The dissertation attempted to study Yingxi Fiction, a genre of fiction, which emerged and prevailed in Shanghai during the early two decades of the twentieth century. The majority of writers of Yingxi fiction at that time were literati of the Mandarin Duck and Butterfly School. After watching the imported silent movies, they recorded the contents and adapted them as fictional texts for the purpose of introducing the stories to those who could not afford to watch the films. This type of genre was named Yingxi fiction and had been welcomed by public readers at leisure. In fact Yingxi fiction had implied how traditional literati received and absorbed western cultural elements on their way to pursue Chinese modernity. This study would like to conduct a close examination of Yingxi fiction, which has been previously ignored, through in-depth analysis of the texts and investigation of its social as well as cultural significance. This dissertation consisted of five chapters. Chapter One was an introduction of the popular fiction, movie and Yingxi fiction in Early Republican China. Previous studies on Yingxi fiction were briefly presented as well. Chapter Two dealt with the emergence of Yingxi fiction. The prefaces and peer reviews of some works of this genre would be especially studied in order to explore the motivations of the writers and their approaches to compose the Yingxi fiction. Three Yingxi fiction writers, Zhou Shoujuan (1895-1968), Bao Tianxiao (1875-1973) and Lu Dan’an(1894-1980), were comprehensively illustrated as case studies. Chapter Three focused on the application of “Paradigm” in textual analyses of Yingxi fiction. Serving as an unusual spectacle, paradigm provided a thorough understanding of the hybrid narrative style of the stories. By discussing the narrative pause, redundancy, story modes and language usage, the way in which the paradigm of Chinese fiction influenced by western literature would been exposed. Chapter Four discussed the graph-text conversion in Yingxi fiction. It was suggested that writers’ failure in identifying the moral issues and female images in western movies could be explained and might be regarded as the writers’ skills of adaptation of the stories for the sake of Chinese representations. Lastly, the conclusion chapter summed up the distinctive features of Yingxi fiction, the prominence of the genre and its significance in modern Chinese literature. Besides, the limitations and reasons of fading away of Yingxi fiction would also be expounded. / published_or_final_version / Chinese / Master / Master of Philosophy

The Third Generation Poetry that existed in the 1980s’ Chinese literary circle has usually been regarded as the rebellion of the prevailing Misty Poetry. The Third Generation poets began to experiment with colloquial poems which were emphasizing on individual expressions and advocating for the importance of “self”, including the ego and sub-consciousness of both male and female. Through the gender perspective, it could be observed the Third Generation Poetry was rich in gender flavor. The poets especially those of the Female Poetry and the Boorish Fellows Poetry had respectively expressed the awareness and concerns of their own with poem writings. The Female Poetry, featured with the structure of group poems, the rhetoric of metaphor and symbol, the connotation of the nocturnal consciousness and the lyric of confession, was a showcase for female perception. The issues regarding ego, private space, social identity, pain and love as well as "body writing" had been narrated and depicted by most of women writers. In the meantime, the poetry written by male turned to the descriptions of the lack of masculinity, or the flaunting of male power, or groaning with bitterness. Besides, the desire to vent, the memories of growth and even the detestation on the phenomenon of female being butchered had also been illustrated. Therefore an alternate inspection of the male poets’ views on female and vice versa would help to have a better understanding of gender concepts and the changing relationship between men and women in the last few decades of Chinese society. Apart from thinking of gender differences and sexual identities the Third Generation Poetry not only focused on the relationship between parents and their children, but also on the connotations of the traditional idea of reproduction and the infant imagery, and even on portraying the rare image of the ego of androgyny. In addition, The Third Generation poetry also presented abundant interlinked gender imagery, such as natural things and body, the darkness and death, the space and items etc., which had been created for the enrichment of the symbolic meanings and the aesthetic significance of the poems. In short, the social and cultural significance of various gender issues in line with the artistic techniques of the Third Generation Poetry had been scrutinized deeply in the chapters. / published_or_final_version / Chinese / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

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published_or_final_version / Journalism and Media Studies Centre / Master / Master of Journalism