THESIS
2018
Abstract
This thesis investigates the Chinese anecdote as a form of miscellaneous writing, and
primarily focuses on anecdote studies during the Republican period. It is comprised of three
chapters. The first chapter is an introduction that traces the historical origins of Chinese
anecdotal writings and clarifies the subtle discrepancy between “anecdote” and “anecdote
study” in the context of the Chinese literary tradition. The anecdote, however, is generally
regarded as a form of anti-history and anti-fiction in the Western context, but it is regarded as
a form of supplemental writing that contains details left untold by orthodox writings in the
Chinese tradition. I argue that because the humanities in modern China experienced
academic institutionalization, through which and other combin...[
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This thesis investigates the Chinese anecdote as a form of miscellaneous writing, and
primarily focuses on anecdote studies during the Republican period. It is comprised of three
chapters. The first chapter is an introduction that traces the historical origins of Chinese
anecdotal writings and clarifies the subtle discrepancy between “anecdote” and “anecdote
study” in the context of the Chinese literary tradition. The anecdote, however, is generally
regarded as a form of anti-history and anti-fiction in the Western context, but it is regarded as
a form of supplemental writing that contains details left untold by orthodox writings in the
Chinese tradition. I argue that because the humanities in modern China experienced
academic institutionalization, through which and other combined forces, literature (wenxue
文學) as a concept referring to humane letters in general, has been redefined to the fine art
belles-lettres. So in this historical framework, during their times the anecdotists strive to
achieve their ambition of historiography, yet in the reception framework of the contemporary
viewpoint, the anecdotes are more often than not deemed as belletristic literature.
Chapter 2 and Chapter 3 concentrate on two scholars who were seminal in establishing
the study of anecdotes, Huang Qiuyue 黃秋岳 (1891-1937) and Qu Duizhi 瞿兌之
(1894-1973). From the two perspectives of chrono-poetics and geo-poetics, this thesis
analyzes their anecdotes by employing theories of cultural poetics and memory. I argue that
together they reveal that the tradition of anecdotes is possibly a hidden tradition between
history and literature, which effects and blurs the boundary between the two. Notably, the
anecdotes written by Republican scholars embody the poetics of memory within, which
manifested a certain truth of the emotion and interiority, and function as a transfer station in
the grey zone varying from the writings of the archaic to the prose of the modern.
Keywords: zhanggu; anecdote; Qu Duizhi; Huang Qiuyue; Republican China.
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