China's Proletarian Myth

ISBN-13: 9783838308586 / Angielski / Miękka / 2009 / 216 str.

Trevor Hay

Opis

The reform of Beijing opera during Chinas Cultural Revolution led to a genre of highly polished works of revolutionary modern drama and ballet which are rarely thought of as literature, not only because they are performance works, but because they are more readily seen in their political context, as propaganda. This book investigates the relationship between ideology, mass education and art by concentrating on the dramatic text of the works as a form of storytelling related to world mythology and folklore, as well as a traditional Chinese art form. The author analyses the aesthetic principle embodied in the texts and in the common narrative structure of the model works of the Cultural Revolution, not just as a blueprint for the creation of this genre, but as a kind of performance text for the conduct of a Maoist revolutionary narrative in the broader society during these turbulent and tragic years. This book will be of interest to China scholars and to students of world literature and drama, as well as those interested in the relationship between ideology and art.

O autorze

Trevor Hay, PhD is a specialist in comparative education and literature and lectures in Education at the University of Melbourne, Australia where he is researching the uses of literature in the teaching of Chinese. He is the author of several books and short stories on China and has travelled and worked in China for over thirty years.