The monster that is history : history, violence, and fictional writing in twentieth-century China / David Der-wei Wang.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Wang, Dewei.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Chinese fiction--20th century--History and criticism.

Chinese fiction.

Chinese fiction--Taiwan--History and criticism.

Taiwan.

Violence in literature.

Physical Description:

vii, 402 pages ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

Berkeley : University of California Press, [2004]

Summary:

In ancient China a monster called Taowu was known for both its vicious nature and its power to see the past and the future. Over the centuries Taowu underwent many incarnations until it became identifiable with history itself. Since the seventeenth century, fictive accounts of history have also accommodated themselves to the monstrous nature of taowu. Moving effortlessly across the entire twentieth-century literary landscape, David Der-wei Wang delineates the many meanings of Chinese violence and its literary manifestations. Taking into account the campaigns of violence and brutality that have rocked generations of Chinese -- often in the name of enlightenment, rationality, and utopian plenitude -- this book places its arguments at the intersection of two related axes: history and representation, modernity and monstrosity.

Contents:

1. Invitation to a Beheading 15

2. Crime or Punishment? 41

3. An Undesired Revolution 77

4. Three Hungry Women 117

5. Of Scars and National Memory 148

6. The Monster That Is History 183

7. The End of the Line 224

8. Second Haunting 262.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 293-370) and index.

ISBN:

0520231406

0520238737

OCLC:

53846525