Restricted prosperity in the literary field in Chongqing: wartime poetry from 1939 to 1946

Abstract

This thesis attempts to rethink the relationship between war, politics, and poetry in Chongqing, China’s wartime capital. The focus is to problematize wartime poetry in order to analyze the shaping of the literary field in the city. Wartime narratives played a strong role, and the Second Sino-Japanese War resulted in the formation of a restricted and prosperous literary field.

The relocation of the wartime capital led to a flourishing literary market in the hinterland areas. The development of poetry in Chongqing is an example of this transformation of an inland city’s culture from desolation to prosperity. The impact of war not only displaced individual poets but also shaped the wartime literary market at the same time.

Little attention has been paid to wartime poetry in Chongqing. Firstly, existing research mainly focuses on individual textual analysis, which is insufficient to explain the development of wartime poetry and its impact on culture in interior regions. Secondly, existing research has not provided a focused analysis of poetry experiments during the war in Chongqing, and the existing research overlooks the influence of important external political measures on poetry. The major objective of this thesis is to analyze wartime poetry in Chongqing within these contexts, referencing nationalism, cultural capital, and poetic experiments, allowing us to observe the patterns of wartime poetry.

This thesis will delve into the development of wartime poetry in Chongqing through external factors and internal textual analysis. The political and cultural context, including bureaucratic and cultural activities, determined the initial state of cooperation between officials and intellectuals for the war and provided a framework for the development of wartime poetry in Chongqing. Further, amidst the war in Chongqing, both classical poetry and vernacular poetry underwent new changes. The war had a disproportionate impact on poetry creation, affecting both vernacular and classical-style poetry to varying degrees. The poetry created in wartime Chongqing reflects the unstable cultural climate.

This research aims to identify the important factors in the development of Chongqing poetry during the war and to explore the creativity of poetic experiments. This research will provide a better understanding of wartime poetry in Chongqing.