Women's literature (China)

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Women's literature in China ( Chinese  中国 婦女 文学 , Pinyin Zhōngguó Fùnǚ Wénxué  - "Chinese women's literature") refers to Chinese literature writtenby women that addresses the search for female identity, the life of women in society and the lives of women in general.

description

Since women's literature had already experienced a great boom in China and women authors were also recognized beyond the literary sphere, since the late 1970s Chinese literary studies have increasingly been concerned with the traditions of women's literature and their present.

Women's literature in China was closely related to socio-historical events and did not develop continuously.

The earliest evidence of literature written by women can be found in the Shi Jing and the Yuefu , where anonymous poems are said to have been written by women. Since women were considered subordinate in Chinese culture , only a few individual early women writers can be found. Exceptions so far are Cai Wenji , who is dedicated to a crater on the planet Venus , and the famous classical poet Li Qingzhao . The literature of male writers and Chinese folk literature handed down an image of women shaped by Confucianism and Daoism .

The poems of the revolutionary Qiu Jin (1875–1907) show the first beginnings of a new female consciousness . At the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century, the women's movement , the reception of foreign literature such as Henrik Ibsen's Nora and the May Fourth Movement gave rise to a new type of women's literature in China.

People's Republic of China

Women authors who co-founded modern Chinese literature were young and educated and turned against the traditional image of women. Well-known authors are z. B. Ding Ling and Xiao Hong . The subject of this literature was often the liberation of women from the ethical and social constraints of tradition and many different images of a new woman were created. Political rights, education and free choice of partner were also called for. The predominant form of literature was short prose , often in diary or letter form.

During the war there were famous women storytellers in China who were widely read: for example, Zhang Ailing , Su Qing and Mei Niang .

After the founding of the People's Republic of China, the literature written by women also represented industrial construction. During the Cultural Revolution , important women writers such as Ding Ling, Yang Mo and Zong Pu were persecuted.

The most significant phase of women's literature in China began in the late 1970s, as women contributed a large part to literary renewal. The recent past was discussed, female life was explored and processed sociologically. Literary references were made to the traditions of the 20s and 30s, taboos were questioned, new questions were raised and new spellings were explored. The new literature combined social criticism with women's experiences in society and in private life, and this was itself incorporated into popular literature.

From the mid-1980s onwards, a neorealist style appeared in women's literature, which appeared at the same time as a tendency towards internalization. This internalization was then the outstanding characteristic of literature since the 1990s. Women's literature turned to new topics such as psychoanalytic self-interpretation, satire and irony , the description of oppression and violence, sexuality and mental abnormality . These topics pointed to the state of relations between the sexes and to relationships throughout society. Grotesque , absurd , mythical, and utopian elements have been used in this literature to criticize. Also since the 1990s, poetry and narrative literature have addressed the female psyche and physique, desire and sexuality between women.

Taiwan

In Taiwan, women's literature became particularly important from the middle of the 20th century. Su Xuelin , Pan Renmu and Meng Yao are well-known writers of the time. Pan Renmu and Meng Yao's literature related to anti-communism and mainland memorial literature . Current Taiwanese issues have received little attention. The writer Lin Haiyin also set her stories of women in traditional family groups in Beijing.

From the 1960s onwards, the influence of international literature became noticeable and the writers now also dealt with women in Taiwan.

Qiong Yao was then a widely read author in the 1970s who wrote love stories that can be considered sentimental entertainment fiction. During this time, San Mao wrote autobiographical texts that dealt with the exoticism of Africa and Spain and were very successful.

In the 1970s the first attempts at an emancipated literature appeared that described how women freed themselves from dependence on men. This literature was considered to be the forerunner of feminist literature that appeared from the 1980s. In feminist literature there were influences from Freudian psychoanalysis and Western feminism and the texts were linked to realism . They described the search for emancipation and independence, also in an economic sense, and tried to create a new self-confidence and a new image of women. The patriarchal, traditional image of women and the resulting discrimination were rejected.

Also poetry and essay writing were often written by women and women's lives in Hong Kong was discussed by local writers also.

See also

literature