The Island Capital and The Empire Capital: Urban Images in Taiwan Fictions of 1920's-1930's（1922-1937）
Date Issued
2007
Date
2007
Author(s)
Chen, Yun-Yuan
DOI
zh-TW
Abstract
This research tried to construct the develop track of urban writing of Taiwan new literature from 20’s to 30’s. On the basis, I resurveyed the previous research on history of Taiwan literature during Japanese period, which is revolved around the traditional countryside and the pauperism. Furthermore, this thesis would reflect the contemporary discourse on colonial modernity under the grand narrative of national perspective, de-colonization, and resistance spirit.
Urban writing in colonial Taiwan is almost born at the same time with Taiwan new literature, and established the dual-system of urban Tokyo and Taiwan. These two lines do not form a kind of parallel construction, but a multiple power consturction, which is a “motherland capital to colony capital” relationship in colonialism, and also an “advanced country to backward country” relationship in the process of modernization.
The development of urban writings in 1922-1937 can be approximately divided into two periods by 1933, the year when magazine “Formosa” began its publication in Tokyo. In the first period (1922-1932), owing to the new establishment, Taiwan new literature was included in social activities and still groping about its own way, and urban modernity experience was also not taken seriously by authors. However, with the “Great Kanto Earthquake” happened in 1923, the urban reconstruction after it, and the highly expansion of urban modernization in Taiwan in the 20’s-30’s, the plain, rough condition of urban writing was shifted. The second period (1933-1937) is the golden age of urban writing, when urban modernity experience was highly emphasized by authors and thus became an important motif in literature. In Empire capital writing’s situation, authors represented the urban modernity experience of Tokyo though a way which was more personal, and closer to daily life. Furthermore, urban writing brought a kind of aesthetic modernity, which was against the bourgeoisie values, and similar to that in western conditions. The aesthetic modernity became one of the sources of Taiwan modernist literature, and their thinking of the colonized situation a subtext of fictions. In view of Island capital / Taiwan modern urban writing, most of them were written with the left wing and the anti-colonialism conciousness. In the mid 30’s, a kind of urban topographical writing appeared. Through the antecedents of colonial urban, authors tried to recapture the right of writing and interpretation of Taiwan history from the Japanese colonists, and the urban modernity experience of characters thus became a political metaphor. Thus, due to the expansion of urban modernization and the maturity of consumer society, authors were forced to change their ways of viewing, perceiving, and writing, some of the fictions displayed a marvelous integration of “leftism as well as modernism” like a Sphinx. Compared to the empire capital writing at the same age, although the experience of urban modernity in colonial Taiwan did not straightly result in modernist literature, the exploration to the inner world, the application to modernism penmanship, and the emphasis on urban modernity experience of the authors inside colonial Taiwan could be seen as the forerunner of colonial modernist literature. Unfortunately, the potential development was interrupted by the war in 1937. The urban modernist literature did not fully develop in colonial Taiwan during Japanese period.
Subjects
日治時期
現代主義
現代性
殖民性
臺北
東京
Japanese Ruling Period
Urban Literature
Modernism
Modernity
Coloniality
Taipei
Tokyo
Type
other
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