英文摘要 |
In the late Qing era, the concepts of space were confronted with a changing geographical imagination that in turn affected literary expression. Focusing on Dream Talk of an Imbecile (Chiren shuo mengji), this article discusses the presentation of spatial transformation in the late Qing era under the impact of the “Great Age of Discovery.” First of all, it tracks the spatial imagination of the father-son relationship in the novel, thus exploring the shift from the traditional “island of immortals” (xianren dao) towards a modern vision of the “town of suppressed immortals” (zhen xian cheng). How did a new geographical vision – concepts such as the five continents and the nation-state – enter the novel’s space and affect its narrative? The characters must discover that tianxia, which they had taken granted for their home, does not at all belong to them; searching for a route of escape, they construct a new surreal space: Utopia. The article goes on to analyze the visual representation of this surreal space: thus enter science and democracy, precedents of Mr. Democracy and Mr. Science of the May Fourth period. Yet when the utopian plan is completely laid out, it turns into its own other, to an anti-utopia: disposing its original ideal and causing a rift between the writing motive and its written result. |