Contesting Space in Semi-colonial Shanghai: The Relationship between Shanghai’s Modernist Poetry and the City

Abstract

The introduction of urban study and colonial/postcolonial theories to modernist research in the 1980s has helped us to have another look at the nature of cities. Although a lot of studies have been conducted on Shanghai’s modernist poetry, the notion of a colonial or semi-colonial city, in Shanghai’s case, is seldom addressed. This article will focus on the disparity between the built environment and the literary space created in Shanghai’s modernist poetry. This study discusses whether Shanghai’s modernist poetry is a literary product or a product of its environment by examining the poems of Chen Jingrong, Tang Shi, Hang Yuehe and Tang Qi.