Idyll As Heterotopia

Idyll is transformed from prosaic living space and working space to multi-dimensional literary space and aesthetic space by Tao Qian and William Wordsworth with the constructive power of poetic language.A heterotopia manifesting containment and penetration,idealization and subsistence,rises to earth against respective mainstream society and culture.This thesis paper first examines the cause and function of the heterotopia from inside and outside of the text.Then its realistic possibility is discussed through the biographic factors of the works,the poets' practice of its ideas and the influence of the literary space on social and physical space under respective cultural context.Lastly,anew-criticism review is adopted to analyze how poetic language helps to construct the peculiarities of this heterotopia.The idyll under their writings not only echoes with their personal experience,but also contributes to the establishment of “idyll's” cultural connotation in two sub-cultures.Tao Qian initiates hermit-poet culture and affects the design of Chinese garden art.Wordsworth plays an important role in the formation of the Lake District national park.The heterotopia in text featuring marginality,infinity and eternity is unfolded with unique employment of contrast,spatiotemporal narration and “loneliness” theme.It seems unsystematic to tag “passivism” on the two poets,for their poetic language endows new life,power and possibility to idyll.Idyll,as heterotopia,compensates for and reflects the indurated human living space;here its residents establish their new identities;its existence challenges pre-existing public order.