On Their Own Road

Since creating the poetry "About the Big Wild Goose Pagoda" in the 1980s, Han Dong has become one of the exponents of the "Third Generation Poetry Movement" as well as the writers who were born in the 1960s. During his twenty years of professional experience, Han has witnessed the poetry transformation from florescence to downfall and the changes of the position of literature from center to periphery. Despite these chaotic and complicated transformations and changes, Han still sticks with his ideals for literature. So far, critics are diverged on the evaluation of Han's literary works and his activities. The purpose of the dissertation is to restore Han's real features out of the tumultuous waves and the contradictory remarks, and further explore the series of spiritual propositions that Han's generation has met and is meeting in the different contexts of varying times.Positioning the critical events and typical texts of Han's creativity process in China's history of literary and social transformation of the past twenty years, I will, from the perspective of a later comer, endeavor to conduct the specific research.Following summarizing Han's creativity process and illustrating the purpose of the dissertation in the Introduction, I will analyzing the successive relations between Han Dong and Beidao's generation in the first chapter. Han and Beidao's generation which is Han's "Father of Literature" are linked together by their common experiences of the Cultural Revolution. While gaining the opportunities of passive showing through revolting against Beidao's generation, Han, as a "later comer", has restored the reality of daily lives.Combined with the analysis of specific text, I will analyze in the second chapter the adherence of Han and his generation to the spirit of poetry through re-reading the situation of Han and "them" in the "85 new wave". In addition, the reality of the peripheralization of poetries will be further explored.Based on Han's novel creation as from 1990s, in the third chapter I will attempt to examine the courses of Han's self-loss in the commercialized secularization as well as his incessant search for selfhood.Finally, through reviewing the transformation of Han's spirit between "Taking Root" and "You and I", I will further explore the dilemma that Han and his generation are facing on the road of seeking for selfhood. Such a dilemma, which does not solely belong to Han's generation, is actually the token of the times.