"Historical Dictionary of Modern Chinese Literature" by Li-hua Ying - Part 18 pps

civilization. He celebrates the unbridled natural forces within man; he
considers the libido the essential drive for survival. His search for a
primitive self in the memories of his native Gaomi is thought to be a
metaphorical search for the Chinese national spirit. Termed an “explo-
sion of life’s energies,” Mo Yan’s works resonate with the prevalent
view held in China that the ancient Chinese race has degenerated,
suffocated by layers of restrictions, its blood flow clogged and its life
force exhausted. What the Chinese badly need, Mo Yan suggests, is
the strong pulses of life, the awakened primordial forces, the “red sor-
ghum,” the “big breasts and wide hips,” in order to rejuvenate itself.
Mo Yan’s most recent book, Shengsi pilao (Fatigue of Life and
Death), an examination of the relationship between the peasant and the
land, departs from his previous works in that it contains much less vio-
lence and is more contemplative. Considered by many as his best work,
the story is narrated by a former landlord executed during land reform in
1950. Unwilling to admit that he committed any crime other than being
rich, he is reincarnated into various domestic animals who observe up
close the changes in his home village during the subsequent 50 years.
See also ROOT-SEEKING LITERATURE.
MODERN POETRY MOVEMENT IN TAIWAN. In the decade from
the mid-1950s to the mid-1960s, Taiwan saw the emergence of four
major poetry societies that played significant roles at different junctures
of the modern poetry movement: the Modernists, the Blue Stars led by
Tan Zihao, Yu Guangzhong, and others; the Creationists, represented
by Zhang Mo, Luo Fu, and Ya Xian; and the Regionalists, also called
Li (Bamboo Hats). The modernist movement was spearheaded by Ji
Xian, who founded Xiandai shi (Modern Poetry) in 1953. Three years
later, the Modernist Society (Xiandai pai) was formally established,
drawing a membership of more than a hundred poets. In their mission
statement, the Modernists proclaimed their avant-garde position, em-
phasizing “horizontal transplantation” (learning directly from Western

literature) rather than vertical transmission (inheriting from Chinese
traditions), and the discovery of new content, form, tools and methods.
They advocated wholesale Westernization and looked for inspiration
in Western poetry since Charles Baudelaire. The modernist move-
ment could be regarded as a continuation of the cause pursued by Dai
Wangshu and his colleagues, including Ji Xian, two decades earlier in
Shanghai. The radical departure from Chinese tradition, along with the
142 • MODERN POETRY MOVEMENT IN TAIWAN
exclusive emphasis on intellect rather than emotions, made the Modern-
ists easy targets for criticism. In 1959, Ji Xian left the Modernist Society
and the journal he founded, Xiandai shi, was closed down in 1964, end-
ing a decade of its influence in Taiwan’s poetry movement.
Another group, the Blue Stars Society, was founded in 1954 and dis-
banded in 1964. In the course of 10 years, it attracted many promising
poets and published several dozen poetry collections. Less radical than
the Modernists, the Blue Stars were apposed to indiscriminate adop-
tion of Western traditions, choosing instead to emphasize the creation
of “pure poetry” based on personal perceptions of life. While the Blue
Stars also adopted Western modernist techniques, they perceived poetry
as the expression of the individual self in concert with national spirit
and cultural heritage.
The third influential poetry society was the Creationists, most of its
members coming from the military in southern Taiwan. The society
was established in 1954 and its journal, Chuang shiji (Creationists),
was founded in October of the same year. Intended as a correction to
the Modernists, the Creationists rejected absolute “intellectualism” or
absolute “emotionalism” in favor of imageries and symbols. In the late
1950s, when the influence of the other two societies began to wane, the
Creationists abandoned their earlier positions and opted for “surrealism”
in an attempt to move poetry from relying on reason and rationality to a

focus on aesthetics. In 1969, financial difficulties forced them to close
down Chuang shiji, which would be revived in 1972 with a renewed
emphasis on tradition and reality.
While the above three societies were more or less drawn to the idea
of pure poetry, the few regionalist groups, most prominently Li, the
Bamboo Hats, tried to call attention to the social realities of Taiwan.
The emergence of the Bamboo Hats marked the rising of a unique Tai-
wanese consciousness and identity. Its bimonthly, Li, from which the
name for the group was derived, was one of the most influential poetry
publications in Taiwan during the time. With its emphasis on Taiwan’s
history, geography, and reality, the journal published poems that con-
tained social messages, regional flavor, and colloquial language. Other
prominent members include Lin Hengtai, Fei Ma, Du Guoqing, Huang
Hesheng, and Zheng Chouyu.
MODERNISTS (XIANDAI PAI). In 1931, the publisher Xiandai shuju
(Modern Books) put out Xiandai yuekan (Modern Monthly) and shortly
MODERNISTS • 143
after Dai Wangshu founded Xin shi (New Poetry). These two journals
became the main venues for modernist writings. Authors whose works
were published in these two journals became known as belonging to
the modernists (xiandai pai). Poetry was by far the dominant genre in
modernist literature and characterized by symbolism, graceful language,
and romantic sentiments. Among its representative poets were Dai
Wangshu, Li Jinfa, Ai Qing, He Qifang, and Li Guangtian. The term
also refers to the literary movement in Taiwan some 30 years later,
when a group of faculty and students at the Foreign Languages De-
partment of the National Taiwan University launched Xiandai wenxue
(Modern Literature), a magazine that systematically introduced Western
modernist writings and published works by Taiwan’s own modernist
writers. Bai Xianyong and Wang Wenxing are among the founders of

the movement. See also CHEN RUOXI; OUYANG ZI.
MU DAN, PEN NAME OF ZHA LIANGZHENG (1919–1977). Poet.
Born in Tianjin, Mu Dan studied Western literature at Qinghua Uni-
versity. When Japan invaded China, he followed his university to the
southwestern city of Kunming to continue his studies. After receiving
his bachelor’s from the National Southwestern Associated University
in 1940, he joined the Chinese Expedition Force to Burma to aid the
British troops fighting against the Japanese Imperial Army, a traumatic
experience that nearly cost him his life. In 1949, he enrolled in the
University of Chicago and three years later he was awarded a master’s
degree in English literature. A year after that, he returned to Tianjin to
teach at the Foreign Languages Department of Nankai University. Dur-
ing the Anti-Rightist Campaign in the late 1950s, Mu Dan was stripped
of his teaching responsibilities and assigned to work as a librarian, a
post he held until a heart attack took his life in 1977.
Mu Dan’s literary reputation rests solely on three poetry collections
published in the 1940s: Tanxianzhe (The Explorer), Mu Dan shi ji
1939–1945 (Collected Poems by Mu Dan 1939–1945), and Qi (Flags).
Influenced by
T. S. Eliot, W. H. Auden, and William Butler Yeats, Mu
Dan’s poetic voice is meditative, philosophical, ironic, and at times
abstract, questioning the meaning of life and dealing with issues con-
cerning the self, the soul, and the spiritual. Although he did write some
patriotic poems such as “Zan mei” (A Song of Praise), he was much
more adept at treating existential subjects such as alienation and tragic
human existence. Mu’s poetic persona is often portrayed as lost, alien-
144 • MU DAN, PEN NAME OF ZHA LIANGZHENG
ated, and fractured, as shown in “Cong xuwu dao chongshi” (From Ni-
hilism to Substantiation). “Fangkong dong de shuqing shi” (Lyrics of an
Air-raid Shelter), a poem written during the Sino-Japanese War, while

expressing compassion, patriotism, and hope, does not echo the heroic,
indignant sentimentalism of much of the Chinese poetry produced at
the time.
Mu Dan understood the anxiety Chinese intellectuals felt as their
country transitioned from the established order in which they were
firmly anchored to the new, unpredictable world. While the sense of
alienation expressed in his poems is firmly grounded in Chinese reality,
he saw the Chinese experience as part of a human dilemma. In “She de
youhuo” (The Seduction of the Snake), a parody of the Biblical story,
Mu Dan readily embraces the Christian notion of original sin to convey
both the Chinese intellectual’s spiritual crisis and the universal human
condition. As a poet experimenting with a new form and a new lan-
guage, Mu Dan did not attempt to bridge the old and the new. Indeed,
his poems, whether in form or content, show little influence from the
Chinese poetic tradition.
Like Shen Congwen, Feng Zhi, and many others who gave up
creative writing after 1949 and turned instead to the politically safer
academic writing or translation work, Mu Dan wrote only a few poems
after he returned to China from the United States. He devoted his en-
ergy to translating Russian and English literature. Among the authors he
translated are Alexander Pushkin, Lord Byron, Percy Bysshe Shelley,
and John Keats. His translation of Byron’s Don Juan, which he finished
in the 1970s, is widely considered a masterpiece in its own right. Mu
Dan’s literary accomplishment was largely ignored in the People’s Re-
public of China until the 1980s, when the rediscovered poet was hailed
as the most innovative modernist poet in 20th-century China.
MU SHIYING (1912–1940). Fiction writer. Born in Zhejiang, Mu Shiy-
ing spent his childhood in Shanghai with his banker father. While a
student at Guanghua University majoring in Chinese language and
literature, Mu was deeply engrossed in modern Western literature as

well as works by Japanese New Sensibility school writers, especially
those by Yokomitsu Riichi, which informed much of his work. He
published his first story “Zanmen de shijie” (Our World) in 1930.
Another story, “Gong mu” (Public Cemetery), made the pages of the
first issue of Xiandai (Modernity), a literary journal that advocated for
MU SHIYING • 145
Chinese modernism, establishing Mu as one of the prominent writers
in the Chinese modernist movement, now often mentioned in the com-
pany of Shi Zhecun and Liu Na’ou as a prominent New Sensibility
(Xin Ganjue pai) writer. The stories in his first collection of fiction,
entitled Nan bei ji (The North and South Poles), explore the rough
world of pirates, salt merchants, gang members, cabbies, beggars, and
other such figures who talk dirty and act tough. In his second collec-
tion, Gong mu (The Public Cemetery), he turns to the subtle feelings
and emotions of urban bourgeois life, a central subject for all New
Sensibility writers. He put great emphasis on the exploration of the
individual psyche and the perception of reality through the senses and
thus won critical acclaim. His stories feature Freudian psychoanalysis,
focusing on love, marriage, and sexuality as a medium through which
to explore the theme of alienation in modern city life. His stories
collected in Baijin de nüti suxiang (The Platinum Female Statue),
Yezonghui li de wuge ren (The Five People in the Night Club), and
Shanghai de hubuwu (Shanghai’s Fox Trot) represent some of the best
New Sensibility writings. Many of Mu’s stories feature the femme
fatale who represents the lethal eros of the modern city that abandons
middle-class men after it has seduced them, leaving them in a state of
confusion and despondence.
In the aftermath of the Japanese invasion, Mu went to Hong Kong
but soon returned to Shanghai in 1939 to work for a newspaper run by
the puppet government of Wang Jingwei, who collaborated with the

Japanese. The following year, Mu was assassinated, allegedly by Chi-
ang Kai-shek’s secret service. His name was not cleared until the 1970s,
when new evidence surfaced that he had been sent by the Nationalist
government to infiltrate the puppet administration.
– N –
NATIVISTS (XIANGTU PAI). Wang Luyan (1901–1944) is widely
considered the first of the Chinese nativist writers to explore the
unique culture of his native land and to write about the effects of
industrial forces that threatened the survival of rural communities in
prerevolutionary China. After the 1920s, Chinese nativist literature
evolved into several different forms. In sharp contrast to Lu Xun,
who portrayed the countryside as the bastion of traditional values
146 • NATIVISTS
that inflicted serious damage to the Chinese national spirit, Shen
Congwen depicted rural western Hunan as a pastoral refuge against
modernization and Westernization. Meanwhile, the Communists pro-
moted peasant literature, resulting in a number of writers whose works
are characterized by their unique regional flavors. Zhao Shuli and his
Shanxi Potato school and Sun Li and his Hebei Lotus Lake school
were two of the most influential regional literary groups. In Taiwan
after 1949, there was a group of writers emerging from the country-
side who stood up against the influential trend of Westernization in
Taiwanese literature by writing about traditional rural communities
pushed to the fringes by Taiwan’s modernization process. Their work
met with strong resistance, and in some cases ridicule, from the elitist
camp, which was dominated by pro-Western and modernist writers.
The 1977 debates on nativist literature carried out between Peng Ge,
Zhu Xining, and Yu Guangzhong on one side and Ye Shitao, Chen
Yingzhen, and Wang Tuo on the other highlighted the differences in
the two groups’ aesthetic and political views. In the years that fol-

lowed the debates, the nativists gradually gained a strong foothold
in Taiwan, producing among the group such prominent names as
Huang Chunming, Wang Zhenhe, and Chen Yingzhen. The nativist
movement in its various forms and manifestations has influenced the
root-seeking literature on the mainland since the 1980s.
NEW CULTURE MOVEMENT (XIN WENHUA YUNDONG). As-
sociated with the May Fourth Movement and motivated by an urgent
sense of cultural endangerment, the New Culture Movement was born
in 1915 when Chen Duxiu founded Qingnian zazhi (Youth Magazine),
renamed Xin qingnian (New Youth) a year later. In its first issue, Chen
urged the nation’s youths to throw away the “feudalist” shackles that
had restricted the Chinese mind for more than a thousand years and
to adopt Western concepts of democracy and science. He challenged
them to be “independent instead of slavish,” “progressive instead of
conservative,” “outgoing instead of withdrawn,” “down-to-earth instead
of pretentious,” “scientific instead of imaginary,” and “open instead of
unreceptive to the rest of the world.” When Chen accepted the offer of
Cai Yuanpei, president of Beijing University, the center of the New Cul-
ture Movement shifted from Shanghai to Beijing. Cai, a liberal-minded
administrator, recruited some of the nation’s best minds for his uni-
versity, including Hu Shi, Li Dazhao, Qian Xuantong, Liu Bannong,
NEW CULTURE MOVEMENT • 147
Zhou Zuoren, and Lu Xun. These and other prominent intellectuals
helped make Beijing University a breeding ground for the New Culture
Movement.
In addition to the campaign for social reforms based on “Mr. Democ-
racy” and “Mr. Science,” which included educational reforms and the
emancipation of women, the New Culture advocates waged a literary
campaign to promote a new literature written in the vernacular instead
of classical Chinese, which had a stranglehold on Chinese political,

intellectual, and literary discourses. This linguistic reform, advocated
by Hu and others, went far beyond the restructuring of the language;
it had profound ramifications for the Chinese society as a whole. With
classical Chinese taken down from its lofty pedestal, the authority of the
classics and their intellectual and moral hold on the Chinese conscious-
ness were loosened. The modernization of the country, the New Culture
proponents argued, demanded a new written language and a new lit-
erature that was accessible to the broad masses not just the intellectual
elite. In the 1917 February issue, Chen published “Wenxue geming lun”
(On Literary Revolution), in which he defined the new literature as be-
ing “unassuming and expressive,” “fresh and honest,” and “plain and
popular,” a people’s literature that was realistic and socially engaged.
Xin qingnian was the chief venue for publishing new literary works.
Pioneering writings such as Hu’s vernacular poems and Lu Xun’s short
stories made their first appearances in Xin qingnian. These and other
progressive writings offered critical examinations of age-old Chinese
traditions, especially Confucianism, and advocated learning from the
West, some going so far as to call for total Westernization.
Extremely popular among the educated youths, Xin qingnian inspired
many reform-minded political activists such as Mao Zedong, who was
introduced to Marxism by the magazine, as well as literary youths such
as Ba Jin, who came into contact with it in the remote southwestern
city of Chengdu. Largely confined to the intellectual elite, the New
Culture Movement nevertheless brought widespread changes to Chinese
society. In the beginning, the movement focused on attacking traditional
thoughts and practices and bringing in new ideas and concepts from
abroad. As some of the leaders became increasingly radicalized and
opted for political action, as exemplified by Chen and Li, who went on
to become founders of the Chinese Communist Party, the movement
branched off in two separate directions: with Hu, Zhou, and others in-

148 • NEW CULTURE MOVEMENT
terested in gradual and intellectual enlightenment and Chen, Li, Lu Xun,
and others pushing for political radicalism.
NEW GENERATION WRITERS (XIN SHENG DAI ZUOJIA). A
term used for young writers who were born in the 1970s or 1980s, the
latter also called “the post-1980s generation” (bashi niandai hou zuojia).
Many among the group became famous at a young age, often while still
in high school. In many ways, this is the generation of the Internet, which
launched many careers by publishing works online and attracting a siz-
able following among Web surfers. It is also the generation of market
economy, with youth magazines such as Mengya (Sprouts) promoting
and marketing literary stars. The works by this new generation of writ-
ers are known for explicit, sometimes sensationalist, sexual content,
distinctly unabashed exhibition of materialism, and self-absorption. Ini-
tially rejected by the mainstream literary establishment, the best among
them have gradually gained recognition from critics for their increasingly
sophisticated treatment of youth culture in contemporary society. The
best known and most commercially successful among this generation of
writers are Wei Hui and Han Han. See also HU JIAN; LI SHASHA; SU
DE; XIAO FAN; YAN GE; ZHANG YUERAN.
NEW SENSIBILITY SCHOOL (XIN GANGJUE PAI). Active in the
1930s and 1940s, the New Sensibility writers, most prominently Shi
Zhecun, Mu Shiying, and Liu Na’ou, wrote about the lives of the
young and flamboyant generation in the bustling metropolis of Shang-
hai, exploring the workings of the individual psyche and the perception
of reality through the senses. Their focus on sensual experiences and
the musicality of language set them apart from other modernist writers
who shared their obsession with modern urban life with its dance halls,
cafés, and movie theaters.
NI KUANG, A.K.A. NI YIMING, NI CONG, WEI SILI, AND SHA

WENG (1935– ). A prolific writer of science fiction, fantastic tales,
martial arts novels, and popular romances, Ni Kuang was born in
Shanghai and moved to Hong Kong in 1957. Since 1992, he has been
living in San Francisco. In the early 1960s, encouraged by Jin Yong, he
began writing science fiction, becoming arguably the best-known sci-
ence fiction writer in the Chinese-speaking world. His Weisili Xilie (The
Wellesley Series) and Shentan Gaosi xilie (Goss the Great Detective)
have won him a large following among Chinese readers. As movies
NI KUANG, A.K.A. NI YIMING, NI CONG, WEI SILI, AND SHA WENG • 149
turned into a major entertainment venue in Hong Kong, Ni embarked
on a successful career writing for the film industry. He has written more
than 300 film scripts. Known also for his anti-Communist stance, Ni is
believed to have said, “To be patriotic, one must be opposed to Com-
munism and to be opposed to Communism is patriotic.”
NIE GANNU (1903–1986). Essayist, poet, and short story writer. Known
for his wit and extraordinary talent, Nie Gannu spent his youth in the
1920s working as a secretary in the Nationalist army, teaching school
in Malaysia, editing newspapers in Burma, training as a cadet in the
Huangpu Military Academy in Guangzhou, and studying at Sun Yat-sen
University in Moscow. In the 1930s, he joined the Left-wing Associa-
tion of Chinese Writers and the Communist Party and spent several
months in prison in Japan for his anti-Japanese activities. In the 1930s
and 1940s, while editing progressive newspapers and journals, he wrote
political essays, satirizing the Nationalist government and its attacks on
the Communists. He also wrote about social injustice and the plight of
women. For his sharp and biting language, Nie is widely considered
the number two essayist, after Lu Xun, in modern Chinese literature,
writing in the genre of satirical essay. After 1949, Nie worked as editor
for the Wenhui Daily in Hong Kong and the People’s Literature Press
in Beijing. A proud and independent man, he was considered by the

authorities as “unruly” and “liberal” and suffered a great deal during the
various political campaigns of the People’s Republic of China, despite
being a veteran party member and having a long-standing friendship
with many of the top leaders. In his later years, Nie wrote many poems
in the classical style. Because of his personal integrity and the acute
political insights he expressed in his writings, his work has attracted
renewed interest in recent years. Other than his essays, Nie also wrote
short stories and critical essays on classical Chinese novels.
NIE HUALING (1925– ). Fiction and prose writer. Born in Hubei Prov-
ince, Nie Hualing graduated from Central University with a degree in
English. She moved to Taiwan in 1949 to work as a literary editor for
Ziyou Zhongguo (Free China), a bimonthly journal that promoted liberal
ideals, and soon after began to publish stories. In 1964, Nie went to the
United States to participate in the Writers’ Workshop at the University
of Iowa. In 1967, Nie and her future husband, Paul Engle, established
the International Writing Program, which attracted many writers from
all over the world. During the 21 years the couple ran the program,
150 • NIE GANNU
hundreds of writers were invited to Iowa City, including more than 80
from Hong Kong, Taiwan, and the mainland. For their tireless effort
to promote exchange among writers of different cultures and countries,
Nie and Engle received numerous awards, including the Award for
Distinguished Service to the Arts from the Governors Association. Nie
retired from the University of Iowa in 1988.
Nie’s best-known work is a fictional piece entitled Sangqing yu Tao-
hong (Mulberry and Peach: Two Women of China) about a woman’s
transformation from innocent youth to hardened middle age. Mulberry
and Peach, two different aspects of the same person, represent self-
alienation of the individual, calling into question the meaning of self-
identity. Told in the form of journal entries and letters, the story centers

on the theme of exile, underscoring the attempt to flee from various
kinds of predicament, both external and internal. Another work, San
sheng san shi (Three Lives in Three Worlds), is an autobiographical ac-
count of the author’s life in China, Taiwan, and the United States. For
her portrayals of strong female characters, Nie is regarded as one of the
forerunners of Taiwan’s feminist movement.
– O –
OUYANG JIANGHE (1956– ). Poet and poetry critic. Like many of
the Generation III poets, Ouyang Jianghe grew up in Sichuan. He is
from a military family and served for nine years in the army. Ouyang
is deeply indebted to classical Chinese poetry, having committed to
memory hundreds of poems. Prior to “Xuan guan” (Cliff Burials),
published in 1985 and which he regards as the watershed in his career,
his early poetry pays homage to his cultural heritage, with an emphasis
on the dichotomy between Sichuan’s ancient shamanist heritage and
centralized imperial power, as well as the interplay between modern
and classical Chinese. The change after “Xuan guan” to contemporary
themes without the weight of history opened for the poet an outlet to
explore the relationship between word and object. “Shouqiang” (The
Handgun), which brings into focus the temporal and conceptual quality
of the physical entity, is representative of these later poems.
Ouyang’s view of poetics is articulated in Zhan zai xugou zhe bian
(On the Side of Fabrication), a collection of essays on contemporary
Chinese poetry, including critiques of Bei Dao and fellow Sichuanese
OUYANG JIANGHE • 151