英文摘要 |
During the 1920s and 1930s, the Neo-Perceptionists appeared on the literary scene in Shanghai and became famous for erotic fiction. Among them were Liu Na'ou (1900-1939), Mu Shiying (1912-1940), and Shi Zhicun (1905- ). Actually it was Creation Society writers such as Yu Dafu and Zhang Ziping who began the vogue of erotic fiction. Besides writing short stories, Yu and Zhang were good at novellas and novels with tragic overtones. By contrast, the Neo-Perceptionists wrote exclusively short stories (often mini stories) marked by lively language and a celebration of urban mood. Their formal renovation no doubt catered to the taste of popular journals such as Liangyou huabao (Companion) and Furen huabao (Women's pictorial), where their works were often published. More important was the change of theme: in contrast to Creation Society writers’ parallel structure of sexual and national liberation, the Neo-Perceptionists neglected the national imagination while stressing instead the sensual pleasures of urban life. Their stories reflected the image of the New Woman constructed by popular Shanghai journals and films. The cultural imagination of the New Woman should be understood in the context of the woman's liberation movement burgeoning in Shanghai since the turn of the century. Influenced by the Japanese Neo-Perceptionists, Liu’s and his friends’ works reflected the decadent mentality of Shanghai urbanites in pursuit of prurience during a time when China was beset by social and military turmoil. As a contrast to the didacticism of the “revolutionary stories” popular then, the works of the Neo-Perceptionists were primarily written for entertainment. During the 1930s Beijing types and Shanghai types debate, Mu Shiying was singled out by Shen Congwen and derided as a “new Shanghai type,” put on a par with the Saturday School, Zhang Ziping, the journal Companion, and the “queens of girls’ schools.” The clear-cut division of writers into the Beijing School and the Shanghai School is a recent construction by literary critics today, and did not really exist then. The term “Shanghai type” referred mainly to stereotypes and revealed the prejudiced opinions of writers from the outside against Shanghai popular culture. If that debate represented the strife between the elite taste and the popular taste, we should keep in mind that many writers who sought shelter in Shanghai during the time of the 1927 Guomingdang party purge took little time before surrendering to the beckon of local popular culture. Many serious writers contributed to popular journals regularly, blurring the line between the elite and the popular. We can instead look at the debate as a clash between “rural China” and Shanghai culture. |