UC Riverside UC Riverside Electronic Theses and Dissertations Title Performing Perversion: Decadence in Twentieth-Century Chinese Literature Permalink https://escholarship.org/uc/item/89r2b0jj Author Wang, Hongjian Publication Date 2012 Peer reviewed|Thesis/dissertation eScholarship.org Powered by the California Digital Library University of California UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA RIVERSIDE Performing Perversion: Decadence in Twentieth-Century Chinese Literature A Dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Comparative Literature by Hongjian Wang September 2012 Dissertation Committee: Dr. Perry Link, Chairperson Dr. Paul Pickowicz Dr. Susan Zieger Copyright by Hongjian Wang 2012 The Dissertation of Hongjian Wang is approved: Committee Chairperson University of California, Riverside Acknowledgements This dissertation is the result of an academic adventure that is deeply indebted to the guidance of all my three committee members. Dr. Susan Zieger ushered me into the world of Western Decadence in the late nineteenth century. Dr. Paul Pickowicz instilled into me a strong interest in and the methodology of cultural history studies. Dr. Perry Link guided me through the palace of twentieth-century Chinese literature and encouraged me to study Decadence in modern Chinese literature in comparison with Western Decadence combining the methodology of literary studies and cultural history studies. All of them have been extremely generous in offering me their valuable advices from their expertise, which made this adventure eye-opening and spiritually satisfying. My special gratitude goes to Dr. Link. His broad knowledge and profound understanding of Chinese literature and society, his faith in and love of seeking the truth, and his concern about the fate of ordinary people are inexhaustible sources of inspiration to me. He confirmed again and again my conviction that literary studies are not just about texts but also, more importantly, about understanding people’s life and thoughts and the world they live in. I am particularly grateful for his encouragement, respect, trust and patience, which allow me to do research in my own way. He is the best listener of my thinking and the most careful reader of my writing. He not only bailed me out of my blindness to my own work with his insightful observation and sharp comments but also iv gave me inspirational questions and detailed suggestions. At times of frustration, he eased my stress with wisdom and cheered me up with humor. From him, I learnt not only how to be a good scholar but also how to be a good advisor. I also felt honored to get a chance to interview Mr. Yu Hua during his brief visit to University of California, Riverside. His sharing of his own experience and reflection on his contemporaries and Chinese society not only confirmed my reading of his stories but also helped me to understand Chinese literature and writers in the recent decades. This dissertation is impossible to accomplish without the kind help of the librarians at Tomás Rivera Library at University of California, Riverside. I would like to thank in particular Ms. Janet Moores and Ms. Esther Arroyo for their diligent work in helping me to get materials from all over the world. I also want to thank Ms. Valentina de Monte at Bibliothèque municipale de Lyon for her generous help in sending me some digital materials on Shao Xunmei for free. I sincerely appreciate their prompt and considerate support. Last but not the least, I want to express my deepest gratitude to my parents for their unconditional love, emotional and financial support and also for sharing their knowledge of contemporary Chinese literature and society. I feel extremely lucky to have such loving and supportive parents like them. v In Loving Memory of My Grandmother Mrs. Wang Ximei vi ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION Performing Perversion: Decadence in Twentieth-Century Chinese Literature by Hongjian Wang Doctor of Philosophy, Graduate Program in Comparative Literaure University of California, Riverside, September 2012 Dr. Perry Link, Chairperson This project starts with dissatisfaction with the simplistic and moralistic interpretation of Decadence among writers and scholars in the Chinese context in the twentieth century. It first comes to an understanding of the original meaning of the European Decadence in the late nineteenth century and then uses it as a lens to examine Chinese literature in the twentieth century. With a combination of textual analysis and historical rendition, it discusses six writers’ life and work in the 1920s, 1930s, 1980s and 1990s. The years between 1940s and 1970s are skipped because the leftist dominance and the Communist reign did not tolerate anything decadent. Since the introduction of Decadence into China in the early 1920s, Chinese writers and scholars have understood Decadence with two interrelated connotations, namely, a pessimistic world view and indulgence in sensual pleasure. But the European Decadents vii in fact celebrated individual free will by revolting against the norms they believed in. It is a rebellion for rebellion’s sake and performance of perversion. In this sense, Yu Dafu and Shao Xunmei who have been labeled as hardcore Decadent due to explicit exploration of erotica in their stories and poems in the 1920s and 1930s were not Decadent because they were busy, hesitantly or triumphantly, overthrowing traditional social norms and embracing the new ones. Yu Hua and Su Tong who were associated with Decadence because of the obsession with death, violence and evil in their fiction in the 1980s and 1990s were not Decadent, either, because they acknowledged the value of humanism and had no intention to revolt against it. In contrast, Wang Shuo and Wang Xiaobo in the 1980s and 1990s were closer to the European Decadents because their characters manage to assert their free will by rebelling against the norms they believe in. The “real” Decadence emerged in the 1980s and 1990s in China because Chinese intellectuals regained their elitist status after the Cultural Revolution but also felt it threatened by the growing commercial culture. They engaged in Decadence to manifest their intellectual superiority. After all, Decadence is an elitist endeavor. viii Table of Contents Introduction Decadence vs. Tuifei ……………………………………………………….1 Chapter I Yu Dafu: A Hesitant Pioneer of “Body-Writing”…………………….….....20 Chapter II Shao Xunmei: A Nightingale of Sexual Love…………………….……....48 Chapter III Yu Hua: A Humanist Obsessed with Evil………………………………… 78 Chapter IV Su Tong: An “Existentialist” in a World of No Exit…………………...…112 Chapter V Wang Shuo: A Cultural Elite in Disguise of a Hooligan……………...…..144 Chapter VI Wang Xiaobo: A Fun-Lover’s Encounter with Decadence …………...…178 Conclusion Decadence as an Elitist Endeavor………………………………….…….203 Works Cited…………………………………………………………………………..…210 ix Introduction Decadence vs. Tuifei An outrageously controversial artistic movement that flourished mainly in the nineteenth-century France and Britain, Decadence has, like a shooting star with its brief yet fascinating brilliance, generated a lingering debate over how to understand and evaluate it. Although European Decadence came to an end in 1900 with the death of Oscar Wilde, it stimulated constant resonances in China ever since its introduction into the country in the early 1920s. Scholars in China and in the West have drawn parallel between many Chinese writers in the twentieth century and the European Decadent writers. But under close examination, one may notice that these Chinese writers are not quite like their European “counterparts.” Meanwhile, some Chinese writers are closer to the European Decadent writers but have not been recognized as so. This is the starting point of the present project, that is, to come to an understanding of the European Decadence first and use it as a lens to examine Chinese literature in the twentieth century. Against Nature: Towards a Definition of Decadence As briefly summarized by M. H. Abrams, Decadence is a movement derived from Aestheticism, which was “a European phenomenon during the latter nineteenth century that had its chief philosophical headquarters in France” (2). Aestheticism promoted the idea of “l’art pour l’art,” that is, to appreciate art for its own sake, releasing it from the 1 shackles of utilitarianism and the burden of morality, hence celebrating “the religion of beauty” (Abrams 3). Positioning Decadence within the frame of Aestheticism, one may trace the development of the idea of “l’art pour l’art” to a “cult of artificiality.” Abrams continues with his introduction to Decadence, “[central] to this movement was the view that art is totally opposed to ‘nature,’ both in the sense of biological nature and of the standard, or ‘natural,’ norms of morality and sexual behavior” (3). (In fact, “Against Nature” is the title of the yardstick novel of Decadent literature, A Rebours , by J. K. Huysmans published in 1884 in France, in which the protagonist des Esseintes devotes his life to artificiality.) Here, one may discern a slight modification of Aestheticism. True, art per se is still the ultimate goal of art, but it is not any kind of art that deserves appreciation; rather, the scope of art is narrowed down to that “totally opposed to ‘nature’,” or, entirely artificial. This is also why Arthur Symons, in his 1893 essay “The Decadent Movement in Literature,” repudiates the classic art that possesses “those qualities of perfect simplicity, perfect