Gender in Chinese Literary Thought of the Republican Period
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26 fL Gender in Chinese literary thought of the Republican period Maria af Sandeberg School of Oriental and African Studies Submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy ProQuest Number: 11010312 All rights reserved INFORMATION TO ALL USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a com plete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. uest ProQuest 11010312 Published by ProQuest LLC(2018). Copyright of the Dissertation is held by the Author. All rights reserved. This work is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States C ode Microform Edition © ProQuest LLC. ProQuest LLC. 789 East Eisenhower Parkway P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106- 1346 Abstract The thesis is about the relationship between gender and Chinese literary thought in the Republican period, focusing on the 1920s and early 1930s. It explores the ways in which gender was described as significant to literature in writings on literature such as literary theory, literary criticism, literary debates, and literary histories. It analyses how critics and literary historians related the gendered concepts "women's literature" (funu wenxue) and "women writers" (nuzuojia) to ideas of modernity and tradition, and to ideas of truth and authenticity in literature. Chapters One and Two establish that "women's literature" was often treated as separate or different from men's literature, and investigate the discourses which provided support for this position. Chapter One shows that traditional women’s poetry, as well as feminism, formed important contexts for Republican period views on gender in literature. Chapter Two argues that scientific discourse also influenced views on gender and writing. Chapters Three to Five treat Republican period views on traditional women’s literature. Chapters Three and Four describe how the introduction of the genre of literary history transformed the way earlier writings by women were conceptualised, and compare how different ways of applying modern theories to traditional women’s literature resulted in different historical narratives of women’s literary past. Chapter Five explores the relationship between gender and the concept of "truth" in literature, as it was applied to earlier writings by women. Chapters Six and Seven discuss uses of the concept "woman writer" applied to modern women writers. Chapter Six focuses on the debates surrounding the 1929 Zhenmeishan special issue on women writers and Chapter Seven analyses how women writers were received by socialist critics. This thesis highlights the complexity and heterogeneity of writings on women’s literature and women writers. It shows that although critics sometimes interpreted women’s literature in terms of a break with tradition, literary traditions continued to inform writings on gender and literature. Moreover, modern theories inspired a variety of sometimes conflicting perspectives on women and literature. 2 Contents Acknowledgements 4 Introduction 5 Chapter One:Tradition, emancipation and the separateness of women’s writing 23 Chapter Two: Science, sex and literature 49 Chapter Three: The making of a history of women’s literature 73 Chapter Four: “Oppression” in histories of women’s literature 103 Chapter Five: Women’s truth 138 Chapter Six: The elusive saloniere 169 Chapter Seven: Femininity and revolution 201 Conclusion 229 Notes 234 Glossary 238 Bibliography 251 Illustrations Figure One: Cover design of The ladies’journal special issue on women and literature, vol. 17, no. 7, 1931. The image is slightly retouched, p. 59 Figure Two: Title page of the The ladies’journal special issue on women and literature, p. 105. Figure Three: Cover design of the Truth, beauty and goodness Women writers special issue from 1929. The bottom part of the page is missing. The image is slightly retouched, p. 187. Figure Four: Cover design of Creation quarterly, vol. 1, no. 1, 1923. p. 202. Figure Five: Cover design of Creation monthly, vol. 2, no. 3, 1928. p. 203. 3 Acknowledgements I would like to thank my supervisor, Michel Hockx, and my secondary supervisors Andrew Lo and Hugh Baker. My husband Jakob Klein read and commented on the whole manuscript. The thesis has also profited from comments and suggestions by Cosima Bruno, Yangdon Dhondup, Jeesoon Hong, Li Shang-jen, Lim Song Hwee, Lin Pei-yin, and Julia Lovell. Chen Zishan of East China Normal University helped me find my way around Shanghai. Ms F. Kobayashi of the SOAS library assisted with the transliteration of Japanese names. My parents, Johan and Ingrid, provided invaluable help with practical matters, including babysitting. My mother also helped me with the illustrations. For the purpose of writing this thesis I have received a SOAS Research student fellowship for the period of September 1999 to September 2002, a Chiang Ching-kuo fellowship for PhD dissertation for the academic year 2002/2003, and grants from Riddarhuset (The House of Nobility), Stockholm. A research trip to Shanghai in March and April 2001 was made possible by means of a Central Research Fund travel grant and a SOAS additional award for fieldwork. 4 Introduction This thesis is about the relationship between gender and Chinese literary thought in the Republican period, focusing in particular on the 1920s and early 1930s. It explores different ways in which gender was described as significant to literature in writings on literature such as literary theory, literary criticism, literary debates, and literary histories. The concepts “women’s literature” (funu wenxue) and “woman writer” ( nuzuojia), are central to the thesis. I analyse how these gendered concepts were employed in writings on literature, and how they were related to ideas of literary modernity and literary traditions, and to ideas of truth and authenticity in literature. Literary thought There are a few major studies of Chinese literary thought from the Republican era, although on the whole, literary thought remains much less studied than the literary works of this period. Bonnie S. McDougall (1971) has made a detailed study of the introduction of Western literary theories into China in 1919 to 1925. In his book on Chinese literary debates, Amitendranath Tagore (1967) focuses on leftist writings from between 1928 and 1937. Marian Galik (1980) aims to present a complete picture of the development of Chinese literary criticism from 1917 to 1930, again emphasising leftist theories and debates. An anthology of modern Chinese literary thought edited and with an introduction by Kirk Denton (1996) deals with a particularly wide range of texts, including theoretical, critical and polemical writings from the years between 1893 and 1945. None of these studies is specifically concerned with gender issues. Since the 1980s, the relationship between gender and 20th century Chinese literature has attracted considerable scholarly attention. Most such 5 studies are concerned with women writers or with the construction of gender in literary works.1 Although they make some references to the critical reception women writers met with, and the cultural environment in which they worked, these references are usually not very exact and the analysis of them not quite developed. The thesis complements these studies by focusing entirely on writings about literature, rather than on the literary works themselves. In this thesis I use the term "literary thought" in its broadest possible sense, to include all kinds of writings on literature: literary theory, literary debates, reviews, other forms of literary criticism, prefaces, literary histories, anthologies of literature, special issues of magazines, and (what appear to be) merely descriptive accounts of literature or authors. In Chapters Two and Six, I discuss not only texts originally written in Chinese, but also translations into Chinese of non-Chinese texts on literature. I do this for two reasons. First, although the texts were not originally written by the Chinese writers and critics, they were selected and rewritten by them, and selection and reworking should, like writing, be viewed as creative acts and as intellectual efforts. What texts were translated, and how, can be as revealing of what the Chinese writers found important and interesting, as original writings can. Second, from the perspective of the readers, these translated texts were available to readers the same way as were original Chinese texts, on the pages of the same magazines. They were part of the same ongoing debate over the status of women, and formed part of the same discourses. The scope of my source material is thus greater than that which is considered by Denton (1996), who by “Chinese literary thought” refers to original Chinese writings on literature which are openly concerned with general or theoretical aspects of literature. 6 Sources It has been my intention to convey as comprehensive an overview as possible of the intersections between discourses on gender and on literature in Republican China. To this end I have searched many of the literary magazines of the era, such as Haifeng zhoubao (Seawind weekly), Wenxue zhoubao (Literature weekly), Xiandai (Les contemporains), Xiaoshuo yuebao (Short story monthly), Xinyue (Crescent moon), Yusi (Threads of words), Zhenmeishan (Truth, beauty and goodness) and the various publications of the Chuangzao she (Creation society) for articles on gender or women.