Synopses & Reviews
This book opens up three new topics in modern Chinese literary history: the intimate lives of modern China's most famous literary couple, Lu Xun and Xu Guangping; real and imagined love-letters in modern Chinese literature; and the contents, functions, and values of privacy held by one couple in twentieth-century China as shown by a comparison between the edited and unedited versions of their letters.
Synopsis
Includes bibliographical references (p. [279]-298) and index.
Table of Contents
1. Introduction
Part I: Intimate Lives
2. Xu Guangping 'In the Front Row': 1898-1925
3. Lu Xun's 'Live Without Love': 1881-1925
4. Courtship: March 1925-August 1926
5. Separation: September 1926-January 1927
6. Living Together: January 1929-June 1929
7. Birth and Death: 1929-1968
Part II: Real and Imagined Letters
8. Traditional Chinese and Western Letters
9. Modern Chinese Letters and Epistolary Fiction
10. The Making of Letters Between Two
11. Frequency, Appearance, and Terms of Address
12. Defining Identities, Testing Roles
Part III: Searching for Privacy
13. Mapping Personal Space
14. Sex and Sexual Relationships
15. Bodies, Bodily Functions and Activities, and Hygiene
16. Domestic Life and Habits
17. Family Matters
18. Friends and Enemies
19. Political Opinions, Observations, and Activities
20. Thoughts and Emotions
21. Rumour and Gossip
22. Secrecy, Seclusion, and Private/Selfish Interests
23. Personal Space as Privacy
Part IV: Conclusion
24. Revealing to Conceal