"A fascinating study, Decadence in Modern Chinese Literature and Culture analyzes work by literary luminaries such as Yu Dafu, Shao Xunmei, Yu Hua, Su Tong, Wang Shuo, Wang Xiaobo, and Yin Lichuan, exposing writers’ use of the perverse and the decadent to counter traditional aesthetics and excessive politicization while carving out a new modern position for Chinese letters. This book brilliantly illuminates many hidden corners in a complex literary history." —Wendy Larson, University of Oregon, and author of Zhang Yimou: Globalization and the Subject of Culture
"Hongjian Wang is to be commended for filling a gap in scholarship by reevaluating decadence or tuifei as a consistently marginalized, intentionally misunderstood, but productively contentious type of creative writing that persisted in China from the early twentieth century to the early twenty-first century. Wang’s comparative approach succinctly captures the unique strengths of European decadence in relation to aestheticism and romanticism on the one hand and contextualizes the various ways in which modern Chinese writers position themselves vis-à-vis European ideas of decadence to create their own brands of tuifei on the other. From Yu Dafu and Shao Xunmei from the Republican period to the avant-garde as well as popular writers of the new fin de siècle (Yu Hua, Su Tong, Wang Shuo, Wang Xiaobo, and Yin Lichuan), Wang offers insightful analysis of their engagements with decadence and their readjustments in different sociocultural conditions. The result is a fascinating book for people interested in art, literature, intellectual debates, and cultural history with a comparative perspective to enjoy." —Yingjin Zhang, University of California, San Diego, and coeditor of Locating Taiwan Cinema in the Twenty-First Century
"A necessary and long-awaited revision to the extant scholarship and common perceptions of 'Decadent' literature in China … Decadence in Modern Chinese Literature and Culture: A Comparative and Literary-Historical Reevaluation is important because, first, it clarifies terms and concepts like Decadence that scholars in Chinese studies have been using indiscriminately for years without tracing its source and meaning. Prior to this book, no systematic attempt had been made to compare Chinese tuifei writings to European Decadent works or to examine how this imported concept was adopted and (mis)interpreted. In much or all current Chinese literary scholarship, Decadence is caught up in awkward and vague relations with Aestheticism, Modernism, Romanticism, Eroticism, the avant-garde, etc. Wang’s book carefully uncovers the denotations and connotations of Decadence and leads us out of the maze of entangled terms. By so doing, Wang distances the scholarly discourse from the moralistic and simplistic judgments that have often been foisted on tuifei literature, and reveals new and subtle meanings in these writers’ works. For example, instead of tagging Shao Xunmei’s poems as tuifei and simply denouncing them as vulgar and mediocre, Wang reexamines his career and works in comparison with the European Decadents and discovers hidden details and nuances that effectively challenge our understanding of this poet. Finally, methodologically, Wang combines comparative literature with cultural history and pays special attention to the sociocultural conditions that gave rise to the Decadent style, especially the privileged status of intellectuals. Her interdisciplinary approach offers new insights into the ever-changing status of cultural elites in China, and her argument that the socialist system gave rise to Chinese Decadent literature is particularly impressive. … a substantial and significant contribution to our understanding of European Decadence and its incarnations in twentieth-century China. With her nuanced and insightful close readings, Hongjian Wang reveals a group of writers struggling with the complexity of and entanglement with national crisis, ideological transitions, aesthetic trends, and their own values. This fascinating study should be recommended to all the scholars and students who are interested in Decadence and fin-de-siècle literature, twentieth-century Chinese literature, intellectual history, and comparative literature." —Modern Chinese Literature and Culture (MCLC)
