A Study Of Lin Haiyin

Lin Haiyin(1918-2001)was not only a woman who valued family life,but also a cultured writer,editor and publisher,a rare combination in Chinese literature that was a testament to her special ability.In mainland China,the study of Lin in recent years has been contained to each of her individual work.On the other hand,although research perspective in Taiwan has been widening and deepening,researchers have been focused on singular topics.Her style,editing and publishing have each been explored but not yet consolidated.No one has yet to touch upon how her style was influenced and developed by her experience as an editor(of United Daily News),founder and editor of Pure Literature(a monthly publication)and founding publisher-cum-editor of Pure Literature Publishing House.This may be due to her vast literary editorial style and system that may seem insurmountable to researchers or the challenge in obtaining data because of difficult cross-strait academic communication.As a female literary figure who sowed the seeds of Beijing school literature in Taiwan and was loyal to the integration of literature across the Taiwan Strait,her literary-style editorial philosophy deserves mention in the field.For the above reasons,this paper begins with Lin's life experience,discussing the formation of her cultural personality and her pursuit of literary creation.By discussing influencers of style in her work,the author draws conclusions on the formation of her literary perspective,then describes how her professional training in press journalism influenced the creation and development of her editorial experience in Pure Literature.Focused analysis of style in the Pure Literature reveals that it succeeds in essence the publications of Zhu Guang Qian and Xia Ji An.Through comparison of these three publications,the author sums up the editorial concepts that Lin inherited and the distinguishing features of her editorial philosophy innovated upon these foundations.The paper also focuses on the analysis of her other two literary activities—10 years of newspaper editorial background and 27 years of editorial-cum-publishing experience in the Pure Literature Publishing House—in order to summarise all of her editorial philosophy in the literary editorial business.Finally,the paper uses the underlying relationship between her creative style and editorial philosophy to complete a history that traces the beginning,development,return and end of a pure literature.In addition to the introduction and conclusion,this thesis is divided into five chapters:The first chapter describes the formation of Lin's cultural personality in five sections.The first section details how her personality and creative style developed from her outstanding natural leadership quality and was nurtured through family education and social awareness.The second section examines the impact of Hakka spirit-forging ahead in spite of difficulties,persevering,valuing education above all else,taking risks,putting one's heart and soul into a pursuit,enterprising and innovating-in shaping her cultural personality.The third section explains how the Beijing literary culture trained her ability and intelligence in writing,editing and publishing:Lin lived in the cultural centre of Peking and had ties throughout her life with people deeply influenced by literary culture(her father,husband,press employer,father-in-law),all of whom either have newspaper background or are literati of the Beijing school literature.Using the case study of Nobel Prize winner Jorge Luis Borges who achieved his literary dream in a library career,the fourth section narrates her book cataloguing experience as a librarian that contributed to the realisation of her dream of being an editor-cum-publisher.Section five illustrates the turning point in Taiwanese Literature:a barren period in the female Taiwanese literary field provided Lin with an opportunity to use salons to gather the literary community,successfully laying the foundation upon which she built a series of literary activities.The second chapter explores the values pursued in Lin's literary creation in five sections.Explaining values in literary creation and using the significance of their existence as a major premise,the first section studies values in all(three)aspects of Lin's literature.The second section describes how she gained unique awareness of the female consciousness through Beijing's women's liberation movement,explaining her deep understanding of realities that females face in marriage life.She put forth her novel viewpoint on the nature of marriage through the portrayal of the lives of female protagonists in her novels,implicitly illustrating a way of marriage.She used novels to express respect towards traditional Chinese women who endured tough marriages,in order to shed light on why western mentality on women liberation should not be used to judge or evaluate the awakening of the Chinese female consciousness.The paper points out that the innate awareness of female consciousness in Hakka women served as a typical foundation for Lin's growth.The third section shows that,following Beijing school literature,the depiction of human nature is central to Lin's literature.She modelled on the works of Ling Shu Hua and had immense respect for Shen Cong Wen's creations."Candle" and "Xiao Yun.are used as case studies to confirm her works on human nature.The fourth section details kindness as a main concept in her literature.Several theoretical interpretations of the value of kindness in literature are made.Lin practised kindness in her literary life,infusing its spirit into her literature.The spread of her acts and thoughts of kindness led to the cultivation of the spirit of care in Taiwan's culture.The fifth section considers the underlying impact of her pure literature on cross-strait politics.Although she had a complex background,she had always been loyal to identity of "one China across the strait".This insistence was a political appeal through pure literature.Her courage eventually led to cross-strait literature exchanges and the building of contemporary friendship between literati across the Taiwan Strait,establishing the status of pure literature as a school recognised by the literati.Chapter 3 characterises Lin's style of creation in four sections on novel,prose,children's literature and Beijing-flavour creative style.The first section analyses her language style and how women's pursuit of the value in life is reflected in her novels through the central theme of marriage from the female perspective to portray humanitarianism and warmth,displaying a broad concept of sympathy that a novelist should possess.The idea of warmth took on new meaning as she extended it across the Taiwan Strait and to characters of all echelons.This paper further deconstructs her opening of a different path(as a female)by adopting Shen Cong Wen's new literary form,giving her finer technical expertise to express the soul of her novels and present deeper thinking about humanity.Leveraging the power of language,the overall language style of her novels embodies reality,goodness and beauty.The second section on prose examines the origin of her prose style by tracing the genres of prose formed during the period of 1930s in China when prose creation flourished.It differentiates Lin's writing by delving into subject and theme in her prose.As a highly challenging literary form that gives the writer plenty of freedom,prose has the advantage of allowing one to capture,select and use information.Thus,Lin abandoned the novel and chose prose to adapt to the preference of readers for short and pithy leisure reading,an irreversible development of style with Taiwan's industrialisation and commercialization.Her prose style mainly serves to conceive a Taiwanese literary history and carries historical and reference value in the realm of prose.The third section explores children's literature.Her affinity with children,methodology of using children's literature for education and a trip to the United States triggered her sense of mission in children's literature.She was committed to creating and translating children's literature.Her style in children's literature has distinctive features of being suitable for all ages,valuing the scientific attitude of western creation and emphasising the educational effect of the work.She always had the great goal of establishing a social environment with world-class reading level through the publication of children's books with new ideas,in order to change attitudes towards the enterprise of children's literature.The fourth section describes her distinctive works with Beijing-flavour,elucidating the reasons Lin was recognised as a Beijing-flavour novelist in Beijing school literature.Amongst them,"My memories of old Beijing","Candle core" and "Stories of marriage" are representative of Beijing-flavour novels.An interesting parallelism in Beijing-flavour literature is noted between "My memories of old Beijing"-a Beijing school novel set in Peking but created in Taiwan-and Ling Shu Hua's "Ancient melodies"-an orthodox Beijing-flavour novel conceived in London-both of which shifted the heart of Beijing-flavour novels outside of Peking but eventually returned to their place of origin.Chapter 4 explores Lin's editorial philosophy in Pure Literature in four sections.The first section summarises how she accumulated rich experience as editor of newspaper supplementary sections in Peking and Taiwan.By contrasting Literature Magazine founded by Zhu Guang Qian(in Peking)and later created by Xia Ji An(in Taiwan in a concurrent period),the second section analyses her Pure Literature monthly magazine using Liang Shi Qiu and Zhu Jie Fan as evidence that it inherited the magazine style of Zhu and Xia.The paper shows that she developed their work to great heights,establishing Pure Literature as an authoritative professional magazine of academic quality.Section three concludes her overall editorial philosophy:to establish a new culture through liberalism,develop pure literature,make academic literature accessible to the public,adhere to the principles of literati in conducting trade and adopt media mindset with strategic foresight to grab opportunities for in-depth coverage using new literary forms.The fourth section narrates that Pure Literature was facelifted as Pure Literature Publishing House,which eventually wound up as it could not withstand the competition from big capitalist businesses.Nonetheless,it ultimately succeeded in handing over literature to Beijing Modern Literature Museum,returning the literature to its place of origin.This literature thence became the Taiwanese part of Chinese literary history,forever engraved in the annals of history.Chapter five,consisting of two sections,explores the editorial philosophy of Lin's literary style.The first section introduces her editorial policy during her 10 years as editor of a supplementary of United Daily News and her editorial strategy and direction for Pure Literature Publishing House.It also depicts the formation,rise,prosperity,decline,and end of Pure Literature Publishing House.The second section shows the underlying relationship between her creati-ve style and editorial philosophy.As an editor and writer,the depth of inner cultivation in her style of work permeates her editorial philosophy,forming new values.In conclusion,following the train of thought guided by the central themes of style and editing,this dissertation traces a path from style,editing to the spread of literature through publication,to describe how Lin established in Taiwanese literary realm unique editorial philosophy from her literary style,leaving a great legacy in editing and publication that inspires admiration for generations to come.This dissertation touches on literary experiences of writers from both sides of the Taiwan Strait.In order to present an objective,rigorous and informative academic paper,besides collecting relevant literature about Lin from different universities in Singapore,the author also made numerous visits to the National Taiwan University and the National Central Library in Taiwan to gain access to rich original literature.This dissertation aims to fill the gaps in scholarly research on Lin Haiyin in mainland China and Taiwan province,hoping to contribute literature with reference value to the research of literary history of the Taiwan province of China.