The thesis was an in-depth study of the poetics and poetry of Jing School京派in modern Chinese literature. Jing School was a loosely formed but comprehensive and influential literary school emerged in Beijing in the early 1930s. It was an all-round literary school, which produced almost all kinds of literary works, including literary critic, fiction, prose, drama and poetry. However, only few studies focused on its achievements in the field of poetry. This study was undertaken to provide some insights into the poetic nature of Jing School and its contributions to the development of modern Chinese poetry. Unlike the Leftist and Right-wing writers in the same period, poets of Jing School persisted in composing pure poetry, which was advocated by the French symbolists. However, it was also the main aesthetic feature of traditional Chinese poetry, especially the poetry in the late Tang period. In this way, poets of Jing School successfully integrated the modern techniques and ideas employed in the western symbolist poetry, such as symbols, metaphors and synaesthesia, with those traditional artistic conceptions used in classical Chinese poetry. As a result, their works stayed away from political topics and emphasized on literary techniques. Together with poetry of other literary schools, they thereby created the golden age of modern Chinese poetry in the mid-1930s. To fully explicate the poetic nature of Jing School, the first chapter of the thesis reconstructed the background, the memberships as well as the literary pursuits of Jing School by analysing their publications on journals and supplements of newspapers that edited by Jing School members. The literary salons held by inspiring leaders of Jing School, Zhu Guangqian 朱光潛 and Lin Huiyin 林徽因 had also been re-examined. The following two chapters looked into the characteristics and significances of poetry and poetics of Jing School respectively. Poems of Feiming 廢名 and Bian Zhilin 卞之琳, poetics of Zhu Guangqian, Liang Zongdai 梁宗岱, Feiming and Lin Gen 林庚 have been taken as examples for further exploration of the aesthetic pursuits of Jing School. The last chapter proceeded to examine the fate of Jing School during and after the Anti-Japanese War (1937-1945). During the war time, some poets of Jing School shifted their lyrical writing style to realistic and political writing style. Among them, He Qifang 何其芳 was the most prominent figure and his case has been studied thoroughly in this chapter. Besides, the decline of the aesthetic pursuits of Jing School has also been reflected in the failure of resuming the publication of Wenxue Zazhi 文學雜誌, the most important journal of Jing School, after the victory. In short, the most distinguished feature of the poetics and poetry of Jing School was the flawless integration of the essence of western modernity and that of Chinese tradition. The significance of the integration and the controversial issues aroused by this aesthetic pursuit have been scrutinized and summarized in the concluding chapter. / published_or_final_version / Chinese / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

published_or_final_version / Chinese / Master / Master of Philosophy

published_or_final_version / Chinese / Master / Master of Philosophy

published_or_final_version / Chinese / Master / Master of Philosophy

published_or_final_version / Chinese / Master / Master of Philosophy

published_or_final_version / Chinese / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

Women's poetic writing in modern China, its context and position in literary history as well as its ideological and social constitution are at the root of this thesis' subject. Having stated my intellectual and personal limitations regarding its writing as an introduction, examples of contemporary women's poetic text will serve to broaden its conclusion. My analysis begins with a reflection on its own terminology in philosophical debate, followed by a study of the modernist background that from 1977 leads to what is termed as neo-modernity in literature. A paradox in the women's avant-garde of antipatriarchal antagonism against the literary institution will be illustrated by examples of critical text on women's poetic production. My point is to address this paradox with the identification of false values placed from the very beginnings of poetic modernity on women's poetry within the avant-garde.

Master of Arts / In the southwest corner of China, the confluence of cultural diversity and national integration have produced a new kind of voice in the Chinese language: an ethnic voice. Speaking fluently in the Chinese nation’s language and culturally beyond its Han foundations, minority ethnic writers or shaoshu minzu in China are inciting a challenge to the traditional conceptions of Chineseness. In the PRC, the re-imagining of the boundaries between ethnicity, nation, and the globe is being produced in ethnic voices that resist the monopolizing narratives of the CCP and the Han cultural center. Furthermore, in the West where the antiquated conception of China as a monolithic Other is still often employed, the existence of these ethnic voices of difference demands a (re)cognition of its multifaceted and interwoven ethnic, political, and social composition. Three ethnic poets from the southwest are examined in this thesis: Woeser (Tibetan), He Xiaozhu (Miao), and Jimu Langge (Yi). They represent the trajectory of ethnic voice in China along the paradigms of local/ethnic vision, national culture, and global connections. By being both within and outside the Chinese nation and culture, they express a hybrid struggle that exists within the collision of ethnic minority cultures and the Han cultural center. Like the hybridity of postcolonial literature, this is a collision that cannot be reduced to it parts, yet also privileges the glocal impetus of ethnically centered vision. The poets’ voices speak the voice of difference within China, the Chinese language, and Chineseness throughout the world.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Washington. / Bibliography: l. [192a]-196.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Washington. / Bibliography: l. [481]-492.