Introduction

This chapter provides an introduction to Xu Xu and Wumingshi and covers the book’s structure and methodology. It critiques the various terms that are used in both English and Chinese studies to categorise popular Chinese literature in the Republican period and it discusses the basis of the established divide between elite “new literature” (xin wenxue) and the much-castigated popular literature in China. It is argued that the term “Shanghai School” (haipai), a concept covering Shanghai popular literature from the 1920s to the 1940s, is too broad to be useful in analysing literature from this period or distinguishing between literary trends. The chapter also contains an extensive literature review, covering both English and Chinese works as they pertain to this study.

Boundaries of the Real in Xu Xu’s Fiction

This chapter focuses on Xu Xu’s fiction from the 1930s and 40s, providing analyses of his main short stories and novels from this period, demonstrating how Xu’s work transitioned from modernist experimentation to popular romances after his return from studies in France. Xu’s bestselling short stories and novels were often set abroad and featured exotic, otherworldly characters, such as ghosts, spies, pirates and gypsies. In many of these works, the cosmopolitan, rational and educated male protagonist encounters a mysterious, elusive, otherworldly woman. Eventually, the truth is revealed and the mysteries are uncovered, vindicating the modern outlook of the male narrator. With their references to traditional literature, abnormal psychology and sexual desire, such works frequently echo Shi Zhecun and Mu Shiying’s writings from a decade earlier, yet Xu’s writings are mainly escapist entertainment rather than an attack on rational modernity or the status of art in society.

Tradition and Hybridity in Shi Zhecun and Mu Shiying

This chapter focuses on the 1930s New Sensationist (xinganjuepai) writers Shi Zhecun and Mu Shiying, whose works are shown in later chapters to have influenced the subsequent literary scene. They are seen here as an avant-garde group that wrote works in opposition to the overall direction of the contemporary literary field. Through close analysis of a number of short stories, the chapter demonstrates how these authors constructed hybrid works that incorporated tropes and stereotypes from popular literature, legend, tradition, literature and myth. By combining the real with the otherworldly and the imagined, these authors rejected realism and the politicisation of literature promoted at the time by the League of Left-wing Writers. The chapter also establishes aspects of these writers’ works that are used for later comparison.

Opposition, Imitation, Adaptation and Diffusion in Popular Chinese Literature

The popular literature of the 1940s often crossed boundaries between the popular and the elite as well as between modernism and romanticism. New positions became possible in the literary field, and writers like Xu Xu and Wumingshi exemplify these trends. They appropriated styles and tropes from earlier modernist writings in Chinese literature, thereby creating hybrid works that were among the most popular of the age. This chapter compares the writers covered in this study in terms of their depiction of modernity, narrative style, representation of the supernatural, and position in the literary field. Overall, the differences are found to outweigh the similarities, but the comparison highlights how various themes were adopted and adapted into popular literature of the 1940s from the New Sensationist writers of the preceding decade, showing their lasting impact.

Wartime Literature between Tradition and Modernity

This chapter provides a broad overview of popular Chinese literature during the wartime years, including relevant historical context, such as the attempt at reconciliation between different factions and groups of writers in October 1936. Several authors are discussed, including Zhang Henshui, Ping Jinya, Jin Yi, Wang Dulu, Qin Shou’ou, Zhang Ailing, Cheng Xiaoqing, and Yu Qie. It demonstrates that the popular literature of the time was highly diverse and frequently explored aspects of tradition, modernity, nationalism, character psychology and various narrative styles. Tradition and history were freed from being seen as the enemies of progress and were now used for playful entertainment as well as fostering national pride. Overall, the wartime period saw a collapse of the formerly sharp distinction between “new” and “old” literature and this allowed numerous authors to straddle such divides in novel ways.

Wumingshi and the Wartime Romances

Wumingshi wrote several bestselling novels in the 1940s and these are covered in this chapter, including The Woman in the Tower (Tali de nüren) and North Pole Landscape Painting (Beiji fengqinghua). Both works are principally tragic love stories between stunningly beautiful women and accomplished, patriotic, intellectual men, but they also feature distinctive narrative styles and story frameworks that cross the boundaries between the real and the imagined. Wumingshi worked for the anti-Japanese Korean resistance movement in China, and this influenced several of his works. It is shown that, much like Xu Xu, Wumingshi’s work was initially modernist and highly concerned with narrative style, but it eventually transitioned to the popular romances that became hugely popular. Wumingshi’s multivolume grand opus, The Nameless Book (Wumingshu) is also considered here. In this work, he rejected nationalism and ideology and showed a return to narrative experimentation. The early volumes of this were his last published writings before the founding of the People’s Republic in 1949.