A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF RECEPTION, LYRIC GENRES, AND SEMIOTIC TOOLS:
Essays in Literary Criticism

“In this book Dr. Tim-hung Ku combines theoretical engagement with practical literary criticism and provides fresh interpretations of a wide range of works drawn from English and Chinese literatures, traditional and modern…He has made a fitting choice of approach as semiotics is comparative in nature... Students in Chinese, English, and comparative literary will find Dr. Ku’s studies both illuminating and inspiriting.”
-Professor Ching-I Tu,
Director Confucius Institute,
Rutgers University

“In his extraordinary book, Tim-hung Ku embarks on a very original, deep and wide-ranging exploration of some key issues in semiotics and the theory of literary interpretation…We get several comparisons of Chinese and English poetry…Many new and thought-provoking insights may be found herein.”
-Professor Frank Stevenson,
National Taiwan Normal University

Foreword by Dr. Ching-I Tu
Preface
Acknowledgements
Part One: Comparative Lyric Genres
Chapter One: Introduction
I. The Concept of Genre
II. Comparative Study of Genres and Semiotic Tools
Chapter Two: Carpe Diem Poetry
I. A Historical Survey
II. The Carpe Diem Time
III. The Carpe Diem Negations
IV. The Carpe Diem Assimilation
V. The Syntactic and Verbal Components
VI. The Iconicity – Conventionality Dialectic
Chapter Three: Landscape Poetry
I. The Deconstructive Tendency in Semiotics
II. A Historical Survey
III. Deconstructive Perspective I
IV. Deconstructive Perspective II
V. Deconstructive Perspective III
VI. Further Remarks
Chapter Four: Love Poetry
I. Mediation and Addressee
II. Three Modes of Addressee
III. Traditions and the Addressee Space
IV. General Poetics of Love Poetry
Chapter Five: Female-Persona Lyrics
I. Preliminary Observations
II. The Androgynous Subject
III. Femininity of Writing
IV. Generic Description
Chapter Six: Ekphrastic Poetry
I. Opening Remark
II. Censorship and Hierarchy
III. Artistic Space and its Alive Object
IV. Generic Description
Chapter Seven: Conclusion
Part Two: Reception Studies
Chapter One: Introduction
I. A Semiotic View of Influence and Reception
II. Foreign Elements and Eclecticism in Reception in Modern Chinese Poetry
Chapter Two: Modernism in Modern Poetry of Taiwan: A Comparative Perspective
I. Situation
II. The Avant-garde Front
III. Modernism : I
IV. Modernism : II
V. Concluding Remarks
Chapter Three: Hu Shi’s Poetic Program and New Poems : Wordsworth, Imagism, and Effective Contacts
I. Introduction: A Mediation Theory of Influence
II. Hu Shi and Imagism: Effective Contact Dated December 26, 1918
III. Hu Shih and Wordsworth Since 1911
IV. Wordsworth and Hu Shi’s New Poems
V. Concluding Remarks
Chapter Four: Satanism in Lu Xun’s Prose Poems Wild Grass: Nietzsche, Freud, and Japanese Mediation
I. Introduction: Lu Xun and Byronic Satanism,br> II. The mediation Theory of Literary Influence
III. The Syntactic Component: Dream and Aphorismic Structures
IV. The Verbal Component: Satanic Landscapes
V. The Semantic Component: the Chameleon Satanic Hero
VI. Japanese Mediation and Concluding Remarks
Chapter Five: Conclusion
References
Index