The speaker: Professor Li Meihua

On the afternoon of May 22, Prof. Li Meihua, professor of Xia Men University, gave usa academic lecture on “Gone With the Wind—from the best seller to classic literature”. Prof. Zhang Shuneng, Dean of the School of Foreign Languages, other faculties and students attended this lecture. Associate professor Zhou Pingdi hosted this lecture.

Prof. Li Meihua, Vice Dean and postgraduate supervisor of the School of Foreign Languages, Xia Men University, engages herself in English and American novels, American feminine literature, and has more than ten essays, monographs, translations, collective work of her poems and several prose works published in prestigious journals like Foreign Literature Studies and Contemporary Foreign Literature. Gone With the Wind and The Expedition of Humphry Clinker are her main works of translation.

Gone With the Wind is American female writer Margaret Mitchell’s favorite novel. The translated version of it by Prof. Li Meihua is very popular in China. She noted that Gone With The Wind is still very popular among readers today, but it is seldom marked by critics in literary history and literary history of criticism. Therefore, Gone With the Wind is never considered to be a masterpiece. Prof. Li Meihua talked about its literature status in detail throughout the lecture.

Prof. Li Meihua introduced the life of Margaret Mitchell and her creative motivation by giving us a detailed explanation to the writer’s creative thoughts of this work. In her opinion,Gone With the Wind is a love story on the background of the American Civil War. Scarlett, the protagonist in this novel, is a woman who can constantly strive to become stronger, advance bravely and never withdraw. Because of her spirits, the novel is full of positive energy that inspires readers of generations to come. Prof. Li Meihua also frankly told us that in the process of translating this novel, she drew the ideological motivation and the spirits from it, which exerted great influence on her life and creation.

Prof. Li Meihua makes a general survey of the whole literary history through Gone With the Wind, and draws a conclusion that the standard of literary evaluation cannot be seen from the circulation of the works and whether it is in the line with the mainstream values. She thinks that the core spirits of the works should be the main standard of one work. Moreover, no matter what test that this work is faced with, it is the core spirits of the Gone With the Wind that presents the readers which makes it a masterpiece of our times. In the end of the lecture, Prof. Zhong Shuneng puts forward a different opinion which gave rise to a heated discussion among faculties and students.

This lecture has provided a new perspective of literature appreciation and a new idea of literary criticism for teachers, students and especially the literature enthusiasts. Reported by Chen Danyi