Abstract
With only a few exceptions, the literary theme of madness has long been a domain of Western cultural studies. Much of Western writing represents madness as an inquiry into the deepest recesses of the mind, while the comparatively scarce Chinese tradition is generally defined by madness as a voice of social truth. This paper looks at five works of twentieth-century Chinese fiction that draw on socio-somatic aspects of madness to reflect upon social truths, suggesting that the inner voice of subjectivity is perhaps not the only true voice of the self.
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Notes
If Sun Longji’s concept of the “somatizing-and-consociating” Chinese personality is accurate (1991), there might not be a strong desire for soul searching or soteriological quests. In any case, as Tuan Yi-fu (1982) has suggested, those could also cause isolation and extreme forms of self-alienation, as the Western tradition shows.
This translation is my own. I have limited my inquiry to works and secondary sources available in English, and all other translations are those of the authors referenced in the bibliography.
Part of the summary and some other small parts of this section about Green River Daydreams have been published in another article of mine. See Linder (1999).
The interested reader can consult the online MCLC (Modern Chinese Literature and Culture) Resource Center at Ohio State University for the most exhaustive English bibliography regarding translations and secondary sources of all the authors mentioned.
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Linder, B. Trauma and Truth: Representations of Madness in Chinese Literature. J Med Humanit 32, 291–303 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10912-011-9149-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10912-011-9149-1