Polyphony Embodied - Freedom and Fate in Gao Xingjian’s Writings

Published by De Gruyter 2014

Polyphony Embodied - Freedom and Fate in Gao Xingjian’s Writings

Edited by: Michael Lackner and Nikola Chardonnens

Volume 1 in the series Chinese-Western Discourse

https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110351873

Overview
Contents

About this book

Like artists, important writers defy unequivocal interpretations. Gao Xingjian, winner of the Nobel Prize in literature, is a cosmopolitan writer, deeply rooted in the Chinese past while influenced by paragons of Western Modernity. The present volume is less interested in a general discussion on the multitude of aspects in Gao's works and even less in controversies concerning their aesthetic value than in obtaining a response to the crucial issues of freedom and fate from a clearly defined angle. The very nature of the answer to the question of freedom and fate within Gao Xingjian's works can be called a polyphonic one: there are affirmative as well as skeptical voices. But polyphony, as embodied by Gao, is an even more multifaceted phenomenon. Most important for our contention is the fact that Gao Xingjian's aesthetic experience embodies prose, theater, painting, and film. Taken together, they form a Gesamtkunstwerk whose diversity of voices characterizes every single one of them.

Author / Editor information

Michael Lackner and Nikola Chardonnens, University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, Germany.

Supplementary Materials

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Acknowledgments Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	v
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	vii
Illustrations Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	ix
Introduction Michael Lackner and Nikola Chardonnens Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
Freedom and Literature Gao Xingjian Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	11
Gao Xingjian’s Transcultural Aesthetics in Fiction, Theater, Art, and Film Mabel Lee Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	19
The Aesthete as Revolutionary: Saving Art from Politics John McDonald Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	43
The Silence of Buddha: Triangulating Gao Xingjian, Brecht, and Beckett Antony Tatlow Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	57
Gao Xingjian’s Notion of Freedom Liu Zaifu Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	73
Reading Gao Xingjian’s Treatment of Freedom in Soul Mountain and One Man’s Bible in the Sartrean Framework Jessica Yeung Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	79
The Concept of Freedom in Gao Xingjian’s Novel One Man’s Bible Wang Liying Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	93
Sex, Freedom, and Escape in Gao Xingjian’s One Man’s Bible Noël Dutrait Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	99
Wild Man and the Idea of Freedom Gilbert C. F. Fong Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	105
Toward an Aesthetics of Freedom Lin Gang Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	121
Gao Xingjian Carefree: Of Mountains and Seas and Carefree as a Bird Zhang Yinde Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	139
Tradition and Freedom: The Artistic World of Gao Xingjian and His Play Hades Sookyung Oh Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	149
Multivocality as Critique of Reality: Fate and Freedom in Gao Xingjian’s The Man Who Questions Death Quah Sy Ren Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	171
Between Memory and Forgetting: Ten Years after Gao Xingjian’s Winning of the Nobel Wah Guan Lim Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	185
Finding Freedom and Reshaping Fate: An Exile’s Disentanglement from Obsession in Gao Xingjian’s Novels Lily Li Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	203
Fate as (Re)Visioning of the Self in Soul Mountain Kwok-kan Tam Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	225
Trap Revisited: The Man Who Questions Death and the Tragedy of Modern Man Shelby Chan Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	241
Index of Works by Gao Xingjian Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	259
Name Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	261

(Deutsch)

Language: English
Publisher: De Gruyter
Audience: Academics, institutions, libraries
Pages
- Front matter: 9
- Main content: 262
Keywords: Exile literature; China; Western Modernity

eBook

Published: June 23, 2014
ISBN: 9783110351873

Hardcover

Published: May 13, 2014
ISBN: 9783110346428