Title

A Response to Literary Style: On Paul Morand, Yokomitsu Riichi, and Liu Na’ou

Author

Choi-kit Sabrina Yeung

Genre

Article

Pages

117-154

Download

PDF

Language

Chinese

Key words

Japanese Neo-Sensationalist School, Shanghai Neo-Sensationalist School, Yokomitsu Riichi, Liu Na’ou, Paul Morand, literary style

Abstract

The literary style of Paul Morand (1888-1976) left a tremendous impression on the history of Japanese literature. This article investigates the reception of Morand’s works by the Japanese and Shanghai Neo-Sensationalist Schools from the perspective of literary style. First, I review how the Japanese intellectuals received and discussed Morand’s style, with special reference to the commentaries of Horiguchi Daigaku 堀口大學 (1892-1981), and I also examine the French intellectual reflection on this topic. Next, the article concentrates on Yokomitsu Riichi 橫光利一 (1898-1947), a representative of the Japanese Neo-Sensationalist School, and on Liu Na’ou 劉吶鷗 (1905-1940), one of the key founders of the Shanghai Neo-Sensationalist School, to illustrate how the former employed an “impressionistic style”, while the latter used a “mechanical form of image”, to respond to Morand’s literary style. In conclusion, the article evaluates the relationships between the literary styles of these writers and modernism and also investigates the influence that the various literary attempts of the Japanese and Shanghai Neo-Sensationalist Schools had on the development of modernism in their respective countries.