The Interrelation Between New Literary Tradition And The Taiwan Literary Education During The 1950s

This dissertation examines how the New Literary tradition, formed prior to 1949, influenced the Taiwan literary education during the 1950s, when Taiwan was overwhelmed by the White Terror as the implementation of the stringent Caution policy exerted negative effects on the society. Government officials therefore prohibited most of the New Literature works, among which the leftist literature was treated especially as a dangerous taboo because of the defensive mental mechanism set by the government. However, the New Literary tradition can be traced in the literary education even though it is hard to get clues through examining the diffusion process of certain works. Literary education in 1950s Taiwan had close relationship with real politics. Literary education had to respond to the themes of the time which focused on Anti-communism Literature, youth mobilization, the National Language Movement and the Popularization of Literature and Art. The New Literary tradition was accordingly carried on by the Taiwan literature in 1950s indirectly due to the flexibility embodied in literary activities and other related, positive factors.The main part of the dissertation consists of the preface, the text and the conclusion. The first chapter of the text focuses on Anti-communism Literary education as it was the most important and massive literary education form during the 1950s. The paper tries to uncover the strategy adopted by official literary educators when they transformed writers’identities from Writers to Literary and Art Workers. As soon as the KMT officials reaffirmed the political potentials embodied in literature, "the Three Principles of the People" slogan, appeared in 1930s mainland, was put forward by Anti-communism Literary advocates. Life and Reality were keywords of New Literary theories before 1949 as they were ironically borrowed by Anti-communism Literary educators to supervise the thinking and writing of the young writers under the circumstances of 1950s. It is necessary to point out that the educators took some intentional re-composition on New Literary theories to adapt to the theme of Anti-communism & Opposing-to-Russia. However, the education, aimed at promoting Anti-communism Literary writing, also comprised positive power which made literature deviate from political themes.The second chapter examines the youth issue in literary education from the perspective of tracing development of New Literature after 1920s. Youthful people were the main power of many Chinese social movements during 20st century. Meanwhile, enlightenment advocates and political parties both noticed the importance of mobilizing the youth. Literary youth were easier to be shaped by radical wording comparing to the sophisticated older writers. The educators had strategically mixed literary education and life education when instructing the youth on literary issues since the birth of New Literature. As a result, youth were enlightened in literature as well as in thoughts during the process. Youthful people’s depression had been seen as passive in the context of the revolution. Correspondingly, the educators never abandoned their efforts in correcting youthful people’s negativity from 1920s to 1950s. Yet it was undoubted that the youth held an advantage in confronting mobilization in political context since they usually emphasized personal perception of their daily lives. Due to the same mechanism, literary youth also tended to ignore ideological materials but attached much more importance to creating artistic atmosphere in writing. Neo-Artistic Tone induced severe criticism on the literary youth, but it also played an important role in diminishing political propaganda’s negative influence on writing."National Language" was a concept developed around the beginning of the 20th century. The third chapter clarifies the New Literary element included in the National Language Movement in Taiwan. This movement had been enforced by KMT government since Taiwan’s early recovery period from Japanese occupation. From then on, officials and intellectuals had reached an agreement that promoting the use of the National Language could facilitate the union of Taiwan and the mainland. The native Taiwan writers had to remove language barrier before conducting the writing in Chinese since they took Japanese education under the colonial policies before 1945. Such experience helped established the sense and sensitivity of language among the native Taiwan writers, which was carried on in the later writings. Other literary education issues, like the defects of Chinese teaching in middle schools, also derived from the promotion of the National Language. Since the Chinese departments in universities hadn’t paid enough attention on New Literature writing, it was the opening of the School of Correspondence in Chinese Literature and Art (SCCLA) that directly rectified those disadvantages in formal school literary education. The practice of SCCLA reflected the literary educators’attention that was cast in literary education as well as National Language education. It could be discovered by examining 1950s Taiwan literature from the perspective of language that the educators usually reflected on the May Fourth Literature Movement slogan of Constructing Literary National Language, which revealed the sense of crisis within the Chinese writers’mind.The last chapter focuses on popular literature topics in 1950s Taiwan. Popularization of Literature and Art was a slogan that induced heated debate before 1949, especially during the 1930s. It dominated the official literature theories continually in Taiwan although it was not put forward directly as it initially did. The paper generalizes two central terms, "To the People" and "From among the People", based on related historical materials of 1950s Taiwan. The popular literature view was developed by theorists on the basis of New Literary tradition. In the official literary educators’opinion, popularization was the most efficient pathway to exert political potentials within literature works. However, it ironically deviated from official educators’ intention when the readers’vision of expectations combined with the writers’subjective initiative. For example, most of the writings on motif of Anti-communism & Romance can be classified as popular literature. Besides, the thriving popular culture also influenced evidently on elitist writing during the 1950s. As a result, the "Literature of Human", advocated by May Fourth writers, began to appear in Taiwan’s literature ecology.