The River Fans Out: Literature and its Theories in China (China Academic Library)

This book presents 18 highly influential essays on Chinese literature and semiotics by Professor Zhao Yiheng, including his analysis and discussions of the development of Chinese literature and its characteristics from traditional to modern times. It is divided into three parts: traditional Chinese literature, contemporary Chinese literature, and semiotics. In the first part, Professor Zhao summarizes the core elements of narrative cultural relations, ethical dilemmas, and narrative features. He also provides a comprehensive description of the formal structures in Chinese traditional literature. Taking the traditional Chinese play White Rabbit as a case, he discusses the connections between the narrative structure and the characteristics of Chinese novels and stratification of Chinese culture. Front Matter ....Pages i-vii Front Matter ....Pages 1-1 Redefining Sign/Symbol and Semiotics (Yiheng Zhao)....Pages 3-14 The Fate of Semiotics in China (Yiheng Zhao)....Pages 15-21 The Problem of Time in a General Narratology (Yiheng Zhao)....Pages 23-31 The Narrator and His/Her/Its Frame-Person Duality: An Analysis in General Narratology (Yiheng Zhao)....Pages 33-44 Middle Reclining: The Repositioning of Cultural Markedness (Yiheng Zhao)....Pages 45-50 Front Matter ....Pages 51-51 Subculture as Moral Paradox: A Study of the Texts of the White Rabbit Play (Yiheng Zhao)....Pages 53-80 Historiography and Fiction in Chinese Culture (Yiheng Zhao)....Pages 81-105 Chinese Fiction and Its Narrator (Yiheng Zhao)....Pages 107-145 The Cultural Status of Chinese Fiction (Yiheng Zhao)....Pages 147-164 The Second Tide: Chinese Influence on American Poetry Today (Yiheng Zhao)....Pages 165-176 Front Matter ....Pages 177-177 The Rise of Metafiction in China (Yiheng Zhao)....Pages 179-190 Pure Poetry, Impure Criticism, and the Power of Academia: Some Paradoxes Concerning the History of New-Wave Poetry (Yiheng Zhao)....Pages 191-200 Fiction as Subversion: Yu Hua (Yiheng Zhao)....Pages 201-210 Ma Yuan, the Chinese Fabricator (Yiheng Zhao)....Pages 211-219 A Fearful Symmetry: The Novel of the Future in Twentieth-Century China (Yiheng Zhao)....Pages 221-236 Sensing the Shift—New Wave Literature and Chinese Culture (Yiheng Zhao)....Pages 237-247 The Poetics of Death (Yiheng Zhao)....Pages 249-258 The River Fans Out: Chinese Fiction Since the Late 1970s (Yiheng Zhao)....Pages 259-270 The New Waves in Recent Chinese Fiction (Yiheng Zhao)....Pages 271-278