Title

A Specter of Yin Hai-kuang: Kuo Song-fen’s “Autumn Rain” and His Conversions in the 1970s

Author

Chung Chih-wei

Genre

Article

Pages

739-776

DOI

10.6503/THJCS.202212_52(4).0004

Download

PDF

Language

Chinese

Key words

Kuo Song-fen 郭松棻, “Autumn Rain,” Baodiao 保釣 movement, liberalism, existentialism

Abstract

As one of the key figures in Taiwanese modernism, Kuo Song-fen’s 郭松棻 (1938-2005) widely divergent trajectories, which are fraught with tensions between creative writing and political engagement, between ideologies of liberalism and existentialism, have yet to be placed under close scrutiny. In contrast to the increasing attention on his well-wrought fictions published in the 1980s, less scholarship has been dedicated to Kuo’s various discursive practices before his literary turn, most of which are more relevant to his political dissidence and theoretical compositions. Focusing on “Autumn Rain,” a piece published in 1970, this paper sees the text as a manifesto that bids farewell to his mentor Yin Hai-kuang 殷海光 (1919-1969) on the one hand, and, on the other, as a threshold that transforms his early interpretation of Camus’ (1913- 1960) liberalism and Sartre’s (1905-1980) existentialism into a discursive and activist engagement in the Baodiao 保釣 movement. Overall, this paper seeks to investigate Kuo Song-fen’s “Autumn Rain” from different aspects such as literary history and the development of political thought, thereby illuminating the significance of his political and ideological conversions.