This study consist of a comparative analysis of the nostalgic female characters in Pai Hsien-yung's two short stories: "Wandering in a Garden, Waking from a Dream," and "A Celestial in Mundane Exile," and Tennessee Williams's two plays: The Glass Menagerie and A Streetcar Named Desire. Beginning with a brief discussion of the socio-historical background of Pai's Republican China and Williams's American South, a general analysis of previous scholarship on Pai and Williams's works follows. The analysis of the selected works focuses on the stylistic and symbolic features in Pai and Williams's characterizations, such as Pai's use of stream-of-consciousness, reference to the k'un opera Peony Pavilion, elaboration over descriptive details of the setting, symbolic use of clothing and accessories, and Williams's symbolic use of music genres: "Blues Piano" and the "Varsouviana Polka," and his use of rhythm and other poetic elements in his characters' speech, in the style of "personal lyricism." My study is based on a close-reading analysis of the selected works by Pai and Williams. Their humanistic approach to their respective declining aristocratic cultures and their sympathy for the nostalgic female characters' tragedies will be more apparent when the study focuses mostly on the texts themselves. Their similar belief in the universal values, such as compassion, sacrifice, and courage, has made their works comparable. In the discussion of themes, the idea of the humanistic role of literature articulated by William Faulkner in his Nobel Prize Speech is also used to connect Pai and Williams's sympathetic approach to their characters.

Thesis (M. Journ.)--University of Hong Kong, 2002. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 36-45).

published_or_final_version / Chinese / Master / Master of Arts

published_or_final_version / Chinese Historical Studies / Master / Master of Arts

published_or_final_version / Chinese / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

This thesis explores cross-cultural encounters between China and three British left-wing writers – Harold Laski, W. H. Auden and Joseph Needham. The motivations underlying this study are the diversity and intensiveness of the British left’s engagements with China’s search for modernization in the twentieth century. Laski, Auden and Needham were all prominent British left-wing intellectuals, and each exerted a remarkable influence on the Chinese pursuit of modern democracy, literature, and science, the three important pillars of China’s modernization since the May Fourth period. Grouping them together, the thesis makes a contribution to the study of the international impacts of the British left in general and the study of Sino-British cultural exchanges in particular. The conventional view emphasizes Western influences on China in modern times as unilateral knowledge transplantation from the advanced West to the backward East, thus the important role of the Chinese intelligentsia as cultural agency is often marginalized. This thesis, by contrast, interprets the British left’s encounters with China as a process of interactive, dynamic, even dialectical transformation, from which both sides derived intellectual benefits. It not only demonstrates the initiative taken by the Chinese intellectuals in translating, interpreting, and applying Western knowledge to address their own particular problems, but also attempts to show the inspirations the British left-wing writers took from China in their own humanitarian struggle for a more liberal, equitable and peaceful world. The thesis is organized in chronological order with the earliest encounter discussed first. Chapter One examines Laski’s impact on Chinese liberals’ imagination and construction of an equitable and democratic China. It shows that the Chinese applications of Laski’s political theory to their local concerns were highly selective, and it was difficult for Chinese liberals to fully embrace Laski’s thought because of the inner conflict between the liberal and Marxist aspects of Laski. Chapter Two discusses Auden and Isherwood’s co-authored book Journey to a War (1939) in the critical tradition of travel writing. It argues that their ironic self-consciousness of the travel book genre itself makes the book unique in Western representations of China, but exposes them to the critical charge of immature frivolity. It also shows that Auden worked towards a symbolic solution for the conflicting demands of the public and private worlds by interpreting the China war into a global human history in his sonnets. Chapter Three focuses on the reception of Auden’s poetry in China. Exposing the limitations of the prevailing formalist-aesthetic approach, it unearths Zhu Weiji’s Marxist interpretation of Auden and proposes an ideological criticism to re-examine Auden’s influences on Chinese modernist poets. Chapter Four explores Needham’s conversion to Chinese culture and his influences on China’s understanding of its own science. By tracing various Chinese responses to the Needham Question, it argues that although Needham’s research boosted the confidence of Chinese in their scientific tradition, the Chinese hunger for modern science is closely associated with nationalism, which is contradictory to the socialist universalism that behind Needham’s intellectual project. / published_or_final_version / English / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

This thesis studies the Qing women’s writings on the Dream of the Red Chamber. Qing women’s comments on the novel formed an important aspect of the second high tide of women’s literature in late imperial China. By examining these writings, I intend to reveal how the women authors mediated with the Confucian morality and how they exerted influence on the literary tradition from its inside. I also intend to examine the women authors’ self-representations and their reflections on the actual world they lived in. The thesis consists of five chapters. Chapter one introduces the historical background of the rise of women’s writings on the Dream of the Red Chamber, and proceeds to discuss women’s self-representations under the influence of the Chinese literary tradition, as well as the conflict between morality and literary talent they often felt. I will also briefly summarize previous scholarly works concerning this subject. Chapter two analyzes Qing women’s poetic works and literary activities concerning the novel. I will make a few observations on the general tendency of women’s responses to the novel by examining their writing conditions, communities, the points they wanted to articulate, and their literary skills. Chapter three and four investigate two women writers, namely, Wu Lanzheng and Gu Taiqing, respectively. Among the dramatic works adapted from the novel, Jiang Heng Qiu by Wu is known to be the only existing work written by a female author. In this part of my discussion, I will include Wu’s poetic works on the novel and her personal experiences to shed light on the dramatic work. On the other hand, Honglou Meng Ying (The shadow of the Dream of the Red chamber) by Gu is the most profound and extensive response to the original novel by a female author. Considering that Gu’s life was quite similar to the literary characters in the book and a variety of her writings have survived, I will conduct a detailed study of her poetic and dramatic works before I look into her novel. The closing chapter draws conclusions from the previous chapters in the following three aspects: first, the influence of the textual world on the reality; second, women writers’ tendency of adopting the values of morality and literary talent concurrently, as well as their contributions to the literary tradition; and, third, the significance of Gu Taiqing’s case and Honglou meng ying. To sum up, inspired by the Dream of the Red Chamber, the Qing women authors undertook a rich variety of literary activities which demonstrated the complex relations between self and writing, and these women’s life experiences and creative activities also constituted an earthly picture of the “red chambers”. / published_or_final_version / Chinese / Master / Master of Philosophy

Hu Shi began the modern Chinese New Poetry movement by calling for the liberation of poetic forms, but what constitutes "form" and how best to approach its liberation have remained difficult issues, as the apparent material, objective reality of literary form is shown to be deeply embedded both culturally and historically. This dissertation presents five movements of the dialectic between form and history, each illustrated by case studies drawn from the theory and practice of modern Chinese poetry: first, the highly political and self-contradictory demand for linguistic transparency; second, the discourse surrounding poetic obscurity and alternative approaches to the question of "meaning"; third, a theory of poetry based on its musicality and a reading practice that emphasizes sameness over difference; four, poetry's status as "untranslatable" as against Chinese poetry's reputation as "already translated"; and fifth, the implications of an "iconic" view of poetic language. By reading a selection of poets and schools through the lens of their approaches to form, I allow the radical difference within the tradition to eclipse the more familiar contrast of modern Chinese poetry with its foreign and pre-modern others. My dissertation represents a preliminary step towards a historically-informed formalism in the study of modern Chinese literature. / East Asian Languages and Civilizations

Chinese / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

published_or_final_version / Education / Master / Master of Education