Includes bibliographical references (p. [289]-299) and index.

Preliminary Material / Ban Wang , Wang Hui and Geremie Barmé -- Introduction / Ban Wang , Wang Hui and Geremie Barmé -- Chapter One. The Trials Of Chinese Literary Realism / Ban Wang , Wang Hui and Geremie Barmé -- Chapter Two. Lu Xun’S Ah Gas \'Gruesome Hybrid\' / Ban Wang , Wang Hui and Geremie Barmé -- Chapter Three. The Aesthetic Critique Of Modernity In Chinese Marxism, New Criticism, And Adorno / Ban Wang , Wang Hui and Geremie Barmé -- Chapter Four. Global/Modern Figurations Of The Type In Cai Yi, Heidegger, And Whitman / Ban Wang , Wang Hui and Geremie Barmé -- Chapter Five. Aesthetics And Desire In Yang Mo’S Song Of Youth / Ban Wang , Wang Hui and Geremie Barmé -- Conclusion. Exemplarity In Luo Guangbin And Yang Yiyan’S Hongyan: From White Terror To \'Red Classic\' / Ban Wang , Wang Hui and Geremie Barmé -- Glossary Of Chinese Terms / Ban Wang , Wang Hui and Geremie Barmé -- Bibliography / Ban Wang , Wang Hui and Geremie Barmé -- Index / Ban Wang , Wang Hui and Geremie Barmé.

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The emergence of the Chinese socialist realist novel can best be understood in light of the half-century long formation of the modern concept of literature in China. Globalized in the wake of modern capitalism, literary modernity configures the literary text in a relationship to both modern philosophy and literary theory. This book traces China's unique, complex, and creative articulation of literary modernity beginning with Lu Xun's “The True Story of Ah Q.” Cai Yi's aesthetic theory of the type ( dianxing ) and the image ( xingxiang ) is then explored in relation to global currents in literary thought and philosophy, making possible a fundamental rethinking of Chinese socialist realist novels like Yang Mo's Song of Youth and Luo Guangbin and Yan Yiyan's Red Crag .