modern Sociology. St. Martin’s Press.
Tarumoto, Teruo 樽本照雄 (2008). Rin Jo enzai jikenbo 林紓冤罪事件簿 [Case file of false accusations against Lin Shu]. Qingmo xiaoshuo yanjiu hui 清末小説研究會 .
Traub, Valerie (1992). Desire and Anxiety: Circulations of Sexuality in Shakespearean Drama. Routledge.
Tritter, Daniel F. (1993). “Re: Law and Literature.. and History.” Cardozo Studies in Law and Literature 5(2): 330-335.
Tsui, Jean Kam (2008). “Rewriting Shakespeare: A Study of Lin Shu’s Translation of Tales from Shakespeare.” MPhil diss., The University of Hong Kong.
Wang, David Der-wei (2017). A New Literary History of Modern China. Harvard University Press.
Wang, Zheng (1999). Women in the Chinese Enlightenment. Oral and Textual Histories. University of California Press.
Xia, Xiaohong 夏曉虹 (2016). Wanqing wenren funü guan (Zengding ben) 晚清文人婦女觀(增訂本)[Late Qing elite views on women (Revised edition)]. Beijing daxue chubanshe 北京大學出版社.
Xiewai qitan 澥外奇譚 (Strange tales from overseas) (1903). Dawen she 達文社 .
Xu, Xueqing (2008) “The Mandarin Ducks and Butterfly School.” In Literary Societies of Republican China, ed. by Kirk A. Denton, and Michel Hockx, 47-78. Lexington Books.
Xunzi 荀子 (1996). Xunzi zhuzi suoyin 荀子逐字索引 [A concordance to the Xunzi]. Institute of Chinese Studies, The Chinese University of Hong Kong 香港中文大學中國文化研究所 .
Yang, Shiji 楊世驥 (1945). Wenyuan tanwang 文苑談往 [Reminiscence of the literary world], vol. 1. Zhonghua shuju 中華書局 .
Yu, Ying-shih (2016). Chinese History and Culture: Seventeenth Century Through Twentieth Century, vol. 2. Columbia University Press.
Zhang, Xiaoyang (1996). Shakespeare in China: A Comparative Study of Two Traditions and Cultures. University of Delaware Press.
Zhonglun 中論 (1995). Zhonglun zhuzi suoyin 中論逐字索引 [A concordance to the Zhonglun]. Institute of Chinese Studies, The Chinese University of Hong Kong 香港中文大學中國文化研究所 .
Zhou, Xun (2013). Chinese Perceptions of the ‘Jews’ and Judaism: A History of the Youtai. Routledge.
Zhou, Zuoren 周作人 (1918). “Riben jin sanshi nian xiaoshuo zhi fada” 日本近三十年小說之發達 [The development of Japanese fiction over the past thirty years]. Xin qingnian 新青年 5(1): 24-42.