Innovation For “southern Poetics” By Contemporary Avant-garde Writers

In Chinese literature,“Southern poetics” is a relatively independent discourse system for aesthetics and spiritual connotation.“Southern poetics” stands for romanticism,nostalgia,hedonism and imagined poetic community in traditional Chinese literature,which shows southern writers were desire to escape from and even stand against mainstream aesthetic tastes from the North.Modern Chinese writers tended to treat “the South” as margin of mainstream culture.Their novels and proses presented the construction of “south consciousness” and cultural identity.After 1980 s,a group of contemporary avant-garde writers such as Yu Hua(1960-),Su Tong(1963-),Ge Fei(1964-),Sun Ganlu(1959-)and Pan Jun(1957-)were thrown to spotlight.They innovated the traditional “Southern poetics” in Chinese literature by applying the fashionable postmodernism in their works.They were keen to fiction,which means “the South” was not equipped with specific geographical location and historical background,but just a aesthetic concept.In this conceptual Southern realm,they used poetic words to depict the complex literary images,ethics and spiritual world.Thus,they were able to resonate with “the Global South” in the modern world literature.This thesis has three chapters other than Introduction.The first chapter will explore the“Southern poetics” in Chinese literary history before the 1980 s,including ancient Chinese literature,changes in modern period,and contemporary southern writers and works which should not be ignored.To conclude,the traditional “Southern poetics” has been solidified as primitiveness,poetic nostalgia and hedonism by numerous works through literary history.The modern “Southern poetics” focused on identity consciousness for “the South” as margin of the mainstream culture.And Contemporary writers like Han Shaogong and Wang Zengqi brought“Southern poetics” back to literary world after almost twenty years’ disappearance,which inspired Chinese avant-garde writers to start their creations.The second chapter will pay close attention to specific works and discuss how avant-garde writers can innovate “Southern poetics”.Firstly,these writers applied fiction to deconstruct the poetic Jiangnan in traditional culture and rebelled against the narrative pattern in traditional Jiangnan Opera and popular novels,aiming at eliminating local features and setting up a fictional South.Secondly,southern images like poppies,snakes,mei-yu(rainy season in June)and rivers showed overripe and decadent aesthetics,and symbolized desire,fore ordination and feeling of despair.Thirdly,the avant-garde writers deconstruct the harmonious relationship among family members and ethnic groups.Masses of vagrants in their fictions can be seen as historical metaphors of “the South”.At last,depression is an important aesthetic element of“Southern poetics”,and avant-garde writers tried to express the most subtle depression an individual can perceive in their works.“Southern poetics” has showed unprecedented postmodernism style in the works of contemporary avant-garde writers.The third chapter will explore why “Southern poetics” can be innovated by contemporary avant-garde writers.The reasons are ascribed to three aspects: 1)As these writers were born in south area of China,regional spirits would deeply affect their aesthetic style.2)Some American and Latin American masters like William Faulkner,Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Jorge Luis Borges inspired them to combine postmodernism with local features.3)The avant-garde writers were the “later generation” in Chinese contemporary history,resulting to a sense of “aphasia”in history and an impulsion of reconstructing historical discourse.As a kind of literary allegory,“the South” represents their identity anxiety and urgent mood for self-expression.The postmodern “Southern poetics” written by avant-garde writers has subverted the indurated and traditional literary aesthetics and increased the diversity for depicting “the South”in Chinese contemporary literature.It also enabled Chinese contemporary fiction to interact with literature worldwide.Giving systematic investigation for this literary phenomenon and raising awareness of “Southern poetics” in literary history,is the significance of this thesis.