The assimilation of the shishosetsu by China's Creation Society

The purpose of my research is to examine the manner in which the self-referential fiction of the Chinese literary coterie known as the Creation Society reflects their reading and adaptation of the Japanese shishosetsu, a form which flourished during the Taisho Period (1912--1926). The Creation Society occupied a position of considerable influence in May Fourth literature and was responsible in part for establishing the fashion for the confessional in Chinese literature in the 1920s.; My dissertation will first delineate the salient features of both the shishosetsu, and the ostensibly autobiographical fiction of the Creation Society. I will then consider the Creation Society's self-referential fiction in the context of the popularity of the personal narrative and the general tendency toward confessionality among Chinese writers of the May Fourth period. I will also locate precedents in traditional Chinese fiction for explicitly confessional literature.; Moreover, my dissertation will also pursue theoretical questions pertaining to autobiographical writing and the ways in which both the shishosetsu , and the Creation Society's fiction were perceived to function as autobiography by contemporary readers. Specifically, I will examine the dependency of such narratives on the faith in the authenticity of this approach among a small literary community who constituted a complicit, participatory audience of "insiders."; In conclusion, I will examine the legacy of the shishosetsu in Chinese fiction: its role in promoting the confessional nature of Chinese fiction during the 1920s and, despite a gradual loss of prestige in the Chinese literary world, its continued appeal in Chinese literature in the Maoist era and its revival among China's "New Era" writers in the 1980s.