UC San Diego UC San Diego Electronic Theses and Dissertations Title Dreams and disillusionment in the City of Light : Chinese writers and artists travel to Paris, 1920s-1940s Permalink https://escholarship.org/uc/item/07g4g42m Authors Chau, Angie Christine Chau, Angie Christine Publication Date 2012 Peer reviewed|Thesis/dissertation eScholarship.org Powered by the California Digital Library University of California UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SAN DIEGO Dreams and Disillusionment in the City of Light: Chinese Writers and Artists Travel to Paris, 1920s–1940s A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree Doctor of Philosophy in Literature by Angie Christine Chau Committee in charge: Professor Yingjin Zhang, Chair Professor Larissa Heinrich Professor Paul Pickowicz Professor Meg Wesling Professor Winnie Woodhull Professor Wai-lim Yip 2012 Signature Page The Dissertation of Angie Christine Chau is approved, and it is acceptable in quality and form for publication on microfilm and electronically: Chair University of California, San Diego 2012 iii TABLE OF CONTENTS Signature Page ...................................................................................................................iii Table of Contents............................................................................................................... iv List of Illustrations.............................................................................................................. v Acknowledgements............................................................................................................ vi Vita...................................................................................................................................viii Abstract............................................................................................................................... x Chapter 1 Introduction..................................................................................................................... 1 Chapter 2 Poetry of Intoxication: Li Jinfa’s Linguistic Play and Dreams of Home ..................... 36 Chapter 3 A Visual Language of Contemplation and Imagination: Chang Yu’s wenren xihua ... 74 Chapter 4 China From a Distance: Fu Lei’s Travels and Cultural Translation........................... 127 Chapter 5 The Uncertain Interpreter in Xu Xu’s Travel Essays.................................................. 157 Conclusion Capturing the International Imagination: Discoveries New and Old in Chinese Literature..................................................................................................................... 196 Appendix......................................................................................................................... 214 Bibiliography .................................................................................................................. 218 Table of Contents iv LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 1. Chang Yu, oil on mirror, “An Autumn Poem” (undated) .................................. 214 2. Chang Yu, watercolor, “Nude With Full-Makeup” (1927) ............................... 214 3. Chang Yu, watercolor, “Kneeling Nude” (1928) ............................................... 215 4. Chang Yu, oil, “Reclining Nude” (1930) ........................................................... 215 5. Chang Yu, oil, “Chrysanthemums in a White Vase” (1929) ............................. 216 6. Chang Yu, oil, “White Chrysanthemums” (1930s) ........................................... 216 7. Chang Yu, oil, “Chrysanthemums in a Black Vase” (1930s) ............................ 217 8. Pang Xunqin, oil, “Such is Paris” (1931) .......................................................... 217 v ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to thank my advisor Professor Yingjin Zhang for his invaluable support throughout the years at UCSD and insightful suggestions on countless drafts of my dissertation. I would also like to thank Professors Paul Pickowicz and Wai-lim Yip for leading their graduate seminars, without whose contagious enthusiasm for Chinese literature I could not imagine writing this dissertation. Professor Winnie Woodhull provided me with meticulous feedback on my writing and much appreciated moral support. Professors Larissa Heinrich and Meg Wesling gave me their words of encouragement along the way, and for that I am truly grateful. A 2010 NEH summer seminar on interwar Shanghai and Germany at Stanford helped me contextualize my project, and Professors Wang Ban and Russell Berman gave me useful feedback when my dissertation was still in its earliest stages. Frederik Green introduced me to Xu Xu’s travel writings in the seminar, helped me with an early draft of my Chang Yu chapter, and his own work inspired my last chapter. In France, Valentina de Monte was an incredible resource at the Fonds chinois de la Bibliothèque municipale de Lyon, and she pointed me in exciting, new directions. I was extremely fortunate to work with her before her departure from the archive this year, and she presented me with such an incredibly rich amount of material in an informed, passionate and organized manner that I will never forget. Eric Lefebvre at the Musée vi Cernuschi was kind enough to show me Pan Yuliang’s works at the museum stowed away in storage, and I am also grateful for the hospitality of Professors Muriel Détrie and Li Xiaohong, and the staff at the Bibliothèque nationale de France. Lastly, I would like to thank all my friends and family: my parents—my mom, more like Fu Lei the uncompromising protector of principle, and my dad, a combination of the decadent Li Jinfa and bohemian Chang Yu—whose help with translation always came with a sense of humor and free babysitting; my classmates at UCSD whom I miss dearly; my in-laws Anne and Conor for their encouragement and babysitting support; Bonnie my sister for the unforgettable time we shared together in Paris and Foster City; my two daughters Sophie and Ella who provided me with plenty of wanted and unwanted distractions; and most of all my loving and patient husband Neil, who gave up all his free weekends for me. vii VITA EDUCATION Doctor of Philosophy, University of California, San Diego (2012) Literature, Comparative Literature section Focus on 1920s–1940s Transnational Modernisms, China and France Master of Arts, New York University (2003) Interdisciplinary Studies in the Humanities Focus on 20th century French and British novels, D.H. Lawrence, Proust, and J.G. Ballard Bachelor of Arts, University of California, Berkeley (2000) English, French minor Focus on 20th century French, American and British novels, Proust, Beckett, and James TEACHING EXPERIENCE University of California, San Diego Literature of East Asia 110B (Spring 2010) Associate-In Modern Chinese Fiction in Translation Third World Studies in Literature (Fall 2009 and Winter 2010) Teaching Assistant South Asian and Chinese Literatures viii History of East Asia 131 (Fall 2009) Reader China in War and Revolution, 1911–1949 Revelle College Humanities Writing Program (2006–2009) Teaching Assistant College Writing: Western Literary Canon, Ancient Hebrew and Ancient Greek Literature History of East Asia 137 (Fall 2007) Reader Women and the Family in Chinese History ix Abstract ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION Dreams and Disillusionment in the City of Light: Chinese Writers and Artists Travel to Paris, 1920s–1940s by Angie Christine Chau Doctor of Philosophy in Literature University of California, San Diego, 2012 Professor Yingjin Zhang, Chair My dissertation on Chinese writers and artists that traveled abroad to Paris from the 1920s to 1940s discusses several intersections between modern Chinese literature and visual art and consists of five chapters. The first chapter, an introduction, provides x historical background and contextualization of the study abroad movement in China and the significance of dreaming in literature, as well as a comparison of travel writing in the Western and Chinese traditions. The four subsequent chapters focus on the bilingual, experimental verse of modernist poet Li Jinfa; Chang Yu’s nude and chrysanthemum oil paintings; Fu Lei’s travel writing and art criticism; and humorous travel sketches by the fiction writer Xu Xu. Throughout my dissertation, I argue that these four young men were shaped by their travels to France in the first half of the 20th century. Faced with a French culture in decline, these travelers detached themselves in varying degrees from the mainstream ideology of political revolution and the discourse of national salvation during the Republican era. They chose instead to retreat to alternative spaces of the imagination, dreams, and classical aesthetics, and as a result were marginalized by the national canons of literature and art history. I read the motif of dream in their work, as a symbol of their political detachment, nostalgia for home, and disillusionment with Western modernity. My project is in dialogue with current scholarship in modern Chinese studies, comparative literature, world literature, and diaspora studies. Paris, long a site in the modern Chinese cultural imaginary, incited equal feelings of hope and disillusionment in Chinese youth. These diverse views of home, travel, and detachment can help us consider questions about the role of translation and the circulation of bodies and literature during this early moment of encountering modernity, when artists and writers were forced to negotiate their national identity in the increasingly