Being an integral part of cultural modernity, literary modernity is an on-going,
self-negating, and self-rejuvenating process. It has always been engaged in a
dialectical relationship with tradition and is inseparable from the quest for reality
based on artistic autonomy and communicative intersubjectivity. In the first half of
my thesis, I attempt to show how and why literary tradition has played a decisive role
in the process of literary modernity, how and why the Chinese literary tradition is
different from its Western counterpart; how and why Chinese literary modernity is
influenced by, but different from Western literary modernity; and what is the specific
path that Chinese writers have been taking to achieve literary modernity, as is distinct
from the route that has been followed in the West, i. e., from romanticism to realism to
modernism and to postmodernism. The second half of my thesis comprises a detailed
study of two of China's foremost writers, Lu Xun and Shen Congwen, by way of
illustrating my arguments.
The first two chapters investigate some core concepts in the Western and
Chinese literary traditions and the formative roles that they have played respectively in.
shaping the process of literary modernity in the West and China. In our study of
Chinese literary modernity and modern Chinese writers, we should pay special
attention to the important role of the Chinese literary tradition, while taking into
consideration the impact of Western literature and China's historical contingency. The
interactions between these three factors constitute the special character of China's
literary modernity.
The third and the fourth chapters deal with respectively the fiction of Lu Xun
and Shen Congwen, as well as their conceptions of literature. Through a close
investigation of a few selected stories by these two writers, I wish to demonstrate how
their works embody the general ideas of literary modernity, and at the same time
reveal the peculiar features of China's own literary modernity.
In conclusion, I suggest that modernity and tradition have always been
intertwined in a complex, dynamic, and dialectic relationship, which has proved to be
not only the motive force, but also the unfailing source for the achievements of
modern literature, both Chinese and Western; and subjective reflection should be
integrated with the lifeworld, and combined with inter subjective communication.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:BVAU.2429/9952 |
| Date | 11 1900 |
| Creators | Cheng, Maorong |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Relation | UBC Retrospective Theses Digitization Project [http://www.library.ubc.ca/archives/retro_theses/] |
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