Love Stories At The Turn Of20^thCentury:from Late Qing Novel To May Fourth New Literature

At the turn of20Century China was undergoing the transition from ancient China to a modern nation-state during which China faced serious crisis both nationally and ethically. How to understand the crisis and how to respond, how China can reestablish itself are the biggest question upon that time. China and Chinese people strived to build a modern nation-state and created modern subject that is able to serve the needs of country. In this course, literature played vital role.My thesis will research several important love stories at that period, and during my research I will make a intertextuality read between literature texts and social texts. My method is applicable because love is not a things that had nothing to do with history, rather it is indeed a historical thing.Only if we put love and love stories in particular historical context we would not get a proper understanding. The love stories at the transition period not only represented the course how the modern nation-state and modern subject are imagined and created, but also all those twists and turns during this course.My thesis consists of4chapters. The first chapter will focus on the Qing in Courtesan Novel between1895. My point is the novel Flowers of Shanghai cannot be understood properly if we do not take the condition of treaty port into consideration. In the novel, we can see the elements that can be called as modern psychology and modern love, however all these modern things are restricted by the treaty port. In the absence of value, the selfish treaty port love relation is not able to sustain the needs of public practice.Chapter2deals with the Qing in the New Novel. Liang Qichao urges for the birth and imagination the New Man and he put great emphasis on the role of novel. Therefore most New novel combines private emotions with public emotions, however abruptly. At the same time contractions exist between modern merit of new citizen and the confusion design of man. Although Wu Jianren creates a confusion Subject with emotions and justice, however this kind of subject are not able to save the problematic world.Chapter3talks about Petty Bourgeoisie Literature in the early Republic. I set the discussion of novel after the research of the restoring trend in the early Republic. In my opinion the so called restoring trend is in some way a reaction to the problems of the Republic. In the The Jade Pear, I find a continuous Outer-inside structure, which I will argue is the sigh of modern public sphere and modern private sphere. The times needs the practice of citizens how the city citizen are not able to answer the need because they are restricted by daily life and are not dare to break with the tradition. Chapter4will focus on the idea of modern love erected by May Fourth movement. The idea of modern love is not put forward for no reason, but an answer to the crisis of Republic. However the liberated people need to develop the relation with many the others where the idea of May4th encounter its own restriction. I will discuss the novels written by Mao Dun. I will argue Mao Dun’s novel is the best example to discuss the problem of the liberated May4th young people.