The late Qing Dynasty is the beginning era of China’s original science fiction.As an import,science fiction,transplanted from the West to the late Qing Dynasty,triggers China’s translation and creation fever of it.In a sense,the science fictions appearing at that time comes with the budding scientific consciousness and enlightenment values,and records the aspirations of modern intellectuals for new knowledge and modernization.Utopian imagination is an important feature and construction object of late Qing Dynasty’s science fictions.Accordingly,this article will explore the modern narrative and modern thought of late Qing Dynasty’s science fiction from the perspective of utopian writing in three chapters.The first chapter mainly reveals the modern transformation background of science fiction in the late Qing Dynasty,including the introduction of new scientific knowledge under the westernization,the transformation of literary concepts,and the translation of foreign science fiction works.The big impacts and challenges coming from the West civilization have made a rift in china’s traditional utopia imagination from the outside.The self-sufficient and nature-depending traditional utopia can no longer cope with the new problems China is currently facing—the imminent national survival crisis.Under the background of Western learning in the late Qing Dynasty,Western utopian concepts and related works enter China through translations.The fiction revolution places a high value on novel,which in turn provides a appropriate carrier for the detailed depiction of utopia.The second chapter mainly discusses how the modern elements in the science fiction novels of the late Qing Dynasty are "embedded" in the utopian narrative.It analyzes various characteristics and construction psychology in the science fiction novels of the late Qing Dynasty from four aspects: the space-time experience of modern aircraft,the opening of future time,the travel and exploration of space,and the reflection and transcendence of civilization,combining with the novel text,as well as Wu Jianren’s moral and scientific utopia’s integration and transcendence of Chinese and Western civilization.The utopia science fictions the late Qing Dynasty can be divided into the utopia in the future time and the alien utopia in the synchrony in terms of time and space.One important feature of modern utopia lies in the linear evolution of time consciousness,while the other lies in the implantation of the“future” concept which has changed the way Chinese people imagine utopia and established a “future-looking” perspective.Modern Utopia presents a characteristic of outward expansion and active exploration in space.The tentacles envisioned by novelists not only extend to the overseas world,but also continue to advance towards the sky and the deep planetary space of the universe.Beyond this,they also seek new starting points and coordinates for the evolution of China’s civilization.Behind various Utopian landscapes lies the potential anxiety of the intellectuals in the late Qing Dynasty about the transformation of the concept of civilization,which also reflects their reflection on the hierarchical order within the framework of“civilization” and “barbarism”.The third chapter focuses on connecting the common patterns behind the late Qing’s utopia science fictions from the macro level.Considering the specific trends of thought in the late Qing era,this chapter will analyze and explain the construction of the modern ideological value from three dimensions: the imagination of a national state,the discussion of gender and nationality,and the shaping of ideal citizens.The creation of science fiction in the late Qing Dynasty was born at a time of national crisis.Nationalist emotions and the realistic demands of maintaining a strong nation’s citizens provide an effective path for the establishment of people’s imagination and identification with the concept of“country”in the utopian fantasy and writing space.At the same time,it also opens up a distant “viewing ” place and provides an opportunity for reflecting our own civilization.It can be said that the construction of utopia in the science fiction novels of the late Qing Dynasty not only involves the material and institutional levels,but also carries the enlightenment lawsuit of the intellectual class to build an ideal nation. |