Modern Chinese Literature In The May Fourth Era

One of the most creative and brilliant episodes in modern Chinese history, the cultural and literary flowering that takes the name of the May Fourth Movement, is the subject of this comprehensive and insightful book. This is the first study of modern Chinese literature that shows how China's Confucian traditions were combined with Western influences to create a literature of new values and consciousness for the Chinese people.

What do the Chinese literature and film inspired by the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976) have in common with the Chinese literature and film of the May Fourth movement (1918-1930)? This new book demonstrates that these two periods of the highest literary and cinematic creativity in twentieth-century China share several aims: to liberate these narrative arts from previous aesthetic orthodoxies, to draw on foreign sources for inspiration, and to free individuals from social conformity. Although these consistencies seem readily apparent, with a sharper focus the distinguished contributors to this volume reveal that in many ways discontinuity, not continuity, prevails. Their analysis illuminates the powerful meeting place of language, imagery, and narrative with politics, history, and ideology in twentieth-century China. Drawing on a wide range of methodologies, from formal analysis to feminist criticism, from deconstruction to cultural critique, the authors demonstrate that the scholarship of modern Chinese literature and film has become integral to contemporary critical discourse. They respond to Eurocentric theories, but their ultimate concern is literature and film in China's unique historical context. The volume illustrates three general issues preoccupying this century's scholars: the conflict of the rural search for roots and the native soil movement versus the new strains of urban exoticism; the diacritics of voice, narrative mode, and intertextuality; and the reintroduction of issues surrounding gender and subjectivity. Table of Contents: Preface Acknowledgments Introduction David Der-wei Wang part:1 Country and City 1. Visitation of the Past in Han Shaogong's Post-1985 Fiction Joseph S. M. Lau 2. Past, Present, and Future in Mo Yan's Fiction of the 1980s Michael S. Duke 3. Shen Congwen's Legacy in Chinese Literature of the 1980s Jeffrey C. Kinkley 4. Imaginary Nostalgia: Shen Congwen, Song Zelai, Mo Yan, and Li Yongping David Der-wei Wang 5. Urban Exoticism in Modern and Contemporary Chinese Literature Heinrich Fruehauf part: 2 Subjectivity and Gender 6. Text, Intertext, and the Representation of the Writing Self in Lu Yun, Dafu,and Wang Meng Yi-tsi Mei Feuerwerker 7. Invention and Intervention: The Making of a Female Tradition in Modern Chinese Literature Lydia H. Liu 8. Living in Sin: From May Fourth via the Antirightist Movement to the Present Margaret H. Decker part: 3 Narrative Voice and Cinematic Vision 9. Lu Xun's Facetious Muse: The Creative Imperative in Modern Chinese Fiction Marston Anderson 10. Lives in Profile: On the Authorial Voice in Modern and Contemporary Chinese Literature Theodore Huters 11. Melodramatic Representation and the "May Fourth" Tradition of Chinese Cinema Paul G. Pickowicz 12. Male Narcissism and National Culture: Subjectivity in Chen Kaige's King of the Children Rey Chow Afterword: Reflections on Change and Continuity in Modern Chinese Fiction Leo Ou-fan Lee Notes Contributors From May Fourth to June Fourth will he warmly welcomed. It should be of great interest to all concerned with literary developments in the contemporary world on the one hand, and on the other with the enigmas surrounding China's alternating attempts to develop and to destroy herself as a civilization. --Cyril Birch, University of California, Berkeley

"For much of the twentieth century, the May Fourth movement of 1919 was seen as the foundational moment of modernity in China. Recent examinations of literary and cultural modernity in China have, however, led to a questioning of this view. By approaching May Fourth from novel perspectives, the authors of the eight studies in this volume seek to contribute to the ongoing critique of the movement. The essays are centered on the intellectual and cultural/historical motivations and practices behind May Fourth discourse and highlight issues such as strategies of discourse formation, scholarly methodologies, rhetorical dispositions, the manipulation of historical sources, and the construction of modernity by means of the reification of China’s literary past."

The Edge of Knowing explores the relationship between the rhetoric of dreams and realist literary practice in modern Chinese literature from the May Fourth Era in the early twentieth century through the period just following the end of the Cultural Revolution in 1976. The writers� attention to dreams demonstrates the multiple influences of Western psychology, utopian desire for revolutionary change, and the enduring legacy of traditional Chinese philosophy. At the same time, modern Chinese writers used their work to represent social reality for the purpose of nation-building. Recent political usage of dream rhetoric in the People�s Republic of China attests to the continuing influence of dreams on the imagination of Chinese modernity. By employing a number of critical perspectives, The Edge of Knowing will appeal to readers seeking to understand the complicated relationship between literary form and Chinese history and politics.�

An analytic bibliography of periodical articles on controversies in modern Chinese intellectual history, mainly focused on the May Fourth movement and the Post-May Fourth periods..

Remembering May Fourth: The Movement and its Centennial Legacy discusses a wide range of issues concerning the relations between politics and memory, writing and ritualizing, fiction and reality, and theory and practice within the context of the May Fourth movement.

Broken tools -- The name is changed, but the tale is told of you -- Double exposure -- Looking backward? -- The national classicist -- Becoming Wang Jingxuan -- Conclusion : pure and chaste writing