The English Fiction by Ha Jin,Qiu Xiaolong and the"Lyrical Tradition"of Chinese Literature
As two representative novelists of the new immigrant generation after the 1980s,Ha Jin and Qiu Xiaolong have made their reputation for social realism and detective writing respectively.Placing their fictional writing in reference to Chinese Lyrical Tradition theory,a comparative study is conducted with focus on the presence of"poem"in their novels.It is found that the novels examined have weaved mostly classical Chinese poems and some Western classic poems into narration to make it lyrical.Their three ways to facilitate such integration are"direct quotation of classical Chinese poems or poetic lines","immediate use of self-created poems"and"transformation of poetic lines into narrative".Both of them create poetic ambiance by using novel imagery,but in two aspects they differ:choice of poem types and idiosyncratic wording.Ha Jin tends to quote narrative poems with high sense of realism while Qiu Xiaolong prefers descriptive and strongly lyrical poems or poetic lines.In the choice of words,Ha Jin insists on the minimalist principle,while Qiu Xiaolong makes full use of sensual adjectives,rhymed words to create musicality in prose and allows his novels to follow a highly formalized way of"fusing poem in narration".Although these overseas writers of Chinese ancestry exemplified by Ha Jin and Qiu Xiaolong write novels in a different language and style for the Western readers,either voluntarily or instinctively they reinvigorate the traditional"poetry into narration"method,either consciously adopting or subconsciously following the Chinese Lyrical Tradition passed down since Pre-Qin period.
Ha JinQiu XiaolongEnglish novelsintegration of poetry into narrationlyrical tradition of Chinese literature
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