"Nostalgia In The Literary Texts" And The Construction Of Metropolis Cultural Identity

Being esteemed as a question, "cultural identity" is related to the need of society, history, and culture in a certain times, as well as to the sense of "anxiety", "confusion", "lose", and even "crisis" produced in the course of pursuing cultural identity. The essence of "cultural identity" should be regarded as a dynamic course of "productivity", "narrative", and "construction", instead of a completed and stable concept or interpretation of a certain kind of identity. The form of "cultural identity" construction in various fields include: Literature, Arts, Politics, History, social systems, and religion, etc, and among of these Literature is a very important and valuable research point as a reflection of questions of "cultural identity" construction. In the Chinese urban literature works since 1990's, the "nostalgia in the literary texts" for the writing of cultural quality of cities has been a noticeable literary phenomenon. With the different cultural memory and imagination for the same city, the question of "cultural identity" for cities appears. By taking Shanghai , the renewed prosperous city of China in 1990's for instance , this thesis offers complex analysis and studies of "nostalgia in the literary texts " for the writing of Shanghai since 1990's, and finally lead it to a deeper quest by trying to interpret how the "nostalgia in the literary texts " actively takes apart in the construction of "cultural identity" of Shanghai , what kind of "cultural identity" they have constructed , and the essential significance as well as the existing deficiencies of this construction for the past and future "cultural identity" of Shanghai.In the introduction, the thesis illuminates the actuality, meaning, creation and method of the research of this topic.The text of this thesis is totally divided into three parts:Chapter I introduces the cultural context of the "nostalgia of Shanghai in the literary texts " since 1990's. Firstly, the thesis sketches the origin and the change in the meaning of the word "nostalgia", and then sum up the quality of modern nostalgia from four angles of nostalgia subject, nostalgia object, nostalgia method and the commerciality. Secondly, looking back on the fact of the "nostalgia texts" in Chinese literature since 1990's, especially the ones in urban literature, the thesis analyzes several main reasons which make the cultural quality of cities increasingly became a central topic in urban literature. Finally, the thesis focus on objective phenomenon and related questions about "nostalgia in the literary texts" of Shanghai sincel990's.In Chapter II, the "nostalgia in the literary texts" of Shanghai is elaborately and deeply discussed in two different parts which are entitled as "the text of documentary narrative" and "the text of fictive narrative" respectively. In the former part, the thesis interprets the method, mode, and social and history reasons of "the text of documentary narrative" in three corresponding sections. In the other part, the thesis chooses the fiction "long mourn over the past" as a typical example for the analysis and critic of "the text of fictive narrative", and testifies this novel's effective against and identity to the "the text of documentary narrative" by analyzing of the narrative space, narrative time and narrative technique in the novel.Chapter III: According to the elaborate analysis of representative texts of "nostalgia for Shanghai" since 1990's in last chapter, this chapter illustrates three main kind of cultural identity of Shanghai including: "the 'delicatization' noble city", "the consumeristic gentlest city", and "the international metropolis enlightened by western culture ", and also points out the features , positive meaning as well as deficits and bias of construction of city cultural identity in different texts with the newest theory about cultural identity.In the part of Conclusion, the thesis presents that the key words for the reasonable and comprehensive construction of cultural identity of Shanghai are "consultation" and "dialogue". To comply with this principle of construction, literary works are not only needed to pay more attention to the request of society, history and current times, but also needed to maintain the hope for a deeper exploit of the cultural spirit of cities in spite of the main-stream of social consciousness.