Readings in Chinese Literature / Lisa Indraccolo

— All slides will be on Moodle (some classes will be reshceduled because prof is travelling in March)

— Interim Assessment: 4pg + 1pg bibliography max, submit by 31 March via email

— Final Exam is a written test that is submitted to the teacher via email (5 multiple choice questions + 3 short open answer questions ca. 250 words per answer

Topics Covered:

  • Model Opera

    — Traditional Chinese opera modeled into modern context to spread stories and maoist propaganda (during/after revolution)

  • Scar Literature

    — Contemporary stories from people who have survived rehabilitation camps etc though it was forbidden to write this (or any literature pretty much)

    — Even posession of paper was criminal

  • Period we are covering is starting from Qin (16th-20th Century) before revolution until avantgarde, early 2000’s, almost today

  • Movements like May 4th, establishment of the communist party, civil war with Japan, peoples republic, tianamen protests

The development of fiction in late imperian China:

  • The Four Great Novels of China

    — Romance of the Three Kingdoms

    — Journey to the West: The Monkey King

    — Water Margins / Outlaws of the Marsh (theres also a spin off of this called Jin Ping Mei, which is an erotic novel about a pharmacy owner with wive and concubines)

    — The Dream of the Red Chamber: The Story of the Stone (similar ot Genji Monogatari aka aristocratic with complex plot)

  • Written with pseudonyms to avoid being assassinated etc

  • Vernacular vs Classical Language (spoken language used by the common vs used by intellectuals, for official documents, refined etc)

  • This literature was considered lower class,

  • Before written language wouldnt be understandable to those who could read (which weren’t many still)

  • Printing press made it easier to

Transition from the traditional novel to the modern novel

  • Emperial China loses to Japan, who have gone through the revolution already and have a modern army and navy etc.

  • Before this Japan was considered respected but still inferior, a vassal state to China

    — The Travels of Lao Can (written by Liu E who was a part of the intelligenzia, a travelogue published in instalments)

  • This travellogue starts a wave of western literature being translated into Chinese (from original languages but also from Japanese since they have those already)

  • Idea of in order to modernize the country, we must address these aspects from foreign literature and give women a basic education etc. West was being viewed superior, through scientific leaps.

  • Still some people want to remain in the ancient ways, some want to take only the ”good” stuff from west but keep our traditions. There was an iconoclastic attitude towards the ancient values and traditions (we must get rid of tradition, which floods over going towards)

The end of the imperial era and the creation of Modern China.

  • DIFFERENTIATE Modernity vs Modernism (in the slides)

  • Modernity: a new era in which radical hcanges and innovations are implemented in different sectors (science and medicine, industralisation, equality etc)

  • Modernism: literary and artistic movement that spreads at the beginning of the 20th century promoting new genres, themes and topics that are closely entangled with the contemporary political debate on the need that for a regeneration of society by reducing the gap between different social strata and improving living conditions relying on modern science technologies and infrastructures and other advancements

  • Attitude for modern lit. Is that it has to be written so that the common people can actually read

  • Short stories arent despised like before

  • Focus shifts to the more disadvantaged (to create a modern society)

The advent of Modernity and the birth of modern literature in Republican China

  • New genres in prose and poetry

  • Historical and cultural background

  • The role of newspapers and literary associations in spreading the new culture and literature

  • Main intellectuals who contributed to the birth of modern literature in its early stages

    — Lu She being one of the most prolific authors, others are Mao Dun & Ba Jin

  • Breaking away from tradition, only a minimal part of the population can actually read the texts, 70% only men, mostly aristocrats (changed a bit by the entrance examinations, letting some people outside of aristocracy to climb up due to wealth etc)

  • Old system is deliberately exclusive, people writing for their friends

  • People are also even then writing with pseudonyms, since they don’t want to be known for writing

  • To modernize, discussion on how to make language more accessible as well to the masses

    — even talk of getting rid of sinographs totally like they did in Vietnam for example

Period Development of earlier forms of Modernism

  • The Hundred Days Reforms

    — abolishing examination system, eliminating sinecures, establishment of Peking University, building a modern education system & making it accessible, modern economic system (more in slides)

    — cancelled by the Dowager Empress, disaster happens

    — Rediscovery of Chinese ancient texts and practices

    — Iconoclasty happening but still not as violent as in the Maoist Era

  • The Boxer Rebellion

  • The fall of the Empire

  • The in of the Nationalists and the foundation of the Republic

  • Warlord Era

  • Chinese Civil War

  • (2nd) Sino-Japanese War