ABSTRACT
Throughout the history of modern Chinese literature, few authors share so many reciprocal similarities in terms of biographical profile and professional career as Chen Baichen (1908–1994) and Yang Hansheng (1902–1993), who belong to the second generation of May Fourth writers and whose literary output, marked by a suffused eclecticism and spanning fiction, drama and screenplays, has been largely informed by their political views and socio-political concerns related to the realities of the historical period in which they lived and worked. As we shall see in the course of this chapter, Chen’s and Yang’s tendency to turn the immediate present into the main subject matter of their works, and to disseminate even their historical plays with elements of contemporary (political) relevance can be regarded as a merit rather than a fault, especially because this characteristic can be deployed to better delineate the two writers’ position within the realm of modern world literature. Below, I will briefly illustrate the salient traits of Chen’s and Yang’s lives and literary achievements 1 and, subsequently, I will provide an original and detailed analysis of three of their most significant plays, outlining first the reasons for my selection.
