Urban Space and Literary Type: On Haipai Literature as a Literary Type

Abstract

As a southern literature in China, Haipai Literature is rich with local characteristics. Nevertheless, it transcends any local restrictions at the same time, in the sense that it reflects the features of modern urban literature. Haipai Literature represents the earliest efforts and attempts of modern urban literature in China, manifesting the complexities of modern Chinese literature. As a new literary paradigm, Haipai Literature is not only flexible and innovative, but also adaptable to the modern urban life, becoming a modern mechanism of literary production and delivery. All literature-related systems, such as the earliest remuneration system, professional writers, literary magazines, newspaper supplements, were concentrated in Shanghai. These systems reflect from one profile the unique value and significance of Haipai Literature in the history of Chinese literature. To study Haipai Literature does not mean to reminisce, but to reexamine and make use of historical resources in the systemic innovation of modern literary mechanism. From the emergence and development of Haipai Literature, in the typological sense, it could be drawn that what kind of inner and outer premises are needed in the development of a new type of literature.

Keywords

Haipai Literature / modern metropolis / space / literary type