Liu Yichang And Modernism:from Shanghai To Hong Kong

Chinese literary modernism emerged in the1920s'Shanghai. After the1940s, Hong Kong and Taiwan literature continued to develop modernism with their distinct characters. In the1980s, with the emergence of Avant-garde literature, literary modernism reappeared in mainland China. As a whole, Chinese literary modernism has been continuously developed in the20th century. Hong Kong writer Liu Yichang (1918-) inherits both the tradition of Shanghai modernism and May Fourth Literature. He came to Hong Kong in1949, worked as writer and editor. While working in a commercial society, he still insisted in writing and promoting modern literature. With his encouragement and insistence, he helped to bring up important Hong Kong modern writers like Yesi (1949) and Xixi (1938). In1985, Liu Yichang started to work as Editor-in-Chief of Hong Kong Literary magazine. The magazine serves as an important connection between mainland Chinese writers and overseas Chinese writers which is an foundation for developing Chinese literature. With the background of post-war Chinese literature, this thesis studies Liu Yichang's over70years of literary career. The thesis pays special attention to post-1949Hong Kong when Shanghai became a memory in Liu Yichang's stories. This thesis also aims to map out the cultural and aesthetic connection between Shanghai and Hong Kong, so as to draw a clearer picture of20th century Chinese modern literature."Introduction" studies the works of Liu Yichang from the perspective of literary modernism. Chapter One consists of two sections. The first section deals with historical review on how literary modernism traveled from Shanghai to Hong Kong and Taiwan. This section also studies the position of Liu Yichang in this process. The second section focuses on the literary review on the study of Liu Yichang. There are more than400Chinese articles about the writer. Apart from this, there are also many criticisms written in foreign languages. The study of Liu Yichang itself could be a discipline. This thesis provides a new perspective by studying Hong Kong literature in the connection with20th century Chinese modern literature. Chapter Two and Chapter Three discuss Liu Yichang's works from a broader perspective. Chapter Two studies the relationship of Liu Yichang with Shanghai New Sensationalism and May Fourth Literature. One of the important findings of the thesis is that Liu Yichang has great influence from the Shanghai New Sensationalism though their national attitude was different. In his stories, Liu Yichang blended modern literary technique with nationalism. Furthermore, Liu Yichang has great influence from May Fourth novelist, for example Lu Xun's reflective attitude towards society and individual. Chapter Three studies how urban mobility influences Liu Yichang. The thesis focuses on the period when Liu Yichang worked in Malaysia and Singapore from1952-57, which has not been studied previously.Chapter Four to Chapter Six focus on analyzing Liu Yichang's works from the perspective of modern literature. Chapter Four studies the psychological novels of Liu Yichang. The first section discusses The Drunkard and its relationship with May Fourth Literature and stream-of-consciousness novels. This study has pointed out six types of narration in The Drunkard. Both James Joyce and Mu Shiying have influenced the narration of The Drunkard. Furthermore, the self-reflective narration of The Drunkard could also be traced back to Lu Xun's "A Madman's Dairy". This section also compares The Drunkard with other stream-of-conciousness novel of the same time, so as to highlight the importance of Liu Yichang's novel aesthetically. The latter section of this chapter studies the "deep layer" psychological narration and "surface layer" psychological narration.Urban culture and visual culture are two important elements in the20th century Chinese literature. We could find these two elements in Liu Yichang's stories. Chapter Five studies the "urban image" in Liu Yichang's novels. Based on the experiment of Shanghai New Sensationalism, and with the influence of French New Novel and cinema culture in Hong Kong, Liu Yichang succeeded in creating his own visual image in literature. His renowned novel, Intersection, is a good example of this experiment. Chapter Five studies the relationship between Liu Yichang's Intersection and Wong Kar Wai's In the Mood for Love from the perspective of composition. The composition has inspired writers like Milan Kundera and Levi-Srauss Claude. This chapter discusses how Liu Yichang absolves cinematic technique and on the other hand, how Liu Yichang's novel inspires movie director. The inter-relationship between literature and media is an important topic for20th century modern literature.Liu Yichang has a series of stories on re-writing classical literature or folklores. Previous studies focus on the textual analysis between the old and the new stories. This thesis differs from the previous study by paying full attention to the cultural context in which the new stories were written. This perspective is important for the study of literature in a commercial city like Hong Kong. Chapter Six discusses Liu Yichang's literature from the point of view of "modern conservation". The chapter discusses how Liu Yichang's "new" stories were written in the context of Hong Kong culture. In this works, he tried to balance the art and the commercial, which could be illustrated by his work "Inside the Temple"."Modern Conservation" is a concept embedded with historical and cultural values. It will help to us to understand the characteristics of Liu Yichang's Hong Kong portrait with the memory of Shanghai.Liu Yichang has been continuing writing for over70years. Some of his works could not be located now. This thesis has dig out a lot of first hand information, for example novella like Dragon Girl (1952), The Second Spring (1952), Singapore Stories (1957) and Dream Street (1958). These novellas have not been discussed before. Furthermore, Liu Yichang has published some old works recently, for example Tropical Weather (2010), Peuh Village (2010) and Bar Girl (2011). These works have seldom been discussed before. I have conducted several interviews with Mr. and Mrs. Liu Yichang. They are generous in providing me some first hand information. In conclusion, this thesis studies the relationship between Shanghai and Hong Kong literature from cultural and aesthetic perspective. This thesis aims to enrich and extend the study of the20th century modern literature.