From martial arts to revolution: A study of 'jianghu' in Xiang Kairan, Shen Congwen, and Ding Ling

By using "Jianghu" (Rivers and Lakes) as a keyword, this study aims at analyzing "Jianghu" in the works of three Modern Hunan writers including Xiang Kairan, Shen Congwen and Ding Ling. I argue that different aspects of traditional "Jianghu" image affect the three writers' creation, and they each re-construct the Jianghu imaginary, with their own different literary ideas.; Chapter one explores the etymology of "Jianghu," and defines "Jianghu" from both traditional and modern perspectives. Chapter two discusses Xiang Kairan's Jianghu legend. Xiang Kairan's representation of Hunan is both realistic and mythical. His mystification and demystification of Jianghu/Hunan is a juxtaposition of facts and fiction. As a modern Martial Arts master and writer, Xiang Kairan also tries to modify "Jianghu" by connecting Martial Arts and Detective fiction. The hybrid of the Chinese and Western literary genres in Xiang Kairan shows the shared dialogues between Jianghu and modern discourses. Chapter three focuses on Shen Congwen's native stories. The fine detail, blanks and insinuation in Shen Congwen's fiction turns Western Hunan into mystery although he makes good use of realistic-style description. Jianghu is resented as a repressed narration in Shen Congwen. In Shen's Jianghu stories, Western Hunan, as a heterotopia, is included in the imagined community of China. Shen Congwen romanticizes the life of both the local army and bandits and thus links Jianghu and the Court. In his imagination, Jianghu is a stage of his own life, and he himself is a modern roaming knight-errant ("xia"). Chapter four looks into the female roaming knight-errant ("nuxia") in Ding Ling's works. As a female and revolutionary writer, Ding Ling creates fierce and unrestrained heroines, who destroy the purity of the author's revolution discourse. Ding Ling tries to balance between self and the nation, the unofficial and the official. Taking the communist revolution as the matrix, Ding Ling's Nuxia stays on the borderline, both approaching and retreating from her matrix. Her anti-Jianghu is thus presented as a Jianghu in an ironic mode. Chapter five concludes Xiang Kairan, Shen Congwen and Ding Ling's Jianghu/Hunan imagination by connecting keywords such as Jianghu and errantry, Jianghu and revolution, Jianghu and locality.