Modernist Poetics in China : Consumerist Economics and Chinese Literary Modernism

This book examines organizations of consumerist economics, which developed at the turn of the twentieth century in the West and at the turn of the twenty-first century in China, in relation to modernist poetics. Consumerist economics include the artificial "person" of the corporation, the vertical integration of production, and consumption based upon desire as well as necessity. This book assumes that poetics can be understood as a theory in practice of how a world works. Tracing the relation of economics to poetics, the book analyzes the impersonality of indirect discourse in Qian Zhongshu and James Joyce; the impressionist discourses of Mang Ke and Ezra Pound; and discursive difficulty in Mo Yan and William Faulkner. Bringing together two notably distinct cultures and traditions, this book allows us to comprehend modernism as a theory in practice of lived experience in cultures organized around consumption. Tiao Wang is Associate Professor of English Language and Literature at the School of Foreign Languages, Harbin Institute of Technology, China. She has published 23 articles, 9 of which are in English, focused on American and European modernism. She is also co-translator of Yong Bao Teng Tong (2017), a translation of Pain and Suffering by Ronald Schleifer (2014). Ronald Schleifer is George Lynn Cross Research Professor and Adjunct Professor of Medicine at the University of Oklahoma, USA. His publications in literary modernism include Modernism and Time: The Logic of Abundance in Literature, Science, and Culture, 18801930 (2000), Modernism and Popular Music (2011), and A Political Economy of Modernism: Literature, Post-Classical Economics, and the Lower Middle-Class (2018). Preface Work Cited Acknowledgments Book Abstract Praise for Modernist Poetics in China Contents Chapter 1: Introduction Gai 改: Modernity as Change—Introductory Notes on Culture, Enlightenment Modernity, Western Capitalism, Complexity, Semantic Overlap, and Philological Philosophy I. The Argument of Modernist Poetics in China The Structure of the Argument II. Introductory Notes on Culture, Enlightenment Modernity, Western Capitalism, Complexity, Semantic Overlap The Complexity of Culture Enlightenment Modernity Western Capitalism Complexity Semantic Overlap III. Modernist Poetics: Philological Philosophy The Dialectics of Philological Philosophy Modernism and Realism Philology and Consumerism The Elements of Modernist Poetics The Argument of Modernist Poetics in China Works Cited Chapter 2: Shi Chang Jing Ji 市场经济: Market Economy—Modernity, Consumerist Economics, and Chinese Literature Since 1978 Institutions of Value and Features of Western Corporate Capitalism Literary Modernism The Economics of Enlightenment Modernity The Modernism of Post-positivist Economics Consumerist Economics in China Changes in Literature Conclusion: Modernity/Modernism The Book as a Whole Works Cited Chapter 3: Xian Feng 先锋: Economies of Meaning—Semiotics, the Avant-Garde, and Consumerist Economics The Avant-Garde of Western Corporate Capitalism The Chinese Avant-Garde The Avant-Garde and Semiotics Semiotics, Economics, and the Avant-Garde Works Cited Chapter 4: Che Dan 扯蛋: The Bathos of High Literary Modernism—Qian Zhongshu’s Fortress Besieged and Performances of Literary Joking The Luxurious Laughter of Modernism The Literary “Revolution” of High Modernism Joking Beyond Language Che Dan 扯蛋: Bathetic Modernism Qian’s Joking Modernism Conclusion: The Bottomless Bathos of High Modernism Works Cited Chapter 5: Zhou 周: The Sublime Poetics of Literary Modernism—Luminous Detail and the Pursuit of Immanence in the Poetry of Mang Ke Chapter Preamble Modernism and the Performances of Emotion The Difficulty of Imagism: Surpassing Material Nature Consumerist Economics and the Transformation of Affect Imagism and Affect Chinese Imagistic Modernism Conclusion: The Feeling of Things Works Cited Chapter 6: Kun Nan 困难: The Difficulty of Clan and Ethics in Literary Modernism—Faulkner’s The Sound and the Fury and Mo Yan’s Big Breasts & Wide Hips Consumerist Economics and the Structures of Family Life The Difficulties of Modernism Reading Mo Yan in the West: The Market of “Modernism” Tactical Difficulties: Stylistic Modernism in Faulkner and Mo Yan Ontological Difficulties: The Modernist Transformation Conclusion: Mythic and Modernist Vision Works Cited Chapter 7: Afterword Fei Jian Dan 非简单: A Concluding Note—The Non-simplicities of Culture Works Cited Works Cited Index