Long live youth: National rejuvenation and the Chinese Bildungsroman, 1900--1958

This dissertation examines the discursive practice and historical manifestation of "youth" (qingchun) from the late Qing to the founding of People's Republic of China. I contend that "youth" stands as a dominant trope in the making of Chinese modernity, and that since the beginning of the twentieth century it has functioned as the new agent of history to perpetuate the national urge to rejuvenate, and modernize, China. For many generations of modern Chinese writers, "youth" has been the chosen sign to voice their yearnings for enlightenment, cultural reformation, political revolution, and national renaissance.; In studying the evolution of the youth discourse together with its political, ethical, and cultural effects, I particularly look into the figural formation of "youth" as represented in the novelistic narrative---namely, the Bildungsroman. My study, as a synthesis of narrative theory and cultural history, interprets the multivalence of "youth" through combining the close analysis of the narrative mechanisms of the Chinese Bildungsroman with the historical investigations of the cultural politics of "representing youth" in modern China. I read "youth" not only as a generic motif in the rise of modern Chinese novel, but also as a political trope, a pedagogical ploy, an affective innovation, and above all, a national myth.; The five chapters of my dissertation focus on five important themes of the youth discourse of modern China: (1) the problematic of "new youth" and "old youth" in the political debates, enlightenment projects and novelistic configurations during the late Qing and the May Fourth periods; (2) the invention of "revolutionary youth" and the ideological corrective of youthful sentimentalism as manifested in the leftist writer Mao Dun's literary and political engagements in the wake of the failed first communist revolution in 1927; (3) the ethical, affective, and aesthetic agencies of the anarchist martyrdom in the formation of the "youth cult," as administrated by the anarchist writer Ba Jin and his comrades; (4) the modernist criticism of the ideological containments as expressed in the writings of the youth groups from both the left and right wings during the Sino-Japanese War; (5) and the taming as well as the abuse of "youth" as represented in the canonization of the socialist Bildungsroman.; The Chinese Bildungsroman, as a historical genre, motivated by different political and cultural urges, institutes different kinds of modernity projects; but simultaneously the narrative mechanism and novelistic body of the Bildungsroman suffice the problematics of youth, and modernity, on both historical and psychological dimensions. Through reading the Chinese Bildungsroman, my analysis focuses on its representative agency in the historical complex of Chinese modernization. My argument develops between two related axes: history and representation, modernity and youth. Above all, my exploration into the novelistic representation of Chinese "youth" registers my intention to understand the configuration of Chinese modernity together with its cultural problematics.