The osmotic relationship between oral and written literature has been neglected for a long time by literary criticism in post-independence Tanzania: the development of new genres and the related debates about literary values have until the end of the Eighties mostly attracted the attention of the scholars, making thus marginal the study of oral literature until the recent awakening of critical studies. Residual were especially those oral forms, like contemporary oral poetry, not wholly ´traditional` - coming from a pre-colonial past or alluding to unchanging features -, nor enough `modern` and `progressive` to be assigned much interest in scholarship. This paper is a tentative to approach the question from a different perspective, presenting the case of one kind of oral poetry - taarab songs - , which has been dealt within creative writing, from the pre-independence era until our days - creative literature, being not bound to categorising and coherence as criticism is, sometimes succeeding better than a too `scientifically- oriented` criticism in containing the subtle relations between opponents, like orality and writing, tradition and modernity, elite and popular arts. In the following pages I will discuss three Swahili prose works, namely Wasifu wa Siti Binti Saad by Shaaban Robert (1958), Utengano by S.A Mohamed (1980) and Siku njema by K. Walibora (1996), in which taarab appears in the narration- both thematically and stylistically -, evidencing the continuities but also stressing the different ways in which symbolism and literary techniques are employed by the authors.

Taking a closer look at Tanzanian prose in the early 90s, it can be said that it has preserved the main structural features which had taken shape within the previous two decades of its development. One of these features is a more or less rich system of genres (short story, novelette, novel). Another is a traditional division into `popular` and `elite` literature. This division had already been noted by many researchers in the 70s and the 80s, although they used different terms for it; e.g , popular and serious literature (Bertoncini 1989), popular and standard literature (Ohly 1990), riwaya-pendwa and riwaya-dhati (Mlacha and Madumulla 1991), and others.

Mr. Tsai, his literary creation is writing about his hometown, Kangshan. People can have the picture of the past memory about Kangshan due to his writing. As rural literature creation, it may not easy to catch people¡¦s attention. However, for people that have the same background of Mr. Tsai, his rural literature creation is the key to open our memory, and this is the reason I choose his creation as my research study. This research is mainly investing about 12 published books of Mr. Tsai. There are five chapters in this study.¡GChapter one, abstract; this chapter presents the background of the study, the purpose of the study, the research questions, definitions of the key terms, and the significance of the study. Chapter two, Literature Review, includes the review of three relevant studies for the readers who could have initial understanding regarding author¡¦s works. In Chapter three, the main focus is on researching for the context inside Mr. Tsai¡¦s rural literature writing. In this research, I find his writing always contains the attention to homeland, hometown concerning and social awareness. The foresaid observation leads to a summary which I categorize his writing into four main topics : Sentiment, Land, Society and Nature. In Chapter four, I try to analyze the value of Mr. Tsai¡¦s literary works. To respond and reflect the topic of this thesis, A key for the memory, the value of Mr. Tsai¡¦s works record the folks, events and things exist in the past, and those records have become the inheritance for the descendents. Chapter five, Conclusion; in this chapter, a summary of the study will be firstly presented. Eventually, limitations of the study and suggestions for further research will be presented.

The instabilities in the late Qing Dynasty stimulated the reformation movement proposed by the intellectuals and caused a chain reaction in Chinese literature, in which the vision, theme, narrative mode, and aesthetics gradually deviated from the earlier traditions. In general, regardless of complicated contents and diversity of literary genres, the ideas also increased in diversity, and the language of writing moved from Classical Chinese to vernacular Chinese. From the aspect of literary development, this is the evolution from the old to the new. Even though it was only transitional, its function and value as a connection cannot be ignored. This essay compiles the evolutionary pattern of the prose since Gong Zizhen. Chapter One is the Introduction. Chapter Two, covering the social changes and development from the late Ming Dynasty to the early Qing Dynasty, discusses the elements of modernization during the late Ming Dynasty, the development and restrictions in the early writings of the Qing Dynasty, to determine the inner clues related to the literary evolution of the late Qing Dynasty. Chapter Three, focusing on the Opium War in 1840 and the writings of Gong Zizhen, Wei Yuan, and the students of Tongcheng Yao School, discusses the tendency behind the evolution of prose in the late Qing Dynasty before and after the Opium Wars (between 1820 and 1850). Chapter Four, covering the period from the Taiping Rebellion to the Sino-Japanese War (1850-1894), discusses how Hong Rengan, Wang Tao, and Zeng Guofan, as the forerunners of the cultural exchange between the East and the West, gradually brought Western knowledge into Chinese prose, thus leading to the development of modern prose. Chapter Five, covering the post Sino-Japanese War period to the end of the Qing Dynasty (1894-1911), with Lin Shu, Yen Fu, and Liang Qichao as examples, discusses the new literary evolution of traditional prose since the early Nineteenth Century, regarding demands for political reformation and social changes. The new course on contents and style had begun, either consciously or unconsciously, thus establishing a new model for literary creation. After the Opium Wars, many literary reformers and other people contributed greatly to the evolution of prose. Yet, this essay can only list a few because of the length, and thus to show the clues to understanding the changes. Generally, the modernization of Chinese prose began the social turbulences and demands for political and cultural reformation. This evolution remained unconscious since Gongwei, up to Lin Shu and Yen Fu. It was not until the Literary Revolution proposed by Liang Qichao, that it became a conscious movement. The new literary style became popular with the press and generated the May 4th Movement.

The thesis mainly discusses the hermeneutic system on Du Fu¡¦s poetics, which was established after close analysis of Du Fu¡¦s poetry by a literary critic Chin Sheng-Tang (the end of the Ming and beginning of the Qing dynasties).Among all Tang poets Chin Sheng-Tang admired Du Fu the most for his poetics of seven line stanzas, which was viewed by Chin Sheng-Tang as an epitome of high aesthetical value and poetical canon. The critic proposed a method of decompositional analysis for studying Du Fu¡¦s poetry: he saw the interconnection between the title of the poem and it¡¦s content, and then decomposed the poem into small pieces, conducting close reading, so that the poem was seen as having three level structure from bigger to smaller ¡¥the level of passages, sentences and characters¡¦. First, we start with looking at ¡¥other interpretation¡¦ from the describing trend of hermeneutics on Du Fu¡¦s poetics prevailing during that period of time, pointing out what was the main opinion of the literary critics, and comparing it with the one of Chin Sheng-Tang¡¦s, and looking at his status among the circles of literary critics. Then we discuss the Chin Sheng-Tang ¡¥s ¡¥self interpretation¡¦ , explaining what kind of reader and critic he was. After that we provide the review of poetry reading methods and horizon in literary criticism, explaining how to use the method in literary analysis. After Chin Sheng-Tang¡¦s method of literary criticism becomes clear to us, we look how his caesura method is used to analyze structure of Du Fu¡¦s poetry. Through the caesura analysis we use reader¡¦s, author¡¦s and literary works point of view to find out whether this method is appropriate and whether it can reveal the spirit of that age or is it simply an over-reading. In the end we provide the conclusion about the effectiveness of the hermeneutic system, proposed by Chin Sheng-Tang.

Thesis (M.A.)--Memorial University of Newfoundland, 2002. / Bibliography: leaves 221-226.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Notre Dame, 2003. / Thesis directed by Michael Lapidge and Katherine O'Brien O'Keeffe for the Department of English. "December 2003." Includes bibliographical references (leaves 255-288).

published_or_final_version / Chinese / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

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