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Modern Chinese Literary Thought : Writings on Literature, 1893-1945 / ed. by Kirk A. Denton.
- Format:
- Book
- Language:
- English
- Physical Description:
- 1 online resource (572 p.)
- Place of Publication:
- Stanford, CA : Stanford University Press, [2022]
- Language Note:
- In English.
- Summary:
- This volume presents a broad range of writings on literature from the period of the inception of literary modernity in China. Of the 55 essays included, 47 are translated here for the first time, including two essays by Lu Xun. In addition to the selections themselves, the author has provided, in an extensive General Introduction and shorter introductions to the five parts of the book, historical background, a synthesis of current scholarship on modern views of Chinese literature, and an original thesis on the complex formation of Chinese literary modernity. In the author's view, literary discourses were actively reshaped by Chinese writes and critics as responses to deep-set cultural problematics and the socio-historical imperative of the times. The selection of the essays reflects both the mainstream Marxists interpretation of the literary values of modern China and the marginalized views proscribed, at one time or another, by the leftist canon. With both the canonical and the marginal, this collection offers a full spectrum of modern Chinese perceptions of fundamental literary issues: the nature of the creative act; the relationship between the literary text and reality; the moral, social, and political role of literature; and the filiation of language, literary form, and content. In presenting the Western reading with a Chinese discourse (in the more traditional sense of the term) about literature, the editor attempts to construct a cultural context for the production of texts in modern Chinese literature. Why did modern Chinese writers write? What goals did they have? How did they think about literature and its relation to its audience and the world? To read the response to these questions is to deepen our understanding of the experience of modernity that lies at the root of works of modern Chinese literature. The selections were translated by 33 leading scholars in the field of modern Chinese literature.
- Contents:
- Frontmatter
- Preface
- Contents
- General Introduction
- PART 1: THE LATE QING PERIOD, 1893-1911
- Introduction
- 1 Preface to Poems from the Hut in the Human World
- 2 Foreword to the Publication of Political Novels in Translation
- 3 On the Relationship Between Fiction and the Government of the People
- 4 Preface to Oliver Twist
- 5 Preface to Part One of David Copperfield
- 6 Miscellaneous Notes on Literature (excerpts)
- 7 Incidental Remarks on Literature
- 8 On the Power of Mara Poetry
- PART II: THE MAY FOURTH PERIOD, 1915-1925
- 9 Some Modest Proposals for the Reform of Literature
- 10 On Literary Revolution
- 11 Nightmare
- 12 Humane Literature
- 13 On the Literary Arts (excerpts)
- 14 Art and Life
- 15 Replacing Religion with Aesthetic Education
- 16 Literature and Life
- 17 On Photography
- 18 Preface to The Sorrows of Young Werther
- 19 Fusing with Nature
- 20 A Critique of the New Culturists
- 21 Women and Literature
- 22 On "Literary Criticism"
- 23 My Opinions on Creativity
- 24 Preface to Call to Arms
- 25 Remarks on the Publication of Saturday
- 26 Congratulations to Happy Magazine
- 27 The Mission of the New Literature
- PART III: REVOLUTIONARY LITERATURE, 1923-1930
- 28 Class Struggle in Literature
- 29 From a Literary Revolution to a Revolutionary Literature
- 30 The Bygone Age of Ah Q
- 31 On Reading Ni Huanzhi
- 32 Literature and Revolution
- 33 Dai Wangshu's Poetic Theory
- 34 Form in Poetry
- 35 The Divergence of Art and Politics
- 36 Thoughts on Realism
- 37 Realism: A "Correction"
- PART IV: THE DEBATE ON LITERARY FREEDOM, 1932-1935
- 38 Do Not Encroach Upon Literary Art
- 39 Regarding the Literary News and Hu Qiuyuan's Literary Arguments
- 40 Freedom for Literature but Not the Writer
- 41 On the "Third Category"
- 42 Preface to Public Cemetery
- 43 A Record of My Own Inspiration
- 44 Literature and Life
- PART V: THE PERIOD OF NATIONAL CRISIS, 1936-1945
- 45 On National Defense Literature
- 46 What Do the Broad Masses Demand of Literature?
- 47 The Question of Popular Literature and Art
- 48 Excerpts from Mao Zedong
- 49 Literature and Art for the Masses and the Use of Traditional Forms
- 50 My Writing
- 51 On Writers
- 52 Universal or Restricted?
- 53 We Need the Zawen Essay
- 54 Talks at the Yan'an Forum on Literature and Art
- 55 Realism Today
- Reference Matter
- Glossary
- Bibliography
- Translators
- Index
- Notes:
- Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 31. Jan 2022)
- ISBN:
- 1-5036-1583-9
- OCLC:
- 1294424430
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