Literary Societies Of Republican China - Hardcover

This is a superb work of scholarship that, through its focus on literary societies in the Republican China, vividly conveys the full richness and complexity of the epoch. It is fascinating reading and of great value to anyone interested in modern Chinese cultural history. -- Julia F. Andrews, Ohio State University Altogether, the book is so rich in both empirical and methodological observations that it is a source that must be engaged in any historical consideration of literature as an institution of the Republican era. * Journal of Asian Studies * Kirk Denton and Michel Hockx have brought together an impressive collection of insightful essays that highlight the institutional structures, social relations, and personal connections through which modern Chinese literature was formed. Arguing against modernist text-based analysis as the be-all and end-all of literary study, the editors and contributors lay a solid and empirically strong foundation to help us understand modern Chinese literature as a social product, in the process illuminating little-studied groups and associations. Students of modern China and anyone interested in the sociology of literature will find this volume to be a valuable resource. -- Wendy Larson By focusing as intensively as these papers do on the ways by which groups of writers organized themselves, a great deal of information is brought out that adds to our knowledge of literary production as well as social networking in early twentieth century China....The book is a welcome addition to a field that has recently moved away from preoccupation with textual analysis to exploration of the contexts behind the texts. * Journal of Asian History * The volume provides a valuable survey- solid and often innovative- of the sociology of literary practice in China in the first half of the twentieth century. * MCLC Resource Center *

Denton and Hockx present thirteen essays treating a variety of literary organizations from China's Republican era (1911-1949). Interdisciplinary in approach, the essays are primarily concerned with describing and analyzing the social and cultural complexity of literary groupings and the role of these social formations in literary production of the period.