City And Country On The Map Of Literary Imagination

This dissertation is probing into "city" and "country" of cultural semiotics and narrative theory in 20th century Chinese literature. "City" and "country" appearing in many 20th century Chinese literature works not only refers to the linguistic signs and literature symbols,but also respects cultural psychology which constructs a nation's cultural connotations, cultural mind and cultural conflicts.Because of that, literature symbols refers to many things including cultural reference,structure conflict, narrative perspective and feeling expressing.If we consider "city" and "country" as a cultural coordinates, then a series of topics appeares:tradition and modernity, the West and the East, agricultural civilization and industrial civilization, ideological conflicts belong to symbol of "city" and "country", symbol of gender representation, cultural identity of different places is different, the wandering intellectuals between city and country who looking for their spiritual home.The reason that choose the subject to "city" and "country" is due to the "discovery" of "Rural China" in the perspective of "last hundred years more in the East-West contacts have taken place on the edge of a very special society".In the same way, the works of Chinese contempory "Local Literature" offers a new approach to study the differences between "city literature" and "country literature" which become the logical starting point of reseach in 20th century Chinese literature.Chapterâ… , This dissertation major in the differences and conflicts of "city" and "country" as the cultural representation by exploring the two key literature symbols which often appears in the nature lineages of the "city" and "country" concept of literature and writing, In the activities of literary imagination, "author-world-text-reader" are "four elements" of thinking structure which can be used for analyzing the "city" and "country" symbols functions as literary expression, reference, structure, communication and cognition. "City" and "Country" in literature is the literary concept and imagination of the cultural geography, however, it also pionts to the potential inner world of some culture.Chapterâ…¡, based on the social transformation, urban functions, "reversal" of cultural concepts, definition of political ideology, the writers' "city" aesthetic experience, explores the "urban" & "rural" literature symbol and the cultural space-time pattern from the symbols of three-dimension views of "center" and "marginal", "time" and "space","the past" and "the present", then extracting the cultural code of "urban" and "rural" which hidden in the conflicts of social, cultural transformation, spiritual home contradiction,and even cultural conflicts between "the East" and "the West".Chapterâ…¢studies the Cultural Semiotics of the "city" and "country" and its relationships which used by writers as a way of narrative perspective and explaining cultural psychology.Since "May Fourth Movement", "Rural China Literature" shows the different approaches of literature writing which narratives "the East" in the perspective of "the West" and "Rural China" from "Urban China", which breaks through the confused cognitive which regards the "city" and "country" as a whole. By comparing in the dural perspectives, the two major cultural spaces show its diverse aspects. In fact, the narration of "country" comes from the potential perspective of "city", it is hypocritical one from the "country", that is to say, the perspective of "anti-enlightenment", "anti-country" which seems "more essential" in name only.Since 90s,20th century, the concept of "city" from urban literature of "new generation writers" imagination and texts which aesthetic experiences of "Urban China" rooted in the social transformation. "City" also obtains its "ontological" status, which means the new time accompanying with the urban industrial society, the business community and even the post-industrial society.Chapterâ…£is about to study the cultural codes of "urban" in the 20th century Chinese literature. "City" often labeled by "negative" cultural values such as "Sin", "Fallen", "Monster", "Labyrinth", "Prostitute", "Desire". The narration of "city" ("urban") in "urban literature" is always related to "money", "sex" and "material desires". Analyzing those relations which the moral against emotion and reason, the aesthetic against social modernization, we can find more evidences about the "city" means "negative"cultural codes in the writers'cognitive interpretations.Chapterâ…¤is about to uncode country.Chinese writers often regards themselves as "son of Rural China", "peasants of Rural China" or "son of country" in the curse of narrativing "city" and "country" rhetoric of literary. Because they think the identity from the country can offer "an honour of pride" and a safe cultural background in the period of the agricultural civilization transforming to modern civilization, "country" and "Rural China" are used as cultural identity by themselves.However cultural identity is easily found false and satirely criticized due to the "cultural enlightenment" "national character criticism" and "cultural criticism". But expressing the complex of Rural China--relyinging and country-missing, "intellectual writers" are different from "peaseant".Obviously, this situation results from their different discourses.The former can express positively and emphasis on "aesthetic", but the the latter are in the observed situation and concerning on the "economical benefit". In China urban-rural dual structure, writers must discover the cultural code of "country" and "native soil' by the way of "Fairy Tale" and "Poetry" in literature imagination during concerning on the reality of many of millions rural workers getting into city for work and survive.Chapterâ…¥demonstrates gender repesentation of the "city" and" country" as literature signs.From "Rural China civilization" to "modern civilization",and from "Rural China" to "Urban China", the process of modernization, industrialization and urbanization, which means the disintegration of the traditional "country-village" space. With the development of social, cultural and urban-rural dual structure, "city" obtains the advatange and often referes to a "patriarchal" cultural symbol, then "country" refers to a "maternal" cultural symbol one.From the symbolic terms of gender representation. Since 1990s, "Rural women in urban China seeking life into city" and their "body" rhetorical metaphor in the literature indicate social inequality between the urban and the rural.Chapterâ…¦discusses the writers'spritiral home.In all the time including pre-industrial, industrial and post-industrial civilization, most of literature works such as "Rural China Literature", "Jin School Literature", "Literature of Intellectual Youth", "Root-Seeking Literature", "Post-Root-Seeking Literature", and "Country-nature" In the context of urban China, regard it as "motif" symbols which become a patterned structure of literarure plot and imagination,they located "spirital home in the landscapes,and even the wild and the wilderness", the "country" has become a poetic symbols of their homeland.