The Urban Space In Shanghai Courtesan Novels

"Shanghai courtesan novel "accompanied by the rise of Shanghai City since the late Qing Dynasty.These works take Shanghai as the background,take newspapers and magazines as the media, write urban life and entertainment,showing significant regional literary characteristics, which were very different from the early courtesan novels.The major transformation from tradition to modern style of courtesan novels,was closely related with innovation of the production mechanism of literary works and the change of writing environment.This paper concentrates on the discussion of the writers experience, the image of urban literature,the narrative methods and spatial structure of the texts,in order to reveal the modern sense of these works.The first chapter analyze the interaction of these texts and city. Firstly, explore the changes of Shanghai city since the late Qing Dynasty, especially enhance the economic level, the daily entertainment and spatial changes in consumption brought to the status of the city.Secondly, analyze the urban spatial and temporal cognition of writers, as well as the writing practice on basis of this knowledge, exploring the image of city shaped by these novels.The second chapter is about the narrative structure and methods. On the basis of analysis of early courtesan narrative structure, discussing the new narrative techniques under the transformation of the living environment and urban experience. Take three works as examples, analyze the different ways to show Shanghai,focusing on three specific operations of urban narrative and its importance to expand the urban expressive.The third chapter excavates the modern sense in urban writing areas of these works. Analyze the internal spatial structure of social action and social relations. In this chapter, I will borrow the theory and concept—— "Field",which is proposed by the French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu, to analyze the movement trajectory and conditions in the field, reveal the essence of the city in the contrast of traditional space and the modern urban space, which reflect the human alienation in urban environment under the city’s reaction to the figures.