鄭逸梅〈述外灘公園〉（1928）描述：「游園的有西人，有木屐兒，有赭帛裹首的身毒奴，而尤以華人佔著多數，往往一對一對的坐在綠陰深處，喁喁情話，旖旎風光，難以筆述。」茅盾〈秋的公園〉（1932）則描繪上海的公園乃是「都市式高速度戀愛的舊戰場」，且「常試欲找出上海的公園在戀愛課堂以外的意義或價值來，不幸是屢次失敗。」現代西式公園變成「戀愛課堂」，成為新型情感空間，一方面是公園的增多大約在民國之後，另一方面，也與五四以來提倡的新情感價值有關，自由戀愛是需要實踐空間的。與公園功能類似的，還有電影院、「大世界」遊戲場、咖啡館等，可是，這些空間多半為戶內，與公園相較，似乎不那麼「光明正大」；同時，花木扶疏、能舒緩身心的公園，又是文明進步的配件之一，如同黃以仁〈公園考〉（1912）裡提倡的：「一國之花，都會也。都會之花，公園也。惟公園為都會之花，故倫敦、伯林、巴黎、維也納、紐約、東京、暨他諸都會，莫不設有公園。」讓「公園」與「戀愛」的搭配，成了男女自由戀愛、生活進步的象徵圖案，致使〈金鎖記〉（1943）裡的長安與世舫約會時，僅僅是公園裡沉默地並肩散步，就讓她以為這就是「新式的男女間的交際」了。本文將參考西式公園在上海的發展，以蔣光慈、曾今可、張愛玲的小說為討論對象，分析公園此一新式情感空間的興起，與文學裡的情感表述之間的種種表現

In his essay 'On the Public Park' 述外灘公園 (1928), Zheng Yimei 鄭逸梅described a park scene in Shanghai 上海: ＂There are, in the park, Western visitors, Japanese in their wooden clogs, and Indians in their turbans. But the majority are Chinese, and they tend to sit as couples deep in the shade of trees, whispering lovers' prattle, and immersing themselves in nature. No words can properly describe the scene.＂ On the other hand, in Mao Dun's 茅盾 1932 essay 'Parks in Autumn' 秋的公園, Shanghai's parks were depicted as ＂the venerable battleground of urban whirlwind love,＂ and he claimed that ＂any attempts to discover the meaning of Shanghai's parks beyond their reputation as 'classrooms of love' would inevitably end in failure.＂ Therefore, during this period modern Western parks were transformed into ＂classrooms of love,＂ embodying a new kind of emotional space. This new spatial trend grew because, on the one hand, parks mushroomed in the urban space of the Republican era; and, on the other hand, because free love, encouraged by the type of emotional values promoted by the May Fourth Movement, required intimate space. There were other forms of space that could have served a similar function as parks, such as movie theaters, 'The Great World' 大世界amusement arcade and entertainment complex, and cafés. But these places were indoors, deemed somewhat shady and not as 'moral' as the parks. At the same time, the leafy and flowery environment of the parks added another layer of physical and mental benefit, which was viewed as one of the positive trappings of modernity and progress. As I-Zen Huang 黃以仁 advocated in his 1912 piece, 'Researching the Parks' 公園考: ＂Cities are the emblems of a nation. And the emblems of a city are its parks. Given this symbolic status, great cities such as London, Berlin, Paris, Vienna, New York, Tokyo, and many others all have parks.＂ Because of the prevalent belief in the progressive implications of modern life and free love expressed via couples' ＂falling in love in the parks,＂ the heroine of Eileen Chang's 張愛玲 The Golden Cangue 金鎖記 is convinced that the silent walk she took with her date Chang-An 長安 was meant to be ＂the new kind of romanticizing between a man and a woman.＂ By referencing the development of Western parks in Shanghai as represented in the Chinese modernist novels written by Jiang Guangci 蔣光慈, Zeng Jinke 曾今可and Eileen Chang between the 1920s and 1940s, this article examines the mutual relationship between the rise of parks as the new urban space for modern love and the emotional expressions found in the literature of the period