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After the outbreak of the “Marco Polo Bridge Incident” in 1937, the long-suppressed anti-japanese sentiment, which had been brewing since the “Mukden Incident” of 1931, was finally unleashed, marking the beginning of a comprehensive eight-year-long resistance war. This period of time witnessed a significant transformation in the development of modern Chinese literature, marked by fierce debates and competitions between writers of different stances, such as KMT/CCP, new/old, left-wing/right-wing, and elegance/meretricious. Consequently, they quickly came together under the banner of “anti-japanese war literature.” However, in the midst of the countless literary disputes that arose during the resistance war, we saw numerous writers using the name of “struggle against Japan” to attack works of writers with different literary positions, claiming they were hindering the war effort. Thus, this study argues that the so-called “anti-japanese war literature” was not only the result of their “literary resistance against japan,” but also a product of their “internal struggle of literature.” As a result, authors and works that did not conform to the mainstream opinions were often ignored or excluded from “resistance literature” during its formation, and to this day, they still struggle to gain a foothold in it. However, a closer examination of the literature debates during the resistance war reveals that although “anti-japanese war literature” was centered around the “resist Japanese aggression,” it encompassed a wide range of creative themes and techniques, including seemingly “non-war-related” content, as long as it could be translated into reality and was beneficial to the resistance or not betraying the country. This indicates that “anti-japanese war literature” still holds value worth discussing and examining. As previously mentioned, this study focuses on the period of China's comprehensive resistance against Japan (1937-1945) and the “great rear area” where could present diversified literary positions. It has selected Zhang Henshui (1895-1967), Li Jinfa (1900-1976), Xu Xu (1908-1980), and Wu Mingshi (1917-2002) as case studies. These four writers, who interacted with the anti-japanese war literary circles, maintained their strong personal literary styles and concerns, there by highlighting the study's proposition. This study suggests that one should approach the topic by exploring how the writers experienced the “situation” of the resistance war. Through examining their biographies, newspaper archives, and social and cultural trends, one can grasp the various aspects that writers cared about most during the war. This would enable the identification of appropriate resistance contexts for their works and reconstruction of “roundabout battle” of writing that have been suppressed by mainstream resistance opinions. Such writing often weaves through mainstream opinions within the anti-japanese war literary circles, and have thus been overshadowed or attacked by literary figures with political power. However, such works often use elements such as “love,” “exotic,” fiction spaces, and traditional morality to construct a winding path to the resistance. By exploring the significance of the “individual” in the resistance, the value of “fiction,” the transformation of traditional culture in resistance modernity, this study aims to expand the horizon of resistance literature.
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