Toward a Poetics of Writing: Representing Literary Creation in Late Imperial Chinese Literature

Abstract This dissertation studies how various narrative genres from late imperial China, including plays, full-length novels, and short stories, portray the processes of literary creation. Broadly defined, “literary creation” encompasses the composition of any type of literary text, such as poems, plays, letters, etc. From a theoretical perspective, I am interested in questions fundamental to both literary studies and our everyday experience: what does it mean to write? How can written words ensure genuine connection? And how do narratives negotiate the tension between creativity and the burden of literary history? From a literary historical perspective, I intend to construct a tradition of self-conscious literary works that borrowed heavily from earlier works, flourished during late Ming, and matured during the High Qing period. The first two chapters introduce two general themes in narratives about writing, namely, the materiality of ink traces and reading as a productive act. Chapter one situates literary tropes popular in late imperial China, e.g. inscribing poems on tree leaves and walls, within a longstanding interest in imagining ink traces as an extension of the author’s physical presence. Chapter two discusses stories about authors and poets that attribute the creative initiative to their interaction with and immersion in a highly diversified world of texts. The next two chapters turn to more explicitly self-conscious texts. Chapter three reconsiders the defining features of metafiction in late imperial China, reading Jin Ping Mei cihua and Xiyou bu as prime examples of a metafictional consciousness. Chapter four reflects on the issue of metaliterariness by analyzing the works by dramatist and poet Jiang Shiquan (1724-1784). Overall, the narratives about writing discussed in this dissertation illustrate a kind of mediatic consciousness that must be considered within a textual tradition keenly interested in its own mediatic nature.