| When Hu Feng started his journal Qiyue (July) in 1937, he was determined to continue promoting literature written in the iconoclastic spirit of the May Fourth Movement. Under his guidance and with his journal as a forum, an important literary school, the Qiyue school, came into being during the Sino-Japanese War of 1937-45. While most Chinese writers, especially the leftists, tried to boost the morale of the nation by ameliorating its image, Qiyue writers persisted in exposing the problems China was faced with. Thus distinguished from their contemporary leftist writers, they in effect diversified an increasingly homogenizing literary scene.; This dissertation, by locating the Qiyue school in its historical context, examines its responses to various ideological and literary issues. Starting by tracing Hu Feng's arguments with those who represented the leftist ideological establishment, it spends most of its space on the implementation of Hu Feng's arguments by individual Qiyue writers in their works. The overall approach remains largely historical and the purpose is restorative, that is, to restore an unduly neglected school to the historical picture of modern Chinese literature.; While historicizing the Qiyue school, this dissertation also tries to work out the pattern Qiyue writers followed in their reactions to the leftist ideological apparatus, the implications as well as ironies in their stance, and the historical contribution of the school. In short, this dissertation aims at not only a description of a literary phenomenon but also an analysis of its underlying mechanisms. Since the mechanisms are still at work in contemporary Chinese literature, this study also bears some relevance to the present. By treating the Qiyue school as an important precedent for literary dissent in modern China, this dissertation tries to reach an understanding of the school and its subsequent repercussions. |
