Xue Yiwei’s “King Lear”

Abstract

In this essay Lin Gang argues that Xue Yiwei’s “King Lear” and Nineteen Seventy-Nine (“Lier Wang” yu 1979) is the first Chinese novel to truly follow in the footsteps of Western modernism, specifically Joyce’s Ulysses. The relationship between Xue’s novel and Shakespeare’s King Lear mirrors that between Ulysses and Homer’s The Odyssey, which sees the narrative structure of a previous text repurposed in a modern context. Xue’s novel makes use of this literary technique to reflect on Chinese modern history, using the notion of fate as a metaphor for the powerful forces of history to which ordinary people find themselves helplessly subject. By focusing on the protagonist’s spirit of defiance, Lin argues, “King Lear” and Nineteen Seventy-Nine distinguishes itself from most Chinese literature set in the same period.

Notes

1 Translator’s note: Translated into English, this would be equivalent to around two hundred and fifty thousand words.

2 Translator’s note: The four divisive elements were landlords, kulaks, counterrevolutionaries, and malevolent actors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Gang Lin

Lin Gang is a professor at Guangzhou’s Sun Yat-sen University and was a visiting scholar at Harvard University from 1990 to 1991. Together with the author Liu Zaifu 刘再复 he has published The Tradition and Chinese People (Chuantong yu Zhongguoren 传统与中国人) and Crime and Literature (Zui yu Wenxue 罪与文学), and his individually published works include Symbol Psyche Literature (Fuhao Xinli Wenxue 符号 心理 文学), Conversations of Three Drunks (San Zuiren Tanhualu 三醉人谈话录), Utterances and Paperwork (Koushu yu Antou 口述与案头), Research on Annotations of Ming and Qing Fiction (Mingqingzhiji Xiaoshuo Pingdianxue zhi Yanjiu 明清之际小说评点学之研究), On Emperor Qin’s Campaign Against South Yue Kingdom (Qinzhengnanyue Lungao 秦征南越论稿), and Four Theses on Poetic Will (Shizhi Silun 诗志四论).