Global Elements in Chinese Literature 9789004522978, 9004522972

Table of contents :
16
9789004522978-61908
Contents
Foreword to the English Edition of Global Elements in Chinese Literature
Part 1 The History of China’s New Literature:
A Holistic View
1 A Holistic View of the History of China’s
New Literature
1 New Literature as an Open “Holisticism”
2 The Holistic Framework of New Literature and World Literature
3 Tradition and Development: Proposed as a Methodology
2
Modernism in the Development of China’s New Literature
1 Chinese and Western Modern Literature: A Comparison
2 The Influence of Modernism on May 4th New Literature
3 The Historical Fate of Modernism in China
4 Prospects of Integrating Modern Consciousness and Chinese National Culture
3
Consciousness of Confession in the Development of China’s New Literature
1 The Evolution of Consciousness of Confession in Western Literature
2 Consciousness of Confession in Literature during the May 4th New Literature Movement
3 From Man’s Confession to Man who Confesses
4 The Regression of Self-Cognition in Man Who Confesses
5 The Possibility of Re-emergence of the Consciousness of Confession in Literature
4 Romanticism in the Development of China’s New Literature
1 Personal Lyric Novels and Pastoral Lyric Novels
2 From Romanticism to Lyricism
5
Realism in the Development of China’s New Literature
1 Realism in China
1.1 Stage 1: The Division of Realism and Naturalism
1.2 Stage 2: Realism and Marxism: A Synchronization
1.3 Stage 3: Confrontation between Realism and Pseudo-Realism
2 From Creative Theories of Realism to Writers’ Realist Fighting Spirit
3 Modern Resistance Consciousness in Contemporary Literary Creations
Part 2
Global Elements in Chinese Literature of the 20th Century
6
Global Elements in Chinese Literature of the 20th Century
1 The Origin of Research Inquiry
2 Why Question the Empirical Approach?
3 Some Understandings of the Study of “Global Elements”
7
The Avant-Garde Spirit of the May 4th New Literature Movement
1 The Attention of May 4th New Literature Writers to the Western Avant-Garde Literature
1.1 Futurism
1.2 Expressionism in Germany
2 “Man-eating” Imagery, Antagonistic Criticism and Europeanized Expressions: the Characteristics of the Chinese Avant-Garde Spirit
3 The Relationship between the Avant-Garde Spirit of the May 4th New Literature and Modern Literature
8
The Collection of Sonnets: the Model of Exploring Global Elements
1 Soughing Jade Tree in the Spring Breeze of German Literature
2 Interpreting The Collection of Sonnets
2.1 Movement 1: A Solemn Prelude to Immortality in Nirvana (Sonnets One to Four)
2.2 Movement 2: Muses Befalling the World – Sketch and Warning (Sonnets Five to Seven)
2.3 Movement 3: The Poet’s Spiritual Journey – Enlightenment to Self-Redemption (Sonnets Eight to Fourteen)
2.4 Movement 4: The Ode to Life – Man’s Vastness and Love (Sonnets Fifteen to Twenty)
2.5 Movement 5: The Song of Being – The Universe in the Straitness (Sonnets Twenty-One to Twenty-Three)
2.6 Movement 6: The End of Solitude – The Conversion of Being and Nothingness (Sonnets Twenty-Four to Twenty-Seven)
9
A Dictionary of Maqiao: One Case of the Global Elements in Chinese Contemporary Literature
10
Daemonic Elements in Hard Like Water by Yan Lianke
1 The Embodiment of “The Daemonic” in the World Literary Creations and Its Application in Literary Research
2 The Daemonic Elements in Hard Like Water
3 The Cultural Revolution Narratives and Daemonic Elements in Contemporary Literature
11
Daemonic Elements in Zhang Wei’s Fictions
1 Reasons for Applying Daemonic Elements to Interpret Zhang Wei’s Fictions
2 Daemonic Elements in Zhang Wei’s Works: Different Kinds of Primal Desires
2.1 Seven Kinds of Mushrooms: Struggles for the Desire for Power and the Prototype of Primal Desire during the Cultural Revolution
2.2 Book of Foreign Province: The Desire for Survival and the Desire for Life in the Era of Human Liberation
2.3 Recall Mallow: Prevalence of “the Daemonic” in the Era of Materialism
3 The Overall Limitations of Daemonic Elements in Zhang Wei’s Fictions
12
The Folk Narrative of Brothers from the Perspective of Bakhtin’s Folk Theory
1 Folk Tradition and Grotesque Realism: The Revelation of Bakhtin
2 Peeping Details in Hidden Text Structure
3 Folk Narratives: Three Forms of Vulgar Rhetoric
Appendices
Appendix I: Thoughts on the Relationship between Chinese and Western Literature
Appendix II: Comparative Literature and More Academic-Oriented Education
Appendix III: The Spiritual Foundation of Comparative Literature as a Discipline – On René Étiemble’s “Comparative Literature is Humanism”
1 René Étiemble’s Teaching Ideals of Comparative Literature
2 Comparative Literature is Humanism: Thus Spoke René Étiemble
3 Back to the Beginning: Revisiting René Étiemble’s “Humanism”
4 The Identity of Life and the Difference of Culture: The Disciplinary Spirit of Comparative Literature
References
Books
Book Series
Newspapers and Periodicals
Index

Citation preview

Global Elements in Chinese Literature

Brill’s Humanities in China Library Edited by Zhang Longxi, City University of Hong Kong Axel Schneider, Göttingen University

volume 16

The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/bhcl

Global Elements in Chinese Literature By

Sihe Chen Principal Translator

Xiaofei Rao, Ph.D. Second Translator

Stephen Sandelius

LEIDEN | BOSTON

This book is the result of the translation licensing agreement between Shanghai Jiao Tong University Press and Koninklijke Brill NV. This book is translated into English from the original 《中国文学中的世界性因 素》 by 陈思和 with financial support from the Chinese Fund for the Humanities and Social Sciences.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Chen, Sihe, author. | Rao, Xiaofei, translator. | Sandelius, Stephen, translator. Title: Global elements in Chinese literature / by Sihe Chen ; principal translator Xiaofei Rao ; second translator, Stephen Sandelius. Other titles: Zhongguo wen xue zhong de shi jie xing yin su. English Description: Leiden ; Boston : Brill, [2022] | Series: Brill’s humanities in China library, 1874–8023 ; volume 16 | Includes bibliographical references and index. | Identifiers: LCCN 2022038788 (print) | LCCN 2022038789 (ebook) | ISBN 9789004511040 (hardback ; acid-free paper) | ISBN 9789004522978 (ebook) Subjects: LCSH: Chinese literature—20th century—History and criticism. | Chinese literature—Western influences. | LCGFT: Literary criticism. Classification: LCC PL2302 .C42413 2022 (print) | LCC PL2302 (ebook) | DDC 895.109/005—dc23/eng/20220831 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022038788 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022038789

Typeface for the Latin, Greek, and Cyrillic scripts: “Brill”. See and download: brill.com/brill-typeface. issn 1874-8023 isbn 978-90-04-51104-0 (hardback) isbn 978-90-04-52297-8 (e-book) Copyright 2022 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands. Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill, Brill Nijhoff, Brill Hotei, Brill Schöningh, Brill Fink, Brill mentis, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Böhlau and V&R unipress and Wageningen Academic. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher. Requests for re-use and/or translations must be addressed to Koninklijke Brill NV via brill.com or copyright.com. This book is printed on acid-free paper and produced in a sustainable manner.

Contents Foreword to the English Edition of Global Elements in Chinese Literature ix

Part 1 The History of China’s New Literature: A Holistic View 1 A Holistic View of the History of China’s New Literature 3 1 New Literature as an Open “Holisticism” 3 2 The Holistic Framework of New Literature and World Literature 10 3 Tradition and Development: Proposed as a Methodology 17 2 Modernism in the Development of China’s New Literature 22 1 Chinese and Western Modern Literature: A Comparison 22 2 The Influence of Modernism on May 4th New Literature 28 3 The Historical Fate of Modernism in China 35 4 Prospects of Integrating Modern Consciousness and Chinese National Culture 40 3 Consciousness of Confession in the Development of China’s New Literature 45 1 The Evolution of Consciousness of Confession in Western Literature 45 2 Consciousness of Confession in Literature during the May 4th New Literature Movement 49 3 From Man’s Confession to Man Who Confesses 55 4 The Regression of Self-Cognition in Man Who Confesses 58 5 The Possibility of Re-emergence of the Consciousness of Confession in Literature 62 4 Romanticism in the Development of China’s New Literature 67 1 Personal Lyric Novels and Pastoral Lyric Novels 67 2 From Romanticism to Lyricism 73

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Contents

5 Realism in the Development of China’s New Literature 82 1 Realism in China 82 1.1 Stage 1: The Division of Realism and Naturalism 82 1.2 Stage 2: Realism and Marxism: A Synchronization 88 1.3 Stage 3: Confrontation between Realism and Pseudo-Realism 93 2 From Creative Theories of Realism to Writers’ Realist Fighting Spirit 96 3 Modern Resistance Consciousness in Contemporary Literary Creations 111

Part 2 Global Elements in Chinese Literature of the 20th Century 6 Global Elements in Chinese Literature of the 20th Century 129 1 The Origin of Research Inquiry 129 2 Why Question the Empirical Approach? 138 3 Some Understandings of the Study of “Global Elements” 149 7 The Avant-Garde Spirit of the May 4th New Literature Movement 158 1 The Attention of May 4th New Literature Writers to the Western Avant-Garde Literature 162 1.1 Futurism 167 1.2 Expressionism in Germany 171 2 “Man-eating” Imagery, Antagonistic Criticism and Europeanized Expressions: the Characteristics of the Chinese Avant-Garde Spirit 174 3 The Relationship between the Avant-Garde Spirit of the May 4th New Literature and Modern Literature 183 8 The Collection of Sonnets: the Model of Exploring Global Elements 195 1 Soughing Jade Tree in the Spring Breeze of German Literature 195 2 Interpreting The Collection of Sonnets 204 2.1 Movement 1: A Solemn Prelude to Immortality in Nirvana (Sonnets One to Four) 207 2.2 Movement 2: Muses Befalling the World – Sketch and Warning (Sonnets Five to Seven) 216

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2.3 Movement 3: The Poet’s Spiritual Journey – Enlightenment to Self-Redemption (Sonnets Eight to Fourteen) 220 2.4 Movement 4: The Ode to Life – Man’s Vastness and Love (Sonnets Fifteen to Twenty) 237 2.5 Movement 5: The Song of Being – The Universe in the Straitness (Sonnets Twenty-One to Twenty-Three) 247 2.6 Movement 6: The End of Solitude – The Conversion of Being and Nothingness (Sonnets Twenty-Four to Twenty-Seven) 252 9 A Dictionary of Maqiao: One Case of the Global Elements in Chinese Contemporary Literature 260 10 Daemonic Elements in Hard Like Water by Yan Lianke 274 1 The Embodiment of “The Daemonic” in the World Literary Creations and Its Application in Literary Research 275 2 The Daemonic Elements in Hard Like Water 283 3 The Cultural Revolution Narratives and Daemonic Elements in Contemporary Literature 289 11 Daemonic Elements in Zhang Wei’s Fictions 296 1 Reasons for Applying Daemonic Elements to Interpret Zhang Wei’s Fictions 296 2 Daemonic Elements in Zhang Wei’s Works: Different Kinds of Primal Desires 303 2.1 Seven Kinds of Mushrooms: Struggles for the Desire for Power and the Prototype of Primal Desire during the Cultural Revolution 304 2.2 Book of Foreign Province: The Desire for Survival and the Desire for Life in the Era of Human Liberation 307 2.3 Recall Mallow: Prevalence of “the Daemonic” in the Era of Materialism 313 3 The Overall Limitations of Daemonic Elements in Zhang Wei’s Fictions 320 12 The Folk Narrative of Brothers from the Perspective of Bakhtin’s Folk Theory 324 1 Folk Tradition and Grotesque Realism: The Revelation of Bakhtin 324 2 Peeping Details in Hidden Text Structure 327 3 Folk Narratives: Three Forms of Vulgar Rhetoric 333

viii

Contents

Appendices 343 Appendix I: Thoughts on the Relationship between Chinese and Western Literature 343 Appendix II: Comparative Literature and More AcademicOriented Education 349 Appendix III: The Spiritual Foundation of Comparative Literature as a Discipline – On René Étiemble’s “Comparative Literature is Humanism” 361 1 René Étiemble’s Teaching Ideals of Comparative Literature 361 2 Comparative Literature is Humanism: Thus Spoke René Étiemble 363 3 Back to the Beginning: Revisiting René Étiemble’s “Humanism” 366 4 The Identity of Life and the Difference of Culture: The Disciplinary Spirit of Comparative Literature 371 References 374 Books 374 Book Series 380 Newspapers and Periodicals 381 Index  382

Foreword to the English Edition of Global Elements in Chinese Literature Global Elements in Chinese Literature consists of two parts of research papers. The first five papers in Part I were written before the concept of “global elements” was proposed. In the process of their formation, my research focus gradually shifted from “the holistic view of China’s New Literature” to “the global elements in Chinese literature.” Among the seven papers in Part II, the leading one entitled “Global Elements in Chinese Literature of the 20th Century” reflects my theoretical thinking on the impacts of “global elements” in Chinese literature, while the other six pieces explore Chinese literary movements and Chinese poets’ and novelists’ works from the perspective of “the global elements.” Given that the completion of the entire book was a long process, readers may realize the difficulty in refining an academic viewpoint. At Fudan University in Shanghai China, I teach modern Chinese literature, which refers to the literary history and related literary creations since the end of the 19th century, when China embarked on modernization. Generally speaking, China is a late-comer modern country which accepted the influences of modern Western culture in varied aspects before promoting its own transformations. Literature was no exception. For instance, since the end of the 19th century, a large number of thoughts and theories of foreign ethos and cultures were imported and introduced to China before its New Literature Movement initiated in 1919, which made it plausible that the study of the connections between modern Chinese and foreign literature could be done by means of translation and introduction. This constituted the mainstream view of the Chinese academic community in the 1980s. I used to hold this view. The holistic view of China’s New Literature represents the viewpoint that Chinese modern literature did not develop in isolation. As part of the world order, it is connected with the ideological and cultural trends of the world. The literary connection between China and the world is interactive and interrelated. Nevertheless, even if I grounded myself in this stance for research purposes, I noticed that the evolution of modern Chinese literature has its own inheritance and developmental course with its distinctive characteristics. I found that although the writings of modern Chinese writers were often labeled as being influenced by foreign literature, most of this “sameness” or “similarity” remains superficial; differences exist between the artistic connotations of these Chinese works and their foreign “teachers.” Such integration of superficial “similarities” and “differing” artistic

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connotations can be interpreted in different ways. If we regard the connections between Chinese literature and world literature as a binary interaction, we might say that China, though influenced by the West, has not imitated it very well. If we take Chinese literature as integral to world literature, and China as part of the world, it is inevitable that China is “unlike” the West, and such “unlikeness,” as China’s unique characteristics, contributes to the world. Since the “world” itself is diversified, including Western culture, Asian culture, African culture, etc., the Chinese elements are presented in the form of their particular cultural types transforming from ancient society to modernization. This particularity is precisely part of the world’s multiculturalism, which also highlights the connectedness between Chinese culture and the world. Within the sphere of literature, it refers to the global elements in Chinese literature. For instance, my paper, entitled “The Avant-garde Spirit of the May 4th New Literature Movement” is included to discuss the avant-garde spirit of the Chinese modern literary movement. I define the Chinese New Literature Movement as an avant-garde literary movement. The conventional research approach was to collect the translation “routes” of the world’s avant-garde literary movement in China and take these translations as the cause of China’s avant-garde literary movement before the conclusion was reached that Chinese avant-garde literature was born under the influence of the West. In my research, although I also attached great importance to these translations, I realize these limited and trivial translations were unlikely to exert profound impacts in China. The avant-garde literary movement in China has its own characteristics, and its progress is part of a universal phenomenon occurring simultaneously with the avant-garde literary movement in the rest of the world. It is not the result of being influenced; instead, it is connected with the avant-garde phenomena occurring simultaneously in other countries, constituting the global avant-garde literary movement, which includes the futurist literary movements in Italy and Russia, the surrealist movement in France, the expressionist movement in Germany, and the May 4th New Literature Movement in China. The May 4th New Literature Movement in China presents much broader and more complex connotations with an avant-garde spirit as its core. In this sense, we may conclude that the avant-garde element of China’s May 4th New Literature Movement represents a particular literary genre of global elements in literature. The global elements in literature are not only a theoretical viewpoint but also reflect the significance of its methodology. In the past, the study by scholars of comparative literature on the influence of literature between countries was mainly completed by examining the route map of its influences. This traditional textual research approach worked on the study of cultural impacts

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caused by occasional travels when international transportation remained underdeveloped and countries were largely in isolation. In modern society, however, with highly developed technology and extremely frequent information exchange, it seems impossible to verify cultural influences through conventional textual research. Hence, a global perspective is required to examine national literature and the cultural connections between countries. Of the seven papers in Part II, in addition to “Global Elements in Chinese Literature of the 20th Century” and “The Avant-garde Spirit of the May 4th New Literature Movement”, the other five are explorations and interpretations of specific Chinese literary works, though I have no idea whether these pieces and their writers have been translated or introduced in English-speaking countries. If readers have not yet read these writers or their works, they may find difficulties in reading and understanding my literary criticism. For these readers, I offer the following brief introduction of these five writers and the background of my research. Feng Zhi (1905–1993) was a Chinese poet, biographer and researcher on German literature. In the 1920s, he studied at Peking University and founded with his friends successively the Qiancao Society and Chenzhong Society. In 1927, he published his first collection of lyrical poems, Songs of Yesterday, and in 1929, his second collection of poems, Northern Journey and Other Poems, was published, which together established his reputation in the Chinese poetic community. At the time, Feng was praised by Lu Xun as “the best lyric poet in China.” In 1930, he went to Germany to study and researched the works of poets such as R. M. Rilke, Novalis and W. v. Goethe. In writing, he was deeply influenced by Rilke. Feng returned to China in 1935 and taught at various universities. In 1941, he published The Collection of Sonnets, which was so famous that it was regarded as the “foundation of Chinese sonnets.” In his later years, he served as the director of the Institute of Foreign Literature at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. In 1987, he was awarded the “Grand Cross” of the Federal Republic of Germany. Han Shaogong (1953–) is a Chinese writer. In 1968, he was sent to the countryside for re-education through labor. As one of the main initiators and leaders of an avant-garde school, “The Search for Roots” or the Xungen Movement, Han reemerged in the mid-1980s with representative works such as Bababa (1985) and Womanwomanwoman (1985). In 1987, Han published the Chinese translation of Milan Kundera’s The Unbearable Lightness of Being with his co-translator Han Gang, which generated extensive public response. In 1996, Han’s A Dictionary of Maqiao was published, which adopted the dictionary form of narrative, arousing controversies in the academic circle, as critics claimed that it was an imitation of the Serbian writer Milorad Pavić’s novel,

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Dictionary of the Khazars. Han brought a defamation case against the critics and won this case in 1999. From the perspective of global elements, I interpreted these two novels comparatively with the purpose of defending Han. Yan Lianke (1958–) is a Chinese writer of novels and short stories. He entered the army in 1978 and studied at Henan University and the People’s Liberation Army Art Institute. In his early years, he published novellas such as The Years, Months, Days and Marrow, which attracted public attention. His novels such as Lenin’s Kisses (Shouhuo) in 2003, Dream of Ding Village (Dingzhuang meng) in 2006, The Four Books (Sishu) in 2011, and The Dimming Sun (Rixi) in 2015 have a wide influence because of the sharpness in thought and the innovation in artistic forms. Highly satirical toward the current social situation in China, most of Yan’s important works have been translated into various languages and spread around the world. The Czech version of The Four Books won the Kafka Prize for Literature in 2014, and his other works have been nominated three times for the Man Booker International Prize. My research focused on his early novel, entitled Hard Like Water, which depicted the Cultural Revolution in China. The daemonic elements proposed in my research reflect another literary genre of global elements in literature. Zhang Wei (1956–) is a Chinese writer who began writing in the 1970s. In 1986, he published the novel The Ancient Ship, which has exerted extensive influence with its profound historical criticism. In 1992, he published a long lyrical novel, September’s Fable, establishing a unique writing style integrating folklore, romantic lyricism and social criticism. Grounded solidly in the stance of contemporary cultural criticism, Zhang documented in his literary works China’s economic development over the past 30 years and the consequent detriments in the spheres of ecology, morality and ethics. In 2011, he won the 8th Mao Dun Literature Prize, the highest national literary award, for his novel On the Plateau, a 10-volume work (word count: 4.5 million words) that took him a decade to write. My research explored three of his novels, entitled Seven Kinds of Mushrooms, Book of Foreign Province, and Recall Mallow and discussed further the expression of the “daemonic elements” in Chinese contemporary literature. Yu Hua (1960–) is a Chinese writer. He began to publish novels in 1984 and is regarded as a representative avant-garde writer. His realist novels, To Live (1993) and Chronicle of a Blood Merchant (1995), were widely acclaimed, as they were both set in a small town south of the Yangtze River with small folk living at the bottom of society as the protagonists and depicted the reality of contemporary Chinese society. Yu received heated criticism from critics and readers when Brothers (2005–06) was published, a profound satire in a grotesque

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artistic form on the social deformity caused by the soaring economic progress of contemporary China portraying the ups and downs of the family of Baldy Li, Liu Town’s premier tycoon. I also participated in the discussions within the academic community, endeavoring to use Bakhtin’s folk theory to justify the grotesque style of this novel. Yu received the Grinzane Cavour Prize in 1998 for his novel To Live and the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres of France in 2004. In 2008 Yu received the first French “International Courier” Foreign Fiction Award for his novel Brothers. Last but not least, I would like to thank Dr. Rao Xiaofei and her team for their commitment and hard work. The frequent exchange of emails on the details of this book throughout the entire translation process has left with me pleasant impressions of their diligence and dedication to this national translation project. I hope their translation and this English edition go well. I would also like to thank my mentor, Professor Jia Zhifang, for his great influence on me both spiritually and academically in my career path as a scholar. He would be happy if he knew this work would be introduced to the English-speaking world. My thanks also go to my wife, Ms. Xu Xiuchun, for her full support in my life. She has been with me for more than 40 years, and every piece of my works has been instilled with her patience and efforts. First drafted on March 5, 2020 Revised on October 13, 2020

Part 1 The History of China’s New Literature: A Holistic View

∵

Chapter 1

A Holistic View of the History of China’s New Literature 1

New Literature as an Open “Holisticism”

With the May 4th New Literature Movement of 1919, the long history of Chinese literature underwent a far-reaching, radical change in the 20th century, which was caused by social changes that altered the pace and direction of the history of literature and by external influences that changed the connotation of literary history itself. After the May 4th Movement, China’s literary tradition embarked on a new course with newborn vitality. Since the May 4th Movement, political life in China has undergone great changes. People became used to evaluating literature with political standards, dividing new literature into two disciplinary concepts: “modern literature” up to 1949 and “contemporary literature” thereafter. The consequence of this artificial division was that neither could be integral, thus hindering further research on the history of new literature. As a spiritual activity, literary creation is not only rooted in and reflects social life, but also enjoys a relatively independent law of development. It possesses its own historical continuity and logic of development. Thus, the development of literature may not coincide with political or social developments, and the periodization of the history of modern literature need not correspond to that of the history of modern politics. Literature charts its own course; an analysis of its developmental stages should be grounded solidly on a more comprehensive consideration of three aspects: writers, their literary works and those who read them. From this perspective, the history of China’s new literature since the May 4th Movement can be divided into six distinct literary levels through a holistic approach by examining the particularity of the era, the community of authors and their writing dispositions, instead of taking the generation of writers or the genre of their literary works as the standard. The first level highlights the May 4th generation of Chinese intellectuals, represented by Cai Yuanpei, Chen Duxiu, Hu Shi, Lu Xun, Zhou Zuoren, Shen Yanbing, Guo Moruo, Yu Dafu, Xu Zhimo and Tian Han. Living at the turn of the 20th century, these writers not only witnessed the rapid decline of the

© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2022 | doi:10.1163/9789004522978_002

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Chapter 1

country’s old political system and the traditional economy, but also accepted the influence of foreign cultures on domestic society. Their insights into the various social changes during this transitional period led these intellectuals to abandon the traditional career path of official scholars and to become more involved in broader social life, with an active engagement in events from the Revolution of 1911 to the May 4th Movement. This can be interpreted as a nonofficial path that these scholar-officials followed, since they were attempting to restore their lost centrality in political life through a revolution in the spheres of ideology and culture. This generation eventually initiated a new cultural movement which defined the beginning of a new model for Chinese literature in the 20th century. The second level refers to writers who were active in the literary world in the 1930s and 1940s, represented by Ba Jin, Lao She, Shen Congwen, Hu Feng, Feng Xuefeng, Ai Qing, Ding Ling, Xia Yan, Cao Yu, and later on Qian Zhongshu. Many of these writers came from rural areas of the country, but most of them moved to modern big cities for the education offered by the May 4th New Culture Movement. They were the “children of the May 4th Movement” in Ba Jin’s words. With the end of the Northern Expedition (1926– 1927), a large number of intellectuals were thrown out of the political sphere. They returned to literature to resume their careers, becoming the exiles of political power. Some of them began writing again to relive their political ambitions through literary fantasies, while others gradually adapted to their new social status and established new value standards outside the political sphere. The quantity and quality of their works were remarkable, but less imposing than those of their predecessors, despite their refined emotional sensitivity. Impressively, these authors began to separate themselves from the constraints of Western literary themes, forming their own unique styles of writing. Remembered as the shining generation in the literary world, these writers remained active until the late 1940s, representing the maturity of the May 4th New Literature. Writers of the third level were born during the War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression (same as Counter-Japanese War) (1937–1945) and grew up in the counter-Japanese base areas behind the enemy lines. Noteworthy representative writers during this period include Zhao Shuli, Sun Li, Zhou Libo, Liu Qing, Guo Xiaochuan and Zhou Yang, a literary theorist of the times. The war gave these intellectuals the opportunity to return to the center of the country’s political life, prompting many of them to enlist in the military to serve the country and to engage in counter-Japanese activities at the front or behind the lines. However, in this national war, with the country’s peasants as the

A Holistic View of the History of China ’ s New Literature

5

main force, these intellectuals’ ideals were repeatedly thwarted. Furthermore, due to the norms of wartime culture, they became more politically and culturally marginalized in practice. This process continued after the 1950s, from the Hu Feng Group Incident in the 1950s to the nationwide, decade-long Cultural Revolution (1966–1976), which diminished and eventually deprived these intellectuals of their independent political status. This painful process was memorialized in many literary works of the period. The fourth level parallels the fifth in time, as the two intellectual groups that emerged in different spatial dimensions shared a similar ambition to return to the center of the country’s political life. This mentality was captured and reflected in many literary works of this period. The fourth level took shape in Mainland China in the 1950s, with representative intellectuals such as Wang Meng, Liu Binyan, Liu Shahe, Shao Yanxiang, Gao Xiaosheng, Lu Wenfu and Zhang Xianliang. Belonging to the group of intellectuals who grew up in the 1950s, they were well educated, sharp-minded and ambitious, and drew creative inspiration from various sources, such as Russian, folk and classical literature. Noticeable in their early works was the depiction of contradictions and conflicts within the socialist society and of people’s aspirations and lifestyles in peacetime. Many of the literary works created during this period served to efface the shadow of war from literature and art works and to reposition intellectuals back to the center of the country’s political life. However, during the Anti-Rightist Movement in 1957, they were all purged and expelled to the bottom of the society, living with ordinary workers and peasants until after the Cultural Revolution, when they regained the right to write. This persecuted generation of intellectuals suffered but never lost its strong faith in life. Driven by their invincible humanistic conscience, these writers have generated numerous literary works that expose social contradictions and express people’s aspirations. Owing to their return to the literary world and their remarkable achievements in this period, these writers are regarded as the “re-blooming flowers.” The fifth level refers to writers who rose in Taiwan literary circles in the 1950s and 1960s, including Bai Xianyong, Qi Dengsheng, Wang Wenxing, Wang Zhenhe, Huang Chunming, Chen Yingzhen, Yu Guangzhong, Luo Men, Luo Fu and Yao Yiwei. Whether they were writers who moved to Taiwan from elsewhere or Taiwanese writers, they were all baptized by the modernist literature that pervaded the Western literary world at the time. Rising in the 1950s, these writers remained active in advocating modern poetry and introducing modernist literature, renewing literature’s original elements with new aesthetic conceptions that transcended the shadow of the Cold War on the literary world. Meanwhile, some Taiwanese writers became devoted to the rise of “local literature” in Taiwan,

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applying the tradition of realism to intervene in political life and activities. Taiwan’s unique political climate and historical circumstances, along with its rapid economic transition from an island fishing port to a modern industrial center, have aroused cultural and literary resonances. The “Debate on Local Literature” in the 1970s reflected conflicts between the local culture and Western culture. The sixth level refers to the new generation of writers that emerged in the 1980s, including Zhang Chengzhi, Zhang Wei, Han Shaogong, Mo Yan, Wang Anyi, Can Xue, Bei Dao and Wang Shuo from Mainland China, and their counterparts from Taiwan or overseas, such as Huang Fan, Lin Yaode, Song Zelai, Zhang Dachun, Ping Lu, Wang Youhua and Jian Zhenzhen. Born largely in the late 1950s and afterwards, these writers were less entangled in the country’s traditional political history. Inhaling the fresh air of modern culture, these new intellectuals ascended to the literary world with a renewed political faith; they continued their pursuit of a new literary tradition by re-establishing the position of intellectuals in modern society. Facing the coming of a new era, these writers accomplished a wonderful final chapter to 20th century Chinese literature at a time when history and future met at the turn of the century. Although among these six levels, there are writers who may belong to adjacent periods, in general a relatively stable group of writers can be identified at each of these levels. A further examination reveals that the characteristics and dispositions of writer groups at the first and second levels are similar or that writers at the second level can be regarded as the continuation of writers identified in the first level. These non-official intellectuals possessed an independent political aspiration and expressed in their literary works a strong desire to transform the country’s backwardness, promote democracy and science and build a new China on the value system of modern Western civilization, thus establishing the May 4th new cultural tradition. However, this was merely a relatively pure enlightenment tradition of intellectuals, which stood in opposition to both “Miaotang”, the state, and “Minjian”, the public.1 Facing “Miaotang”, it had to remain in the position of modern intellectuals in critiquing modern politics and the state of the society, while facing “Minjian”, it was obliged to reconstruct the nationality and eradicate the remnants of feudal traditions in 1 “Miaotang”, “Guangchang” and “Minjian”, referring to three respective spaces of literary history, are key terms in my study of the history of modern literature. “Miaotang” refers to the literary space associated with state power, “Guangchang” refers to the literary space of independent intellectuals, and “Minjian” refers to the literary space of the general public in society. “Miaotang”, “Guangchang” and “Minjian” represent three different literary value orientations.

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the society and its people. This left the three value orientations of “Miaotang”, “Guangchang” and “Minjian” in modern China in a potentially antagonistic state for a long time,2 which was also reflected in many literary debates and controversies from the May 4th Movement to the 1930s. The third, fourth and fifth levels seem to differ, in particular in terms of ideological stance, aesthetic tastes and knowledge structures between mainland writers and Taiwanese writers, despite the fact that they did share inherent commonalities in their view of life, their understanding of the art of literature and the relationship between intellectuals and politics. Noticeably, these writers seemed to have deviated from the May 4th Movement tradition. Due to the political situation during the War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression (1937–1945) and the ensuing Cold War between the East and West, the country’s political system tightened its grip on literature and culture in general, obliging literary creation to march in step with the ideology of the period and trampling to varying degrees the traditional independence of intellectuals nurtured since the May 4th New Culture Movement. In the meantime, the folk culture and tradition that emerged in Mainland China during the War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression , along with the local culture and tradition that reappeared during the recovery of Taiwan from the Japanese invaders, made great contributions to literary creations of the time. They served as a counterweight to the ideological power, establishing a triangulation between the political ideology, the sense of independence among intellectuals, and folk culture and tradition. It was not until in the 1980s that the new generation of writers of the sixth level across the Taiwan Straits started to extricate their works from the Cold War conflict. Concomitant with changes in the generational dispositions of writers and their literary directions was the change in the readership of the literature. As reception subjects in literary creations, readers do not passively accept literary works; instead, they have the capacity to influence the development of literature through active and creative participation throughout the entire creative process. First, readers respond positively to literary works while reading, reinterpreting them based on the general public’s cognitive level and aesthetic taste. This public interpretation may not match the original intention of the writer; nevertheless, since such reader interpretation may reflect some

2 On the value orientation in the transformation of modern intellectuals, please refer to my research, entitled “On the Three Value Orientations of Intellectuals in the Transition Period of Modern Society” published initially in the inaugural issue of Shanghai Culture.

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part of public opinion, it may, in turn, be recognized by the writer himself,3 thus encouraging him to adapt and even cater to certain social requirements. Second, as reception subjects in literature, readers have specific ideological and aesthetic preferences, which often reflect a society’s general expectations of literature. In an increasingly commoditized society, literary creation is oftentimes the means by which writers make a living. Whether consciously or not, writers always seek to cater to their readers and are subject to their reading preferences. We used to overemphasize the role of writers as educators and the enlightening role of literature on readers, overlooking the vital role of readers as a more intrinsic restriction on literary creations. An examination of the development of the New Literature Movement would demonstrate such conspicuous changes among its readership. The initial readership of New Literature Movement was mainly intellectuals under the influence of the May 4th New Culture Movement, including young students and citizens with a certain level of education.4 The needs of these readers reflected more or less new ideals and requirements of the general public in the May 4th era. Disenchanted with urban romance novels by the Mandarin Duck and Butterfly School, these readers hungered for literary works imbued with a new zeitgeist. In the midst of social changes, most of these readers were dissatisfied with the status quo of the society, though they were powerless to take action for change. On the other hand, though they 3 There are two cases in the history of China’s New Literature that illustrate the role of this “recognition”. One is that with the publication of Lu Xun’s “A Madman’s Diary”, it was considered by the general public that its theme was “exposing the man-eating nature of feudal ethics”, which was later recognized by Lu himself (Refer to my research entitled “Consciousness of Confession in the Development of China’s New Literature” in this book.). The other is that with the publication of Cao Yu’s Thunderstorm, it was considered by the general public that its theme was “exposing the evils of feudal families”, which was also recognized later on by Cao himself (Refer to the Foreword of the first edition of Cao Yu’s Thunderstorm, page 4, Cultural and Life Press, in January, 1936). 4 In “From Guling to Tokyo”, Mao Dun (the penname of Shen Yanbing) evaluated the target readership of new literature at that time by commenting that the target readers of new literature were not the laboring masses of workers and peasants, but the petty bourgeoisie intellectuals. While refuting some advocates of revolutionary literature, Mao inquired, “Who are the readers of our revolutionary literature and art? One might say, the oppressed laboring masses. Yes, I would like very much, and I hope very much that the oppressed laboring masses can be the target readers of revolutionary literature and art. But, actually what? Please forgive me for saying something unpleasant again. Your new literature ‘written for laboring masses’ can only be read by ‘non-laboring’ petty bourgeoisie intellectuals. Your intended readers were A, but the recipient of your work has to be B.” This quotation is in Volume 19, Number 10 of Short Story Monthly on October 10, 1928.

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resented the old-fashioned family style and the feudal marriage system, they dared not to act (or their struggles were not supported by public opinion). Therefore, they warmly welcomed literary themes that advocated resistance to feudal traditions, liberation of individuality and freedom of love. Essentially, they were yearning for heroes, even though they themselves were not able to become heroes; they were aspiring for love, even though it was difficult for them to pursue it. In terms of aesthetic tastes, since these educated readers were influenced by the New Literature Movement, their elegant dispositions consciously drove them to more influence from the Western literature. This is precisely the objective foundation of the creative traits of New Literature at this stage. With the outbreak of the War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression in 1937, major changes took place within the readership. On the one hand, the division of the original readership made some readers become the backbone of this national war; they gained spiritual strength and determination in the struggle, and became disenchanted with the comfort from literature. On the other hand, with the rise of the social status of the country’s rural population during wartime, their class consciousness along with their cultural needs increased accordingly. Especially in the 1940s, “as long as they can read, cadres from all walks of life, military servicemen, factory workers and rural people” in counter-Japanese democratic base areas, “have the motivation to read books and newspapers. For those who are illiterate, they have the desire to enjoy drama, posters, songs and music. They are the recipients of our literary and artistic works.”5 The change in the configuration of readership would inevitably require corresponding changes in literary works regarding their ideological content and aesthetic taste. After 1949, the readership in Mainland China was clearly defined to include workers, peasants, soldiers and other working-class people, who were eager, at the beginning of the establishment of a new regime, to understand how this regime operated and how they could better adapt to its cause. This meant the role of political education contained in literary works at this stage was particularly strengthened. An extreme example was the so-called “model opera”, which was regarded as the model of Chinese revolutionary literature and art during the Cultural Revolution. With the end of the Cultural Revolution, the readership of literary works became broader again. The complexity of readership would inevitably bring about diversity and complexity in literary creations. Popular literature, which had long been excluded by the New 5 Refer to “Talks at the Yan’an Forum on Literature and Art” by Mao Zedong in Selected Works of Mao Zedong (bound edition). People’s Publishing House, 1968, pp. 806–807.

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Literature, was also accepted to entertain its readers. The prosperity of the country’s literary and artistic creations would not be realized unless multilayered and multi-faceted readerships as well as their aesthetic tastes were respected and addressed. The six literary levels formed by writers, their literary works and readers, in which these literary elements inherit, complement, scaffold, develop, update and accommodate each other within different time and space dimensions, constitute an open holism that characterizes the history of the country’s New Literature. The similarities and differences within these levels reveal the objective law of the development of Chinese literature: the open “holisticism” embodied in the history of China’s New Literature is rooted in three successive development stages: The May 4th Movement, the War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression, and the political transformations across the Taiwan Straits that began in the 1980s. Since the “holisticism” of China’s New Literature is characterized by its openness, each of its developmental stages enjoys this open feature. This explains why I take a flexible approach to the timeline of each stage, instead of determining their specific boundaries. The three components of writers, their literary works and readers within each stage will not be arbitrarily denied, replaced or eliminated. Even though these components may gradually lose their centrality and social influences over time, they would still, as a lingering trend of some certain literary thought, retain their influences for a long period of time. The rise of a new stage is by no means a simplistic denial of its predecessor. Instead, it ascends from internal contradictions that could not be resolved in the previous stage and performs its historical mission as its rightful successor, thus exalting the inner spirit of the new literature in progress. 2

The Holistic Framework of New Literature and World Literature

The other essential characteristic of Chinese literature as an open “holisticism” in the 20th century is that its development is not a closed process of selfimprovement; instead, it is in constant contact with global social and literary trends. Diachronically, its openness manifests its tremendous vitality and unyielding resistance against artificial separations in its roaring strides; synchronically, this openness demonstrates its connectedness with world literature, through which it is enriched by constant collision, convection and interpenetration. This contributes to the perfection of literature itself. In addition to its literary tradition as the momentum of its self-development, the overall significance of the openness of New Literature lies in the construction

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of a holistic framework of literature, where the positionality of New Literature is determined within world literature. The history of the development of literature may prove that the interaction of literature with the broader society can help it evolve toward an orderly state from an unordered one and eventually approach a state of equilibrium. In literary works published before 1919, this is mainly reflected in the constraints of changes in the domestic economic and political environment. However, with more direct interactions between Chinese literature and foreign literature, more synchronic influences on the development of a new Chinese literature began to take shape. Though this is not fundamental, it provides a concrete model for the expression of literature. Generally, the interactions between different literatures are complicated and difficult to distinguish in an absolute manner. In literature, is it the recipient that first chooses the external influence based on its own needs or the external influence that first exerts some influence on the recipient with its own charm? Undoubtedly, recipients play significant roles in literary exchanges. Although they have been fed with new literary nutrients from abroad, what remains ingrained is their own nationality. Unconsciously, this nationality will become a rubric that determines the attitude of reception subjects. It seems that all individuals and nations are inseparable from their nationalities. Since the May 4th New Literature Movement, driven by their social responsibility of saving the country and its people and an ardent quest for truth, many Chinese intellectuals took a rather positive attitude toward Western ideology and literary trends. They had the right to choose and capacity to choose. In the early 20th century, a plethora of literary trends prevailed in the U.S. Hu Shi, a renowned Chinese scholar of the time, applied abundantly the anti-traditional elements in the emerging American Imagists’ poetic works in his literary creations; while Mei Guangdi and others, who also studied in the U.S. at the same time as Hu Shi, embraced and introduced to Chinese readers Irving Babbitt’s humanism, which is more conservative and exquisite. This made them the enemy of Hu Shi in advocating the New Literature. Nevertheless, Hu’s and Mei’s distinct choices reveal strong evidence of the absolute freedom of individuals’ decisions in their preferences of foreign literary trends in spite of their similar cultural background. It has been proved over again that each large-scale introduction of foreign literature into China is the result of some preferred choice out of certain needs. The relationship between the rise of the left-wing literature in the 1930s and the world’s “Red 1930s”, the relationship between the wartime literature after the 1940s and the literary themes of the Soviet’s Great Patriotic War, and even the relationship between China’s new literature and Western modernist literature, all shed light on a simple but undeniable truth: the reason

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why foreign literature is able to find its place among Chinese readers is because China has cultivated a suitable social environment for it. However, from another perspective, it can be found that the recipient may not always be proactive in the process of introducing Western learning into China. Sometimes the opposite is true: before the recipient makes choices, he may have been already affected by a certain Western literary genre or literary group. Hence, his seemingly active behavior can be regarded as passive and obligatory in nature. An interesting case was raised by Hsia Chih-tsing (or C. T. Hsia) in his book A History of Modern Chinese Fiction with regard to Chinese writers’ understanding of world literature. “Moreover, even in the case of the exceptionally intelligent, like Hu Shih and Chou Tso-jen, their understanding of Western culture was of necessity partial and fragmentary. As the more influential writers were nearly always returned students, the ideas and prejudices that happened to be in vogue in the countries where they had studied invariably colored their literary and cultural endeavor. Indeed, without much distortion of history, one could regard the struggle between liberals and radicals as a struggle between Anglo-American-returned and Japanese-returned students.”6 Though it sounds arbitrary, C. T. Hsia’s argument exposed an essential truth. Before and after World War I, the social order of leading Western countries, such as the U.K. and the U.S., remained stable. The rise of capitalism in the U.S. demonstrated the superiority of democracy. Therefore, it was not uncommon for Chinese students pursuing their studies within such a socio-political context to envision a Europeanized or Americanized democracy in China. However, the continuous sharp conflicts between Japan’s domestic political movements since its Meiji Restoration, along with the influence of Russian fugitives who fled to Japan after the failure of the Russian Revolution in 1905, led to a sudden upsurge of socialist thinking in Japan, which profoundly affected Chinese students who were studying there. Accordingly, a similar situation also took place in literary creations. This seems to indicate that there is no absolute freedom or arbitrariness in the recipient’s personal taste when facing external influences, since he always has to make his choices within a specific environment and social context, or concerning a specific object. In the meantime, all these disseminating environments and subjects may, through impressions which will guide or impede his decisions, play a role in his choices of a certain foreign culture as his role model.

6 C. T. Hsia, A History of Modern Chinese Fiction 1917–1957, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1961, p. 22.

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Perhaps it is precisely because it is difficult to distinguish between the reception subject and the disseminating subject which one plays a more active role in the process of interaction, it seems more advisable to conclude that an objective relationship exists between them. World literature, as the disseminating subject, is introduced into China through a variety of means. It quickly becomes acculturated and develops in various directions. Chinese intellectuals, as the reception subject, accept world literature through their personal choices and introduce it to Chinese readers, thus making China part of the world. It is of great importance to understand the role of this relationship in the overall framework of world literature. For quite some time, when we study the literary exchanges between China and other cultures in the 20th century, we tend to emphasize one side while discarding the other. For instance, when the influence of the disseminating subject is emphasized, we are apt to take it as the fundamental momentum for the emergence of literature, thus concluding that the May 4th New Literature is a transplant of foreign literature in China. Similarly, when the choice of the reception subject is emphasized, we may tend to exaggerate the role of nationhood and the rubric of personal choices, failing to see the openness of Chinese literature to world literature. Such openness is not only a simplistic “bringism”, but indeed makes changes in itself while “taking it.” Since this reveals a relationship between the two parties, their differing proportions and degrees of integration may lead to a variety of possibilities. For instance, when the disseminating subject appears powerful enough to dominate the literature of an era, as when the majority of Chinese literary and artistic styles during the May 4th period were adopted from the West, the latter became later on the essential model for China’s new literature. Similarly, when this disseminating subject seems fragile, it will quickly give way to the local traditional literary influence. This has been manifested specifically in some writers, such as He Qifang. As an aesthetic lyricist, He was profoundly influenced by Western symbolism in his early years. However, as the War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression progressed, such influence gradually diminished in his later poetic creations. Similarly, the reception subject may encounter different situations. For instance, some writers may be influenced by certain foreign ideas in their early years, then overcome this influence with their changed literary criteria in middle age. This is best captured in Lu Xun’s personal “evolution” and in the change of Nietzsche’s thought in his late years. Nevertheless, there are writers whose literary creations were haunted by external influences throughout their lives. In terms of research on the relationship in the overall framework of China’s New Literature and world literature, I tend to a holistic

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approach with a thorough examination of all possible literary influences, since no absolute rule can be derived from a certain single possibility. If we further examine this process, two modalities can be found that are interwoven throughout. In the relationship between Chinese and foreign literature, there are modalities of synchronization and asynchronization. These modalities work either simultaneously or alternatively, adjusting constantly the position of China’s New Literature within the overall framework of world literature. The identity and integrity of this framework require that all components remain coordinated, perceptible and harmonious for communicating purposes; this is the state of literary synchronization. However, despite the tendency of literature from different cultures toward such synchronous modality under mutual influences, the evolution and growth of any literature are inevitably subject to the restraints of its domestic political, economic and national forces, thus resulting in incongruity and disharmony; this is its asynchronous modality. Within their respective systems, these modalities have become two landmarks in the interaction between China’s new literature and world literature. As one of the most significant indications in Chinese and foreign literary exchanges, the concept of synchronous modality seems almost as old as that of world literature. When the concept of world literature was first raised by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe on January 31, 1827, in his conversation with Johann Peter Eckermann, he noticed there were similarities in terms of emotional appeals in writing between a classical Chinese legend, his own Hermann and Dorothea, and the novels by British writer Richardson.7 Twenty years later, when this concept of world literature was reiterated by K. Marx and F. Engels in “The Communist Manifesto”, a more scientific interpretation of the synchronous modality in literature of different countries was provided. They claimed that when the bourgeoisie developed a world marketplace, it was globalizing the production and consumption of all countries: “The intellectual creations of individual nations become common property. National one-sidedness and narrow-mindedness become more and more impossible, and from the numerous national and local literatures, there arises a world literature.”8 With the 7 Goethe’s quote on “world literature” is as follows: “National literature is now rather an unmeaning term; the epoch of world literature is at hand, and every one must strive to hasten its approach.” In Gespräche mit Goethe (English: Conversations of Goethe) compiled by Johann Peter Eckermann, translated by John Oxenford, 1906, retrieved from http://www.hxa .name/books/ecog/Eckermann-ConversationsOfGoethe-1827.html. 8 Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, “Manifesto of the Communist Party”, in: K. Marx and F. Engels, Collected Works in 50 Volumes, vol. 6: Marx and Engels 1845–48, Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1976, p. 488.

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ever-increasing development of modern science and technology, the gap between the world’s different regions is shrinking. Through constant interactions and exchanges, people from different countries and regions are surprised to find out that the problems they face are so similar. Since the 20th century, the world wars have caused a series of changes, reshaping people’s view of life and concepts of survival, value and morality. The disaster of fascism has created an indelible fear of and aversion to autocracy, as well as the desire for and pursuit of democracy and peace. The rapid development of industrial technology has also destroyed the balance between man and nature, man and society, and man and himself. Furthermore, the unyielding exploration of the mysteries of the celestial universe and the mysteries of the human body have undermined the age-old foundation of traditional rationality. These social phenomena that have transcended race, nationality and political systems are tormenting and torturing people’s spiritual world, making synchronous modality an inevitable phenomenon in world literature. Although China has been economically underdeveloped for a long time, it has also suffered as much as other nations since the beginning of the 20th century. With the development of its domestic industry and the acceleration of modernization, China also encountered thorny problems that many developed countries once confronted. Furthermore, despite its long-established Oriental culture, when this culture is on the verge of disintegration, it imposes on its people extra sensitivity to all unfamiliar phenomena around them. Such synchronicity not only determined the spiritual interconnectedness between Chinese intellectuals and the modern world consciousness during the May 4th Movement era, between the Left-wing Literary Movement and the worldwide anti-fascist democratic tendencies in the 1930s, but also between young Chinese intellectuals after the Cultural Revolution and the Soviet Union’s literary thaw of the 1950s, as well as between them and a certain mentality that ascended in Europe and the U.S. after the May 1968 social upheaval in France and the Vietnam War in the 1970s. Such literary synchronization enriched China’s New Literature with a solid modern consciousness full of vitality and strength. In contrast to synchronous modality in literature, asynchronous modality reveals a different story. In Chinese and foreign literary exchanges, asynchronization, which is precisely due to the particularity of China’s social environment, is phenomenal. Ingrained feudalism and bridled capitalism created enormous obstacles to the establishment of modern civilization in China. The country’s modern intellectuals had to renew the mission of their predecessors, criticizing the cultural heritage of feudalism. Age-old literary themes, such as anti-feudalism in marriage issues, lived on in many Chinese writers’ literary creations. This is a tragedy in a society’s development, which also indicates

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stagnation in the development of literature. When world literature was reflecting contemporary anxiety, the themes of China’s New Literature were confined in the past, seeking nutrition and shelter from the Western classical literature. Nevertheless, such asynchronization best reveals the unique developmental path of Chinese culture, as the latter remained in disharmony with the world. World War I destroyed many traditional ideas in the West and facilitated the rise of modern consciousness. In China, however, it brought people the hope of “triumph of justice over power” and promoted the further development of man’s personality. After World War II, the ensuing Cold War deprived many in the West of their attachment to ideals, reshaping them with a modern sense of resistance. In China, however, when millions of rural peasants who had struggled to survive for thousands of years were thrown into the political arena because of the war, their peasant mentality had a huge impact on the country’s political life in the 20th century. In a sense, the asynchronous modality constitutes a unique developmental path for China’s New Literature, though at a tremendous social cost. I can hardly agree with some scholars, who, when discussing the role of Sino-foreign literary exchanges, argue that the “influence of Oriental literature on Western literature is primarily manifested by the influence of Oriental feudal literature on modern Western literature, which is subject to the impulsiveness and passion among Western writers in seeking new literary themes, inspirations, imagination and aesthetic appeal from the East, and which by no means indicates any intention to transform any modern Western literary concept or its literary system.”9 This conclusion seems plausible if it narrowly refers to Goethe’s and Voltaire’s time. The problem is, with the formation of modern consciousness in the West and the increase of anti-traditional and anti-rational needs among Western intellectuals, Oriental culture is no longer like a “vase de Chine” for Western readers. On the contrary, the prevailing enthusiasm for Oriental themes among Westerners, regardless of their yearning for the Oriental culture in China, Japan or India, comes with an extremely serious hope of exploring the mysteries of life in order to solve the varieties of epidemic spiritual crises generated by their highly developed materialistic civilization. More distantly, the earnest exploration of Oriental classical culture by authors like E. Pound, W. B. Yeats, and B. Brecht enabled them to break through the limitation of traditional Western literary concepts and restraints 9 Refer to the article entitled “On the Age of World Literature” by Zeng Xiaoyi in Towards World Literature: Modern Chinese Writers and Foreign Literature edited by Zeng Xiaoyi. Hunan People’s Publishing House, 1985, p. 15.

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in literary expressions for the birth of a new literary language and a new artistic form in their works. More recently, Larry, the protagonist in The Razor’s Edge by W. Maugham (1944), discovered the essence of life from ancient Indian philosophy, thus changing his behavior in real life. The significance of the imagery of Larry does not lie merely in the perfection of his personal morality; instead, he represents a cultural aspiration among Western intellectuals of Maugham’s time: a move toward Oriental literature. It is still too early for us to conclude whether Oriental culture contains enormous literary energy that has not yet been fully released today. Nevertheless, it is wrong for us to repeat an error in the May 4th era in which traditional Chinese culture was confused with feudalism and treated with a frivolous and irresponsible attitude. The openness we are facing today should work both ways. On the one hand, it is open to other cultures. It should absorb not only the essence of Western classical culture but also its modern culture, so as to make modern consciousness part of the common sense of life today. On the other hand, it is equally open to all traditions. It should discard feudalism’s age-old imprisonment and distortion of traditional culture, and contribute to the release of real positive energy from the core of Chinese culture, which, pervading and transcending time and space, can eventually be communicated by modern consciousness. This will not only be of great significance to China’s ongoing progress in modernization, but also be a great contribution to the future of our world. 3

Tradition and Development: Proposed as a Methodology

In terms of aesthetic values in literature and art, there is no replacement but rather constant rich variation, as tough times yield fine products. Regardless of how much time has passed, ancient Greek myths and epics, along with ancient Chinese Tang and Song poems, are still full of artistic vitality, like newborn babies, presenting to their readers a refreshing literary taste. Similarly, no matter how bizarre and perplexing it is, modern art is always part of literary tradition, as long as it is well understood. As T. S. Eliot said, the “birth of a new piece of art can be taken as the metamorphosis or rebirth of all previous works of art.”10 This reveals the power of tradition. Literature, however innovative,

10 T. S. Eliot, “Tradition and the Individual Talent”, translated by Cao Baohua, Modern Poetics, Commercial Press, 1937, p. 112.

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can hardly extricate itself from its own cultural background and cultural tradition. Eliot regarded the meaning of history as a permanent factor, arguing that history includes not only the past, but also the persisting influence of the past. In addition to the constraints imposed on him and his writing by his time, a writer is also restricted by the entire literary tradition of his epoch. Furthermore, literary tradition is not a distant or dead existence; instead, it is always in a mobile process that is closely connected with reality. This is like the flow of streams. Once they spring from the source, they are bound to be restricted by the natural environment; and the riverbed may also affect the velocity of the flow. Only when posited in this dynamic process will literature and art thrive rather than becoming a lifeless antique. It is this dynamic that keeps literature fresh and lively. All literature evolves along a continuum between tradition (at one end) and development (at the other). Tradition emphasizes the inheritance and cohesion of literature; its relative stability is the essential benchmark for distinguishing the literature of one country from that of other countries, as well as the literature of one region from that of other regions. The trajectory of its development, which focuses on the originality of each literary period, each writer and the features of their literary creations, as well as the differences from previous literature works, reflects the movement of the entire history of literature. The coordinates formed by cohesion and variation in literature comprise the main framework on which literature studies are based. The trajectory of literary development is also by nature the trajectory of the variations of tradition. Though the stability of tradition is integral to the entirety of literature, the birth of each new literary work, as well as the impact of each new external influence, is likely to disrupt its internal structure and stability. Through a series of internal adjustments and recombination, new literary factors find their place in the system, before it again returns to stability. The fact is, the process of development never stops; with the continual emergence of new literary works, the entire body of literature remains in constant selfadjustment. Therefore, when literature is approached as a whole, what must be recognized is that tradition is developmental, and this development is the variation of tradition in according eras. Although China’s New Literature has been recorded in history as a rebellion against traditional culture, it is deeply rooted in the fertile soil of the latter. Similarly, how could there possibly exist any absolute innovation in the creative achievements of a modern writer who claims no connection to his cultural tradition? The history of the development of New Literature has proved that no matter how the six literary levels alternated with each other, no matter how the three developmental stages of literature substituted, and no matter how

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time left its indelible imprint on literature, there always existed stable factors that identify the power and influence of tradition in literature. The relationship between tradition and development can also be approached by studying the vicissitudes of a specific literary genre. In the 1920s, pastoral lyric novels, with Feng Wenbing (also known by his pen name, Fei Ming) as a representative writer of the period, were differentiated from rural literature and lyrical literature. As a devoted admirer of Tao Yuanming, a renowned poet of the Jin Dynasty, Feng Wenbing’s wrote novels characterized by the simplicity and beauty of human nature in a natural state within a broader sphere of pastoral scenery, with a hidden intention of revealing the ugliness of the social reality of the time. The literary creation of the pastoral lyrical genre reached its peak in the 1930s with the efforts of Shen Congwen, who further dramatized the contrast between the primitive state of nature and modern civilization through the artistic delicacy of beautiful natural landscapes and of humanity. With their excessive pursuit of the mystery and purity of nature and their neglect of social issues of the time, pastoral lyrical works, such as Romance in the Northern Country of Bu Naifu (also known by his pen name, Wu Mingshi), followed the Romantic tradition traced by Chateaubriand. With the outbreak of the War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression in 1937, however, the positive elements in this literary genre were reinvigorated at the second developmental stage. Sun Li, for example, in novels such as The Chronicle of Baiyangdian Lake and The Beginning of the Storm, which depict exquisite rural scenery, rich local culture and ethereal emotional appeals, developed successfully the artistic charm of pastoral lyrical novels by highlighting distinct characteristics of the time and eliminating placid and negative aesthetic tastes. Sun Li remained influential among many writers after the Cultural Revolution in 1976. Nevertheless, Sun’s style belongs to the war period. In China of the 1980s, when Sun stopped writing novels such as “The Lotus Lake” (1945), his followers were facing different choices. Jia Pingwa may be considered Sun’s best successor in the early years of his literary career. While a number of pieces in Jia’s early collection of Mountain Notes can be regarded as the best replications of the pastoral lyric genre, his artistic maturity is represented by The First Record of Shangzhou. This literary sketchbook, which contains rich folk customs, is imbued with the spirit and charm of Wei and Jin literature; in some parts, such literary pervasion is fairly explicit. For instance, in “Taochong”, Jia depicts in detail an old ferryman chanting Tao Yuanming’s verse “While picking chrysanthemums beneath the eastern fence, my gaze upon the Southern mountain rests.” Though this depiction may not be considered appropriate, it best captures Jia’s own intentions. The portrait of an old ferryman sitting in a wooden boat also reminds me of the imagery of an old fisherman in “The Last Fisherman” of a young writer,

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Li Hangyu. Different from the former, this old man was rowing a shabby boat in solitude on the Gechuan River against the sunset. The imagery of this fisherman resembles Santiago, a hapless Cuban fisherman in Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea. Unlike Santiago, this gaunt hero in Li’s works does not represent a high level of abstraction that transcends time and space. On the contrary, he embodies Chinese culture in an alive and tangible manner. Furthermore, his stubbornness and unyieldingness reveal the inner spirit of an inoffensive and detached personality, which is precisely the uncompromising spirit expressed in Tao Yuanming’s poems. Although Jia Pingwa may not be a disciple of Feng Wenbing, Li Hangyu not a disciple of Sun Li, and Sun Li not a disciple of Tao Yuanming, they are all connected through an implicit association of their literary creations. Such association is like multicolored ribbons, each of which has been imprinted with its own characteristics of the time. Even Tao Yuanming himself could be a voyeur of the traditional aesthetic realm. This case proves the profundity of the influence of cultural tradition and reminds us that the value of a unique writer does not lie in his repetition of tradition but in his creation of variations of tradition. Though Shen Congwen’s writing style differs from that of Feng Wenbing, and Jia Pingwa’s writing style differs from that of Sun Li, they have all realized in their respective literary creations the unity of inheritance and originality and the unity of tradition and development through the guidance of their predecessors. As a research methodology, the holistic view of literature is not only different from commenting and analyzing the subject matter on a case-by-case basis, but also different from comparing two research subjects in a rigid way. Instead, it espouses re-positioning the research subject in the entire timeline of the history of literature, making historical and dynamic analyses as shown in the following figures:

A

B Figure 1

B1

C A

A

B

B2 22

Figure 2

2

Figure 3

Figure 3

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In the above figures, A represents the researcher, B the object of study, and C the overall framework of literary history. Isolated literary research in Figure 1 is a unidirectional approach, which can help the researcher penetrate the text to interpret its inner meaning to the greatest extent. However, due to the limitation of the unidirectional research perspective, it relies heavily on subjective opinions to evaluate the text. The best criticism often comes from the researcher’s own connoisseurship. The comparative approach in Figure 2 consists of three perspectives: the researcher needs to understand the relationship between himself and B1 and B2 separately, as well as the relationship between B1 and B2. Due to the ever-changing relationship between B1 and B2, the researcher’s fixed pattern of criticism loses its power, enabling him to review thoroughly the object of study. However, since the research results are only reflected in the comparison between B1 and B2, it remains challenging to develop a comprehensive understanding of the research objects. Unlike these two approaches, what the holistic approach in Figure 3 explores is the role of research objects in the long history of literature development. Such approach not only highlights the relationship between the intrinsic meaning of its research objects and the entire literary tradition, but also applies comparison to study research objects and the literature as a whole. Hence, its perspectives are multifaceted and complete. As a research methodology, the holistic approach regards the new literature of the 20th century as an open holisticism, grasping its internal spirit and developmental law from a macroscopic perspective, so as to correct the earlier mindset which took the year 1949 as a watershed in the history of Chinese literature and artificially separated the history of Chinese literature of the 20th century into two disciplines. By doing so, the study of “modern literature” from the beginning of the 20th century to 1949 can be integrated with the influences of literature during this period on literature after 1949. Hence, the value of literature will be verified by its historical effects, thus avoiding the restrictive research paths used by our predecessors. Furthermore, the holistic approach can enable and empower the researcher of contemporary literature to examine each emerging literary phenomenon, each new literary genre, and each newly published literary work from a historical perspective, in which he will take these elements as an integral part of the entire new literature, analyzing from which tradition they are developed and what original elements they contribute to New Literature. This process will gradually mature the research and criticism of the history of contemporary literature and improve fundamentally the breadth and quality of the current monographs on literary history, which previously aimed narrowly at the compilation of writers and their works. In this sense, the holistic approach to the study of the history of China’s New Literature deserves the full attention of all modern researchers.

Chapter 2

Modernism in the Development of China’s New Literature 1

Chinese and Western Modern Literature: A Comparison

In the study of the history of the relationship between Chinese and Western modern literature, the term “modern” does not indicate exactly the concept of time. In the West, European authors who wrote in a traditional manner, such as H. G. Wells, Bernard Shaw, J. Galsworthy and the like, were referred to as “contemporary writers” by some researchers, while the appellation of “modern” usually highlights modernist literature which has evolved since the 20th century.1 Modernist literature is not only modern in terms of time, but also reflects or conveys the aesthetic appetite of readers in the 20th century in terms of literary conceptions and expressions. Similarly, the denotation of the term “modern” in the context of the history of Chinese modern literature also transcends its connotative meaning of time, highlighting the essential differences between traditional literature and literature in the 20th century in the aspects of its literary nature and artistic expressions. Chinese and Western modern literature belong to two distinctive trains of literary thought. In the process of their respective evolution, there exists a constant alternation of synchronization and asynchronization between the two. This starts with a conceptual ambiguity: Western modernist literature and Chinese modern literature shared many differences and asynchronizations at the beginning. The similarities include the synchronization of time and the literary forms they take. The former means that both bodies of literature emerged in the late 19th century and flourished in the 20th century, whilst the latter indicates that they both entered the literary world in a strong antitraditional manner. In his article “Modernism in Modern Chinese Literature: A Study and Com­ parison of the Literary History,” Leo Ou-fan Lee, a Chinese-American scholar, defined the term “modern” as “a temporal consciousness of the present in reaction 1 Refer to the article entitled “Three Questions about Western Modernist Literature” by Yuan Kejia in Foreign Literature, 12, 1983, p. 23. In this article, Yuan quoted Stephen Spender’s ideas in The Struggle of the Modern and considered this book to be the first important work in the study of modernist literature in the West.

© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2022 | doi:10.1163/9789004522978_003

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against the past.”2 Lee highlights the rhetoric of “in reaction against” since it reveals the gap and opposition between the connotation of the “present” and that of the “past”. The term “modernity,” from the perspective of Western literary criticism, has been applied to the Romantic Movement, particularly in the literary theories of the 19th century aesthetes such as Théophile Gautier and Charles Baudelaire. The term “modernity” itself also contains complex intentions: It not only refers to the atrophy and boredom brought by modern civilization to urban life that cause spiritual emptiness and deprivation among modern people, but also represents the ugliness in modern industrial society that is transformed into an aesthetic phenomenon in art. Baudelaire said, “By ‘modernity’ I mean the ephemeral, the fugitive, the contingent, the half of art whose other half is the eternal and the immutable.” In artistic creation, however, Baudelaire argues that artists have no power to disdain or ignore such modernity. He believes that a good artist should “make it his business to extract from fashion whatever element it may contain of poetry within history, to distil the eternal from the transitory.”3 From romanticism to aestheticism, an internal contradiction in the term “modernity” seems to have emerged, as highlighted by Matei Calinescu: “What is certain is that at some point during the first half of the nineteenth century an irreversible split occurred between modernity as a stage in the history of Western civilization – a product of scientific and technological progress, of the industrial revolution, of the sweeping economic and social changes brought about by capitalism – and modernity as an aesthetic concept.”4 It is this modern aesthetic conception that facilitated the development in literature of symbolism and later of the cubism, futurism, imagism, expressionism, Dadaism, surrealism, as well as many other kinds of avant-garde literature. Apparently, the aesthetic appeal of the newer kinds of modernity is in reaction against their predecessor, that is, the ideology brought about by modern industry, regarding it as middle-class utilitarianism, vulgarity and low taste in modern civilization. Hence, the so-called “modernity” is inherently disruptive and completely different from the harmonious social relationships nurtured by the ancient pastoral flavor and the traditional

2 Refer to the article entitled “Modernism in Chinese Modern Literature – Study and Com­ parison of Literary History” by Leo Ou-fan Lee in his Reflections on Chinese and Western Literature published by Joint Publishing (Hong Jong), 1986, pp. 22–45. The quotation here is on p. 23. 3 Charles Baudelaire, The Painter of Modern Life and other Essays, translated and edited by Jonathan Mayne, London: Phaidon, 1995, p. 13, p. 12. 4 Matei Calinescu, Five Faces of Modernity. Modernism, Avant-Garde, Decadence, Kitsch, Postmodernism, Durham: Duke University Press, 1987, p. 41.

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small-scale, self-sufficient economy. This modernity is characterized by the incongruity of its sharp internal conflicts. Therefore, when the term “modern” is applied in our literary theory, it has transcended its universal meaning of time, indicating a specific time consciousness associated with the mode of production and the spirit of a certain era. Perhaps, people in the 21st century will refer to what happens today as “ancient”; nevertheless, the conception of “modern” would remain connected to our time and be remembered as a whole in history. The term, “modern”, does not only embody the progress of time, but more importantly, it represents the spiritual content of a particular era and generalizes the irreconcilable conflicts of all social contradictions that are developed within it. This spirit of such an internally divided era is also repeatedly reflected in romanticism and traditional realism. Permeated in the works of romantic writers is a strong antisocial sentiment and self-imposed exile of modern people, whilst what pervades the works of great realist writers is the tragedy of the underdogs struggling at the bottom of society, who could not manipulate their own destiny and the relentless exposure of the ugliness of modern society. Due to the limitations of the time, even the best writers would hardly develop a real sense of despair toward capitalism which was moving on toward prosperity. Therefore, their social outlook was mostly optimistic or progressive. Things started to change toward the end of the 19th century (some Western scholars date the emergence of modernism to 1871, when the revolutionary movement of La Commune de Paris broke out), when some keen Western intellectuals came to realize that “modernity” was characterized by discord and disruption, which were virtually insurmountable due to the inherent conflicts and contradictions within modern society. They no longer fantasized about an external redemptive force as their predecessors had done that could overcome these social crises; nor did they believe in themselves as individuals that could solve them. In addition to expressing their spiritual despair over modern society, they turned to the subjective world with a changed interest and engaged actively in artistic and literary activities in an antisocial manner, using art to build an “artistic reality.” The rise of decadent literature, aesthetic literature and symbolist literature at the end of the 19th century could be taken as the product and embodiment of this ideology. The avant-garde literature after World War I could also be classified in this fashion. Evidently, the antisocial characteristics of modernism itself have undergone a developmental process. Before the 1920s, it was basically at the stage of perceptual exploration with a naïve form and expression in art. The most outstanding modern writers of this period were F. Kafka and T. S. Eliot. The sense of despair toward the outside world that permeates their works has ascended to the realm of philosophy,

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with the depth of their thoughts surpassing that of other avant-garde writers. Noticeably, rational ideas were seldom presented directly in Kafka’s and Eliot’s works; instead, these antisocial thoughts were oftentimes exhibited through their vivid depiction of artistic imageries. The second characteristic of modernist literature is the gradual disillusionment of humans as independent individuals in the face of despair over the outside world. Modernist writers saw clearly that humans had made great contributions to a highly materialistic civilization in the capitalist world; however, they were also inevitably responsible for war, alienation and spiritual crises. When people grew disenchanted with the myths of the humanist era, they no longer deified man; instead, they restored man to his true nature. Overturning the idolatry of the self was no easy task, since early modernists, when they became disappointed with the world around them, had once overemphasized man’s subjectivity. Irving Howe, the well-known American critic and scholar of European modernist literature, once claimed that there exist three historical periods in the development of the modernist view of man’s ego. The early modernist view did not conceal its romanticist roots by arguing that man is the “expansion of the ego,” the “magnification of the vitality of the man that makes its essence and entity rise in transcendence and revelry;” “in the middle stage, the ego is returning from the outside world, as if it were the body of the world, exploring deliberately the internal motives of the ego: freedom, repression, and capriciousness;” “at the late stage, with the growth of the sense of boredom and the drastic changes in man’s mental consciousness, this ego disappears completely.”5 What is manifested in these three stages is that Western modernism’s view of man has evolved from emotional, anxious and painful perceptions toward a more complete, systematic and philosophical cognition. Freud’s theory of the ego has, in my opinion, made the greatest contribution to the advancement of these stages. But it was not until the rise of existentialism and absurdism that this ideological transformation of the ego of man was finally completed. The two leading characteristics of modernism can be attributed to the inevitable contradictions that are inherent in the industrialization of capitalism. From the late 19th century to the early 20th century, a series of scientific discoveries and achievements, such as the theory of relativity, quantum theory, Freud’s psychology and the like, greatly contributed to the maturity of these 5 Quoted from the article entitled “Modernism in Chinese Modern Literature  – Study and Comparison of Literary History” by Leo Ou-fan Lee in his Reflections on Chinese and Western Literature, p. 25. The original source of this quotation is The Idea of the Modern in Literature and Arts, ed. by Irving Howe, New York: Horizon Press 1967.

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modern ideologies. Modernism is both a product of modern society and a traitor to it. With the development of modern industry, men started to seek relief from self-alienation and search for new spiritual destinations. Spiritually, they manifested the characteristics of lonely drifters who live in despair and selfimposed exile. Philosophically, great thinkers such as F. Nietzsche, H. Bergson, R. Eucken and M. Heidegger at the turn of the century emphasized the impulse of life and the role of man’s willpower. In science, fearless explorers such as A. Einstein, N. Bohr and S. Freud changed the destiny of mankind in the 20th century. In literature, outstanding artists such as Kafka, Eliot and Joyce endeavored to grasp and convey the modern consciousness from their aesthetic experiences. Modern literature has transformed the two essential characteristics of modern consciousness into aesthetic forms with a series of new explorations in artistic practices. The exploration of modernism in art is not an isolated problem of technique; instead, it is closely connected with modern consciousness. Why should symbolism emphasize the pursuit of an internal counterpart? It is not that modernist writers have nothing to say intentionally, but that when confronted with profound, irreconcilable social contradictions, there grew in them mixed emotions beyond words. Was it pain? Was it perplexity? Or despair? It was beyond any of our human languages to articulate it. Therefore, an objective counterpart was delicately depicted as a concrete embodiment of such complex emotions. This is not only the most fundamental difference between symbolism and metaphor in literature, but also the division between the use of stream of consciousness and traditional psychological descriptive techniques. Being part of the entire body of western literature of the 20th century, western modernist literature was practiced by intellectuals who had a keen and painful experience of the internal contradictions of modern society that could not be overcome. Similarly, Chinese modern literature could hardly generalize all types of 20th century Chinese literature. For instance, it has excluded literary works by the Mandarin Duck and Butterfly School and other old-school literature of the 20th century. In the very beginning, it represented a type of radical literature by Chinese intellectuals who were not only deeply concerned about the survival and welfare of the country and its people, but also associated their literary creations with the spirit of the time. Nevertheless, at the outset, Chinese Modern Literature interpreted the term “modern” in a way very different from that of the West. In China, it was when the magazine Modern was first published in the early 1930s that the term “modern” was formally applied as a banner to advertise particular literary views. However, before and after the May 4th New Literature Movement, the word “new” was often applied by Chinese intellectuals as a

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substitute for the word “modern”. To them, the word “new” not only referred to literary thoughts that took shape after the Constitutional Reform Movement of 1898 at the end of the Qing Dynasty, but also reflected their aspirations for new things, such as new literature, new poetry, new fictions and new drama. According to Leo Ou-fan Lee, “since the late Qing Dynasty, the ‘ideology of modern orientation’, as opposed to the traditional ideological orientation of the classical Confucianism, was filled with the ‘new’ content in its connotative and denotative meanings. From the Constitutional Reform Movement in 1898 and Liang Qichao’s thought of the ‘new citizens,’ to the ideas of ‘new youths,’ ‘new culture’ and ‘new literature’ during the May 4th Movement, the word ‘new’ was closely related to all the social and intellectual movements which were aiming to free the country from its traditional shackles to become a modern country.”6 In the eyes of most Chinese intellectuals of that time, the “newness” in the Constitutional Reform Movement of 1898 referred to political, economic and social prosperity and to the rejuvenation of the Chinese nation. Liang Qichao’s idea of “new citizens” in the argument of “the nurturing of ‘new citizens’ starts with new fictions” meant to innovate, or to educate. During the May 4th Movement of 1919, Chen Duxiu founded the magazine New Youth, proposing six rubrics for “the youth of my country” to be “independent rather than slavish, progressive rather than conservative, enterprising rather than retiring, open-minded rather than confined, pragmatic rather than doctrinaire, and scientific rather than utopian.”7 Precisely, these rubrics are not only the ideals and moral standards espoused with the rise of capitalism in the Western world, but also the ideal moral standards of humanism. Subsequently, two inspiring and enlightening slogans, Democracy and Science, were raised with the progress of the New Culture Movement. Democracy stood against political autocracy, whilst science replaced ideological superstition; democracy was the guiding principle of thought, whilst science was the objective method of thought. Under the banner of promoting democracy and science as the guiding beacon of the New Culture Movement, the Chinese New Literature Movement marched forward. Hence, what can be concluded from the above discussions is that in the ideological and cultural movement of the early 20th century in China, the concept of “new” did not equate with that of “modern” in the West. Strictly speaking, 6 Refer to the article entitled “Modernism in Chinese Modern Literature – Study and Com­ parison of Literary History” by Leo Ou-fan Lee in his Reflections on Chinese and Western Literature, p. 24. 7 Refer to “Call to Youth” by Chen Duxiu in Vol. 1, No. 1, The Youth Magazine on September 15, 1915.

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Chinese literature in the 20th century did not substantively possess the essence of Western modernism, nor the trend of modernist literature; it was largely dominated by the perceptions of individual Chinese intellectuals and their imitation of modern Western ideology. What is important in this respect is that the purpose of clarifying the ambiguity of the term “modern” in Chinese and Western literature is not to prove that Chinese intellectuals did not possess a modernist perception of the outside world. There do exist inextricable connections between Chinese new literature and Western modernist literature. The modalities of synchronization and asynchronization in literature are the most conspicuous characteristics of these literary trends throughout the 20th century. Both Chinese and Western modern literature emerged in the late 19th century and flourished in the early 20th century, ascending in the literary world in a distinctive anti-traditional manner. Furthermore, what is important to acknowledge is that Western modernist literature influenced the evolution of Chinese new literature three times in the past century. The first was during the period of the May 4th Movement to the 1930s, the second was in Taiwan and Hong Kong in the 1950s and 1960s, and the third period of influence was in the 1980s after the Cultural Revolution (1966–1976). These three external literary impacts greatly empowered and enriched Chinese literature in its development in a timely manner, providing it with the nutrition of foreign culture and literary ideas. Hence, Chinese literature began to step out of its traditional Confucian literary shadow – expressed as “writings are meant to convey truth and deliver ethics” – and began to march forward with new vitality and impetus. 2

The Influence of Modernism on May 4th New Literature

Apparently, in the early days of the May 4th Movement, the founders of new literature absorbed the nutrition of modernist literature that was pervading the Western literary world. Contrary to some common views, it is not Chinese writers with a realist spirit who absorbed the writing techniques of Western modernism, but rather it was the ideologies embodied in Western modernism that attracted the attention of Chinese writers. First was the impact of modern Western philosophy. What confronted Chinese intellectuals in the early 20th century was, first, the conservative, closed agricultural economy and its superstructure, which suffocated the vitality of young capitalism. This propelled many Chinese intellectuals of the time to regard modern Western antisocial and anti-traditional spiritual forces as their weapon to fight against the political, economic and cultural oppressions occurring in China. This gave rise to a strange phenomenon: at the

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beginning of the 20th century, the biggest influence of Western non-Marxist philosophies on Chinese intellectuals was not that of Aristotle and Plato, nor D. Diderot or Voltaire, nor G. W. Hegel or L. Feuerbach, but rather F. Nietzsche, A. Schopenhauer, H. Bergson, W. James, J. Dewey, R. Eucken, C. Darwin, I. Kant, B. Russell and the like. The theories of these great thinkers, including I. Kant, laid a solid philosophical foundation for the growth of Western modernist literature. For instance, Nietzsche’s individualistic power worship and the superhuman philosophy based on criticism of traditional morality and philistinism, as well as Bergson’s anti-rational intuitionism and life philosophy, had a considerable impact on the formation of the modern consciousness among Chinese intellectuals. This influence also brought modernist elements to China’s new literature. In 1921, when the Chinese magazine People’s Bell (Chinese: Minduo) was introducing Bergson’s philosophy, it presented for the first time the concept of stream of consciousness, which was just emerging in the West.8 In the same year, in the magazine The Eastern Miscellany, Zhu Guangqian introduced comprehensively for the first time the application of Freudian theory in literature. It was during this period that a variety of literary theories, such as subconsciousness, libido, Oedipus complex and sibling love were officially introduced to Chinese readers.9 These literary theories played a positive role in promoting humanism and individuality in new literature and in opposing the ethics of feudalism in it. The modern ideologies, armed with their inherent antisocial, anti-traditional and anti-capitalist characteristics, not only supported Chinese intellectuals’ persistent struggle against feudalism in the early 20th century, but also facilitated their understanding of Western capitalist democracy. An interesting 8 Refer to the article entitled “Bergson’s Theory of Spiritual Ability” by Ke Yicen, in which Ke states, “Bergson argues that consciousness is not so simple. In his opinion, consciousness is not fixed but fluid. He said, ‘Consciousness is such a dear thing that it seems unnecessary to be defined, because it is something that flows through our experience.’ Hence, James refers to it as conscious stream.” This article was published in Vol. 3, No. 1, “Bergson Column” of People’s Bell on December 1, 1921. 9 Refer to the article entitled “Freud’s Theory of Implicit Consciousness and Psychological Analysis” by Zhu Guangqian, which is divided into nine sections: 1. Subconsciousness, 2. Sub­consciousness and the Dream, 3. Subconsciousness and Myth, 4. Subconsciousness and Neuropathy, 5. Subconsciousness and Literature and Religion, 6. Subconsciousness and Edu­ cation, 7. Psychoanalysis, 8. Psychoanalysis and Neurology, and 9. Conclusion. Zhu started the article with the comment “The Freudian theory has been introduced in Chinese journals a couple of times, which was so vague that I am afraid it would not work. Hence, this article is for a recap.” This article was published in Vol. 18, No. 14 of The Eastern Miscellany on July 25, 1921, pp. 41–51. It can be inferred that it was the first comprehensive introduction of the Freudian theory in China.

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phenomenon at the initial developmental stage of Chinese new literature was that the influences of Western literature on Chinese intellectuals studying overseas in the U.K. and the U.S. came mainly from the Enlightenment, rationalism, humanism and, more elegantly, realism. These Chinese intellectuals shared a favorable opinion of capitalist democracy, preferring the study of reason and order and despising the rising modernist philosophy and art. For instance, Mei Guangdi, a renowned opponent of the May 4th New Culture Movement, attacked Hu Shi’s vernacular poems as the remaining spittle of Western modernist literature. Furthermore, Mei dismissed modern ideologies such as pragmatism, as well as modernist schools such as imagism and free verse, as “decadent”.10 Similarly, Hu Shi and other scholars from the Crescent School shared a deep prejudice against modernism, since Hu always denied he was influenced by American Imagism and insisted on using the European Renaissance to analyze the New Literature Movement in the early days of the

10

Refer to the article entitled “On the Advocates of New Culture” by Mei Guangdi, in which he commented: “Speaking of literature, it often refers to the recent Decadent movement, such as impressionism, mysticism and futurism. The so-called vernacular poets are the remaining spittle of verse libre and American imagism in recent years. Free poetry and imagism are also two branches of the Decadent movement, which are advocated by those who are ignorant in poetic creations. This is much too deceitful to the Chinese people.” (This article is in Chinese New Literature Series · Collection of Literary Controversies. edited by Zheng Zhenduo, published by Shanghai Liangyou Book Co. LTD, 1935, p. 129. This article was first published in the first issue of Xueheng in January 1922.) What Mei Guangdi referred to here as the Decadent movement (or, the Decadence School today), in its sense, generally refers to the modernist literature of the early 20th century. What he meant by impressionism is imagism today. Mei had a point in this criticism. In 1915, American imagist poet Amy Lowell proposed six principles in Preface to Some Imagist Poets as follows: “1. To use the language of common speech, but to employ always the exact word, not the nearly-exact, nor the merely decorative word. 2. To create new rhythms – as the expression of new moods – and not to copy old rhythms, which merely echo old moods. We do not insist on “free-verse” as the only method of writing poetry. We fight for it as for a principle of liberty. We believe that the individuality of a poet may often be better expressed in free-verse than in conventional forms. In poetry, a new cadence means a new idea. 3. To allow absolute freedom in the choice of subject. 4. To present an image (hence the name: “Imagist”). We are not a school of painters, but we believe that poetry should render particulars exactly and not deal in vague generalities, however magnificent and sonorous. 5. To produce poetry that is hard and clear, never blurred nor indefinite. 6. Finally, most of us believe that concentration is of the very essence of poetry.” (These six principles refer to Diary of Hu Shi Studying Abroad [4 volumes], Vol. 4, Shanghai Commercial Press, 1947, pp. 1071–1073.) The idea that the basics of these six principles of imagism were similar to the core of Hu Shi’s “Eight Don’ts Doctrine” was held by later scholars such as Liang Shiqiu, Zhu Ziqing and Liu Yanling, although there were more recent scholars, like Bian Zhilin, who disagreed.

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May 4th Movement.11 By contrast, those who studied overseas in Japan and France remained generally more disposed toward modernism. This is because the turbulent life abroad had fostered in them a mindset of “double disappointment” in both the domestic feudal tradition and Western capitalism. This mentality was evident in Lu Xun and Zhou Zuoren, and even more so among members of the Creation Society. Some scholars of the history of modern literature often felt confused about the radical actions of members of the Creation Society, who rhapsodized over romanticism, aestheticism and many other types of modernism before they switched overnight to preaching revolutionary literature with the outbreak of the First Revolutionary Civil War in the 1920s. A further exploration into the cultural background of the modern world reveals that this literary phenomenon is not irrational, since the modernist ideology was endowed with an anti-capitalist tendency, which had an inherent connection with the Marxist viewpoints during the May 4th Movement. This is also in line with a similar phenomenon that the political attitudes of Western modernist writers were generally more radical than those of critical realist writers. Anti-tradition in philosophy is inevitably reflected in anti-tradition in literature. Hu Shi’s “Eight Don’ts Doctrine” is obviously not confined within the realm of the reform of literary styles. In recent years, many overseas scholars have published research on the relationship between Hu’s “Eight Don’ts Doctrine” and the “Six Principles ” of Imagism,12 which indicates convincingly 11

12

Among the Crescent scholars, Liang Shiqiu was the most conservative, who believed in Irving Babbitt’s American New Humanism and tended to the classical taste in art. Wen Yiduo and Xu Zhimo tended to romanticism in their works, although they were somewhat influenced by Western modern art. Theoretically, Hu Shi opposed modernism and advocated realism, who did not admit that the “Eight Don’ts Doctrine” was influenced by Imagist poetry. In his diary in late December in 1916 in Diary of Hu Shi Studying Abroad, Hu recorded the six tenets of the Imagist Manifesto published in the New York Times (refer to the previous annotation.) Hu further noted, “These propositions have much in common with what I advocate.” (Refer to Diary of Hu Shi Studying Abroad [4 volumes], Vol. 4, Shanghai Commercial Press, 1947, pp. 1071–1073: “20: Six Principles of Imagism”. This edition of Diary of Hu Shi Studying Abroad has been reproduced by Shanghai Scientific and Technical Literature Publishing House in 2014.) In his “Be Driven to Revolt”, Hu articulated that his collection of vernacular poetry, Experiment, was only influenced by experimentalism. (Refer to Hu Shi’s “Be Driven to Revolt” published in Vol. 31, No. 1 of The Eastern Miscellany [the 30th Anniversary Issue] on January 1, 1934, p. 28). In his article entitled “On Constructive Literary Revolution”, Hu again discussed the Vernacular Movement in China together with the Italian and English Renaissance movements. Although Hu Shi himself did not admit it, many overseas scholars have done detailed textual research and discussions on the relationship between the two. Scholars such as Achilles Fang, Zhou Cezong, C. T. Hsia and others have reached positive conclusions. I

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that the new literature revolution in China at the turn of the 20th century was inspired by modernist literature from the very beginning. In addition to imagism, other as the sources of Western modernist literature, such as symbolism and aestheticism, also influenced the development of China’s New Literature Movement, along with more recent literary schools, like mysticism, expressionism and futurism. In the magazine New Youth, the literary works of O. Wilde, L. Andreyev, A. Strindberg and F. Dostoevsky were published in parallel to those of L. Tolstoy, I. Turgenev and H. Ibsen. In the early 1920s, Chinese writers’ enthusiasm for M. Maeterlinck, G. Hauptmann, A. Blok and C. Baudelaire was no less than their enthusiasm for E. Zola, Honoré de Balzac and G. Flaubert. Apparently, this was not just a narrow interest in the writing techniques of modernism, since the Chinese writers of that time were curious about all Western literary styles. More to the point, though, it is because these bodies of modernist literature reflect the consciousness of modern society that Chinese writers of the 1920s became enamored with contemporary Western literature. For instance, when Zhou Zuoren was introducing Baudelaire, he initially emphasized Baudelaire’s works focusing on the “true experience of disillusionment, which was sufficient to represent the changed mindset of modern people.”13 Furthermore, the first introduction of Maeterlinck, namely the translation and interpretation of his philosophical treatise, “On Death”, was not about his plays but rather his concepts of life and death.14 The other publication on Maeterlinck, by Yi Jiayue, entitled “Poet Maeterlinck”, also focused on Maeterlinck’s mysticism and fatalism.15 In terms of understanding modern consciousness, among Chinese writers during the May 4th New Literature Movement, Shen Yanbing produced the

13 14 15

mainly referred to Wang Runhua’s research entitled “The Origin of Chinese New Poetry Revolution from the Connotation of ‘New Trend’”, which is included in Wang Runhua’s Research on the Connection between Chinese and Western Literature published by Taipei Dongda Book Co. LTD, 1978, pp. 227–245. Wang believed that the reason why Hu Shi did not admit being influenced by Imagist poetry was that the latter, as a new school of poetry at that time, had not been accepted by the traditional forces in the world of literature. If introduced rashly, it may affect the recognition of vernacular literature by conservatives in general in China. Refer to the Translator’s Quote of Zhou Zuoren, who translated six poems in Baudelaire’s Short Prose Poem. This Translator’s Quote was published in the Supplement of Morning News on November 20, 1921. Refer to the article entitled “Maeterlinck’s Outlook on Life”, published in Journal of Tsinghua University and later published in the column “Domestic and Foreign Times” in Vol. 15, No. 5 of The Eastern Miscellany in May 1918, pp. 166–171. Refer to the article entitled “Poet Maeterlinck” by Yi Jiayue, published in Vol. 1, No. 10 of The Young China on April 15, 1920.

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most works. Although Shen later became known as a proponent of realism, in the early days of the May 4th New Literature Movement, he was a passionate advocate of modernist literature and a strong opponent of naturalist literature. In 1921, Shen published in the magazine Reformation his research on the relationship between the new literature and modernist thought, in which he claimed that “new thought should be the source of new literature, whilst new literature should promote new thought. An overview of China’s publishing industry demonstrates that the development of new literature has lagged behind that of new thought; in other words, the majority of the literature introduced in recent years can be regarded as ‘new’ merely within China; it is not new literature in the context of the evolution of literature worldwide.” He continues that “… for those who are now advocating new thought in the country, they would surely not promote materialists’ view of the omnipotence of science in China. Therefore, they endeavor to promote non-naturalistic literature, that is neo-romanticism, to ensure that the development of new literature will be consistent with this tendency.”16 What is apparent in Shen’s stance is that the new thought supporting the May 4th New Literature Movement belongs to the modern consciousness of the 20th century; the reflection of this modern consciousness in literature can only be literary works promoting modernism, which was then referred to as neo-romantic literature. Since works of realist literature (the naturalistic literature of the time) had already become obsolete, it would not be popularized in the country, otherwise, the new literature and new thought would be incongruent. Though such a view may not be necessarily correct, it is important for today’s researchers of literature to understand the role and influence of Western modernist literature in the evolution of China’s new literature. Apparently, Chinese writers of that period were influenced by a kind of literary evolution, as they had learned from foreign works of literary history that since the Renaissance, Western Europe had experienced the rise of classicism, romanticism and realism (here realism also refers to naturalism, terms which were used interchangeably). However, modernism (the neo-romantic literature at that time was mainly referred to as symbolism, aestheticism, mysticism and the like) was a newer and higher literary stage that replaced realism. Hence, regarding it as a literature that can reveal the meaning of life more profoundly than romanticism or realism, these Chinese writers turned enthusiastically to modernism and modernist literature, applying it not as a genre of world literature, but as the highest stage and inevitable trend in China’s evolving literary development. They also asserted that “the literature 16

Refer to the article entitled “For New Literature Researchers: A Solution” by Shen Yanbing, published in Vol. 3, No. 1 of Reformation (Shanghai 1919) on September 15, 1920, pp. 99–100.

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that can promote new thought should be neo-romantic literature other than naturalistic literature, the one that can guide us to the correct outlook of life. This means neo-romanticism will lead the New Literature Movement.”17 Therefore at their inception, both the Literature Research Association and the Creation Society regarded modernist literature as the ultimate goal of literary development. Modernist literature also had a profound impact on smaller literary communities such as the Chenzhong Society, Qiancao Society and Kuangbiao Society. The modern consciousness of the 20th century not only brought a breath of fresh air to the Chinese literary world in terms of literary concepts and theories, but it also directly promoted literary creations in the New Literature Movement in the 1920s. The light of modern consciousness sparkles in the symbolism revealed in Lu Xun’s “A Madman’s Diary” and his poetry anthology Wild Grass inspired by the prose poems of Baudelaire, in the symbolic spirit of the pantheism and the Oriental philosophy in Guo Moruo’s The Goddess, in the self-exposure of sexuality by Yu Dafu, and in “The Creek” by Zhou Zuoren as a metaphor for the singing of life. A depth of thought is manifested in these literary works that can hardly be achieved through traditional romanticism and critical realism. These great works still have a strong emotional appeal when read and appreciated today. Let’s take Lu Xun’s masterpiece, “The True Story of Ah Q”, as an example. “The True Story of Ah Q” is undoubtedly the most ethnically characteristic among many contemporary Chinese literary works. While it was not uncommon to read in literary creations of the time a variety of works that expose and portray the weakness of the Chinese national character, why is it “The True Story of Ah Q” that has generated such a unique profound artistic effect and touching power? One of the most significant factors, in my opinion, is that in Lu’s writing, the imagery of Ah Q has transcended a tangible form of reality. Lu portrays Ah Q’s character, as well as the social dynamics surrounding him and the outside world from a philosophical perspective, tinting this literary imagery with a sense of absurdity. Such literary effect of absurdity is reflected in each of Ah Q’s failed attempts at proving his own competence and his own values to others, which constitute a series of laughable tragedies of a destitute underdog’s self-adoration, as well as his miserable social status. What Lu intends to reveal is the indifference, estrangement, loneliness and 17

Refer to the article entitled “For New Literature Researchers: A Solution” by Shen Yanbing, p. 102. His articles of the same type include “The Drama of Representativism” published in The China Times Supplement · Xue-deng on January 5–7, 1920 and “Can We Now Promote Representativist Literature?” published in Vol. 11, No. 2 of Short Story Monthly on February 25, 1920. To read these articles in contrast with Shen’s articles advocating realism written in the second half of 1921, it seems as if they were written by two differing authors.

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incomprehension that exist between individuals. This writing technique is precisely one of the most important characteristics of modernism, which reminds readers of the philosophy of existentialism born in Europe more than a decade later, particularly in A. Camus’ theory of absurdity and his masterpiece, The Outsider. What can be seen from the early literary works of the May 4th New Literature Movement is a rich legacy of modernism passed on by Chinese pioneer writers, proving that China’s new literature has enjoyed an eclectic and inclusive tradition from its very beginning. 3

The Historical Fate of Modernism in China

Though the modernist influence has continued on and off in China’s new literary history, it did not last long nor did it have a substantial or tangible impact. The 1920s witnessed the waning of modernism as well as the rise and consolidation of humanitarianism and realist literature. By the 1930s, the left-wing literary trend had clearly boomed. From the perspective of the development of literature worldwide, the evolution of Chinese and modern foreign literature during this period remained synchronous. Both Western Europe and Japan experienced the transition from modernist literature to the “Red 1930s.” However, the gradual decline of modernism in the history of China’s New Literature Movement can be attributed not only to the country’s economic backwardness and other political, social and foreign influences, but also to the differences between Eastern and Western culture. That is to say, there existed not only mutual influences in the synchronous development of modern literature in China and in other countries, but also a non-negligible phenomenon of cultural inversion, which restricted the development of China’s new literature. Before the 20th century, the differences between how Eastern and Western culture view the universe are obvious. Western culture, which began in ancient Greece, was largely biased toward the notion of the ego and the non-ego, emphasizing the interpretation of all phenomena in the outer world based on the ego. Western philosophers endeavored to propose various concepts, propositions and forms of artificial order to classify the objective world, which is revealed in Plato’s “idea” as well as in Aristotle’s “universal logical structure.” In the West, philosophy, science and literature are based on the faith in human strength. Western intellectuals have always held the conviction that man can dominate and exhaust the universe. This belief has not only inspired brave explorations in science, but also nurtured the prosperity of individualism, humanism,

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humanitarianism, enlightenment, romanticism and critical realism. However, the advent of new discoveries in modern physics in the 20th century has shaken the foundation of Western humanistic traditions. Man is far from confident in exhausting the entire universe. In science, doubts started to arise about classical physics, as Einstein wrote in his autobiography “… When I tried to fit the foundation of physics to this knowledge, I failed completely.” Bohr also referred to this aspect: “The great expansion of our experience in recent years has revealed the inadequacies of our simplistic conception of mechanistic approaches, which has shaken the foundation of our habitual interpretation of observations.”18 This sense of loss occurred not only in the natural sciences, but also in the humanities; the superstition of regarding man as “god” in the era of humanism was shattered. What other patterns can man use to regulate this ever-changing objective world? Psychologist William James commented that the “real world presented objectively at this moment is the sum of all things and events at the moment; but can we imagine such a sum? Can we experience the whole of existence at any particular time? As I speak now, a fly is passing, a seagull is catching a fish at the mouth of the Amazon, a tree falling in the Andalusian wasteland, a man is sneezing in France, a horse is dying in Tartary, and a pair of twins are being born in France. What do they mean to us? These events, along with thousands of other events, occur concurrently without any interconnections…. However, the fact is, this ‘parallel simultaneity’ is the real order of the world. We have no idea what to do with this order and, hence, try to distance ourselves from it.”19 What can be discerned from this quote is the cheerless origin of Western modernism. It is from such an ingrained sense of despair and pessimism about Western man’s own culture that sprouts skepticism, mysticism, decadence and stream of consciousness in Western culture. Obviously, James had not yet shaken off the limitations of the Western cultural tradition. He was endeavoring to make a clear and quantitative analysis of the world. However, when confronted with such a “paralleling simultaneity” of the world order, his traditional conception of space and time seemed so helpless that he could only “distance himself from it.” There were also braver explorers who were making greater efforts to understand this brandnew world order. They noticed the possibility of transcending their limitations through studying Oriental culture, in which ancient philosophers, who naturally lacked the ability to think scientifically, did not intend to pursue a strict 18 19

Quoted from Modern Physics and Eastern Mysticism compiled by Guangeng, published by Sichuan People’s Publishing House, 1983, p. 40. Quoted from The Drink of Peace by Wailim Yip (with minor revisions), published by Taipei Times Culture Publishing Co, 1980, p. 240.

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deductive reasoning system, nor did they abstract the human factor from the whole universe. Instead, they searched for unity within the diversity of society. In terms of the ethics of man, these Oriental intellectuals emphasized the cooperation between man and society; in terms of nature, they emphasized the Taoist “speechless” aesthetic artistic conception; in terms of the mysteries of the universe, they emphasized the philosophy of “the unity of Heaven and man,” which means to break down artificial obstacles in order for the whole mind and body to assimilate with man’s natural surroundings and to conform to universal laws. Despite that Oriental culture and wisdom lack the spirit of scientific explorations, which presents a weakness in the field of natural sciences, they pave the way for the development of natural sciences at a higher level of philosophy. This has produced an unexpected effect when Western scientific approaches of thinking are exposed to the Oriental philosophy. There have been in-depth discussions on the relationship between modern physics and Oriental mysticism, indicating strongly that there exist some organic connections between the emergence of modernism and the enthusiasm for Orientalism in philosophy. Within this cultural context, an integration of Eastern and Western elements in literature emerged. One of the conspicuous features of Western modernist literature is the innovation of its traditional literary language. Many Western writers believed that a language so logical could not convey clearly or accurately in words descriptions of the objective world. Before the rise of imagism, there were disputes in the West about the traditional expression of literature. For instance, both D. Hume and S. Mallarmé made efforts to innovate in grammar; however, only when these efforts in language innovation were imbued with Oriental cultural sensibility did the expression of the literary language take a great leap. Imagists A. Lowell and E. Pound were enthusiasts of Chinese literature and Japanese literature, who tirelessly studied and translated classical Chinese poems and Japanese haiku and adopted them as a source of imagery.20 Such references were not unreasonable, because the square font of ancient Chinese characters contained pictographic significance. In ancient Chinese poems, there is almost no logic; few words are used, while only imageries are highlighted between the lines without the need for additional verbal interpretations or artistic conceptions. Moreover, many Oriental classical poems rarely apply tenses, which enables the language of poetry to free itself from artificial limitations of time and space and to present the objective world in a relatively complete manner. Simply put, this kind of Oriental aesthetic peculiarity is 20

Refer to Amy Lowell and the East by Katz in Anthology of Comparative Literature Translation edited by Zhang Longxi, published by Peking University Press, 1982, pp. 178–203.

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exactly what Western modern poets had long pursued. In this respect, it is easy to understand why poets such as Pound, Lowell, Eliot and Joyce were so dedicated to the innovation and refinement of literary language. It is not possible for Westerners to discard completely their own cultural background and to acquire the full holistic spirit and essence of Oriental culture. Hence, the language of modernist literature, marked by its distinctive anti-rational and anti-traditional character, often gives readers an impression of fragmentation. Nonetheless, these writers’ persistent efforts have facilitated a profound change in the West’s literary tradition, bringing it one step closer to the Oriental language tradition. Similarly, during this time period there arose cultural rebellions in the East. One of the main results of China’s May 4th New Culture Movement in the early 20th century is that the Chinese learned about the empirical spirit and rationalism of the West. Democracy and science, which were vigorously advocated by the founders of this movement, aim to give a new meaning to life  – politically by means of a democratic spirit and academically through scientific explorations. Correspondingly, humanism, enlightenment, romanticism and realism, which are deeply rooted in Western cultural tradition, started to prevail in the Chinese literary world in the 20th century. Even the vernacular language style that these Chinese literary pioneers promoted during the May 4th New Literature Movement was, to a considerable extent, based on the West’s logic-based language system. This trait was most typical in Hu Shi’s works. In the methodology of thinking, Hu advocated the application of scientific thinking, an experimental spirit and empirical methods to re-examine traditional Chinese culture. In literature, he ardently advocated realism and individualism, but never acknowledged his connection with modernism and modernist literature. Furthermore, he translated and introduced enthusiastically not only the literary works of A. Daudet, Guy de Maupassant and A. Chekhov, but also Ibsen’s social dramas. In his analysis of language, Hu criticized the weakness of ancient Chinese language for its empirical inexactness and unscientific ineptness, promoting the use of more vernacular expressions in writing and thereby Europeanizing Chinese grammar. Hu Shi’s academic activities clearly demonstrated the direction of the entire academic inquiry in China during the period, which was to abandon Chinese cultural traditions, whilst absorbing Western cultural traditions. Hence, when confronted with the rise of the Western anti-traditional modernism, Hu could not help but feel perplexed; in other words, other than its anti-traditional attitude and disposition, Hu was rather reluctant to acknowledge its specific anti-traditional content, as well as its aesthetic spirit.

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Therefore, in the beginning of the 20th century, Eastern and Western culture were in robust communication, as both were abandoning their respective traditions whilst craving those abandoned by the other. Such cultural inversion is unprecedented in history. Chinese intellectuals acquired the scientific spirit and rationalism of the West, which guided them as they struggled to free themselves from the metaphysical void of the traditional culture and to achieve nirvana in the ruins of old culture, while searching for a brand-new life. In the meantime, Western intellectuals approached Oriental mysticism and the concepts of “harmony between man and nature,” which is the quintessence of the oneness in Confucius’ teachings. This enabled them to overcome the limitations of the traditional culture and to advocate the advancement of modern science. It was of the utmost importance for Chinese intellectuals to undergo the baptism of the Western science and culture, a process that allowed them to re-examine ancient Chinese traditions through the lens of the modern age so as to inspire them with new life. Due to the cultural inversion between the East and the West and the influence of Western traditional culture following the May 4th New Culture Movement, Western modernist literature, which had developed concurrently and reflected the modern consciousness of the time, was warmly welcomed and introduced by Chinese writers in the early 20th century. However, it failed to ground itself in Chinese soil, rendering its survival and sustenance in China short-lived. Furthermore, since the majority of Chinese writers during the May 4th New Culture Movement unilaterally followed traditional Western culture at the expense of their own, even when they were empowered by the modern consciousness of the Western world, it remained difficult for them to integrate it organically into their own literary creations. This is because the maturity and success of any literary creation is rooted solidly in its own cultural heritage; otherwise, it is nothing more than a poor mechanical imitation. This has been verified in the early literary works of the May 4th New Literature Movement. It is not difficult to imagine that without a thorough understanding of Chinese culture and history, Lu Xun could not have written such great works as “A Madman’s Diary” and “The True Story of Ah Q”. Similarly, without an exquisite understanding of Confucian and Taoist culture, as well as the ancient Indian philosophical classics Upanishads, Guo Moruo could not have written The Goddess. There were few Chinese writers like Lu Xun, Guo Moruo and Yu Dafu during the May 4th New Culture Movement who could not only grasp the ideological quintessence of the modern world from a holistic perspective, but could also inherit scientifically the country’s cultural tradition. What is revealed in their conspicuous literary creations is that an integration

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of modern consciousness and national culture in the advancement of China’s new literature is possible – an indelible sign of the maturation of Chinese literature in a new era. 4

Prospects of Integrating Modern Consciousness and Chinese National Culture

The decline of modernist elements in the May 4th New Literature Movement in Chinese literary history reveals that the maturation process of any foreign literary ideology requires its interaction and integration with China’s national culture. This law of literature has been gradually recognized, explored and practiced since the 1930s and 1940s. However, due to artificial barriers, the possibility of integrating modern consciousness and China’s national culture did not occur until recent years with the advancement of Chinese literature. An overview of Chinese literature since the late 1970s presents firstly a brief wave of the Scar Literature, which intends to restore the traditional status of realism. With the great changes in Chinese social life and the people’s increasing complexity of understanding modern life, modernism once again made an impact on Chinese literature. In recent years, it has also brought new changes to fiction, poems, plays, movies, paintings, music and other literary styles, and has begun to exert quiet but penetrating influences on literary theories and literary concepts. Western modernist literature was warmly translated and introduced to Chinese readers, then welcomed and subsequently imitated and cited by Chinese writers in their literary creations. What might happen next? History would not repeat the early mistakes during the May 4th Movement. However, could the integration of modern consciousness and Chinese national culture become the prospect of contemporary literary creations? Personally, I believe this is quite possible. Modern consciousness is not a fixed concept; instead, it refers to the latest level of people’s understanding of the world based on the progress of science and technology in modern society since the 20th century. This generally reflects the latest information about people’s mentality in modern life. Throughout different historical periods, the specific connotation of modern consciousness has been characterized by distinctive features. From the perspective of the developmental trend in modern literature worldwide, modernist literature entered a period of exhaustion before and after World War II, despite the fact that it has become more extensive since that time. When it was introduced abroad, it became interbred with the literary traditions of various foreign countries. In the United States, its convergence with Indians’ culture contributed to the rise of American

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southern literature and Jewish literature. In Latin America, its convergence with the local culture has increased the popularity of magic realism. In Japan, its convergence with Oriental culture shaped the literary master, Kawabata Yasunari, as well as his beautiful literary works. The integration and exchanges of Eastern and Western cultures have generated new cultural elements in their dialogues and interactions, which have become the mainstream of the development of modern literature around the world. Since it has abandoned a variety of artificial barriers and restored its communication with the world’s other bodies of literature, once again China’s new literature is confronted with a new phase of synchronization with world literature. In this phase, the synchronic impact may be more powerful than the diachronic impact regarding its effect on the direction of the future of Chinese literature. In this mature objective condition, contemporary Chinese literature can advance toward greater convergence with contemporary world literature. Secondly, the uniqueness of the Oriental culture accumulated over thousands of years by the Chinese nation is the most essential restriction on its intellectuals in any historical period. It is important to review the relationship between modern literature and the traditional national culture during the 20th century. At the beginning of the May 4th New Culture Movement, the radical founders of new literature decisively cut off their cultural umbilical cords tying them to the traditional national culture in the hope of reconstructing and revitalizing Chinese culture and literature. Their thorough denial of the traditional national culture was an attempt to attain and save cultural and literary nirvana from its ruins. However, even their complete denial and criticism of their cultural roots could hardly obscure these ardent patriotic intellectuals’ strong sense of mission in revitalizing Chinese national culture, which became the rubric when they were unconsciously absorbing Western culture. Since the 1930s, with the outbreak of the War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression (1937– 1945), the spirit of nationalism revived again. Furthermore, the vast majority of Chinese people plunged themselves into the reconstruction of the country’s political culture, through which they demonstrated from their native aesthetic values that there existed healthy, positive and vigorous elements in the traditional national culture. Since this period, more attention has been paid to the Chinese national culture by modern writers, who realized that a new solution from one of the segments of the national culture, namely folk culture and art, is essential for the sustainable development of the country’s evolving literature. These writers attempted to create a new literary form of the “national style” by combining the modern consciousness acquired from the West with the folk art of the traditional national culture. Historically, however, this strategy proved unsuccessful, since these writers not only unreasonably and

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unilaterally advocated the folk styles, but in the meantime arbitrarily excluded other reasonable elements borrowed from the Western culture. Their practice of using one formalism to reject another type of formalism has affected the contemporary Chinese literary world for 20 to 30 years. After a decade of the Cultural Revolution (1966–1976), the biased understanding of both Chinese national culture and Western culture has aroused serious public reflection. All literary achievements are rooted in China’s traditional culture; the criticism of the old culture and the absorption of foreign culture during the May 4th New Culture Movement, along with the excavation, exploration and promotion of folk culture in the 1940s and the dissemination of modern consciousness and modern information in recent years, have provided a higher benchmark for those who rethink China’s national culture at a deeper level. Evidently there are more important signs than these external elements. In the literary works of recent years, a literary convergence has emerged; it has not yet, however, attracted sufficient attention from writers and critics. What can be seen from the progress of modernist elements in recent years are two developments of literary convergence. The first is based on the following theoretical underpinning: it encourages the open spirit of realism, allowing for the diversity of artistic expression methods, including the presentation techniques of modernism. However, there exists a paradox in this literary theory. This is because, as an ideological trend of literary creation, neither realism nor modernism could separate the way it perceives the world from the way it expresses such perceptions. Without defining the boundary itself, realism could hardly become an “ism”. If there were unlimited diversifications in realism, it would mean that its established boundaries had been removed and “realism” would become an empty concept. Similarly, the consciousness and technique of modernism also constitute an organic entity. If the introduction of the presentation techniques of modernism is restrained by the spirit of realism, the soundness of the development of modernist art could be rather questionable. Nevertheless, this literary theory is indispensable; during a time when the art of modernism has not yet been fully recognized, appreciated and accepted, this theory has at least opened a narrow but resilient door for the introduction of modernism. The second development is, since 1979, the literary creations that correspond to this literary theory have gradually manifested a new aesthetic characteristic, namely, a scrambled spatiotemporal sequence was applied for the narration of a fairly complete story. This means they not only endeavored to explore the depths of consciousness, but also to create typical personalities in literary works. Despite these distinct aspects, the themes of these works have not yet transcended the impact of rationalism which matured in the Chinese literary world in the 1950s, and the incongruity between consciousness and its presentation techniques remains visible.

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All these literary works and theories have taken on a transitional responsibility, which is, by means of traditional consciousness, they make contributions to the maintenance of the aesthetic appeal of realism, whose status has been newly restored. In the meantime, they quietly convey new literary messages to readers through a relatively new and meaningful style of writing. While these literary creations have not yet generated much of the merits of modernist art, and they have not yet eliminated the traces of imitation regarding writing techniques in Western modernist literature, they are, after all, the product of arduous efforts, paving the way for a smoother and more mature development of modernism. After such a brief transitional period, a new pursuit has emerged in the creation of modernist literature: it embodies the unity of modern consciousness and its presentation techniques and the unity of modern consciousness and its national culture, which makes these literary works no longer piecemeal. The general symbolism of the theme and the in-depth exploration of the deeper psychological nature of the characters have eliminated the need for technical gadgets in writing, such as the artificial reversal of time and space in narration and the use of stream of consciousness for its own sake. For instance, in “The Motley Colors”, Wang Meng expressed such an aesthetic conception: a weather-beaten middle-aged man leisurely riding an old motley horse on the prairie. Without any tangible story or plot, what is portrayed in this novella is one person’s monologue and wandering, which depict an overwhelming sense of depression, loneliness and persistent pursuit caused by the catastrophic ten-year Cultural Revolution. Unlike the Scar Literature, which focuses on the disclosure of certain specific social problems, and other exploratory fictions by Wang, which represent the historical lived experiences of a certain group of people, “The Motley Colors” describes the struggle and pursuit of a somewhat perverted soul in a perverted society. Superficially, it has transcended and detached reality and its time; however, it grasps the essence of reality at a higher level. A theme that is difficult to express through traditional writing techniques can turn out to be more manageable in writing through the cross application of the monologue and wandering. Like modern writers such as Joyce, Eliot and W. Faulkner, who drew on ancient Greek myths and Christian culture in a quest for a more appropriate form of modern consciousness, there was also a cohort of young writers in the Chinese literary world who, other than pursuing pure abstractions, resorted to writing based on a deeper level of Chinese national culture when they were exploring the manifestation of modern consciousness. The literary works of these emerging writers, such as Zhang Chengzhi, Zhong A-cheng, Jia Pingwa, Li Hangyu and Zhang Xinxin, have reflected, to a varying extent, such a tendency. Rather than flaunting a set of discourses familiar to intellectuals, they earnestly

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explored the living customs and habits of ordinary people who struggle at the bottom of society. Rather than following the kaleidoscopic forms of expression in today’s modern Western literature, these writers presented the changing themes and concepts of life in modern society through a plain but ethnically rich language which embodies a unique national flavor. Such new techniques in literary creations deserve full attention from literary critics. Perhaps, it is time for modernism to melt away; but this does not mean annihilation or disappearance. In the future, it may become difficult to discover new literary works of Western modernism, such as pure symbolism, streamof-consciousness and absurdism; though it is possible that the charm of these modernist elements can be read in some of the most ethnic pieces. In this sense, in literature, melting means eternity. The two literary coordinates in the new period constituted by an everevolving modern consciousness and the relatively stable national culture, unfold before today’s writers the vastness of the literature realm. Only through sustainable development and renewal can literature ascend to the forefront of our era with its exuberant vitality. Yet, only through its relative stability can literature realize its aesthetic impact and present the unique beauty and charm of Oriental culture and art. Both of these aspects are indispensable. If we conclude that with the initial impact of modernism on Chinese literature during the May 4th New Literature Movement, the writing experience of Chinese writers such as Lu Xun and Guo Moruo, who integrated the developing modern consciousness and the relatively stable national culture in their literary creations to produce artistic masterpieces, was preliminary, then the subsequent conscious modernist creations and theoretical explorations emerging in the new situation created by the second impact of modernism on Chinese literature in the 1980s were logically inevitable. Such conscious creations and theoretical explorations, to some extent, represent an omen and a direction for the prospect of Chinese literature to realize a new significance in the future.

Chapter 3

Consciousness of Confession in the Development of China’s New Literature 1

The Evolution of Consciousness of Confession in Western Literature

In China’s cultural tradition, the consciousness of confession has not been strong. The Chinese saying, “As Heaven maintains vigor through movement, a gentleman should constantly strive for self-perfection” has manifested the outlook on life among Chinese intellectuals. Due to their moral needs, these intellectuals were also prone to the idea of introspection based on the Confucian teaching of “Practicing introspections three times a day.” However, different fundamentally from confession, introspection refers to a mode of thinking based on non-punitive self-examination. Introspection is the reexamination and recrimination of one’s past behaviors, which requires a strong sense of rationalism. The person doing the introspection is thus always confident of his own strength to do the right thing, and his acknowledgement of error proves his confidence in himself. Such a mentality of applying rationalism to regulate one’s own behavior and to balance inner emotions has long been a fixed ideology among Chinese intellectuals. Contrarily, confession is a full recognition and acknowledgement of the errors and even the sins of the past, often containing strong emotional factors. Since what a confessant is confronted with is an irreparable error, his confession is oftentimes accompanied by the emotional torment and the inner torture of the soul. Unlike introspection, that would sometimes seek objective reasons for the error, confession emphasizes the confessant’s helpless acceptance of the stubbornness and disobedience of his own misdeeds; hence, it is more of a subjective self-condemnation. However, this does not mean that in Chinese cultural tradition there is no such consciousness in exploring human nature from a metaphysical point of view. Xuncius’ theory of evil human nature is precisely the source of such consciousness. The problem is, in China’s traditional culture oriented toward ethics and morality, Xuncius’ thoughts have not yet gained much academic resonance. This may be because Chinese intellectuals were concerned more about social politics and social morality. Although such concern was conductive to the dominance of the latter in the cultural development of the time, in turn, it limited these intellectuals’ self-recognition. In ancient society, Chinese

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intellectuals appreciated the self-cultivation of their moral characters; introspection was one of the many means by which they conveyed this important trait. As for errors, they believed they were a good thing as long as the person grew conscious of them. The Confucian teaching, “One should be delighted to hear criticism,” has been so ingrained in these Chinese intellectuals that there is no need to mourn over errors; what’s more, the strong social presence could also be blamed. Though there was introspection by Zhang Shen in Yuan Zhen’s Biography of Yingying (Chinese: Yingying Zhuan), Zhang’s excuse that “virtues of gentlemen are not insufficient in overcoming the female peril” seems to extenuate his heartlessness. Though his sincere emotions were fully expressed in the poem Phoenix Hairpin (Chinese: Chai tou feng), Lu You used the excuse of the “evil east wind was to blame” to understate his guilt as the cause of a love tragedy. This is the psychological disposition of Chinese literati: the lack of self-consciousness is not only manifested in the lack of self-affirmation, but also in the lack of self-denial. Furthermore, this does not mean either that there is no profound religious consciousness or religious feeling ingrained in Chinese cultural tradition. Since the Wei and Jin dynasties, the gradual introduction of Indian Buddhism has played a significant role in the evolution of China’s cultural development. The term “confession” probably originated from Sanskrit.1 In China, however, these Sanskrit terms were gradually localized, just as the imported Indian Buddhism gradually penetrated into the daily life of Chinese intellectuals. Buddhist meditation has become a mediator of the life of the world, and Buddhist temples have become a sanctuary of spiritual escape from reality. The religious consciousness in Chinese classical novels has not always served as a philosophical view of life, but rather as a moral power, or as a spiritual consolation for the frustrated in the cruelty of life. Whether or not one is a mass murderer or a profligate in love affairs, as long as he follows Buddhist teaching to become a monk, all his evil thoughts would be erased and he would regain tranquility and peace in heart and soul. Such a religious mentality differs from that of Christians in the West. Though Christians possess as well the hope of salvation in the afterlife, they must confront themselves first in the present world; wholeheartedly, they suffer and repent to purify themselves in confession. Therefore, the consciousness of confession in the development of China’s New Literature has its origin in Western culture and religion; furthermore, it is closely related to the consciousness of confession within the different developmental stages of Western culture. Only after an overview of the evolution 1 Refer to the entry of “Confession” in Source of Words. An article in which a statement with intention of repentance is called a confession.

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of the consciousness of confession in the development of Western culture is it possible to establish a complete referential system for research on this subject. In Europe, the consciousness of confession comes from Christian culture. The Old Testament in The Bible is precisely a covenant between God and humans; no matter what the content is, the covenant itself illustrates the grace and caress of God to humankind. This means that man is not equal to other creations of God, and he deserves his own value. Nevertheless, such a value has to be realized through man’s obedience to God, and human nature must be illuminated by the light of the divine. Therefore, this contradiction constitutes the origin of the consciousness of confession. The Confessions of religious scholar and philosopher Saint Augustine can be well regarded as a masterpiece of this historical period. Due to the ignorance and anti-scientific nature of Christian culture, although it produced the consciousness of confession, it suffocated the latent but more profound content of such mentality and consciousness. Only when European humanism had thoroughly criticized and repudiated the anti-humanity of religion, did the acknowledgement of man’s own value reach a new stage. However, in order to affirm mankind’s greatness, humanism has gone from a blind exaggeration of human nature to blind optimism in it. During this period, expressing the consciousness of confession was no longer a way of affirming the self through the praise of God; instead, it was in the name of the affirmation and catharsis of human nature. Although JeanJacques Rousseau entitled his autobiography Les Confessions (English: The Confessions), he denied essentially the exact meaning of the term “confession” by candidly regarding his weakness as a pleasure or a means of showing his undaunted courage. Therefore, when Rousseau was defending the debauchery of his female patron, Madame de Warens, he even thought that her indulgence was not erotic; hence, even her sleeping with 20 men a day could be unashamedly free of wrongdoing. (Book VI) Such blind confidence in human nature led to a superficial understanding of oneself, making it unlikely the confessors would truly grasp the profundity of “confession.” It was not until the 19th century, when the achievements of the new scientific revolution had opened up vast research realms for the in-depth study of humans themselves, that the consciousness of confession began to be endowed with the vitality of scientific thought and began to generate genuine meaning. In terms of the acknowledgement of human value, modern Western thought that began to take shape in the latter half of the 19th century differs from the humanistic tradition following the Renaissance. One of the major differences lies in the skepticism about the unrestrained exaggeration of human virtues and strengths. Science always moves forward; but the more science develops, the less people become blind to themselves. The establishment of Marxism as regards

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historical materialism has since broken man’s blind self-confidence in the aspect of social creation. This theory reveals that the human ability to transform society is not at all arbitrary and can hardly transcend the limitation of time and space. Instead, it is always restricted by the social relations of production and is subject to objective historical laws. Sociologically, Marx was the first to dash the daydream about Gargantua and Pantagruel in Rabelais’s satire Gargantua and Pantagruel (1534) and to restore human nature. By the early 20th century, Freud’s and Einstein’s theoretical breakthroughs in the fields of psychology and physics had again erased superstitions concerning the relationship between man and himself and man and the universe, making humans recognize their own limitations. Modern ideas based on these scientific achievements empowered by this deeper level of cognition have gradually taken form and will determine the future status of man in the universe. The consciousness of confession in modern social thought has evolved in two directions. One direction, with the advancement of social sciences and the series of revolutions in Europe in the 18th and 19th centuries, is that social stratification became more obvious and severe. When people contemplated social injustice, poverty, evil and other social ills from the opposition of the classes, the consciousness of confession was imprinted with a distinct class spirit. Though the profound influence of primitivistic thought in Christian teaching, such as Jesus’ rebuke of the rich, should not be ignored, it was imbued with the antagonism of modern social classes. This is particularly evident in the Russian social zeitgeist memorialized in Leo Tolstoy’s A Confession, one of the three greatest Confessions in the world. With his great artistic talents, Tolstoy created an immortal literary imagery of the “aristocrat in confession”. He socialized and embodied this consciousness of confession in a certain cohort of people, or a certain social class. Furthermore, another consciousness of confession was presented in a more abstract fashion. This is more prominent in the literary works of Russian writer Dostoevsky, in which all of his heroes question the meaning of life. Dostoevsky had always associated the defilement of society with the fall of humanity; what he emphasized was the wild expansion of human desires and the confessions in the face of such human desires. In Dostoevsky’s works, the significant meaning of confession has clearly transcended the realm of aristocracy and become an in-depth and sharp perception of the very nature of primitive, mad and wild humans, which is precisely manifested in the so-called “Karamazov character.” The different types of confession revealed in Tolstoy’s and Dostoevsky’s works can be regarded as two primary branches of modern literary thought. Dostoevsky’s artistic force is rooted in a thorough understanding of modern society, which paved the way for the future study of man himself in European

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modernist thought. As a literary trend fundamentally different from traditional humanism, modern thought has articulated its own understanding of man’s social status and role in the world. This is manifest in T. S. Eliot’s proposal that poetry should “escape individuality,” in James Joyce’s exploration of man’s obscene state of mind, in Jean Paul Sartre’s claim during World War II that human action precedes its essence, in the emphasis on the strength of objects by “le nouveau roman” (the French new fiction group), and in William Golding’s depictions of human evil in Lord of the Flies. It is worth noting that such self-knowledge of man has not yet led to despair; instead, modern thought has raised higher expectations for human beings. At the beginning of the 20th century, the doctrines of Henri Bergson, Friedrich Nietzsche and other philosophers, as the philosophical origin of modernism, highlighted the exaltation of individuality and the impulse of life. Their despair over the normal rationality of man led them to espouse philosophical doctrines proclaiming that only with superhuman qualities could the true meaning of life be realized. As the essence of such doctrines imbued various forms of modern consciousness of the 20th century, modern Western man abandoned blind confidence in himself to restore a new status of the “self” in a more realistic context. This may be the reason why beneath the surface bubbles of decadence, absurdity, eroticism, drug-abuse and the Beat Generation following World War II in modern Western society, the rapids of humanity were still surging. It was within such a cultural context that the consciousness of confession was hence generated in China’s new literature. Its two branches, evolved in modern thought, had profound impacts on Chinese writers in the beginning of the May 4th New Literature Movement. These impacts can be accordingly divided into two types of “confession,” namely, “man’s confession” and “man who confesses.” 2

Consciousness of Confession in Literature during the May 4th New Literature Movement

From its anti-tradition footing, China’s new literature proceeded with its absorption of two Western cultures, namely the traditional Western culture that took shape since the Renaissance and the modern Western culture that gradually emerged after the middle of the 19th century. Although the contrasting time dimension caused confrontation and conflict between these two Western cultures, they coexisted in harmony when they were introduced to China. This contributed to the biggest gap between China’s new literature and the European Renaissance, that is, China’s new literature not only rejected the

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shackles of humanity, advocated its emancipation and individual freedom, but also remained highly skeptical of the goodness of human nature. The consciousness of confession is precisely the manifestation of such skepticism in the general mentality. The May 4th New Culture Movement was undoubtedly a great enlightenment movement in Chinese history with enlightenment intellectuals as its protagonists. In order to establish the absolute authority of reason, the pioneers of modern Chinese thought were not only expanding their own influence throughout the society, but also endeavoring to cultivate among the people their own newly acquired self-awareness, namely, that each individual is special with his individuality. Moreover, not afraid of making enemies, these dauntless pioneers declared war on all sorts of oppressive forces in the society, such as feudal ethics, rites and morality, the hierarchy of seniority in human relationships, and the absolute obedience to the sages, teachers and parents. From their perspective, the three-dimensional framework of humanitarianism, individualism and philanthropism constituted a new philosophy of life, as did the same framework of literature of humans, of individuality and of the common people that contributed to the rise of a new literary conception. Meanwhile, with the establishment of the conception of humanity, the criticism of man himself by Chinese intellectuals also emerged. For the very first time, Lu Xun expressed in his literary works particular concerns about man’s value as a human being. Lu Xun’s works reveal his conscientious portrayal of man as well as his sharp criticism of man. As an intrepid writer, Lu shattered the ignorance of Chinese people through his stunning cry of wrath over their limited knowledge of self-identity, making them rethink their national weaknesses. The literary height of Lu Xun’s first vernacular short story, “A Madman’s Diary”, lies in its alarming ideological theme of revealing the striking detriment to humans of oppressive feudal ethics and rites. Furthermore, as a myth in modern Chinese literature, the imagery of the madman in this thought-provoking short story represents not a real person but a tangible symbol with rich connotations and variable references, who exposes outright the “man-eating” nature of traditional feudal ethics and rites throughout the Chinese history.2 According to the story, those who “eat man” include not only the outlaws and army ruffians in history, but also the tenant of Wolfcub Village, ordinary citizens, the elder brother of the madman and the madman himself. “It has only just dawned on me that all these years I have been living in a place where for four thousand years man has been eaten.” “How can a 2 Refer to Lu Xun’s letter to Xu Shoushang on August 20, 1918, in Vol.11 of The Complete Works of Lu Xun, published by People’s Literature Publishing House, 1981, p. 353.

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man like myself, after four thousand years of man-eating history – even though I knew nothing about it at first – ever hope to face real men?” Hence, these quotes prove to be the stupendous discoveries of the madman’s examination of “man-eating”. Apparently, the appeal of “Save the children” at the end of the story does not refer to saving the children from being eaten, since, according to Lu Xun, “Perhaps there are still children who haven’t eaten man?” Instead, the appeal of “Save the children” indicates the urgency of saving children’s unlost innocence as well as their untarnished purity.3 Simply put, for the first time, the entire moral value of man is deeply questioned in this short story, in a thrilling cry of wrath on how man should be emancipated from the animal instincts inherited from his primitive ancestors so as to meet the needs of modern civilization. Evidently, “man-eating” represents a rhetorical symbol of the remains of the barbarous period in the long course of human evolution (referring to the conversation between the madman and his elder brother in the 10th paragraph of the novel), which is revealed in the madman’s painstaking persuasion of his brother. “Man-eating” can also be referred to as an interpretation of the symbolic meaning of the original sin of mankind based on the scientific theory of evolution. The madman’s overwhelming sadness over the social phenomenon of “man-eating” reflects a strong consciousness of confession of one’s own wickedness. Such a confession, which is deeply ingrained in modern consciousness, has transcended Christian culture and humanism. From the perspective of the evolution of world literature, the later Lord of the Flies by William Golding bears a strong resemblance to “A Madman’s Diary”. Also, as an allegory of the evil nature of man, the symbolic imageries of the “Lord of the flies” and “man-eating” has reached an amazing height of similarity. In the story “A Madman’s Diary”, the madman represents the rebel of the “man-eating” tradition in Old China, as he debunked the myth behind the history of feudal benevolence and morality and is hence regarded by many as a madman, suffering from the misfortune of being eaten. Similarly, in Lord of the 3 The full quote is as follows, which is from Vol.1 of The Complete Works of Lu Xun, published by People’s Literature Publishing House, 1981, p. 432: “I can’t bear to think of it. It has only just dawned on me that all these years I have been living in a place where for four thousand years man has been eaten. My brother had just taken over the charge of the house when our sister died, and he may well have used her flesh in our food, making us eat it unwittingly. I may have eaten several pieces of my sister’s flesh unwittingly, and now itis my turn…. How can a man like myself, after four thousand years of man-eating history – even though I knew nothing about it at first – ever hope to face real men? Perhaps there are still children who haven’t eaten man? Save the children …”

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Flies, Simon, who dares to resist the Lord of the Flies, was beaten to death by other young savages for prying into the secret place of the Beast. Interestingly, Simon, who is also referred to by other young schoolboys as “cracked,” shares a tragic fate with the madman, maybe because he once said, “What I mean is … maybe it’s [the beast is] only us.”4 In the novel, Ralph, who was involved in the bloody dance and killing of Simon in the thunderstorm, was in great agony, since he thus realized the evil nature of man. This echoes the madman’s mental sufferings due to his “man-eating” past. When these savage English schoolboys on this deserted island were rescued by the naval officer and his men, Ralph was overwhelmed by great shuddering spasms of grief, weeping bitterly for the “end of innocence, [and] the darkness of man’s heart.” (Ibid., p. 230) This, again, resembles the madman’s cry of wrath of “Save the children” at the end of the story. Since the publication of Golding’s Lord of the Flies thirty-six years after “A Madman’s Diary” by Lu Xun, no connection has been reported between these two literary works. The gripping literary similarities from the artistic conceptions to the writing techniques that these great works share can be attributed to their homology, namely, grounded in similar cultural backgrounds and cognitive levels, Golding and Lu developed the same inspiration of literary creations. At the turn of the 20th century, Lu Xun’s critical insights into Western modernism, which emerged after World War I, were no less than those of many Western writers in the same period, which contributes to the richness and profundity of his literary works and echoes the works of many modern European writers before and after the two world wars. Hence, readers can feel the intensity and depth of Lu Xun’s modern consciousness that penetrates in his “A Madman’s Diary”. Despite the fact that the homology in terms of the cultural backgrounds contributes to the similarity of these two literary works, the differences in their cultural backgrounds play a role as well. For Golding, who started writing Lord of the Flies after World War II, the fractured reality of Europe was more overwhelming; though he was reluctant to say it outright and purposefully traced his literary influence to the tragedy of ancient Greece, it can be seen from Golding’s artistic conception of narrating a group of English schoolboys who are plane-wrecked on a deserted island in a nuclear war in the imaginary World War III, that the modern Western war had a profound effect, producing a sort of despair in his words. However, Lu Xun’s modern consciousness is always mixed with a strong sense of humanism and individuality, namely the great humanistic tradition after the Western Renaissance, which integrates in his novels the revelation of man’s evil nature with the struggles against the feudal ideology that strangles 4 William Golding, Lord of the Flies, London: Faber & Faber 1999, p. 97.

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man’s personality. Such organic integration makes the symbolic meaning of “man-eating” in “A Madman’s Diary” more realistically combative and noticeable with the advancement of social movements against the feudal ethics and rites prevalent in Chinese society. Therefore, the emergence of the term “man-eating feudal ethical codes” in “A Madman’s Diary” captures well the mainstream of the social ethos of the time. Lu Xun’s “A Madman’s Diary” can be considered a great confession; it abhors and condemns the evil nature of man, transcending the practical meaning of the subject matter, the social environment and reality. In his works, Lu Xun focuses on the transformation of national characters, portraying the soul of his silent folk. The solemnity of his mission as an intellectual writer, along with his madman’s unbearable mental sufferings due to his “man-eating” past, conveys no romantic fragrance but rather a heavy sense of modernist confession. Other than the aforementioned consciousness of confession in Lu Xun’s literary works, there co-exists in China’s new literature another type of confession, with its writers who seem to prefer more of Western individualism. However, under the oppression of the heavy traditional culture and morality, such preference for individualism is distorted and manifested in a perverse form. For instance, the early spiritual world of the writer Yu Dafu was tortured by intense conflicts between the “spirit and flesh,” which were faithfully reflected in many of his works. What Yu was yearning for throughout his lifetime was a sound development of the mind, an ideal social life, and a spiritual connection and mutual understanding between people, which is revealed in his works by a persistent pursuit of women and love other than for sensual gratification.5 In the filthy reality, however, when his spiritual pursuit could hardly be realized, Yu chose to indulge himself in lust by self-abandonment to relieve his mental despair. Since he could hardly feel gratified by indulgence of the flesh, Yu’s sexual pursuit was oftentimes accompanied by an inescapable sense of guilt and remorse, which made his heart and soul shiver. These 5 See the diary fragments of the protagonist in Yu Dafu’s Fallen: I desire no knowledge nor fame but a “heart” that can comfort and understand me. A warm heart! I desire sympathy that grows from this heart! Love that grows out of this sympathy! All I desire is love! If there is a beauty who understands my pain, even if she wants me to die, I will. If there was a woman, regardless of being beautiful or ugly, who loves me with all her heart, I would die for her. All I desire is love of a female! My Good Heavens, I desire no knowledge nor fame or useless money, if you can give me Eve in the Garden of Eden and let me have her body and soul, I will be satisfied. (See Volume 1 of Collection of Yu Dafu, Huacheng Press, 1982, pp. 24–25.)

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feelings become the psychological foundation of the hero’s degeneracy in Yu’s Fallen, while in his Stray Sheep as well as in his other pieces, it is manifested in the form of explicit confession. It is not uncommon for such consciousness of confession to be found among romantic intellectuals during the early May 4th New Culture Movement. Tian Han once proclaimed himself a “juvenile delinquent”; Guo Moruo called himself the “quintessence of evil” and felt inferior due to his love affairs in Japan. Nevertheless, there exists a Rousseauian pride in their sense of confession in achieving a mental balance. Unlike Tian and Guo in terms of their superficial consciousness of confession, Yu Dafu is characterized by his consciousness of confession embedded with distinctive modern consciousness. When confronted with the conflicts of the spirit and flesh, Yu behaved differently from other traditional writers. Generally, the unity of spirit and flesh could be achieved in the works of the artistic masters of the European Renaissance. For instance, Dante placed the demands of carnal desires in the sublime realm of the spirit, while Boccaccio advocated the pursuit of the spirit through sensuality, believing that desire is noble as long as it conforms to the nature of human beings. Such a naturalistic outlook on life opposes Christian culture in its suppression of human nature, paving the way for the emergence of romantic literature. It also had a profound influence on many Chinese writers during this period, such as Guo Moruo and Tian Han, who achieved the unity of spirit and flesh in their literary works. Like Tian and Guo, Yu Dafu also indulged himself in sexual anguish; in his works, however, the anguish between spirit and flesh is separated. While expatiating for it in words, Yu criticized sexual anguish spiritually and repented for that kind of behavior. This does not mean that Yu Dafu could not find his desirable love as Tian and Guo did; rather, what permeates his works is a kind of uncontrollable spiritual agony over his perverted sensual desires. Revealed in his Fallen is the hero’s sexual perversions, such as obscenity, whoring with prostitutes, peeping at young girls in the shower and eavesdropping on others’ trysts. Obviously, these are not the manifestations of normal eroticism but a kind of “anxiety for the good and bitterness out of greed.”6 Perhaps because of this, Yu Dafu’s consciousness of confession involves the inherent weakness of human beings, making it rather miserable and difficult to release; and through his works, readers can again appreciate the characters of the Karamazov brothers. Whether it is Lu Xun or Yu Dafu, these writers’ consciousness of confession indicates the penetration of the influences of Western modern culture into the writing of Chinese intellectuals, which in turn prompts them to understand 6 See “The Vast Night” by Yu Dafu in Volume 1 of Collection of Yu Dafu, Huacheng Press, 1982, p. 122.

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and analyze the value of man at a higher cognitive level. Since confession represents an external manifestation of this cognitive development, a particular type of confession, namely man’s confession, that should be explored as the confession of man’s defects, or his evil deeds. 3 From Man’s Confession to Man who Confesses Though the concept of man’s confession as a product of modern consciousness exerted influence on some Chinese writers, it failed to ground itself in the soil of Chinese literature during the May 4th New Culture Movement. This is similar to what happened to the entirety of modern thought: along with other Western literary traditions, these modern ideas nourished China’s new literature, but failed in the end to take root in Chinese literature. It may be the social existence that determines people’s limitations. In our country, where feudalism had long suppressed the free development of individuality, the individual’s awakening awareness of his own value remained superficial. While anti-feudalistic ideas during the May 4th New Culture Movement started to break down spiritual constraints and emancipate individuality, the whole society cherished such awakened individuality by praising and nurturing it, lest it fleet like a beautiful spring dream. Like the great Renaissance that aroused the awakening of human nature in Europe, the May 4th New Culture Movement stirred the entire country with the heat of individualism and humanitarianism. The rise of heroes and hero worship, as in Guo Moruo’s anthology The Goddess, soared to become the prevailing ethos of the time. It was rare for people at the time to conceive of the dark side of human nature, its practical limitations, as well as the confession of such limitations. The publication of Lu Xun’s “A Madman’s Diary” immediately prompted a strong social response, though Lu’s profundity in questioning the virtue of human nature had not yet aroused any attention. However, his fearless disclosure of social evils was warmly endorsed and supported. As a relic of the barbaric period of human evolution, the imagery of “man-eating” has become a symbol of evil of all feudal ethics and rites (“Man-Eating and the Feudal Ethical Code” by Wu Yu is precisely a product of the predominant ideology of the time). Hence, the criticism in Lu’s works shifted from individuals to the objective reality, namely, the broader society. Similarly, the consciousness of confession of the sensual indulgence in Yu Dafu’s works has been gradually interpreted as a denouncement of the hypocrisy in feudal morality.7 Interestingly, the critics 7 See Guo Moruo’s comments on Yu Dafu in “On Yu Dafu”: “His fresh style, like a spring breeze blowing through China’s withered society, immediately wakes up the hearts of countless

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acknowledged Yu’s rebellion against feudal morality, but remained silent in the face of his thrilling confession. Under the judgment of the collective awareness of individuality, the subtle implication in these literary works was more or less restricted, making the theme of anti-feudalism an umbrella term. Nevertheless, the consciousness of confession survived. Since modern thought is an objective existence, its influence on Chinese intellectuals would not fade away easily. The Chinese intellectuals of this period were in such a predicament: on the one hand, they had to establish an absolute faith in human nature, using humanism to resist the feudal oppression of it; on the other hand, they had to confront man’s limited understanding of himself in terms of modern consciousness. Therefore, they resorted to a compromise, transferring the subject of confession from an abstract individual to a specific and tangible one, or to the writer himself. Then, there emerged a Nekhludoff confession, which refers to man who confesses rather than to man’s confession. This means that this individual would always be the one who belongs to the social class that the writer was familiar with. In the meantime, these writers would embody the best of human nature in another person whom they might not be familiar with, such as one from the working class or from the peasantry. It might not necessarily be based on their in-depth understanding of the working class; instead, it was often due to their alienation and separation from these lower social classes. For instance, literary works such as “A Small Incident” by Lu Xun and “A Thin Sacrifice” and “Nights of Spring Fever” by Yu Dafu belong to the pioneering works on man who confesses during the New Literature Movement that have gained a consistent reputation among the later critics. This transformation also profoundly reflected the spiritual quest of Chinese intellectuals during a series of political upheavals in the early 20th century. Since the beginning of the Revolution of 1911, driven by their great political enthusiasm and strong sense of social responsibility, many of these intellectuals devoted themselves resolutely to the reform of the country’s social policies. However, their repeated failures and exposed weaknesses in these sociopolitical struggles forced them to retreat to their self-confession. These intellectuals were greatly activated by the initial success of the May 4th New Culture Movement; however, the ensuing division of progressive intellectuals and the young people at that time. His bold self-exposure was a violent blow against the hypocrisies of scholar-officials hidden deep in their traditional ideas for thousands of years, which shocked some hypocrites and false intellectuals into fury. Why? His blatant candidness makes them feel the difficulty of falsehood.” (Quoted from Guo Moruo’s Historical Figures by People’s Literature Publishing House, 1979, pp. 221–231. This quotation is in page 223.)

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failure of the Great Revolution (1924–1927) completely shattered their budding confidence. From the early days of the May 4th Reformation to the failure of the Great Revolution, most Chinese intellectuals were transformed from pioneers of social reform to lonely fighters isolated from society. Their intense anger over the White Terror permeating the society, along with their overwhelming frustration at being unable to make any changes, undoubtedly constituted the socio-psychological basis of these intellectuals’ heavy consciousness of confession. Noticeably, the consciousness of confession among Chinese intellectuals in the 1930s was infiltrated by the influence of Russian literature. The Russian intellectuals who had experienced an age of unprecedented changes were not only infuriated by the inhumane conditions of serfdom, but also blamed themselves for their inability to transform fundamentally this irrational social system and were filled with deep remorse. Such intense conflicts between their strong sense of social responsibility and their real capacity to change the Russian society led the Russian intelligentsia to a strong sense of confession in their literary works. Some of these intellectuals, such as the Russian populists,8 took their confession to their own social class as a spiritual support, approaching proactively the Russian working masses to promote revolutionary ideas. Others, such as Tolstoy, took their consciousness of confession as a spiritual release in an attempt to arouse people’s conscience; they also resorted to their religious faith or self-improvement to extricate themselves from their sins and pangs of conscience. Generally, these masters of Russian literature had a direct influence on Chinese intellectuals of the time; however, the more influential impact on them came from the newly established Soviet Russian literature, in which the gap between Russian intellectuals and the working class had widened further. For instance, in Russian populists’ literary works, intellectuals represent the pioneers of the revolution and the agitators of mass revolution, whilst in the literature of “aristocrat in confession”, intellectuals represent the sympathizers of mass revolution. In the early literature of Soviet Russia, however, the intellectuals were oftentimes portrayed as opponents of mass revolution or waverers in the revolutionary ranks, such as Sisters Dasha and Katya Bulaviny in Хождение по мукам (English: The Road to Calvary) by Aleksey Tolstoy, and Metchik in Разгром (English: The Rout) by Alexander Fadeyev. These Russian literary imageries exerted a profound influence on the creations in China’s

8 Refer to Historical Letters by Pyotr Lavrov, in which the idea that intellectuals are in debt to the people had a wide influence on the Russian youth.

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new literature with their Chinese counterparts, such as Xiao Ming in Village in August by Xiao Jun, and Zhang Yonglin in Mimosa by Zhang Xianliang. Hence, the literary carrier of the consciousness of confession permeating in China’s new literature was changing. The concept of man’s confession was replaced by a new form of confession, which is man who confesses. This unidirectional evolution not only reflects faithfully the hardship and collective mindset that most Chinese intellectuals underwent in the vortex of the country’s political upheavals in first decades of the 20th century, but also reveals objectively the cognitive level that they were able to attain in that particular historical setting. The concept of man’s confession is indeed a metaphysical question, which explores the limitations of man from a philosophical stance, whilst the concept of man who confesses, which was grounded in fierce class struggles is more tangible and concrete. Although these two types of consciousness of confession co-existed in Chinese literature since the beginning of the May 4th New Culture Movement to manifest the varieties of forms of modern thought introduced from abroad, influenced profoundly by the light of humanism, many Chinese intellectuals of this period were confronted with a series of overwhelming domestic and foreign challenges. Therefore, their growing social and political responsibilities required them to care less about metaphysical questions, forcing them to adopt a prompt and utilitarian response to foreign ideas and thoughts. Instinctively, these Chinese intellectuals tended to accept the latter concept of the modern consciousness of confession, namely man who confesses, although what intellectuals, such as Lu Xun and Yu Dafu, achieved in the aspect of man’s confession was mostly unconscious. Hence, the emergence of the concept of man who confesses represents not only an intrinsic inevitability for Chinese intellectuals of the time, but also the result of their voluntary choice. 4

The Regression of Self-Cognition in Man Who Confesses

The unidirectional evolution from the concept of man’s confession to that of man who confesses was basically completed in the 1930s. However, as a literary imagery, man who confesses evolved in a rather zigzag way. If we can say that the imagery of man who confesses emerged after the failure of the Great Revolution (1924–1927) in the 1920s contained practical reflections on Chinese intellectuals’ weaknesses within that particular socio-political setting, thus retaining the essence of confession, then the newer consciousness of confession among Chinese intellectuals in their new literary creations became

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a fixity once the criticism of the corrosive effect of the country’s petty bourgeoisie on the Revolution was aggravated from opposing the “petty bourgeois tendencies of those who have ‘lost their social status’”9 during the Left-wing Literary Movement in the 1930s to Mao Zedong’s referring to their danger as the “demise of the Party and the country” in 1942.10 The biggest difference between man and animal is that man has the ability to think abstractly and to move beyond the means of survival. He should be Faust, who not only needs to fight for his survival, but also has the ability to explore, understand and establish his own value in the infiniteness of abstraction. In a languishing country like China at the turn of the 20th century, which was full of poverty and death, however, what people struggled for first and foremost was their imminent life-and-death survival rather than the study of more abstract metaphysical problems in literature. Such practical conditions in the country determined the common choice made by most Chinese intellectuals of the time in their interpretation of their historical values. However, such a choice was not without cost. With the increasing complexity of the social environment, especially with the advent of domestic political leftism and the unprecedented blow from the decade-long Cultural Revolution (1966–1976), sweeping away all modern influences including the most basic humanist ones, the consciousness of confession in Chinese literature during this period eventually regressed to that of Christian culture in the Middle Ages. This can be interpreted as a type of confession full of ignorance and superstition: man who confesses, or the intelligentsia that confess. Despite being ignorant, confession in Christianity embodies the original state of man’s confession. However, when one places some people mercilessly on the confession altar, while others sit aside watching, there emerges in Chinese literature a division between the imageries of those who confess and those who do not. Some of these literary imageries, in particular the heroic imageries of Chinese workers, peasants and soldiers, are endowed with the best of human nature, while others, such as those of Chinese intellectuals, indulge in endless confessions. Generally, the consciousness of confession is first and foremost a prerequisite for the affirmation of man’s own worth; when

9 10

See the article entitled “The founding of the Chinese Left-wing Writers’ League” in the column of “Information on Domestic and Foreign Literary World”, Volume 1, No. 3 of Pathfinders, p. 1131, March 10, 1930. Refer to “Talks at the Yan’an Forum on Literature and Art” by Mao Zedong in Selected Works of Mao Zedong (bound edition). People’s Publishing House, 1968, pp. 832.

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this prerequisite is denied, however, the confession loses all its cultural value and becomes a form of self-humiliation. Evidently, such regression of self-cognition is not the sole ideological trajectory of China’s contemporary intellectuals; there also exists, the other ideological trajectory, namely their deepening self-awakening. As noted above, lacking a cultural tradition of confession would make Chinese intellectuals uncomfortable if entrapped in an unfamiliar religious confession driven by external forces. The traditional consciousness of self-reflection again played a role at this time, as these intellectuals endeavored to examine their critical role in the development of modern Chinese society. Basically, through the power of culture, the portrayal of such self-reflecting consciousness, such as in Sixty Stirring Years by Li Liuru and in The Song of Youth by Yang Mo, serves as an attempt to delineate objectively the ordeal that these intellectuals experienced. Notably, the reason why The Song of Youth stirred the country upon publication was largely the revelation of the lives and struggles of intellectuals, in which Yang not only faithfully depicted their errors and detours, such as Lin Daojing and Lu Jiachuan, in the quest for the truth, but also eulogized the value of their pursuit as well as its historical merits. These literary imageries beautifully capture the efforts of contemporary Chinese intellectuals to shake off the shackles of religious confession. At the same time, there were also writers who affirmed in their works the positive significance of intellectuals in contemporary Chinese society. For example, In the Days of Peace by Du Pengcheng not only portrays positively Zhang, the chief engineer, Wei Zhen and other Chinese intellectuals, as well as their important roles in the country’s economic construction, but also elaborates their admirable qualities of integrity, fairness and fighting dauntlessly against erroneous ideas (even those of higher authorities). Such intellectual imageries were invaluable in the literature of the 1950s. Nevertheless, as we know, these very few literary works suffered from harsh criticism even though they aimed to recalibrate intellectuals’ consciousness of their own social positions with introspective eyes. Compared with the fiercer criticism of similar literary works, which are referred to as the “re-blooming flowers” in 1957, these pieces were indeed fortunate, since before long the denial of the religious man who confesses in the form of introspection was quickly snuffed out. Interestingly, there emerged a weird separation between the consciousness of confession and the man who confesses in some literary works after 1957, which indicates that confession had become no longer devout but increasingly smarmy and perfunctory. More confessing imageries emerged in literary works during this period which kept narrating the sins of intellectuals for the sake of confession and for survival purposes. As a literary self-portrait of Chinese intellectuals, these empty imageries have lost their meaning-making value

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as independent beings, leaving behind their penitent skeletons between the lines. As the swan song of such a historical phenomenon, the literary imagery of man who confesses was impressively presented in Zhang Xianliang’s works after the Cultural Revolution. What Zhang portrays are mainly Chinese intellectuals after the 1950s, who always demonstrate a certain consciousness of confession in their mental struggles, consciously or unconsciously, and often suffer from their inability to approach a confessor due to their atheist stance. In his Love in the Dungeon, Zhang elaborates two kinds of confession. One is that the intellectual Shi Zai realizes his sins through his rational reflections on the concept of bourgeois intellectuals, which leads to his confession and the betrayal of his lover Qiao Anping. The other is the kind of confession penetrating the whole story that Shi has for the inhumane confession that he had in the past. Apparently, the latter consciousness of confession is of greater value for its manifestation of the recovery of man’s individuality. In Zhang’s Mimosa, however, the imagery of Zhang Yonglin presents a big step backwards compared with that of Shi Zai. In Mimosa, Zhang Yonglin was severely scourged because of a humanitarian poem he had produced; his religious confession and frantic self-humiliation, hence, suggest the regression of the era from humanism to the barbarity of the Middle Ages. In this work, Zhang Yonglin is filled with medieval religious piety: this is not only revealed in his endless confession to a classic book, which he mistook for The Bible, but also in the ordeal that he experienced. To Zhang Yonglin, suffering seems a purgatory and a rite of passage to heaven. At the end of the story, Zhang Yonglin’s triumphant march on the red carpet seems a harmonious contrast with the series of self-confessions he made before, which critically highlights the loss of sincerity in such a religious confession. This indicates that the imagery of man who confesses is no longer the carrier of the confession, but an ostensible confession ritual. Zhang Xianliang reached an unprecedented peak in his meticulous interpretations of the disposition of men who confess; but this also foreshadowed the end of this extreme form of literary creation. Two different forms of the depravity of human nature in the Cultural Revolution (1966–1976), namely, the destruction of human nature and the annihilation of human nature, exerted a profound impact on literary creations. The destruction of human nature proved not only the existence of human nature, but also that its loss was caused by external forces. Therefore, as a strong force of resilience, plenty of literary works emerged that affirm human nature and call for the return of humanity, which indicates that “Shi Zai, the fire will continue.”11 Nevertheless, 11

See Lu Xun’s “Collected Essays from A Pavilion in the Semi-concession · ‘Title Undecided’ Draft (Sixth to Ninth)” in Vol. 6 of The Complete Works of Lu Xun, People’s Literature

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the annihilation of human nature is not only attributed to the external forces, but also to the inhuman traits that men possess inherently. According to Ba Jin, “If a man’s servility is manifested in his behavior, he is pitiful, while if his servility is innate, he is despicable.”12 Evidently, such pitifulness is grounded in the predicament he is in, due to external forces, while such despicability proves the ugliness of his innate servility. Therefore, this brought to successive literary workers’ deeper reflections on the critical role of history as well as of themselves. In this sense, newer confession elements have been read over again in literary works after the Cultural Revolution. 5

The Possibility of Re-emergence of the Consciousness of Confession in Literature

In China’s post-Cultural Revolution literature, there has been no such real consciousness of confession; at most, it is no more than a kind of confession element which serves to demonstrate the shift in the mindset of Chinese intellectuals. Chinese literature after the Cultural Revolution seems to echo the literature in the early May 4th New Culture Movement with two paralleling but contradictory thoughts. One exudes wrath over the destruction of human nature while affirming and praising the value of humanistic human nature; the other condemns the annihilation of human nature with the confession of modern consciousness. The latter is one of the distinctive features of the Scar Literature. The great contribution of the Scar Literature is that it has not only fulfilled its political mission in exposing and criticizing the heinous crimes of the Gang of Four, but more importantly, it also presented in-depth reflections on the decade-long disastrous Cultural Revolution. Reflection serves as a reevaluation of history as well as of man himself. Since for each Chinese who has survived the decade of catastrophe, each single reflection remains potentially selfconscious; hence, in Lu Xinhua’s short story “Scar”, when a naive but obstinate girl utters her sincere confessions for her past ignorant behaviors, it touches the hearts of readers. Impressively, this immature story has raised a rather mature and serious theme, forcing those who have read it to explore the cause of this

12

Publishing House, 1981, p. 435. The name of the hero in Zhang Xianliang’s novel Love in the Dungeon is Shi Zai, which indicates the meaning of Lu Xun’s words. It is probably from Lin Shu’s translation of Crusader Heroes. Here it is quoted from Ba Jin’s article entitled “Ten Years, One Dream” in his Collection of Truth, People’s Literature Publishing House, 1989, p. 44.

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catastrophe from their own reflections. Though the will of a very few could initiate such a catastrophe, the catastrophe itself took, after all, the form of a national mass movement, involving millions of innocent Chinese to partake in and promote it. The successive domestic political campaigns constituted a vicious cyclical trajectory. Those who were involved in this decade-long catastrophe played a dual role as both participants and victims. From a historical point of view, ever since the mid-1950s with the rise of leftism within the Party, it was fairly obvious that even the most innocent in this catastrophe could hardly remain unsullied in all previous political campaigns (referring to all the political movements before the Cultural Revolution, particularly Anti-Hu Feng Movement, Anti-Rightist Movement, etc.). Time has created a broad social basis for confession, especially in the wake of such a national catastrophe. A series of literary works, such as “Reunion” by Jin He, “Memory” by Zhang Xian, “Butterfly” by Wang Meng, “Prison of the Heart” by Gao Xiaosheng, and Caprice Recorded by Ba Jin, have captured people’s reflections on this past history from the perspectives of politics, ethics, and humanity. However, this is a hardship that all were involved. According to Mencius, “As you make your bed, so must you lie in it.” This makes it impossible to blame the objective reality for such an overwhelming cultural disaster; everyone has to take responsibility for his past choices, even if he was unconscious and ignorant in doing so. Evidently, the Cultural Revolution has provided an ideological support for the emergence of a new consciousness of confession. When confronted with a dark history in which all were involved, nobody seemed capable of evading his responsibility in shaping such history. In some reflective literary works, there is always a certain cadre as the subject of reflection who played a positive role in the course of the Chinese revolution and felt superior to their people. The impact of the Cultural Revolution, however, gave them a sharp insight into the other side of humanity that they had never perceived, namely the weakness in themselves as individuals. It can be concluded that history takes advantage of these weaknesses in human nature, which in the meantime contributes to the making of history. Based on this understanding, the reflection of such a literary hero would be mixed with a certain mindset of confession, which is no longer humiliating, but is presented with sincerity as what a man who confesses is. An example is what Zhong Yicheng, a Rightist, in “Cloth Gift” by Wang Meng, confessed in the face of Old Wei, who was dying: “If I had changed my position at that time, if I had been responsible for criticizing Comrade Song Ming, I would never have been soft-hearted, but it would not have been much better….”13 13

See Wang Meng’s “Bolshevik Salute” in Selections of Wang Meng’s Novels and Reportage. Beijing Press, 1981, p. 302.

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Such confession mindset has its history: Zhong Yicheng was identified as the Rightist in 1957. In 1966, Old Wei, who was too fond of his political fame to speak out for justice, along with Song Ming, who was determined to trample down Zhong Yicheng, was severely punished: both were not only publicly criticized but also persecuted to death. Although this passage of self-confession seems to condemn history, what makes the story thought-provoking lies in its earnest inquiry into why these experienced revolutionaries, who had raised their hands to vow to give their lives for truth, would confuse right and wrong at the crucial moment of life and death. If there were more men of integrity, would there be any possibility of changing the course of history? The mercilessness of history has taught man dialectics through self-reflection, which allows him to recognize his limitations while searching for answers. It is noteworthy that some weaknesses of human nature revealed in certain literary works are not attributed to a particular group; instead, they address all men. Like the encapsulated devil in the story of “The Fisherman and the Demon” in The Arabian Nights, such weaknesses have long been ingrained in human genes since ancient times. They are manifested in the imagery of Wu Sunfu in Shen Yanbing’s modern novel Midnight. As an ambitious capitalist of his time, Wu Sunfu is portrayed as the “hero, knight and prince in the machine industry of the 20th century.” However, his rationality, responsibility, reputation and morality as a normal man were crushed to pieces when he was defeated in the commercial competition. He even raped an old maid in a frenzy. In one of Wang Zhaojun’s novels in the 1980s, A Funeral before Dawn, Tian Jiaxiang, the Party branch secretary in Big Reed Pond village, was elected Model Worker in the province after years of tenacity, hard work and deliberate trickery. Then, in the face of a more powerful institutional system, he suddenly discovered that he was good for nothing. When all self-esteem, credit, reputation and love were shattered, like Wu Sunfu, Tian violently raped the daughter of the county deputy secretary of the Party. Though there exists a big gap between the personal identity, temperament as well as social settings of these fictional characters, their commonality lies in the essential weakness of man; namely, they both make up for their loss of humanity by a sudden outbreak of bestiality. Thus, a sort of telepathy was generated in literature due to the darkness of the time and of the soul when the whole nation was mired in a dilemma of the loss of human nature. Bestiality can be manifested in a variety of ways: immorality, cruelty, selfishness, malevolence and egoistic betrayal for survival purposes. Among the literary creations in the post-Cultural Revolution era, no literature has thus far emerged which grounds itself in the confession of the darkness of human nature and explores in-depth the bewilderment and suffering of men in such a holocaust, though there are a small number of literary works on this

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theme. Transcending the common reflections revealed in the Scar Literature, these works have achieved a new height in revealing human nature. Apparently, “Prison of the Heart” by Gao Xiaosheng is fairly remarkable among this type of literary work. Shi A-chu’s cruelty is inherent in his nature, as “the more I beat others, the more gratification I gain”. This is an atavistic inheritance that has not completely degenerated in the process of human evolution. However, the time when everything was determined by dictatorship was a time of ferocity. Shi A-chu behaves like a beast with the loss of human nature; to him, bestiality is his reason. When all that has contributed to his bestiality is destroyed, his reason collapses, and he goes mad. Gao Xiaosheng did not explore in-depth the underlying causes of Shi’s madness other than presuming that it is out of fear. But what is beneath the fear? The unanswered ending remains intriguing, though personally I could read the answer from the title of this novel. Could there be a worse tragedy than the trial of one’s conscience? Like Eugene O’Neill, who did not depict Jones’s confession in The Emperor Jones, Gao Xiaosheng also did not write about his hero’s confession other than his overwhelming fear. Beneath such fear exists a more startling urgency for confession, though such a confession is not for the good, but a confession for evil from the side of evil. Nevertheless, there is confession for the good, such as in the novel “When the Sunset Disappears” by Li Ping. Li’s attempt in taking religion as a shortcut to spiritual fulfillment, along with his deliberate circumvention of the realist fighting spirit, made the novel superficial. In particular, his discussion of religion diluted the otherwise meaningful discussion of violence, civilization, barbarism and human dignity. Traditionally, there is a lack of religious awareness in Chinese culture. As discussed earlier, the religious confession in traditional Chinese literature has served limitedly as a valueless niche for those who hope to escape from reality and to maintain a false balance of the spirit. Such religious confession, which could hardly compare to that of Arthur Burton, the protagonist in The Gadfly by Ethel L. Voynich, who suffers great torture, could not stir readers with a gut-wrenching pain. In literature, religion is often beautifully written when it is used as a negative force to reveal men’s ignorance, superstition and blindness; however, it seems powerless when used positively for men’s introspection and self-transformation. Therefore, the novel “When the Sunset Disappears” is nothing but a repetition of the old tradition in classical literature. From the perspective of actual literary creations, though the consciousness of confession is still progressing based on the concept of man who confesses, it remains far from the literary heights attained by many writers who emerged in the May 4th New Culture Movement, such as Lu Xun and Yu Dafu. The trend

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in this direction is still onward. Confession is but an external form in literature; more important is whether it can convey a new depth in men’s critical self-reflection. Humanism replaces god with man, whilst modern consciousness restores him to a normal being. Therefore, it is no easy task for mortals to complete this cognitive process of acquiring rational knowledge about the self through increased self-reflection, which can only be achieved through a thorough self-analysis of their errors. Evidently, this is a painful process with confession as its essential manifestation. Confession is but a form of thinking. The study of consciousness of confession does not mean to indulge men in their past errors, but to help them understand themselves better and to establish self-confidence in this world. China’s new literature once focused on the concept of man’s confession; then, it proceeded to that of man who confessed before it encountered its extreme manifestation in the decade-long Cultural Revolution. With the end of the Cultural Revolution in 1976, the country’s literature began to distance itself from the religious confession and to advance toward the conscious man’s confession. This also confirms the zigzag paths that modern China has experienced in terms of men’s understanding of themselves. Reflecting on what has happened to China’s new literature not only contributes to an updated understanding of past history, but also helps us reconsider how to better welcome the future. We have had opportunities in the past to embrace a great future; however, only through correct critical reflections can we establish the correct self-confidence to overcome the impact of bad decisions once made in history. Nobody can tell, after many years, how people will interpret the consciousness of confession contained in the literature of our time. I am convinced that if there arises a new consciousness of confession in future literary creations, it will demonstrate that we have been on the right path to the future from a higher self-cognitive level.

Chapter 4

Romanticism in the Development of China’s New Literature 1

Personal Lyric Novels and Pastoral Lyric Novels

Though presented differently in European literature, romanticism shares a common socio-historical and philosophical background with two broadly similar movements: one is strong individualism and the other is a new aesthetic attitude towards nature; both of which have their counterparts in China’s new literature. Two distinctive genres, personal lyric novels and pastoral lyric novels, prevailed in China’s romantic novels in the 1920s, which promoted the lyric tradition of romantic literature from different aspects. Though oftentimes referred to as “self novels,” “privacy novels” or “autobiographical novels,” personal lyric novels may not fit any of these formulations, which overemphasize the self characteristic of this genre, while failing to summarize its most important artistic trait as a romantic style, namely lyricism. I view literary creations in this genre as personal lyric novels, since, as a creative genre, its lyricism is largely expressed through various psychological activities. The feelings that permeate this literary genre remain fairly personal, which are released as wrath, plaintiveness, whining and even decadence when one is confronted with persecution and unfair treatment by society. Additionally, the main theme of this genre focuses on the pursuit of emancipation and freedom of individuality, with Yu Dafu as an outstanding representative writer of this genre in the early days of the May 4th New Culture Movement. Since individualism was encouraged during the May 4th Movement, the majority of Chinese intellectuals pursued wholeheartedly the unity of marriage and love as their most direct and specific goal, in which individuality was exalted in the pursuit of happiness. This ideal pursuit is best embodied in Yu Dafu’s literary creations. Pastoral lyric novels, by contrast, began to take shape in the second half of the 1920s. Generally, they are regarded as a branch of rural literature represented by Lu Xun. However, their literary origin can be dated back to the early 1920s, when Zhou Zuoren wrote about the folk customs in his hometown. The representative writer of this genre in the 1920s is Fei Ming, who extended Zhou Zuoren’s prose to the sphere of novel creations. Fei Ming’s novels are not socially critical, though they expatiate on the decline of rural patriarchal society with a touch of melancholy. In his writing, Fei Ming devoted himself to

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idyllic landscapes and folk lifestyles; in the fine depiction of the natural world, he expressed his ideal of life and the expansion of his emotions. Essentially, pastoral lyric novelists do not aim at elaborating human relationships in their works; instead, they focus on describing nature and folk customs through their aesthetic eyes. In their works, nature is no longer a personified nature; human characters, instead, with a sense of “nature,” have become an embellishment or part of nature. Hence, fundamentally different from the realism in rural literature in the 1920s, pastoral lyric novels are more romantic and unrealistic. Personal lyric novels present a close relationship with Western romanticism, with most personal lyric novelists taking as role models Rousseau’s loneliness and courage in the pursuit of truth, Werther’s sentimentalities, Byron’s spirit of rebellion, and the arias of nature and love by romantic poets such as W. Wordsworth and P. B. Shelley. By contrast, pastoral lyric novels inherit more the aesthetic traditions of Chinese classical aesthetics. For instance, though T. Hardy’s and Eliot’s sentimental melancholy can be discerned in Fei Ming’s creations, more essentially, what penetrates in his works is the influence of ancient Chinese landscape poets such as Tao Yuanming and Wang Wei. In order to create a modern Shangri-La of peach blossoms, Fei Ming was enthralled by depicting natural landscapes peopled with young and old men and women, exploring an artistic conception of landscape poetry and pastoral poetry in his works. This creative genre pioneered by Fei Ming contrasts with personal lyric novels which emphasize the inner turmoil of youths. Interestingly, the evolution of these two lyric genres sets a striking contrast in the development of China’s modern literary genres. Personal lyric novels prevailed in the early days of the May 4th New Culture Movement. With the advent of the Great Revolution (1924–1927) in the 1920s, however, sentimentality of Yu Dafu’s style could hardly satisfy the needs of most young intellectuals of the time for self-fulfillment. During the Great Revolution, many Chinese intellectuals were stirred and motivated by the traditional mentality of heroism in salvaging the country and her people through political revolution. Romantic as these intellectuals were, they became ambitious as they stepped forward from individualism and turned from spiritual rebels into practical rebels in struggling against the cruel reality. These intellectual rebels, who chose and endorsed a certain principle as their platform for action, had de facto broken through the isolation and arrogance of their individualism. Hence, most individualistic heroes in the New Literature Movement converged towards collectivism. Jiang Guangci, a “self-narrative” writer during this period, replaced Yu Dafu’s sentimental style in literary creations with his new style of “revolution plus romance” to meet most intellectuals’ psychological needs. Jiang Guangci played an important role in the development of romanticism in China’s New

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Literature. Just as he contributed to the transition from romanticism to realism in the advancement of new poetry, Jiang’s unique contributions to the development of modern personal lyric novels lie in his efforts in integrating Yu Dafu’s sentimental style of the May 4th Movement period with people’s political appeals before and after the Great Revolution. While Yu Dafu’s writings were filled with abstract social discontentment, Jiang Guangci had the ability to turn such abstraction into concrete and clear political struggles. Furthermore, Jiang systematically reflected in writing the ideological and emotional trajectories of revolutionary intellectuals in the years before and after the Great Revolution in the 1920s through the lived experiences and activities of his characters, namely the conscious transformation from individualism to collectivism. This tendency can be further confirmed in literary creations during the War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression (1937–1945), which stirred the whole nation, making ethnic consciousness overwhelm individual consciousness. The individual enthusiasm of Chinese intellectuals could only exert itself fully when united into an integral whole, which, in turn, restricted the indulgence of romanticism in literary creations. An overview of literary creations in this period reveals that even works with themes of intellectuals lost enthusiasm for the individualism which had prevailed in the 1920s. Ba Jin is regarded as the best personal lyric novelist in the 1930s. Though his writing style always fluctuated between romanticism and realism, it gradually stabilized after the War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression, as is typically reflected in his works such as Perish and Fire. Such transformation highlights the shift in his writing style from romantically lyric to more soberly realist. This also manifests the change of social ethos. In addition to its positive effects in terms of lyrical aspects and of using the past to satirize the present that romanticism has had in creating historical blockbuster dramas in Chongqing, it had limited influence on counter-Japanese war literature as a whole. It seemed obviously alienated from New Literature, since the romantic legend with a tone of individualism was out of place in the fierce national revolutionary war. Hence, the literary style of “counter-Japanese war plus romance” encountered conscious resistance upon its emergence in the serious literary world. Within this context, romantic literature, like the romance novels on the eve of the May 4th New Culture Movement, was quickly marginalized. Here, Bu Naifu’s (also known by his pen name Wu Mingshi) literary creations are worthy of review. From the perspective of the change of literary genres, his works can be deemed the best remnant of romanticism in the history of China’s modern literature. Wu Mingshi’s early works, such as Romance in the Northern Country and Lady in the Tower, though old-fashioned and sentimental, attracted many readers who remained accustomed to

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romantic tastes. From the perspective of these works’ ideological appeals, it is not difficult to associate Wu’s aesthetic appeals with Chateaubriand’s early works of Atala (1801) and René (1802). In these novels, Wu Mingshi created a wilderness far from the human world, also a Siberia and Huashan ancient temple, where his hero with a traumatic life experience narrated his love story. Like Chateaubriand, Wu Mingshi was outspoken in his opposition to the political ethos of his time, considering religious faith as a very high level of life. In his later work, Wu Mingshi Series, Jesus and Buddha, as two typical imageries of life, are interspersed within the protagonist’s journey of life exploration, suggesting that the great Bodhi of Genesis, the end of his exploration, is the consummation of Eastern and Western cultures. There exists a very high artistic level in Wu Mingshi’s creations, in which his aesthetic pursuits are radiated between the lines through his rich and gorgeous language, exaggerated emotional outbursts, explicit depiction of love scenes with the rolling sea underneath the stars (in Wild as the Waves) and of treacherous cliffs where the wolf howls echo (in Golden Serpent Night). All reflect Chateaubriand’s artistic charm. The only difference between them is that Chateaubriand’s sentimentality pioneered romanticism in the 19th century, while Wu Mingshi, as his follower in the 1940s in China, along with his literary works, became a mere reflection of Western romanticism in modern China. Hence, it can be said that from Yu Dafu to Wu Mingshi, the rise and fall of Western romanticism in China is traced. Unlike personal lyric novels, pastoral lyric novels are more expressive in their aesthetic significance of literature and writers’ aesthetic tastes, which had already begun to emerge in the early stage of formation. From Fei Ming to Shen Congwen, pastoral lyric novels took a great leap in the early 1930s. A selfproclaimed countryman, Shen has an instinctive dislike of urban civilization. He eulogizes the beauty and purity of the mountains and waters of western Hunan Province and the kindness and simplicity of interpersonal relationships. In the West, the slogan “Back to Nature” reveals some intellectuals’ deepest doubts about the rigor of historical development. In China, however, such doubts contain limited empirical elements; instead, they largely reveal an unconscious sense of national humiliation, which is typically reflected in Shen Congwen’s novels in an implicit way. Though Su Xuelin offers a lot of subjective comments in her “On Shen Congwen”, there is one argument that makes sense, as she argues that Shen Congwen aspires to “rejuvenate the decadent and corrupt Chinese nation with the blood of barbarians through the power of literature, enabling and empowering it to contend with other nations on the stage of the 20th century.”1 Shen regards man’s primitive force and simplicity as the sign of health of a nation to inspire people in the greater cause of the 1 See “On Shen Congwen” by Su Xuelin, in Vol. 3, No. 3 of Literature, pp. 712–720. This quotation is on page 717, September 1934. It is also available in Selected Works of Su Xuelin, compiled by

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national rejuvenation. From a specific social perspective, this sounds unrealistic; but as a literary trend, Shen’s ideal, along with his literary creations, not only avoids direct conflicts with the mainstream of the time, but also proceeds toward higher aesthetic accomplishments. This has allowed literature to avoid the severity of historical development and play a more active role in its aesthetic sense. Shen is grateful to nature and is dedicated to the artistic world he portrays with a unique sense of beauty and grace, integrating the beauty of mountains and waters with that of human nature. Such an aesthetic ideal is also an embodiment of China’s traditional concepts of nature and aesthetics. In the long tradition of Chinese literature, it seems easier for modern pastoral lyric novels than personal lyric novels to find their place. Almost free from external influences, the pastoral agricultural economy and the close physiological and psychological rapport between man and nature in Oriental culture have endowed Chinese literature with a naturalistic aesthetic attitude. It can be safely concluded that modern pastoral lyric novels, as the product of China’s traditional natural aesthetics, represent a typical Chinese romanticism that has no direct relationship with Western romanticism as represented by Rousseau, Wordsworth and others. As a creative genre of romanticism, pastoral lyric novels feature the goodness of life perceived by their writers. Neither the simplicity of the rural patriarchal society nor the primitive spirit of the wilderness is a portrayal of real life. The romantic disposition of pastoral lyric novelists is characterized by their negative attitude toward the status quo of life. Like romanticists in Western Europe, these Chinese novelists’ uncompromising attitude toward reality is overblown in their embellishment, illusion and enchantment with an imaginary world. What is worthy of our sympathy is their sincerity and tireless quest for an ideal paradise in the filth of reality. Rather than whitewash or distort reality, these novelists, in a sense of contempt or disgust, demonstrate their brave rebellion against the ugliness of reality through their imaginary ideals. In this sense, the pursuit of artistic beauty can also become a weapon to declare war on the ugly reality. The characteristics of rejecting ideologically the ugliness of real life and pursuing artistically the beauty of nature and human relations through the traditional concept of nature have empowered pastoral lyric novels with a certain degree of freedom in their development at different historical stages. Apart from being marginalized like personal lyric novels due to inevasible conflicts between their pursuit of individualism and the trends of the time, the artistic pursuit in pastoral lyric novels helped evade such irreconcilable confrontations in social development. First, such aesthetic pursuit proved more consonant with Shen Hui, Anhui Literature and Art Publishing House, 1989, pp. 448–461. This quotation is on page 456.

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the aesthetic needs of the country’s relatively stable readership at any historical time, which made it easier to communicate with readers’ aesthetic cognition in their deeper psychological construction. Furthermore, the realist attitude in literary creations made it less exclusive to new themes endowed by history, making it more productive with leading writers and works at different historical stages. For instance, in the Leftist League literature, lyric novels by Ai Wu portrayed romanticism through meticulous elaboration of the natural scenery of the country’s remote areas integrated with the innocence and misery of its lower classes. Meanwhile, lyric novels by Sun Li in the period of counter-Japanese war in the late 1930s portrayed romanticism through beautiful descriptions of the natural scenery surrounding Lotus Shallow Lake and Reed Catkins Shallow Lake integrated with the bravery and steadfastness of the nation’s rural women in the revolutionary war. Additionally, among literary creations within the Kuomintang-controlled areas during the counter-Japanese war and the liberation war during the entire 1940s, the aesthetic pursuit in Wang Zengqi’s early novels penetrated his writing with his heartfelt attachment to the homeland as well as his faith in “his Chinese folk and their emotional and ideological traditions.”2 The genre of pastoral lyric romanticism strode doggedly on, uninterrupted even in the 1950s and 1960s and post-Cultural Revolution years. What does the rise and fall of personal lyric novels and pastoral lyric novels suggest? I feel choked up in my reply. I marvel over again at the restriction of cultural tradition and reality on the evolution of literature when re-examining these literary genres  – a feeling accompanied with a sense of unspeakable pity. In literature, personal feelings, ideals and aesthetic tastes are oftentimes conveyed in the portrayal of natural landscapes. In China’s literary tradition, ancient intellectuals had to express their political ambitions in a roundabout way by abandoning themselves to nature. For instance, among the poems for natural scenery, there exists not only Tao Yuanming’s leisure in “While picking asters ‘neath the eastern fence, my gaze upon the Southern mountain rests,” but also Du Fu’s sentimentality in “Grieved over the years, flowers make me shed tears; hating to part, hearing birds breaks my heart” as the mainstream of Chinese poetry. In the development of modern literary genres, personal lyric novels by writers such as Yu Dafu, Ba Jin and Wu Mingshi were inevitably on the decline when they failed to fit the time. However, have pastoral lyric novels

2 See Tang Shi’s “The Pious Narcissus  – on Wang Zengqi’s Novels” in his Collection of New Thoughts. Beijing: The Joint Publishing Company Ltd., 1990, pp. 121–141. This quotation is on page 141.

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by writers such as Fei Ming, Shen Congwen and Wang Zengqi ever been tolerated and respected by the country’s orthodox literature? If cultural tradition is able to impose its preferences in the rise and fall of these lyric genres, then, in the development of all modern literature, through which rubric and influence did it make choices between romanticism and other mainstream literary trends of the time? 2

From Romanticism to Lyricism

In the previous discussion of the two literary genres, the concept of “romantic” was purposefully avoided and replaced with that of “lyric.” My intention is to clarify, through distinguishing these two concepts, that it is inappropriate to label or classify the literary creations by writers such as Yu Dafu and Fei Ming as “romantic” or “romanticism”. There is no denying that their literary works represent the lyric feature of romantic literature from their own perspective, though other indispensable features for romantic creations were largely absent in the early stages of China’s New Literature, such as the peculiar imagination, splendid artistic conception and vintage appeal in French romantic literature or the pure naturalism, the daemonic character of Don Juan and the political ideals of Shelley in English romantic literature or the metaphysical meditation and absurdity in German romantic literature. Generally, Chinese writers’ advocacy of Western romanticism was mostly due to the variety of needs of humanistic criticism and social revolution. They admired most the romantic masters such as Rousseau and Goethe, who, though recognized as pioneers of romantic literature in the West, still belonged to the era of Enlightenment, in which permeated the pursuit of freedom of human nature and opposition to the restraint of tradition. It is precisely these ideologies that were in line with the mindset of many Chinese intellectuals in the early May 4th New Culture Movement. This allows me to speculate on the prevailing ideological and cultural ethos of the Chinese of that time. In the early 20th century, when people were seeking a proper Chinese term to render “romanticism”, their interpretation of this new literary trend had to be deeper and more abundant than a mere lyric literature. The Chinese transliterations of the term “romance,” such as “lang man” (浪漫) and “lan man” (烂漫) (The Lang Man School was also translated as Lan Man School in the 1920s), aimed simultaneously at the most distinctive trait of the original intention of this European literary trend, such as indulgence, unrestraint and vitality in literary creations. The term “lyric,” instead, contributed more to personal emotions. Though sentimentality remains one of the

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most fundamental characteristics of romantic literature, in the literary evolution from romanticism to lyricism, its connotation has been considerably narrowed, making the limitations of romanticism in China’s New Literature noticeable. The introduction of Western romanticism as a literary trend in China can be traced back to the first decade of the 20th century, when writers such as Lu Xun, Su Manshu, Ma Junwu, Bao Tianxiao and Zeng Pu translated the works of European romantic writers and applied romanticism in their own novels and poems. In the early years of the Republic of China, the prevalence of romance novels in the literary world seemed to have become the source of romanticism and romantic literature in the country, with an earnest pursuit of humanity and freedom expressed in flamboyant parallel prose and rhetoric. With the founding of the Creation Society in 1921 and the ensuing publication of The Goddess by Guo Moruo and Fallen by Yu Dafu, romanticism had finally found its place in China. However, the restrictions on the development of literature by the practices of Chinese revolutions made it impossible for Chinese intellectuals to reiterate the glory of romanticism like their French counterparts. The cry for idealism soon became weak and marginalized and the magnificence of imagination was gradually replaced by the cruelty of social reality, sucking romanticism into the trough of its development. Using the same literary criticism theories, theorists of the “lifestyle school” of the 1920s followed the combative stance of the New Youth magazine by criticizing the casual attitude toward life in romantic literature and the aesthetic attitude advocated by the Creation Society. Influenced by the theory of literary evolution, these theorists focused more on the today and tomorrow of world literature in terms of their perception of the world’s literary trends, namely, realism and emerging modernism. Hence, the introduction of works by romantic writers such as Rousseau, Goethe, Byron, Shelley, Keats and S. Petőfi was on the rise; though as a school of literary thought, their impact remained limited. The mainstream trend of Chinese literature in the late 1920s was accelerating its transformation from personal lyricism to left-wing realism. In the meantime, the introduction of romanticism in China also affected Chinese readers’ understanding of some Western romantic writers, such as Byron, who had a broad impact on China’s New Literature writers, though among Chinese readers his imagery was distorted and reshaped. Leo Ou-fan Lee once referred to it by elaborating that for Western readers Byron represented almost all characteristics of European romanticism, such as childlike innocence, Werther-like sentimentality, Faustian rebellion, Cain-like ethical roguery and Promethean anti-god, anti-cosmic heroism. Among Chinese intel­ lectuals, however, Byron was more narrowly recognized as a social rebel who helped the Greek people in their struggle for independence. Moreover, the

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daemonic elements of Don Juan and Cain in him, along with his unrestrained lifestyle, were largely neglected.3 In the early 20th century, Byron’s “The Isles of Greece” was rendered into three translation versions with different literary styles. The situation was similar with the introduction of V. Hugo. In Su Manshu’s adaptation, Hugo’s Les Misérables was translated into a novel advocating national revolution. This may have reflected Chinese people’s call for heroism as their spiritual support to struggle against the cruelty of society since the late Qing Dynasty. Many Chinese intellectuals then remained eager to introduce Western writers such as E. Zola, F. Nietzsche, A. Schopenhauer, L. Tolstoy and H. Ibsen, who dared to confront the darkness of society. They romanticized these Western writers, transforming them into heroes in their writing. The problem is, when romanticism was interpreted with such a biased mentality, its rich connotation would be greatly limited in the Chinese prototype of romanticism. Within the context of “bringism” toward foreign cultures, it was inevitable for romanticism to evolve to lyricism. This is related to the inquiry of how the local culture assimilates foreign literary trends. From the perspective of cultural communication, this process of transformation is normal, though the nature of such transformation will vary. If the local culture is broad and profound, the foreign culture may take on a more prosperous look with its positive artistic core to further promote the advancement of the local culture. This has been manifested in the transformation by ancient Chinese culture of Buddhism in India. However, if the local culture remains inferior and powerless, its influence on the foreign culture could more likely be negative, thus making its transformation simplified and instrumental. This would not only irresponsibly distort the foreign culture, but also impair the development of the local culture. An overview of the introduction of Western romanticism since the May 4th New Culture Movement in 1919, in my opinion, would by and large reveal the latter situation. This could be observed in the poems of Guo Moruo; his ambitious personality, strong idealism and flamboyant imagination permeated and made him the most outstanding romantic poet in the early years of the May 4th Movement. Guo Moruo’s thoughts, derived mostly from an outlook of “integration of the world”, embraced almost all the characteristics of romanticism in the aspects of cosmology and the outlook on life and nature. Guo believed that the consistency in the quintessence of wisdom in Eastern and Western cultures far surpassed their differences in the dimension of time and space. It was this cultural perspective that contributed to his philosophical pantheism and romantic artistic style, which were neatly synthesized in his anthology The 3 See Leo Ou-fan Lee, The Romantic Generation of Modern Chinese Writers, Cambridge and Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1973, pp. 290–291.

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Goddess. Romanticism in this collection is presented not only as an artistic form of expression, but also as the manifestation of Guo’s poetic spirit, artistic vigor and creative explorations in writing. Furthermore, some of Guo’s poems have broken through the limitation of conventional Chinese vernacular poems focusing narrowly on trivialities in life. These poems, instead, are brocaded with abundant artistic imaginations in history, philosophy and reality from ancient mythology to modern science and civilization, and from the history of foreign countries to the status quo of China. Personally, I do not think the flaming imagination in The Goddess can be solely attributed to Guo’s individual talent, as this collection of poems announces a great explosion and liberation of the Chinese nation oppressed for thousands of years. In terms of their strength or breadth, many contemporary literary works that address romanticism have seldom attained the artistic realm of The Goddess. The romantic poems of Xu Zhimo and Wen Yiduo could be regarded as a partial improvement of the artistic pursuit of Guo’s The Goddess, though they failed to make further progress in the romanticism laid down in The Goddess. Xu has an excellent set of poems, namely his trilogy of “Poison”, “White Flag” and “Baby,” which resembles a miniature of Dante’s The Divine Comedy with its sweeping momentum and emotions. Unfortunately, these are but very occasional works by Xu; the majority of his glamorous love poems could only serve as a footnote to the path from romanticism to lyricism. Interestingly, several new poetic styles formed in the early 1920s, such as the vernacular style by Hu Shi, the modern metrical style by the Crescent School, and the symbolic style by Li Jinfa, had many followers and successors in the 1920s and 1930s, making each of these poetic styles rich in ongoing momentum. However, as the strongest note of the May 4th New Culture Movement era, The Goddess enjoyed no real successor in the development of the new poetry genre, though it arrived as a sensation with the romantic grandeur of a generation of poetry and ignited flames among many youths in China. In this sense, The Goddess remains lonesome. Additionally, many later poets from the Creation Society embarked on symbolism, which integrated romance with hipsterism and sentimentalism. The revolutionary poets from the Sun Society, instead, have inherited the poetic tradition in The Goddess in the aspects of the romantic passion and personal lyric of heroism, though they tended to stay closer to reality in their mindset and way of expression. These poets lacked imaginative and expressive abilities that Guo Moruo eloquently demonstrated in The Goddess. Their works, however, could only be referred to as a medium and transition from the romanticism created by Guo Moruo to left-wing realism in the 1930s. Actually, even Guo’s later poetic creations addressed such transitions. Like a bright crystal shooting star, romanticism, which was elevated to its extreme in The Goddess, soon faded in its loneliness in the poetic world. This

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was not only the loneliness and regret of Guo in his early years, but also that of romanticism in China. The fading of The Goddess should not be attributed to the anthology itself. It is not a general lyric collection but a destructive blow to the constraints of the traditional universe with its romantic elements, including strong individualism, lofty idealism and magnificent imagination. The influence of two pioneers that Guo Moruo admired, namely Qu Yuan and Goethe, was far-reaching in the establishment of his early artistic conceptions, as it contributed to a new era of romanticism between the peaks of the Chinese and Western romantic traditions. Comparing himself to a heavenly hound, Guo praised the phoenix. While denying various restraints imposed on men by the physical world, he further negated the bondage of the subjective world in order to achieve the freedom of the “ego” in its real sense. Having surpassed a simplistic reproduction of Western romanticism and pantheism in a pure sense, such mindset addresses a more profound state of Anatman from ancient Oriental philosophy. Guo’s pursuit of the ideal of cultural renaissance had de facto transcended the realm of Chinese feudal Confucian culture in time and space, which enabled and empowered him to explore universal cultural integration from a higher cultural sphere. Apparently, such ideology remained contradictory to the feudal Confucian culture after the Xia, Shang and Zhou dynasties and to the Buddhist culture after the Tang and Song dynasties. Grounded in such cultural stance, Guo integrated Western romanticism with pantheistic ideas, making it possible to promote the positive kernel of romanticism, though such endeavor was inevitably incompatible with the aesthetic habits of the feudal cultural tradition. This predicament soon became tangible in the development of New Litera­ ture after the 1920s. For decades, new literary creations were not only lacking in the radiance of human individuality, but also in rich imaginativeness, indicating a big pitfall in Chinese romantic literature. However, the most fundamental problem was that the growth of individuality in Chinese literature had long been oppressed by the feudal cultural tradition. The highest ideal of Confucian culture is embodied in the reign of ancient Emperors Yao, Shun and Yu, which could be highly abstracted to a transformative spiritual motivation (This is exactly how Guo Moruo reinterpreted Confucius). However, later Confucian interpreters have failed to do so. On the one hand, they managed to limit people’s imagination with a realist attitude of “no talking about strange powers and chaos”; on the other hand, they reduced the ideal of the era of Emperors Yao and Shun to a certain model of political ethics, such as feudal “propriety”. With the rise of neo-Confucianism in the Song and Ming Dynasties, the role of abstinence and self-cultivation was overemphasized, unifying the spiritual ideal pursued by Chinese intellectuals of the time with concrete political models. It is difficult to imagine how these intellectuals of the time surpassed such political models

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to construct their new spiritual ideals. This indicates that without lofty ideals and thoughts, it is impossible to generate magical and extraordinary imagination. An overview of ancient Chinese literature reveals that with the exception of a handful of immortal masterpieces, the majority of literary works were trapped by the deficiency of such traditional thinking, lingering between “carrying the doctrine” and “expressing the aspiration.” For writing that expresses aspirations, its ideal aims at the fulfillment of equality and pleasure of life in the harmony of the world. With a hidden rhetoric of engaging officialdom to carry the doctrine, it remains intolerant of the outburst of personal emotions. Hence, such writing has long been subordinate to its counterpart that aims at carrying the doctrine. Such cultural constraints are far more capable of restraining men’s creative instincts than imperial autocracy. Generally, it is possible for a nation with a tradition of metaphysical contemplation and abstract thinking to benefit from freedom of thought, even though its freedom of action is lost. However, in China, the cultural psychological construction of pragmatism, of guanxi (relationships), of only elaborating the theories of predecessors rather than having original ideas, and of positing the value of intellectuals as the weight of a political career (the so-called principle of “a good scholar will make a good official”), together with the imperial powerbased political system, constituted a double restriction, making it difficult for the romantic spirit to flourish. Hence, romanticism should not serve as a supplement or whitewash for reality. Instead, it opposes hypocrisy, filth and ugliness and pursues a fundamental transcendence of reality within the realm of the truth, goodness and beauty with its unique aesthetic principles. Different from the ideal of realism, the ideal of romanticism, in a certain sense, is always ahistorical and unrealistic, since the former seeks the future of life based on the law of historical development. The gap between such an ideal and reality is reflected in the aspect of time, which indicates the inevitability of historical development; while the gap between the ideal of romanticism and reality is reflected in the aspect of space, which is not necessarily related to the law of historical development. The core of the ideal of romanticism reflects the radiance of human individuality, which means the full sublimation of individual needs would transcend into surreality and in turn play a role in human life. Therefore, it is both personal and humanistic. Hugo’s claim that “… on the absolute right of revolution, there is an absolutely right humanitarianism”4 expresses typically the ideal of romanticists. In Hugo’s view, the principle of humanitarianism represents 4 See Victor Hugo’s Quatre-Vingt-Treize, translated by Zheng Yonghui, People’s Literature Publishing House, 1978, p. 397.

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that of human nature, which is not on a par with the revolutionary principle in reality, since they belong to two different spatial categories. More distantly, Qu Yuan is a romanticist, whose ideal reveals his patriotic loyalty in a narrow sense and is oftentimes contemptible. However, in expressing his ideal in his literary works, he dared to set aside the dirty political persecution he suffered to travel in the celestial universe with various gods and let himself soar in the mythical world. Such vastness and the magnificence in imaginativeness surpass by far the wildest dream of a utilitarian. This marks the ideal of romanticism. However, ordinary people like us often dream about what occurs in the daytime  – in Lao She’s words: “A poor man’s dream is probably inseparable from meat buns.”5 Why could only a few people dream of the scenes of heavenly steeds soaring across the sky, of roaring dragons and tigers, or of alien visitors? It is because we lack that romantic imaginativeness. We cannot dream of becoming butterflies like Zhuang Zi, we cannot dream of the Illusory Land of Great Void or great barren hills and Wuji cliffs like Cao Xueqin, nor can we dream of frozen fire, revenge or good stories like Lu Xun. We are too practical to free our imaginations bound up by secular disputes, and our hearts are caged. The above discussion reflects a negative perspective in terms of history and reality. From the other perspective, the languishing of romanticism in modern Chinese literature reflects a common destiny of modern Chinese revolutionary practices and modern intellectuals. The reality was cruel: on the one hand, such cruelty does not allow any romantic reveries; on the other hand, reality’s justice and possibility bring hope for the country, the nation and the people. The pursuit of reality has replaced the illusory ideal. In France, romanticism ascended among romantic writers with their disillusionment with the Revo­ lution and their hatred of imperial tyranny. At the same time, they held a sophisticated attitude toward the Revolution: the heroism in humanity being elevated by boosting the spirit of the French Revolution and Napoleon’s illustrious war exploits, along with the momentary glory of life that highlighted the sadness of withering under the bondage of languishing rationalism, contributed to their affirmation of human nature and the desire for freedom. However, their spiritual and emotional needs could hardly be fulfilled in the new order of bloodshed and tyranny, which invoked irresolvable disappointment with sorrow and sentimentality. Their opposition to bland rationalism and rigid classicism in the arts reveals precisely their alternative pursuit on the spiritual level of individual freedom lost in the Great Revolution. In China, instead, the relationship between modern intellectuals and the revolution proved much 5 See Lao She’s “How did I write Zhao Ziyue?” in Lao She on Creations, Shanghai Literature and Art Publishing House, 1982, p. 10.

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closer, which was attributed to the changes in the nature of China’s modern revolution. Similar to what happened to French Romanticism, the Revolution of 1911 that overthrew the thousands-of-years-old feudal monarchy on the eve of the Chinese New Literature Movement overwhelmed Chinese intellectuals, leaving them deeply disappointed about its consequences. However, for the Chinese in the early 20th century, this bourgeois revolution was not a thunderbolt, nor was it the sole revolutionary model; they could only express their frustration at the weakness and inadequacy of this revolution through a proactive perspective. What prevailed worldwide then besides this bourgeois democratic revolution were wars of independence within the small and weak nations and various ideologies of socialism; the latter, before long, stirred Russia in 1917 with a “revolution” model. This provided Chinese intellectuals who were dedicated to the salvation of the nation and its people a variety of possibilities for exploration, for they did not have to retreat into the wilderness to escape reality, nor daydream in the realm of illusion. Simply put, there are reasons why the romantic spirit failed to thrive in the May 4th New Literature Movement. The year 1921 witnessed the initial publications of The Goddess and Fallen by the Creation Society, which for the first time divided romanticism in China into the ideal and lyric styles. In the late 1920s, the decline of personal lyric novels and the rise of pastoral lyric novels constituted the second division of romanticism. Within these two literary divisions, a vast amount of information concerning the interconnectedness of the society, politics, culture, literature and the national aesthetic mentality in modern China has been preserved. It seems difficult to assess the merits and demerits of this Chinese romanticism today, as the social and traditional ethnic elements have demonstrated their strength in the face of the foreign culture. Nevertheless, the exaltation of this strength unconsciously exposed its limitations. The individuality, idealism and imaginativeness of romanticism have far surpassed the literature itself; they reveal to some extent the spirit of an age and a nation. Literature, however, serves as a testimony of the fate of the time and of the nation. I wonder whether I should wind up here, since it might be too early to draw such a pessimistic conclusion about the history of China’s New Literature, which is less than 100 years old. Furthermore, chances are that a nation that has lived through sufferings and misfortunes or is struggling to free itself from cultural constraints can thrive with an exciting spiritual exaltation on the ruins of history. May the ancient Chinese myth of Hou Yi Shooting Nine Suns be quickly forgotten,6 as the human spirit should always be youthful, brilliant 6 The household Chinese myth of Hou Yi Shooting Nine Suns goes like this: Hou Yi, also known simply as Yi, is a mythological Chinese archer during the period of King Yao. One day, all ten

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and unrestrained. Romanticism, as a literary trend, had perhaps become outdated, which became obvious in the May 4th New Literature Movement, when the most brilliant romanticists of the time were endeavoring to integrate romanticism with the modern spirit of the world. However, what romanticism represents is an eternal ethos – romantic, unique and full of vitality; it is the symbol of human youth, evergreen and unfading. China’s modern history throughout the 20th century was full of suffering, pursuits and struggles between darkness and light. The fading of the old history accompanied the rise of the voice of hope. Listen, we have already had such a minstrel who is singing, I have travelled north of this continent, and I will continue to travel in the north of this continent today and tomorrow. My eyes are clouded by the wind and dust, but they can see through the essence. The vast and magnificent scenery makes me dizzy, and the singing voices that come and go nourish my heart. I always feel touched, but choked up again. A huge but invisible closeness attracts me so strongly, making me feel separated from an equally huge but tangible environment day by day. Why is that? I do not know. All I know is that the barren land ahead is glittering with nobility, and the scorched loess is buried with treasures.7 I hope this prelude can inspire and stimulate literature to rekindle the flame of ideals, letting it not only shine on the earth, but also cling to the depths of the earth, where the soul of our nation lies. It will further penetrate into poetry, novels and prose to shatter illusive myths of deceit made up by pseudoromantics. The ideal of realism should permeate into real life to inspire one to strive for a new life; the ideal of modernism should be buried deep in one’s heart so as to empower it to gather all its strength; the ideal of romanticism, instead, is a golden light, a sun and a melody in the distant sky, which will call upon you, enlighten you, and inspire you never to rest with contentment in the pursuit of that supreme state. In our spiritual world, there should be billions of such red suns. suns came out at once scorching the earth. Wild animals also haunted the world. Hou Yi was tasked by King Yao to rein in the suns. He shot at them one by one and left the last sun for the prosperity of man. Considering the focus of this study is the lack of ideals and passion of romanticism in China, the purpose of including this myth is to suggest that in the Chinese culture, the historically ideal sun has already been shot down by the absolute monarchy, leaving its people to live a submissive life without ideals and passion. Hence, may this myth be quickly forgotten. 7 See Golden Pastures by Zhang Chengzhi, The Writers Publishing House, 1987, p. 92.

Chapter 5

Realism in the Development of China’s New Literature 1

Realism in China

1.1 Stage 1: The Division of Realism and Naturalism China’s May 4th New Literature Movement was taking place at a time when Western literary ideas were undergoing transformation and innovation. From the beginning, it encountered the Western literary legacy that had accumulated for hundreds of years since the Renaissance and, at the same time, was influenced synchronically by the modern Western ideas of the 20th century. This made it resort discretionarily to the principles of eclecticism and “bringism” in its choice of various literary ideas that had evolved in Western Europe. In terms of absorbing the influences of foreign literature, in the early days of the May 4th Movement, there emerged an unprecedented magnificence in literature, as modernism, realism and romanticism became the three leading literary schools that seemed to direct the development of China’s new literature after the May 4th Movement. These literary schools have found their respective places in China’s new literature: modernism has had a direct impact due to its synchronization with the modern Chinese literature; realism has produced some utilitarian benefits because it was closely related to China’s pragmatic tradition and the pressing status quo at the time; romanticism, instead, has resonated with the varieties of sentimentalities (such as sadness, loneliness or excitement) unique to Chinese intellectuals, who were in the midst of the alternation between the old and new era. Each of these literary schools accom­ plished results. In the literary creations in the 1920s, they all produced a number of achievements. To strive for a unique development path out of the state of tripartite confrontation in literature, realism had undertaken at least two types of struggles from the early 20th century to the late 1920s. Externally, it had to compete with its main literary rival represented by romanticism; internally, it had to clarify its own conceptual confusion and to distinguish realism from vague conceptions such as the “naturalistic school” and the “literalistic school”. As a competitive force, the impact of realism on China lagged far behind that of romanticism. In the first decade of the 20th century, a large quantity of Western romantic literature by G. Byron, P. B. Shelley, V. Hugo and W. v. Goethe

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was introduced to China. Meanwhile, many studies on Western romanticism, such as “On the Poetic Power of Maras” by Lu Xun and “Preface to Anthology of Tidal Sound” by Su Manshu, had been published, whereas realism had not initially received due attention from Chinese intellectuals. It is likely that Lin Shu’s review on Dickens was the first document to introduce Western realism. In Lin’s words, “C. Dickens was particularly good at expressing sentimentalities in his time. According to his autobiography, he was born poor, which made him excellent in portraying those who struggle at the bottom of the society.” Lin also comments that “historically, Chinese writers such as Zuo Qiuming, Si’ma Qian, Ban Gu and Han Yu were good at portraying the dignified rather than depicting the despicable; comparatively, Dickens has broken a new path in this aspect.”1 “In this book, Dickens depicts a living picture of the lower society; though vulgar and despicable, his sharp insights and exquisite descriptions indeed make people laugh.”2 Although Lin Shu had not done research on Western realist creations, his rich cultivation in Chinese literature enabled him to locate immediately a proper reference for evaluating Dickens’ literary creations, namely “portraying the dignified” and “depicting the despicable”, which reveals precisely one of the leading features of Western realism. However, compared with Lu Xun’s eloquent appraisal of Western romanticism in his “On the Poetic Power of Maras”, such evaluation is neither from an insider’s perspective nor a conscious judgement. Similarly, the same issue existed in the initial introduction of Western realist writer É. Zola in 1904, as the introducer neither paid sufficient attention to Zola’s masterpieces, nor did he review Zola’s astonishing literary propositions. Instead, only Zola’s struggles of “lifelong encounter with countless tortures on the path to a literary master” were emphasized.3 In the late Qing Dynasty, which was filled with heroism and a hero worship ethos, in the eyes of his very few Chinese popularizers, Zola fell into the same category as romantic heroes such as Byron and Hugo. Such a superficial introduction cannot be compared with Su Manshu’s in-depth research on Byron and Shelley. It was Chen Duxiu who formally advocated realism in an attempt to integrate this literary approach with the guidelines of China’s new literature. In his “On the History of Modern European Literature and Art” published in The 1 See “Funny Foreign History: Short Commentaries” by Lin Shu. Quoted from “Lin Shu’s Literary Translation” by Uchida Michio, translated by Xia Hongqiu, available in Research Materials on Lin Shu, Fujian People’s Publishing House, 1982, p. 257. 2 See “Foreword of David Copperfield” by Lin Shu. Quoted from “Lin Shu’s Literary Translation” by Uchida Michio, translated by Xia Hongqiu, available in Research Materials on Lin Shu, Fujian People’s Publishing House, 1982, p. 260. 3 See “A Biography of the Literary Warrior Émile Zola” in Vol. 2, No. 1 of The Mainland, pp. 25–33, January 20, 1904. No author attribution.

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Youth Magazine in 1915, Chen formally introduced literalism and naturalism in Western Europe based on the literary evolution in Europe.4 The purpose of Chen’s advocacy of realism was fairly utilitarian, as he wrote in the column Correspondence that “the trend in the future is toward realism … (which) will save us from today’s pompous and decadent social ethos.”5 Obviously Chen’s proposal was acknowledged by his colleagues of the New Youth magazine. Hu Shi also emphasized that literature should explore and portray “all male and female workers, rickshaw pullers, peasants from countryside, vendors and shop owners of all levels, all painful situations,” and all sorts of social problems, such as “family crises and tragedies, painful marriages, women’s social status and the inappropriateness of education.” Hu also commented that a writer should “focus on field observations and personal experiences” and “thoughtful ideals.”6 These literary theories are largely the literary propositions of Western realism. Hu Shi was intellectually an advocate of pragmatism and his choices in literature also reflected his pragmatic stance. However, Hu’s advocacy of realism and his translation of a variety of literary works by Guy de Maupassant, A. Daudet, A. Chekhov and others had a positive impact in the early period of China’s New Literature Movement. Although Chen Duxiu, Hu Shi and other writers made solemn recommendations and appeals for Western realist ideas and pertinent literary works, from a general literary perspective since the beginning of the May 4th New Literature Movement, realism could hardly become the mainstream trend. Actually, even Chen Duxiu himself had only a vague understanding of the role of realism in world literature. In his “On the History of Modern European Literature and Art”, 4 See Chen Duxiu’s “On the History of Modern European Literature and Art”, in which he introduced the literary and artistic trend in Europe as follows: “The evolution of literary and artistic ideas in Europe, namely from classicalism to romanticism, took place at the turn of 18th and 19th century, when literary workers opposed the imitation of Greco-Roman classics. They expressed their ideals by writing medieval legends. This was influenced by the political and social innovations since the 18th century with the purpose of dethroning the past to praise the present. By the end of the 19th century, science was flourishing, and the truth of the universe and the life was increasingly discovered. In this so-called Naked Age, the so-called unmasking age, the emphasis was on European technology and culture, while the old morals, ideas and systems, which had been passed down from ancient times, were all destroyed. Literature and art also followed this trend, which proceeded from idealism to realism, and further to naturalism.” This quotation is in Vol. 1, No. 3 of The Youth Magazine, November 15, 1915. Chen Duxiu’s concept of literary evolution was derived from the book entitled Modern Literature Movement by the French literary historian Georges Pellisier (1852–1918). 5 See Chen Duxiu’s “An Answer to Zhang Yongyan” in the “Correspondence” column, Vol. 1, No. 4 of The Youth Magazine. December 15, 1915, p. 2. 6 See Hu Shi’s “On Constructive Literary Revolution” in Vol. 4, No. 4 of New Youth, April 15, 1918. In this article, Hu noted that the “ideal” he referred to meant imagination.

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Chen demonstrated an ambivalent attitude, as he sometimes referred to Zola, H. Ibsen and L. Tolstoy as “three literary heroes” of the world, and also referred to Ibsen, I. Turgenev, O. Wilde and M. Maeterlinck as the “four representative writers” of modern times,7 though Wilde and Maeterlinck were evidently not realist writers. Among the important foreign writers whose literary works were published in the New Youth magazine at the time were Turgenev, Wilde, Ibsen, Maupassant, the Goncourt brothers, Tolstoy, F. Sologub, H. Sienkiewicz, A. Chekhov, A. Kuprin, A. Strindberg and L. Andreyev. The magazine accommodated representative writers of different literary schools and had not yet particularly favored realist literature. The other two magazines, New Waves and The Young China, which were launched a little later than New Youth, also had considerable influence in the early days of the May 4th New Literature Movement. In addition to the publications of the aforementioned foreign literary works, they also translated and introduced literary works by writers such as Bernard Shaw, Anatole France, Maeterlinck, F. Nietzsche, W. Whitman, Jack London, A. Pushkin, R. Tagore, W. Shakespeare, C. Baudelaire and Goethe. It is not difficult to find from this long list of writers that in a pure sense, there are not many Western realist writers; instead, many of them were writers of naturalism, aestheticism and symbolism. This variety of external influences made the first literary works of China’s New Literature Movement rich in diverse literary elements, such as “A Madman’s Diary” and “Medicine” by Lu Xun, “Rebirth of the Goddess” and “The Nirvana of the Feng and Huang” by Guo Moruo, Yu Dafu’s fictions, Zhou Zuoren’s poems and Tian Han’s early plays. It is no easy task to summarize these works with a specific kind of literary theory, since they all share an eclectic approach in their writing techniques. The influence of realism was gradually on the rise in the 1920s with its significant stance as the advocate of “Literature for Life” by the Literature Research Association. The focus of this slogan was to establish a close connection between literature, life and society, as well as to clarify the mission that literature should actively undertake to criticize the society. To theorize this literary proposition, writers from the Literature Research Society had to resort to notions of realism in the history of Western literature for a more systematic and comprehensive introduction of this literary genre, such as “Naturalistic Novels” by Xie Liuyi and “Literalism in Modern Literature” by Hu Yuzhi. However, neither of these articles scientifically distinguished the differing characteristics of realism from naturalism, as what was introduced as the literalism in these articles were actually some general literary propositions in naturalism. In his 7 See Chen Duxiu’s “On the History of Modern European Literature and Art”, available in Vol. 1, No. 3 of The Youth Magazine, November 15, 1915.

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early years of literary creations, Shen Yanbing was once irresolute in his choice between realism and modernism. Persuaded by Hu Shi, he decided resolutely in mid-1921 in favor of realism.8 However, Shen’s theoretical exposition of realism did not distinguish naturalism from realism either. Although his literary propositions were mainly influenced by Zola’s naturalist theory and H. Taine’s positivist literary theory, Shen was well aware in the meantime that the pitfall of realism lies in its “ability to criticize society and its inability to reach solutions” as well as its “lack of a sound outlook on life to guide readers.” Hence, modernism was indispensable to find remedies.9 In terms of literary creations in the early 1920s, other than being influenced by realism from the West in aspects of literary thought and writing approaches, they were more affected by the slogan “Literature for Life”, as the former served limitedly as an expression of solidarity and supplement to the latter, while the connotations of realism contained in the latter referred not to a specific creative approach, but actually to the subjective attitude of modern Chinese writers toward real life. A review of outstanding writers in the early period of the Literature Research Association reveals that the literary works by Bing Xin, Lu Yin, Wang Tongzhao, Xu Dishan and Ye Shengtao reflect in a broader sense the literary propositions of the “lifestyle school” to a certain extent, among which that writers facing life should depict faithfully the impact of real life on them as well as varieties of ensuing troubles. In terms of writing techniques, except for Ye Shengtao, none of the writers ever applied pure realist techniques in their writing; hence, it is difficult to determine whether their literary works belong to realism from the perspective of the realist genre. Furthermore, the slogan “Literature for Life” failed to become a mainstream force to dominate the literary world with its prevalence at the time. This can be attributed to the rise of another completely opposite slogan, “Literature for Art,” raised almost immediately by the Creation Society, which also had a considerable influence in the literary world. This is a literary proposition that 8 Hu Shi recorded a conversation with Shen Yanbing in his diary on July 22, 1921 as follows: “Yesterday I read some articles on literary creations in the 7th issue of Short Story Monthly. I had some ideas and discussed with Zheng Zhenduo and Shen Yanbing. I advised them to be more careful and serious about submissions on this theme because literary creation are not empty and rough works, which must be based on lived experience. I also advised Yanbing not to blindly preach new romanticism. The reason why modern Western neo-romantic literature can stand on its own is because of the baptism of realism, without which the former may degenerate to emptiness.” This quotation is available in Diary of Hu Shi: A Full Compilation, compiled by Cao Boyuan, Anhui Education Press, 2001, p. 394. It can be seen that Hu Shi considered practically the promotion of realism. I assumed that this advice led to Shen Yanbing’s conversion from new romanticism to realism. 9 See Shen Yanbing’s “Thoughts on Recent Trends in New European and American Literature” in Vol. 17, No. 18 of The Eastern Miscellany, pp. 76–78, September 25, 1920.

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integrated romanticism, aestheticism and symbolism. Its opposition to the “Literature for Life” advocated by the Literature Research Association had not yet had any negative impact on new literature. Instead, it is on the basis of such opposition and complementarity that the new literature was able to maintain its independent values of artistic aesthetics, rather than being overwhelmed immediately by various non-literary elements. Therefore, it can be said that the slogan “Literature for Life” reflects the writers’ understanding of the social functions of literature, while the slogan “Literature for Art” reflects the writers’ understanding of the aesthetic functions of literature. Only when these two aspects are integrated can they constitute a complete dialectical relationship between art and real life. What is interesting is that it was originally writers from the Creation Society opposed to realism who helped to draw a division between naturalism and realism from within. Here, two articles must be discussed by writers from the Creation Society: one is “Literalism and Vulgarism” by Cheng Fangwu published in 1923, the other is “On Literalistic Literature” by Mu Mutian published in 1926. In his “Literalism and Vulgarism”, by applying French philosopher J. M. Guyau’s theory, Cheng for the first time differentiated in literalistic literature the two concepts of “verism” and “vulgarism.” He pointed out that when observing reality, verism aims at “capturing its internal vitality;” vulgarism, instead, when observing reality, aims at nothing but “external forms and partial contours.”10 In “On Literalistic Theories”, Mu developed Cheng’s views and for the first time compared Balzac with Zola. His conclusion was that La Comédie Humaine (English: The Human Comedy) by Balzac reflects the true spirit of realism, while Zola’s fictions are “nothing but a scientific record, rather than literary works, and thus announce the demise of literalism.”11 I don’t think Mu’s evaluation of Zola is fair, though his distinction and criticism of the two do make sense, as this not only indicates that Chinese writers had begun to develop solid insights into Western realist literature, but also reveals that China’s literary theorists at the time had developed some understanding of the differences in terms of writing techniques between realism and naturalism. However, it was not until nearly six years after the publication of Mu’s article that such distinction was seriously considered by the country’s literary theorists. In early 1932, F. Engels’ “A Letter to M. Harkelas” and his “A Letter to P. Ernst”, edited by the Soviet Communist Academy, were published for the first time in the magazine Literary Legacy. In these letters, a theoretical exposition of 10 11

See Cheng Fangwu’s “Literalism and Vulgarism” in Creation Weekly, No. 5, p. 2. June 10, 1923. See Mu Mutian’s “On Literalistic Literature” in Vol. 1, No. 4 of Creation Monthly, June 1, 1926.

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the basic principles of realist literature was made by Marxist classical writers. Within less than half a year, these two letters were translated into Chinese by Qu Qiubai, who also translated Marxist literary and artistic works by Lenin, G. Plekhanov, P. Lafargue and others, as well as some explanatory materials in the Soviet theoretical circles. These pieces contributed to systematic discussions of the distinctions between realism and romanticism, as well as their respective typical settings and characters, authenticity, dispositions, and the like.12 This indicates that Marxist realist theories had achieved a decisive status in China. The combination of realist ideas from Western Europe with Marxist literary and artistic theories was sincerely welcomed by Chinese left-wing writers. Romanticism failed in its confrontation with realism. A large number of left-wing writers, who came from romantic literary schools such as the Creation Society and the Sun Society, rushed to apply realism in their literary creations with remarkable influences of romanticism. Jiang Guangci’s last fiction, Wind of the Field, best reflects such transformations as well as the writer’s self-awareness. Naturalism was also identified. All of a sudden, Zola became infamous; even Shen Yanbing, who was also known for his advocacy of Zola in his early literary career, denied that he was influenced by Zola’s L’Argent while writing Midnight.13 Hence, externally, realism triumphed over romanticism and won its mainstream status in Chinese literature; internally, it clarified the confusion with naturalism in terms of their respective conceptions. It was not until the 1930s that the development of realism started to have its impact on China’s new literature with its independent ideologies and aesthetic values. 1.2 Stage 2: Realism and Marxism: A Synchronization The 1930s was an era when both Marxist literary theories and Chinese realist literature flourished. A type of interdependence emerged at the time: attached to the political power of Marxism, realist literature developed a significant impact on China’s new literature; meanwhile, Marxism also exercised its guidance on literature through its embodiment in realist literature. When realism 12 13

See Qu Qiubai’s “Reality: A Collection of Essays on Marxist Literature and Art” in Volume 2 of Anthology of Qu Qiubai, People’s Literature Publishing House, 1953, pp. 1015–1216. See “Writing Background of Midnight ” by Mao Dun (the penname of Shen Yanbing), in which he commented on the article “Midnight and the Year of the National Goods” by Qu Qiubai, saying, “It argues that ‘this [Midnight] is the first successful realist novel in China which is clearly influenced by Zola’s Money, Volume 18 of Zola’s Les Rougon-Macquart (English: The Lugon Makar Family) is about the prosperity of speculative businessin an exchange and how the savings of the little property-holders were sucked into bankruptcy. What I need to clarify is that although I like Zola’s works, I had not yet finished the entire twenty volumes of his The Lugon Makar family. I only finished five or six of them, none of which was Money.” See Collected Works of Mao Dun, Fujian People’s Publishing House, 1983, p. 717.

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requires that literature should be able to reflect the historical trend of social development, it can also be concluded that only Marxism is able to provide writers with the correct means to understand social and historical trends. The developmental history of Marxist literary theories in China is also complicated. As is known to all, Marxist literary and artistic ideas did not arouse any serious attention in academia until the late 1920s. Literary criticism by Lafargue and Plekhanov had long been regarded as classics of Marxist literature and art. After the October Revolution (also known as the Bolshevik Revolution) in 1917, more attention turned to the new Soviet-Russian literature. At the time, the instructions of some Soviet-Russian leaders in terms of literary and artistic policies and the documents of the internal struggles within the literary and artistic circles were all regarded as Marxist and had a profound impact on China’s new literature. Before 1927, only two pieces of Lenin’s literary and artistic works were translated in China,14 while none of the original works of Marx and Engels had ever been translated. What Chinese writers mainly advocated at the time was, first, the proletariate (English: proletariat) literature of the Soviet Union and the proletarian literature and art in Japan (such as by members from the Creation Society and the Sun Society at later stages); second, the literary theories by Plekhanov, L. Trotsky, A. Lunacharsky and other theorists (such as by Lu Xun, Feng Xuefeng and some members from the Weiming Society). Strictly speaking, none of the aforementioned was real Marxism.15 Moreover, the majority of these literary theories were exploratory documents for the purposes of building a new literature after the October Revolution. Produced to deal with specific problems and formulating policies, these utilitarian documents aimed at quick success; rather than academic studies on Marxism, some of these documents were nothing but the enforcement of policies. Furthermore, the factions within the early Soviet 14

15

These two pieces of Lenin’s literary and artistic works are “Tolstoy and the Contemporary Workers’ Movement” (translated by Chao Lin, published in Republic of China Daily · Awakening on February 13, 1925) and “On the Publications and Literature of the Party” (translated by Yi Sheng, published in Issue 144 of China Youth on December 6, 1926). Furthermore, Ren Bishi’s article, entitled “Lenin and the Youth” (No. 1, “Lenin”, New Youth, 1925, pp. 118–125, April 22, 1925) was the first introduction of Lenin’s thoughts on two cultures. The impact of these articles was not great in the Chinese literary world, except for some debates aroused by their evaluation of Tolstoy. In his article “Qu Qiubai’s Comments on the May 4 Generation: The Early Marxist Literary Criticism in China”, the American scholar Paul G. Pickwicz divided the early Marxist literary theories in China into “Romantic Marxism” and “Realist Marxism”, and pointed out their respective sources, characteristics and limitations. His views are referred to in this article. Pickwicz’s articles are included in The Mainstream of Modern Chinese Literature, edited by Jia Zhifang, translated by Chen Sihe, Fudan University Press, 1990, pp. 184–207.

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literary world were complicated, where academic controversies mixed with political disputes. Taking an egotistical stance, these factions exaggerated their subjective understanding of Marxism as Marxism itself, while attacking each other with an intention of destroying others. These complicated phenomena inevitably exerted a severe interference with the early contact and study of the Marxist literary and artistic ideas by Chinese literary theorists, which was typically reflected in the dispute of “revolutionary literature” in 1928. The superficial understanding of Marxism and weakness of scientific research inevitably affected the depth and breadth of literary creations in realism. Midnight, a literary milestone of realism in the 1930s, bears the imprint of its era. Midnight, a work that attempts to integrate Marxism with realism, had a complex impact on future literary creations. On the one hand, its author, Shen Yanbing, through his understanding of Western realist literature, made a lot of original explorations in the establishment of many essential characteristics of realist writing techniques, such as combining the historical trends which reveal social development with the meticulous portrayal of details of life, building typical characters in typical environments and integrating protagonists’ rich personalities into a magnificent historical background. The typical significance of Wu Sunfu lies not only in the social responsibilities he takes on (Wu as a national capitalist), but more importantly in the typical ways of artistic expression he expands in China’s new literature and art. The majority of typical literary imageries before the publication of Midnight were mostly built either on the social nature of the characters (such as those in Lu Xun’s novels) or on the degree of resonance of a character’s emotions with the readers (such as Yu Dafu’s novels). Shen Yanbing, for the first time, put emphasis on revealing grand social scenarios by depicting the characters’ relationships in Midnight. These social scenarios were all captured and reflected in the differing social classes of those characters, thus conveying to readers a rational revelation. Since then, people have come to refer to such a literary expression which reveals the social classes of pertinent characters as a typical principle in realism, and refer to such an artistic effect which appeals to readers’ rational knowledge as the profundity of realism. However, due to his insufficient knowledge of Marxist literary and artistic theories, Shen Yanbing was rather anxious to infuse ready-made ideological conclusions into his literary works, which led to a deficient form of realism and the inherent pitfall of conceptual illustration. Midnight left ample room for classical romanticism, which is not only reflected in the creation of a hero full of the French adventurer, noble and chivalric spirit, but more importantly in the a priori elements permeating the overall design of the novel. Although these transcendental elements are unified in the concept of realism, they still fail to attain real realist writing

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methods pioneered by Flaubert and other realist writers, namely the literary tradition of “portraying life as it really is”, as well as the radical fighting spirit of “Daring to write faithfully with no sugarcoating”16 advocated by Lu Xun, the founder of China’s new literature. From the perspective of writing methods, what is equally non-negligible are the literary creations by a cohort of non-left-wing writers. Almost instinctively following the ideal model of harmony in traditional culture, these writers applied the holistic aesthetic lens on man and society and on man and nature to observe and study human relationships in this world. A typical creative form of realism was hence born: by focusing on the variety of human relationships that comprise its distinctive lifestyle, many literary works have depicted the natural state of a complete social life. The personalities of various characters, as well as their consciousness, are buried in the vastness of the primitive state of society; accordingly, their personalities and values are expressed through the antagonistic relationship between the characters. The purpose of such a realist aesthetic approach is not to create an individual artistic imagery (such as Wu Sunfu), but to emphasize the natural state of life. Generally, Lao She focuses on portraying the social life of man, while Shen Congwen stresses the natural life of man; each has constructed an integral world of art. In such integral entity, there are mountains and rivers, ordinary people and mundane life, in which men are integrated with their surrounding environment as an organic part of the entire story (In Rickshaw Boy, Xiangzi, who is portrayed by Lao She as the “last underdog of individualism,” can be regarded as one of the few exceptions). While writers such as Lao She and Shen Congwen may not have created brilliant “typical personalities,” they have faithfully portrayed lifelike literary imageries as well as lives full of humanity and realist sense. Such creative methods were greatly developed by the 1940s, as writers such as Ba Jin, Sha Ting, Lu Ling, Qian Zhongshu, Shi Tuo, Wang Zengqi and others followed this path. The realist aesthetic style with Chinese characteristics was thus gradually established. However, this creative style had not yet exerted any theoretical impact. In terms of the construction of realist writing theory, what theorists were pursuing with perseverance was the integration of Marxist literary and artistic theories and realist writing theories. The 1930s and 1940s could be regarded as the most prosperous era of the rise of realist writing theories. Efforts such as the explorations of Marxist literary ideas in the literary and artistic debates by writers such as Lu Xun and Feng Xuefeng, the translation and interpretation 16

See Lu Xun’s “Changes in the History of Chinese Fiction” in Vol. 9 of The Complete Works of Lu Xun, People’s Literature Publishing House, 1981, p. 338.

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of Marxist literary and artistic theories by Qu Qiubai, and the introduction of the concept of socialist realism by Zhou Yang, together promoted from various perspectives the advancement of realist theories. Noticeably, Hu Feng made significant contributions to the development of realist theory in China, though his literary theories remain inevitably radical from the perspective of today’s cognitive level. First, Hu did not interpret the profundity of dialectical materialism and historical materialism as the reflection of mechanical materialism, nor did he transform it into literary theories. This has helped in remedying a major flaw in the advancement of realist theories in China. Additionally, Hu put emphasis on writers’ subjective consciousness in their literary creations, which has fundamentally changed the naturalist theory of reflection advocated by some realist theorists in the 1920s that the relationship between life and literature is like “a cup” and “a mirror.”17 While describing the process of realist works, Hu coined two meaning-making terms, namely “self-expansion” and “self-struggle”, to delineate the active influence of a writer’s subjective consciousness on the objects of artistic expressions. This has propelled the original intention of creative methods in realism, namely the theory of “portraying life as it really is.” Hu argued that writers should not depict passively the objective world; instead, during the process of artistic creation, they should aim at obtaining the authenticity in their works required by history through the interaction of the response of writers’ subjective consciousness when confronted with the objective world (namely, the process of “catering to, making choices or resisting” as discussed by Hu Feng) and the further restriction on writers’ subjective consciousness by the objective world (namely, the process of “facilitating, modifying or even overthrowing” as discussed by Hu Feng).”18 Such theoretical exploration reveals Hu’s endeavor to 17

18

See Shen Yanbing’s article entitled “Literature and Life”: “One of the most common slogans used by Western literature researchers is ‘Literature is the reflection of life.’ Literature reflects the way people live and the way society works. For example, if life is a cup, literature is the reflection of the cup in the mirror.” This article was first published in Issue 1 of Songjiang Summer Toastmasters Academic Speeches, July 1927. This quotation is from Mao Dun’s Essays on Literature and Art (Part I), Shanghai Literature and Art Publishing House, 1981, p. 110. Hu Feng’s theoretical description of the creation methods of realist literature is as follows: “In the struggle for real life, since the represented and the conquered are the perceptual existence of life, the writer’s own thinking activities as the presenter and the conqueror cannot be detached from the perceptual function. The process of the former’s being represented or being conquered, from the perspective of the writer himself as the subject, is also a continuous process of self-expansion and self-struggle. In this process of representing or conquering, the life of the object is absorbed by the writer’s spiritual world, which makes the writer expand himself. However, in this ‘absorbing’ process, the writer’s subjectivity must take the initiative to play the role of either catering to or making choices or resisting, while the object also takes the initiative to use his authenticity to facilitate,

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integrate the fighting spirit of new literature with realism, showing the positive attitude of Chinese intellectuals toward society and life. From the idea of “intervening life” proposed by writers in the 1950s to the discussion of writers’ subjective consciousness in literature in the 1980s, this theoretical exploration continued in an unconscious manner. Second, Hu Feng constructed solid theories of realism based on “authenticity” and posited such “authentic” elements within the realm of writers’ lived experiences. Hu claimed that only when the objectiveness of life melts through the writer’s lived experience can it become the kind of authenticity grasped by this writer “with his body and soul.”19 Grounded in his in-depth insights into realism, Hu took his own independent theoretical stance to fight uncompromisingly against various pseudo-realisms, such as subjectivism with romantic elements and objectivism with naturalistic elements. In particular, Hu’s criticism of subjectivism hit the most detrimental ideological trend in the development of China’s realist theories. After Hu’s system of literary theories was completely repudiated, the theory of “authenticity” became ominous, even a scourge to the distress of many theoretical workers. Nevertheless, it remains a pearl on the crown of realist theory, attracting generations of literary and artistic workers to devote their lives for its purity. It was not until the rise of the Scar Literature after the Cultural Revolution that we were able to perceive the tenacious vitality of this literary theory. 1.3 Stage 3: Confrontation between Realism and Pseudo-Realism Grounded in such a historical background to explore the fate of realist writing theory in China, it is not difficult to understand why, since the mid-1950s, realist theory has gradually lost its power of insight into life. It is also not difficult to understand the promotion of the so-called creative slogan “Combination of the Two”20 as a product of the sharp conflict between the left-leaning modify or even overthrow the writer’s role of either catering to or making choices or resisting, thus causing a profound self-struggle. Only through this self-struggle can the writer achieve self-expansion in terms of authenticity required by history, which is the source of his artistic creations.” See Hu Feng’s “Inside the Struggle for Democracy” in Collection of Hu Feng’s Commentaries (Part Two), People’s Literature Publishing House, 1985, p. 20. 19 The original quote reads as follows: “What an honest writer loves is the living truth of life, which is also what he seeks. It is only with his own senses and his own thoughts and with what has become his own that the writer is able to integrate himself with his subject in the process of writing, and to express the truth that he has grasped with his body and soul.” See Hu Feng’s Comments on Ou’yang Shan’s “Seven Years’ Taboo” in Collection of Hu Feng’s Commentaries (Part One), People’s Literature Publishing House, 1984, p. 164. 20 This is also called “revolutionary realism combined with revolutionary romanticism.” It was first available in Guo Moruo’s “An Answer to Journal of Literature and Art” and Zhang Guangnian’s “A Letter to Comrade Guo Moruo”, which were both available in Issue 7 of Journal of Literature and Art, 1958. Guo used this to interpret Mao Zedong’s poem “Reply

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political guideline and realist writing methods. Realism in nature has such an ability: since it intends to understand the historical trends of social life, and history contains the practices of its people and the ideals of life that are derived from these practices (writers should be an integral part of this cohort of “people,” and these ideals also include writers’ own ideals), a thorough and fearless realist is always able to perceive the historical trend as well as the will of the people from his own lived experience. The progressiveness of realism is reflected in writers’ in-depth understanding of life. Since the left-leaning political guideline went against the fundamental will of the Chinese people and dragged them into a cul-de-sac materially and spiritually, it was inevitably in sharp conflict with true realism. During the period of the “Combination of the Two,” the slogan “revolutionary romanticism” was proposed as an opposing force of authenticity, which is the soul of realism, to modify realism. It actually announced that the realism advocated by classical Marxist writers could no longer meet the political needs of the left-leaning line; hence, it was necessary to emphasize “ideal elements” that do not belong to realism. The ideal of literature was no longer obtained from the real trend of historical development – since the ideal elements that can be obtained from the historical trend have already been included in the realist creations through realist writers’ indepth understanding of the developmental trend of life. Only artificial ideals can be played at will. What is in line with this theory is an alternative amendment to realism, namely, to separate the essence of life from the phenomena of life in the name of realism. According to its theoretical explanation, the “essence of life” does not seem to exist in real-life phenomena, nor is it within the reach of the world of human experience and that of perception; instead, it is completely independent of the reality of life and exists in an illusory world that cannot be perceived in real life. Such “nature of life” can be arbitrarily determined by man; for instance, in one period, the imaginary class struggle was regarded as the essence of social life, and in another period, the struggle of political guidelines was taken as the essence of social life. When writers had to depict life based on the artificial “nature of life,” the essence of realism was castrated. When people at the time were lauding “realism” verbally, it was nothing but a “pseudo-realism”, which is much worse than “anti-realism.” Anti-realism may lead writers to step out of the realist system to gain a new way of perceiving life, while with nothing but an empty mask of realism, pseudo-realism had lost its soul.

to Li Shuyi – to the tune of Tieh Lien Htua”, which was later proposed by some politicians and theorists as writing methods that should be adopted in proletarian literature and art.

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Today, when we review the literary creations of the 1950s and 1960s, particularly those works published after the mid-1950s, it is not difficult to find that authentic realist works had all but disappeared. Thousands of “Great Leap Forward” folk songs are no match for one real poem collected from local peasants by General Peng Dehuai, which goes “Peanut shells are scattered all over the ground, leaves of potatoes are withered, young and mature men have gone to make steel, only children and women are left to harvest crops. How will the next year be? Let me sing and petition for my folk …”21 If there were one type of reality of the time, I would rather believe that only this poem, which faithfully expresses the voice of the people at the time, reveals the reality. Its existence alone overshadowed many other fake “folk songs.” Nevertheless, it is incredible that the real-life pictures portrayed in this poem were ignored by writers who were living in the countryside at the time, making it their duty to write about the rural life there. These writers produced numerous fictions, poems and essays to praise un-conscientiously the bluster of the “Great Leap Forward.” The writers’ talents were thus wasted, their enthusiasm was thus abused, and their conscience was thus buried. This was not the misfortune of an individual writer, but the tragedy of a generation of writers, an entire generation. It is not that nobody was aware. Realism has its historical tradition in Chinese literature, and its tenacious vitality would not be easily deracinated. In the sharp conflict between the far-left-leaning political policy and realism, a large number of writers made lofty sacrifices to defend it. When literary works such as “At the Bridge Construction Site”, “Inside News of Our Newspaper” and “Young Newcomers from the Department of Organization” were strangled, the swan song Guan Hanqing appeared which applied the historical theme to disclose the reality. When the theory “On the broad paths of realism” was criticized, the realist writing theory of “Portraying Middle Characters” advocated by Shao Quanlin emerged. Here it is necessary to discuss Zhao Shuli, who was one of the few writers who persevered in the creative writing principles of realism at the time when the far-left political policies and guidelines devastated not only the rural economy but also the country’s literature and art. Despite their lengthy, trivial and bland narrative style that may distract today’s readers, Zhao’s literary works, such as “Go Exercise”, “Pan Yongfu, the Doer” and “Hands that Cannot be Tied”, remained an effective weapon against the “fake, big and empty” pseudo-realism at the time with their reality-based literary and artistic

21

As for the author of this poem, one view is that it was Peng Dehuai who wrote it, the other view is that it was a Hunan folk song collected from local peasants by Peng Dehuai. This paper follows the latter view.

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power as well as their natural expression skills. However, writers such as Tian Han, Shao Quanlin, Zhao Shuli and others paid the price of their lives for it. 2

From Creative Theories of Realism to Writers’ Realist Fighting Spirit

In the previous section, I have faithfully described the historical fate of realism in China. The description itself has seemed to reveal a fact, which is, as a creative theory and creative practice, the historical vicissitude of realism in the development of China’s new literature is no better than that of modernism. From the May 4th New Literature Movement to the end of the Cultural Revolution, realism experienced roughly three stages. Stage I was from the outbreak of the May 4th Movement to the late 1920s, a period in which realism was confused with naturalism. Stage II was from the 1930s to the 1950s, a period in which realism was advancing in parallel with Marxism. Stage III was from the 1950s to the end of the Cultural Revolution, a period in which realism was gradually supplanted by pseudo-realism. Simply put, realism only had a short golden phase in the development of China’s new literature; most of the time it was ill-fated. However, what cannot be overlooked is that no matter how difficult its fate, realism has always been deeply entwined with the pragmatic tradition of Chinese literature and engaged actively in the formation of the spiritual tradition of China’s new literature. What is the spiritual tradition of China’s new literature? It contains at least one fighting attitude which is able to boldly criticize reality and to enthusiastically intervene in contemporary life. This attitude not only reveals the inner desire of modern writers who are dedicated to the society, but also reflects the requirements imposed on them by the particular historical environment of the Chinese society. In the composition of such literary spirit, the creative theories of realism have undoubtedly played an important role. In the history of the development of China’s new literature, realist ideas underwent ups and downs with the realist fighting spirit of modern writers, growing into the dominant spiritual tradition of the new literature pioneered by the May 4th Movement. This realist fighting spirit is not only a type of correspondence between the traditional psychological construction of Chinese intellectuals and Western realist writing theories, but also the positive masculine essence of Chinese traditional culture in literary creations. Beneath this basic spirit, however, there was an essential difference between China’s new literature and European literature. In the West, literary movements that opposed the constraints of traditional thinking brought to literary creations

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humanism and romanticism. The literary works during the Renaissance, such as La Divina Commedia (English: The Divine Comedy), Decameron, and Gargantua and Pantagruel, as well as later on Shakespeare’s plays, Schiller’s and Goethe’s beautiful poetic dramas during the “Sturm und Drang” literary movement in Germany (English: “Storm and Stress”), and Hugo’s and A. Dumas’ heroic plays in the era of French anti-classicism, are all full of romantic passion eulogizing the greatness of human nature and the exaggerated expressions that highlight such passion. European writers rarely possessed the documentary styles that later realism has always had; they were obsessed with fantasies, wandering, historical stories and folklore, elevating the image of reality into an abstract spirit. Their underpinning intention was not to describe the authentic state of reality, but to explore the exaggeration and imagination of man’s emotions. China’s new literature, however, was just the opposite. Although the May 4th Movement was also a great era of sweeping away the feudal tradition of thousands of years to liberate people’s thought as never before, and although the eulogies on man and the romantic spirit also resonated among Chinese intellectuals to become a general mentality at the time, from the perspective of actual literary creations, there were very few romantic works with extraordinary imagination. The only romantic work, The Goddess, which, like a fleeting shooting star in the literary world, was quickly replaced by the quiescence of Starry Sky and the sentimentality of Bottle. All it could produce was anger, sighs and grief for the annihilation of human nature in real life. Compared with their European counterparts, Chinese writers were far more enthusiastic about exposing the darkness and evils of social reality, summarizing the historical experience and lessons of the Chinese revolution, and expressing dissatisfaction and grievances about the pathological life than about pursuing positively the liberation of human nature, eulogizing the power of man, and yearning for lofty ideals, the future destiny of mankind, and the perfection of goodness and beauty. In the early days of the May 4th New Literature Movement, this was apparently manifested as a lack of flamboyant romantic spirit and of a fully developed sense of individuality. The realist fighting spirit of China’s new literature has been pursued by most modern writers in China, though at the same time it also restricts their literary practices. As the founder of the new literature, Lu Xun at the time best reflected the extreme of this spiritual advancement. Although Lu’s works embodied all the tendencies endowed by the time, the most essential quality in these works undoubtedly remains Lu’s insights into reality. With his unique insights into social life, he dissects society to its deepest depths with straightforward and relentless composure. The comment “Disregard others’ face and feelings when discussing current affairs, and criticize society through careful choices

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of different typical types of cases”22 neatly summarizes the artistic traits of Lu’s works. As a fundamental literary creed of modern Chinese writers, the former half of the comment serves as a faithful description of reality. In order to defend this creed, the entire history of China’s new literature is filled with struggles, fights and sacrifices. Meanwhile, as a fundamental feature of artistic expression, the latter half of the comment requires the extraction and generalization of essential social phenomena. Lu Xun spent most of his life in fierce battles with the evil forces of the old society; hence, such artistic features contain more realist fighting significance. It seems that in all of Lu Xun’s literary works, there alternate two distinct subject imageries: one is Lu Xun who was rooted in the soil of reality and focused constantly on real life. With a thick but plain documentary style, he lashed out against the evils in life, crying for social progress. The other is Lu Xun in the era of “On the Poetic Power of Maras”. A mighty force from a distant horizon seemed to attract his thoughts, pulling him to transcend the fetters of reality to grasp man’s destiny in the whole universe. In fact, Lu’s accomplishments in his early years in exploring the meaning of life in Chinese culture and Buddhism, along with his exalting romantic spirit expressed in “The Soul of Sparta” and “On the Poetic Power of Maras” and his eulogization of the exaltation of man’s spirit in “The History of Man” and “On Cultural Bigotry” were never profoundly embodied or surpassed in his later works. Grounded in the characteristics of Chinese society, Lu Xun forged the realist fighting tradition of the new literature, while the realist characteristics of Chinese society also shaped Lu Xun.23 This literary spirit was cast in the 1920s as the “lifestyle” literature proposed by the Literature Research Association. That the slogan “Literature for Life” was widely accepted by the public at the time shows that new literature was consciously regarded as a powerful tool to promote social progress. With the outbreak of the War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression, it again became a creative principle followed by all patriotic writers. From the 1950s, though under pseudo-realism’s despotic power it could not for a while become the banner for writers’ creations, it continued to 22 23

See Lu Xun’s “Pseudo-free Script: Foreword” in Vol. 5 of The Complete Works of Lu Xun, People’s Literature Publishing House, 1981, p. 4. This is illustrated in Lu Xun’s creation of “Mount Bu Zhou”. Originally, Lu attempted to use ancient myths as writing material to explore the origin of human beings and literary creations, which was an interesting and grand topic. However, the power of reality always restricted his writing, hence he created a little man in ancient clothes, standing between the legs of Nüwa. Lu himself was not satisfied with the interference of this reality. He thought it was “the beginning of seriousness to slickness.” However, Lu could not be divorced from the rapid changes in social reality; the physical pull finally overcame the metaphysical gravity, grounding his creations firmly in the land of reality.

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struggle with reality with its tenacious vitality and fulfilled the sacred mission of Chinese intellectuals. The literature of “intervening life” in 1956, the poetry movement in Tiananmen Square in 1978, and the “post-Cultural Revolution” literature starting with the Scar Literature are all strong evidence of this realist fighting spirit. Modern intellectuals’ attention to and enthusiasm for contemporary social life is most focused on modern politics and the fighting spirit that evokes their internal desire to engage in it. The realist fighting spirit of the new literature reflects most strongly the political enthusiasm of these Chinese writers. Please do not accuse them rashly of being too eager for quick success. In China, the burden of historical suffering on intellectuals has been so unbearable that they had little time or chance to realize the value of their personalities through non-political channels. It was precisely driven by such fighting spirit that their personalities were not passively subject to the political maneuvers at the time, but rather exalted their fighting personalities with a strong political consciousness. In each era, such literary spirit has forged a splendid personality in accordance with its own needs. This explains why Lu Xun, after having started a new literary cause, instead of keeping a secure job as a university professor or scholar, resorted to his pen and articles to declare that he was not only a turncoat official to the old traditional culture, but also a great rebel in the existing social system. This also explains why when Hu Feng was already under the sword of Damocles, he would write a grand report of 300,000 words to confront a bleak life with a brave heart and loyalty. This further explains why with the end of the Cultural Revolution, many writers became keener and more fearless in fulfilling their lofty mission of fighting against the squalor of social ills after more than two decades of setbacks. Their literary works may read somewhat radical and make readers sense a lack of “fair play”; in modern China, the spirit of democracy may be absolutely indispensable in the formulation of literary policies and the construction of literary undertakings. However, in the formation of a writer’s personality, being literarily radical is inevitable. Writers need to be radical. This means, on the one hand, they ought to remain on the side of the people and of justice and immune to bribery and indomitable before threats. On the other hand, they ought to stay passionate for people and contemporary social life. The deeper one loves, the more courageous is his criticism, making his pure heart visible. Such radicalness is nothing but an essential mentality in the advancement of the realist fighting spirit which supported China’s new literature. The realist fighting spirit represented by Lu Xun is closely connected with the theories of realist creation, as Lu once defined this spirit as a writer’s essential attitude toward real life. From literary concepts to specific writing techniques,

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Lu resolutely and uncompromisingly rejected all attempts to whitewash, escape or cover up the truth. He mercilessly exposed artistic and literary works filled with pettifoggery and deception, clearly proposing to “look at life honestly, thoroughly and boldly and portray it as it really is.”24 In his assessment of Chinese classical novels, Lu further summarized the aesthetic principle of “daring to depict faithfully without deception.” These writing theories evidently contain the essence of realist creative theories. In order to better achieve a direct literary effect of this fighting spirit, Lu decided on a straightforward documentary style of writing out of a variety of rich artistic expression approaches, which also echoes the artistic viewpoints and expression techniques of realism. However, it would be rather imprudent to equate simplistically this literary tradition initiated by Lu Xun with realism. The realist fighting spirit of modern Chinese writers is the result of realism being accepted and sublimated on the soil of the Chinese reality. It has emerged from the general meaning of creative theories and has been elevated to the significance of the writer’s personality, life attitude and creative spirit. The realist fighting spirit of literature itself contains an extremely strong subjective fighting spirit, which is best articulated in Lu Xun’s advocacy among writers for using the three qualifiers when confronted with life and in writing faithfully. This is beyond the reach of a realist view of art, which generally stresses “portray(ing) it (referring to life) as it really is.” There is no denying that while emphasizing “portraying life as it really is”, Western realist writers do not deny another tendency it contains, which is, writers can depict the reality of life completely objectively. G. Courbet once said that “as long as a beautiful thing is authentic and visible, it possesses its own artistic expression. The artist, on the contrary, has no right to add anything to such expression.”25 Zola, the last master of this genre, once publicly asserted: “Look at our great contemporary novelists such as Gustave Flaubert, the Goncourt brothers and Alphonse Daudet. Their talent lies not in their imagination but in their forceful depiction of nature and reality.”26 It is wise that Zola did not speak of Balzac here, since only Balzac mocked mercilessly those unimaginative realist 24 25

26

See Lu Xun’s “Grave · On Keeping Eyes Open” in Vol. 1 of The Complete Works of Lu Xun, People’s Literature Publishing House, 1981, p. 241. See Gustave Courbet’s “Letter to a Group of Students” (translated by Yu Yongkang) in European and American Classical Writers on Realism and Romanticism (Book 2), compiled by the Editorial Board of the Foreign Literature Research Materials Series, Institute of Foreign Literature, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, China Social Sciences Press, 1981, p. 176. See Zola’s “On the Novel” (translated by Xin Bin and proofread by Bao Wenwei) in European and American Classical Writers on Realism and Romanticism (Book 2), pp. 215–216.

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novelists as “clerks of the French court”27 while he was proclaiming himself the secretary of French history. However, what is also equally undeniable is that Balzac’s subjective imagination sometimes contradicted the real-life scenes that he depicted. Due to the existence of such contradictory tendencies in Western realist creations, the realism revealed in their works was not through the writer’s worldview but directly through the historical authenticity, which is independent of this writer’s subjective world. Balzac could express his sympathies with the beloved aristocracy, however, he still violated his class sympathy and political prejudice in depicting the inevitability of the demise of aristocracy. Engels called this contradiction a great victory of realism. In China, however, this situation did not exist. There used to be many critics who were also apt to apply this inconsistency of so-called “worldview and creative methods” when discussing modern Chinese writers, though there exist differences between these modern Chinese writers and western realist masters such as Balzac. Balzac was an orthodox in politics; the Republican Left at the time which “represented the people” was his political enemy. Tolstoy was against the rise of capitalism from the standpoint of the Russian peasants. His attitude toward revolution was basically conservative. Therefore, in the works of these realist masters, their political passion oftentimes contradicts realist forces. Generally speaking, in China, such contradictions do not exist. Two Chinese writers, Ba Jin and Wen Yiduo, can be cited as examples. They were nonMarxist, though under the particular circumstances of China’s May 4th era, the anarchist elements in Ba Jin’s works are mainly reflected in his thoughts of opposing feudal autocracy and feudal power, while the nationalist characters in Wen Yiduo’s poetry also tend to glorify the national culture in such a radical way that it blends in with patriotic sentiments. Apparently, their political passion was consistent with anti-imperialist and anti-feudal revolutionary historical requirements. When this political passion is permeated in the real fighting spirit, the realist literary standard of “looking honestly, thoroughly and boldly at life and portraying it as it really is” can also be reached. Lu Xun once called this type of literary spirit “Literature for Life,” which obviously follows the slogan advocated by the Literature Research Association in a reasonable manner. As a method of literary creation, realism contains to a certain extent objective and negative indications, while the slogan “Literature for Life” clearly highlights a subjective and positive attitude toward life. 27

See Honoré de Balzac’s “Foreword to the first edition of The Collection of Antiquities and Gambara” (translated by Cheng Daixi) in European and American Classical Writers on Realism and Romanticism (Book 2), p. 111.

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Furthermore, as a creative theory, realism must have a relatively stable unity in its artistic outlook and techniques of expression. Since it is based on the artistic concept of “portraying life as it really is,” it is natural to choose a plainly realist approach. This method is helpful for writers to depict faithfully the objective world, though it remains challenging in delving into man’s emotions and feelings. Hence, symbolism, expressionism and stream of consciousness emerged as its complements, which belong to modernist expressions. The new techniques of literary expression are by no means produced in isolation, they must be accompanied by a change in artistic outlook. For instance, the French symbolist poet Paul Valéry once argued that the artist’s “task is to create a world or an order of things, a system of relations unconnected with the practical order.”28 With differing artistic views and techniques of expression, Valéry’s principle of literary creation contradicts the realist principle of “portraying life as it really is.” This does not negate the possibility of realist writers’ absorbing other artistic techniques on the premise of maintaining a primary documentary style. After the 20th century, it is hard to find “pure” realist writers, as most of them have absorbed new artistic expressions. However, such absorption should be limited, with “as life is” as its limits. Nobody would take the novels by F. Kafka, M. Proust, W. Faulkner and J. Joyce as classics of realism, though they also depicted some essential aspects of real life. Nevertheless, there exists a different story in China’s new literature. It is precisely because the realist fighting spirit not only requires the reproduction of a reality that is visible, but also reveals the writer’s reaction and emotions in the face of reality. Hence, the traditional realist writing methods have not been adopted by all writers; instead, almost all masters of modern Chinese literature applied a variety of creative approaches toward the same literary theme. For instance, a strong modern consciousness can be sensed in some articles of Lu Xun’s Wild Grass, which are precisely the most realist in terms of their fighting spirit. The same is found in Ba Jin’s works. Ba Jin could be regarded as a typical romantic writer in his early career, though the lyrical novels he wrote in his most turbulent period are still considered “realist” in terms of their content. Among the writers from the counter-Japanese democratic bases, Sun Li, known for his beautiful lyricism, also referred to his early literary works as “realist.” The reason why these works are referred to as realist by their writers or readers is not entirely because the term “realism” sounds pleasant and safe, but more importantly, because they have a loose understanding of this term. Having obviously gone beyond the 28

Paul Valéry, “Pure Poetry”, in: Paul Valéry, The Art of Poetry, trans. by Denise Folliot, with an Introduction by T. S. Eliot, Bollingen Series XLV 7, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1985, p. 189.

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realm of realism as a creative method, such understanding becomes a writer’s attitude toward life and art. In the 1920s, except for only a couple of writers, those who united around the slogan “Literature for Life” by the Literature Research Association mostly drew on the strengths of others to create their own works. Members of the Creation Society pursued romanticism and aestheticism, though in actual works, they displayed equal eagerness in portraying reality. Therefore, the realist fighting spirit of the new literature is not limited to a certain artistic expression; instead, it allows the application of various techniques of expression to reflect the writer’s attention to and criticism of reality. Since this fighting spirit contains modern consciousness, compared with traditional realist approaches, the application of certain modernist conceptions and techniques can sometimes convey better the internal significance of such fighting spirit. The realist fighting spirit of China’s new literature does not equate to realism as a literary trend in the history of European literature, or even to the impact of this literary trend in China. In China, with the exception of a couple of individuals, among the most outstanding writers with the realist fighting spirit, their knowledge of foreign literature was basically derived not from the realist concepts in Western Europe, but rather from Russian literature in the 19th century, Jewish literature, and the literature from the oppressed and weak nations in Eastern Europe. It also seems inappropriate to refer to Russia’s great literary tradition in general as “realism”. It is hard to classify the grotesque expressions in N. Gogol’s novels, which are mainly grounded in the characteristics of Russian folk culture, as a realist style which “depicts life as it really is.” Turgenev’s works seem to be more appropriate to be compared to romanticism in Western Europe (actually, Turgenev’s influence on China is also revealed in some romantic writers). Russian writers such as Dostoevsky, Andreyev, M. Artsybashev and Sologub may share more characteristics of modernism, symbolism, decadence and aestheticism. Such characteristics of Russian literature were realized by sensitive Chinese writers in the early days of the May 4th Movement, which was referred to by Lu Xun as the “lifestyle school” as it could accommodate a variety of artistic views and expressions.29 Similarly, Zhou Zuoren referred to it as the “literature of nonpartisan life.”30 Such interpretation is at least consistent 29 The original quote by Lu Xun is: “Russian literature, from the time of Nicholas II, has been ‘for life’. Whether or not its purpose was to explore, or to solve problems, or to fall into mysteries or decadence, its mainstream remained unchanged: for life.” See Lu Xun’s “A Collection of Southern and Northern Tunes · Foreword to the Harp” in Vol. 4 of The Complete Works of Lu Xun, People’s Literature Publishing House, 1981, p. 432. 30 See Zhou Zuoren’s “Russia and China in Literature” (a speech delivered at Beijing Normal School and Peking Union Medical College in November 1920), published in “Russian

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with the intuitive impression of Russian literature when it was introduced to China. Grounded in Russia’s cultural tradition and the great spirit of the Russian nation, Russian literature integrates the strengths of modern Western European literary schools to form its own unique literary spirit. In terms of the “Literature for Life,” Russian literature maintains a high level of consistency with life; however, from the perspective of creative methods, it includes a variety of artistic genres. Originally, the influence of Russian literature on Chinese literature was not on literary theories or literary schools, but specific works. The particular artistic appeal of Russian works helped Chinese writers realize that the value of literature lies in its close connectedness with reality; hence, compared with realist literary schools in Western Europe, Russian literature had a much deeper and more specific impact on Chinese writers. Qu Qiubai’s words in the “Foreword to A Collection of Short Stories by Famous Russian Writers” represent the essential view of people at the time on this kind of external influence: “We are never willing to apply blindly the label of realism, symbolism or neo-idealism to promote foreign literature. Only the kind of literature that is needed by the Chinese society should be introduced – the literature that can be understood by average people in Chinese society.”31 This reveals that the actual impact of Russian literature and European realist schools on Chinese literature is different. It is the latter that facilitated the advancement of Chinese realist theories, while the former had a direct impact on the formation of the realist fighting spirit in China’s new literature. Some readers may ask, since the realist fighting spirit in China’s new literature is not equivalent to realism as a theory of reflection or a theory of literary creation or even a trend of literary thought, then what kind of doctrine does it belong to? It is actually a type of literary spirit  – the realist fighting spirit – rather than a doctrine; nor does it need to be regulated or restricted by a certain doctrine. In addition to having Western realism as its internal theoretical composition, it also reflects the inheritance of the most active spiritual core in the cultural tradition of Chinese writers. The caste system in Chinese history was not particularly strict. Since Confucius launched private schools and advocated “education for all without discrimination,” a civilian intellectual had the chance to rise from his humble status to a top position through his talents and ability to serve the court with the trust of the emperor, through which

31

Literature Studies”, Vol. 12 of Short Story Monthly, September 1921. It was also available in Vol. 8, No. 5 of New Youth, January 1, 1921 and in Republic of China Daily · Awakening, November 9, 1920. See Qu Qiubai’s “Foreword to A Collection of Short Stories by Famous Russian Writers” in Anthology of Qu Qiubai (Book 2), People’s Literature Publishing House, 1953, p. 544.

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he would achieve his fulfillment by exerting his political ambitions. Whether it was the prevalent lobbying style in the Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods or the adoption of the imperial examination system since the Sui and Tang Dynasties, it has politically inspired Chinese intellectuals’ vibrant spirit and pragmatic style of entering society to serve the public. This indicates that Chinese intellectuals are unable to fulfill and prove themselves unless they launch themselves into an official career. This is also manifested in the saying “a good scholar will make an official”, which aptly summarizes the rubrics of seeking knowledge and self-worth evaluation of Chinese intellectuals. To these intellectuals, seeking knowledge is not out of curiosity about the mysteries of nature, nor is it to seek answers to people’s doubts in the field of metaphysics; instead, seeking knowledge is for practical purposes and utilitarian benefits, namely both for the good of the nation and for these intellectuals themselves. Such a political lifestyle to make a living has become the only way for intellectuals to realize their self-worth. Therefore, within the powerful political consciousness of Chinese intellectuals, many dichotomous categories are able to exist in perfect harmony and unity, such as Confucianism and Taoism, utilitarianism and detachment, serving as a high-ranking official and resigning from officialdom, entering society to serve the public and withdrawing from society to stand aloof from worldly affairs. Literature is a tool; it can be used as an elegant refinement and as a means to express political ambitions and social responsibilities when the career path of these intellectuals is smooth; and when they are frustrated in officialdom, it can also be used to maintain their internal balance, to transfer and release their political ambitions and social responsibilities. However, when Chinese intellectuals integrate consciously their personality with political values and endeavor to fulfill the former through the latter, such personality is not dissolved passively into their political values but used to create such political values with a positive attitude, thus making it flourish. The life attitude that Chinese intellectuals value, such as the spirit of hard work, of pleading for the people, and of sacrifice for justice,32 mostly refers to the spirit of political struggle, except for the last one. When embodied as aesthetic expressions, the spirit of political struggle has inspired a variety of literary works, such as the birth of The Li Sao Poem by Qu Yuan, Historical Records by Si’ma Qian, the Tang poems by Li Bai, Du Fu and Bai Jüyi, Song poems by Lu You and Xin Qiji, dramas by Guan Hanqing from the Yuan Dynasty, and novels by Shi Nai-an and Cao Xueqin. All these literary 32

See Lu Xun’s “Essays from A Pavilion in the Semi-concession · Have the Chinese Lost Their Confidence?” in Vol. 6 of The Complete Works of Lu Xun, People’s Literature Publishing House, 1981, p. 118.

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works expressed either full attention to and a strong concern for reality, or eager concern about the safety and security of the kingship, or sympathy with the suffering of their folk, or great hatred and criticism of evil political forces and eulogized a lofty spirit of self-sacrifice. Writer Sun Li once commented pointedly that both Si’ma Qian and Ban Gu were political geniuses with their brilliant and proactive insights into the gains and losses of history; however, the former was tortured by castration, while the latter died of illness in prison. Had they still not learned a lesson from history that applied to themselves? Yes, they surely had. However, what they learned is that the characteristics of the literary cause determined that they had to fight perseveringly for justice and for a meaning-making life, generation after generation.33 This reflects the unique way through which Chinese intellectuals exalt their individuality. Such spiritual tradition cannot be generalized by the conceptions of realism and romanticism in Western literature. It is such a temperament that integrates personal, psychological, historical and social factors. In modern society, this noble temperament of intellectuals is nothing but a realist fighting spirit. The realist fighting spirit allows for a variety of creative methods, though it should be different from the idea of establishing “a new system that unifies various creative methods within the spirit of realism” proposed by academia several years ago. This is because the “spirit of realism” understood by the latter interprets realism from the perspective of the reflection theory, which emphasizes the dependence of literature on life. It is the so-called “reality is the soil that breeds the flower of art.” This interpretation is certainly correct. Although literature is the expression of man’s understanding of the objective world through aesthetic means, it is inseparable from writers’ subjective consciousness; fundamentally, reality is the object of man’s recognition or the source of literary phenomena. Literature is the projection of man’s spiritual development, while the spirit itself is determined by the social existence. However, the problem is that realism as a theory of reflection is not the same as the literary spirit. Though realism as a theory of reflection can be applied to analyze the origin of the literary spirit and to provide the rationale for such spirit, it cannot replace the literary spirit itself. The fundamental spirit of the May 4th New Literature comes from reality. Various social changes that took place in Chinese society in the 20th century infiltrated into the flowing literary phenomena like a coagulant from time to time, condensing them to a central point. The realist fighting spirit of modern writers is the inevitable result of the convergence of literature toward such a central point. The realist fighting 33

See Sun Li’s “A Life of Words” in Vol. 3 of The Collected Works of Sun Li, Baihua Literature and Art Publishing House, 1982, p. 220.

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spirit is a type of literary spirit which is able to tolerate a variety of creative methods; while realism as a theory of reflection is merely a clarification of the relationship between literature and reality, which cannot unify these creative methods itself. Additionally, differing from the “realist spirit” proposed by the aforementioned theory, the realist fighting spirit has its own strict internal regulations, and is not infinitely open. As the spiritual tradition of the May 4th New Literature, the realist fighting spirit reflects the most fundamental and internal restrictions of new literature on the majority of writers; at the same time, it also reflects the behavioral and psychological trends of the new literature writers of the 1920s and 1930s. The realist fighting spirit has both a specific content in terms of political and social consciousness and a specific means of aesthetic interpretation. The commonality lies in the writer’s attention to reality as well as his passion for fighting to transform reality. In terms of aesthetic interpretation, it does not matter what specific kind of creative method is used, as the key is whether such aesthetic interpretation reflects the writer’s fighting mentality against reality. Although Lu Xun evidently used differing creative techniques in his prose poems and novels, they remain consistent in terms of the aesthetic interpretation of expressing Lu’s realist fighting spirit. Although Zhou Zuoren applied the same literalistic techniques as his creative method in his prose, his later prose could no longer be considered literary works with the realist fighting spirit, since he had abandoned the serious fighting attitude toward reality in them. Contrary to the “realist spirit” in the theory of reflection that can “universally” examine all literary and artistic creations, the realist fighting spirit serves in the history of literature as only one of the spiritual traditions of the May 4th New Literature. It serves neither as the sole representative of the mainstream of the new literature, nor can it cover all creations of new literature. Furthermore, the actual realist fighting spirit itself is not immutable. In the early days of the May 4th Movement, it was mainly manifested not only in the struggle of intellectuals against the feudal system and spiritual shackles, but also in the pursuit of man’s value in this gray world, and in the heavy criticism of the resistance to modern civilization in this land. After the 1930s, the guidance of Marxism and the formation of the realist style propelled writers to turn such criticism from a vague and abstract goal into a concrete movement. When strong political emotions were integrated with intellectuals’ potential individual desires, the most characteristic and vigorous stage of the realist fighting spirit was hence constituted. In the 1950s, the realist fighting spirit encountered a more complicated situation. Writers who defended the spiritual tradition of the May 4th Movement again integrated their political

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enthusiasm with their critical views on society. Courageously, they cast their sharp criticism on the darkness of the society, which was incompatible with the advanced social system. In a sense, literary works that had emerged in 1956 as the “re-blooming flowers” and were then quickly strangled are the real symbol of the emergence of socialist literature and art. It was the rise of these works that began to change the literary and artistic trend at a time when writers wrote only about the history of the democratic revolution while avoiding intentionally or unintentionally the social conflicts of the time. These young writers noticed with keen eyes that in a socialist society, there existed a discordant conflict between the superstructure and the liberation of productivity. They exposed sharply the truth of the conflict and expressed their attitude in intervening in reality. These works are not only the essence of literature and art in the 1950s, but also the best manifestation of the actual realist fighting spirit of the May 4th Movement at the time. This spirit, as an internal restraining force of Chinese intellectuals, still manifested itself tenaciously through various ways even when history encountered setbacks and the realist fighting spirit was repressed. Their literary works, such as essays by Deng Tuo and others, historical plays by Tian Han, Wu Han and others, novels by Zhao Shuli and others, are precisely the voice of justice under the weight of autocracy, which reveals the spirit of Chinese intellectuals who dared to criticize the reality. Though these writers sacrificed their lives under the brutal persecution of the far-left political guidelines,34 it is they who used the price of their lives to establish the spiritual connection between the literary tradition of the May 4th Movement and contemporary literature. The distinction between realism as a theory of reflection and realism as a method of creation contributes to the definition of realism as a creative phenomenon in the new literature. Equally, the distinction between realist thought in literary creations and the realist fighting spirit as one of the spiritual traditions of the new literature contributes to a better understanding of the status and significance of realism in current literary creations. After the Cultural Revolution, the realist fighting spirit of modern writers and the creative methods of realism once again assumed the responsibility of eliminating pseudo-realism. The emergence of the ideological trends of the Scar Literature was a sign of the re-exaltation of the realist fighting spirit and realism. Literary creations in the 1970s and 1980s also highlighted writers’ realist fighting spirit, which was also consciously connected with the new literary 34

Deng Tuo, one of the first victims of the Cultural Revolution, took his own life in 1966. Tian Han died of illness in prison in 1968. Wu Han was persecuted to death in 1969. Zhao Shuli was persecuted and died in 1970.

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tradition since the May 4th Movement. Chinese writer Liu Binyan once uttered a historical remark that Chinese literature has a tradition of the May 4th Movement that we should be proud of as well as a literary path pioneered by Lu Xun that we should feel equally proud of. This tradition and this path can be boiled down to one point, which is, Chinese writers are closely connected with the toiling masses, and are able to listen to them, to move ahead of the time, to stay keenly aware of the needs of life, to persistently explore the truth, and to devote themselves to fiery battles against the reality with great revolutionary zeal. Although Liu Binyan did not make any solid generalizations about the May 4th Movement tradition or the specific literary path pioneered by Lu Xun, what he actually emphasized is the realist fighting spirit of the May 4th New Literature. However, considering the background of the two enlightenment traditions of the May 4th New Literature, it is not difficult to find that the realist fighting spirit deemed as the May 4th tradition was confronted with a dilemma after the Cultural Revolution. On the one hand, realism and the realist fighting spirit were allied as always to fight against the pressure of various dark forces in the society; on the other hand, however, they also encountered a challenge from another May 4th tradition, namely, the aesthetic pursuit of literature itself. The realist fighting spirit of modern writers comes from the strong “Guangchang” consciousness of the May 4th generation of Chinese intellectuals. It is basically the behavior of intellectuals who possess a critical attitude toward “Miaotang” and an enlightening attitude toward the general public. Literature is just a tool (or a weapon) that intellectuals use to speak for the people and to fight for their right of survival. Meanwhile, as a carrier of language, literature itself has its own characteristics and laws that have not received due attention by many writers. The pitfall of such a bias may not be prominent within an ill-fated social environment, though it could be explicitly exposed once it enters a pluralistic literary environment. In the sense of literary history, this can result in the separation of the writer’s realist fighting spirit from the creative methods based on the realist tradition. The 1980s witnessed the gradual rise of a cohort of younger writers who were cynical and maverick. They were not only insisting on the critical and supervisory function of literature toward society, but also making this realist fighting spirit more individualized and more open in its techniques of expression, such as the novels by very popular writers at the time like Zhang Chengzhi, Zhang Xinxin, and Can Xue and the generation of poets of the “Menglong (English: misty or hazy) poems.” Undoubtedly, the creative intentions and creative spirits expressed by these writers are related to the May 4th New Literature, though their realist fighting spirit was tightly wrapped in the artistic spirit of modernism that is more acceptable to young readers, expressed through the modern ideas unique

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to this generation of writers. For instance, each of Can Xue’s literary works is full of modern people’s desire for spiritual breakout. From her techniques of expression to the ideology, there exists a deep modernist trait. However, due to the openness of the realist fighting spirit possessed by the May 4th New Literature writers, the influence of Lu Xun’s literary spirit can still be seen in Can Xue’s works. Many of her literary imageries seem to be an expansion of Lu Xun’s madman, showing how tenacious is the vitality of the realist fighting spirit tradition pioneered by Lu Xun. Literary creations that adhered to the realist creative approaches were gradually on the decline due to the traditional conception of “portraying life as it really is.” After the mid-1980s, it converged gradually to the path of documentary writing and popular fiction, but failed to produce any masterpiece that would stir the time. Apparently, this is not the deficiency of the realist creation method. Generally speaking, the depth of the societal reality revealed by realist literature is proportional to the degree of freedom allowed by the social environment. The sluggishness of realist literature itself manifests the hardship that Chinese literary creations underwent after the Cultural Revolution. From another perspective, however, Chinese writers did not discard the realist fighting spirit regardless of the dilemmas they encountered; instead, they expressed this fighting spirit in a more concealed and personalized manner. Meanwhile, Chinese intellectuals began to reflect on the limitations involved in their own fighting traditions. Hence, in the early 1990s, once again there emerged a new division among intellectuals with realist fighting spirit. Some intellectuals shifted their critical stance, seeking support from the much broader “Minjian”. Since they converted to a new tradition, they had to sacrifice and suffer the filth and dirtiness of “Minjian”, though this did not mean they had to give up their independent fighting disposition. Instead, these intellectuals developed a more solid critical stance toward secular society, such as the literary propositions by Zhang Chengzhi and Zhang Wei in recent years. Apparently, many writers retained their initial intellectual elite stance, fulfilling their sacred mission in the social contradictions and conflicts. As discussed above, writers’ realist fighting spirit cannot be entirely equated with the tradition of the May 4th New Literature Movement. This is because in addition to the tradition of “enlightening literature”, there is tradition of “literary enlightenment”, which allows writers to experiment with various fields and functions of literature and art. In the transformation process of contemporary society, the realist fighting spirit for which generations of Chinese intellectuals paid a heavy price cannot cover all the intellectual traditions and characteristics since the May 4th Movement. However, even in the so-called “post-industrial era”, I still believe that this realist fighting spirit and Chinese intellectuals’

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utilitarian attitude are the most invaluable qualities and traditions. Especially, the Chinese intellectuals who remained active in “Minjian” may overcome the limitations of the “Guangchang” consciousness engrained in intellectuals of the past, and rectify their position in the transition period of modern society. May this allow the tradition of the May 4th Movement intellectuals to take on a newer and more vigorous fighting outlook. 3

Modern Resistance Consciousness in Contemporary Literary Creations

As discussed earlier, the realist fighting spirit remains the essential spirit throughout the development of Chinese new literature. It is manifested as a fighting spirit through which modern Chinese writers intensely criticize the status quo and intervene in contemporary society. It is also a type of accord between Chinese intellectuals’ psychological construction of traditional culture and Western realist creation theories, which reflects the positive and masculine nature of the Chinese traditional culture revealed in the literature. From 1919 to 1989, history has proved that no matter how many hardships such spiritual tradition has experienced, it has always been firmly rooted in the heart of Chinese intellectuals as the fundamental driving force for them to break through the darkness in the pursuit of light. It has also become an important guarantee for modern Chinese literature to share the same fate with the cause of its people. The literature that we encounter today is the logical development of China’s new literature laid out by Lu Xun under new historical conditions. Its essential spirit remains the realist fighting spirit. From the immense Scar Literature and the literary creations with the reform theme that have been welcomed in recent years, all manifest the vitality of such literary spirit. Nevertheless, what should not be overlooked is that the development of the times will also lead to the variation of the tradition of the literary spirit. This not only refers to the change in its content, but also includes the renewal of that spirit itself. Moreover, the sign of such renewal has begun to emerge in recent years. A new generation of writers is on the rise, who enter the literary world with their unique lived experience and spiritual outlook. The new literary spirit, namely the modern consciousness of resistance, is exerting its influence, gradually becoming a variant of the fighting spirit of the new literature. The purpose of this section is to explore the formation and significance of modern resistance consciousness in literature.

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The subject of contemporary literature was constructed by two generations of writers. This construction was completed by the year 1985. This year not only witnessed a number of new literary figures emerge, but also a group of writers who had become famous earlier produce refreshing literary works. The birth of these newcomer writers and new literary works should become an important sign in the history of contemporary literature, as it marks the rise of a new literary spirit and aesthetic rubrics born with this new generation of writers. Since the year 1985, the cast of two generations of writers has been completed, as the “re-blooming flowers” middle-aged writers and youngergeneration writers stand side by side in the literary world. Though these two groups of writers possessed differing lived experience and dispositions, they were quite friendly and persistent in support of each other, exploring respectively the future of literature. Modern resistance consciousness belongs to the younger generation. Although this may not be due to their will, history has shaped this consciousness while shaping this entire generation. Therefore, before we explore the formation of such literary consciousness, it is necessary to understand the differing historical circumstances of realism in the broader development of Chinese new literature in which these two generations of writers reside. The literary paths of middle-aged writers probably developed in synchronization with the People’s Republic of China. When they embarked on this career, the idealistic optimism brought about by the change of state power and the rationalist conviction instilled by the education of the revolutionary tradition had already penetrated into their consciousness. It is such optimism and conviction that constituted the starting point for them to observe and to understand the world as well as the society that they lived in. Although the political turmoil which began in 1957 unfairly knocked them to the bottom of the society, it did not destroy the pious motives of their early self-reformation and the hard-won achievements in the later period. Instead, it strengthened their optimism and conviction. Looking back on the vicissitudes of life, they felt content with the lofty reputation and generous benefits gained today. The lived experience made them instinctively move toward rationalism: history is fair. What goes around, comes around. The world develops based on a reasonable logic: our responsibility is to improve it and to make it more in line with reason and order. The same trend of rationality also created strict internal consistency among the literary works of various styles by this generation of writers: it always faces reality and uses its self-confidence to criticize the flaws in the social status quo. Their most exciting quality derives from the essence of the realist fighting spirit: artistic styles such as sharpness, coldness, profundity and irony are all related to certain public topics and focus on society. They are confident in serving social roles as the people’s mentor and the government’s adviser.

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However, such optimism and self-confidence are what the younger generation of writers lacked, as they were shaped by history in completely different ways. This younger generation of writers was much more unfortunate than their predecessors. When they were in great need of faith and of the establishment of such faith, political mania, naivety and blindness pushed them into the abyss of evil in their first step, the Red Guard Movement. In the beginning of this political movement, they were unconsciously the predator of others before they soon became others’ prey and languished in the Down to the Countryside Movement. It was not until the end of two political upheavals, namely the September 13 Event (also known as the Lin Biao Event, or Project 571) and Smashing of the Gang of Four in 1976, that the painful reflections and fruitless loss made them feel so regretful: the young generation’s optimism was cheaply betrayed by blindness and credulity, and their faith was mocked by the seemingly revolutionary hypocrisy. When the reality of life mercilessly shattered the dreams they had been building for a decade and unfolded before them its dark side, which they had once ruthlessly denied, their thoughts could not and would not return to the starting point of the year 1966. This generation of young people felt their hearts tremble in the face of reality. They felt cast out all of a sudden into the wilderness, abandoned, helpless and faithless. Feelings of loneliness and doubt were inevitable, otherwise it was hard to move forward. The feeling of loneliness made them grasp themselves tightly as their sole security, and a serious reflexive exploration emerged accordingly, while doubtfulness was an important gain at the cost of ten years of their most precious time. Doubtfulness makes one reflect; although they did not have to reflect on the history of the political movements of the past decades, which should be the responsibility of the prior generation, what they examined was the longer history of man’s spiritual journey not only within China but also worldwide. They have literally lost everything since 1976, even though this has generated a new world for them. Given such a starting point to understand the literary pursuits of this generation of young writers, we could tolerate their biases and indulgences. From a different starting point, this generation, unlike the prior generation, would not have easily conformed to traditional rationality like a child who fell into the arms of its mother after years of separation. What made the prior generation feel comfortable may not develop the same feelings in them. What they needed to do, instead, was to make good choices among the varieties of traditions based on their own stances. This also included their choice of the rational tradition. We must say that the starting point of this generation’s reflections was much higher, as they surpassed the reflections in the 1950s, moving toward the starting point of China’s new literature, namely the May 4th New Literature Movement. Apparently, this was also a transcending path. From the 1980s,

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literature was pursuing a new take-off on the same starting line as the May 4th New Literature. Then, where did this starting line lie? I think it is interesting to re-examine some similarities in the spirits of the two periods separated by a full sixty years. Both the May 4th New Literature and the new-period literature set out their path when a certain traditional value started to undergo radical changes. On the one hand, the opening-up spirit has infused the national culture with new blood; on the other hand, the decline of cultural traditions has stimulated the country’s intellectuals to turn to foreign cultures for assistance and solutions. The intensity of the impacts of Chinese and Western cultures was directly proportional to the depth of literary creations in these two periods. However, from the perspective of the evolution of cultural and psychological construction of Chinese intellectuals, there existed a long evolutionary trajectory in between. Since Yan Fu’s translation of Evolution and Ethics by Thomas H. Huxley and Lin Shu’s translation of Western fiction at the beginning of the 20th century, Chinese intellectuals have not only adopted advanced Western sciences and technologies but also Western ideologies as a new referencing system to evaluate China’s cultural traditions. This new referencing system, apparently brought to Chinese intellectuals both excitement and frustration. Their excitement came from the inspirations they felt in the face of the great cultural renewal, whilst their frustration reflected their mixed emotions within such broader social context. The cultural and scientific shocks from the Western world disturbed the psychological balance formed among Chinese intellectuals for thousands of years, resulting in a pessimism typical of Wang Guowei and an optimism typical of Hu Shi. The great majority of Chinese intellectuals stood in between, feeling at a loss and confused in search of their own psychological support. Generally, Chinese intellectuals do not have a spiritual habit of accepting their dependence in seeking the value of life when trapped by various psychological emotions such as confusion, frustration, depression and anxiety. They needed spiritual support, in other words, spiritual icons. With the loss of their prior icons, such as Confucius and Mencius, Chen Yi’s, Chen Hao’s and Zhu Xi’s neo-Confucianism, and the Tongcheng school, these intellectuals hurriedly resorted to a great number of Western philosophical and social sciences leaders. This not only revealed the strength of historical accumulation caused by national cultural psychology, but also the result brought to the Chinese intellectual community by the first great exchange of Chinese and Western cultures. The latter seemed to have a crucial influence on the future political choices made by Chinese writers. The rise of the Left-wing forces in the 1930s and Chinese writers’ choice of the revolutionary path reflect a consistency in their subjective personal choices and

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the inevitable historical movement. There is a sentence in a letter dictated by Lu Xun on his deathbed: “As for the policy of the counter-Japanese united front proposed nationwide by the current revolutionary parties in China, I have seen it, I am for it, and I am unconditionally part of it.”35 This passage, written by Feng Xuefeng and acknowledged by Lu Xun himself, shows the shared characteristics of political choices by intellectuals such as Feng Xuefeng and Lu Xun: the premise of their choice was the alignment of their personal conscience with the object of such choice. This choice is fundamentally different from the passive scenarios that feudal intellectuals encountered who had no choice but to accept all the feudal morals and feudal political education since their early age of enlightenment. However, the conscious coincidence of such personal conscience with the dependent object started to break down after the mid-1950s. First came the political campaigns launched within cultural circles by the left-leaning policies, which severely depressed the intellectuals, making it difficult for them to connect their conscience with the so-called “revolutionary” policy guidelines. Then, various left-leaning policies that took shape in the 1950s forced them to painfully conceal their conscience. From the lifelike portrayals of rural life by writers such as Ru Zhijuan, Liu Zhen, Zhang Yigong and others can be seen that writers of the 1950s were not all unscrupulous vulgar individuals who wrote eulogistically during the “Great Leap Forward”. Instead, they had their conscience; they just kept their mouths shut in a time when they could not freely express themselves. We can see, as long as we insist on reviewing history from the viewpoint of historicism and the people, that the 1950s was not an idyllic world. It was during this period that superficial idealism and blind optimism masked the real crises of the time: it was too late and too little for people to become vigilant against the far-left guidelines. This meant that the political turmoil of the 1960s would inevitably lead to national panic, as people were unable to stand up to resist the far-left guidelines as they did in fighting against the Japanese fascists after 1937. They could only follow blindly, only commit crimes, and only sacrifice themselves. It was not until ten years later that Prime Minister Zhou Enlai’s death was used as an opportunity for people to clamor for their awakening awareness in Tian’anmen Square. Furthermore, the aftermath of the 1950s continued to affect the decade after 1976. Since the wrongs had been so deeply dissembled in the name of “revolution”, it led to a nihilistic attitude in people’s life choices. It was no longer possible to restore the innocence of the 35

See Lu Xun’s “Final Editing of Essays from A Pavilion in the Semi-concession · An Answer to Xu Maoyong on the Question of the Counter-Japanese United Front” in Vol. 6 of The Complete Works of Lu Xun, People’s Literature Publishing House, 1981, p. 529.

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1950s, and ready-made empty ideals would no longer stir them. There were a considerable number of young people who consciously resisted all seemingly “correct” traditions, integrating a positive spirit of exploration with a nihilistic attitude. They were neither credulous nor slavish. With their disillusion with everything in the disastrous years, they held onto themselves as if they were the last piece of pure land and took it as a starting point for personal choices and contributions in the current social reform. It is not difficult to distinguish the young intellectuals of the 1980s from those of the early 20th century. The second major exchange of Chinese and Western cultures again opened up the horizons of Chinese intellectuals, though this time these intellectuals no longer felt as nervous as their predecessors about losing their old spiritual support, nor did they rush to the West for ready-made answers to guide their new choices. They fought independently based on reality, on themselves, and on their own unique perception of life, even if such perception was shallow and superficial. It is within such context that the modern resistance consciousness in contemporary literature discussed in this section was born. The modern resistance consciousness in contemporary literature is a logical development of the realist fighting spirit of literature, though it does not replace it. It is a branch of the realist fighting spirit in contemporary literature, demonstrating its unique outlook. The realist fighting spirit is a subjective attitude of Chinese writers when facing reality. Lu Xun once described such an attitude as “taking off the mask to look at life honestly, thoroughly and boldly and portray it as it really is.” Lu further predicted, “There should have been a brand-new literary field and should have been some fearless warriors!”36 Lu believed that this literary spirit was incompatible with feudal intellectuals’ “concealment” and “deception” in traditional literature and art, and considered it as a light that illuminates life and guides the national spirit. Inspired by this literary spirit, modern Chinese writers have been fighting bravely for the country, its people and for the truth. In the literature after the Cultural Revolution, this realist fighting spirit still dominated the developmental trend of literature and was warmly welcomed by the people. The modern resistance consciousness is a variant of such literary spirit, which is completely consistent with the realist fighting spirit in its attitude toward reality, displaying a vibrant and critically utilitarian fighting outlook. It not only inherited Lu Xun’s tradition of uncompromising criticism of the 36

See Lu Xun’s “Grave · On Keeping Eyes Open” in Vol. 1 of The Complete Works of Lu Xun, People’s Literature Publishing House, 1981, p. 241.

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secular world, but also resonated with the anti-capitalist fighting spirits in the modern Western ethos. Different from their contemporary peers who advocated “cultural roots”, they stopped turning to history for their spiritual pillar in the troubled world. In other words, they did not belong to yesterday, and nor did they need it. As Gu Cheng wrote, “Yesterday, like a black snake….” Indignant, these writers cursed. This was not enough; stretching backwards from yesterday to any limit was something they disdained. Hence, Yang Lian sang, “Pan Gu’s hands, Great Yu’s hands, and now there is only one hand left. I am buried….” in his “The Stone Axe”. The stone axe can be reminiscent of human existence in ancient times, which is also eventually buried by history. This bold declaration of war against history indeed reminds people of Lu Xun’s parable about “man-eating” in “A Madman’s Diary”. The reason why “A Madman’s Diary” is referred to as the first complete antifeudal work in China’s new literature lies in its fighting spirit, which was lacking in previous realist literature. Whether it was traditional European realist creations or condemnation fictions in the late Qing Dynasty, both entailed the responsibility of exploring solutions for an improved society while denying the status quo. Only after the literature entered the 20th century did the curse of taking the entire Western world as a “wasteland” emerge, which generated a sickening feeling. There are good reasons why “A Madman’s Diary” is considered a modern literary piece, as its thorough and unprecedented antisocial tendency demonstrates an important trait of modern consciousness. Originally, even if the modern resistance consciousness in contemporary literary creations was connected with Lu Xun’s era, it would not yet resonate with Chinese people until the ten-year catastrophe, the Cultural Revolution, engulfing millions of families, had befallen China. The traditional ethics of staying happy and knowing one’s fate taught Chinese people how to live a contented, stable and decent life, until the Cultural Revolution ruthlessly shattered this belief in life and touched everyone’s soul. Whether voluntarily or not, all were forced down the road of choices: either as an accomplice or as a sacrifice. The ten-year Cultural Revolution left the generation of young people with scars on their body, their hands stained with other people’s blood, and wounds and injuries due to primitive heavy labor. They had nothing but physical pain, and they were good at nothing. What do you expect them to do? In the novels such as “The Terminal of This Train” (by Wang Anyi), “Dreams of Our Age” (by Zhang Xinxin), female writers expressed the pain of this generation with their unique fine sentiments. Since nobody else could feel the pain for you, and since it was part of your life journey, you had no choice but to struggle to get out of the predicament on your own. As the poetess Shu Ting in “The Voice of a Generation” chanted:

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I have overthrown all definitions, I have shattered all chains; What’s left in me is striking ruins … I did stand up, nevertheless, On the broad horizon, Nobody, by any means, Could again push me back. To survive in hardship, to live strong. The unjust fate made “him” step into this world which seemed to have restored rationality with morbid emotions, though “he”37 no longer respected traditional values that the secular society believed in, as the political storm that had most recently subsided proved the fragility and hypocrisy of these traditional values. Although all that was left in him was nothing but ruins, “he” who stood up should be fulfilled, as he could build what he thought was the most beautiful monument on the ruins of his heart. Hence, out jumped the “Bengal Tiger” “On the Same Horizon” (by Zhang Xinxin): It has strong rivals in nature. In order to cope with these rivals, the Bengal Tiger has to grow more alert, more flexible, braver, and crueler …38 This does not seem to depict tigers, nor humans, but the abnormal mentality among young people. However tragic or despicable his deeds might be, what was the male protagonist searching for? Merely for more income to purchase a refrigerator? Or, for a means of earning some reputation to fill the void in his heart? Neither. He was determined in his deeds. He hastened because he had once lost much. Furthermore, the ideal of life that he was pursuing was normal: he aspired to exert his talents to gain social recognition for his efforts. In a sound and sane society, such ideals of life should be protected. But now? He could only degenerate into a “vulgar businessman” – even his wife thought so. When readers condemn this male protagonist’s deeds, they always consciously and unconsciously justify the society in which he lived. Though it is a prejudice for him to use the theory of “survival of the fittest” to interpret the social development, he retained a dignified competitive air. However, the society he faced had actually no such decency of competition: what was revealed by Xu Fei’s exploitation of his father’s social reputation for personal gains, the vulgarity and irresponsibility of Chu Fengzhi, and the perfunctoriness and 37 38

This “he” can only be singular, because “he” exists in the world as an individual. See Zhang Xinxin’s “On the Same Horizon” published in Harvest, No. 6, 1981.

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jealousy of his colleagues may make it hard to find a rival for real competition. Just as soldiers could not find their enemies on a battlefield, this was also a sad struggle for all aspirants. Therefore, can you accuse the Bengal tiger of being “more vigilant and tenacious” at a time when hunting it was considered the “foremost sport of hunting in the world?” Perhaps it did make sense in terms of some criticism of Zhang Xinxin’s novel. The competitive attitude of the protagonist did not sound particularly convincing in this land. As mentioned, what the novel reflects is an abnormal mentality, whilst real life has not yet revealed such an intense pace. Contrarily, the state of social stagnation caused by malice, mediocrity, misoneism and rigidity constitutes the greatest pressure on young people in today’s society, making it the leading target of the criticism of the younger generation of today’s writers. Beginning with River in the North, an ever-increasing division has emerged in Zhang Chengzhi’s literary creations: the tension between urban civilization and primitive nature. (Before that, Zhang always viewed nature through the eyes of modern urbanites, such as in his masterpiece Black Steed. However, from his River in the North onward, a shift of the narrator’s perspective in Zhang’s novels became tangible, as modern urban society was often viewed through primitive eyes. Accordingly, the division emerged.) In this novel, the protagonist acted always as a man of great vigor and as a humble and passionate child of nature. The green grassland, red desert, gushing river and crystalline snow mountains would all evoke solemn religious feelings in him. At this moment, he was determined, tenacious and masculine. However, when he entered another society, namely the modern urban society, he immediately became restless, anxious and unruly. Eventually, he has to resort to graffiti, his strongest expression, to relieve his struggles. The restlessness of the Son of Nature mirrors the restlessness of the young people in contemporary society. It is for this reason that graffiti has become the “last privilege” of young people. Zhang Chengzhi was fortunate, as his restlessness made him find his spiritual support outside the city, which empowered his literary works with dispositions of “root-seeking literature.” Another contemporary female writer also resorted to noise to deal with modern urban life, though she was not endowed with such favor. Her king of folk songs may not even exist at all, and those who were seeking such a king of folk songs also vanished because of leeches, fever, and wind and storms. Therefore, for her, “you have no choice.” – The only thing you can rely on is yourself. The novel “You Have No Choice” by Liu Suola can be found to possess a strong sense of modern resistance. The imagery of Professor Jia is undoubtedly too cartoonish, if measured by the reality of life. However, it is precisely such exaggeration that has made the resistance of students from the College of Music

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to Jia’s norms a symbol. From a subjective perspective, the kind of resistance presented by each of these students manifests an individual’s criticism of his living environment. Nihilism is the starting point of these students’ behaviors: their contempt of traditional musical aesthetics has endowed Sensen with new creativity, making him win the international composition competition award through his modern spirit. Li Ming’s disillusion with the existing educational system has kept him in bed all day long. However, this Oblomov-like resistance demonstrates a nihilistic attitude that is completely irrelevant to an “unwanted man” such as Oblomov. This nihilistic attitude, like Meng Ye’s walking backward, implies the young generation’s positive anti-traditional mentality. For the young, their mischievousness in the eyes of the elderly may be a serious matter. In this sense, this novel’s resistance to reality is consistent with the traditional realist fighting spirit. However, whether it is Zhang Xinxin, Zhang Chengzhi or Liu Suola, their sense of resistance is different from the traditional realist fighting spirit. The realist fighting spirit in the literature of the New Period also manifested a strong sense of criticism. Nevertheless, the purpose of its critics was concrete, with a focus on specific cases in real life. Contrarily, what modern resistance consciousness criticizes is largely abstract, illusory and vague, with its emphasis on people’s vigilant mindset about their existence in the world, or their ongoing restlessness. Additionally, the realist fighting spirit always empowers writers with greater confidence and spiritual solace in literary creations, which can be proved from the current series of stirring novels with their theme of social reforms. However, the literary works that reflect modern resistance consciousness lack such spiritual solace, as they exude a sense of loneliness tinged with nihilism while denying and criticizing the old world. I had a mixed feeling with the aforementioned argument, as I can hardly imagine how the term “nihilism” would stir readers in today’s particular social context. As Nietzsche said, Nihilism “is ambiguous: nihilism as a sign of the increased power of the spirit: as active nihilism. Nihilism as a decline and retreat of the spirit’s power: passive nihilism.”39 The earliest use of the term “nihilism”, which emerged among Russian civilian intellectuals in the middle of the 19th century, referred apparently to the former, which determined the meaning of nihilism by negating all values of traditional ideas. Nihilists face the past with a fighting attitude and embrace the future with strong beliefs and full creativity. The opposite of “nihilism” is not “existence” but “affirmation”, 39

Friedrich Nietzsche, Writings form the Late Notebooks, ed. by Rüdiger Bittner, trans. by Kate Sturge, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003, pp. 146–147. (Cambridge Texts in the History Philosophy)

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that is, the varieties of affirmation of the past. It is understandable for contemporary young people to take such an attitude toward the evil consequences caused by the far-left political guidelines in the past. We must completely negate the Cultural Revolution and need such a nihilistic attitude as a support in the ideological struggle. However, when “nihilism” faces not only the past, but also the future, which hence presents complex implications. Superficially, nihilism is easily associated with conceptions such as decadence and fall, though there exists a gap between the two. Outright nihilism toward the future may only lead to the end of a man’s life. Additionally, life attitudes such as non-belief and self-indulgence are nothing but manifestations of young people’s preference, cherishment and indulgence of their own life values. What is lacking in them is the established belief and purpose in life, which is still “nihilism” when facing the past of life and cannot explain their attitude toward the future. It is how the protagonist in the novel Variations Without A Theme (by Xu Xing) assesses himself: “I feel I look like falling slowly and lightly, though there is something sublimated in my soul.”40 Precisely such sublimation is felt in the complete negation of traditional ideas. Associated with a life of non-belief is loneliness. Semantic complexity oftentimes gets this word into trouble. From the philosophical perspective, “loneliness” is not a synonym for individualism or an antonym for collectivism. Its opposite should be the belief in God. Man feels lonely only when he loses the protection of God. When a person is no longer with God and has no a priori power to guide himself as to how to lead a life, he has to rely on himself. Therefore, loneliness can generate power and creativity. What deserves our attention is that the cause of such loneliness was not from a particular Western “-ism,” but from the specific social reality. It was the Cultural Revolution that led the spiritual path of the younger generation to two differing stages: the stage of modern superstition and religious mania and the stage of rediscovering and recognizing one’s own power in the wilderness after the loss of protection of God. Resistance, nihility and loneliness are the leading characteristics of modern resistance consciousness in contemporary literature. Resistance is the attitude toward the world of yesterday, nihility is the starting point of resistance, while loneliness is the psychological characteristic of the resistance. The emergence of such resistance consciousness among today’s young people is understandable: it reflects their disgust and rejection of deep-rooted social customs and traditional values. Their nihility and loneliness, however, which bear the mark 40

See Xu Xing’s Variations Without A Theme, The Writers Publishing House, 1989, p. 23.

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of this specific era, distinguish their resistance mentality from their previous fighting consciousness. As part of open literature, contemporary fictions are naturally influenced by Western literature. Now, many researchers have noticed the relationship between Zhang Xinxin’s novels and Western absurd dramas and American “oral literature”; and there are studies on the black humor in Liu Suola’s novels and the influence of J. D. Salinger. In my opinion, however, the most important reason why novels by writers such as Zhang Xinxin and Liu Suola and others could stir the literary world upon publication and arouse emotional resonance among many young readers lies in the common mentality reflected in these works, which has some rationality in today’s social life. Their negative criticism of traditional values is basically in line with the fighting spirit of Chinese new literature since the May 4th Movement, although their subjective attitude bears clearly the mark of the times. Nihility and loneliness seem to mark the distinction between this generation of young people and their May 4th predecessors: they would no longer throw themselves into Kunming Lake due to the loss of the spiritual dependence on traditional culture, nor would they hurriedly kneel before Western social values, lamenting that other countries are just better than China. Instead, they began to realize their own strength. No matter whether the Bengal Tiger’s struggle was right or wrong, or whether the students from the College of Music were struggling for life or fooling around, they did not deceive life or deceive themselves. Instead, they were thinking about their own way of life independently, with their own positive choices for the future. I deem this the modern resistance consciousness. Perhaps, its predecessor might have been read in some literary works in the 1920s, such as the essay Wild Grass; however, in our time, it would become more typical and make more sense. It should certainly not be overlooked that it is by no means easy to decide on one’s life path on his own. On the contrary, it is much more difficult and dangerous than following established rules to live by. The protagonist of the novel Variations Without A Theme once said something quite interesting: “What I really like is my job, which means, I like to work hard in the restaurant where I make my living, and I am willing to be told to do this and that by a bunch of men and women from all over the world. At that moment, I felt that the world still needed me a little bit, that people also needed me a little bit, and that I might still be worth something. Meanwhile, I felt really relaxed when I gave myself to others, as I did not have to worry what I should do, nor did I have to decide on anything. For me, a day off every week would be a heavy burden …”41 Evidently, this sense of heaviness is not only for life but also for himself. Imagine which 41

See Xu Xing’s Variations Without A Theme, The Writers Publishing House, 1989, p. 12.

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life is more terrible and which is safer, comparing the protagonist’s stressful life in the novel “On the Same Horizon” with the protagonist Dawei’s easy life in the novel “Dreams of Our Age”. Moreover, there are always two possibilities in the knowledge of the strength of the self: either to discover that one is strong, or to discover that one is weak. Once a person finds himself weak, will he act more confident than if he had been blind and ignorant? It is a shadow that always haunts this type of literary work. Whether in her earlier novel “You Have No Choice” or in more recent ones such as “Blue Sky, Green Sea” and “Seeking the King of Folk Songs”, Liu Suola has not overcome such shadow. Although she declared boldly in these novels that “the barbarian is dead” and “the King of Folk Songs” may not exist at all, the loss of spiritual support means the loss of pursuit of life, which traps the protagonists in a certain awkward situation: they are both the critics and beneficiaries of the secular values. They cannot survive without the secular environment, though struggling in a life like this eventually made them uncomfortably sane. The strong are gone: Meng Ye, Sensen and even Li Ming are gone. The only one left is Dong Ke. Zhang Xinxin seemed to be the same, as her novel Peking Men was undoubtedly an attempt at a new artistic style. However, in her later travel notes and essays (I cannot accept some paradoxical conceptions like “non-fictions”), the inner disturbance was evidently replaced by a deeper loneliness, a type of loneliness without rivals. Despite her seemingly raucous rhetoric, the fierce roar of the Bengal Tiger was far, far away. In order to conceal doubts about its own strength, this type of literary work often resorts to “satire” as a weapon. In recent years, satirical techniques have been prevailing not only in novel writing, but also in drama writing. Dramas such as WM (English: We. Scriptwriter Wang Peigong and Stage director Wang Gui) and Genius and Madman (Stage director: Zhao Yaoming) are arguably the most typical works. As an artistic technique, satire is characterized by the fact that it does not need a serious declaration of war; instead, it fights against traditional authority with a playful attitude of anger and ridicule, which sometimes make people laugh. A few taunts from the first scene of WM were quite exciting. Nevertheless, satire can hardly replace confident resistance and criticism. Although it contains some elements of comedy, it can easily become unctuous and frivolous, making it vulnerable to criticism that there are no serious works in modernist art and literature. The awakening of the subject’s consciousness is likely to make people soberly recognize their own weakness, thus discarding serious pursuits in literature while turning to cynicism and decadence. The question that this raises is whether modern resistance consciousness in contemporary literature can be further developed as a basic variant of the actual fighting spirit in the new era? The literature available now can hardly provide a positive answer. Although Wang Meng used the term “the Satiety

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Literature” to refer to this literary phenomenon, and commented that “the number of satiated people will be on the rise,”42 It may be more appropriate to interpret the tendency of realism, problem novels and the increasing attention to the aesthetic significance of literature (such as roots-seeking novels) in contemporary literature from the perspective of “the Hunger Literature”. The literary works that embody modern resistance consciousness are still concerned about the survival of the society, whilst what they intend to condemn is still the corruption that threatens our economic reforms and hinders social development. If they must be classified, they should belong to “the Hunger Literature”, as they help release the discontent and grievance of people (mainly young people) in their struggles to survive. However, it was meant to be and will continue. This is because, firstly, as an organic part of modern consciousness, modern resistance consciousness has penetrated into our social life. Like the food of life that has been brewed into the wine of modern consciousness (needless to ask whether it is sweet or bitter), literary works transform such social reality into an aesthetic form. This type of literary work will resonate more and further with the younger generation of readers – not only the generation in their 30s, but also the one in their 20s. Young people who have just bid farewell to their childhood may almost naturally generate anarchic resistance. In the past generations, such resistance mentality was generated in the revolutionary manias and the war or political movements, this generation of young people, instead, lived in times of peace and socialist construction. The psychological resistance brought about by such physiological changes cannot be expressed by social movements. Hence, their inner anguish, along with their sensitive responses to social problems, can only be released through abnormal ways. Such kind of social psychology is the basis for the success of modern resistance consciousness in literature. In the future of the development of contemporary literature, the basic spiritual tradition of Chinese new literature, that is, the realist fighting spirit, will continue to exist and exert its influence. This is determined by China’s specific historical environment. As part of the realist fighting spirit, modern resistance consciousness will also continue to move on. The social competition elicited by social reforms not only inevitably led to the end of the egalitarian distribution system but also to the collapse of traditional lifestyles and moral concepts. In our country, where the feudal consciousness is extremely strong and influential, the loss of spiritual dependence may not be necessarily a bad thing. Reformers are also responsible for creating a new world while destroying 42

See Wang Meng’s foreword to Liu Suola’s You Have No Choice (The Writers Publishing House, 1986).

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the old one. But what about life in the future? Nobody has ever experienced Chinese socialist modernization, and nobody can offer a blueprint in advance to guide people. This means man’s subjective factors will be increasingly valued in the future. In a society with a sound democratic system, people, with their own independent thinking, will grow more accustomed to a better understanding of the society and of their lives. If this is the developmental trend of our contemporary social life, then, the modern resistance consciousness in literature will also have a relatively optimistic prospect. This needs to be validated in the future.

Part 2 Global Elements in Chinese Literature of the 20th Century

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Global Elements in Chinese Literature of the 20th Century It has been nearly a year since the journal of Comparative Literature in China initiated an academic discussion on “Global Elements in Chinese Literature of the 20th Century”.1 Since this theme, along with some specific theoretical assumptions, was proposed by me a few years ago to address the confusions I encountered while studying the relationship between Chinese and foreign literature of the 20th century, I was invited by the editorial board to engage in it. Although “global elements” was the theme, I had not thought deeply enough to offer further theoretical insights. The discussion initiated by the editorial board and active peer participation served as a great spur to me; I felt particularly excited by the inspirations of their critical opinions. It is my hope that in this discussion, my tentative thoughts would invite more pertinent criticism. The significance of the study of “Global Elements in Chinese Literature of the 20th Century” is twofold: it is both about methodology and conceptualism, which are closely connected and hard to differentiate, as methods are also derived from the research aim set by specific research conceptions. 1

The Origin of Research Inquiry

Entitled “Global Elements in Chinese Literature of the 20th Century,” this theme seems confusing and could be misinterpreted as addressing narrowly the internal problems of Chinese literature of the 20th century and having nothing to do with the discipline of comparative literature. Such misinterpretation seems plausible, as one of the characteristics of Chinese literature of the 20th century is that it has been incorporated into the global cultural order, with its main trend rich in international elements; meanwhile, any study of Chinese literature and modern Chinese writers cannot advance without considering their connectedness with the outside world. Before the rise of comparative literature in China, research topics on the acceptance of foreign influences by Chinese 1 Since the first issue in 2000, the journal of Comparative Literature in China has opened a column entitled “Global Elements in Chinese Literature of the 20th Century” to discuss this topic. This article was published in this column.

© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2022 | doi:10.1163/9789004522978_007

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writers had been available in the field of modern literature research; the findings, accordingly, naturally became its initial academic yield in the early days when the concept of “comparative literature” was introduced into China. In terms of its disciplinary conception, “comparative literature” certainly has its own discourse system and research resources; however, some research elements may be altered when these achievements are included in the category of “impact study”. I have noticed that key words such as “tourist”, “travel book” or “images of a foreign country in travel notes” are often referred to in the traditional French School’s works on “impact study.” In Chinese “impact study,” however, these keywords were intentionally overlooked, and the study of the intellectual accomplishment of individual writers (including external influences) has increasingly given way to macroscopic explorations of the influences of foreign ethos. Eventually, with the publication of scholarly works with the theme of “comparative history of Chinese and foreign literature”, studies on the relationship between Chinese and foreign literature of the 20th Century have become an established discipline in the field of comparative literature, which is also one of the research directions with the most Chinese characteristics. Since the early 1980s, I have followed Professor Jia Zhifang to study the influences of foreign schools of thoughts and theories of the 20th century on the history of modern Chinese literature. I have sorted out and edited original materials of several million words and have been working on this theme incessantly.2 With the passage of the last decade, I realize I have had limited success with more confusion, since I have not yet grasped scientifically the “impacts” in “impact study.” In my opinion, the research direction of “the Relationship between Chinese and Foreign Literature of the 20th Century” should consist of two parts. Part One is the application of medio-translatology in this field, whose research objects include the collections and research of translated documents since the 20th century, and the introductions, evaluations and research of foreign literary works, theories and schools. It is the research on the studies of foreign literature (I also regard translation as a research method), focusing on collecting, sorting and researching raw translation materials on the relationship between Chinese and foreign literature. Although such research 2 In the early 1980s, Professor Jia Zhifang presided over the compilation of the book entitled Influences of Foreign Ideological Schools on the History of Chinese Literature, which was planned by the Institute of Literature of Academy of Social Sciences. I participated in the editing work of this project and worked on The Memorabilia of External Influences with nearly 100,000 words. However, due to publication problems, it was delayed until 2004 when it was adapted into The Compilation of Historical Materials of Sino-Foreign Literary Relations 1898–1937 (two volumes), published by Guangxi Normal University Press.

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has been implemented nationwide, systematic, reliable data compilation and translation studies are still in great need.3 Part Two is the study of Chinese literature and world literature of the 20th century, which constitute the literary connections between “the nation and the world.” As the main body of the research, this part addresses theoretical explorations on inquires such as the reasons why modern Chinese literature is an integral part of the study of international comparative literature, its distinctive contributions to world literature, and particularly the status of Chinese literature of the 20th century within broader world literary trends. However, solid, systematic academic achievements have not yet been made due to insufficient theoretical preparations and realistic research attitudes. There exists a special phenomenon in the study of the relationship between Chinese and foreign literature of the 20th century, that is, there is no inevitable causal relationship in the development of these two domains. In other words, in addition to informing the translation and introduction of foreign literature, the research findings in Part One do not address such “relationship” itself. Restricted for a long time to the category of “impact study,” Part Two, instead, only explores the “relationship” from the perspective of “impacts,” failing to address the overall relationship between Chinese and foreign literature. If we lack a clear understanding of the features of impact study in terms of methodology and conceptions, and if we lack enthusiasm for theoretical explorations, it will be difficult for us to articulate the “impact” itself, let alone to grasp the relationship between Chinese and foreign literature of the entire 20th century. The following example includes two paragraphs from a textbook of Com­ parative Literature that is currently in use:4 The Creation Society selected Western romantic writers according to whether they directly expressed sentimentalities. For instance, they admired J. J. Rousseau, but preferred his The Confessions to his masterpiece Julie, ou la nouvelle Héloïse; they liked W. v. Goethe in the era of The 3 Foreign Ideological Trends, Volume 3 of Echoes of the Century, edited by Li Ziyun, Zhao Changtian and myself, includes ten books, containing all materials that document the theories of F. Nietzsche, S. Freud, B. Russell, J. Dewey, L. Tolstoy, C. Darwin, P. Kropotkin, H. Ibsen, I. Babbitt and R. Tagore when introduced into China in the first half of the 20th century. These books were published in 2009 by Nanchang Jiangxi University Press. This is the most exhaustive compilation of information to date. 4 I do not intend to include the sources of these two materials, because this problem is not unique to this textbook, but a common phenomenon in a large number of current studies on the relationship between Chinese and foreign literature. I simply used them at hand for convenience.

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Sorrows of Young Werther, but were indifferent to his Faust published in his maturity; they expressed no interest in V. Hugo, the representative of French romanticism, because Hugo advocated the rationality of positive romanticism; between G. G. Byron and P. B. Shelley, they chose Shelley, because in Byron’s works, the depth of his thought is greater than that of his emotions, while Shelley’s chanting “our sweetest songs come from the saddest thoughts” appealed neatly to the writers of the Creation Society. I was struck that almost every sentence of this quote with regards to the acceptance of romanticism in China needs to be carefully examined. If sentimentality was the rubric for members of the Creation Society on foreign literature, why didn’t they promote Rousseau’s sentimental novel Julie, ou la nouvelle Héloïse but turned to his cynical The Confessions? Under what circumstances did members of the Creation Society claim that they had no interest in Goethe in the time of Faust? If so, what was Guo Moruo’s intention in translating this literary masterpiece?5 Did their introduction of Shelley indicate their rejection of Bryon?6 Was Wang Duqing among members of the Creation Society 5 Guo Moruo began to translate Goethe’s Faust intermittently since 1919 but stopped due to his limited ability in translating it. Later, he turned to translating The Sorrows of Young Werther and succeeded. He once said he didn’t like studying medicine at that time, hence translating Faust was “just what I wanted.” “Especially the monologue in which Faust curses learning at the beginning of Part I, as if I were writing myself.” Therefore, he translated Faust’s soliloquy and several other excerpts for publication in Xuedeng. While writing The Goddess, Guo claimed that its third stage “poetic drama” was influenced by Goethe’s Faust. The above quotations can be found in Guo Moruo’s “Ten Years of Creation” in The Students’ Days, Beijing: People’s Literature Publishing House, 1979, pp. 64–66. Guo Moruo’s translation of the first volume of Faust was published by Creation Press in 1928. 6 It is true that the members of the Creation Society preferred Shelley, but it does not seem appropriate to claim that they chose Shelley over Byron. There was a special issue in Vol. 1, No. 4 of Creation Quarterly commemorating Shelley because it coincided with the centenary of Shelley’s death, in which “Shelley” by Zhang Dinghuang, “Three English Romantic Poets” by Xu Zuzheng, and “Poems by Shelley” and “Chronology of Shelley” by Guo Moruo were included. Neither Zhang nor Xu seemed to be representative writers of the Creation Society. Guo’s reiteration of the communication and friendship between Byron and Shelley seemed to have no positive or negative views. Xu Zuzheng criticized Byron for lacking an artist’s “selfcontrol and patience”, regarding Byron’s poems as “the cry of a revolutionist”; Xu’s admiration of Shelley’s poems may have been motivated more by Western scholars’ prejudice against Byron than by his own opinion. In 1924, in order to commemorate the centenary of Byron’s death, Xu Zuzheng also wrote a long article entitled “The Spirit of Byron”, which highly praised Byron’s revolutionary spirit and criticized Western scholar Hearn’s view that Byron had “no self-control” in defense of Byron. Two years later, this article was published in Vol. 1, No. 4 of Creation Monthly edited by Yu Dafu. Also, Liang Shiqiu’s long article entitled “Byron and Romanticism” was serialized in the 3rd and 4th issues of Creation Monthly. Therefore, the

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who “had no interest” in Hugo?7 I am afraid this author failed to have access to the introductions of Julie, ou la nouvelle Héloïse, Faust, Bryon and Hugo by writers of the Creation Society when he was researching historical documents on the introduction of romanticism into China. Even so, what can be inferred is that these members did not introduce the works of these foreign writers; what can’t be inferred, instead, is that they had no interest in the said foreign writers and their works, since a Chinese writer did not have to introduce all the works of foreign writers in whom he was interested. Unless there was sufficient first-hand evidence, how could it be concluded abruptly that they had no interest, and how could it be inferred arbitrarily with weird “argumentation”? Furthermore, this author’s argument that “the Creation Society selected Western romantic writers according to whether they expressed directly sentimentalities” is also worthy of scrutiny. For example, Guo Moruo’s The Goddess conjures up an energetic, omnipotent, positive and revolutionary Promethean romantic image, which also appears in “On the Poetic Power of Maras” advocated by Lu Xun. Isn’t that part of the romantic thought? Then, how was such a specious research conclusion grounded? The following paragraph is worthier of examination: Chinese modern and contemporary literature was developed under the influence of foreign literature; without the comparative study of foreign literature, it is difficult to examine comprehensively the causes and characteristics of the development and evolution of Chinese modern and contemporary literature. During the May 4th Movement, the Xinchao Society (English: The New Trend Society) and the Literature Research Association advocated realism, naturalism and H. Ibsen’s individualism. The Creation Society, with Japanese students (here, it should be Chinese students studying in Japan – author’s note) as its main members, was more inclined to Western romanticism. The Crescent School, formed by British and American students (here, it should be Chinese students studying in the U.K. and the U.S. – author’s note), advocated the Victorian poetic style with a strong association with the British and American Lakeside poetry. In the 1930s, the ideas of the Proletarian Culture association of the former Soviet Union (“the Post”) and Fukumoto Kazuo’s theory of the left-leaning line of the Japanese Communist Party, along with the theories of the RAPP (abbreviation of Rossiyskaya Assotsiatsiya Proletarskikh idea of rejecting Byron for Shelley is groundless, and it is unfounded to say that “in Byron’s works, the depth of his thought is greater than that of his emotions.” 7 See Wang Duqing’s “My Life in Europe” and Qu Mengjue’s “On Wang Duqing”.

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Pisateley, English: Russian Association of Proletarian Writers) of the Soviet Communist Party and of the NAPF (abbreviation of Nippona Artista Proleta Federacio) of the Japanese Communist Party, had profound influence on the creations of the Creation Society and the Sun Society, bringing forth well-received “Proletarian Literature.” Neo-sensualism, another new school of literature that emerged in the 1930s, was directly derived from neo-sensualism in Japan and the Metropolitan Literature in France. Additionally, the Nine-Leaves School of Poetry, the Misty School of Poetry and other emerging literary and artistic thoughts in the Chinese literary world in the 20th century, such as from realism to romanticism, from neo-humanism to symbolism, from F. Nietzsche and A. Schopenhauer to V. G. Belinsky, N. G. Chernyshevsky and N. A. Dobrolyubov, and from Freudianism and existentialism to feminism and structuralism, were all inextricably connected with the Western literary concepts. If the first quote indicates only that research methods were rather vacuous and imprecise and the author lacked a rigorous scientific attitude, then the latter one reflects a theoretical and logical misdirection, and its pitfalls in argumentation will be further addressed. Even if the said literary and artistic thoughts listed by the author were related to Western literary and artistic thoughts, can it be concluded that “Chinese modern and contemporary literature developed under the influence of foreign literature?” I do not think these thoughts have covered the entirety of Chinese modern and contemporary literature, particularly, New Youth in the New Literature Movement during the May 4th Movement, other literary communities in the 1920s such as the Yusi Society, the Peking-style literature of the 1930s and a large cohort of liberal writers in Shanghai, the Counter-Japanese War literature, literature in the enemy-occupied areas, the Yan’an Literature and Art Movement, and literary policies and movements in Mainland China after the 1950s. Therefore, how can this author draw such an arbitrary conclusion about the “causes and characteristics” of “Chinese modern and contemporary literature”? Furthermore, in terms of the listed literary and artistic thoughts, can it be asserted that the development of a nation’s literature and art reform movement was under the influence of foreign cultural thoughts, when, at its emergence, it armed itself with such thoughts? We may take the Literature Research Association as an example, as there were various social and cultural reasons for its establishment. Although Shen Yanbing had not decided whether to follow realism or neo-romanticism when taking over Short Story Monthly, he took Hu Shi’s advice before deciding on realism. Apparently, this was their initiative. We could say that they “advocated” realism; however, it seems presumptuous to infer that their development was “under

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the influence” of realism. Modern Chinese literature has indeed been influenced by the literary and artistic ideas from the West and Japan, which were among many contributing factors that led to its further development, or which were once used and borrowed by Chinese writers to bolster their strength. Nevertheless, it would be imprudent to conclude that “Chinese modern and contemporary literature developed under the influence of foreign literature.” Actually, this is not only the consequence of a logical error; it reflects the prevailing ideas of an era. Comparative literature was introduced to China in the mid-1980s, and its method of “impact study” directly promoted the study of the relationship between Chinese literature and foreign literature at that time, that is, citing historical materials of foreign influences to prove that the process of China’s modernization was essentially an imitation and introduction of advanced Western culture. At that time, the only discrepancy between official reforms and intellectuals was whether, while introducing advanced Western scientific achievements and technical equipment, pertinent ideological and cultural ideas should be introduced as well. Literary research cannot discard the tendency of the times. As a discipline aiming at breaking down limitations and promoting international cultural exchange, comparative literature, along with its academic preferences, was bound at that time to coincide with the idea of introducing modern Western culture advocated by the Enlightenment. Therefore, the theory that Chinese modern literature developed under the influence of Western culture can also be regarded as the product of the second rise of the enlightenment culture of the May 4th Movement among Chinese intellectuals. Given this academic concept, although “impact study” may not be able to demonstrate such “impacts,” it still works as a scientific method that is trusted and promoted. Here I did not mean to criticize any particular researcher. It is precisely because of this trend of the times that using such “impact study” to interpret the relationship between Chinese and foreign literature has become a self-evident authoritative premise. I myself experienced this academic atmosphere. My mindset at the time could be interpreted as anger just released from a cultural nightmare. On the one hand, many intellectuals like me abominated the rigidity and narrowness of literary creations caused by the far-left guidelines; on the other hand, they were hungry for new ideas and cultures from abroad. This is because they remained well aware of the power of traditional forces; if they did not do their utmost in promoting new ideas, new cultures and new methods from abroad, they would not be able to break down the obstacles of traditional ideas. At that time, the focus of the debate on “eliminating the spiritual pollution” was how to treat humanitarian ideas and modernist literature and art from the West. In the West, these two ideas also stood opposed; in China,

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however, they were regarded as scourges. I still remember that the criticism of modernism in domestic literary and art circles was full of barbarism and ignorance. In my article based on materials of Chinese literary history, entitled “Modernism in the Development of China’s New Literature,”8 I proceeded in my discussion from the introduction of modernism in the May 4th New Literature Movement to the references of Lu Xun, Guo Moruo and other writers, to modernist literature and art and to the possibility of integrating modern consciousness and national culture. Nevertheless, such common-sense knowledge invited unexpected responses. This made me realize for the first time that although my intention was Western modernism, the question raised and the corresponding target were completely determined by the domestic reality. One characteristic of the study of modern literature is that it has always maintained a close connection with contemporary life. The academic orientation of “The Study of Foreign Influences on China’s Modern Literature” in the 1980s clearly showed that if the country intends to follow the path of modernization, it must first integrate itself into the modernization of the world; and the only way for the further development of Chinese literature is to embrace the world to become the echo of the “influences” of the Western literary trend. At this moment, the term “Going Global,” which implied the anxiety and desire of the times, became a fashionable theme in the literary world. This so-called “going” means that China has not yet entered the “world,” nor has become part of it. Then, what kind of “world” has both excluded and restricted it? (This was accompanied by other buzzwords such as “If you lag behind, you will be beaten” and “being kicked out of the world,” all of which reflected similar mindsets of the times.) Evidently, in the context of global modernization, China and the rest of the world were advancing in the same direction at that time. The relationship between Chinese and foreign literature correspondingly tended to this interpretation: China’s modern literature was formed under the influence of world literary ideas; only by imitating and pursuing the model of world literature can Chinese literature carry worldwide significance. Although the elements of nationality were also addressed in “impact study,” the motto “The more national, the more global” still applies the rubric of “the world,” behind which lies the desire to be recognized by “the world”. Nonetheless, such thinking was increasingly questioned in the 1990s. That is, in the process of global modernization, is it possible for a post-developing country like China to rapidly reach the “level of modernization” of a modern 8 This article, which is included in this book, was first published in Shanghai Literature, No.7, 1985, and later in included in A Holistic View of China’s New Literature, Shanghai Literature and Art Publishing House, 1987.

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developed country by developing its own economy, thus to be accepted into the category of “the world”? Have the world’s developed economies provided such a perfect model for those less developed ones to imitate? And, can the world’s model of “modernization” be solely based on the status quo of the developed economies? These inquiries were all related to the future and direction of national modernization in the context of globalization. Although they were not the subject to be addressed in this research since they went beyond the scope of my knowledge, my purpose of including them was to provide a panoramic background of “global elements” on this basis. “Global elements” is one of my theoretical assumptions for the study of the relationship between Chinese and foreign literature of the 20th century, which also embraces two research perspectives. First, with its integration in the world order in the 20th century, China’s development could not but be influenced by global ideological trends. In the field of literature, as external stimulations, international literary ideas have also constantly contributed to the development of Chinese literature, forming a dualistic cultural structure of the world/China (that is, the influencer/recipient). Secondly, since the development of Chinese literature has been incorporated into the world order, its relationship with the world cannot remain completely passive; instead, it has become a unit of this broader system. In its own movement, which also includes the influence of the world, it has established a unique aesthetic consciousness. Whether or not it is directly related to the influence of foreign cultures, it responds to the “inquiries” of world literature with its own distinctive dispositions, thus enriching the latter. Furthermore, such dualistic cultural structure of the world/China seems less important from the latter research perspective, as a more complex model of “world” literature is being constructed by the literature of China and of other countries on an equal status. The focus of this research is precisely the “global elements” from this latter perspective. What can be referred to as “global elements”? It is difficult to distinguish what is “global” and what is not in the investigation of Chinese literary phenomena in the 20th century. Hence, in this research, “global” reflects not the quality of research subjects, but the methods applied in discussion. If we narrowly focus on romanticism or feminine consciousness in Chinese literature, despite both being worldwide literary phenomena, such research does not belong to comparative literature, nor focus on the “global elements” within. Only when the researcher broadens his vision worldwide, by placing the topics, such as the relationship between Chinese romanticism and European romanticism or their similarities and differences or the status of women’s consciousness in China within the worldwide feminist movement, in the broader global context of “romanticism” or “feminism” for investigation and comparative study, can such “global elements”

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be constituted. Hence, although the leading research subject of the study of “Global Elements in Chinese Literature of the 20th Century” is Chinese literature, in terms of its research methods, it emphasizes the “global” approach. It may also be defined as follows: “The subject matter of the study includes the elements of Chinese literature that can be examined, compared and analyzed within the context of world literature through a comparative research perspective across languages, countries and nationalities.” Apparently, since its “global” methodology and conception have been highlighted in the study of “Global Elements in Chinese Literature of the 20th Century,” it should not be restricted within the realm of national literature. Instead, its inquiry is aimed at the unreliability of the so-called textual research on “foreign influences” and the fictitious premise of the argument that “Chinese modern and contemporary literature developed under the influence of foreign literature.” In this aspect, it has a subversive effect on traditional research methods and ideas. 2

Why Question the Empirical Approach?

In the study of the relationship between Chinese and foreign literature of the 20th century, a possible misunderstanding lies in questioning its empirical approach. This is because behind the dissemination of the so-called inaccurate arguments of “foreign influences,” a fixed mindset exists that dominates scholars’ over-reliance on so-called empirical approaches. I didn’t mean to criticize generally the employment of empirical methods in the study of Sino-foreign literary relations, because the route of “influence – acceptance” was comparatively narrow in the traditional study of the relationship between Chinese and foreign literature due to underdeveloped communication channels. Hence, evidence obtained through a thorough review of the literature and meticulous triangulation is meaningful. Therefore, I respect groundbreaking academic achievements made by serious scholars such as Yan Shaodang in his study of the relationship between ancient Chinese and Japanese literature and his review of a series of research experiences such as the “empirical approach based on the original classical text materials”. I myself have also engaged in excavating and examining the source materials and documents in the field of “impact study” and regard this work as an indispensable foundation for the study of the relationship between Chinese and foreign literature. As I have discussed earlier, the study of the relationship between Chinese and foreign literature in the 20th century consists of at least two parts: medio-translatology and the theory of “impact study.” The problem, however, is that the findings of medio-translatology cannot fully account for the conclusions of the latter. For

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the latter, therefore, we assume the responsibility to re-explore newer conceptions of Sino-foreign literary relations from a theoretical perspective, and to re-design our research plans, purposes and methods. Why question the empirical approach? The following is my own experience based on empirical studies. Since the 20th century, there have been challenges to the empirical methodology even in hard sciences. In the field of literature and art, science and aesthetics are always a pair of contradictions. Empirical evidence can prove scientific facts and scientific laws, but it cannot prove the aesthetic significance of artistic creations and acceptance. This contradiction was recognized by advocates of the “impact study” in comparative literature, who, from the very beginning, deliberately excluded the study of aesthetics. For instance, Paul Van Tieghem, the leading representative of the French School, once declared: “Simply put, the term ‘comparison’ should discard all aesthetic connotations and take a scientific one.”9 Comparative literature cannot merely be the gauge of a literary itinerary map; instead, it must involve unmeasurable factors in the field of aesthetics. A certain researcher has thus summarized Van Tieghem’s academic method as follows: for this purpose, while examining the differences between two works of different languages, he focused on discovering some impact and borrowing, in order to depict the “routes taken” by these impacts and borrowing. The starting point is the “sender,” whilst the destination is the “recipient,” in the middle is communication by a medium, called “mediator.” The researcher may examine the “routes taken” by collecting as many materials as possible, the commonality of which is the “borrowing nature of literature.” The most borrowed are genre and style, form and content, subject matter and theme, model and legend, thoughts and emotions, and the like. The “medium,” namely the mediator, can be an individual, such as Madame de Stael and I. Turgenev, who respectively introduced German and Russian literature to France. It can also be a group, such as literary societies, salons and courts that spread foreign literature. It can further be review articles, newspapers, translations and translators. Van Tieghem regarded “impacts” as the centrality of the research of comparative literature, analyzing systematically its scope, content and methods. Therefore, the French School that he represented became famous for its study on the “impacts.”10 Although I do not think I am qualified to comment on Van Tieghem’s La littérature comparée 9 10

See Paul Van Tieghem’s “La littérature comparée” (English: Comparative Literature) (translated by Dai Wangshu) in Collected Translations of Comparative Literature Studies, edited by Gan Yongchang et al., Shanghai: Shanghai Translation Press, 1985, p. 57. Quoted from Gan Yongchang’s introduction to Paul Van Tieghem in Collected Translations of Comparative Literature Studies, p. 73.

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(English: Comparative Literature) since I have only finished a couple of its chapters, I would be astonished how the impact routes of literary elements such as genres, styles and emotions could be discovered, if the said conclusion by this researcher held water. Additionally, if Van Tieghem could examine thoroughly the routes between one or two works, would he be able to reveal all the reasons that a literary piece was created rather than plagiarized, thus revealing completely the relationship between French literature and the literature of other countries? I have noticed that some scholars of comparative literature consider “impacts” as mysterious, equating the discovery of “impacts” with academic revelation.11 However, an authentic “impact study” may only exist when cultural exchanges between countries are poor and limited. Just as in Van Tieghem’s time, when only Madame de Stael was introducing German literature in France, there were few sources of knowledge about Germany. This is what I refer to as a “very closed environment,” where “impact study” matters. The 20th century, by contrast, is an increasingly information-intensive era, in which foreign influences operate through various channels, particularly when these “foreign influences” are completely integrated into a country’s everyday cultural life and their channels may simply be unrecognizable. For example, Marxism, accepted during the May 4th Movement, could undoubtedly be regarded as a “foreign influence” and the clues to its “Red Silk Road” might be identified. After the 1950s, when Marxism became the dominant ideology in China and was studied along with Leninism by everyone, could it also be considered as a “foreign influence”? When people who started reading The Story of the Stone (also called Hongloumeng, or Dream of the Red Chamber) and Water Margin (also called Outlaws of the Marsh, Tale of the Marshes, or All Men Are Brothers) at a young age have finished reading the translations of Western literary classics in modern Chinese, when the works of V. Hugo, W. v. Goethe and L. Tolstoy have become available in any library or bookstore, and when the world’s literary classics have been integrated into the cultivation of a person’s personality, how can one possibly identify the routes of influence of these Western writers? Therefore, it seems to me that the scholarly experience of the French School came into being at a time when man’s understanding of the world remained at an early stage. It reflects the intellectual thinking and methods from the time of missionaries to the time 11

See Pierre Brunel et al.’s Qu’est-ce que la littérature comparée? (English: What is Comparative Literature?) (translated by Ge Lei et al.), in which they argued that “Influence, in a strict sense, can be identified as something like an elusive and mysterious mechanism by which one work contributes to the production of another (Also, the myth is buried in the past meaning of the word influence.).” Beijing: Beijing University Press, 1989, p. 74.

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of colonists; the erudition and rigorousness it flaunted were well associated with the insularity and self-righteousness of the era. How can we develop our healthy academic paths when studying the relationship between Chinese and foreign literature in the 20th century, if we remain willfully attached to the tedious experience of such an antiquated school? This research was not intended to make a comprehensive criticism of the theories and methods of the French School, which has already been done by others, and I will pursue it when time allows. In this research, I will mainly address the issues in the study of the relationship between Chinese and foreign literature in the 20th century. In addition to collecting as many source materials as possible which translate, introduce and criticize Western literature in the realm of medio-translatology as the basis of our research, can we understand, as we have envisioned, the foreign influences in modern and contemporary Chinese literary creations through rigorous empirical approaches and thus verify the conclusion that “Chinese modern and contemporary literature developed under the influence of foreign literature”? Although I have doubts about the effectiveness of empirical approaches in the study of the relationship between Chinese and foreign literature in the 20th century, I didn’t mean to deny the significance of empirical methods. Meanwhile, I have advocated the collection of and respect for source materials within the realm of medio-translatology as the basis for the study of this subject. I expected ensuing controversies, and in the discussion of this featured column, I read Zhang Zhejun’s article, entitled “Has the Era of Empirical Research in Comparative Literature Passed?”12 In Zhang’s article, two parts were mainly covered: one was about the possibility of “impact study” in literature in a closed environment, the other was about the connection between empirical approaches and the so-called subjectivity study in understanding the relationship between Chinese and foreign literature. Firstly, Zhang misinterpreted my “closed environment” as the “closed age of literature,” which might be due to my unclear wording. In view of this, he included a long account of the common-sense knowledge in literary communication, to which I have responded earlier. His other inquiry was interesting. I had assumed he intended to demonstrate the significance of empiri­cal approaches. He seemed, however, to agree on my doubts about empirical approaches. Our only divergence was, as he reminded me in this article, that there were few purely empirical studies in understanding the relationship between Chinese 12

See Zhang Zhejun’s article entitled “Has the Era of Empirical Research in Comparative Literature Passed?” published in Comparative Literature in China, No. 4, 2000. Refer to this citation for Zhang’s article cited throughout my paper.

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and foreign literature; more frequent was the combination of empirical methods and the “so-called subjectivity study.” He further claimed that even if the empirical method were adopted, it would merely lay the foundation for further study. I came to realize that he had confused the collection of original data with the so-called empirical method, assuming that I was opposed to the collection and research of source materials and advocated blindly “pursuing innovation and creativity.” My interpretation is as follows. The empirical approach, from my perspective, does not refer narrowly to a general collection of source materials of Chinese and foreign literature, but to a methodology that deduces general ideas or presupposed purposes through textual research on individual materials. This approach matters in terms of arranging and studying classical literature, which also matters in understanding the relationship between ancient Chinese and foreign literature. In the study of the relationship between Chinese and foreign literature of the 20th century, many scholars were inclined autonomously to “impact study” due to the dominant tradition of evidence-based mindset in scholarly research, believing that empirical approaches can reveal the route and trajectory of the mutual influences of Chinese and foreign literature. Meanwhile, under the influence of the era of Enlightenment that I have addressed earlier, comparative literature researchers consciously proved, based on factual evidence, that “modern and contemporary Chinese literature developed under the influence of foreign literary ideas,” thus making empirical methodology the academic attitude and values they widely recognized. Zhang further defended the empirical approach in saying, “(This) traditional research method has not only been proved by numerous scholars, but also been verified over a long period of time; hence, it is undoubtedly reliable.” This is certainly true; however, methodology itself is not the truth, which is subject to changes in the content and ideas of a research. The ancient way of writing was to carve bamboo slips with a knife. Later, with the invention of paper, people began to write with a pen. Nowadays, with the progress of computer technologies, pens are again less used. Such change in writing is natural, and though there is no need to abolish knives and pens in particular, it is true that we use them less. Although empirical approaches have been tested and practiced over time in the past, we cannot take for granted that they are a universal truth that can be applied in all cases. As for the idea of combining the empirical approach with subjectivity study depicted by Zhang, it is certainly feasible; however, as stated by Zhang himself, “It is not only a study of the relationship between Chinese and foreign literature, but also a study of a writer’s subjectivity, that is, his writing process, his subjective consciousness, and his aesthetic and artistic formation.” Therefore, this research approach has surpassed the professional realm of comparative literature itself and become a general methodology of

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country-based literature and ethnic literature. Furthermore, the empirical approach serves merely as a data or information provider in such a “combined” research formula. Who would ignore the foreign influences on a modern writer when his works are studied? Developing a global vision is a conscious must for a literary researcher. As Zhang reminded us, Cao Yu’s Thunderstorm was influenced by the concept of fate in ancient Greek tragedy, which is what Cao Yu had informed us long before, and the common-sense knowledge on which a large number of researchers rely. Does this still need further tedious textual research by scholars of comparative literature? Hence, although the research method advocated by Zhang summarizes certain phenomena in the study of the relationship between Chinese and foreign literature, it only replaces the more specific methods applied in the study of the relationship between Chinese and foreign literature in the field of comparative literature with general approaches in studying modern literature and specific writers and their works. The point is, Zhang dodged the research question he himself raised: in the study of the relationship between Chinese and foreign literature in the 20th century has the era of empirical research now passed? My doubts about empirical approaches in the study of the relationship between Chinese and foreign literature in the 20th century arose from actual research work. While I was working on China’s New Literature: A Holistic View in the 1980s, I was fairly confident in these text materials about “foreign influences.” However, when I proceeded to the relationship between Chinese and foreign literature, I noticed that many of the conclusions could not be verified; on the contrary, a large number of plausible conclusions could be falsified. Hence, I had to doubt whether empirical approaches could verify the “influences” on the relationship between Chinese and foreign literature. Let’s start off with examples that demonstrate such impacts. Generally, the existence of “influences” can be verified by materials in the following aspects: writers, literary schools and times. 1. The materials that verify writers’ acceptance of foreign influences may include: firstly, the writer’s own disclosure of such influences, which includes documents such as private letters and diaries; secondly, such influences as shown directly in text materials; and thirdly, collateral evidence from insiders or other documents. Lu Xun, for example, once said that his “A Madman’s Diary” was influenced by Nietzsche, which is in line with the first category.13 Next, Nietzsche’s words were quoted in this novel, which is in line with the second. Furthermore, Lu Xun had read

13

See Lu Xun’s “Preface to Chinese New Literature Series · Novels (Collection II)” in Vol. 6 of The Complete Works of Lu Xun, Beijing: People’s Literature Publishing House, 1981.

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Nietzsche’s works and other contemporary introductions of Nietzsche’s ideas, and he himself had translated the preface of Also Sprach Zarathustra (English: Thus Spoke Zarathustra), which is in line with the third. These can be taken as the most complete evidence for the empirical studies of Lu Xun’s acceptance of foreign influences. Hence, it can be inferred that Lu Xun’s novel “A Madman’s Diary” exhibits Nietzsche’s influences. However, more than one of Lu’s works reflect the influences of Nietzsche, such as some chapters in his Wild Grass and Hot Wind. It seems accordingly that through the said materials and the presence of Nietzsche’s influences in some of his works, we may further infer that Lu Xun had been influenced, in terms of his thinking and writing style, by Nietzsche in the early years of his writing career. That is about as far as it goes. Nevertheless, the second round of inferences already contained the possibility of falsification, as we used the empirical approach of “inferring from specific to general” to conclude that “Lu Xun had been influenced by Nietzsche in the early years of his writing career,” although we can hardly argue how profound such influences were. Were they such as Liu Bannong, Lu’s coeval and friend, praised that Lu’s writing reflects “the theories of Tolstoy and Nietzsche and the writing style of the Wei and Jin Dynasties”? Or, as “the Chinese Nietzsche,” had Lu integrated some of Nietzsche’s spirit into his own thinking and personality, carrying these profound influences throughout all his early works, or were these influences in his writing sporadic and accidental for random purposes? This issue cannot be addressed empirically. Contrarily, based on the analyses of Lu Xun’s other novels before and after the May 4th Movement, we can also infer that these novels have nothing to do with Nietzsche’s influences. Since the motive and conception of a writer’s writing are highly complicated, and not every work reflects particular foreign influences on him, can we verify that Nietzsche’s influence was not overwhelming and essential in Lu’s early thought and writings by exploring Lu’s other works that received no such influence? Similarly, such a debate can also extend to Lu’s later thoughts and works. Since some scholars, based on Lu Xun’s expressed reservations about Nietzsche’s nihilism in one or two of his later essays, inferred that Lu Xun “broke ideologically with Nietzsche completely” after the 1930s, can we employ the same approach, such as Lu’s support for Xu Fancheng’s translation of Nietzsche’s works, or his quotations from Nietzsche in some of his essays, to verify that Lu was still under the influences of Nietzsche in his later thoughts and works? Methodologically, the same empirical approach was used.

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The influences of foreign literary schools were more complicated than the study of writers. Since literary societies were among the leading organizations that accepted foreign literary thoughts and trends, in the early stage of the May 4th New Literature Movement, many Chinese literary societies liked to advertise foreign “-isms” in their declaration of establishment to expand their leadership and influence. Noticeably, their acceptance of foreign influences was mainly reflected in the dissemination of literary theories and manifestos, which was not seriously implemented in their writing practices. The most typical was the relationship between the Creation Society and Western romanticism, which may verify that the former was under the influence of the latter through the literary propositions and writing styles of its members such as Guo Moruo and Yu Dafu. (It was also influenced by other literary thoughts.). However, the pursuit of writing styles by each individual member of the Creation Society was completely diversified. For instance, Zhang Ziping, one of the founding members of the Creation Society, was a follower of naturalistic literature. This applied to almost all literary societies. When our researchers asserted arbitrarily that the Literature Research Association flaunted “realism,” that the Creation Society advocated romanticism, that the Crescent School promoted Victorian style poetry, and that the left-wing literary and artistic movements were under influence of the RAPP of the Soviet Communist Party and of the NAPF of the Japanese Communist Party, they failed to mention that what they highlighted were not their literary works but certain literary theories and translations. We cannot evaluate the novels by authors such as Huang Luyin, Xu Dishan, Wang Tongzhao and Sun Lianggong through the aesthetic rubrics of realism, nor the verses by poets like Xie Bingxin, Xu Yunuo, Zhu Ziqing, nor the prose of Zhou Zuoren and Yu Pingbo. Similarly, we cannot use the theories and practices of proletarian literature in the Soviet Union and Japan to analyze the essays by Lu Xun, the novels by Mao Dun, Zhang Tianyi, Sha Ting and Ai Wu, the poems by Ai Qing, and the dramas by Tian Han and Xia Yan. In terms of empirical approaches, researchers can cite Shen Yanbing’s theoretical articles published in Short Story Monthly in the early 1920s to verify his advocacy of realism, thus fulfilling logical arguments from this specific case to the more general. Due to the fact that Shen Yanbing was the chief theorist of the Literature Research Association and Short Story Monthly was the principal publication of this organization, it may be inferred that the Literature Research Association was influenced by realist ideas in literature and art. Though this sounds logical, it would

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be a gross fallacy to extrapolate from this premise to the works of the Literature Research Association. Therefore, many of the assertions about the influences of foreign literary ideas in the second quote that I used as the target for discussion in the first section of this study remain questionable and unreliable in a scientific sense. The influence of the times. The times can also be influenced by foreign literary ideas, hence contemporaries naturally become susceptible to such influences. For instance, Western democracy and science, individual liberty, the sanctity of labor and various forms of socialism that were generally advocated during the May 4th Movement had influences on Chinese intellectuals of the time. This seemed to need no research; a safe conclusion may be drawn based on the analysis of foreign influences on New Literature writers of the May 4th Movement that they were influenced by democracy and science, the Enlightenment culture, individual liberty and even socialism. Such articles are often available: when analyzing humanistic thoughts in a writer’s works, it usually started off with a general overview of the May 4th Movement and quotations of a range of relevant remarks in magazines such as the New Youth, which was then naturally followed by a conclusive inference that this writer was humanistic. From an empirical point of view, it is possible to use substantial materials to prove the ethos of the times and to classify and analyze it in detail. However, such simplistic inferences may not work if the existing ethos of the times was used to illustrate a specific writer’s acceptance of foreign influences. For example, Ba Jin, who proclaimed himself a “child of the May 4th Movement,” once engaged actively in anti-feudal literature and studied democracy, humanitarianism and individual liberation, and his achievements in these fields could not be denied. Nevertheless, how did he understand the concept of “individual liberation” during the May 4th Movement? Many researchers took it for granted that since Ba Jin opposed the old family system and advocated freedom of love, he must be undoubtedly an advocate of “individual liberation.” If you had read his masterpiece The Family, you would realize that Ba Jin’s attitude toward Jue Min, the second young master of the Gao family in this novel who escaped his marriage, was quite complicated. Ba Jin did not support Jue Min unconditionally; instead, he criticized his individualism in his sister Jue Hui’s words. Apparently, Ba Jin, who already believed in anarchism, held views on popular democracy and individual liberation during the May 4th Movement that differed from the common understanding. He yearned for further social revolution by criticizing the “individual

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liberation” of the petty bourgeoisie from a more radical socialist stance. Ba Jin depicted the anti-feudal missions of young people during the democratic revolution from a higher theoretical perspective, which explains why he emphasized initially that The “Torrents” Trilogy, which includes The Family, Spring and Autumn, was against the “bourgeois social system”. Hence, it is problematic to use simplistic influences of the times to interpret a writer’s acceptance of foreign influences. Based on the triangulation method on writers, literary ideas and the times, the empirical approach can play only a partial role in the study of the “relationship between Chinese and foreign literature in the 20th century”, that is, it can be applied to some comparatively superficial studies, such as verifying a writer’s personal acceptance of foreign influences (such as books he had read and his own speech collections), the acceptance of foreign influences by a literary society (such as quotations and advancement at the theoretical level and the propaganda of literary programs) and the acceptance of foreign influences in a particular era (the source literature at the time). However, it can hardly go further to deduce a writer’s general acceptance of foreign influences in all his works from a specific case of his acceptance of some foreign influences; in particular, it can hardly interpret fully this writer’s literary creations. Additionally, it can neither infer its individual members’ acceptance of foreign influences and the ensuing variation of their writing styles based on the general acceptance of foreign influences by a literary society, nor can it infer a specific individual’s acceptance of foreign influences based on the general ethos of acceptance during the times in which he lived. Hence, the role of the empirical approach is very limited. Some researchers may argue that the said problems should not be attributed to the pitfalls of empirical research itself, but were caused by the lack of serious practice of empirical research and the lack of rigorous research on data that were collected. I have also given serious thought to these possible challenges. The fact is, there remain many traps in the study of the relationship between Chinese and foreign literature in the 20th century which cannot be averted by empirical approaches. Furthermore, it was the blind faith in empirical research that caused numerous unintentional misjudgments. For instance, when he was studying in the U.S., Hu Shi proposed the famous “Eight Things”, that is, the “Eight Don’ts Doctrine”, for literary reforms, which, according to some research, were similar to the manifesto of the imagist school of poetry that was emerging in the U.S. at that time. In the beginning, it was Mei Guangdi, a friend of Hu Shi, and others during Hu Shi’s stay in the U.S., who claimed that Hu’s “Eight Things” were associated with American imagist poetry

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for the purpose of opposing vernacular poetry.14 Later, his domestic contemporaries, such as Liang Shiqiu and Zhu Ziqing, also supported this idea.15 For this, Hu deliberately recorded in his diary the date when he was reading the Imagist Manifesto to specify that this was after his proposition of the “Eight Things”.16 In the 1970s, however, a cohort of overseas Chinese scholars raised this old case again17 and compared Hu’s “Eight Things” with the ideas of the imagists piece by piece, thus claiming that this framework document by which Hu launched the vernacular language movement was a plagiarism. Later, some scholars deliberately used the triangulation method to explore why Hu Shi did not dare to admit that he was influenced by imagism.18 With the evidence of Hu’s coevals, textual references and triangulation research, the case can almost be finalized from the perspective of the empirical approach – only Hu’s own 14

The debate between Mei Guangdi and Hu Shi on whether the vernacular poetry was influenced by the American imagist poetry was first seen in Hu Shi’s Diary of Hu Shi Studying Abroad. Mei Guangdi’s views were systematically expressed in “On Advocates of New Culture” published in the first issue of Xueheng. Mei argued that “The so-called vernacular poets are the remaining spittle of verse libre and American imagism in recent years.” Semantically, the sentence pattern “the remaining spittle of verse libre” indicates those who have no ideas of their own but follow in the footsteps of others, which differs from claiming to be influenced by someone else. (Mei’s article is available in Chinese New Literature Series · Collection of Literary Controversies edited by Zheng Zhenduo, published by Shanghai Liangyou Book Co. LTD, 1935. A photocopy is also available from Shanghai Literature and Art Publishing House.) 15 Liang Shiqiu argued in “Romantic Trends in Modern Chinese Literature” that “The only characteristic of Imagism is that it does not use stale words and does not express stale ideas. In my opinion, we Chinese students studying in the United States were hardly immune to its influences when it was at its height a decade ago. The six tenets in the Imagist Manifesto ask for no allusions or clichés in poetry, which are consistent with the purview of the vernacular language advocated in China. Hence, I think the vernacular movement was inspired by foreign influences.” Zhu Ziqing quoted Liang’s words in the “Introduction” of Chinese New Literature Series · Poetry (selected and edited by Zhu Ziqing), and affirmed Liang’s idea. 16 See Volume 4 of Diary of Hu Shi Studying Abroad, Shanghai Commercial Press, 1947, pp. 1071–1073. Hu noted in his diary that “These propositions have much in common with what I advocate.” 17 See Achilles Fang’s “From Imagism to Whitmanism in Recent Chinese Poetry: A Search for Poetics that Failed”, in: Indiana University Conference on Oriental-Western Literary Relations, ed. by Horst Frenz and G. L. Anderson, Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press 1955, pp.177–189. Also, the influence of Hu Shi and Imagism were both discussed in Zhou Cezong’s History of the May 4th Movement (Part I) (Ming Pao Publications, 1955) and in C. T. Hsia’s A History of Modern Chinese Fiction (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1961.). 18 See Wang Runhua’s “The Origin of the Chinese New Poetry Revolution from the Connotation of ‘New Trend’” in Wang’s Research on the Connection between Chinese and Western Literature, Taipei Dongda Book Co. LTD, 1978, pp. 227–245.

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confession was missing. It was in the early 1980s that I had access to the said materials when I had most interest in Western modernist literature and art and hence accepted it without a second thought.19 Years later, I encountered a research paper20 which grounded itself in Hu’s diary instead of other new materials or evidence and demonstrated that Hu Shi was not under the influence of imagism while proposing the “Eight Things”. The author unraveled step by step the source of the said claim, finding that the only evidence was nothing but Mei Guangdi’s ambiguous conclusion about such influences, while the rest was based on false rumors. The so-called textual research, materials, inferences and quotations all seemed groundless and irresponsible. Now I do not take a certain argument for granted, as I believe that the stance that this paper took for the purpose of defending Hu Shi may not be convincing either. Instead, even when both sides claimed that they were grounded in so-called empirical approaches, the real answer to this issue was still not entirely verified. 3

Some Understandings of the Study of “Global Elements”

In the 1980s, within the context of Enlightenment and modernity, China’s cultural community was eager to promote the country’s opening to the outside world and to introduce foreign cultures, thus making scholars who studied the relationship between Chinese and foreign literature of the 20th century autonomously inclined to reinterpret the relationship between the May 4th modern culture and foreign cultures and presuppose the literary concept of “foreign influences”. Despite the fact that empirical approaches fail to solve the mysteries in Chinese writers’ acceptance of foreign influences, they were excessively trusted and overused. Chinese scholars prefer “hard evidence”, assuming that as long as there is evidence, the conclusion must be invincible. The problem is, when there exist serious doubts about evidence and evidential reasoning, how can such “evidence” be verified? The aesthetic acceptance of art is an activity that reflects pure spiritual pleasure, while artistic creation is a comprehensive spiritual projection of social life, between which there may be some connections. However, due to the complexity of the spiritual realm and the visualization of aesthetic characteristics, it can hardly form a causal relationship in a general sense, but more of a sensory connection that manifests spiritual sympathy. Literary creations are not theories or academic research 19 20

See Chen Sihe’s “Modernism in the Development of China’s New Literature” in this book. See Shen Yongbao’s “Did ‘Eight Things’ originate from the Imagist Manifesto? – On the Origin of Literature Reform”, published in Shanghai Culture, Vol. 4, 1994.

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and do not need to be expressed in logical and standardized language; meanwhile, imaginal thinking determines the vagueness of the function of artistic communication. All these cannot be verified by empirical research. The expression of foreign influences can be multi-faceted, direct and superficial, such as, imitation, borrowing, grafting, “creative variations” inferred from hearsays and “global elements” based on local settings within the broader context of the times. In the face of intangible and complex processes of foreign influence, what makes traditional textual research methods enticing lies in the most superficial comparisons of character settings, structural layout and plot details in the research mechanism of binary opposition of “influence – acceptance”. What is the point of sniffing out the clues of “influences” like police dogs? The lesson drawn from the controversies over A Dictionary of Maqiao21 is precisely what we need to reflect upon seriously. A writer’s spiritual work cannot be fulfilled in a cultural vacuum. In the process of his literary creations, he will inevitably mobilize a large amount of cultural information, including past and recent readings, which is accumulated in his deeper consciousness. Although some information from foreign influences may serve as a certain trigger for his emotional outbursts, or as an inspiration for certain plot arrangements, for a great artist, this is all of his own spiritual originality. This is because in the process of forming new artistic images with plentiful cultural information, a specific foreign influence is actually insignificant. Let’s take the concept of fate in Cao Yu’s drama Thunderstorm as an example. Although it is an important element in this drama, the concept of fate in Thunderstorm differs from the tragic consciousness in ancient Greek tragedies, in which the hero struggles against fate but ultimately fails. In Thunderstorm, the concept of fate not only testifies the self-destruction constituted by modern man’s desire and crime, but also manifests the Chinese view of fate: “There is no way for a man to escape from his self-inflicted misfortune.” Although Cao Yu had integrated a variety of elements from foreign influences in the process of writing Thunderstorm, the primary artistic factors that stirred his passions still came from the stimuli and influences of his living environment. Therefore, even the elements of foreign influences demonstrate the characteristics of Chinese artistic thinking in the said integration process. In analyzing Thunderstorm, it would be wrong to ignore entirely the influences of the concept of fate in ancient Greek tragedies. More importantly, we must realize that it is merely part of the artistic fabric that makes up Thunderstorm, and it has already been labeled “Made in China.” 21

See Chen Sihe’s “A Dictionary of Maqiao: One Case of the Global Elements in Chinese Contemporary Literature” in this book.

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My analysis seems consistent with the idea of “combining empirical approach with subjectivity research” advocated by Zhang Zhejun. However, such a research method was specifically designed for the works of Cao Yu, and did not demonstrate the major characteristics of the study of the relationship between Chinese and foreign literature. What I planned to explore in study of the “global elements in Chinese literature” was the possibility of surpassing consciously the national boundaries of the research objects (Chinese literature and Chinese writers) so as to examine them within the broader context of global cultures. Take the topic of “Cao Yu and the Concept of Fate in Tragedies” as an example. Though “fate” is undoubtedly a concept formed in ancient Greek tragedies, it cannot exclude the concept of fate established by the Chinese in long-term life practice. When examining Cao Yu’s concept of fate embodied in Thunderstorm, it is surely important to explore the enlightenment he gained from ancient Greek tragedies; but more importantly, the following aspects should not be overlooked: firstly, how Cao Yu established his own understanding and expression of “fate” based on foreign influences (not limited to ancient Greek tragedies), and secondly, how the concept of fate in Cao Yu’s works could be repositioned in the creation system of “fate” in world literature so as to reveal how it may enrich the global artistic expression system of such “fate”. In traditional comparative literature, there were no elements of Chinese culture or the culture of the Eastern third world countries. The formation of European culture was originally homologous. Since its variations occur within the same pedigree, it is possible to use empirical approaches to trace their origin, development and influences, which is equivalent to verifying family members of the same ancestral blood. This means for European culture that the native traditions of various ethnic groups in Europe seemed like marriage from the outside, which could be assimilated into this big family and passed on for them. However, within the broader tradition of Oriental culture, Chinese culture did not share the same origin with European culture, as its connection with the latter reflected a multi-cultural pattern. Nevertheless, the problem was far from this simple. Due to the influences of Western colonial culture and the accompanying modernity worldwide in the 20th century, Chinese culture and other third world cultures have been profoundly affected by the dominant Western culture. In the exchange and integration of Eastern and Western cultures in the 20th century, the hybridization of cultural kinship between modern Chinese culture and the dominant Western culture was inevitable, thus making an absolute distinction impossible. In terms of the origin of such cultural kinship, however, Chinese culture still belongs to an alternative pedigree not at all inferior to the dominant Western culture. In the past impact study of foreign influences, however, some artistic imaginations with foreign

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influences produced by the hybridization of Chinese and foreign cultures were interpreted as an ambiguous illegitimate child, as if nothing would grow on the land of Chinese literature without the “seeds” of Western literature. Hence, to discuss “global elements” in the relationship between Chinese and foreign literature of the 20th century, one must first reject this superstition and regard the “world” as a global village in which diverse cultural patterns co-exist; only then may fair discussions be possible on how the said diverse elements may constitute a richer culture of our world on an equal basis. When discussing the concept of fate in Cao Yu’s tragedies, the clues to the influences of ancient Greek tragedies and modern Western tragedies should not be narrowly explored; instead, the influences of the local traditional view of “fate” in tragedies on Cao Yu also deserve our attention. Based on this process, we may further understand how Cao Yu contributed to the pedigree of the concept of fate in the world’s tragedies a unique Oriental cultural spirit of “fate” through creative stage performances. This not only reflects a study of Cao Yu’s entire literary achievements, which refers to the so-called subjectivity study, but also a study of his accomplishments and their significance in the study of the pedigree of “global elements”. Evidently, such a study cannot be covered by national studies, the study of individual writers or subjectivity studies. To engage in the study of “global elements”, the researcher’s conceptions must first change; that is, in his concept of comparison, there should be no such model of global elements. One of the differences between this approach and traditional impact study is that the comparison between the “impact mediator” and the receiver in impact study is not equal, whilst the significance of the latter depends on the standard of the former. In 1999, I had a conversation with Professor Hyeongjun Jeon of Seoul University,22 South Korea, who criticized Chinese scholars for deliberately describing the development of Chinese literature of the 20th century as a series of “processes” in the concept of “Chinese literature of the 20th century”. He thought these scholars’ deep-seated imitation mindset toward the so-called “modernity” of Western developed countries implied that China would eventually “complete” modernity through its pursuit of modernity. This revealed the subconscious assumption of intellectuals in the 1980s that “modernization” was goal-oriented, that is, pursuing the economic and cultural progress of the Western developed countries. As a potential yardstick, this was measured by the template provided by the “impact mediator”.

22

Hyeongjun Jeon was an associate professor at Chungbuk National University in South Korea and is now an associate professor at Seoul University, South Korea. For introduction purposes, I refer to him as an associate professor at Seoul University.

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Later, in his other article,23 Jeon further clarified this point by arguing that we should examine separately the modernity of the developed countries in the West and that of the third world in East Asia, which are interdependent and interconnected. Without the late developing capitalism and colonization, there would be no pioneering capitalist and colonial countries. It is irrational to think that the modernity of Western developed countries is authentic modernity, while the modernity of the third world is crippled and deformed or has not yet taken shape. These are de facto the so-called “two sides” of modernity. From Professor Hyeongjun Jeon’s perspective, the developmental process and struggles of Chinese literature of the 20th century itself reflect the particularity of modernity pursued and manifested by Chinese intellectuals; originally, there was no such unified modernity, and the homogeneous views on modernity are attributed precisely to the “influences” of dominant cultures in today’s world. Professor Jeon’s idea is inspirational. Recalling the “pseudomodernism” and other issues that we repeatedly discussed in the 1980s, it is precisely that we always acknowledge that the objective and absolute rubric for “modernity” exist solely in the West, while so far, the only path for us to take for modernization is to move closer to and to imitate this rubric. It is precisely this transcendental model that the study of “global elements” seeks to dispel psychologically. When a global element generated by an acceptor with subjectivity is further restored to its pedigree of global elements, it will enrich the connotation of such pedigree with new independent elements, rather than being one more copy of the pedigree. Furthermore, in terms of methodology, the study of global elements in Chi­ nese literature has transcended the dualistic category of traditional impact study and parallel study. The study of global elements does not exclude impact study; instead, it has to reference enormous materials in medio-translatology, as well as methods and concepts in traditional impact study. Regarding this issue, Professor Zha Mingjian provided a detailed discussion in his article entitled “Re-examining the Relationship between Chinese and Foreign Literature in the 20th Century from the Perspective of Intertextuality”.24 I do not plan to elaborate on the “intertextuality” envisioned by Professor Zha, but his criticism of “global elements” was inspirational. I would like to follow his line of thought to develop my argumentation here. He seemed able to understand my 23 24

See Hyeongjun Jeon’s “Criticism of ‘Chinese literature of the 20th century’” in Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art, No. 3, 1999. See Zha Mingjian’s “Re-examining the Relationship between Chinese and Foreign Liter­ature in the 20th Century from the Perspective of Intertextuality” published in Comparative Literature in China, No. 2, 2000, pp. 33–49. Refer to this citation for Zha’s article cited throughout my paper.

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criticism of the traditional approaches of impact study, namely the so-called French School. Meanwhile, he argued that today’s impact study had been freed from the framework of the French School, and the newly developed impact study had already incorporated part of the components of subjectivity in the study of “global elements.” In terms of the part of the components of subjectivity in the study of “global elements”, he summarized it as the recipient’s choices of foreign influences as well as his creative references, misinterpretations and counter-influences. Therefore, the proposition of “global elements” only reveals the “due research basis and in-depth requirements” of the newly developed impact study. Then, what does “newly developed impact study” refer to? According to Zha, it is a reception study that accommodates subjectivity, such as reception aesthetics, and “creative misreading”. Additionally, “reception study highlights the initiative to foreign influences of the recipient, who may always eliminate, select, digest and transform foreign literature based on his own cultural needs and further integrate it into his own writings.” His summary did make sense; however, he seemed to have failed to notice that the study of “global elements in Chinese literature” which I have reiterated was raised within the scope of the study of the relationship between Chinese and foreign literature in the 20th century, rather than toward the so-called “impact study”. Impact study, whether grounded in the traditional French School or issued with the acceptance of “reception study”, belongs to an alternative category of research, which refers to a methodology in the research mechanism of the dualistic opposition of “influence – acceptance”. It regards international cultural exchanges as a connection of “export and acceptance”, revealing the confrontation between powerful cultures and powerless cultures behind its cultural concepts. It is inevitable to introduce the methodology and concept of impact study into the study of the relationship between Chinese and foreign literature of the 20th century, which not only reflects the invasion and coverage of powerless cultures by powerful cultures in the colonial era, but also reveals the inevitable path for the cultural progress of the late developing countries in the third world in the development of modernity. However, the methods of impact study can address only some phenomena of Sino-foreign cultural relations; they cannot reflect the national stance of the Chinese culture within the broader cultural structure of global capitalism. Since it has surpassed the “influence – acceptance” mechanism, no matter how much we emphasize the recipient’s subjectivity, we can hardly explain the other side of Chinese culture that has not been affected in its innovation and development. If it has to be included in the “influence – acceptance” mechanism, it means that the significance of the recipient’s subjectivity has to be reduced, and the part that was not originally affected by the influences has to be transformed

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forcibly into the so-called “subjective feedback” of the reception. Then, can we separate the recipient’s subjectivity and include its affected side in impact study, whilst positioning the other side that is not affected in parallel study? I don’t think that is possible either. Due to the particularity of the relationship between Chinese and foreign literature, the other side of the subjectivity that is not affected in innovation and development can be inextricably integrated with the side that has been affected, which includes various subjective feedbacks. This means that it is simply impossible for us to divide a product of mental labor in such a way. That is why I think of applying the study of “global elements in Chinese literature” to surpass the so-called impact study and parallel study. I do not mean to deny the role of impact study in the study of Sino-foreign literary relations, though it only belongs to a partial methodology in the study of Sino-foreign literary relations of the 20th century, with its significance lying mainly in the collection of materials in terms of mediotranslatology and of evidences of writers’ knowledge structures. Neither do I deny that reception study also makes sense when it explores the variations of impact factors after their acceptance of the feedback by the subjectivities. However, the approach of overstating the subjectivity of reception aesthetics was originally used in the analysis of artistic effects. If it is applied arbitrarily to the category of the relationship between Chinese and foreign literature without principle, it may “fall into the misunderstanding of substituting subjective conjecture for actual and concrete investigation of literary development.”25 Hence, regardless of whether there are new developments in impact study, in my opinion, they cannot address the basic concepts in the theories of the relationship between Chinese and foreign literature of the 20th century, nor can they replace and cover all methods in the study of the relationship between Chinese and foreign literature. Similarly, the study of global elements is not a traditional parallel inquiry. The so-called parallel comparison approaches reflect the cultural requirements of American scholars to enter global dialogues in the context of multi-ethnic culture, which differ from the academic activities of Chinese scholars who not only seek and learn from the modernization experience of the world, but also adhere to the traditional stance of national culture. Since the aforementioned parallel comparison approaches do not fit the study of “global elements” with the Sino-foreign literary relations as its core, nor do we explore the similarities and differences between Chinese 25

See Zha Mingjian’s “Re-examining the Relationship between Chinese and Foreign Literature in the 20th Century from the Perspective of Intertextuality” published in Comparative Literature in China, No. 2, 2000, pp. 33–49. Refer to this citation for Zha’s article cited throughout my paper.

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and Western classical literature, but focus on the development and rebirth of national culture within the context of globalization, how can this be a parallel study that lacks both a subjectivity discourse and a global framework? Professor Zha generalized the “global elements in Chinese literature” by envisioning the characteristics of parallel study, thus deducing naturally the following conclusion: “If the study of the relationship between Chinese and foreign literature reveals solely the characteristics of the development of Chinese literature or to understand Chinese literature merely from its own stance, what is left in its findings is its synchronic connections with foreign literature, which can neither explain effectively the universal phenomena in the relationship between Chinese and foreign literature, nor can it reveal how Chinese literature chooses and accepts the literary characteristics of the times within the broader context of foreign influences.” Nevertheless, the “global elements in Chinese literature” is not narrowly a study of the peculiarities of Chinese literature. Since it aims at the “global” characteristics, that is, to explore the characteristics of Chinese literature in terms of its relationship with the world, how can it possibly be harnessed by parallel study? What needs to be addressed are the following pertinent issues. Why should we identify “influences” as the leading context of the relationship between Chinese and foreign literature of the 20th century? And why can we not explain effectively the “universal phenomena in the relationship between Chinese and foreign literature” without revealing how Chinese literature chooses and accepts the literary characteristics of the times within the broader context of “influences”? What is expressed in the relationship between Chinese and foreign literature of the 20th century is the aesthetic pursuit of Chinese intellectuals in the process of seeking the path of modernization within the specific colonial cultural environment, the interpretations of which may differ due to the stances taken. Based on the stance of Western-centrism, it can be interpreted as a basic exposition model of “influence – acceptance”. Since we have become aware of this, that is, the “influence – acceptance” model serves only as one of the interpretations of the relationship between Chinese and foreign literature of the 20th century, which cannot explain the significance of the Sino-foreign literary relations of the 20th century, why can’t we reconsider and interpret the significance of the relationship between Chinese and foreign literature of the 20th century from another research perspective and mechanism? Professor Zha pointed out, “The historical and actual inequality and the phenomena that are not universally recognized exist objectively. We cannot today, with the aim of deconstructing Western centralism, rewrite the unequal history that Western centralism was once in fact recognized and accepted (by force).” I am afraid that Professor Zha has confused the distinction between historical reality and the description of history. Nobody has ever denied that

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after modern Chinese literature was incorporated into the world order, it would certainly absorb foreign influences, and, foreign influences play a positive revolutionary role. Nor is this caused by what he referred to as the “forced recognization of Western centrism”. The so-called “Western centrism” reflects precisely our stance on the narrative of this historical phenomenon. Since it is a hard fact that foreign influences are not the only reason for the formation of modern Chinese literature, why do we take it for granted that the primary context of the relationship between Chinese and foreign literature of the 20th century is the “influence” of inequality rather than the “global elements” of equal status? The narrative of the phenomena in literary history needs to reflect the describer’s contemporary stance; the so-called objectivity and historicity serve merely as the research premise, materials and resources interpreted from a contemporary stance. If such stance is missing, and if the process of constant thinking, doubt, falsification and rewriting is missing, wouldn’t the literary history only be a tedious compilation of materials? Hence, in my opinion, if researchers abandon the contemporary stance and contemporary cultural spirit to maintain the so-called “historical objectivity and authenticity”, what they vindicate is precisely the outdated concept and research stance of literary history, rather than the literary history itself. Although my argument may seem extreme and partial, considering that it involves the most fundamental standpoint of researchers, it deserves our full attention. The study on the “global elements of Chinese literature of the 20th century” is so far an immature theoretical endeavor which requires further research to accumulate gradually research experience and achievements. Fortunately, there are more young scholars who have done considerable research work in this field and have progressed further than I in both practical research and theoretical exploration,26 though there is still a long way for us to go. The theoretical controversies over the subject matter of this Discussion column reflect its immaturity, which calls for further progress. I am grateful to the editorial staff for their kindness and advocacy, and I also thank Professor Zhang Zhejun and Professor Zha Mingjian for their enthusiastic engagement in serious academic discussions. I hope that my aggressive remarks did not affect the self-esteem of my peers, but will stimulate more in-depth criticism and discussion, so as to bolster the development of the research on the relationship between Chinese and foreign literature of the 20th century. 26

Some chapters of Dr. Zhang Xinying’s dissertation, entitled “Modern Consciousness of Chinese Literature in the First Half of the 20th Century” and Dr. Zhang Yesong’s dissertation, entitled “Creating Reality – On the Historical Relations between Chinese and Foreign Realistic Literature before the Counter-Japanese War” have been published in Comparative Literature in China and other professional journals for reference.

Chapter 7

The Avant-Garde Spirit of the May 4th New Literature Movement What role did the May 4th New Literature Movement play in the history of Chinese literature in the 20th century? This inquiry has long been self-evident, since it was the source of Chinese literature in the 20th century or its only literary tradition. In the works of the history of modern Chinese literature, the May 4th New Literature Movement was the starting point of all modern literature. Based on this internal logic, the developmental trajectory of Chinese literature for nearly a century after 1917 was basically the result of the logical development of the May 4th New Literature, which demonstrates an evolutionary process from the loss to return.1 The literature of the late Qing Dynasty and of the early Republic of China before 1917, instead, was merely the preparatory stage of the May 4th New Literature Movement. The significance of these two periods depends on whether or not they paved the way for the formation of the May 4th New Literature, and according to the conception of evolution, once the May 4th New Literature Movement officially ascended into the literary arena, all the previous “old” literature lost its value of existence, that is, not only the old poetry and old literary works of the feudal scholars became valueless, but also the pre-modern literary elements at the preparation stage of the new literature. Literary factors (such as Lin Shu’s translations, Liang Qichao’s essays, and novels from the late Qing Dynasty) have become obsolete and have been eliminated by history. With the concept of “Chinese literature in the 20th century” proposed by academia after 1985, the literature at the turn of the 20th century and the May 4th New Literature were investigated as a whole, although the scope of investigation remained limited to the perspective of the literary history with new literature as a benchmark, with the “anxiety of modernity” being considered as a particular angle in integrating the literary history of the 20th century. This 1 In the 1980s, this idea was generally adopted in the description of the new literary history in the research works on the history of literature in Mainland China, such as “On Chinese Literature of the 20th Century” by Huang Ziping et al. in Three Men’s Talk on Chinese Lit­ erature in the 20th Century (authors: Huang Ziping et al., People’s Literature Publishing House, 1988), Chen Sihe’s A Holistic View of China’s New Literature (Shanghai Literature and Art Publishing House, 1987) and Li Zehou’s “A Glimpse of 20th Century Chinese Literature and Art” in On the History of Modern Chinese Thought published by Oriental Press, 1987.

© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2022 | doi:10.1163/9789004522978_008

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practice has been followed in the past 20 years in integrating literature of the 20th century. However, another perspective emerged in the overseas Sinology studies when Harvard professor David Der-wei Wang proposed a thoughtprovoking argument – “Without the literature of late Qing Dynasty, how could the May 4th New Literature be achieved?”  – in his monograph Fin-de-siècle Splendor: Repressed Modernities of Late Qing Fiction, 1849–1911.2 He argued that it was not the May 4th New Literature that expanded the expressive connotation of the fictions of the late Qing Dynasty, but suppressed or obscured the development of “modern” factors in the latter. He then further explored the “repressed modernities” in the fictions of the late Qing Dynasty. As a significant academic inquiry, it deserves further discussions. More recently, with continual exploration of more literary materials by academia, some historical literary texts that were once overlooked are being studied. In Mainland China, the study of the literary origin of literati poems by scholars such as Chen Yinke and Qian Zhongshu has led to a range of research materials with regard to a cohort of modern poets and their old-style poems. Pertinent to this was the excavation of old literary materials of the occupied-area literature, which also reveals the inheritance of alternative literature within the broader field of modern literature denied by the May 4th New Literature.3 In Taiwan, with the study of the colonial literature during the Japanese occupation period, a large number of “classical poems”4 have attracted ever-increasing academic attention and 2 David Der-wei Wang, Fin-de-siècle Splendor: Repressed Modernities of Late Qing Fiction, 1849– 1911, Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1997. 3 The books, such as Poems of Chen Yinke by Tsinghua University Press in 1993, Qian Zhongshu’s Huaiju Poem Collection by Beijing: The Joint Publishing Company Ltd. in 1995 and Qian Zhongshu’s Stone Language by China Social Sciences Press in 1996, have been published successively in recent years. Modern Chinese Literature Series, published by Shanghai Classics Publishing House in 2003–2004, has published collections of poems by Zheng Xiaoxu, Fan Zengxiang, Chen Sanli and other modern poets. The pertinent research can be found in Liu Yanwen’s “Topics Alongside Stone Language” and the like, which were serialized in Panorama Monthly and later included in Jilu Teahouse published by Chinese Dictionary Publishing House in 2004. A few years ago, the Japanese scholar Kiyama Hideo also made systematic studies of old-style poems by Chinese new literary writers. Among his works are research papers which have been translated in Chinese on old-style poems written by Yang Fan, Pan Hannian and Zheng Chaolin (translated by Cai Chunhua, included in Literary Criticism in the Age of Anonymity, edited by Chen Sihe et al., published by Guangxi Normal University Press in 2004), and research papers on old-style poems written by Nie Ganlu, Hu Feng, Shu Wu, Qigong and the like (translated by Zhao Jinghua, included in Literary Restoration and Literary Revolution: A Collection of Kiyama Hideo’s Thoughts on Modern Chinese Literature, Peking University Press, 2004). 4 The concept of “classical poetry” in Taiwan refers to the period of nearly three hundred years from the Ming Dynasty (1661–1683), through the Qing Dynasty (1683–1895) and the Japanese Colonial Period (1895–1945). The genres of classical poems are limited to ancient

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exploration.5 Furthermore, with the rise of popular culture studies based on the craze for cultural studies and the elimination of the gap between refined and vulgar literature, popular literature, especially in the field of literary studies in Hong Kong, which was previously underestimated, has gradually entered the academic field of study.6 The reemergence of these literary phenomena and literary materials, whether or not academia acknowledged their literary status, requires researchers to face and explore their objective existence and values. Meanwhile, it invites researchers to ponder: with the discovery of these new materials, how can they complete a new round of description and understanding of the 20th century literature through the renewal and integration of the theory of literary history? This would inevitably involve a new understanding and definition of the status and role of the May 4th New Literature Movement in the history of Chinese literature throughout the 20th century. What this study intends to explore is to integrate the May 4th New Literature Movement and its development into the entirety of modern literary creations, endeavoring to understand its significance and role at the time more accurately and its developmental process as poems, modern poems, miscellaneous poems and Yuefu poems in classical literature. (See “Common Examples of All Taiwan Poems” in Book 1 of Poems from All Over Taiwan, Taipei YuanLiou Publishing Co. Ltd., 2004, p. 4.) Hence, it can be seen that “classical poetry” in Taiwan includes all the poems written in the old style before 1945. 5 The academic circles in Taiwan have made great achievements in classifying literary materials during the Japanese Colonial Period. The diaries of Lin Xiantang and Zhang Lijun, for example, show the creation activities of the Li Society. The compilation and organization of Poems from All Over Taiwan and Lyrics from All Over Taiwan, along with the photocopying of many old magazines, have positive significance. Additionally, Series of Literature and Art in Taiwan published by the Taiwan Cultural Press provided not only a collection of poems which were later published in Poems from All Over Taiwan, but also revealed the proactive ambition of traditional scholars in Taiwan at that time to extensively absorb the knowledge of literature and history from the East and the West to broaden their horizons. Furthermore, the publications such as Taiwan Daily News in Chinese, San Liou Chiou Tabloid, South and Feng Yueh Newspaper, which were almost dominated by traditional scholars, retain rich historical materials of old literature and are also the base of popular literature in Taiwan. They provide new resources for reconsidering the evolution and modern transformation of traditional literature in Taiwan. 6 As for the study of popular literature, Professor Fan Boqun raised a new view of literary history. He cited Zhu Ziqing’s words many times, claiming that “the Mandarin Duck and Butterfly School is indeed the ‘authentic Chinese novel’”. He also endeavored to integrate popular literature with the May 4th New Literature, making it the “two wings” of 20th century Chinese literary history. (See Fifteen Lectures on Popular Literature edited by Fan Boqun and Kong Qingdong, Peking University Press, 2003; also see Fan Boqun’s article, entitled “Free talk on Modern Popular Literature III: the Mandarin Duck and Butterfly School is indeed the ‘authentic Chinese novel’”, published in Shanghai Wenhui Daily on October 31, 1996.)

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a literary spirit and literary tradition. Is it the only source or the only tradition of modern literature in the 20th century, or is it a revolutionary literary movement with a pioneering nature in the 20th century literature? How did it play a role in the history of Chinese literature throughout the 20th century? How did it manifest its avant-garde nature? These inquiries are all concerned with the re-evaluation of a series of literary phenomena, to which an all-inclusive and comprehensive answer seems impossible. Hence, starting off with the analysis of avant-garde factors in the May 4th New Literature Movement, this study intends to explore the influence of the May 4th New Literature Movement on the Chinese literary world at the time in terms of the significance of this avantgarde literary movement, before a new conceptual direction is proposed for further studies. In China, “avant-garde literature” is a foreign concept. In addition to some radical literary trends in the West before and after World War I, it also includes new, pioneering and exploratory artistic traits.7 The so-called “avant-garde spirit” refers to exploring the possibility of existence and the artistic possibilities associated with it from a pioneering perspective. It fiercely attacks the common themes in literature, criticizing political mediocrity, moral conservatism and artistic kitsch. In the early days of the May 4th New Culture Movement, Chen Duxiu once labelled Hu Shi as “a daring pioneer,” who first advocated the “Eight 7 The term “avant-garde” in ancient China refers to the advance troops of the army in battle. In France, the term “avant-garde” emerged in 1794, which was also used to refer to the vanguard of an army. “In 1830, this term was borrowed by Anglo-French utopian socialists such as Fourier, Owen and Saint-Simon for the construction of a social system and conditions that were ahead of their time, and became a popular political concept in the utopian socialist circle for a time. In this respect, its association with Utopia implies undoubtedly the rebelliousness of its incompatibility with the status quo (or tradition). In 1870, with the rise of early symbolist poetry and the subsequent prevalence of modernist thought, this term ‘avant-garde’ entered the literary and artistic world to describe the rise of modernist writers and artists. Therefore, this term remained highly inclusive among a significant number of authors and critics until some scholars collectively referred to Dadaism, futurism, surrealism, expressionism and other schools of thought in this century as ‘historic avant-garde’ and distinguished them from a few modernist artists.” (See Wang Ning’s “Tradition and Avant-garde, Modernity and Postmodernism – The Artistic Spirit of the 20th Century” published in Literature and Art Contention, No. 1, 1995, pp. 38–39. Wang quoted this paragraph from The Avant-Garde Today by Charles Russell, University of Illinois Press, 1981.) In his book entitled Five Faces of Modernity, Matei Calinescu traced the concept of “avant-garde” even further, claiming that in a certain chapter of a book on literary history entitled Recherches de la France published in 16th century, the term “avant-garde” was used to describe the poets of the time in “a glorious war [then being waged] against ignorance”. Calinescu also pointed out that anarchists such as Mikhail Bakunin and Peter Kropotkin contributed to the connotation and application of this term. (See: Matei Calinescu, Five Faces of Modernity. Modernism, Avant-Garde, Decadence, Kitsch, Postmodernism, Durham: Duke University Press 1987, p. 98.)

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Don’ts Doctrine”.8 Mao Zedong also used the metaphor of “avant-garde” when discussing later the relationship between Chinese intellectuals and the Chinese revolution during the May 4th period.9 At the time, the concept of “daring pioneer” or “avant-garde” was probably a military term referring to charging the enemy bravely, which constituted a distinctive difference from the avantgarde spirit in the Western literary trend, though it already included the above characteristics in the practical sense. Therefore, despite the fact that nobody used the term “avant-garde” to refer to the pioneering nature of the May 4th New Literature trend, today, when we re-examine this new literary movement represented by Lu Xun, it is important to affirm that its avant-garde nature is not only very evident, but also conducive to understanding its connection with the entire literary environment at the time. 1

The Attention of May 4th New Literature Writers to the Western Avant-Garde Literature

In the West, the term “avant-garde” refers to the literary and artistic movement which was directly associated with the modernist trend of thought in the early 20th century, though the distinctions between the two remain evident. The early symbolist poet C. Baudelaire was keenly aware in his time that the concept of “avant-garde” was used awkwardly in artistic genres and contemptuously referred to it as the “militant school of literature”. Baudelaire criticized “the Frenchman’s passionate predilection for military metaphors,” because the term “avant-garde” can be both interpreted as aggressive, maniac and absolutely obedient. This term has some connection with “freedom,” and at the same time reveals a natural antagonism. Such contradiction revealed by Baudelaire manifests the heterogeneity between avant-garde literature and modernist literature.10 In the American academia in the 1960s, the avant-garde school was almost synonymous with modernism. However, in Europe, different 8 9

10

According to Chen Duxiu, “The brewing and development of the literary revolution did not take place overnight. The daring pioneer of its first righteous banner is my friend Hu Shi.” See Chen’s “On Literary Revolution” in New Youth, Vol. 2, No. 6, February 1, 1917. According to Mao Zedong, “What role have Chinese youth played since the May 4th Movement? They acted somewhat as pioneers…. What is the role of pioneers? It is to take the lead and to stand at the head of the revolutionary ranks.” See Mao’s “The Direction of The Youth Movement” in Selected Works of Mao Zedong (one-volume book), People’s Publishing House, 1968, p. 529. See Matei Calinescu, Five Faces of Modernity: Modernism, Avant-Garde, Decadence, Kitsch, Postmodernism. Durham: Duke University Press, 1987, p. 110.

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understandings emerged. Particularly in Germany, Peter Bürger, the scholar of the Frankfurt School, proposed in his book Theorie der Avantgarde (English: Theory of the Avant-Garde) a different viewpoint on the work of Professor Renato Poggioli from Harvard University. Bürger’s basic argument is that the advancement of capitalism has made it difficult for art and literature to exert the same impact on the political society as it did in Balzac’s time. Hence, since the end of the 19th century, the rise of modernism, which refers to symbolism, aestheticism and the like, emphasized the self-discipline of art (“art for art’s sake”) divorced from social practices. Avant-garde art, instead, was the destruction of such a self-discipline system of art, positing it back on the right track. Therefore, avant-garde art is the opposite of modernism, as it not only criticizes the traditional art of the bourgeoisie, which is realism, but also criticizes the self-disciplined manner of modernism that is divorced from social practices whilst indulging in textual experiments.11 From the perspective of the history of Western literature, the avant-garde literary and artistic movement, in its real sense, started off with a variety of new literary declarations after 1909, which generally include futurism, Dadaism, surrealism, expressionism and the like. They were mostly small movements with relatively radical political and artistic attitudes and a few outstanding masters of art. It can be seen from the timeline that the modern literary movement in China started roughly synchronously with Western avant-garde literature. Hence, when examining external influences of the May 4th New Literature Movement, we have to take into consideration its modernist and avant-garde elements. The most conspicuous distinction between Chinese literature of the 20th century and classical literature lies in its global elements. It is the literature that took place and developed when China was re-included in the context of world order, in which Chinese writers and writers from other cultures had the opportunity to share the dilemmas of human society – especially the dilemma of modernity – and express their own feelings. With a strong external stimulus, the May 4th New Literature Movement took place in 1917. In terms of literature itself, it presented its new outlook under the inspiration of the Western literary spirit. This section intends to explore whether, as an avant-garde literary movement, the May 4th New Literature Movement made Western modernist art and avant-garde art its main content in the process of absorbing the Western literary spirit. During the May 4th period, the Western cultural and literary ethos faced by initiators of the Chinese New Literature Movement can be divided into two 11 See Peter Bürger, Theory of the Avant-Garde, translated by Michael Shaw, Foreword by Jochen Schulte-Sasse. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1984.

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ideological trends: one is the humanistic trend of thought since the Western Renaissance and the Russian literary and artistic spirit derived from it; the other is the rebellious trend of modernism derived from the development of Western capitalism, which can be traced back to the philosophical direction of F. Nietzsche and other philosophers and the romantic literary and artistic trend of Western daemonism. The socialist trend also belongs to the latter category. This latter type of modern rebellious cultural thought with the characteristics of “the daemonic” is not only inextricably associated with the former humanistic trend of thought, but is also a reaction against it. The Western literary spirit embraced by the May 4th New Literature Movement is essentially different from the enthusiasm among Chinese literati in translating Western fiction since the late Qing Dynasty. At the time, a large number of Western novels translated into Chinese were best-sellers, among which popular fictions played a major role. However, two leading romantic tendencies, namely daemonic style and romantic style,12 prevailed among the Western literary and artistic trends that attracted attention at the time. The acceptance of such ambivalent romanticism by many Chinese was tinged with modern rebellious factors. This is also revealed in the influences of I. Kant and A. Schopenhauer on Wang Guowei in his early aesthetic essays, as well as in Lu Xun’s interpretations of romanticism and modern philosophy in his early essays, such as “On Cultural Bigotry” and “On the Poetic Power of Maras”. At the beginning of the May 4th New Literature Movement, two types of Western literary and artistic trends were synchronously introduced to China. However, the initiators of the New Literary Movement were more directly concerned with the literary spirit that was prevailing contemporarily with modern resistance consciousness. In his article “On Literary Revolution”, Chen Duxiu declared publicly that “European culture has been endowed with both political science scholars and literary scholars. I am fond of France because of J. J. Rousseau and Honoré de Balzac, and particularly because of V. Hugo and É. Zola; I am fond of Germany because of Kant and G. W. F. Hegel, particularly because of W. v. Goethe and G. Hauptmann; I am fond of England because of F. Bacon and C. Darwin, particularly because of C. Dickens and O. Wilde.”13 Although the distinction between the phrases “I am fond of” and “I 12

13

See Leo Ou-fan Lee, The Romantic Generation of Modern Chinese Writers, Harvard Univer­ sity Press, 1973. Lee divided Western romanticism into two categories, one is the strong and rebellious romanticism of Prometheus and the other is the sentimental and lyrical romanticism of Young Werther. The former is represented by writers such as Lu Xun and Guo Moruo in China, while the latter is represented by Su Manshu, Yu Dafu and Xu Zhimo. See Chen Duxiu’s “On Literary Revolution” in New Youth, Vol. 2, No. 6, February 1, 1917.

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particularly fond of” focuses on the division between political philosophy and literary trends, it illustrates clearly the big names in Western literature in the eyes of the initiators of the May 4th New Literature Movement. Among these big names such as Hugo, Zola, Goethe, Hauptmann, Dickens and Wilde, Hugo and Goethe became the leaders of the romantic movement in France and Germany, belonging to the “daemonic type”. Zola became a righteous hero because of the Dreyfus Affair, Wilde became a shocking social heresy and a master of aestheticism, and Hauptmann became a master dramatist of the later symbolism in Germany. With the exception of Dickens of England, who remained a more traditional realist writer, others, as discussed above, became known as “fighters” for their social resistance. What was Chen Duxiu’s purpose in introducing such a cohort of Western big names? In the same article, he inquired whether there existed fearless writers in the Chinese literary world who considered themselves as such aforementioned big names in Western literature and would “blatantly declare war against the eighteen demons despite their Confucian reputations? I would like to tow forty-two cannons to fight as a vanguard!” (Ibid.) Here “the eighteen demons” refer to the “seven successive scholars” and the four scholars from the “Tongcheng School” since the Ming Dynasty, who had long been referred to as the mainstream and leading tradition of Chinese classical literature. The reason why Chen Duxiu introduced the resistance of Western literary heroes was to launch a fierce attack on tradition, while he himself as the “Commander-in-Chief” of the new literary movement, was willing to fight as a vanguard. Clearly, the forerunner of the army is the “vanguard”. The main argument of Renato Poggioli’s The Theory of the Avant-Garde is to emphasize the universal concern of avant-garde writing for linguistic creativity. This concern is a “‘necessary reaction to the flat, opaque and prosaic nature of our public speech, where the practical end of quantitative communication spoils the quality of expressive means’. Thus, the hermetic, dark language of modern fiction has a social task: it functions as ‘at once cathartic and therapeutic in respect to the degeneration afflicting common language through conventional habits.’”14 If the Western avant-garde school is understood in this 14

As for Renato Poggioli’s The Theory of the Avant-Garde, I have read its Chinese translation by Zhang Xinlong from Taiwan (published by Taiwan Yuan-Liou Publishing Co. Ltd, 1992). In Mainland China, Zhao Yiheng published “Renato Poggioli: The Theory of The Avant-Garde” on the 3rd edition of Pioneer Today in 1995, with a brief introduction of Poggioli’s book. Also, in Translation Series of Modernity Studies edited by Zhou Xian and Xu Jun (published by Commercial Press, 2002), this book was discussed in a variety of theoretical works on the avant-garde. For instance, “Foreword: Theory of Modernism versus Theory of the Avant-Garde” by the British theorist Jochen Schulte-Sasse was included

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light, its linguistic revolution can be traced back to the France of Hugo and the Germany of Goethe and F. Schiller. In this sense, the heroes in Western literature worshiped by the leaders of the May 4th New Literature Movement were mostly vanguards at each stage of literary history, who exerted the same impact on both Chinese avant-garde writers and Western avant-garde writers. Although the emerging Western avant-garde theory endeavored to draw a line between the avant-garde school and its predecessors in history, as if the anti-traditional avant-garde artists all came out of the blue, in terms of the history of the acceptance of foreign influences in modern Chinese literature, this relationship cannot be overlooked. The May 4th New Literature Movement took shape between 1915 and 1919 and proceeded in the early 1920s. In the meantime, a range of Western literary and social movements synchronized with the May 4th New Literature Movement in China, such as the futuristic movement that was brewed between 1905 and 1908, the publication of Italian poet F. T. Marinetti’s futurist declaration in 1909, the rise of the German expressionist literary movement around 1911, the emergence of Dadaism in 1916, the slogan of French surrealism that was originally proposed in 1917, the surrealist magazine Literature that was founded in 1919, and the publication of poet A. Breton’s surrealist declaration in 1924. As the cultural exchange between the East and the West was not very smooth, it was difficult for Chinese new literary initiators to obtain ideological resources directly from contemporary Western thought. However, it is understandable that they absorbed the spiritual resources of avant-garde thought and actions from the vanguards of Western avant-garde literature, such as the daemonic romanticism, critical realism and early modernism (including symbolism, aestheticism, decadence and other trends of thought), thus making their avant-garde aesthetic pursuit complete. However, in the 1920s, futurism, expressionism, Dadaism and surrealism, as Western avant-garde literary trends, were all introduced as prevailing, fashionable literary trends by leading literary magazines in China, some of which were even deliberately imitated. In the early days of the May 4th New Literature Movement, there existed a stage at which the prevailing Western mainstream literary and artistic trends included neo-romanticism, or representationalism, which was the alternative to symbolism. At this stage, the avant-garde literature debuted. When Shen Yanbing first took over the editorship of Short Story Monthly, he took the theory of evolution as an ideological support to argue that representationalism should be promoted by today’s Chinese literature. Hence, in Peter Bürger’s Theory of the Avant-Garde, which reviewed Poggioli’s Theory. This paragraph is taken from this foreword. See Peter Bürger: Theory of the Avant-Garde, “Foreword”, p. viii.

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he wrote articles such as “Why Should Representationalism be Promoted” to solicit followers. Hu Shi promptly dissuaded him in time, as the latter thought that the reason Western modernist literature remained solid was that it had been baptized by realism. Without realism as its foundation, modernism might descend into emptiness. Shen Yanbing accepted Hu Shi’s advice by changing his strategy in Short Story Monthly to promote realism.15 Despite this, Shen Yanbing remained the most sensitive literary theorist among new literary writers; he was also the first person who focused on and introduced Western avant-garde literature. In 1922, he published his speech entitled “The Reasons for the Rise of Various New Schools in Literature” in the newspaper Current Events Communique issued in Ningbo, in which he analyzed Western literary trends reflected in futurism, Dadaism and expressionism. The development of contemporary Western avant-garde literature and art was closely followed and comprehensively introduced by Short Story Monthly under his editorship. Let us look at the introduction of two leading trends in Western avant-garde literature in the early 1920s. 1.1 Futurism Futurism (Italian: Futurismo) was the earliest avant-garde literary trend in Europe. In 1905, the Italian poet Marinetti founded the magazine Poetry. He gathered a cohort of young poets to form a unique style of free poetry and proposed later in the discussion of “free poetry” a series of futuristic claims. On February 20, 1909, Marinetti officially published Fondazione e manifesto del futurismo, which marked the birth of futurism. Next year, he published Manifesto tecnico della Letteratura futurista, which further elaborated the theoretical proposition. Futurism soon spread to the artistic fields of painting, drama, music and film, forming cubist futurism in France and left-wing futurism represented by V. Mayakovsky in Russia. E. Pound, the leader of imagist poetry, once said that “Marinetti and futurism gave great impetus to Europe. If there were no futurism, then the movements created by J. Joyce, T. S. Eliot, myself and others would not be possible.”16 Futurism was also synchronously introduced to China. In 1914, Zhang Xichen translated the article “Futurism of the World” from a Japanese magazine, introducing the birth of futurism in Italy, its characteristics of praising war and mechanical civilization, and the 15

For this issue, see the section of “Realism in the Development of China’s New Literature” in this book. 16 See Chinese Literature and Western Modernism in the 20th Century edited by Tang Zhengxu and Chen Houcheng, Sichuan People’s Publishing House, 1992, p. 244. This passage was originally from “Preface to Marinetti and Futurism” edited by DeMaria, Milan: Mondadori, 1977.

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prevalence of futurism worldwide. If this remained a relatively shallow introduction, by the 1920s Chinese new literature writers had paid considerable attention to futurism. At the time, Italian aestheticism, especially literary creations of the renowned writer Gabriele D’Annunzio, was prevailing in China. Shen Yanbing, Xu Zhimo and others also introduced the works of D’Annunzio in detail. However, Shen Yanbing turned to Italian futurism shortly after his focus on aestheticism. In October 1922, Shen argued in an article that “Just as aestheticism is the reaction to naturalism, so is futurism the reaction to aestheticism.”17 Hence, it was not the specific writings or aesthetic ideals of futuristic literature that attracted Shen Yanbing. Instead, he was more concerned with the alternation of the world’s literary trends. Apparently, Shen’s concern about Western literature was dominated by a strong fear of falling behind the world’s literary trend. In 1918, Marinetti’s futurism had openly cooperated with Italian fascism to become a reactionary political trend, though Shen seemed to be unaware of it. It was not until the end of 1923 that he noticed fascism in Italy.18 The next year, Shen turned to preach the Russian futurist poet Mayakovsky, pointing out the differences between Mayakovsky’s futurism and that of Marinetti.19 Shen distinguished these two futuristic movements by arguing that the former “represents the revolutionary spirit of the proletariat”, while the latter is “not only superficial nationalism, but also pro-imperialism.”20 In his long article entitled 17 18

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See Shen Yanbing’s “The Status Quo of Futurist Literature” in Short Story Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 10, October 10, 1922. In his article entitled “Fascism and Modern Italian Literature” published in the column of “News from Overseas Literary Circles” in Vol. 14, No. 12, Short Story Monthly, December 10, 1923, Shen Yanbing criticized the rise of fascism in Italy. Although he noticed the attempt by futurists to move closer to fascism, Shen believed that was simply an attempt by Marinetti and others to emulate Russia’s futurists to move closer to the Soviet regime, just to gain recognition from the government. He said, “There was no connection between Fascism and futurism originally. Futurists, recognizing the fascists’ audacity and unscrupulousness, wished to tag them as patrons of their own kind. That seemed a wishful idea.” Hence, Shen was sympathetic towards futurism. This idea is also inaccurate, because the Italian futurist movement was inherently complex, especially in its later stages, which was divided into different political attitudes. “With the worsening of political struggles, the polarization of the futurist movement was deteriorating. This was an extremely important feature of the later development of the Futurist Movement. When Marinetti finally went the wrong way with Benito Mussolini, Aldo Palazzeschi and others publicly criticized him. Left-wing futurists distanced themselves from Marinetti, fighting resolutely for the freedom of working people and plunging themselves into the currents of the struggles against fascism.” (See Lu Tongliu’s “A Tentative Study of Italian Futurism” in Futurism, Surrealism and Magic Realism edited by Liu Mingjiu, China Social Sciences Press, 1987, pp. 23–24.) See Shen Yanbing’s “Revolutionary poets of Soviet Russia” published in Literature, Issue 130, July 14, 1924.

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“On Proletarian Art” published in 1925, Shen Yanbing began to promote proletarian literature with strengthened critique of futurist schools. Nevertheless, he still commented positively that “Futurism, imagism and expressionism are all the newest born in the oldest society, or the traditional society. They present new forms, and meanwhile there are also distinct ideas for destroying the old system. Thus, they are easily regarded as a legacy for proletarian writers.”21 Interestingly, it was writers from the Creation Society who held a more perceptual understanding of futurism, emphasizing its ideological content and aesthetic spirit. Guo Moruo’s insights into futurism were much more emotional. In his article “Futuristic Poetry and Its Criticism”, Guo excerpted and translated the futurists’ declaration on poetry, and then criticized their theoretical propositions and artistic forms, arguing that futurism was “merely a radical naturalism.” Guo’s unrestrained poems read similar to futuristic poems, especially his literary style that combined Chinese and foreign rhetoric, which seemed to be a reference to futuristic poems. However, Guo himself was fairly dismissive of Marinetti. After his translation of Marinetti’s poem “War: Weight + Odor”, Guo commented that “there is just such a thing…. But it is never a poem, but a cheap painting, or a reflexive and objective transcription.”22 Yu Dafu also criticized the nihilistic attitude of futurism, which advocated complete abandonment of tradition and destruction of all museums and galleries, by commenting that “some futuristic claims can be accepted, though it seems impossible to completely obliterate the past.”23 In the late 1920s, as attention turned to the emerging literature of Soviet Russia, the Russian poet Mayakovsky was repeatedly introduced, through which Russian futurism was highlighted. The art of futurism also received a lot of attention from Chinese recipients. Wang Fuquan’s translation of Japanese modernist poet Kawaji Ryuko’s article, entitled “Irregular School of Poetry”, published in Volume 13, No. 9 of Short Story Monthly, elaborated the “irregular” poems of Western futurists and cubists. In particular, Wang translated and reproduced the poem “Raining” by French cubist futurist poet Guillaume Apollinaire. The overall form of this poem is like the shape of raindrops in the wind, thus reflecting the imagery revealed between the lines. Marinetti’s various futuristic dramas were translated by dramatist Song Chunfang in 1921 and published in The Eastern Miscellany and Drama. As a comprehensive cultural publication focusing on current 21 22 23

See Shen Yanbing’s “On Proletarian Art” in Literature Weekly, No. 196, October 24, 1925. See Guo Moruo’s “Poetic Covenant of Futurism and Its Criticism” in Creation Weekly, No. 17, September 2, 1923. See Yu Dafu’s “On Poetry” in Collection of Essays by Yu Dafu, Vol. 5, Huacheng Publishing House, Sanlian Bookstore, Hong Kong branch, 1982, p. 222.

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affairs sponsored by the commercial press, The Eastern Miscellany rarely published literary works. Therefore, its emphasis on futurism was evident.24 Furthermore, the influence of futurism was immediate. In 1922, a drama entitled “The Suicide Youth” was created in imitation of futuristic drama and also claimed to be a futuristic drama.25 In the field of fiction, Shen Yanbing wrote his novella “Disillusionment” with Mao Dun as his pen name, in which he highlighted then artistic characteristic of futurism advocating power and strength. In “Disillusionment”, he created a heroic Company Commander Qiang Weili as the last lover of Ms. Jing. This Company Commander Qiang declared himself a futurist and enthusiastically praised war. According to Shen Yanbing, the prototype of this typical character came from life, hence, it can be interpreted that the aesthetic ideal of futurism was popular at the time.26 In the beginning paragraphs of Midnight, Shen Yanbing described the twilight of Shanghai City in a weird style: Looking east from the bridge, one can see foreign-style warehouses [author’s note: for storing imported goods] in Pudong are like huge monsters, squatting in the twilight, flashing thousands of small eye-like lights. Looking westward, it’s shocking to see a huge neon tube advertisement on the top of a foreign-style house, shooting flame-like red light and green light: Light, Heat, Power! What followed is that “the 1930-style Citroen flashed across the Waibaidu Bridge.” Note that in the original text Shen Yanbing used these three English words, “Light, Heat, Power”, in the description of the characteristics of urban modernity in Shanghai. The aesthetic conception contained in this description implies traces of influence of futurism on his writing.

24

Song Chunfang translated a total of six futuristic plays, four of which were published in The Eastern Miscellany, Vol. 18, No. 13, (July 10, 1921), and two in Drama, Vol.1, No. 5 (September 30, 1921). He further added a foreword and an afterword for commentary purposes. 25 Jiang Wenguang’s futuristic plays, entitled The Suicide Youth and My View on Drama, were published in The Voice of Friends, No. 3 (especially for drama), edited by alumni of Chongqing United County High School (June 20, 1922). It was also elaborated in Chinese Literature and Western Modernism in the 20th Century, edited by Tang Zhengxu and Chen Houcheng (See page 250). 26 According to Shen Yanbing, the prototype of Qiang Weili was the young writer Gu Zhongqi, whose futuristic aesthetic ideals were embodied in his fascination with the thrills of war. See Shen’s Paths I Have Taken (Part One), People’s Literature Publishing House, 1997, p. 386.

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1.2 Expressionism in Germany Expressionism (German: Expressionismus) emerged in the early 20th century, starting with painting and music. It was introduced into literature in 1911,27 and took off in drama, poetry and fiction as a vigorous literary revolutionary movement.28 Expressionist art opposes objective representation of the world, emphasizing the subjective world, intuition and subconsciousness. It employs grotesque artistic techniques to express the truth of the world, taking H. Bergson’s theories of life impulses and time extension as well as S. Freud’s theory of subconsciousness as its theoretical resources. This constituted the most intense challenge to the literary tradition in Europe since the Renaissance. The mainstream political attitude of expressionist writers is positive and rebellious, as they are committed to exposing and attacking the cruelty and injustice of capitalist society. Nevertheless, from an artistic perspective, the traces of conceptualization also seem serious. The pioneer of expressionism was Swedish dramatist A. Strindberg, whose works were introduced early in New Youth at the time when he was widely presented as a master on a par with Ibsen. As the literary propositions of expressionism were close to the anti-traditional and radical social positions of the May 4th New Literature Movement, they were soon quickly spread and received much attention. At the time, many theoretical articles, which were translated from Japanese, introduced expressionism, exerting strong influences on a large number of Chinese students studying in Japan. Under Shen Yanbing’s editorship, Short Story Monthly served as the base camp for the dissemination of expressionism. In 1921, Short Story Monthly (Volume 12, No. 6) published Kuroda Reiji’s article entitled “Sturm Movement” (translated by Li Hanjun, pen name Hai Jing), introducing the German expressionist art schools. In its following issue, it published Umezawa Waken’s article entitled “Post-Impressionism and Expressionism” (translated by Li Hanjun, pen name Hai Jing), continuing the introduction of avant-garde art. In the following 27

The German magazines Der Sturm (first published in 1910) and Die Aktion (first published in 1911) were both important tribunes of expressionism. In 1911, the expressionist critic Wilhelm Worringer published an article in Der Sturm which was seen as a manifesto of expressionism. 28 Some May 4th writers compared German expressionism to the literary revolutionary movement. For instance, in his article entitled “German Expressionist Drama”, Song Chunfang argued that “Although expressionist drama is criticized, it was just at the time of its rise that it was able to topple all the power of drama since the war. Time has changed…. Only the new expressionist movement in Germany, like a comet not on a clear starry night but on a stormy night, can be regarded as a literary revolution. This new force was precisely expressionism all over Europe.” (See The Eastern Miscellany, Vol. 18, No. 16, August 25, 1921.)

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issue, a special column, Studies of German Literature, was created, which published Mitsunobu Yamagishi’s “The Mainstream of Modern German Literature” (translated by Li Hanjun, pen name Hai Jing), Kaneko Chikusui’s “The Youngest Art Movement in Germany” (translated by Li Hanjun, pen name Chang Jing), Katayama Koson’s “The War and German Nationality and Its Cultural Literature” (translated by Li Da), and Mitsunobu Yamagishi’s “German Expressionist Drama” (translated by Cheng Yuqing). These four articles introduced the German expressionist art movement from a range of perspectives. In the meantime, Song Chunfang’s article, entitled “German Expressionist Drama”, was published in The Eastern Miscellany (Vol. 18, No. 16), which introduced the works of expressionist playwrights Georg Kaiser and Walter Hasenclever. Song further translated Hasenclever’s master play Die Menschen (English: Humans). In the foreword, he stated that the “expressionist play is not only the first of its kind in China, but also a very novel product in Europe.”29 The literary views of expressionism directly influenced the May 4th New Literature writers, especially the members of the Creation Society. In a range of articles such as “Nature and Art: My Empathy with the Expressionists”, Guo Moruo repeatedly emphasized that art must be created, rather than imitated. He denounced Western naturalism, symbolism and futurism, considering them to be “imitations of literature and art”. Instead, he strongly praised emerging expressionists in Germany, claiming that they had “great hope for the future.”30 In 1920, Guo Moruo published his poetic drama Celebrating Brothers’ Reunion. Later, more poetic dramas, such as Rebirth of the Goddess and Xiang Lei (English: The Death of Qu Yuan), were created. According to Guo himself, the form of “poetry drama” was marked by the “influence of Goethe” and by the influences of “neo-romanticism which was prevailing at the time and of the so-called expressionism that was ascending in Germany,” “particularly, the fragmented performances by expressionists were engrained and brewed in my fragmented mind.”31 However, compared with these drama scripts, Guo’s early fictions were more expressive. Just as in Ghost Sonata, Strindberg let the living perform with dead bodies and ghosts on the same stage, Guo also introduced similar weird expressionist techniques in his novels, such as letting human skeletons communicate with the living, making the human body separate from its spirit, or making human bodies transform into animal bodies. 29 Quoted from Song Chunfang on Opera (book 1), Zhong Hua Book Company, 1923, p. 85. Song’s article “German Expressionist Drama” is also available on pages 75–83 in this book. 30 See Guo Moruo’s “Nature and Art: My Empathy with the Expressionists” in Creation Weekly, No. 16, August 26, 1923. 31 See Guo Moruo’s The Students’ Days, People’s Literature Publishing House, 1979, p. 68.

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Guo’s early novels played a very important role during the May 4th New Literature Movement. The reason why they were not taken seriously later was that, in addition to Guo’s higher reputation in poetry, these typical expressionist artistic techniques were obscured and overlooked by the narrowness of realist aesthetics which prevailed later. Expressionist techniques were commonly employed by the generation of the May 4th New Literature writers, such as Lu Xun and Yu Dafu, in their creation of novels. In the early 1920s, European expressionism also influenced the United States, giving birth to the master of the expressionist drama, Eugene O’Neill. His masterpieces, such as The Hairy Ape and The Emperor Jones, had a profound influence on Chinese avant-garde dramatists. Chinese dramatist Hong Shen and O’Neill were both students at Harvard University. After returning to China, Hong created an expressionist drama The King of Hell Zhao with Chinese characteristics under the influence of O’Neill. Although it was rejected at the box office, it served as a pathfinder for the future of the Chinese expressionist drama and laid a solid foundation for the success of Cao Yu’s expressionist drama The Wilderness in the 1930s and 1940s. Due to their late start, Dadaism and surrealism had limited connection with the new literature movement in the early days of the May 4th Movement. There were sporadic introductions in the 1920s.32 It was not until the 1930s when modernist poets such as Dai Wangshu and Ai Qing ascended in the poetry circle that their impact gradually became apparent. However, as avant-garde artistic schools, futurism and expressionism played a role in the formation of avantgarde elements in the early days of the May 4th New Literature Movement. Particularly, the political and cultural propositions of these two schools were extremely fierce and radical, with imposing anti-traditional appeal, which made them aggressive, solemn and stirring. This typical avant-garde cultural temperament is close to the anti-traditional spirit led by New Youth in the early days of the May 4th New Literature Movement, which is worthy of our further study.

32 On April 10, 1922, You Xiong rewrote “What is Dadaism” based on articles in Japanese magazines and published it in The Eastern Miscellany, Vol. 19, No. 7, which introduced the origin and characteristics of European Dadaist art. This is the earliest article devoted to Dadaism in the materials available so far. In June 1922, Shen Yanbing briefly introduced Dadaism in his article entitled “The New Movement in French Art” published in the column of “News from Overseas Literary Circles” in Short Story Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 6, which was followed by further introductions. The introduction of surrealism was relatively late. What can be found is Li Liewen’s translation of Ilya Ehrenburg’s “On Surrealism” in 1934, which was published in Translation, Vol. 1, No. 4.

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However, to point this out is not to put one-sided emphasis on the influence of avant-garde literature and art. First, China’s avant-garde spirit was originally a mixture of romantic daemonism, aesthetic decadence, the Enlightenment and criticism of realism, and even rebellious factors in its own cultural traditions. These elements were mixed into a literary trend of thought characterized by rebellions against society and tradition. The composition of its avant-garde quality should not be simplified. Secondly, even if there is no causal relationship between the Western avant-garde movement and China’s avant-garde movement, it also provides us with a referencing system, that is, how the Eastern and Western intellectuals with avant-garde consciousness could utter their similar fighting voices at this critical moment in the transformation of the world. Chinese literature and Western literature generated avant-garde movements in two completely different social environments. As part of a broader social movement, the May 4th New Literature Movement was inseparable from the new culture movement, with the profundity of its influences transcending beyond the realm of literature; it engaged in and boosted the comprehensive socio-cultural transformation of the society at the time. Therefore, the Chinese avant-garde movement during the May 4th Movement was more disruptive to social tradition than in the West. The purpose of introducing Western avant-garde literature and art in China in this section is to emphasize the synchronization between China and the world at that moment, and then to further examine the differences between the Chinese and Western avant-garde literary trends in their synchronous advancement. 2 “Man-eating” Imagery, Antagonistic Criticism and Europeanized Expressions: the Characteristics of the Chinese Avant-Garde Spirit There is an interesting phenomenon in the cultural background of the May 4th New Literature Movement and that of the Western avant-garde literature and art. At the end of the 19th century, with successful colonization, Europe experienced a rapid leap in terms of its economic progress. The surplus value generated by the massive resources and cheap labor plundered through colonization alleviated the class struggle and economic contradictions within these capitalist countries. The economic situation and living environment generally improved in Europe, and governments managed to distribute their profits to buy off labor leaders who participated actively in political power, thus making the majority of workers unable to express their resistance. The pursuit of spiritual freedom was overshadowed by the vulgar materialism that pervaded social public opinion, generating widespread mental depression and

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spiritual crisis. Extreme resistance could only be expressed through anarchist terrorism. This ethos made artists realize that art no longer had the strength to participate in social transformation and that critical realism’s partial criticism of social problems had increasingly become a signboard of capitalist democracy, while other artists showed their contempt for society with a decadent and cynical attitude, thus forming an aesthetic trend in the field of literature and art. Aestheticism aimed at self-realization in art, deliberately neglecting critical intervention in society. Meanwhile, due to the perfection of the capitalist art system, the commercialization of art also grew powerful, turning all artworks quickly into commodities. The emergence of the avant-garde movement was precisely the reaction to this negative and decadent artistic concept. Avant-garde art, with its own shocking performance, attempted to reinvigorate the social resistance aspect of art with the aim of criticizing society. In China, from the late Qing Dynasty to the early years of the Republic of China, a bourgeois revolution had just overthrown the feudal dynasty. However, due to the lack of adequate preparation, all the chaos of the turning point in history was exposed, and people became disillusioned with the Republic and plunged into a new spiritual crisis. If literature and art lost their initial commitment to disseminating ideas and thoughts at this time, people would no longer believe in the ideals of social progress promoted by literature. The loss of social function made literature resort to two tendencies. First, when revolutionaries lost their political clout, they turned to the cynicism of traditional literati, thus giving rise to the self-entertainment of literary creations in classical literature. The South Society was typical at the time, as its members were politically radical, but literarily conservative. It can be referred to as Chinese-style aestheticism and decadence. The other tendency is that the market economy made literary creations a commodity. When writers pursue commercial profits with their creations, their literary works are manipulated by the market, making popular literature prosperous. The so-called literature from the Mandarin Duck and Butterfly School mainly refers to this literary trend. In analyzing the emergence of the avant-garde school, Peter Bürger proposed the concept of “art as an institution.” He explained that “The concept ‘art as an institution’ as used here refers to the productive and distributive apparatus and also to the ideas about art that prevail at a given time and that determine the reception of works. The avant-garde turns against both – the distribution apparatus on which the work of art depends, and the status of art in bourgeois society as defined by the concept of autonomy.”33 The advancement of the capitalist economy and the perfection of its system in Western society led to the suppression of spiritual 33

See Peter Bürger, Theory of the Avant-Garde, p. 22.

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health by materialism, generating the commercialization of literature and the self-discipline of aestheticism. What happened in China was that, the unfinished bourgeois revolution, the unhealthy capitalist art system, and the chaos and darkness of society bred self-entertaining and aesthetic play literature as well as vulgar popular literature which aimed at market profits. Seemingly, these two genres shared similar social backgrounds. This is the reason the avant-garde movement of Chinese literature first critically targeted poetic creations by the South Society and the popular literature of the Mandarin Duck and Butterfly School with an advocacy of “Literature for Life”. The May 4th New Literature Movement was a huge critical camp formed by the combination of Enlightenment consciousness and avant-garde spirit. The synchronous introduction to China of humanism from the Renaissance and Western avant-garde resistance in the early 20th century attracted wide attention among Chinese writers. In spite of their interconnections, there existed cultural differences which could be observed from Zhou Zuoren’s and Lu Xun’s writings during the May 4th New Literature Movement (Note: Zhou Zuoren and Lu Xun were brothers and Lu Xun is the pen name for Zhou Shuren, the elder brother). There were basically no such avant-garde elements in Zhou Zuoren’s writings during the May 4th New Literature Movement. His article entitled “Man’s Literature” best proves Zhou’s life-long advocacy of humanitarianism and rationality with a slight artistic aestheticism and decadent tendency. Zhou felt uncomfortable with the anti-traditional nature of the May 4th New Literature Movement and eventually turned to aesthetic modernist culture in discarding his fierce critical stance. Furthermore, in the 1920s, Zhou Zuoren proposed writing principles of “beautiful essays” and emphasized individual professionalism, which can be regarded as his separation from the avantgarde spirit. Among the many differences between Lu Xun and Zhou Zuoren, the fundamental one is that the former always adhered to his avant-garde stance. In their early years, the Zhou brothers absorbed Western scholarship from differing sources. What Zhou Zuoren pursued were the Athenian spiritual traditions such as Western rationality, science and mythology; what Lu Xun pursued, instead, were the Spartan spiritual traditions of enthusiasm, patriotism and radicalism. He further integrated such Western traditions with both the Chinese and foreign philosophical ideas at the end of the 19th century to establish his unique avant-garde spirit, making the resistant nature in his writings apparent, which can be particularly seen in his unrestrained negative attitude toward traditional culture prevalent in his works during the May 4th New Culture Movement and in his exploration of the “man-eating” issue in “A Madman’s Diary”. Lu Xun’s early modern resistance was developed from C. Darwin’s and Nietzsche’s philosophies. Darwin proposed the theory

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of the evolution of life, while Nietzsche frankly declared, “God is dead”, which together subverted the superstability of Christian civilization from the perspective of science and humanity. In Lu Xun’s “A Madman’s Diary”, such resistance was almost instinctively integrated into the subversion of traditional Chinese civilization, as it not only subverted the traditional ideology of “benevolence and morality”, but also the essential tenet of the Confucian theory of human nature that “Man’s nature at birth is good.” Additionally, it revealed man’s “man-eating” nature, and further questioned the Western humanitarian and humanistic trends of thought that permeated the ideological sphere at the time.34 This remained consistent with the focus of the avant-garde literary ideas emerging in the early 20th century. The madman thought that he had discovered the secret of “man-eating”, which nobody else knew. He tried to persuade his elder brother in a smart-aleck manner but failed. At this moment, the madman was still a humanitarian. What horrified him then was that the “man-eating” nature was not only embedded in the four-thousand-year history of this country, but also in the daily life of today’s society; it was deeply rooted in human nature itself, as even he himself inadvertently had “man-eating” experiences. This reveals the madman’s acute insights into the problem, which was so thorough and poignant that he felt helpless, rootless and desperate. It is such shift from humanitarianism to the serious reflections on man’s (nonhuman) “man-eating” nature that distinguish “A Madman’s Diary” from other fictions of rebuke in the late Qing Dynasty, as it not only reveals the darkness and oddity of life at a certain social level, but also questions the significance of life and the rationality of humanitarianism in the whole society. Such thoroughness is one of the prominent traits of the avant-garde spirit in Western modernist fiction.35 Renato Poggioli once summarized the characteristics of the Western avantgarde spirit in four moments, namely activism or the activistic moment, antagonism or the antagonistic moment, nihilism or the nihilistic moment, and agonism or the agonistic moment.36 In my opinion, the “man-eating” imagery as 34 35

36

For this characteristic of Lu Xun’s thought, see my article entitled “The First Pioneering Work of Modern China: ‘A Madman’s Diary’” in three-volume book series Collected Works of Chen Sihe (Volume I), Huangshan Publishing House, 2012, pp. 28–51. We cannot find the way out for modern people in Kafka’s works, which fundamentally raise doubts about humans’ living situations. This was similarly explored and expressed in Lu Xun’s “A Madman’s Diary”. This is the fundamental difference between Kafka and Balzac, and that between China’s New Literature represented by Lu Xun and the denunciation novels and romance novels of the late Qing Dynasty and the early Republic of China. Renato Poggioli, The Theory of the Avant-Garde, trans. from the Italian by Gerald Fitzgerald, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press 1968, pp. 25–27.

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depicted by Lu Xun is an expression of action. This is psychological dynamism, employing the drastic artistic technique of exaggeration to obtain a shocking effect. Arrogance of activism will inevitably bring about antagonism between the subject and social customs. The initiators of the May 4th New Literature Movement consciously launched their provocation in a stance against the public. As a reaction to the aestheticism of “art for art’s sake”, Western avantgarde literature and art emerged in Europe before and after World War I when the capitalist system started to collapse. This provided new hope for art to intervene in social life. Peter Bürger once explained that in this term avant-garde, “the preposition avant does not mean, or at least not primarily, the claim to be in advance of contemporary art (this is first true of Rimbaud), but rather the claim to be at the peak of social progress. The artist’s activity is avant-gardist not in the production of a new work but because the artist intends with this work (or with the renunciation of a work) something else: the realization of a Saint-Simonian utopia or the ‘multiplication’ of progress, a task that Rimbaud assigns to the poet of the future.”37 Given this perspective, it is not surprising to find that the ultimate purpose of the May 4th New Literature Movement was social criticism and social transformation, and to understand why the core of this new literature movement shifted its attention to practical political movement and political party activities in a few years’ time. In fact, the initiators of the May 4th New Literature Movement embraced a utopian social ideal, taking it as a spiritual goal to criticize the social status quo and to propose solutions to transform the status quo of the society. In the early days of New Youth,38 Chen Duxiu proposed six rubrics in his article titled “Call to Youth”: “independent rather than slavish, progressive rather than conservative, enterprising rather than retiring, open-minded rather than confined, pragmatic rather than doctrinaire, scientific rather than utopian.”39 Among these rubrics, being utilitarian is the most confusing. In today’s context, it refers to being pragmatic. In the eyes of Chen Duxiu, this was the global trend, in which Chinese young people needed to become pragmatic by discarding false Confucian morality. This was associated with the Western avant-garde spirit. The aim of such spirit was to intervene in society for change. Chen Duxiu even openly advocated that Chinese young people should learn from Japanese “animalism”. This so-called 37 Quoted from Peter Bürger’s “Avant-Garde” entry for Encyclopedia of Aesthetics, edited by Michael Kelley. See Michael Kelly (ed.), Encyclopedia of Aesthetics, Vol. 1, New York: Oxford University Press, 1998, p. 186. 38 The first volume of New Youth was named The Youth Magazine, and the second volume was renamed New Youth. For the sake of consistency, New Youth is used in this article. 39 See Chen Duxiu’s “Call to Youth”, The Youth Magazine, Vol. 1, No. 1, September 15, 1915.

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“animalism” emphasizes a “strong will with fighting and unyielding spirit, a strong build with great physical ability to resist hardship in nature, strong selfconfidence with independent skills, and sincere integrity without mendacity or hypocrisy.” Chen further argued that “with such an animal nature, Westerners succeeded in colonization worldwide; and with such an animal nature, Japan dominated all of Asia.”40 Given the avant-garde’s extreme attitude toward power and war, it is not difficult to understand Chen’s stark reference to the extremes of colonialism. The strong desire to transform society and the antagonism against social customs made the initiators of the May 4th New Literature Movement hold a nihilistic attitude toward tradition.41 In China, there were few Western Dadaists who pursued pure nonsense. Their hearts were filled with ideals for saving the country; furthermore, they dared to challenge the meaninglessness of tradition, arguing that anything sacred could be overturned as long as it hindered today’s development. For instance, Chen Duxiu published an article entitled “Defense for New Youth Criminal Case” in New Youth, a fearless and stirring avant-garde document in which he claimed candidly that he aimed to “destroy Confucianism, destroy rituals, destroy the quintessence of the Chinese culture, destroy chastity, destroy old ethics (such as loyalty and filial piety), destroy old art (Chinese operas), destroy old religion (such as supernatural beings), destroy old literature and destroy old politics (the rule of the privileged)”.42 Lu Xun’s contempt and critical attitude toward the traditional culture also expressed such consciousness: “those who attempt to obstruct this future, whether it is ancient or modern, human beings or ghosts, official classics or unofficial history, golden statues or jade Buddhas, ancestral prescriptions or folk recipes, should all be overthrown.”43 Lu once publicly urged young people to stop reading Chinese classics. Wu Zhihui, another radical activist, even publicly advocated throwing thread-bound Chinese classics into the toilet. Such nihilism often reminds us of the Western avant-garde’s complete rejection of traditional culture. What is often criticized is Italian futurists’ open declaration 40 41

42 43

See Chen Duxiu’s “Education Policy for Today”, The Youth Magazine, Vol 1, No. 2, October 15, 1915. In a sense, the nihilistic attitude of avant-garde writers toward tradition during the May 4th Movement can be regarded as a strategy. In fact, the May 4th pioneers such as Chen Duxiu and Lu Xun themselves had done research and made profound contributions to traditional culture. Therefore, this nihilistic attitude only prevailed for a short period of time. Chen Duxiu’s “Defense for New Youth Criminal Case”, New Youth, Vol. 6, No. 1, January 15, 1919. See Lu Xun’s “Things that Just Occurred to Me (VI)”, The Complete Works of Lu Xun, Vol. 3, People’s Literature Publishing House, 1981, p. 45.

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of “destroying all museums, libraries and academies of every kind”,44 while Russian futurists once proclaimed they would “throw Pushkin, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, etc., overboard from the ship of modernity.”45 In order to demonstrate its anti-traditional spirit as well as its complete break with the social environment, avant-garde literature often exaggerated its split with tradition in its linguistic and artistic forms. It proved the revolutionary nature of its existence by expanding this artificial gap and further adopted a subversive attitude toward traditional aesthetic habits to express its uncompromising confrontation with reality by violating the common aesthetic tastes and secular habits of the time. Seemingly technical, these phenomena remained a spiritual statement. From the perspective of linguistic and artistic forms, the characteristics of the May 4th New Literature Movement as an avantgarde literary movement are more apparent. Lu Xun was the first writer who realized such characteristics. The publication of Lu’s “A Madman’s Diary” immediately served as the watershed between the old and new literature and further divided the boundaries of language. I agree with the following argument that the vernacular language system and modern Chinese which took shape after the May 4th New Culture Movement are essentially a Europeanized linguistic expression. The distinction between modern vernacular and traditional vernacular does not lie in the form of the language as an instrument, but in the way of thinking. The modern vernacular is a language system with its unique thinking system.46 Chinese vernacular literature exists since ancient times. Hu Shi had done pointed research and published a pertinent study, entitled The History of Vernacular Literature. Since the late Qing Dynasty, the vernacular had gradually entered the media system and been accepted by a growing general public with the efforts of intellectuals due to the need for promoting and publicizing the reform ideas. In the late Qing dynasty, under the advocacy of “I write what I think” by Huang Zunxian, the vernacular language was not only applied in poetry, a large number of dialects also became the tool for fiction writing. The Sing-Song Girls of Shanghai was the most typical in using Suzhou dialect. Therefore, there exists a viewpoint within academia that even without the May 4th New Literature Movement, the vernacular would sooner or later have become the authentic literary language, which is determined 44 See F. T. Marinetti’s “The Founding and Manifesto of Futurism”, translated by Wu Zhengyi, in Futurism, Surrealism and Magic Realism edited by Liu Mingjiu, p. 47. 45 See David Burliuk et al., “A Slap in the Face of Public Taste”, translated by Zhang Jie, in Literary and Art Theory Studies, No. 2, 1982. 46 See Gao Yu, Modern Chinese and Modern Chinese Literature, China Social Sciences Press, 2003, p. 59.

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by the nature of modern literature. This argument does make some sense; what remains remarkable, however, is the emergence of a large number of Europeanized expressions during the May 4th New Literature Movement, which was not in line with the natural evolution of the traditional vernacular. Here the reference is to another linguistic system which entered China, establishing a new way of thinking. The modern vernacular advocated by the May 4th New Literature Movement can be said to have created a new linguistic realm, which can be proved by a comparative study of Lu Xun’s “A Madman’s Diary” and other fiction in the late Qing Dynasty. This may not be fully noticed by advocates of the modern vernacular, though Hu Shi always insisted that the vernacular was employed for writing in spoken language. He emphasized that “Don’t speak until you have something to say,” and “Say what you have to say. Say what you want to say.”47 Apparently, this is an advocacy of informal writing (with spoken language). This spoken language was predominant in a large number of fictions since the late Qing Dynasty. Noticeably, Lu Xun did not use such a vernacular tone in his writing, as he was not an “honest and literal” practitioner of the colloquial vernacular like Hu Shi. Instead, he resorted to Europeanized expressions and the Western grammatical structure in order to create a new writing style, thus establishing the basic prototype of the spirit of modern Chinese language. The American Sinologist Benjamin I. Schwartz once criticized poignantly that “Vernacular Chinese has become a type of language ‘in the disguise of European covering,’ overloaded with excessive new Western vocabularies, and even deeply affected by the syntax and rhythm of Western languages. It may even be more distant from the general public than the traditional classical Chinese.”48 This further explained why the problem of language popularization could not be resolved by the May 4th New Literature Movement. A quick review of the language in “A Madman’s Diary” reveals a unique but very awkward grammatical structure in use: It has only just dawned on me that all these years I have been living in a place where for four thousand years man has been eaten. My brother had just taken over the charge of the house when our sister died, and he may well have used her flesh in our food, making us eat it unwittingly. I may have eaten several pieces of my sister’s flesh unwittingly, and now it is my turn… 47 See Hu Shi, “On Constructive Literary Revolution”, New Youth, Vol. 4, No. 4, April 15, 1918. 48 See Benjamin I. Schwartz, “An Introduction: Reflections on the May 4th Movement”, quoted from Modern Chinese and Modern Chinese Literature by Gao Yu, p. 59.

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In order to express his pain that he once “ate man”, the madman used “he may well have mixed her flesh in our food” and “I may have eaten several pieces of my little sister’s flesh unwittingly” to convey this message, making the sentences confusing but linguistically logical. These are typical Europeanized sentence structures. Additionally, a large number of complementary structures were used as follows: If you do not change, you may all be eaten by each other. However many of you there are, you may be wiped out by real men, just as wolves are killed by hunters! – just like reptiles! What can be read is not only the unfamiliar application of exclamation marks and dashes, but also the awkward sentence structure, which is totally different from habitual spoken Chinese. How can such writing be referred to as traditional Chinese vernacular? The Europeanized sentences will inevitably lead to Europeanized impacts. The possible reason why new literary works were sometimes confusing and obscure is mainly due to the mixed emotions and perplexed thoughts which were inevitably revealed in the profound reflections of those Chinese intellectuals at the time on their own cultural traditions when confronted with new Western ideas. For instance, Lu Xun’s rhetoric would often stir his readers with such a literary effect. The obscure rhetoric in his Wild Grass contains infinite potential charms of poetic language. Beginning with Lu Xun, Chinese literature has embarked on modern language writing, instead of general writing in spoken language. The so-called modern language writing makes full use of the standard modern grammar to express modern people’s way of thinking and their feelings and perceptions. Revisiting Guo Moruo’s early poems such as The Goddess reveals, along with his broad global vision and unique imagination, his application of a large number of Chinese and foreign nouns mixed together and of a large number of modern scientific terms in poetic writing. This presents a dazzling kaleidoscopic brilliance between the lines: Ah, blazing headlights of motorcycles, you 20th century Apollo! have you not changed your mount for a motorcycle? I would like to be your driver, will you engage me? Ah, the vitality of light! Agate morning birds scatter before my eyes. Sunrise, 1920

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Pulse of the great city, surge of life, beating, panting, roaring, spurting, flying, leaping, … … Funnel upon funnel bearing its black peony! Ah, Emblem of the 20th century! Stern mother of modern civilization! Panorama from Fudetate Yama, 1920

Ah! Unending destruction, unending creation, unending effort! Ah! Power, power! Picture of power, dance of power, music of power, poetry of power, gamut of power! Shouting on the Rim of the World, 1919

Applying motorcycles to depict the sunrise and black peonies to depict the big industry is apparently a subversion of the traditional aesthetic habits of Chinese tradition. In the last case, Guo endeavored to permeate the celebration of power through a range of artistic forms such as painting, music, poetry and dance. While Western avant-garde art emerged first in arts and was later transmitted to literature, modern Chinese music and painting at the time were still at the fledgling stage; only literature could independently undertake the mission of the avant-garde movement. In Guo Moruo’s poems, noticeably, the various kinds of modern art were not only endowed with new life, but all sorts of artistic elements were integrated into his poetic writing, which gave birth to The Goddess, elevating the May 4th New Literature achievements to the height on a par with world literature. Such language style is far more advanced than the vernacular poetry style created by Hu Shi’s Changshi (English: Trial) Anthology or conventional folk love songs. 3

The Relationship between the Avant-Garde Spirit of the May 4th New Literature and Modern Literature

While discussing the avant-garde elements of the May 4th New Literature Move­ ment, this chapter attempts to manifest firstly that in its early days, new literary writers were influenced by both Western humanism and modern resistance trends. Similarly, even in the writings of some avant-garde authors, there

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existed varieties of influences of foreign literature, of which avant-garde elements were an integral part. An investigation of the start of the May 4th New Literature Movement as well as its development may reveal that in terms of new literature, there did exist an avant-garde movement similar to Western avant-garde literature, which constituted the avant-garde spirit of the May 4th New Culture Movement and further promoted, in a radical manner, the establishment and dominance of new literature. The avant-garde spirit and stance of this movement were generally manifested in various ways through the New Youth ideological and theoretical group represented by Chen Duxiu and Qian Xuantong, the avant-garde literary creations represented by Lu Xun and Guo Moruo, the translations and theoretical introductions represented by Shen Yanbing and Song Chunfang, and magazines such as New Youth, Creation Quarterly, and Short Story Monthly. Serving as the core of this literary movement, they played a positive role in the early days of the May 4th New Literature Movement. Avant-garde literature is not the same as modernist literature, though they were often confused in the past, as the avant-garde literature was regarded as a few small factions within modernist literature. However, the most remarkable distinction between the two is that the attack of avant-garde literature and art was directed at aestheticism and its literary concept of “art for art’s sake”, while the various genres of modernism also embraced this concept. In the history of modern Chinese literature, differing modernist literary trends once prevailed, such as symbolist poems by C. Baudelaire and S. Mallarmé, aestheticism and decadence by O. Wilde and P. Verlaine, as well as stream of consciousness and sexual consciousness. Their influences on writers lay mainly in aesthetic pursuits in writing, whilst the impact of the avant-garde spirit on Chinese writers was largely reflected in their literary attitudes and stances in terms of the relationship between literature and society. This division was embodied in the May 4th New Literature Movement. As one of the leading features of the avantgarde literary spirit, the aesthetic trend of “art for art’s sake” in the early days of the May 4th New Literature Movement did not receive wide welcome, as the initiators of this new literary movement only proposed independent aesthetic values of art itself49 in view of the pitfalls of traditional Chinese literature. 49

See Chen Duxiu, “To Hu Shi (Literary Revolution)”, in which Chen expounded his famous viewpoint while discussing Hu’s “writing concretely” in his “Eight Don’ts Doctrine”: “In my opinion, to get rid of grandiosity and vagueness in writing, it is most important to emphasize the sixth tenet of ‘writing with true feelings and without affectation’. However, if we only emphasize ‘writing concretely’, will its disadvantages differ from the view that ‘writings are for conveying truth’? If literature is taken as a means or as a tool, it must be attached to other carriers to survive. I think that literary works have different functions

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The purpose, instead, was to emphasize the intervention of literature in social life as well as its contribution to social progress. The members of the Creation Society advocated “art for art’s sake”, emphasizing “resistance to the established morality not based on personality” and resorting to art to “fight against capitalism” so as to attain a high degree of consistency between individuality and resistance to capitalism.50 Therefore, the argument in the previous literary history was biased, which simplistically set the conceptions of “Literature for Life” against “art for art’s sake” in the early days of the May 4th New Literature Movement. The avant-garde spirit of the May 4th New Literature Movement determined from the very beginning the confrontation between literature and society. New literature is a criticism and struggle against the old social system, to which the aforementioned two ideas had no fundamental objection. From the perspective of the external influences of the early May 4th New Literature Movement, there existed complicated connotations and multiple elements in Russia’s critical realist literature and romantic daemonic literature. What Chinese new literature writers sincerely welcomed, however, in terms of these external elements, was resistance against the social system and criticism of cultural traditions, which coincided with the avant-garde spirit, which fanatically opposed tradition. The thoroughness of anti-tradition among the May 4th new literature writers enabled them to transcend the limitations of various artistic trends and unite them by the avant-garde spirit. The literary viewpoints emphasizing aestheticism and the supremacy of artistic form did play a role during the May 4th New Literature Movement, though their impact did not take off until the late 1920s (such as Dai Wangshu’s modernist poetry). The birth of many excellent poems and fictions in the 1930s (such as the achievements of some modernists in the Peking-style literary circle) gradually reflected the essential elements of modernism. As to the resistant literary trend of radicalism in the early days of the May 4th New Literature Movement, instead of referring to it as modernism, it would be more appropriate to summarize it as the avant-garde spirit. Rather than being all about the May 4th New Literature Movement, the avant-garde spirit was the most radical and active part in this movement, with its precepts being summarized as a “new powerhouse”. The term “avant-garde” was originally used in the military field to refer to a small unit that fights alone

50

from practical writing. Can the aesthetic and skill of literary works, that is, the value of the independent existence of literature and art itself, be gently eliminated? Isn’t there any room for research?” (See the “Correspondence” section, New Youth, Vol. 2, No. 2, October 1, 1916.) See Guo Moruo, “Our New Literary Movement”, Creation Weekly, No. 3, May 27, 1923.

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against its strong enemy on the front line. In a fierce battlefield, avant-garde troops are pioneers in a highly stressful mindset who experience life and death, while their relationship with the main force sometimes remains ambiguous. An ancient Chinese military strategy says “A field commander must decide even against king’s orders.” This indicates the ever-changing military situation on the front, which requires the avant-garde troops to give full play to maneuver rather than follow rigidly the commander. This also reflects the dialectical relationship between the avant-garde troops and the commander in chief. In other words, avant-garde troops are more independent, as they not only seek and attack enemies, but also remain flexible with regard to the command by the main force, which manifests the feature of avant-garde troops as “powerhouses.” In terms of the avant-garde spirit of literature, in addition to its attack against conventional writing, the avant-garde also for the most part attacked fiercely the mainstream writing in its own camp or treated it with a dismissive and arrogant attitude. They felt, at least, that the cultural trend as the mainstream had lost its vitality under the control of its masters, being unable to lead the attack against traditional forces. This is why Russian futurists attempted to overthrow A. Pushkin, F. Dostoevsky and L. Tolstoy. In the history of modern Chinese literature, all literary movements with an avant-garde nature shared similar stories, such as the criticism of initiators of the May 4th New Literature Movement against the pioneers of the literary revolution since the late Qing Dynasty, Lu Xun’s inquiries about humanitarianism in “A Madman’s Diary”, the fierce attacks against Lu Xun and the Literature Research Association by the Creation Society in its early days and the campaign launched by the left-wing literature against Lu Xun and Shen Yanbing all reveal a highly provocative arrogance and mixed psychological reactions which inevitably accompanied this type of avant-garde movement because of the enemies it made first among conventional writers and then among mainstream writers in its own camp. Due to its aforementioned nature, it was impossible for the avant-garde move­ ment to last long in the literary arena. Generally speaking, the avant-garde movement was like a short-lived comet in the history of literature, accompanied first by a series of fierce and stirring debates and then calm and loneliness on the battlefield. Therefore, when the success of the avant-garde culture is examined, its relationship with the mainstream culture must be investigated. The French avant-garde playwright Eugène Ionesco once made an interesting remark: Ainsi, l’avant-garde serait donc un phénomène artistique et culturel précurseur: ce qui correspondrait au sens littéral du mot. Elle serait une sorte de pré-style, la prise de conscience et la direction d’un changement …

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qui doit s’imposer finalement, un changement qui doit vraiment tout changer. Cela revient à dire que l’avant-garde ne peut être généralement reconnue qu’après coup, lorsqu’elle aura réussi, lorsque les écrivains et artistes d’avant-garde auront été suivis, lorsqu’ils auront créé une école dominante, un style culturel qui se serait imposé et aurait conquis une époque. Par conséquent, on ne peut s’apercevoir qu’il y a eu avant-garde que lorsque l’avant-garde n’existe plus en tant que telle, lorsqu’elle est devenue arrière-garde; lorsqu’elle aura été rejointe et même dépassée par le reste de la troupe.51 (English:) Thus, the avant-garde would therefore be a pioneering artistic and cultural phenomenon: which would correspond to the literal meaning of this word. It would be a kind of pre-style, the awareness and direction of a change … that must prevail in the end, a change that will really change everything. This amounts to saying that the avant-garde can only be generally recognized when it has succeeded, when avant-garde writers and artists have been followed, when they have created a dominant school, a cultural style which would have imposed itself and captivated an epoch. Therefore, one can only perceive that there was an avant-garde when the avant-garde no longer exists as such, when it has become a rear-guard, when it has been joined and even overtaken by the rest of the troop. Apparently, Ionesco’s remark did not refer to any specific avant-garde genre; instead, he referred to a certain avant-garde literary phenomenon which would only be realized afterwards. Ionesco revealed that the authentic avantgarde movement fully acknowledged the social and cultural trends rather than deliberately remaining melodramatic. An authentic avant-garde school can stand the trial of time and historical progress, as the sign of its establishment is whether its artistic pursuit can be accommodated by “the main players”, that is, the mainstream culture. If the “avant-garde” cannot endure, then it is not an authentic one. This shows unabashedly that in addition to its anti-kitsch characteristic, the avant-garde is also kitsch, as it is utilitarian and eager to be recognized by mainstream culture. This is the fundamental reason why artists who call themselves avant-garde will consciously accept the cooperation of some kind of power, such as Italian futurists’ proximity to 51 Eugène Ionesco, “Discours sur l’avant-garde”, in: Eugène Ionesco, Notes et Contre-Notes, Paris: Gallimard 1962, p. 26.

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the fascist regime, Russian futurists’ proximity to the Soviet regime, and French surrealist poets Louis Aragon and Paul Éluard joining the French Communist Party. In this sense, it is not difficult to see that the avant-garde nature of the May 4th New Literature Movement can stand the test of time. Additionally, the avant-garde propositions of the May 4th New Literature Movement, such as its anti-tradition stance, its profound critical spirit, its Europeanized sentence structure, and its pioneering of new literary forms, have gradually been accepted by the mainstream culture, forming what is often referred to as the May 4th new literary tradition. Hence, because of its avant-garde nature, the May 4th New Literature Movement took on a particularly complicated outlook. Further inspiration can be gained by responding to Professor David Der-wei Wang’s study of “repressed modernities” and Professor Fan Boqun’s argument that “the Mandarin Duck and Butterfly School is indeed the ‘authentic Chinese novel’” from the perspective of examining the relationship between the avant-garde movement and the mainstream culture. In the development of Chinese literature in the first two or three decades of the 20th century, we may wish to regard some radical elements in the May 4th New Literature Movement (not all of the May 4th new literature) as a booming pioneering literary movement, which means there may exist a “fracture” between the core of the May 4th New Literature Movement and the mainstream of contemporary literature, while the overall development from the late Qing Dynasty to the early Republic of China and to the May 4th New Literature Movement was the mainstream of Chinese literature at the time. At that time, Chinese society was facing unprecedented changes in its three-thousand-year history. With its sensitivity, literature naturally served as a precursor to such great social changes. The distinction between the old and new literature existed, though it was not as clear as what is depicted by more recent literary history. Classical literature has always been divided into elegant literature and popular literature. The emergence of new elements in the late Qing Dynasty was mainly on the side of the latter, such as vernacular novels and operas, which served first as propaganda for the bourgeois political reform and further catered to the emerging market of popular culture in the Chinese semi-colonial society. With regard to elegant literature, on the other hand, the progress in poetry writing by Chinese scholars lagged behind until Huang Zunxian’s contributions. Even members of the South Society remained trapped in the traditional old literary forms. In the beginning decades of the 20th century before the May 4th New Literature Movement, both elegant and popular literature had undergone changes, and it was the popular literature that played an unprecedented role, significantly or directly affecting the progress of literature in the 20th century. In this sense, Professor Fan Boqun’s quotation

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of Zhu Ziqing’s “authenticity” had its rationality, since the popular literature at that time inherited the literary heritage of classical novels. However, vulgar literature can hardly affect elegant literature in terms of poetic and prose writings and promote its development. (After Taiwan became a Japanese colony, the creation of classical poetry developed further). From the late Qing Dynasty to the early Republic of China, the mainstream literature continued to change under the impetus of social life. In order to meet new needs of society, literature was developing in an orderly manner with the establishment of new themes, the translation and introduction of Western literature, the popularization of everyday language, the construction of cultural market systems and so on. The political chaos and darkness in the early days of the Republic of China curbed the developmental momentum of vernacular novels from the late Qing Dynasty aiming at political reforms, whilst two major literary trends took off and made considerable progress. One was the old-fashioned aesthetic decadent poetry and romantic, rhythmical prose-style novels, the other included popular readings on the cultural market (including all types of popular novels, such as courtesan novels, muckraking novels, chivalric novels and comic novels). In these two literary trends, the vernacular literature containing modern consciousness experienced solid growth. The various genres and styles in novels in the late Qing Dynasty featuring the “repressed modernities” discussed by Professor David Der-wei Wang proceeded with their own logic. In this sense, Professor Wang’s argument that “Without the literature of late Qing Dynasty, how could the May 4th New Literature be achieved?” sounds fairly convincing. According to Professor Wang, the concept of “repressed modernities” can be understood in three separate dimensions. Firstly, this term represents constant creativity within a literary tradition, which has shown a highly controversial response when faced with Western political and economic expansionism and “modern discourse” since the 19th century. Secondly, it refers to the selfexamination and repression in literature and literary history writing since the May 4th Movement. Based on indicators unique in the course of historical progress, writers are diligent in sifting through impurities in this literary experience as outdated dross. Last but not least, it generally refers to all kinds of literature and artistic experiments that did not enter the mainstream literature since the late Qing Dynasty, the May 4th Movement and the 1930s. Although Wang’s focus was on the discussion of the “repressed modernities” in the novels of the late Qing Dynasty in the third sense, my emphasis was on the methodology contained in the second sense, that is, how to understand the modernity of Chinese literature. As Wang explained, “Late Qing fiction distinguished itself as the beginning of a ‘modern’ (rather than merely ‘reborn’) era by its global relevancy and its immediate urgency. […] Qing writers found

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themselves already in the midst of ongoing worldwide traffic in intellectual, technological and politico-economic goods. Qing writers were faced with the task of immediately grasping and responding to developments that had taken centuries to mature in the West.”52 Such capability of Chinese writers was cultivated in practices within the country’s specific settings; therefore, the discussion of the modernist elements of Chinese literature cannot simply be absolutized by a certain standard of modernity, while excluding the various modernization rubrics in the development of Chinese culture itself. Professor David Der-wei Wang proposed accurately the global elements in the modernity of Chinese literature: “I am only suggesting that as critics we must really believe in modernity – in the pursuit of the new and innovative in the context of international literature. Unless China in the late Qing is seen as a totally static society, a notion that has repeatedly been shown to be untrue, one cannot doubt its capacity to generate its own literary modernity in response and opposition to foreign influences.” (Ibid., p. 19) This argument coincides with my elaboration on the “global elements in Chinese literature”.53 Perhaps, in today’s reading experience, novels of the late Qing Dynasty may only possess the market function at the time, and it is difficult to connect them with the discussion of modernity today. However, what Professor David Der-wei Wang proposed is that the existence of multiple possibilities of modernity was later self-examined and suppressed under the control of the unified concept of literary history. This is precisely where Professor Wang’s argument hit the nail on the head in terms of our current literary conceptions, which makes me re-examine the concept of traditional literary history. The avant-garde nature of the May 4th New Literature Movement proposed in this study is to address Professor Wang’s inquiry. We have long confused the boundary between avant-garde literature and mainstream literature, regarding the avant-garde May 4th New Literature Move­ment as a new starting point for Chinese literary history, that is, using the norms of avant-garde literature to create a universal norm and fighting tradition in the 20th century Chinese literature. This replaced the diversity of previous mainstream literature and concealed all other complicated and pluralistic literary phenomena for the future. Such interpretation does make some sense, though the cost is the sacrifice or ignorance of the rich connotation of the literary practices in the nearly two decades since the late Qing Dynasty and the subsequent literary practices. Hence, the answer to the various possible 52 David Der-wei Wang, Fin-de-siècle Splendor: Repressed Modernities of Late Qing Fiction, 1849–1911, p. 18. 53 Detailed arguments can be found in the chapter “Global Elements in Chinese Literature of the 20th Century”, which is included in this book.

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pursuits toward modernity in Chinese literature seemed simplified and dogmatic. My advocacy of the avant-garde nature of the May 4th New Literature does not intend to obliterate its significance in creating a new literary phase, but to redefine its relationship with the mainstream literature since the late Qing Dynasty. As an avant-garde literary movement, it is as Ionesco analyzed that “L’homme d’avant-garde est comme un ennemi à l’intérieur même de la cité qu’il s’acharne à disloquer, contre laquelle il s’insurge, car, tout comme un régime, une forme d’expression établie est aussi une forme d’oppression. L’homme d’avant-garde est l’opposant vis-à-vis du système existant.”54 (English: An avant-garde man is like an enemy within the very city that he is striving to break up, against which he rebels, because, just like a regime, an established form of expression is also a form of oppression. The avant-garde man is the opponent of the existing system.) Strictly speaking, the avant-garde does not establish a new literary paradigm, however through its attack on the main system of mainstream literature, it brings critical and innovative elements into the mainstream literary paradigm, enabling the traditional connotation to be more substantial and richer under its attack, so as to stay closer to the needs of the changing times. In Ionesco’s words, only when the critical and innovative elements of avant-garde literature are accepted by mainstream literature and then change the direction of mainstream literature can a vanguard be recognized as a pioneer with the completion of his mission. In 1921, vernacular Chinese was recognized and promoted by the national Education Department, that is, the avant-garde new literary movement was accepted by the institution, and vernacular literature gradually ascended to literature’s educational system, which indicates the completion of the mission of the May 4th literary revolution. Lu Xun and other avant-garde supporters also grew acutely aware of the disintegration of the old New Youth group. This means that the avantgarde literary movement had won a partial victory, and it began to transform and integrate into mainstream literature. Therefore, I wish to approach the literary history of the 20th century as two sorts of literature. One is the mainstream literature that naturally developed with the changes of social life from the late Qing Dynasty to the May 4th New Literature and onward, which constitutes diverse literary phenomena with enriched connotations. The other is avant-garde literature that emerged in the great change of the times. The mainstream literature itself was also changing with the change of the times, and the developmental process was natural and normal with its aim of producing literary works for the market. 54 Eugène Ionesco, “Discours sur l’avant-garde”, in: Eugène Ionesco, Notes et Contre-Notes, p. 27.

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The avant-garde literature was progressive, radical and intrusive with its avantgarde elements, adding fresh air to mainstream literature. In the history of modern Chinese literature, large-scale radical literary movements such as the May 4th New Literature Movement, the Revolutionary Literary Movement, and the Left-wing Literary Movement, as well as small-scale avant-garde societies such as the Creation Society, Chenzhong Society and Kuangbiao Society,55 had greater or smaller, positive or negative impacts on literary history, which can all be considered as avant-garde literary trends. Such avant-garde literature was short-lived, as its main form was a literary movement. Once the mainstream literature accepted it with corresponding changes, its avant-garde significance was lost. If we explore the development of literary history from such a perspective, it is easy to see that although modern Chinese literature contains avant-garde elements of the May 4th New Literature Movement, it should not in the meantime be completely subsumed under the avant-garde literature. Modern Chinese literature is a holistic entity with its own criteria for absorbing or rejecting avant-garde literature. For instance, the May 4th literature advocated vernacular literature and the introduction of Western literary forms which were accepted by mainstream literature because they were more in line with modernity, forming the mainstream of new literature after the 1920s. However, Europeanized expressions were not fully accepted, and the old literary style, which was strongly opposed by the new literature, was not completely abandoned either. One of the most obvious examples is the writing of old-style poems; even the most renowned new literary writers, such as Lu Xun, Chen Duxiu, Guo Moruo, Yu Dafu and Tian Han, never gave up composing old-style poems. Additionally, the new literary movement never succeeded in opposing the Peking opera, but instead promoted the renewal and improvement of old dramas. Peking Opera during the Cultural Revolution became the trendiest and the most revolutionary “model drama”. Therefore, seeming radical, the ultimate survival of avant-garde literature depends on the acceptance of mainstream literature, since it is impossible to transform completely the mainstream literature so as to refresh it, thus forming a new direction of change. The main reason for the suppression of the “repressed modernities” was not the literary mechanism formed during the May 4th New Literature Move­ ment, but the fact that the researchers of literary history overlooked the 55

The Kuangbiao Society had a strong avant-garde consciousness in the 1920s and was once called “China’s Futurists”. Writers from the Kuangbiao Society also made considerable achievements in the creation of expressionist dramas. See Chinese Literature and Western Modernism in the 20th Century, edited by Tang Zhengxu and Chen Houcheng.

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dialectical relationship between the avant-garde literature and mainstream literature. We used to regard literary history as a fractured history of literature, that is, using a new literary paradigm to replace another paradigm. We also assumed that the new literature would always triumph over the old literature and regarded the May 4th New Literature Movement as a new paradigm, using it to examine the varieties of literary phenomena. Such a literary history is bound to be a narrow literary history, and will inevitably exclude other alien literary phenomena. The avant-garde movement of the May 4th New Literature could not completely replace the mainstream progress of modern literature since the late Qing Dynasty, though it integrated itself into the mainstream literature with new radical ideas, which helped generate new elements and drastic changes within the mainstream literature. Despite this, the old style persisted. Simply put, the reason why within the May 4th new literary paradigm that we had identified, the literary works by writers such as Eileen Chang (Zhang Ailing), Shen Congwen, Qian Zhongshu and Zhang Henshui were excluded, and a variety of old-style poems, dramas and classical Chinese writings failed to be faithfully introduced, should not be attributed to narrow political views. The limitation of the concepts of literary history cannot be overlooked, as the paradigm of the May 4th New Literature could hardly accommodate these alternative writers or their works. If literary history were re-examined through such a perspective, then the literary genres with “repressed modernities” proposed by Professor David Der-wei Wang which emerged during the late Qing Dynasty, such as courtesan novels, muckraking novels, chivalric novels, and science fantasy, persisted despite the rise of the May 4th New Literature. One reason was the availability of these genres in popular readings outside the new literary paradigm, with influential writers and works, such as new courtesan novels represented by Zhou Tianlai’s Sister-in-law in the Garret, satirical novels represented by Zhang Henshui’s Eighty-one Dreams, Chinese swordsman and science fantasy represented by Huanzhu Louzhu’s (whose real name is Li Shoumin) Biography of Shu Mountain Swordsmen, Cai Dongfan’s historical romance novels, and Cheng Xiaoqing’s detective novels. After 1949, these literary genres migrated to areas outside the control of the Communist regime, such as Hong Kong and Taiwan, which grew particularly prosperous with the rise of “Masters.” This was determined by the overall literary map of China, even though the division of political areas and the change of political power cannot defy the integrity and mobility of literary history. I would like to emphasize another phenomenon in literary history, that is, under the so-called new literary paradigm, a careful examination of the text may reveal that although the mainstream literature accepted the paradigm of new literature, it could not abolish basic literary paradigms that featured

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in novels since the late Qing Dynasty. The difference lies in the discourses in various traditional genres needed by the new era. This is revealed in the historical period after 1949, when literary creations were most strictly controlled. For instance, the justice and legends reflected in chivalric novels were replaced by a large number of revolutionary historical themes, especially in the heroic stories of grass-root patriots during the War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression, while detective novels and courtroom novels were replaced by anti-spy stories and thrillers, and science fantasy was replaced by a plethora of popular science and futuristic works. The modernity embraced in these genres persisted in many of the variants. Although the concept of avant-garde literature could prevail for a while, it could not replace completely the achievements of modern mainstream literature which evolved from tradition. Therefore, as long as we master the dialectical relationship between the two, we can discuss these issues in depth and continue to expand the academic vision of the study of Chinese literary history in the 20th century.

Chapter 8

The Collection of Sonnets: the Model of Exploring Global Elements 1

Soughing Jade Tree in the Spring Breeze of German Literature

When we discuss today The Collection of Sonnets written by Feng Zhi in 1941, it is important to review the impact of Western literature, especially, the impact of German literature on Chinese poets. The May 4th New Literature Movement started with the reform of poetic language and poetic forms. Since 1915, Chen Duxiu, the editor-in-chief of New Youth, had been constantly calling for ideological revolution, criticizing Confucian traditions, and introducing and translating Western literary trends, despite the fact that his stance on poetic writing remained old-fashioned. In 1916, Hu Shi, a student studying in the U.S., wrote to Chen, criticizing a rhythmic poem of trite language and formal style published in New Youth, and proposed a literary reform program to proscribe classical allusions, conventional or clichéd language, and antitheses in poetic writing,1 which was the embryo of the famous “Eight Don’ts Doctrine”. During that time, Hu Shi was also arguing with his classmates in the United States about the feasibility of vernacular poetry, which indicates what Hu Shi advocated was a new literary movement with a focus on the revolution of poetry. Gradually, modern Chinese poetry took shape as an irresistible literary trend.2 Some researchers argue that Hu Shi’s theory of the new poetry revolution came from the emerging imagist poetry movement in the United States, though such argument remains unconfirmed.3 Undoubtedly, the modern Chinese poetic movement had been influenced by Western literature since its initial stage, in which poets such as Guo Moruo, Wen Yiduo, Xu Zhimo, Wang Duqing, Li Jinfa and Dai Wangshu, started their poetic writing by absorbing poetic concepts and nutrition from Western romanticism and modern poetry. Guo Moruo was studying medicine in Japan at the time. He divided his poetic writing 1 See Hu Shi, “To Chen Duxiu”, in Chinese New Literature Series · Collection of Theoretical Construction, Liangyou Book Printing Company, 1935. 2 See Hu Shi, “Be Driven to Revolt”, in Chinese New Literature Series · Collection of Theoretical Construction. 3 See Shen Yongbao, “Did ‘Eight Things’ originate from the Imagist Manifesto? – On the Origin of Literature Reform”, Shanghai Culture, No.4, 1994.

© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2022 | doi:10.1163/9789004522978_009

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into three stages. At Stage I, Guo wrote lyric poems inspired by R. Tagore and H. Heine. At Stage II, he produced radical poems, such as “The Nirvana of the Feng and Huang”, “Good Morning”, and “Ode to Gangsters” under the influence of American poet Walt Whitman. According to Guo, “Whitman’s poetic style of discarding all old-fashioned genres was in perfect harmony with the avantgarde spirit of the May 4th era; I was completely stirred by his boldness and magnificence in poetic writing.”4 At Stage III, he studied Goethe’s poetic dramas and wrote a series of meaning-making poetic dramas. The Goddess, which is widely recognized as the pioneering work of the modern Chinese poetry movement, was born under these three influences. In spite of the immaturity of this poetic anthology in form and in language, it praises enthusiastically all new things, such as Chinese and foreign cultures, history, and historical celebrities like Qu Yuan, Zhuangzi, Earth Mother Nüwa, G. Washington, W. Whitman, Tagore, V. Lenin, and famous mountains and great rivers of the world. Guo’s poetic stance transcended his nationalism in a traditional sense and ascended to the international “arena” to utter a Chinese poet’s enthusiasm and imagination in the face of the world for a dialogue with his counterparts, which established for Chinese new poetry a brand-new global position. Guo Moruo built his poetic empire with an unrestrained freedom of imagination, while Wen Yiduo, a poet who graduated from Tsinghua University and studied modern art in the United States, began to explore and imitate various Western poetic rhythms and forms, hoping to find creative norms for modern Chinese. This constituted his poetic experiment with a new metrical form. Wen’s new-style poem “Dead Water” is a masterpiece created under the influence of Western metrical theory. His poetic innovations inspired a cohort of young poets. In addition to his friend and famous lyric poet Xu Zhimo, Crescent poets, such as Zhu Xiang, Chen Mengjia and Sun Dayu, were also enthusiastic in writing new-style poems. It is said that they often gathered to discuss poetry in Wen’s living room, which was surrounded by black walls with a golden line in the middle. In the center of this aesthetical living room stood a white statue of Venus. While their experiments in poetry may not always have been successful, their endeavor was undoubtedly significant at early developmental stages of modern Chinese poetry. The Western sonnet was also introduced to China at this time,5 and Wen gave it a beautiful Chinese name “Shanglai Style”. 4 See Guo Moruo, “The Story of My Poem Writing”, Special Collection of Guo Moruo (Volume 1), Sichuan People’s Publishing House, 1984, p. 54. 5 According to Professor Qian Guangpei’s research, the first sonnet in China was “To Friends in Taiwan” published in The Young China, Vol. 2, No. 2, in 1920. With the signature Dongshan, it was actually written by Zheng Boqi. Later, Zhu Xiang, Sun Dayu and others tried to write sonnets. (See “Preface” to Selected Sonnets in China, China Federation of Literary and Art

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Originated from the Italian folk poems, this poetic style reached its peak with strict metrical rules in the 14th century through the efforts of masters such as Dante and Petrarch. The phonological rhythm of a sonnet contains a strong lyricism, and its form is divided into two parts: the first part is divided into two stanzas of four lines, while the second part is divided into two stanzas of three lines or four lines plus three lines. This rhythm is often featured with “its interwoven rhythm rising and falling, gradually converging and dissolving, with intricacy and neatness”,6 making it perfect in expressing the state of contemplation and in celebrating eternal themes, such as love, God, death and thoughts about one’s destiny. Writers such as W. Shakespeare, Mrs. Browning, W. Wordsworth, P. B. Shelley and Goethe all produced great sonnets. In China, Feng Zhi was not the first to write sonnets, though in 1928, he translated a wellknown sonnet written by the French poet F. Arvers. Feng did not understand French at the time, but just liked its content. He followed his friend’s interpretation of this poem, wrote it down and included it in his second poetic anthology, Collection of Tour Northward and Other Poems. Feng himself discovered later that the form of this translation was similar to the first eight lines in each paragraph in his narrative poem “The Silkworm Goddess”. It is reasonable for Chinese poets to accept Western sonnets, as such a formal and eight-linebased poetic structure has similar aesthetic functions to that of traditional Chinese metrical poems.7 The global element in Chinese literature is a concept that I proposed,8 which refers to the process of communication between China and the world since the 20th century, in which Chinese writers and writers from other countries encounter common problems and phenomena of the world. They express their viewpoints on similar world phenomena from their differing perspectives, thus forming a series of global dialogues on the basis of equality. The theme of global elements may come from the influences of the West, or it may be independent thoughts and writings on the same phenomena by intellectuals from different cultures in the absence of communication. The point is that it does not refer to a general acceptance of foreign influences, but rather Publishers, 1990, pp. 6–7. Also, it is available in Modern Poets and Their Genres edited by Qian Guangpei and Xiang Yuan, People’s Literature Publishing House, 1982, p. 72.) 6 See Li Guangtian, “Poems of Meditation”, in Feng Zhi and His World, edited by Feng Yaoping, Hebei Education Press, 2001, pp. 25–26. 7 Dr. Erwin Wickert once said in his praise at the ceremony awarding Professor Feng Zhi the “Literature and Art Award” at the Federal German International Exchange Center, “There is even a new claim that the sonnet was also introduced to the Western world from China via Persia.” (See The Complete Works of Feng Zhi, Vol. 5, Hebei Education Press, 1999, p. 209.) 8 See the chapter “Global Elements in Chinese Literature of the 20th century” in this book.

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to how writers think and express themselves in a global setting to constitute meaning-making dialogues with the world. The history of the modern Chinese poetic movement can be said to have developed under the influence of a series of global elements, in which Feng Zhi’s poetic writings were particularly prominent. Feng began to write poems inspired by German romantic literature when he was studying at Peking University in the 1920s. His two early anthologies Songs of Yesterday and Collection of Tour Northward and Other Poems are imitations of Western poetic forms. A series of narrative poems in Songs of Yesterday are “based on local folktales and ancient legends of the country. The content is national, while the form and style are similar to the Western ballads.”9 Lu Xun once favored Feng’s poems, referring to him as “the most outstanding lyric poet in China”. He also made insightful comments in magazines such as Qiancao (English: Hidden Grass) and Chenzhong (English: The Sunken Bell) founded by Feng Zhi and his friends. Lu said that these magazines “not only absorb foreign nutrition, but also explore their own soul, using the eyes and voices of the heart to gaze upon the world and to sing for lonely hearts songs of truth and beauty.” Lu also referred to this “foreign nutrition” as the “juice of the end of the century, arranged by O. Wilde, F. Nietzsche, C. Baudelaire, L. Andreyev and others.”10 The “juice of the end of the century” referred to here is also noticeable in Feng Zhi’s writings.11 However, Feng Zhi did not follow this career trajectory that seemed bright. With the completion of Collection of Tour Northward and Other Poems in 1928, he chose to study in Germany in 1930. From 1928 to 1930, he did not write much. During his sojourn in Germany, he almost stopped his writing. In 1935, he earned his Ph.D. and returned home to teach at the high school of Tongji University. Until 1941, his literary achievements were almost nil. Later, Feng himself tried to explain this crisis by saying that after 1928 “I continued to write poems. In spite of limited progress in wording and techniques, I could 9

See Feng Zhi, “Reply at the Ceremony of ‘Literature and Art Award’ at The Federal German International Exchange Center”, in The Complete Works of Feng Zhi, Vol. 5, p. 196. 10 See Lu Xun, “Preface to Chinese New Literature Series · Novels (Collection II)”, in The Complete Works of Lu Xun, Vol. 6, People’s Literature Publishing House, 1981, pp. 242–243. 11 What Lu Xun referred to here as the “juice of the ‘end of the century’” is not malicious, which seemed to refer to the work of the English painter Aubrey Beardsley. Feng Zhi’s famous short lyric poem “Snake” was based on a painting by Beardsley. Feng himself once explained this, “There is a hundred-and-twenty-years’ gap between Goethe’s Die Leiden des jungen Werther (English: The Sorrows of Young Werther) in the 18th century and Beardsley’s paintings in the late 19th century, which are very different in nature. However, both Beardsley’s works and The Sorrows of Young Werther were once popular in China in the 1920s, as if there was a kinship relationship between them.” (See The Complete Works of Feng Zhi, Vol. 5, p. 197.)

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not attain a new realm, which trapped me mentally and in my writing. I start to realize my thin roots and my shallow understanding of the world. By the 1930s, I almost stopped writing poems.”12 Later, “from 1930 to 1935, I studied in Germany. I read, took exams and absorbed Western culture. I was divorced from reality. After returning home in 1935, I was also alienated from the reality in China and had no direct feelings, hence I wrote little. In the 1940s during the War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression, I was in Kunming. This lived experience and reminiscence of the past became my inspiration for The Collection of Sonnets.”13 It is notable that Feng Zhi particularly emphasized that he was so “divorced from reality” and “alienated from the reality in China” that he could not produce good poems. Such interpretation sounded reluctant and largely acceptable. Later, Feng wrote his famous poems such as The Collection of Sonnets, Wu Zixu, and Shanshui (English: Mountains and Rivers) during his stay in Kunming, which demonstrated no greater contact with the social reality either. In the period when his passion for writing was like a waterfall, he revealed little about his insights into the social reality, while his thoughts and actions basically reflected his mindset during his student sojourn in Germany. Feng was reshaped by Germany’s excellent elite culture, which thoroughly transformed a Chinese lyric poet. Feng himself was like a bee collecting nectar from flowers. After persistent brewing and transformation, the libation was realized in 1941. This was the result of Feng’s long ideological exploration, accumulation of experience and observation of the world. Once the subjective fullness overflows, the miracle of writing will follow. Chinese writers and poets are often “short-lived”. After writing a couple of stirring pieces in the early years of their career, they fall quickly like a shooting star. Here I do not refer to their physical life but to their artistic career. Trapped by fame and reputation, many writers and poets could no longer produce good works; instead, they slept on their laurels for the rest of their lives with plenty of junk work. Such tragedies are fairly common in the Chinese literary world and may be attributed to the fact that these famous writers were no longer in close contact with reality. This is actually an excuse used to conceal their subjective responsibilities, or they have limited talents. Why were they brilliant in their early career paths but ran out of talent later? The answer can be found from Feng Zhi’s writing paths. Inspired by the experience of the great German poet Rainer Maria Rilke (1875–1926), Feng Zhi said, “Didn’t I always think of poetry as a burst of emotions? In Die Aufzeichnungen des Malte Laurids Brigge (English: The Notebook 12 13

See Feng Zhi, “Reply at the Ceremony of ‘Literature and Art Award’ at The Federal German International Exchange Center”, in The Complete Works of Feng Zhi, Vol. 5, p. 198. See Feng Zhi, “On Poetic Creation”, in The Complete Works of Feng Zhi, Vol. 5, p. 245.

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of Malte Laurids Brigge), Rilke commented that ‘verses are not, as people imagine, simply feelings (we have these soon enough); they are experiences.’”14 This is an important poetic theory by Rilke: poetry is not, in other words, merely a product of feelings. Emotionally keen and chaotic, young writers are more likely to produce good works when facing reality; however, their passion-based writing may diminish with age and declining emotional strength. Rilke was keenly aware of this and proposed the argument “Verses are experiences” by stipulating “viewing” as the leading method of accumulation. In his only fulllength novel, entitled Die Aufzeichnungen des Malte Laurids Brigge, there are wonderful discussions on this aspect as follows: Man sollte warten damit und Sinn und Süßigkeit sammeln ein ganzes Leben lang und ein langes womöglich, und dann, ganz zum Schluß, vielleicht könnte man dann zehn Zeilen schreiben, die gut sind. Denn Verse sind nicht, wie die Leute meinen, Gefühle (die hat man früh genug), – es sind Erfahrungen. Um eines Verses willen muß man viele Städte sehen, Menschen und Dinge, man muß die Tiere kennen, man muß fühlen, wie die Vögel fliegen, und die Gebärde wissen, mit welcher die kleinen Blumen sich auftun am Morgen. [……] Man muß Erinnerungen haben an viele Liebesnächte, [……] Und es genügt auch noch nicht, daß man Erinnerungen hat. Man muß sie vergessen können, wenn es viele sind, und man muß die große Geduld haben, zu warten, daß sie wiederkommen. Denn die Erinnerungen selbst sind es noch nicht. Erst wenn sie Blut werden in uns, Blick und Gebärde, namenlos und nicht mehr zu unterscheiden von uns selbst, erst dann kann es geschehen, daß in einer sehr seltenen Stunde das erste Wort eines Verses aufsteht in ihrer Mitte und aus ihnen ausgeht.15 (English:) One ought to wait and gather sense and sweetness a whole life long, and a long life if possible, and then, quite at the end, one might perhaps be able to write ten good lines. For verses are not, as people imagine, simply feelings (we have these soon enough); they are experiences. In order to write a single verse, one must see many cities, and men and things; one 14

See Feng Zhi, “Reply at the Ceremony of ‘Literature and Art Award’ at The Federal German International Exchange Center”, in The Complete Works of Feng Zhi, Vol. 5, p. 199. 15 Rainer Maria Rilke, „Die Aufzeichnungen des Malte Laurids Brigge“, in: Rainer Maria Rilke, Sämtliche Werke in 12 Bänden, Bd. 11, Frankfurt am Main: Insel 1975, S. 723–725.

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must get to know animals and the flight of birds, and the gestures that the little flowers make when they open out to the morning. […] There must be memories of many nights of love, […] And still it is not yet enough to have memories. One must be able to forget them when they are many and one must have the immense patience to wait until they come again. For it is not the memories themselves that count. Only when they have turned to blood within us, to glance and gesture, nameless and no longer to be distinguished from ourselves – only then can it happen that in a most rare hour the first word of a poem arises in their midst and goes forth from them.16 Rilke’s own writing practice proved his theory. Since verses are experiences, experience requires long years of painstaking accumulation before success comes. Like Feng Zhi, Rilke also experienced ten years of silence before his next heyday. After the publication of Die Aufzeichnungen des Malte Laurids Brigge in 1910, Rilke encountered his nadir in writing. Except for a few pieces of elegies in 1912, he remained silent for more than a decade, accumulating his interpretation of this world – “Nur ein Schritt, und mein tiefstes Elend würde Seligkeit sein.”17 (English: One more step forward, and my bottomless suffering will be turned into great happiness.) This was how he empowered himself with confidence. His “Aha” moment finally came in February 1922. Within one month, Rilke completed the last six songs of Duineser Elegien (English: The Duino Elegies) and Die Sonette an Orpheus (English: The Sonnets to Orpheus) (Books I and II). Altogether there were 55 poems. This month was referred to as Rilke’s “month of miracle”18 by many biographers, as he finally achieved the great poetic milestone he had been awaiting for more than a decade. Four years later, he died of leukemia. It seems awkward to understand poetry writing in this way; however, Rilke’s experience had a profound impact on Feng Zhi. It was exactly ten years 16 17 18

Rainer Maria Rilke, The Notebook of Malte Laurids Brigge, introduced by Stephen Spender, New York: Oxford University Press, 1984, pp. 18–20. (Tran. by John Linton, first pub. by Hogarth Press 1930). Some sentences are slightly modified. See Hans Egon Holthusen, Rainer Maria Rilke. In Selbstzeugnissen und Bilddokumenten, Hamburg: Rowohlt, 1958, S. 100. Literary development can be magical sometimes: the year 1922 was not only a magical year for Rilke, but also for Western modernist literature of the 20th century. This year saw the publication of The Waste Land by T. S. Eliot, Ulysses by James Joyce, and Jacob’s Room by Virginia Woolf. In this year, Paul Valéry published Charmes, which includes his “Le Cimetière marin”, Rilke finished The Duino Elegies (published in June, 1923) and Die Sonette an Orpheus (published in March, 1923), and Franz Kafka wrote Das Schloß (English: The Castle). Also in this year, Marcel Proust passed away.

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after Feng started his overseas study in Germany in 1930 that he wrote The Collection of Sonnets in 1941. There had been more than a decade of silence since his publication of Collection of Tour Northward and Other Poems in 1928. The most important event during this period was his encounter with Rilke’s poems. In September 1930, Feng Zhi studied at Heidelberg University in Germany. He recalled his university life as “during my sojourn in Germany, I liked reading Austrian poet Rilke’s works, enjoying Dutch painter van Gogh’s paintings, and attending Professor Jaspers’ lectures. I was influenced by existentialist philosophy.”19 As early as the fall in 1926, Feng by chance had access to Rilke’s prose poem “Die Weise von Liebe und Tod des Cornets Christoph Rilke” (English: “The Love and Death of Cornet Christoph Rilke”) and wrote, “To me, it was an unexpected, surprising acquisition. The splendor of colors and the clangor of tones were dominated from end to end by some secluded and mysterious sentiment, like a sudden shower in the mountains, or the sound of a cavalry running through the woods in an autumn night  …”20 It can be seen that Feng was still attracted by the romantic color in Rilke’s works. In the summer of 1930, Feng received Rilke’s Auguste Rodin as a gift from Zhou Zuoren, which was his second encounter with Rilke’s works. Their third encounter was after Feng’s arrival in Germany three months later with Feng’s changed mindset and feelings on Rilke’s works. During his days in Germany, Feng Zhi became increasingly fond of Rilke. He had planned to use Rilke’s Die Aufzeichnungen des Malte Laurids Brigge as the research topic for his dissertation, but the sudden death of his advisor forced him to turn to Novalis and his works. Feng commented while studying Die Aufzeichnungen des Malte Laurids Brigge that “… here Rilke is unfolding before us life and death, love and God, where he sings of Beethoven, Ibsen, ancient lovers and beggars in Paris. If you ask why I didn’t write poems, my answer is: There is already such a book for the world … I can’t live a good life without doing something good.”21 During his study in Germany, Feng Zhi translated two wonderful sections in Rilke’s Die Aufzeichnungen des Malte Laurids Brigge (1932, 1934), “Von der Landschaft” (English: “On Mountains and Rivers”, 1932), Briefe an einen jungen Dichter (English: Letters to a Young Poet, 1931) and “Der Panther” (English: “The Panther”, 1932). After returning to China in September 1935, in addition to teaching, Feng continued to translate and introduce Rilke. He translated Rilke’s six poems (1936), and wrote an essay 19 20 21

See Feng Zhi, “Autobiography”, in Collection of Feng Zhi’s Academic Essence, Beijing Normal University Press, 1988, p. 507. See Feng Zhi, “Rilke – the 10th Anniversary of Death”, in The Complete Works of Feng Zhi, Vol. 4, Hebei Education Press, 1999, p. 83. See Feng Zhi’s letter to Yang Hui on October 1, 1933, in The Complete Works of Feng Zhi, Vol. 12, Hebei Education Press, 1999, p. 141.

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entitled “Rilke – the 10th Anniversary of Death” (1936), to commemorate the 10th anniversary of Rilke’s death. Feng also wrote “The Translator’s Preface” (1937) to Rilke’s ten Letters to a Young Poet. Due to the empathy between Feng Zhi and Rilke,22 Feng’s translation of Rilke’s works remains aesthetically matchless in comparison with a complete translation of Rilke’s works into Chinese by other translators. Now it is time to read The Collection of Sonnets. Feng Zhi started to write under Rilke’s influence, and his so-called “bursting passion for poetic writing” after his “lived experience with reality” during the War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression was merely an excuse. Although The Collection of Sonnets is indeed a great product of Counter-Japanese War literature, the depiction of social reality did not take up a considerable part. It was as Feng himself said that “in my sonnets, what can be seen is how an intellectual treated the outside world, treated the big names he admired, and his feelings toward the nature and the living during the Counter-Japanese War.”23 What Feng depicted was what happened in his life. When his emotions sublimated his lived experiences, these trifles constituted great material for his insights into the value of life, which further became his exploration and expression of his connection with the country, the Chinese nation, the entire human race, as well as the relationship between individuals and nations in wartime. Influenced profoundly by Rilke, Feng’s thinking and expressions reflected Rilke’s thoughts and language naturally as his raw materials. Compared with the Counter-Japanese wartime poems of the time, permeated with superficial displays of emotions, his sonnets were not only abstruse, but also difficult to accept for readers at the 22

23

In what specific aspects did Rilke attract Feng Zhi, who was studying in Germany at that time? Let’s take a look at the following two paragraphs which were written by Feng Zhi to a friend in 1931: “The words in these ten letters (referring to Rilke’s ‘Ten Letters to a Young Poet’) may be unfamiliar to us modern Chinese; however, I believe that if there are still people in China who are not restricted by traditions and customs, but strive for a holistic ‘human’, then these ten letters will make him feel dear, just like food to make his flesh and blood. For me personally, with the world having such a great and beautiful soul as Rilke, I only feel the loneliness of the sea, but no longer feel the desolation of the desert.” (See Feng Zhi’s letter to Yang Hui on August 20, 1931, in The Complete Works of Feng Zhi, Vol. 12, p. 125.) “What a great, lovely man Rilke was! The more one knows about Rilke, the more one learns from him. His world was so rich and vast that it seemed as if there were no other world besides his. I wish I could try to learn and live in his world forever. Presently we need such a pure poet, such a pure person who is not affected by tradition and custom. Young people in China now lead a blind life without a guide. The vast majority of modern Chinese are so far removed from human nature that they are unable to recognize their real destiny.” (See Feng Zhi’s letter to Bauer, September 10, 1931, in The Complete Works of Feng Zhi, Vol. 12, pp. 146–147.) See Feng Zhi, “On Poetic Creation”, in The Complete Works of Feng Zhi, Vol. 5, pp. 249–250.

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time due to such weird ways of exploring lived experiences. Hence, Feng Zhi’s The Collection of Sonnets was only praised by some professors and students at the Southwest Associated University at the time. Later, it was rarely referred to officially, and even criticized by some progressive poets. Nevertheless, this anthology is a representative masterpiece of the Chinese Counter-Japanese War literature, as according to Mr. Zhu Ziqing, it “laid the foundation for China’s sonnets”.24 More importantly, Feng succeeded in positing Rilke’s writing experiences within a broader background of the Chinese Counter-Japanese War, sinicizing the form of sonnets and Rilke’s meditation. This reveals the consciousness of Chinese poets in their dialogues with world-class masters in the international context. 2 Interpreting The Collection of Sonnets The year 1941 witnessed Feng Zhi’s magical peak in poetic writing. During that time, he was living on a mountain near the city of Kunming. Since he taught classes twice a week in the city, Feng walked back and forth for around 4.7 miles each time, taking such a round trip as a stroll. He walked alone on the mountain paths, enjoying the countryside scenery and feeling he “viewed more than he used to, and thought more than he used to”. One day (probably in late winter or early spring), Feng recalled “at the time, I was not used to writing poems, … but once, on a winter afternoon, I saw several silver planes in the azure sky, which reminded me of an ancient dream of rocs. I follow the rhythm of my footsteps, uttering a rhyming poem. Upon arriving home, I wrote it down, which happened to be a variant of the sonnet. It is the eighth poem in The Collection of Sonnets, which is also the earliest and the most awkward one, as I had not written poems for so long.” Looking at planes flying in the sky, Feng Zhi developed in his heart various thoughts with the inspiration of writing poems unconsciously returning to him: “this jump-start is accidental, but I gradually feel the responsibility: there exists some experience which always haunts my mind, there are characters from whom I constantly absorb nutrients, there are also natural phenomena that endow me with inspirations. Why not show them my gratitude? I started to write a poem for everyone and everything that has a deep connection with my life: from the spirit of immortality in history to nameless village children and country women, from ancient and distant cities to the flying insects and grass on the hillside, and from an individual’s lived 24

See Zhu Ziqing, “Essays on New Poetry · The Form of Poems”, in Feng Zhi and His World, p. 31.

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experience to the common experience of the many. Sometimes I wrote two or three pieces a day, sometimes I might be trapped halfway, and restarted in quite a while. Altogether 27 pieces were composed. I became seriously sick in the fall, when I felt as if I had nothing. With my physical strength gradually recovered, I took out these pieces for review and refinement. I felt mentally relieved that a mission was fulfilled.”25 Such writing passion with mysticism was similar to Rilke’s when he was working on Duineser Elegien. In the winter of 1911–1912, Rilke lived in Schloss Duineser on the Adriatic coast. Eines Tages […] habe ihn die Beantwortung eines lästigen Briefes im Innern des Hauses festgehalten, während draußen eine heftige Bora blies und die Sonne auf ein leuchtend blaues und wie mit Silber übersponnes Meer herniederschien. Er habe sich ins Freie begeben und sei, immer noch mit jenem Brief beschäftigt, zu den Bastionen hinabgestiegen. Dort aber, wohl 200 Fuß über den Fluten der Adria, sei es ihm plötzlich gewesen, als ob im Brausen des Sturmes eine Stimme ihm zugerufen hätte: Wer, wenn ich schriee, hörte mich denn aus der Engel Ordnungen? Diese Worte habe er sogleich niedergeschrieben, und unwillkürlich, ohne sein eigenes Bemühn, hätten noch einige weitere Verse sich angereiht. Dann sei er in sein Zimmer zurückgegangen, und am Abend sei die erste Elegie vollendet gewesen.26 (English:) One day, he (Rilke) stayed in his room answering an unpleasant letter. The wind was blowing hard outside, the sun was shining on the sea, which seemed to be covered with a silver layer. He got up and walked out of the room, thinking about his answer while sauntering down to the castle below. As he climbed some 200 feet above the waves of the Adriatic, suddenly he felt as if a voice in the midst of the whistling wind were yelling at him: “Who is it among the angels listening to my roar?” He immediately wrote it down, and without much effort, he continued to add a string of verses. Then he returned. By nighttime, the first elegy was born.

25 26

See “Preface to The Collection of Sonnets”, in Songs of Yesterday edited by Wang Shengsi, Zhuhai Publishing House, 1997, pp. 284–285. Hans Egon Holthusen, Rainer Maria Rilke. In Selbstzeugnissen und Bilddokumenten, S. 108.

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It can be seen that Feng Zhi had some mysterious revelation in writing The Collection of Sonnets, and the magical enlightenment encountered by Rilke also served as an important hint, which eventually made the form of his sonnets come into his mind naturally. In spite of the strictness of sonnets, the 27 sonnets written by Feng Zhi did not stick to such fixed structure and rhythm. Feng admitted that he was inspired by the free and variegated form in Rilke’s The Sonnets to Orpheus, applying their structure to express freely what was on his mind. Sonnet Eight was written first and was further listed as the eighth piece in the later sequence. Apparently, hence, these 27 sonnets were not randomly arranged; instead, they were deliberately and consciously refined by Feng, who felt enormously grateful for this golden opportunity after long years of silence. Rather than employing this writing inspiration rashly, Feng constructed meticulously this poetic masterpiece, which served as a monument to himself and to the entire Chinese literature during the War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression. Feng Zhi’s The Collection of Sonnets was composed at one stretch and published in May 1942 by the Guilin Mingri Society. In 1949, when it was reprinted by Cultural Life Press, there were only serial numbers without titles. Noticeably, when six of these sonnets were published in the wartime Special Edition of Literature and Art Monthly on June 16, 1941, they were entitled respectively, “An Ancient Dream”, “Suburbs”, “Du Fu”, “Goethe”, “Dream”, “Good-bye”. The publication of these sonnets was of great significance to explore Feng’s intentions, as at the time Feng Zhi had completed far more than these six pieces. He particularly chose these pieces for publication in such a journal which strongly supported the Counter-Japanese War to express his belief in poetic writing. According to Feng’s rearrangement, the contents of these six sonnets are independent and interconnected, as if they were a sequence of dramas: “Sonnet: An Ancient Dream” seems to be the prologue, introducing the arrival of the poet after the transformation of the legendary roc and the meteorite into reality. “Sonnet: Suburbs” reveals the first scene, an air raid alarm encountered by the poet in the real world, who made a profound critical reflection on nationality in face of the air raid. The next two sonnets, “Du Fu” and “Goethe”, praised Du Fu and Goethe respectively, who served as the poet’s spiritual idols from the East and the West during this very hard historical time period and traced the source of the poet’s spiritual strength. The fifth sonnet, entitled “Dream”, echoed the prelude “An Ancient Dream”, exploring the connection between the individual and the nation, and the self and others. This sonnet should be regarded as the poet’s “new dream” in the reality of the Counter-Japanese War. The last sonnet, entitled “Good-bye”, reveals the poet’s determination to leave his family for new work and a new life. From the perspective of the theme, these sonnets form a series of their own, namely, divine/mundane, East/West,

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and reunion/farewell. This complete process, with a distinct personal imprint, reveals Feng’s spiritual journey faced with sufferings and tragic struggles during this difficult time. With the completion of all 27 sonnets, Feng canceled the original subtitles. Later, when The Collection of Sonnets was included in Selected Works of Feng Zhi, Feng made considerable modifications to his sonnets and added subheadings to each. However, these subheadings were used carelessly for the sake of distinction, as many were merely the first line of the sonnet. Here I would like to clarify the versions of Feng Zhi’s sonnets and articles employed in this chapter: The Collection of Sonnets and Mountains and Rivers, published by Cultural Life Press in 1949 and 1947 respectively, are now included in Songs of Yesterday edited by Wang Shengsi and published by Zhuhai Publishing House in 1997 as part of The Echo of the Century series. Feng’s other works employed in this chapter are from The Complete Works of Feng Zhi, published by Hebei Education Publishing House in 1999. Except for using Dominic Cheung’s translation of Feng’s twenty-seven sonnets27 (with minor changes done by the author and the translator), all of Feng’s works were translated by the translator herself. Dominic Cheung’s translation of Feng’s twenty-seven sonnets was also based on Feng’s version published by Cultural Life Press in 1949. Now let us peruse the texts of these 27 sonnets. Movement 1: A Solemn Prelude to Immortality in Nirvana (Sonnets One to Four) If Sonnet Eight is the earliest and most awkward that Feng ever uttered, then what is now listed as Sonnet One should be an elaborate prologue. Feng aspired to announce to the world that his creative life had begun again.

2.1

Sonnet One We are ready to receive profoundly, Unexpected mysteries, In those prolix times; the sudden appearance of a comet, the whirling, gusty wind: At this very moment, our lives Are in the first embrace, Joys and sorrows come quickly to our eyes Solidifying into towering forms. 27 Dominic Cheung, Feng Zhi, Boston: Twayne Publishers (A Division of G. K. Hall & Co.), 1979, Appendix I. (Twayne’s world authors series; TWAS 515: China)

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We praise tiny insects Braving the conjugation; Resisting imminent danger, Their wondrous lives brought to an end. Our sole lives conceive The whirling wind, the coming of a comet. What exactly are the “mysteries” that the poet is so devoutly prepared to receive? And what is the “comet” and the “gusty wind” that emerged suddenly after his long wait? The answers may not be difficult, as the poet was filled with fear at the sudden arrival of Muses in his life: he resorted to these imageries to express his surprise, ecstasy and fear. After years of silence, he embarked again on writing. The beginning verse in Sonnet One reveals such deep gratitude. In his sonnets, Feng Zhi constantly changed the objects and their identities. The metaphor of “first embrace” in life undoubtedly refers metaphorically to the embrace of life and the god of poetry, though we need to remember that Feng used the plural form “we” instead of “I”. It refers to a pair of lovers (intimate couple) who were recalling the unforgettable moment when they embraced each other in life; it is the joy and gratitude when love comes to life again. At this time, the poet becomes an individual who shares his happiness in love. Stanzas 3 and 4 are integral, taking the tragic love and death of insects as an example, with the addition of a new factor – the innuendo of war in reality. War is also the ascent and fission of life. The one-time transient glory of life under the regard of death is like the conjugation of insects, letting life meet heroic destruction in the climax of reproduction (reproduction and eternity) and sex (the glory of life). Some researchers argue that this sonnet is about life and death. The completion of life is the achievement of death, which reflects a strong philosophical sense. However, in expressing this theme, I think what is more important is the spiritual ecstasy of the “resurrection” expressed by the poet, that is, the revelry of the return of Muses. War makes lives perish in glory like insects, so does love. Only when lovers become truly selfless, can they integrate each other’s lives and succumb to death in joy. Doesn’t real artistic creation come at the expense of life for the favor of Muses? Other than making people sad, death in revelry presents an eternal glory. Rilke died shortly after completing his elegies and sonnets, and Feng Zhi seemed to have a similar premonition that he would become seriously ill after completing such a monument in his life. This is the price of life, as he aspired to invest his life in his

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writing with the same attitude toward war and love, which can also be interpreted as he intended to use the ecstasy of writing and love to celebrate those immortal lives sacrificed for the nation in the war. In this way, the multiple imageries of life, love and homeland are constructed in his sonnets, with the repetition of the last line emphasizing the theme of these multiple imageries, thus serving as a rather grand prologue to this collection of sonnets. This sonnet is well-written, as the imagery of insects in the third stanza is not only novel but also powerful, refreshing the hymnal imageries in the first two stanzas with a broadened realm. Based on the rubric of sonnets set by Wen Yiduo,28 it serves beautifully as a transition, making the structure of this sonnet complete with a three-dimensional and sculptural sense. Nevertheless, not all of Feng’s sonnets were as neatly structured, which will be addressed further. Sonnet Two What falls from our bodies We allow to turn into dust: We align ourselves in time like autumn trees, each Offering leaves and belated blossoms to the autumn wind, that our trunks may stretch into frigid winters; We align ourselves with nature: molted cicada 28

Wen Yiduo stated in his article entitled “On Sonnet” that “The strictest sonnet goes with eight lines in its first stanza and six lines in the second stanza. Among the first eight lines, each four lines constitute a smaller stanza; while in the following six lines, each three lines constitute another smaller stanza, or the first four lines constitute a smaller stanza, whilst the remaining two lines form another smaller stanza. Altogether there are four small stanzas…. The four steps in composing a sonnet is as follows: the first stanza begins the entire text, the second follows the previous stanza with more elaborations, the third proceeds with arguments from differing perspectives, and the fourth closes the entire writing. Hence, it makes sense that the punctuation at the end of 8th line should be a period or something like it. The second stanza follows naturally the beginning one, but the third can not be connected directly to the second, otherwise it sounds awkward. Probably the beginning stanzas are comparatively easier to write, whilst the last two are more difficult; however, the spirit of a quality sonnet usually rests on the last two stanzas. Simply put, an ideal sonnet should be a perfectly circular structure. The most taboo is straight-line writing.” (See The Complete Works of Wen Yiduo, Vol. 3, Beijing: The Joint Publishing Company Ltd., 1982, p. 447.) The art of sonnet as Wen Yiduo understood was not its sole artistic principle. Rilke’s sonnet was a variant, whose cross-line expression exerted an important influence on Feng Zhi’s writing.

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Leaving its discarded skin in soil and mud; We arranged ourselves for that Coming death, a passage of the song, Falling from the corpus of the music And only the body remains, Transformed, a series of silent mountains. Generally, researchers believe Sonnet Two continues the theme of death and even celebrates the beauty of death. In my opinion, Feng’s real intention was to emphasize eternality through the celebration of death, or, he praised the eternal movement of life in Sonnet Two, making it correspond to Sonnet One. Sonnet One describes the revival of life with dynamic ecstasy, while Sonnet Two expresses the eternity of life with static death. What is eternity? It is a great movement of life that constantly sheds impurities. The beginning line of the first stanza in Sonnet Two starts off with question “What falls from our bodies we allow to turn into dust,” a series of metaphors as answers then follow: Trees offering leaves and belated blossoms in the autumn wind, a molted cicada leaving its discarded skin in soil and mud, and a passage of the song falling from the corpus of music  … Life is a process of transition between life and death. Death does not merely mean the end of life as is usually believed, but indicates the completion of existence. How lifelike is the imagery that autumn trees with fallen leaves and belated blossoms better stretch their branches for harsh winter! So is the symbol of eternity which lies in the passage of the song falling from the corpus of music, transforming “to a series of silent mountains”. The eternity of life means the form of life that develops in the process of death, metamorphosis and regeneration. Trees grow in the process of shedding flowers and leaves, cicadas and moths grow in the process of molting their skins, and “we” also need to constantly shed impurities and desert them as dust. As an intellectual who grew during the May 4th New Literature Movement, Feng Zhi constantly explored the War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression faced by the Chinese nation from an enlightened perspective. Like insects braving the ecstasy of copulation for eternity of life, a great nation that sheds its impurities and negativity in the war will attain immortality in the nirvana of self-immolation. Therefore, “Feng’s voice reveals not only his detachment, but also can be referred to as a persistent positive attitude.”29 By comparison, Sonnet Two differs from Sonnet One in terms of artistic expressions. Sonnet One presents a strict rhythm, a rigorous structure, and natural transitions. On the other hand, Sonnet Two embraces a relaxed rhythm and 29

See Tang Shi, “Feng Zhi, the Meditator”, in Feng Zhi and His World, p. 35.

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rich metaphors. Its four stanzas are integral, generating a continuous artistic melody. This is consistent with Feng’s celebration of the theme of metamorphosis and eternity. What follows the celebration of the revival and eternity of life are Sonnet Three and Sonnet Four, in which the imageries of eucalyptus and cudweed form a striking contrast: Sonnet Three You, soughing jade tree in the autumn wind, Build a solemn temple of music in my ears; let me Enter reverently. You, again, sky-piercing tower, Rising, like the body of a saint before me, Sanctify a clamorous city. You, constantly shedding your bark, I see you rise midst the withering season. From intersecting meadow paths I turn to you, my guide, and say “Long live forever,” that I, by inches, Wish to rot in earth, covered by your roots. The imagery of eucalyptus in the field was once Feng’s inspiration:30 quietly, a eucalyptus stands amid the meadow paths before us underneath the stars, stretching itself upward, as if growing into the arms of starry night. What a beautiful scene! The imageries used in Lines Two and Three in the beginning stanza can be regarded as the embodiment of Number 1 of Book I in Rilke’s The Sonnets to Orpheus:

30

In his prose entitled “A Vanished Mountain Village” in Mountains and Rivers, Feng Zhi once again left some grateful memories for eucalyptus with his poetic language: “Amidst rises the tallest tree in the botanical world, eucalyptus. Sometimes on a moonlit night, the moon coats the leaves silvery when they are shaken by the gentle breeze. We watch it grow every moment, as if it were taking our bodies, our surroundings and even the entire mountain with it. And when we look at it for long, we develop a creepy feeling that our souls can hardly bear. It is like facing a noble and austere saint; you either go with him or you leave him. There is no compromise.” (See Songs of Yesterday, pp. 205–206.)

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Da stieg ein Baum. O reine Übersteigung! O Orpheus singt! O hoher Baum im Ohr! Und alles schwieg. Doch selbst in der Verschweigung ging neuer Anfang, Wink und Wandlung vor. Tiere aus Stille drangen aus dem klaren gelösten Wald von Lager und Genist; und da ergab sich, daß sie nicht aus List und nicht aus Angst in sich so leise waren, sondern aus Hören. Brüllen, Schrei, Geröhr schien klein in ihren Herzen. Und wo eben kaum eine Hütte war, dies zu empfangen, ein Unterschlupf aus dunkelstem Verlangen mit einem Zugang, dessen Pfosten beben, – da schufst du ihnen Tempel im Gehör.31 The English translation is as follows: There the tree rises. Oh pure surpassing! Oh Orpheus sings! Oh great tree of sound! And all is silent, And from this silence arise New beginnings, intimations, changings. From the stillness animals throng, out of the clear Snapping forest of lair and nest; And thus they are stealthy not from cunning Not from fear But to hear. And in their hearts the howling, the cry, The stag-call seem too little. And where before Was but the rudest shelter to receive these, A refuge fashioned out of darkest longing Entered, tremulo, the doorpost aquiver, There You have fashioned them a temple for their hearing. 31

See Rainer Maria Rilke, „Die Sonette an Orpheus“, in: Rainer Maria Rilke, Sämtliche Werke in 12 Bänden, Bd. 2, Frankfurt am Main: Insel 1975, S. 731.

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Orpheus is a poet and musician in Greek mythology, whose melody is so intoxicating that it often enchants beasts, even trees and rocks. This is a wellknown myth. In this poem, all animals come out of the jungle listening to the singing of Orpheus, who created a temple of music for them. Rilke created a rich poetic imagery, comparing Orpheus’ wonderful singing to a great tree. His superb singing creates a pure space, like a tree that stretches upward, detaching everything from this world. In Feng’s writing, the soughing jade tree also grows like music, building its solemn temple, letting “me” enter while listening. It is also like a saint, sublimating the hustle and bustle of the whole city. What a similar scene! When it proceeds to Stanza 3, it returns to the dialectical imagery of “molting and growth” of life that Feng celebrated in the Sonnet Two. The towering tree continues to grow, reminding us of great nations in the war, thus making “I turn to you, my guide” easier to understand. Here again comes Feng’s dual identity: in Rilke’s sonnets, Orpheus is a symbol of the poet himself, who should be like Orpheus’ singing, “pure surpassing”, in creating a pure space. When the soughing jade tree became the spiritual guide of the poet (Feng Zhi), he saw its alternative strength, sanctifying a clamorous city like a saint. This reveals Feng’s enlightenment conception deep in his consciousness: war has sublimated the nation’s original qualities. In the closing stanza, we again read Feng’s alternative identity facing the jade tree: “‘Long live forever,’ that I, by inches, wish to rot in earth, covered by your roots.” This not only reveals Feng’s humbleness facing the great tree, but also his willingness to transmute in the soil beneath the roots to maintain the growth of the tree with his flesh and blood. What is the source of this imagery? Let us read the first two stanzas of Number 14 in Book I of Rilke’s The Sonnets to Orpheus: Wir gehen um mit Blume, Weinblatt, Frucht. Sie sprechen nicht die Sprache nur des Jahres. Aus Dunkel steigt ein buntes Offenbares und hat vielleicht den Glanz der Eifersucht der Toten an sich, die die Erde stärken. Was wissen wir von ihrem Teil an dem? Es ist seit lange ihre Art, den Lehm mit ihrem freien Marke zu durchmärken.32

32

See Rainer Maria Rilke, „Die Sonette an Orpheus“, in: Rainer Maria Rilke, Sämtliche Werke in 12 Bänden, Bd. 2, Frankfurt am Main: Insel 1975, S. 739.

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The English translation is as follows: We make our way midst flowers, vine leaves, fruit. But their speech is not only of the seasons. A many-colored revelation, they step forth from darkness And have perhaps the flash of jealousy Of the dead on them, of they who give vigor to the earth. And what do we know of the role the dead play? For so long it has been their nature deeply To tincture the loam with their dispensed marrow … Rilke wrote flowers, vine leaves, fruit. However, it is the dead who give their vigor to the earth, tincturing the loam with their dispensed marrow. They might have the flash of jealousy, but it is their generosity that breeds such manycolored revelation. When the soughing jade tree is associated with the imagery of the nation, Feng’s humbleness and patriotism become natural. Rilke’s philosophical concept of transcending the earthly life and death is hence activated by the spirit of dedication within the broader context of the Chinese nation’s Counter-Japanese War, making this sonnet beautiful and solemn. Sonnet Four Often, when I think of life I want to pray before you; You, a bunch of pale grass Have not failed your name. But you exist apart from all names, Live a minute life, Never fail dignity and purity, then quietly complete your life and death. All description, all tumult Comes close to you; some wither, Others join your quietude. Your great pride Is achieved in your denial. I pray before you, for life.

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Apparently, Feng did not simply mean to praise cudweed (also known as pale grass), but a kind of life attitude, as he provided a detailed explanation of this sonnet: I love these white fuzzy flowers that have evolved from leaves, modestly mixed midst the tangled grass. Within this modesty there is no humility, only purity, no reservedness, but strength. Does anyone wish to know the significance of this grass? I would like to show him: on the top of a hill in the setting sun, sat a village girl, who was absorbed in sewing. Allowing her sheep to graze on the slopes far and near, surrounded by hills and trees, she never raised her head to look around, accompanied by bunches of cudweed amidst other weeds. Upon seeing this, I was on my way home from the city. I felt all the trouble I had brought with me turn into dry leaves of late autumn, falling naturally. This makes me realize how a minute life may remain detached to quietly bear the entire universe on his own.33 Feng Zhi explored the theme of ordinary life in the War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression. If the soughing jade tree represents grandeur and solemnity, then the humble, tiny, unnamed pale grass, along with the nobility of its white fluff, constitutes a range of poetic metaphors, referring clearly to the ordinary lives sacrificed during the war. In order to illustrate his ideal, Feng created the imagery of a shepherdess. By comparing the purity of a minute life with the corruption and pompousness of reality, he praised the former for its dedication to the entire universe. Ordinary lives are modest, hence the greatness they symbolize is accomplished in their self-denial. With the multiple poetic imageries conveyed in Feng Zhi’s sonnets, what he cared about most was the philosophy of life and life attitude. He was well aware that life is difficult and lonely. “If anyone wishes to live a real life, he must separate himself from the conventional customs of life to live independently and to deal with all difficulties in life, just like our ancestors did. No alternative is possible.”34 Hence, a minute life like cudweed may complete its life and death, detached from false praise and pompousness so as to “quietly bear the entire universe on his own.” The rhetoric “on his own” reveals loneliness of life. Whether it is bunches of pale grass or a shepherdess in the field, 33 See Feng Zhi, “A Vanished Mountain Village”, Songs of Yesterday, p. 205. 34 See Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet, translated by Feng Zhi, Beijing: Sanlian Bookstore, 1994, “Translator’s Preface”, p. 3.

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what is seen is not collective imageries but independent and isolated imageries of life, which reveal the life attitude that Feng felt from Rilke. In Feng’s letter to his friend on April 10, 1931, he wrote, “By reading Rilke, I feel humbled before plants and proud of humans … Rilke makes me realize plants’ fair qualities, such as humility, enduring the wind and snow, enjoying sunshine, blossoming in springtime, and bearing fruits in fall, no pompousness nor regrets … which is indeed a good example for us.”35 In Rilke’s sonnets, flowers, plants, fruits, trees, birds and the like, are what he celebrates most. To realize a great revival, men should live harmoniously with nature so as to join together in profound serenity. It is like a shepherd’s life, “Er rührt sich nicht; wie ein Blinder steht er unter den Schafen, wie ein Ding, das sie genau kennen, und seine Kleidung ist schwer wie Erde und verwittert wie Stein. Er hat kein eigenes, besonderes Leben. Sein Leben ist das jener Ebene und jenes Himmels und jener Tiere, die ihn umgeben. Er hat keine Erinnerung, denn seine Eindrücke sind Regen und Wind und Mittag und Sonnenuntergang […]”36 (English: “Quietly, he stands midst his sheep like a blind man, like an object so familiar to them. His clothes, weather-beaten like a rock, are as heavy as the earth. He has no special life of his own. His life is the life of the plain, the life of the sky, and the life of the animals around him. Nor does he have memories, as his memories are rain, wind, noon, and sunset …”) Immersed in the quietude of the world, the shepherd is bearing the earth, the sky, the sunlight, the rain and dew, and the vastness, which symbolizes “bearing the entire universe on his own” in Feng’s words. Movement 2: Muses Befalling the World – Sketch and Warning (Sonnets Five to Seven) This movement contains three sketch essays that express what the poet (Feng Zhi) has heard and thought in the real world. Movement 1 depicts seamless interactions between his mixed feelings toward life and his feelings toward the war within the broader social context. In this movement, Feng returned to intellectuals’ enlightenment stance during the May 4th New Culture Movement, raising warnings to the world. Apparently, he saw soberly the cruelty of wartime life, realizing how people should break through their own limitations in their suffering. This can be referred to as his earthly journey. Interestingly, such a journey began with his return from Europe, that is, these three sonnets

2.2

35 36

See Feng Zhi’s letter to Yang Hui on April 10, 1931, in The Complete Works of Feng Zhi, Vol. 12, p. 121. Rainer Maria Rilke, “Worpswede”, in: Rainer Maria Rilke, Sämtliche Werke in 12 Bänden, Bd. 9, Frankfurt am Main: Insel 1975, S. 19.

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reflect Feng’s entire insights into reality since his return in the autumn of 1935, not just the reality after the outbreak of the Counter-Japanese War in 1937. Sonnet Five I shall never forget That water city of the West. Symbol of the human world, Thousands of collective solitudes. Each is an island, Each seeking a friend in another. Your hand touches mine, A bridge across the water. You smile at me, A window opens From an island on the other side. In the deep and silent night, Windows close And bridges empty. Feng chose Venice as the starting point for his earthly journey, as it was the last stop of his European study tour and the starting point for his return to China. There are other personal reasons. According to Feng’s wife, Yao Kekun, she and Feng had been to Venice twice. The first time in October 1932, when she was traveling to Europe by an Italian passenger liner, Feng picked her up in Venice. The second was when Feng finished his studies and they went to Paris for their wedding in July 1935. They then traveled to Italy by car, staying in Venice again for two days before they took a passenger liner back to Shanghai.37 I always feel that Feng’s sonnets are filled with memories of his deep personal feelings. Since Venice is a city with Feng’s personal memories, it is reasonable that he depicted this European city in Sonnet Five before he turned to the broader social settings during the Counter-Japanese War in Sonnets Six and Seven. Just 37

Yao Kekun recalled in Feng Zhi and I that “We ended up in Venice. Three years ago, Feng Zhi met me here, and now we would return home together from here. No place in Italy is more intimate to us than Venice. We had only two days in Venice. When we boarded the passenger liner from Italy to Shanghai, we were very much attached to its boats, its bridges and the pigeons on Marco Polo plaza. They all seemed to be asking, ‘When will you come back?’” (See Yao Kekun, Feng Zhi and I, Guangxi Education Press, 1994, pp. 45–46.)

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like Movement 1, which depicts Feng’s spiritual revival with the ecstasy of love, Movement 2 depicts his memory of the wedding tour as the starting point of his earthly journey. Hence, in Sonnet Five, Feng’s words in the second person that “your hand touches mine” and “you smile at me” are filled with relaxation and joy, thus contrasting naturally the isolation and communication between people. Apparently, the isolation between people, along with the desire for and barriers to communication, is also the starting point of Feng’s criticism of Chinese nationality. This reveals his insights into the resistance of the nation to its progress since he returned to China, insights which also followed the enlightenment ideas since the May 4th New Literature Movement. Hence, he produced three sonnets to discuss this issue from different angles. Even in Sonnet Five, his most joyful poem, the shadow of his emotional fluctuations can be felt since Stanza 4: he feared that when night came, solitude would resume. Such fear returns in Sonnet Seven: Sonnet Seven Under a warm sun We came to the country, Meandering rivers Drawn into a great sea. The same awakening in our hearts, A similar fate upon our shoulders. A common god who worries over us; Till the danger passes, Diverging streets Again absorb us: Sea scattering into rivers. This sonnet is about people running from air raid sirens. In the life-and-death moments during the Counter-Japanese War, enemy planes and artillery fire constantly threatened lives. People were experiencing similar sufferings, and similar environments seemed to eliminate the distance between individuals

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and unite them together. However, once such a threat was gone, the distance between them reappeared, making them detached individuals again. Noticeably, Feng did not exaggerate the panic of running scared in real life and the cruelty of enemy air raids and bombing. In Line 1 of Stanza 1 in Sonnet Seven, he used “under a warm sun” to depict the atmosphere when people were running for shelter in winter, so as to highlight their strength and joy like “meandering rivers drawn into a great sea.” In Line 1 of Stanza 3 he wrote about “a common god,” which reveals his unique insight: since we are sheltered by this “common god,” we do not need to be afraid of the air raid, as long as we are united we can still be happy. However, once they become isolated and selfish, even this god can hardly help, hence, this god is worried about man. We also have reason to believe that the fear of this “common god” is also Feng’s concern for the Chinese people in the Counter-Japanese War.38 Since my intention was to emphasize meaning-making connections between Sonnets Five and Seven, for the convenience of writing, I skipped over Sonnet Six. However, it is important to insert a tragic scene for sake of a universal significance between these two scenarios. That is why in Sonnet Six, Feng depicted the plight of a country lad and a farmer’s wife who had lost everything in the war: Sonnet Six I often see in the plain a country lad, a farmer’s wife Crying to a silent sky, A certain punishment perhaps, A broken toy, A husband’s death, The illness of a son. Incessant crying. All life framed; And outside, No life, no world.

38 Stanza 3 in Sonnet Seven was later revised by Feng Zhi and reads as follows, “要爱惜这 个警醒，/要爱惜这个运命，/不要到危险过去” (English: “Cherish this awakening, / Cherish this fate, / Do not wait till the danger has passed”). Obviously, it turns out that “a common god” in this sonnet is the poet himself.

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I feel their tears, Flowing since ancient times For a hopeless universe. Sonnet Six reads like a painting by Jean-François Millet or van Gogh with the background of war. Isn’t it a microcosm of the havoc of war? This is a tragic scene that Feng saw when he returned from Europe, and he further commented that such sadness was “framed.” As for the mourner, the farmer’s wife was deeply embedded in the frame of her own grief, while she was unable to feel the even greater grief outside the frame. Hence, she seemed to have taken on all the sadness of human beings since ancient times, facing a hopeless universe with unprecedented tears. Apparently, Feng was concerned not about country lads or farmers’ wives who had suffered the scourge of war, but about their isolated existence and the great sadness it generated. This best manifested Feng’s enlightenment stance of mourning their misfortune whilst scorning their cowardice. Therefore, the extension of his worries from struggling country lads and farmers’ wives to the entire nation bred the “common god” in Sonnet Seven who had deep concerns about those who ran for shelter. 2.3

Movement 3: The Poet’s Spiritual Journey – Enlightenment to Self-Redemption (Sonnets Eight to Fourteen) Sonnet Eight It is an ancient dream from the past And now there’s this disordered world, I wish to fly on a roc and chat with the peaceful stars. A thousand-year-old dream, like an aged man, Anticipates only the best progeny, Now, someone flies to the stars But doesn’t forget the disordered world. They want to learn How to circulate and to haul in The stellate order of this world, And like a flash, they plunge into the void. Now the old dream’s a meteor Lying in some deserted mountain, far from the sea.

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Sonnet Eight was the first sonnet written by Feng, which is also the most awkward piece. However, Feng inserted it after Sonnet Seven, which depicts people in the panic of running for shelter, with a natural connection in terms of the content and a natural transition in terms of the artistic conception. In Sonnet Seven, there is no direct description of enemy planes and bombing, whilst in Sonnet Eight, Feng wrote about a plane hovering over the sky. This Chinese military aircraft aroused Feng’s association – “I wish to fly on a roc,” and further referred to it as “an ancient dream from the past,” which can be traced back to the ancient philosopher Zhuangzi.39 Stanza 1 of Sonnet Eight reveals Feng’s recollection of an ancient dream. In spite of the greatness of Zhuangzi’s dream of the universe, it still reveals his negative attitude toward the world: because of “this disordered world,” “I” wish to escape and “chat with the peaceful stars.” Changing from a kun (an enormous legendary fish) into a roc has been a dream of the Chinese people for thousands of years since Zhuangzi, as they remain eager to fly freely in the universe. Feng Zhi turned to reality in Stanza 2. The Chinese air force was worthy of the excellent descendants of this ancient nation, who defended bravely their motherland by piloting silver “rocs”. In contrast to Zhuangzi, although they realized the ideal of flying in the sky, they never forgot the sufferings of the nation and the struggles of her people, hence their mission was to capture “the stellate order of this world.” This ancient dream from the past has been transformed into the new dream of the revival of the nation, leaving only a lifeless meteor lying in some deserted mountain. It does make sense that Feng put Sonnet Eight as Number 1 when he published the six poems in Literature and Art Monthly, as it was not only written first, but also eulogized directly the positive forces in the Counter-Japanese War, even though this was downplayed by Feng himself, as well as by other critics and researchers. However, Feng’s sonnets were endowed with more abstract and complicated connotations, which rather obscured the tangible significance. Like Rilke, who thought of the sequence of angels due to a certain sound haunting him, Feng became visually associated with Zhuangzi’s ancient dream, which elicited his strong poetic impulse. In this high-spirited sonnet, the imagery of the meteor in Stanza 4 remains perplexing. This sonnet begins with Zhuangzi’s ancient 39

See Zhuangzi, “Zhuangzi · Inner Chapters” in Enjoyment in Untroubled Ease. The beginning paragraph reads as follows: “In the Northern Ocean there is a fish, the name of which is Kun – I do not know how many li in size. It changes into a bird with the name of Peng, the back of which is (also) – I do not know how many li in extent. When this bird rouses itself and flies, its wings are like clouds all round the sky. When the sea is moved (so as to bear it along), it prepares to migrate to the Southern Ocean. The Southern Ocean is the Pool of Heaven.” (https://ctext.org/zhuangzi/enjoyment-in-untroubled-ease)

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dream, but ends with the rejection of this great ideal of human beings for thousands of years. Although it is consistent with Feng’s advocacy of transformation and growth in his sonnets, it sounds awkward indeed. Another possible explanation is that beneath the surface of eulogizing the positive forces in the Counter-Japanese War, there exist Feng’s self-reflections, that is, the imagery of the meteorite refers to his own self-pity, which reminds us of China’s greatest myth, the story of the stone that has no talent to mend the sky. In this way, the deserted mountain far from the sea can refer to Feng’s own surroundings, and the significance of this sonnet has also been deepened: when people in reality realized the ancient dream of flying to the sky to fight the war, the poet who faithfully stuck to Zhuangzi’s ancient romantic dream was instead like a meteor shelved in the desert mountain. Nevertheless, Feng once had a great ambition. He chose Italy as the starting point of his return, which embodied the great ideal of the Renaissance. The association of the water city of Venice also indicated Feng’s stance toward enlightenment intellectuals. Therefore, the “best progeny” of Zhuangzi’s ancient dream described in Stanza 2 may also be one of Feng’s ideals. In this sonnet, the stars in the sky are twice compared with the disordered world so as to emphasize his boredom with this disordered world and the hope for changes – “how to circulate and to haul in the stellate order of this world.” What is the “stellate order”? There is distance between the stars in the Milky Way, and they are also drawn to each other, between which freedom and attraction maintain the law of their harmonious movement. Kant once commented: “Two things fill the mind with ever new and increasing admiration and reverence, the more often and more steadily one reflects on them: the starry heavens above me and the moral law within me.”40 Here, the stellate order and the law of morality can be set off against each other. Therefore, Feng aimed at the “stellate order of this world” to pursue the most harmonious moral ideal of human society. In this movement, Feng eulogized a range of cultural giants of our world who shine like brilliant stars in the night sky. Hence, Sonnet Eight can be taken as a transition from Movement 2 to Movement 3. Before Feng began to reflect on his spiritual journey and to pay homage to brilliant stars he worshipped spiritually, he arranged another little interlude – Sonnet Nine to a friend who was fighting on the frontline:

40

See Immanuel Kant, Critique of Practical Reason, trans. and ed. by Mary Gregor, with a revised introduction by Andrews Reath, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1997 (Cambridge Texts in the History Philosophy), p. 133.

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Sonnet Nine All these years you grow between life and death, Once you return to this degraded city, Listen to the foolish songs in town, You would feel like a classic hero Returning after a thousand years, From the changing of these disgraced children He will find no gesture of the glorious days, He will be shocked, dizzy. On the battlefield, an immortal hero; In the open sky, finally an aimless kite. But don’t complain of your fate; you have surpassed them, they could no longer tie up your soaring, your far-reaching. According to the critic Tang Shi, this imaginary hero was akin to Ulysses of ancient Greece,41 who returned after fierce battles only to hear foolish songs in the degraded city. Amidst the Counter-Japanese War, Feng must have been deeply touched by the solemn resistance on the one hand and the debauched and shameless reality on the other hand. Feng may not focus on a living individual but on those who sacrificed their lives bravely on the battlefield. Hence, he would come and go “between life and death”, like an ancient hero suddenly returning to his homeland after a thousand years. With his life integrated into countless lives in the history of China, he may forever face “the open sky”. Feng paid homage to the spirits of the dead and criticized the corruption and mediocrity of the real world. Deeply disappointed by what he saw, this immoral hero would eventually leave disgraced children like an aimless kite. This resolute attitude made him leave without hesitation the land for which he had fought and sacrificed his life. In Feng’s words, “you have surpassed them, they could no longer tie up your soaring, your far-reaching.” This is the first time in his sonnets that Feng has touched upon the proposition of man’s vastness, which would be further explored in detail. 41

See Tang Shi, “Feng Zhi, the Meditator”, in Feng Zhi and His World, p. 37.

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With the rise of the spirits of the dead, we begin to follow Feng in his dialogues with the great spirits of Chinese and foreign cultures, including Cai Yuanpei, Lu Xun, Du Fu, Goethe and van Gogh. Feng’s choice of these five cultural giants as his spiritual idols was by no means arbitrary. Instead, they represented the five stages of his spiritual journey, that is, enlightenment, fighting, hardship, transformation and redemption, which was accomplished by the fulfillment of five great personalities. Sonnet Ten Your name, often put among many other names, makes no difference; but you have forever sustained your own lustre; Only at the passage of dawn and dusk Could you be recognized – the brightest star; At midnight, you make no difference Among other stars; so many youths Obtain their proper lives From your calm apocalypse. Now that you’re dead, We deeply feel you can no longer participate in our future tasks – If this world resuscitates And things straighten out. The subject matter of Sonnet Ten may initially have been a coincidence, as March 5 of that year was the anniversary of President Cai Yuanpei’s death, which made Feng Zhi, an alumnus of Peking University, develop mixed feelings for this great president. When his sonnets were published by Cultural Life Press in January 1949, Feng attached the following note to this sonnet: “It was written on March 5, 1941, the first anniversary of Mr. Cai Yuanpei’s death. I used in the last stanza Rilke’s tone in discussing Rodin’s and Verhaeren’s death in his letter to a lady on November 19, 1917, during the European war. Rilke wrote that ‘if this terrible smog (referring to the war) dissipates, they will be no longer in this world, or to help those who will reorganize and support the world.’” Rilke’s influence permeated Feng’s sonnets, however in Sonnet Ten, Feng felt a certain hesitation about the great dead.

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The death of Cai Yuanpei, at that time the leader of China’s elite intellectuals as well as an important connection between official and enlightenment intellectuals, was an important event in the Chinese intellectual community. His name must have been listed among martyrs and great men of the Republic of China. Apparently, Feng was not interested in Cai’s reputation as an official intellectual; what he emphasized was President Cai’s pioneering accomplishments in new literature at Peking University. Therefore, the beginning stanza of Sonnet Ten sounds euphemistic, only eulogizing Mr. Cai – “have forever sustained your own lustre” among many other names. “What lustre”? Undoubtedly it is the lustre of enlightenment intellectuals as pioneers of the New Literature Movement. In this sense, he was recognized as the brightest star, inspiring youths to know the meaning of life – “Obtain their proper lives.” Now that Mr. Cai is dead, Feng’s quote of Rilke’s words on Rodin and Verhaeren reads precise and appropriate.42 Sonnet Eleven Once, many years ago of an evening, You felt an awakening for a few youths; You have felt countless disillusionments But that vision has never faded. I hold you in affection and gratitude, and will always turn to you for the sake of our age. It has been destroyed by some who are fools, Its protector was, throughout his life, rejected by this world. You caught a glimpse of light a few times, But as you turn your head, our era is covered by dark clouds. You have completed your journey, risking the hardships, only the grass along the sidewalks provokes you to hopeful smiles.

42

Feng Zhi once explained his writing technique for this quote: “It feels natural to me to write like this, just as poets in the Song Dynasty often refit the poems of the Tang Dynasty and filled them in with their own poems. It is entirely out of sympathy, not imitation or plagiarism.” (See The Complete Works of Feng Zhi, Vol. 5, p. 205.)

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The theme of this sonnet is to commemorate Lu Xun. Unlike Cai Yuanpei, the brightest star, Lu Xun was once Feng Zhi’s instructor. Though the teacherstudent connection might not be deep, they remained emotionally intimate. Furthermore, what impressed Feng was the enthusiastic encouragement from Lu Xun on the periodicals when Feng was editing in school. In “Yi Jue” (English: “An Awakening”), the last piece of Lu’s immortal anthology Wild Grass, Lu directly expressed his ardent expectations for Feng Zhi and other like-minded students. Strictly speaking, Feng Zhi was not a member of Lu Xun’s literary clique; rather, he was associated with Zhou Zuoren and Fei Ming before studying abroad. However, this did not make Lu Xun underestimate Feng’s works. In Chinese New Literature Series · Novels (Collection II) which he edited in 1935, Lu had criticized Fei Ming’s works, but praised Feng Zhi’s works. Feng might not have known this during his sojourn in Germany, and Lu Xun died less than one year after Feng’s return. I do not think his gratitude to Lu Xun had been well expressed, hence this sonnet begins with such gratitude. Stanza 1 is about Feng’s personal feelings toward and associations with Lu, and since Stanza 2 he began to eulogize the great writer. Throughout his life, Lu Xun practiced the fighting mission of an enlightenment intellectual, even though his enlightenment stances on practicality and criticism quickly made him an enemy of the environment in which he lived. He was in the midst of oppression all his life and was under crossfire almost everywhere. Hence, Feng commented that our age has been “destroyed by some who are fools. Its protector was, throughout his life, rejected by this world.” In Feng Zhi’s writing, Lu Xun was not only typical of the expelled resistant intellectuals, but also a portrayal of the spiritual realm of fighting in despair. In order to add some warmth to Lu Xun’s miserable life, Feng described the salutation of the grass in the last two lines, which may be his own portrayal in the past, and echoes “An Awakening” in Stanza 1. We will certainly remember Lu Xun’s fearless struggles against the dark forces in Beijing while he was writing “An Awakening” in Wild Grass, and was eventually forced to leave Beijing and go south to Xiamen. From the enlightenment to struggles, the intellectuals’ spiritual journey would further experience the trials of purgatory, giving birth to the theme of Sonnet Twelve – Hardship. Sonnet Twelve You endured starvation in a deserted village, Thought about the dead filling up the trenches, But you sang the elegies incessantly for the fall of human magnificence.

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Warriors die, were wounded on battlefields, Meteors fell at sky’s end, Ten thousand horses disappeared with the floating clouds and your life was the sacrifice of them. Your poverty shone, The tattered robe of a saint. A single thread from it An inexhaustible spiritual force in this world All Empires before your brilliance Are only reflections of pitiful imageries. This sonnet eulogizes Du Fu, the great poet of the Tang Dynasty, who is one of the two poets that Feng Zhi emotionally turned to after the Counter-Japanese War (the other is Goethe, whom he eulogized in Sonnet Thirteen).43 Feng Zhi preferred the poetic style of the late Tang Dynasty in his early days. During the Counter-Japanese War, he went into exile with professors and students of Tongji University to Kunming and read Du Fu’s poems on the road of exile. The more he read, the more intoxicated he felt, as many of the things and phenomena in Du’s poems were vividly reflected on the road of exile and could be referred to as a contrast.44 He then became more interested in Du Fu’s poems, which he praised as “shining with his love for his country and his people.”45 After the publication of The Collection of Sonnets, Feng did not produce much in poetry, despite the fact that he became an excellent research expert on Du Fu. In 1950, he published a book entitled Du Fu. Stanza 1 of Sonnet Twelve reveals that Du Fu, who suffered from starvation, always cared about his people in war and sang elegies for them with all his heart and soul. One of the artistic features of this sonnet is that Feng incessantly alluded to Du’s poems between the lines, for instance, a “deserted village” in Line 1 of Stanza 1 reminds readers of the story of Du Fu, who lead a 43

44 45

Feng Zhi once said that “As a young man, I personally enjoyed the poetry of the late Tang Dynasty, the European Romanticism of the 19th century and the works of Rilke and others in the early 20th century. However, since the beginning of the War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression, and during the war years, I felt closer to Du Fu and Goethe, from whom I absorbed rich spiritual nourishment.” (See Feng Zhi, “Goethe and Du Fu”, The Complete Works of Feng Zhi, Hebei Education Press, 1999, Vol. 8, pp. 174–175.) See Feng Zhi, “Me and Chinese Classical Literature”, The Complete Works of Feng Zhi, Vol. 5, p. 235. See Feng Zhi, “Du Fu”, The Complete Works of Feng Zhi, Vol. 8, p. 364.

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wandering life in poverty in Tonggu County, making a living by picking up acorns and sealwort with others.46 Line 2 refers to Du’s thoughts about the dead filling up the trenches while he was drinking,47 let alone his miserable life in war with the entire family suffering from starvation and his younger son dying of sickness and hunger. However, Du Fu endured starvation and hardship, remaining positive, optimistic and committed to composing great poems showing his sympathy for the battered country and ill-fated people in war.48 His poems are elegies “for the fall of human magnificence.” Stanza 2 of Sonnet Twelve follows and develops Du Fu’s “elegies” in the previous stanza. Du Fu entered the climax of his poetic writing during the wartime when “Heaven and Earth have been broken by battles, from the wounds the district storehouses become poor.” (“Seeing off Lingzhou Provincial Governor Lu Going to His Post”, by Du Fu). The description of war accounts for a large proportion of Du’s poems. In the first three lines of Stanza 2, Feng Zhi emphasized Du Fu’s poems about war. Line 1 refers to the death of warriors on the battlefield,49 Line 2 mourns the sacrifice of generals,50 and Line 3 expresses Feng’s feelings through eulogizing heavenly horses from the Western Region.51 Noticeably, in many of his poems, Du Fu revealed the emperor’s bellicosity, borderland generals’ arrogance, as well as his sympathy for the sufferings his people bore. Du’s most famous poems, such as “The Officer at Stone Moat”, “The Officer at Tong Pass”, “The Officer of Xin’an”, “Parted When Getting Old”, “Newlyweds Parted”, and “Parted without a Family”, depict how officials ransacked the people and arbitrarily recruited military servicemen. Feng Zhi did not render such content in his sonnet; instead, he highlighted the bravery and fearlessness of warriors on the battlefield, which reflected the broader social context of the Counter-Japanese War.

46 47 48 49

50

51

See the first two poems in Du Fu’s “The Composition of Seven Poems in the Dwelling House in Tonggu County during Qianyuan Years”. See Du Fu’s “Poem written while drunk”. See Feng Zhi, “Du Fu”, The Complete Works of Feng Zhi, Vol. 8, p. 416. According to Feng Zhi’s writing characteristics in this sonnet, it can be seen that this line echoes a certain line in Du Fu’s poems. Du Fu wrote many works about soldiers who died heroically on the battlefield, such as “Going Out the Passes: First Series” and “Going out the Passes: Second Series”. The artistic conception of this line is close to the 8th poem of Du Fu’s “Qinzhou Miscellaneous Poems”. Since these successive lines are from Du Fu’s “Qinzhou Miscellaneous Poems”, this line also seems to be derived from it, though it does not share any similar meaning. Furthermore, see Du Fu’s “Bearers’s Songs for the Former General of the Palace Guard”, in which it states that “from the vanguard a great star fell,” but it remains to be seen whether Du was eulogizing officers who died on the battlefield. See the 5th poem of Du Fu’s “Qinzhou Miscellaneous Poems”.

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Most of Du Fu’s poems were written during his exile. He wrote about his times and his own life with tears, sadness and melancholy. Instead of making his readers depressed, Du’s poems resound positive and optimistic. Feng Zhi interpreted this as Du’s “love for his country and his people.” The last six lines of Sonnet Twelve eulogize Du Fu: “Your poverty shone, the tattered robe of a saint. A single thread from it, an inexhaustible spiritual force in this world.”52 Feng Zhi used “an inexhaustible spiritual force” to refer to Du Fu’s hardship, which highlights powerfully his resilience against all odds in life. Du Fu was never overwhelmed by hardship in life. Before his death, he produced a long poem with 36 rhymes, entitled “Lying on My Sickbed in the Boat With a ‘Wind Illness’, Writing My Feelings”, in which he wrote that “warriors shed blood on the battlefield, and the war continues today.” Du never stopped caring about his ill-fated country, as if there were an inexhaustible spiritual force that supported his spiritual world. In his earlier poem, entitled “Going from the Capital to Fengxian County, Singing My Feelings” (five hundred words), Du wrote, that “To the end of my years I worry for the common folk, I heave sighs, and my guts burn within.” He further compared himself to mallow and pulse, saying, “Like mallow and pulse, I bend to the sun; none can rob a thing of its nature.” This reminds readers of van Gogh’s painting of burning sunflowers. It is such “sun-facing” spirit and philosophy of life that made Du Fu’s poverty shine and made all dignitaries pitiful before him. Feng Zhi’s “All Empires before your brilliance, are only reflections of pitiful imageries” reveals the sarcasm of reality at the very end of this sonnet. Sonnet Thirteen You were born into a family of commoners, shed tears for many ordinary girls. You feared, revered the one who rules the realm and lived a life of eighty tranquil years. Just as the globe turns silently without a minute or a second’s rest New signs evolve, all the time, everywhere. In wild and rain, fair weather and foul, Comes new health from heavy sickness, New strength out of desperate love; You know why moths plunge into fire, 52

This also reminds readers of the image of the Italian friar St. Francis decribed by Rilke in a poem in Das Stundenbuch (III): “Denn Armut ist ein großer Glanz aus Innen.” (English: Because poverty is a great splendor from within.)

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Why snakes shed their skins in growth; All things observe your creed which reveals the meaning of life: Death and metamorphosis. Dedicated to commemorating Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832), Sonnet Thirteen eulogizes systematically Goethe’s idea of metamorphosis. Interestingly, Feng Zhi not only wrote about Goethe’s greatness but also about his worldliness. This sonnet starts by eulogizing Goethe as a common man. Born in a civil family, Goethe studied in Leipzig and Strasbourg in his early years. As an energetic, radical and unrestrained person, he was one of the representatives of the “Sturm und Drang” (English: Storm and Stress). His masterpiece, The Sorrows of Young Werther, was based on his own personal experience. Romantic and amorous throughout his life, Goethe was always in pursuit of love and beauty. In his many love stories, the most impressive one was when he fell in love at the age of 74 with Ulrike von Levetzow, a 19-year-old girl. Goethe’s love was rich and passionate, hence Feng Zhi commented in Line 2 of Stanza 2 that you “shed tears for many ordinary girls.” In 1775, Goethe headed to Weimar at the invitation of Charles Augustus (Karl August), the Duke of Weimar. After obtaining the citizenship of the Weimar Republic in the following year, he was employed as a state councilor. Since he was not of noble birth, Goethe always remained humble before the noble. In addition to fulfilling his duties, he accompanied the young Duke hunting, swimming, skating, traveling and the like. During festivals and celebrations, Goethe also wrote works for entertainment in the court. Even in 1812, when he had become a renowned writer, Goethe remained subservient before the court and dukes. Hence, Feng Zhi commented in Line 3 of this sonnet, “You feared, revered the one who rules the realm.”53 Engels once had sharp insights into Goethe’s dual characters: “there is a continuing battle within him between the poet of genius who feels revulsion at the wretchedness of his environment, and the cautious offspring of the Frankfurt patrician or the Weimar privy-councilor who finds himself compelled to come to terms with and accustom himself to it. Goethe is thus at one moment a towering figure, at the next petty; at one moment an obstinate, 53

Feng Zhi revised the second and third lines when this poem was included in Selected Poems of Feng Zhi as follows, “You sighed over many ordinary things, / wrote many extraordinary poems.” The Complete Works of Feng Zhi is also based on this version. Thus, in this revised version, the previous analysis of Goethe’s life and his commonness is gone, replaced by eulogizing the art of Goethe’s poetry, especially The West-Eastern Divan (Collection) in his later years.

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mocking genius full of contempt for the world, at the next a circumspect, unexacting, narrow philistine.”54 The first three lines of Stanza 1 depict Goethe’s life as a common man. Line 4 of Stanza 1 to the entire Stanza 2 reveals Feng’s evaluation of Goethe’s great ideas. Feng inquired why Goethe lived peacefully for 83 years in spite of great political events and love stories he had experienced throughout his life: You “lived a life of eighty tranquil years, just as the globe turns silently.” Goethe’s autobiography is always unremarkable, as those eventful moments lie deep in his heart. This does not mean that he remained indifferent to life, otherwise he could not have written as great works as Faust. Philosophically, it reveals a key concept of Goethe’s life philosophy: entsagen (English: renounce), which means renunciation and self-restraint. When a man’s thoughts and desires are strong, whilst the actual environment remains poor, he has to adapt to the latter, or to renounce his thoughts and desires. Faust expresses it most accurately in a scene in “Studierzimmer II” (English: “Faust’s Study II”) that: Entbehren sollst du! sollst entbehren! Das ist der ewige Gesang, Der jedem an die Ohren klingt, Den, unser ganzes Leben lang, Uns heiser jede Stunde singt. Goethe, Faust, v. 1549–155355

The English translation is as follows: Do without, do without! That old Command pursues us down the years Endlessly echoing in our ears – The same old hoarse repeated song Heard hour by hour our whole life long! Goethe, Faust, v. 1549–155356

54

See Friedrich Engels, “German Socialism in Verse and Prose”, in: K. Marx and F. Engels, Collected Works in 50 Volumes, vol. 6: Marx and Engels 1845–48, Moscow: Progress Publishers 1976, p. 259. 55 See Wolfgang von Goethe, „Faust“, in: Goethes Werke in 12 Bänden, Bd. 4, Berlin und Weimar: Aufbau-Verlag 1981, S. 206. 56 Wolfgang von Goethe, Faust. Part One, translated with an Introduction and Notes by David Luke, New York: Oxford University Press 2008, p. 48.

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This precept of Goethe was borrowed from Spinoza’s philosophy. While he was discussing Spinoza in Chapter 16 of Dichtung und Wahrheit (English: From My Life: Poetry and Truth), Goethe wrote, “Unser physisches sowohl als geselliges Leben, Sitten, Gewohnheiten, Weltklugheit, Philosophie, Religion, ja so manches zufällige Ereignis, alles ruft uns zu, daß wir entsagen sollen. […] Diese schwere Aufgabe jedoch zu lösen, hat die Natur den Menschen mit reichlicher Kraft, Tätigkeit und Zähigkeit ausgestattet. Besonders aber kommt ihm der Leichtsinn zu Hülfe, der ihm unzerstörlich verliehen ist. Hierdurch wird er fähig, dem Einzelnen in jedem Augenblick zu entsagen, wenn er nur im nächsten Moment nach etwas Neuem greifen darf; und so stellen wir uns unbewußt unser ganzes Leben immer wieder her.”57 (English: “Our physical as well as our social life, manners, customs, worldly wisdom, philosophy, religion, and many an accidental event, all call upon us, to deny ourselves. […] To solve this painful problem, however, nature has endowed man with ample power, activity and endurance. But especially is he aided therein by his volatility (Leichtsinn), a boon to man, which nothing can take away. By its means he is able to renounce the cherished object of the moment, if only the next presents him something new to reach for; and thus he goes on unconsciously, remodeling his whole life.”58) The idea of entsagen (English: renounce) that Goethe inherited from Spinoza was not as rigid as the Chinese traditional virtues of “renunciation and self-restraint,” but full of random innovation. The connection between giving up and transfer, renunciation and restoration, and self-restraint and renewal constitutes a harmonious unity, which promotes people’s activities under incessant change and exploration. With the changing nature of faithlessness and curiosity for life and knowledge, the richness and diversity of life is fully manifested. Hence, Goethe’s renunciation is by no means negative. Feng Zhi especially commented that although Goethe’s long-life journey seemed lonely, “without a minute or a second’s rest, new signs evolve, all the time, everywhere,” which demonstrates the dialectics of renunciation and innovation. The ensuing Stanza 3 serves as an interpretation of Goethe’s other important idea: transformation. The “new health gained from heavy sickness, new nourishment from desperate love” refers to Goethe’s love for a 19-year-old girl in 1823. For this, Feng Zhi wrote an article entitled “Goethe’s Old Age” on how this last entsagen brought Goethe new health and a new life. The year 1823 was referred to by many of Goethe’s biographers as 57 58

Wolfgang von Goethe, „Aus meinem Leben. Dichtung und Wahrheit. Dritter und Vierter Teil“, in: Goethes Werke in 12 Bänden, Bd. 9, Berlin und Weimar: Aufbau-Verlag 1981, S. 237–238. See Wolfgang von Goethe, Truth and Poetry: From My Own Life, trans. by John Oxenford, revised edition, London: George Bell and Sons 1897, p. 583. here: http://www.gutenberg. org/files/52654/52654-h/52654-h.htm.

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his “year of destiny”. In February of that year, Goethe caught a serious heart disease (pericarditis) and had the impression that death was watching him in every corner. Before long, however, he survived and needed recuperation. Goethe went to Marienbad in Bohemia, where he met Ulrike von Levetzow. Goethe, who was resurrected from this serious illness, was full of freshness and energy in life. At the age of 74, he felt the power of love for this 19-year-old girl. On his birthday on August 28th, Goethe danced with Ulrike. However in a few days, he fell from such supreme happiness into an abyss of emotions and left her. Goethe sublimated his emotional torment into an immortal elegy entitled “Marienbader Elegie”. By the end of the year, he was again struck down by another serious illness, in which he regarded this elegy as his only comfort. Upon recovery, “he built himself a ladder in the icehouse of his pain to reach the peak he had never reached.”59 The last four lines serve as an improvement to the previous content. Both entsagen and transformation are integrated into one of Goethe’s important ideas: metamorphosis. A quick look at his poem “Selige Sehnsucht” (English: “Ecstatic Longing”) may help reveal this. With the theme of the moth, the last two stanzas read like this: Keine Ferne macht dich schwierig, Kommst geflogen und gebannt, Und zuletzt, des Lichts begierig, Bist du, Schmetterling, verbrannt. Und solang du das nicht hast, Dieses: Stirb und werde! Bist du nur ein trüber Gast Auf der dunklen Erde.60 The English translation is as follows: Distance tires you not nor hinders, On you come with fated flight Till, poor moth, at last you perish In the flame, in love with light.

59

See Romain Rolland, Goethe and Beethoven, translated by Liang Zongdai, People’s Music Publishing House, 1981, p. 73. 60 See Wolfgang von Goethe, „Selige Sehnsucht“, in: Goethes Werke in 12 Bänden, Bd. 2, Berlin und Weimar: Aufbau-Verlag 1981, S. 22.

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Die into becoming! Grasp This, or sad and weary Shall you sojourn ever be On the dark earth dreary.61 Taking the moth as a metaphor for the pursuit of a higher level of life existence, it is inevitable that one may devote himself to the flames. Instead of regarding the moth’s death as the end of life, Goethe took it as the new life from the fire like the phoenix nirvana. This is his “Stirb und werde” (“Die into becoming”), which had a profound influence on Feng Zhi. In his sonnets, Feng eulogized lives such as eucalyptus and affine cudweed, as they grow and wither through constant changes. Goethe applied the metaphor of moths and flames; though the moth’s dedication into the flames cannot bring it to regeneration, humans have to act like the moth, since “the progress from one stage to the next stage never comes easy, as a pleasant rebirth has to be obtained from a painful death.”62 This implies that the entire Chinese nation should also experience such progress from distress to transformation in the fierce Counter-Japanese War. Feng Zhi wrote Du Fu to indicate the hardship of his own life and the nation’s struggles; he also wrote Goethe to show transformation – the process of death and metamorphosis. Furthermore, in the next sonnet, Feng sublimated to the highest stage of van Gogh’s self-redemption. Sonnet Fourteen Your passion, with every turn Inflames: a sheaf of sunflower, Dark, languorous cypresses, People walking Beneath the scorching sun, they too, Inflamed, plead on high; But a small, withered tree In the early spring, a tiny prison yard, A woman peeling potatoes in a darkened room, Shoulders bowed; these are The blocks of ice which have never melted. 61 62

Wolfgang von Goethe, Selected Poetry, trans. with an Introduction and Notes by David Luke, London: Penguin 2005, p. 183. See Feng Zhi, “Review, Explanation and Supplement of ‘On Goethe’”, The Complete Works of Feng Zhi, Vol. 8, p. 7.

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You have painted a suspension bridge across the void, A swift boat lies in wait: Did you plan to bring the unfortunate here? While discussing Feng Zhi’s sonnets, the Czech Sinologist Jozef Marián Gálik connected Sonnet Fourteen that eulogizes van Gogh to Rilke’s The Sonnets to Orpheus. Gálik argued that from Feng’s perspective, van Gogh was a new Orpheus, who was not speaking to the ears of his admirers but to their eyes. He created the sonnet for the modern people – people may say that he built a “temple” where “there was hardly a hut.” Gálik further discussed the relationship between Feng Zhi and van Gogh: “The influence of van Gogh on Feng Zhi is like that of Rodin to Rilke. It is likely that Karl Jaspers led Feng Zhi to van Gogh, as the former published his Strindberg and Van Gogh in 1922. Van Gogh might be a typical example of what Jaspers referred to as ‘destruction of existence’. However, the destruction of existence presents life a new form.”63 Unfortunately, the Dutch painter van Gogh (1853–1890) was ill-fated. Only one painting, Red Vineyard, and two sketches were sold during his lifetime, and comments in his favor did not appear until the year of his death. However, when Feng Zhi was studying in Germany, van Gogh’s value had been recognized by the world, from which it can be concluded that Feng Zhi was deeply fascinated by van Gogh’s paintings during his sojourn in Germany.64 Sonnet Fourteen consists of a set of impressions of van Gogh’s paintings, in which, however, misunderstandings are obvious. For instance, in the painting that Feng Zhi referred to, the woman who was “peeling potatoes” is actually “eating potatoes.” During the period of the Counter-Japanese War, it was not easy for Feng Zhi to view van Gogh’s paintings; hence, he might have written from his memories of van Gogh’s works. He placed van Gogh last among the great personalities he commemorated out of deep gratitude and admiration for him. If Feng’s Sonnet Twelve about Du Fu penetrates Du’s poetic quality, then Sonnet Fourteen about van Gogh suffuses the latter’s pictorial splendor. Like a painting with strong contrast of colors, the bright image of “Your passion, with 63 64

See Golic, “The Collection of Sonnets by Feng Zhi: The Literary Connections with German Romanticism, Rilke and van Gogh”, in Feng Zhi and His World, pp. 541–542. In the “Translator’s Preface” of “Letters to a Young Poet”, Feng Zhi specifically referred to his impression of van Gogh’s painting Spring, “The picture was set against a set of small, narrow houses, with a peach or almond tree in the center, and a few lonely pink flowers blooming on the forked branch. It was a tree, I thought, that had endured so long wind and storm, but was still suffering spring chill. Surrounded by a world of poverty, in its branches flowed the sap of life.” “A small, withered tree in the early spring” in Stanza 2 of this sonnet may refer to this painting. (See Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet, translated by Feng Zhi, the “Translator’s Preface”, pp. 1–2.)

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every turn, inflames” is in sharp contrast with the bleak image of the “blocks of ice which have never melted” in the first three stanzas of this sonnet. The former is marked with distinct imageries such as sunflowers and the sun, while the latter is marked with scenes of miners, peasants and prisons. When van Gogh began to study painting, he created many paintings on the subject of miners, textile workers and peasants. The Potato Eaters, his work from 1885, depicts the family De Groot in van Gogh’s hometown of Brabant. Living on potatoes all year round, all five members of this family lived in a hut and worked in the field, growing potatoes, digging potatoes and eating potatoes. That was their life. The entire painting depicts a gray room in the color of stained, unpeeled fresh potatoes, decorated with a dirty linen tablecloth and blackened walls, women in dirty hats and illuminated by chandeliers hanging from rough beams. As van Gogh said himself, “I wanted to reveal it is these potato-eaters in the lamplight that used the same hands to hoe the field. Thus, what this painting depicts is manual labor, showing that they honestly earned their food. I hoped to convey an impression of a very different way of making a living than those of us who are civilized.”65 In this painting, “he eventually captured the eternal meaning of what was passing away. In his works, the peasants of Brabant have gained an immortal life.”66 In 1886, with his exposure to impressionism in Paris, van Gogh began to discard darker shades, seeking other colors to express his feelings and understanding of the world. He said to his younger brother Theo: “I need the sun. I need the sun that is very hot and powerful…. Now I understand that there is no painting without the sun. Maybe the thing that can make me mature is this burning sun.” (Ibid., p. 412) In February 1888, van Gogh came to Arles in southern France, where the bright sunshine and pure and transparent air showed a new world he had never seen before, and he finally found his own color – bright and burning yellow. He painted crazily, expressing what was burning inside him. Then there are those unforgettable yellow sunflowers, with every stroke and every point full of tension and urgency like burning flames. These deformed plants seem to represent van Gogh’s stirring vitality, making visitors feel it may burst out at any time. Feng Zhi did not describe the changes in van Gogh’s painting style. Apparently, Sonnet Fourteen stops emphasizing the theme of metamorphosis, and avoids the hardships in van Gogh’s life, which have already been interpreted in the 65 66

See Vincent van Gogh, Dear Theo, translated by Ping Ye, Nanhai Publishing House, 2001, p. 368. See Irving Stone, Lust for Life, translated by Chang Tao, Beijing Publishing House, 1983, p. 321.

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previous sonnets. As the last stop of Feng Zhi’s spiritual journey, van Gogh’s sympathy for the poor and his great enthusiasm for the sun and sunflowers were regarded by Feng as the highest realm of life. The sun symbolizes the theme of salvation, hence, in the last three lines of Sonnet Fourteen, Feng poetically described the suspension bridge and the boat in van Gogh’s “The Langlois Bridge at Arles” from March 1888. By applying the imageries of the suspen­ sion bridge and the boat in the last line of this sonnet: “Did you plan to bring the unfortunate here?” Feng made redemption and deliverance the theme of his eulogy for van Gogh. From the enlightenment of Cai Yuanpei (the morning star in the darkness) to the redemption of van Gogh (the burning sun and the deliverance boat), one can see the progress of Feng Zhi’s spiritual trajectory. Movement 4: The Ode to Life – Man’s Vastness and Love (Sonnets Fifteen to Twenty) While using the five themes of enlightenment – fighting – hardship – transformation – redemption to construct the universal spiritual course of Chinese intellectuals in the Counter-Japanese War through a careful review and description of his own spiritual journey, Feng Zhi confronted a more abstract and more difficult proposition – the expression of man’s vastness and the interconnectedness of everything. This inquiry became inevitable after his exploration of the personality of spiritual tutors: what is the connection between these brilliant role models and us? Within the specific environment of the national war, are these role models an individual life phenomenon, or a far-reaching existence? From the historical perspective, although a great personality is always embodied in an individual life phenomenon which is unique, such seeming loneliness may reflect a broad and universal spirit. This is man’s far-reaching significance. In Sonnet Nine, Feng Zhi eulogized the soul of a warrior, saying that he eventually surpassed his disgraced children, as they could no longer tie up his soaring and vastness. Feng’s thoughts came from Rilke. In his translation of Rilke’s Briefe an einen jungen Dichter (English: Letters to a Young Poet, 1931), Rilke discussed the connection between loneliness and distance. He wrote: “Darum, lieber Herr, lieben Sie Ihre Einsamkeit, und tragen Sie den Schmerz, den sie Ihnen verursacht, mit schön klingender Klage. Denn die Ihnen nahe sind, sind fern, sagen Sie, und das zeigt, daß es anfängt, weit um Sie zu werden. Und wenn Ihre Nähe fern ist, dann ist Ihre Weite schon unter den Sternen und sehr groß; freuen Sie sich Ihres Wachstums […]. (16. Juli 1903)”67 (English: “Therefore, dear Sir, love your solitude and bear the pain which it has caused 2.4

67

Rainer Maria Rilke, Briefe an einen jungen Dichter, Leipzig: Insel 1929, S. 26.

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you with a lovely lament. For those who are near you are far, you say, and this shows that distance begins to grow round you. And when your nearness is far, then your distance is already among the stars and very great; be glad of your growth […]. (July 16th 1903)”)68 While Feng Zhi was living alone in a remote mountain hut, reading books by the German sages, looking into the blue sky, and thinking about the situation of the Counter-Japanese War, he must have developed thoughts and empathy about man’s loneliness and distance. Sonnets Fifteen, Sixteen and Seventeen form an ensemble, which painstakingly conveys such an elusive philosophy of life. Firstly, what Feng intended to express is that the vastness of life and the inter­ connectedness of everything do not refer to the communication on the surface of the material world. To the latter, human life is not only distant, but also lonely and difficult to communicate; it does not make sense for the control and possession of the material world: Sonnet Fifteen Look! Caravans of loaded horses Merchandise from faraway places; Water washes dirt and sand from those nameless places far away. The wind, a thousand miles away, will Sweep with sighs of foreign lands: We have passed many mountains and rivers, Now possessing them, now leaving them behind. Like a bird, fluttering in the sky, Ruling the airy void forever, Forever feeling, ruling nothingness. Reality … what is it? Nothing can be brought from faraway places, Nothing can be taken away from here. Sonnet Fifteen sounds obscure, and the metaphor in Stanza 2 about humans seems repetitive of that of birds in Stanza 3. I cannot figure out why Feng repeated such a simple imagery. Due to the over-emphasis of this part, the 68 Rainer Maria Rilke, “Letters to a Young Poet”, trans. by Reginald Snell, in: Rilke, Poems (Everyman’s Library Pocket Poets Series), pp. 228–229.

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inconstant movement determined by chance depicted in Stanza 1 is severely overlooked. Travelers’ sighing of fleeting changes of mountains and rivers in Stanza 2 and the feeling of nothingness of birds in the sky in Stanza 3 are transmitted as a song with the help of the wind thousands of miles away. If this part works as the main theme of this sonnet, Stanza 1 is just an artistic foreshadowing, as it serves to highlight “The wind, a thousand miles away, will sweep with sighs of foreign lands.” Since the content in Stanzas 2 and 3 was overemphasized, Stanza 4 cannot but deduce the feeling of nothingness. Feng Zhi might also have felt awkward between the lines, hence changed the last stanza to: “Reality … what is it? / What shall be brought from afar? / What shall be taken away from here?” The revision reads much better with the meaning untouched, while the tone becomes more interrogative. Such implicitness reveals, at the moment of feeling nothingness, that Feng may also be inquiring: What are we? How should the interconnectedness between the human world and nature be reflected? The reason why I feel confused about the expression of this sonnet is that in his previous sonnets, Feng’s thoughts and feelings were explicitly evolved from the broader background of the Counter-Japanese War, despite the fact that his poetic flavor was fairly personal. However, the background of this sonnet and following ones suddenly becomes blurred. It seems that Feng had eventually transcended or overcome the fetters of reality through his hard-earned spiritual journey and flew toward a purer spiritual world. Therefore, he was no longer concerned about fights for land or communication at the superficial level, but about the spiritual interconnectedness of lives. He hoped to prove empirically how much capacity man’s amplitude possesses. And what can it carry? In order to find this answer, he must temporarily forsake and deny the elements of reality, just as the great spirits of the dead must stay away from their disgraced children. If Sonnet Fifteen is understood this way, then its artistic features become pure and distinctive, like a simple folk song, or a chant in Nineteen Old Poems. Stanza 1 begins with distant caravans of loaded horses and a stream of water with dirt and sand, Stanzas 2 and 3 depict the distance and nihility between human life and the living environment, while Stanza 4 reveals Feng Zhi’s perception of the uncertainty of life. Feng took a resolutely nihilistic attitude toward communication at the superficial level and material possessions, by which he may invite his readers to confront together with him man’s vastness directly, to explore how to accomplish man’s essential existence, and to reveal the in-depth experience between the lines in his sonnets. It is such experience that endures and continues to inspire serious thinking even today.

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Sonnet Sixteen Side by side on a lofty peak we stand, becoming the vast plain before us With its criss-crossing paths. Which river or road is not connected? Which wind or cloud does not call to the other? Cities, mountains, rivers we have passed become our very lives. Our growth, our griefs, A pine tree on some distant slope, Or thick mist over a city, We follow the blast of the wind, the flow of water, Becoming criss-crossing paths on the plain, Becoming the lives of travelers on these paths. Sonnets Sixteen and Seventeen are derived from Sonnet Fifteen, which expresses positively Feng’s view of man’s vastness and the connectedness of things in the world. The key word of Sonnet Sixteen is “becoming”, which also reveals the “metamorphosis” that he described when eulogizing Goethe. From Feng Zhi’s perspective, man should not take possession and control of nature and his living environment (the desire of possession and control leads to nothingness), instead, there should be a higher level of transformation of life, and there also exist channels of mutual transformation between man and all other creatures. This concept can be found in Spinoza’s and Goethe’s pantheism, but Feng’s knowledge in this field may to a large extent come from the ancient Chinese literary tradition. In one of his essays in 1935, entitled “Two-Line Poem”, he praised the following two lines “Resting many times against trees by the pond, his solitary figure is reflected in the water” by Jia Dao, a poet from the Tang Dynasty: Several poets in modern Europe have eulogized Narcissus in ancient Greece, a young man who looks at his reflection in the water. The ancient Chi­nese often explored one’s true self. In Jia Dao’s poem, this solitary man sees his reflection in the water; he does not seem to look into himself from a dead mirror, but sees his mind in the living water. – As for his leaning against

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the trunk, just like the butterfly resting on the flower, the life of the butterfly and the color and fragrance of the flower blend into each other, and it seems that this man’s body and the tree have become one. We learn from the circulation of blood throughout our body how trees take nutrients from the ground and carry them to branches and leaves, as if they were carried into our bloodstream… This is not a fusion with nature, but positing oneself in a place in which it is connected to nature. These two lines depict the infinite realm of the solitary in the uninhabited nature, but at the same time they also seem to reveal the deepest contact between nature and man, which may only be captured by great poets like Jia Dao, who was good at exploring the silence of mountains.69 In these two lines, what is moving is not the person himself but his reflection in the water, it is not the man letting his body rest against the tree by the pond but his body leaning against the tree by the pond rests several times. The artistic conceptions between the lines include “reflection in the water” and “body against the tree by the pond” in action. It is the connection between the human body and natural life, in which energy can be mutually transformed. In this sense, Feng Zhi imagined that his body may be transformed into the vast plain and the intersecting paths of the plain. As mentioned earlier, Feng was living in the mountains at the time and often walked alone on the mountain paths, which made his experience of communication between life and nature evident. Therefore, he reiterated that only those who knew the silence of mountains like Jia Dao may perceive this. Due to the broadness of the space for the transformation of man and the life of all things, the artistic conception of this poem seems enormous, in which Feng states in the beginning line that “side by side on a lofty peak we stand,” integrating “us” into an endless vista and plain and paths before “us”. This imagery is repeated twice in Stanzas 1 and 4, while Stanzas 2 and 3 are about the conversion of life energy, which exists between man, nature and other creatures. The most important is, “Cities, mountains, rivers we have passed become our very lives,” which is in perfect contrast with “We have passed many mountains and rivers, now possessing them, now leaving them behind” in Sonnet Fifteen. Feng Zhi negates the concept of possession of nature, but emphasizes the communication and connection of life between man and nature.

69

See Feng Zhi, “Two-Line Poem”, in Songs of Yesterday edited by Wang Shengsi, pp. 182–183.

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Sonnet Seventeen You say you like watching These life-filled paths on the plain, Paths vivified by footsteps, Trodden by men without names. Tangled pathways In the heart’s wilderness, Impressed by those who have gone nowhere: Lonely children, white-haired couples, Youth And friends now dead. All have walked out their paths; Retreated these steps that the paths will not be left to the wilderness. The key word of this sonnet is “paths.” By describing the paths of life exploration and the continuity of time physically and spiritually, Feng Zhi indicates that man’s vastness is not only manifested in the infinity of energy transformation of all things, but also in the infinity of time in the extension of human life. Rilke once had a good interpretation about this point: “Und doch sind sie, diese Langvergangenen, in uns, als Anlage, als Last auf unserem Schicksal, als Blut, das rauscht, und als Gebärde, die aufsteigt aus den Tiefen der Zeit. (23. Dez. 1903)”.70 (English: “Those who are long gone still exist in our lives, as our endowment, as the burden of our destinies, as the circulating blood, and as gestures rising from the depths of time.”) Also in Lu Xun’s philosophy, there was always a keyword: “pioneer”. Lu reiterated that he was writing at the behest of pioneers of the revolution.71 At such times, the blood of pioneers (what Rilke referred to as “those who are long gone”) flows with the blood of this present generation, and their dreams and efforts are being fulfilled through this generation. The blood of our pioneers flows inside us, integrated with our own. In Feng’s writing, this is a lively life-filled path, which is the inheritance and continuation of life, hence it is inclusive. Apparently, the imagery of paths in 70 71

Rainer Maria Rilke, Briefe an einen jungen Dichter, Leipzig: Insel 1929, S. 35. See Lu Xun, “Author’s Preface to The Anthology”, in The Complete Works of Lu Xun, Vol. 4, People’s Literature Publishing House, 1981, p. 456.

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Stanza 1 imitates the imagery created by Lu Xun in his “Hometown”, although Feng quickly turned from thinking about the formation of the paths to observing the form of life on them, observing how man’s lived experience works.72 This imagery also seems to be a portrayal of Feng’s writing, which projects his past experiences. All memories and experiences come alive in the world of his writings. In this Sonnet Seventeen, Feng used the second-person pronoun “you”, while in Sonnet Sixteen there is a first-person plural pronoun “we”. Though it remains difficult to determine whether this “we” refers to a general cohort or a specific reference, his application of “you” should indicate that this sonnet was basically a gift to a friend. Hence, the plural “we” should refer specifically to “you and me”. We may infer that, since the ensuing two sonnets were written for his wife, Sonnets Seventeen and Sixteen were addressed to Yao Kekun. While discussing abstract themes such as man’s vastness, Feng Zhi applied the most concrete and secretive expressions of love, which made his sonnets rich in multi-layered expressions, such as philosophy, poetic creation and love. Man’s vastness was also embodied in Rilke’s poems and writings as an experience of love. Sonnet Eighteen We often spend an intimate night In an unfamiliar room, what it looks like In daytime, we cannot tell, less can we Say about its past and future. Wilderness Boundlessly spreads outside our window, We can scarcely remember the road we came at dusk. That is all we know, Tomorrow we’ll leave, and will not return. Close your eyes! In our hearts Let these intimate nights be woven into unfamiliar places. Outside the window Our lives are like the wilderness in which Our eyes blurred with a tree, or a flash of the lake. Its vastness hides the forgotten past, the implicit future. 72

See Gu Bin, “Give My Strait Heart A Vast Universe”, Feng Zhi and His World, p. 560.

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Sonnet Nineteen A wave, we part from one another, Our world divided into two. Feeling cold, our eyes now widen. two newborn infants. Separation, birth. We bear the toils of work, Changing the cold to warmth, acquaintances out of strangers; Each one must till his field, In order to meet again; as on the first occasion, We are grateful for memories of the past; As on the first occasion, we thought about our former lives. How many springs and winters are there to a lifetime? We can only feel the turn of the seasons, Not the limited span of life. Sonnets Eighteen and Nineteen are both about love. The purpose of compiling them was to provide readers an impression that Feng Zhi was recalling trysts and parting with his beloved. The first line of Sonnet Eighteen “We often spend an intimate night” was changed to “We sometimes spend an intimate night” in the later Selected Works. Apparently, changing the frequent life experience into an accidental experience increases the mystery and singularity of such lived experience. In that experience, lovers spent the night together in an unfamiliar room, not knowing its past, nor its appearance. It may be a casual residence in their lives, which might never be seen again and have nothing to do with their future, but Stanza 3 describes the vitality of such experience: with such memorable experience, the time (“an intimate night”) and space (“an unfamiliar room”) are interwoven in “our” minds, like natural objects in the wilderness – a tree, sparkling lake, whose existence at the moment are closely connected with their past and future. Sonnet Nineteen is about Feng’s parting with his beloved. This sonnet was once published as one of six poems in the Literature and Art Monthly, entitled “Separation”. If it is not read together with Sonnet Eighteen, one may assume that it was a gift to an ordinary friend for encouragement during the Counter-Japanese War. However, the current arrangement favors a new interpretation: when they meet, an accidental experience encapsulates all the life information of the past

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and future; when they are separated, those lived experiences may also be dispersed into their own worlds to create a new life. Separation and reunion form a new cycle, while man’s vastness is also reflected in these two aspects: on the one hand, it connects and inherits past experience in space and time; on the other hand, it disseminates and expands its own lived experience. The word “widen” in the third line of Stanza 1 deserves close attention. A farewell is always hard for lovers and their parting should be full of despair; however, Feng Zhi eulogized separation in a good mood. As soon as they were parted, they felt widened and infinitely new, just like newborns looking at the new world. We have discussed the stellate order; man’s vastness and the stellate order, from Rilke’s perspective, are both connected with his understanding of love. Rilke led a drifting life and was favored and cared for by many noblewomen. He had his own unique understanding and practice of love. In one of his poems, two lovers said: “So laß uns Abschied nehmen wie zwei Sterne.”73 (English: “Let us take our farewell like star and star.”74) Stars, drawn freely to each other, were considered a symbol of man’s essential existence. For instance, true love may only be fulfilled when lovers are liberated from each other’s possession, granting each other not possession but full freedom. This is like two stars in the sky; in spite of being far apart, they are attracted by each other. Each unfolds itself toward the other, whilst each guards the other consciously. Not only the lovers, but also each individual, can exist only in such a free and attractive space filled with each other. Feng Zhi apparently borrowed Rilke’s concept  – two people separating should not only shine and attract each other like stars, but also innovate, enrich and empower themselves respectively. He used the word “work” in this sonnet, which may be attributed to the broader background of the Counter-Japanese War, but it was also his own requirement for man’s potential. Only in constant work can man achieve vastness, in which he not only grows in the passage of time, but also makes qualitative leaps. Only when lovers constantly make themselves better in work, can they keep their love fresh and lasting, thus making every reunion fresh and exciting. Only in this way can the last lived experience remain unforgettable due to a certain distance, thus making love evergreen and ageless. I regard this sonnet as the best love poem in modern Chinese poetry. 73 74

Rainer Maria Rilke, „Gedichte 1906 bis 1926“, in: Rainer Maria Rilke, Sämtliche Werke in 12 Bänden, Bd. 3, Frankfurt am Main: Insel 1975, S. 504. Rainer Maria Rilke, Poems 1906 to 1926, translated with an Introduction by J. B. Leishman, New York: New Directions 1957, p. 336.

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Sonnet Twenty How many faces, voices, So real in our dreams; They are my life’s disintegrations – Intimate, or strange. Is it not that lives are composed And bloom to fruitage? Who can steer his life Before such an endless night? Who can let his voice and face linger only in some cozy dreams? How many times have we been Seen in the broad sky – Refreshing dreams for the boatmen, Or desert travelers. I have stated at the beginning of this movement that Feng Zhi was endeavoring to convey an abstract and difficult exploration: the proposition of man’s vastness and the interconnectedness of all things, which was expressed through a variety of specific poetic imageries. In Sonnet Twenty, he resorted to documenting dreams to express the existence of a man’s vastness. As C. Jung stated, “A dream is a little hidden door in the deepest and most hidden place of our spirit, which opens into the night sky of the universe …”75 What dreams present to us – the “the night sky of the universe” – is precisely the existence of man’s vastness. While commenting on Feng Zhi’s The Collection of Sonnets, many critics regarded Sonnet Twenty as a description of the connections between men, and further argued that it reflects the idea of interpersonal communication in Feng’s works. It seems plausible, though in my opinion, what Feng intended to convey here was not man’s desire for interpersonal communication, since he did not hold the idea that interpersonal communication was possible. He knew that man’s loneliness and solitude were deep-seated. In the “Translator’s Preface” in his translation of Rilke’s “Letters to a Young Poet”, Feng stated that “man’s journey to this world is hard and lonely. Each man in the world is like 75 See Carl G. Jung, Memories, Dreams, Reflections, translated by Liu Guobin and Yang Deyou, Liaoning People’s Publishing House, 1988, p. 613.

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the trees side by side in the garden, whose branches, twigs, and leaves may be interconnected, but their roots intertwined deep in the earth for nourishment are irrelevant, silent, and lonely.”76 Every man is lonely and has to be a survivor on his own. Man’s vastness is not exclusively reflected in interpersonal communication, but in the nature of man’s life, which inevitably contains a kind of continuity in time and space. Therefore, in this sonnet, Feng was not sure whether the real faces and voices in dreams were “my life’s disintegrations,” or the fruits formed after “lives are composed?” He deconstructed both of these assumptions: if dreams are life’s disintegrations, then who can steer his life before such an endless night? If these are fruits formed after lives are composed, then why do they only appear in our dreams? Apparently, unlike S. Freud and Jung, Feng Zhi did not intend to make simplistic or subjective speculations on illusions in dreams; instead, he preferred to regard them as a phenomenon of mysticism and a channel for the meeting and separation of life information between men. However, the communication of such life information is often unknowable. Interestingly, Feng sighed in Stanza 4 that when he was facing those intimate or strange figures in dreams, he could hardly make certain whether he too, appeared in their dreams, refreshing dreams for the boatmen or desert travelers. Accordingly, I can’t help but think of a famous short poem by Bian Zhilin, who depicted some mysterious connection that constitutes “a distant sky” between men. Isn’t it the very space for man’s vastness? Standing on the bridge, you view the scenery, whilst, the viewer watches you from upstairs. The bright moon adorns your window. whilst, you decorate others’ dreams.77 Movement 5: The Song of Being – The Universe in the Straitness (Sonnets Twenty-One to Twenty-Three) As a transition from the vastness of man’s existence to the straitness of our reality, this movement, compared with Movement 4, has noticeable changes in its wording and rhythm. Because of man’s vastness, Movement 4 is comprised of open artistic conceptions with long but soothing lines, while in Movement 5,

2.5

76 See Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet, translated by Feng Zhi, “Translator’s Preface”, p. 3. 77 See Bian Zhilin, “Part of Article”, The Carving of Insects (1930–1958), People’s Literature Publishing House, 1984, p. 40.

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the artistic conceptions become narrow, with short, strong and hurried lines. Also in the latter, the scenes change to deep night, heavy rain, a small cottage and crowded utensils. In terms of scenic descriptions, there is “lofty peak” and “vast plain” in Movement 4. In Movement 5, instead, it changes to “Deep night, deep mountain, listen to the heavy night rain”, which feels completely different. Feng seemed to be trapped in the terror and repression of reality, constantly praying, worrying and bracing his inner confidence. We have no idea of Feng’s specific mindset in those years; however, the poetic structure reflects his repressed voices against reality. Empowered by his lofty spiritual idols and his in-depth understanding of man’s vastness, Feng and his spiritual support (divinity) have to endure hardships and trials in the cruelty of reality in order to better transform and improve reality. As I have discussed earlier, Feng Zhi’s The Collection of Sonnets was a great work during the Counter-Japanese War. Due to a standing overemphasis among poetry critics on its Western origin and Feng’s admiration of Rilke and other Western literary masters, this work’s close connection with the wartime environment was unintentionally overlooked. However, Feng’s poetic creations were never divorced from the reality of the Counter-Japanese War; his great contributions lay in the seamless integration of Rilke’s modern poetic spirit with the reality of China’s Counter-Japanese War, which gave birth to a novel expression different from the mainstream discourse at the time. Hence, we may regard the following three sonnets as a demonstration of Feng’s spiritual journey during China’s Counter-Japanese War: Sonnet Twenty-one Listening to the storm in gusty winds, Under the lamplight, we, lonesome. In this small cottage, Between our utensils There is a vast difference: The copper kettle belongs to the mountain ore, The porcelain pitcher belongs to the river clay Like frightened birds in a tempest, Each goes its own way. We embrace, helplessly. The gale sweeps things up to the sky, The storm flushes things back to earth. Only this flimsy lamp Proves our temporal existence.

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Moving from Sonnet Twenty to Sonnet Twenty-one, it feels as if Feng were awakened from his dream to confront the first storm in gusty winds in reality. It was so violent that he felt not only cramped and lonely in his small cottage, but also a crisis of survival. He even felt a vast difference from other utensils: “The copper kettle belongs to the mountain ore, the porcelain pitcher belongs to the river clay,” which seemed to be returning to the origin of the world, as if to destroy means that the world returns to its original state of chaos. Despite this, men in this storm cannot be destroyed, as we hold on to our existence, and we need to cling to it with our weak bodies, even if everything is about to be destroyed, “Only this flimsy lamp proves our temporal existence.” This is the division between man and things. There is at least a frail light in man’s life as he possesses a certain consciousness and spirit, whilst things do not. Sonnet Twenty-two Deep night, deep mountain, Listen to the heavy night rain. Ten miles away, a mountain village, Twenty miles away, a tumultuous city. Do they still exist? Rivers, mountains, ten years ago, Dreams, fancies, twenty years ago All buried in the rain. Strait surrounding A return to the womb; Deep in the night a prayer Like a primal man: God, give my strait heart a vast universe. Sonnet Twenty-two shares similar imageries with Sonnet Twenty-one and may also be referred to as an advancement of Sonnet Twenty-one in terms of its connotations. The imageries of deep night, deep mountain and the heavy night rain seem to annihilate man’s living time and space, leaving him helpless and isolated. If Sonnet Twenty-one only reflects a psychological projection of a certain reality, then Sonnet Twenty-two reveals imageries of survival, even though its final stanza closes with the sharp contrast between the harshness of reality and man’s innermost vastness. When time and space in reality seemed to be destroyed, Feng solemnly appealed: “God, give my strait heart a vast universe.” What he was exploring was still the problem of existence. What was revealed

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in Sonnet Twenty-one is that man’s existence is irreversible and cannot retreat to the past and move to the future; only by clinging to reality and holding on to the flimsy light within can we resist the storm of fate. Sonnet Twenty-two, instead, explores further that even if our living environment (time and space) is destroyed, as long as there is vast space in us endowed by God, a strait heart may contain a vast universe.78 Sonnet Twenty-three Rain has fallen continuously for half a month; Since you were born You’ve only known the dismal, the gloomy. One day, rain clouds suddenly disperse and sunlight beams over the wall. I see your mother then, Lifting you in her jaws to the sunrays Letting you feel the light and warmth for the first time. And at sunset, she brings you in again. You haven’t a memory, but the experience will manifest itself, when someday you’ll bark and bring forth light in the dark of night. Moving to Sonnet Twenty-three, readers may realize changed imageries as well as untouched artistic conceptions. Beginning with rain that “has fallen continuously for half a month,” this sonnet seems to be connected with the storm in gusty winds and the heavy night rain in previous sonnets. During this rainstorm, however, new life was born. It doesn’t matter that this sonnet is about newborn puppies; what matters is that these puppies were bathed

78

Feng Zhi shared his creation of this sonnet in the “Reply at the Ceremony of ‘Literature and Art Award’ at The Federal German International Exchange Center”: “Once, late at night, listening to the rain in the mountains, I felt strait in my heart and around. I took a line from Goethe’s letter, ‘I will pray like Musa in the Koran: Lord, give me room for my strait heart’, and replaced it with ‘God, give my strait heart a vast universe’ as the last two lines of this sonnet.” (See The Complete Works of Feng Zhi, Vol. 5, p. 205.)

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unconsciously in sunshine. This is lived experience; even in a space where there is no perception, even when the daytime turns immediately into darkness, the experience of sunrays is already present in them, which becomes not only a memory, but also part of their life information. For life, no lived experience would be wasted; instead, it would present itself in some specific way within a certain context. Hence, Feng stated that “but the experience will manifest itself, when someday you’ll bark and bring forth light in the dark of night.” Without an in-depth understanding of the consciousness of life, it is difficult for him to achieve such a magical association. Feng Zhi accepted Goethe’s metamorphosis theory and Rilke’s philosophy of transformation. In his later years, when summarizing the influences these great poets had on him, Feng especially quoted their poems, one of which, entitled “Es winkt zu Fühlung fast aus allen Dingen” (English: Everything Beckons to Us to Perceive It), was by Rilke: Ein Tag, an dem wir fremd vorübergingen, entschließt im künftigen sich zum Geschenk. Wer rechnet unseren Ertrag? Wer trennt uns von den alten, den vergangnen Jahren?79 The English translation is as follows: A day we passed, too busy to receive it, will yet unlock us all its treasury. Who shall compute our harvest? Who shall bar us from the former years, the long-departed?80 According to Rilke, the lived experience in any day of life may pass you by like a stranger at that time, but later, at a particular moment, it may mean something special to you; hence, at any time human life cannot be separated from lived experience. This idea was perfectly integrated by Feng Zhi into his poetic conceptions, which were filled with national flavor and everyday atmosphere. 79 80

Rainer Maria Rilke, „Gedichte 1906 bis 1926“, in: Rainer Maria Rilke, Sämtliche Werke in 12 Bänden, Bd. 3, Frankfurt am Main: Insel 1975, S. 92. Rainer Maria Rilke, Poems 1906 to 1926, translated with an Introduction by J. B. Leishman, New York: New Directions 1957, p. 193.

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The reason why I regard Sonnets Twenty to Twenty-three as the Chinese nation’s spiritual journey during the Counter-Japanese War is that although Feng Zhi did not refer to any connection between his sonnets and the war, we may clearly sense the background of war based on the above interpretations. When Feng was writing The Collection of Sonnets in 1941, the War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression was in difficult stalemate, and the nation needed firm faith and determination to win the war. In these sonnets, Feng used the three stages of “the storm in gusty winds”, “the heavy night rain” and “rain clouds suddenly dispersing” as a logical deduction for the external world, while for the internal world, corresponding countermeasures were also made: the key word for Sonnet Twenty-one is perseverance (flimsy lamp), the focus of Sonnet Twenty-two is faith (praying for a vast universe by God), whilst the highlight of Sonnet Twenty-three is light (bark in the dark of night). A thorough review of all twenty-seven sonnets may reveal an echo between these three sonnets and Sonnets Five, Six and Seven. Starting with Movement 2 Muses Befalling the World, Feng depicted his contacts, worries and satire of reality in the stance of a foreign traveler. Through his spiritual journey and his exploration of the meaning of life, Feng was seen in Movement 5 to have changed his enlightenment attitude toward reality as well as his satiric attitude toward reality. With his life transformed into part of the reality, he, as a victim, shared adversity with reality. In spite of abstract connotations, Feng made use of concrete imageries to embody and seize them, making the entire poetic style more introverted and metaphysical. Movement 6: The End of Solitude – The Conversion of Being and Nothingness (Sonnets Twenty-Four to Twenty-Seven) We are approaching the peak of modern poetry created by Feng Zhi; we are going to stand on the mountain top to view the scenery. Feng’s The Collection of Sonnets enjoys a complete structure, and we are entering its ending movement, which echoes Movement 1. In Sonnet One, Feng exclaimed that he was ready to embrace the mysteries of life: “the sudden appearance of a comet, the whirling, gusty wind”, whilst in Sonnet Twenty-seven, he called for poetry to hold things that could not be held: like the pitcher to the shapeless water, and the vane to a night’s wind. Hence, the best way to interpret this movement is to start off with Sonnet Twenty-seven, the last sonnet: 2.6

Sonnet Twenty-seven From a flow of the shapeless water, The water-carrier fills his oval pitcher, Thus so much water possesses a definite shape; Look, how the vane flutters in the autumn wind

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Holding an object that can’t be held, And let the mind, the light, the darkness, and the growth of woods faraway, run towards the infinite, And preserve something of this vane! We have listened to a night’s wind, And watched a day’s yellow grass and red leaves; Where shall we dispose of our ideas? Hope these poems will hold like a vane – Some things that cannot be held. After the completion of the first twenty-six sonnets, Feng Zhi felt no longer excited by sudden poetic inspirations, instead, he needed to ruminate on this: why should he accept such a gift of fate and work on this set of sonnets? (He had actually taken modern Chinese sonnets to a new peak.) He realized eventually that he was endeavoring to explore the most intricate part in this national war, namely a series of life elements in abstract forms, such as life and death, personality, spirit, love, the nature of man, the positionality of man in time and space, and the like, building for them an everlasting monument through his poetic expressions. Due to the indescribability of these elements, Feng hopes his sonnets may serve as vanes and pitchers to hold the spiritual traces that he himself felt difficult to grasp. Sonnet Twenty-seven is full of rhetoric with two meaning-making imageries: the vane and pitcher, both of which contain rich charms. First is the imagery of the vane, which was often applied by Rilke in his works, symbolizing any kind of creation, as it contains the worker’s innovative ideas and spiritual practices. In Rilke’s works, the imagery of the vane was not presented in the form of a ready-made object as usually seen, but rather the process of its formation. In Sonnet 18 of Part II in his The Sonnets to Orpheus, Rilke portrayed a dancing girl by using the following metaphor: Aber er trug auch, er trug, dein Baum der Ekstase. Sind sie nicht seine ruhigen Früchte: der Krug, reifend gestreift, und die gereiftere Vase?81

81

Rainer Maria Rilke, „Die Sonette an Orpheus“, in: Rainer Maria Rilke, Sämtliche Werke in 12 Bänden, Bd. 2, Frankfurt am Main: Insel 1975, S. 763.

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The English translation is as follows: Nay, it was able, your tree of rapture, to bear. Are they not, all its fruits that so peacefully shine, jug streaked with ripeness, vase further ripened, still there?82 The dancer’s revolving was referred to as the formation of a jug streaked with ripeness; when she was coming into shape, it was as if the tree were ripening and bearing fruits. The poet is like a dancer, whose poetry is like the formation of a container, which opens a space to hold the things difficult to be held through subjective spiritual creations. Now let us turn to the vane, which is also a symbol of great significance. In Western culture, the vane itself is a symbol of victory and charge in the battlefield. Feng Zhi’s application of such a high-spirited symbol may not be necessarily associated with the background of the war, though it naturally implied his confidence: in his sonnets, he had grasped some spiritual phenomena, such as the wind, that could not be easily held.83 The imagery of the vane fluttering in the wind seems to be closer to that of the revolving jug/vase in Rilke’s works, which establishes its own will while fluttering in the wind. What about the wind? What kind of spiritual connotation does the wind represent in this sonnet, as the vane was trying to hold on to the wind? The last three lines in Stanza 2 best illustrate this: “And let the mind, the light, the darkness, and the growth of woods faraway, run towards the infinite.” “The infinite” should refer to the concept of space of the wind, “the light” and “the darkness” indicate the change of night and day, while “the growth of woods” reflects the passage of time. Endless wind blows, conveying the meaning of time to life, that is, the form of life evolution. Hence, “run[ning] towards the infinite” is fulfilled, symbolizing man’s yearning for breaking and transcending the shackle of time. In Movement 1, we have discussed the transformation of life and death, as transformation was also for transcendence purposes. In this last sonnet, Feng again emphasized such themes. In Stanza 4, the metaphor of wind was determined again through Feng’s in-depth thoughts; his “ideas” may be referred to as an interpretation of “run[ning] towards the infinite.” 82 83

Rainer Maria Rilke, “Sonnets to Orpheus”, trans. by J. B. Leishman, in: Rilke, Poems, translated by J. B. Leishman et al., edited by Peter Washington, New York· London · Toronto: Alfred. A. Knopf, 1996, p. 153. (Everyman’s Library Pocket Poets Series) In Western cultural symbols, the wind is always associated with the spirit. For example, the Greek πνευμα (pneuma) contains three meanings of wind, breath and spirit, while the Latin word spiritus also has the meanings of breath, breeze and spirit.

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Among Feng’s very best works, Sonnet Twenty-seven has often been selected for general poetry readings, in which vivifying imageries, such as shapeless water that overflows, fluttering vanes in the wind, and intangible faraway wind, all spotlight Feng’s vitality, foiling vividly his empty heart and drifting mind. What Feng thought about was the life philosophy of existence, as he always wished to hold it in some fixed form. It is not difficult to find that Sonnet One is filled with imageries of solemn sculptures, such as “Joys and sorrows come quickly to our eyes solidifying into towering forms,” which reflect the existence of the movement of life at a particular moment. Whilst in Sonnet Twenty-seven, Feng used the imagery of fluttering vanes in the wind to hold (or to solidify) shapeless and invisible wind. There exists a mysterious connection: the vane flutters because of the wind, while the wind becomes tangible because of the vane. This also seems to reveal the connection between Feng and his poetic Muses: when Muses befall the world, Feng’s works become a vane to witness their existence. In Sonnet One, Feng greeted the unexpected arrival of Muses with piety and fear, whilst in this ending sonnet, he announced the presence of Muses with triumphant confidence. Now it may be much easier to return to Sonnets Twenty-four to Twenty-six. In terms of conceptual traces in expression in these sonnets, Feng applied concrete and specific imageries to embody esoteric theories as he might have felt them excessively abstract. It turns out that the diversity of poetic imageries is lost since each imagery seems to repeat the same theory. If Sonnets Two to Four in Movement 1 are taken as a solemn prelude by discussing the transformation of life and death, then Movement 6, the ending movement, winds up the entire work by discussing the transformation of old and new life. Here, the “old” refers to the existing order of life routine, while the “new” indicates the creation of metaphysical vitality in a higher sense. Meanwhile, in order to better express such elusive ideas, Feng explored in previous movements man’s vastness and existence. In Movement 6, Feng’s probing tentacles reached the most active and hidden realm of unconsciousness in human life. The realm of unconsciousness does not appear suddenly in Feng’s The Col­ lection of Sonnets, as it has been described when Feng was exploring man’s vastness, the continuity of personality and spirit, the call of life in dreams and the existence and transformation of lived experience, such as the transformation of the sunrays in the body of innocent puppies into barks for the light in the dark of night, and cities, mountains, rivers, friends now dead, and strangers that have become the destiny of our lives. In psychological terms, it is unconscious elements that work in our lives. According to psychoanalysis, the human spirit is divided into subjectivity and objectivity. When analyzing these two spiritual systems, namely the subjective spirit and the objective spirit, Jung referred

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to objective spirit as the impersonal, universal or collective unconscious. “In addition to our immediate consciousness, which is of a thoroughly personal nature and which we believe to be the only empirical psyche (even if we tack on the personal unconscious as an appendix), there exists a second psychic system of a collective, universal and impersonal nature which is identical in all individuals. This collective unconscious does not develop individually but is inherited.”84 Therefore, what Sonnets Twenty-four to Twenty-six elaborate is the great vitality embodied in the objective spirit (unconsciousness): Sonnet Twenty-four Here, a thousand years ago Everywhere, our lives seemed to have been Before we were born. A song had already been sung from the elusive sky, From green grass and pines about our fate. We are burdened by hardships here, how can we hear such a song? Look, the tiny insect in its flight, It is eternity all the time. Sonnet Twenty-five Stationery on the desk Books displayed on the shelf. Amidst these silent objects we spend the day in thought. There are no songs in words, No dances in actions. Vaguely, we wonder why the bird outside the window flaps its wings. 84

Radmila Moacanin, Jung’s Psychology and Tibetan Buddhism: Western and Eastern Paths to the Heart, London: Wisdom Pub. 1986, p. 30.

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Only as the body sleeps, When the night is still, do its rhythms begin. And air plays in the body, And sea salt plays in the blood, And in dreaming, can you hear the sky, the seas calling to us? Sonnet Twenty-six We walk each day on a familiar road To return to our homes, But in these woods, there are Concealed paths, deep and strange. Walking a strange one, a little fear begins, Worrying, the farther we go, the further we’re lost. Unawares, through the openings of the scattered trees, Our home is suddenly in sight, like a new island on the horizon. So many things close to us Demand new interpretations. Don’t feel that everything is familiar; Till death comes, you touch yourself Wondering; whose body is this? There seems to be no difficulty in understanding these sonnets, and we further find that Feng expressed his worries in a hesitant tone when his writing was approaching its end. He kept inquiring why were we so burdened by hardships that we could not hear the ancient song of life? Why, we wonder, does our life lack vitality? Why do we follow the beaten track and dare not take an unfamiliar path? In each sonnet there is a contrast: Sonnet Twenty-four describes the contrast between man’s mindset beset by the troubles of reality and the song of eternal life; Sonnet Twenty-five reveals the gap and contrast between the disturbances in the order of daily life and the call of the heavens and sea felt in dreams, while Sonnet Twenty-six pushes such contrasts to the climax, questioning man’s lived experience. If man’s lived experience obscures its great vitality like a hidden path in the woods, we will be lifeless and lose our identity. If we compare this to Feng’s eulogy of the transformation of a nation’s life and death symbolized by a eucalyptus and cudweed in Movement 1, we may see

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here that he directed his main theme, namely criticism, at the phenomenon of our internal life – a dull, timid and mediocre self that is paralyzed by lived experience and requires the release of his lively vitality through self-disclosure. As a metaphor of man’s unconsciousness, the imageries described in these sonnets, such as the elusive sky, green grass and pines accompanied by an eternal song, the tiny insect in which life finds its eternity, the bird flapping its wings outside the window, the call of the sky and sea salt in dreams, and those concealed paths which may lead to “a new island”, suggest the metaphysical vivacity of life. To interpret such effort with Jung’s theory of unconsciousness is to introduce the objective spirit accumulated in national culture and integrate it into the subjective spirit so as to expand and renew the latter. We always walk on a familiar road, which is only part of our lived experience; there is, as well a metaphysical part. Unless it is found, one cannot be a complete person. Resorting to the realm of the unconscious to suggest the metaphysical existence of life, Feng was a master in using metaphors and descriptive language in addressing it. In Sonnet Twenty-four, Feng felt the life of those who have passed away by viewing the elusive sky, green grass and pines; he felt empathy with them, as if his life had existed for thousands of years and been transformed into an ancient eternal song. The unconscious was revealed through dreams in Sonnet Twenty-five, in which the last six lines manifest a wonderful description of such unconsciousness: the air playing in the body and sea salt playing in the blood are both objective parts of life, which constitute the most basic elements of life. It is in these basics that we hear the call of the sky, which proves the genetic constraints or the restriction of life information on man. The description in Sonnet Twenty-six is also impressive: the concealed paths were deep and strange in the woods, but once we entered them, we might reach our destination. Now, we find that the destination has become “a new island”, an old place with changed quality. The so-called individual perfection or self-realization is a process of personality integration, “the unconscious fertilizes consciousness, and consciousness illuminates the unconscious; the interfusion and union of the two results in increased awareness and a broadening of personality.”85 Here, Feng Zhi reiterated the theory of metamorphosis of life, and described this idea of self-renewal at a higher level than a natural physiological phenomenon. Hence, he resorted to the final sonnets to render repeatedly such idea, requiring readers to gain full awareness of the multilayered life – momentary existence must be associated with long history, heredity in the blood must run 85 See Radmila Moacanin, Jung’s Psychology and Tibetan Buddhism: Western and Eastern Paths to the Heart, p. 43.

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under the surface of silence, and there must be more vibrant paths beyond habitual experience. Everything needs to be explored for answers. However, who am I? This is an inquiry which requires a lifetime of practice to explore, and a whole life’s time to answer. This is the fundamental issue in Sonnet Twenty-seven, the final sonnet, in which shapeless water in an oval pitcher and the vane fluttering in the wind were used as metaphors for ideas that can never be held.

Chapter 9

A Dictionary of Maqiao: One Case of the Global Elements in Chinese Contemporary Literature The last hotspot in the Chinese literary world in 1996 was not the death of the master dramatist Cao Yu, nor the impact of the 5th National Congress of the Chinese Writers Association held in Beijing in December of that year, but a series of controversies provoked by Han Shaogong’s novel A Dictionary of Maqiao. If these controversies only involved a writer’s personal reputation, they would not arouse so wide engagement among writers. Is it reasonable to doubt the originality of a newly published Chinese novel because it resembles some foreign works in some way (such as its subject matter, structure, narrative method, writing style and the like)? Such doubt can be said to have been haunting contemporary literature after the Cultural Revolution; especially after 1985, it has become a subtle psychological barrier among writers. This may cover a range of professional discussions in comparative literature, such as, is it possible for a purely “original” personal style to emerge in Chinese writing within a broader world paradigm? How to explain the differing value connotations between simplistic imitations and acceptance of foreign influences, which are both widely existent in Chinese literary works? And, can traditional argumentation of impact study still play a role in interpreting the global elements in contemporary literary works? Apparently, the confusion that writers encounter in their writing is much more practical and specific, and the increasingly blurred cultural boundaries have made it difficult for them to distinguish which of their works are of pure nationality and which are mixed with foreign literary influences. Therefore, defending A Dictionary of Maqiao has become a collective unconsciousness of self-protection among contemporary writers. Even if they were not facing the critics’ “muckraking” accusations and the commercialization of the mass media, they were expecting an impartial evaluation in terms of accepting foreign literary influences. Compared with such a theoretical background, the issue of the disrepute of A Dictionary of Maqiao seemed less important. The self-evident reason behind the defamation of A Dictionary of Maqiao is that the accusation of copying or plagiarizing Dictionary of the Khazars: A Lexicon Novel by the Serbian writer Milorad Pavić was not motivated by academic enthusiasm, but by the critics’ desire to release jealousy and anger due to the divergence of their literary views. The academic issue here was nothing more than a pretext. In his article entitled

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“Missing Spirit”, Zhang Yiwu expressed his real intention by stating that “beside the Serbian writer Pavić, the Chinese writer Han Shaogong is undoubtedly an imitator. Unfortunately, Pavić’s influence was not acknowledged either in the ‘Editorial Note’ or in ‘Afterword’ of A Dictionary of Maqiao by Han, who often claimed to be ‘aspiring’ and ‘sublime’ …”1 The first half of Zhang’s criticism was made intentionally to ridicule Han’s “sublime aspirations” in the latter half, which is just like critics’ ridiculing Zhang Chengzhi’s idealism a couple of years ago, accusing him of not sending his daughter to Xihaigu2 to suffer. This may be regarded only as an irresponsible personal attack by critics, which was not worthy of serious argument. However, disguised by academic cloaks, such a personal attack was related to the aforementioned theoretical background that confused contemporary writers, which made the controversies surrounding Han’s A Dictionary of Maqiao surpass Maqiao, a small village in China’s Hunan Province, to enter a much broader theoretical realm. Han’s A Dictionary of Maqiao was published in Issue 2 of Short Story Monthly in 1996, while the Chinese version of Pavić’s Dictionary of the Khazars was published in Issue 2 of Foreign Literature and Art in 1994. Aside from the complete written form of dictionary entries, there seems no similarity in the presentation of the texts. So-called “imitation” is usually from the perspective of comparative literature, which refers to a writer’s act of yielding his own writing characteristics to those of another writer or works as much as possible. The object of imitation may be the entire work or part of it, or it may be a writer’s particular writing style and technique.3 Whatever the various kinds of objects and behaviors to be imitated, the rubric for appraisal is to see whether the author abandons his own writing characteristics in favor of others. Hence, it should not be difficult to appraise the work of any accomplished writer who has developed his own writing style. In addition to its chosen form of narration, the content of A Dictionary of Maqiao reveals Han’s abundant lived experience accumulated since his youth, in which his descriptions, whether plain or grotesque, reflect those in his works such as Looking West at the Thatched Land, Bababa and See You Again Yesterday. A Dictionary of Maqiao is not some miraculous book invented out of the blue, nor Maqiao a place where foreign folk customs are displayed. In terms of the wording and language of this book, 1 See Zhang Yiwu, “Missing Spirit”, At Your Service, December 5, 1996. 2 Xihaigu refers to the southern mountainous area of Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region. In 1972, it was designated as one of the areas most inhospitable for human life by the United Nations Food Development Agency due to its water shortage and poor ecological environment, thus becoming a synonym for poverty. 3 See the entry of “Imitation” in A Small Dictionary of Comparative Literature, in Liu Jiemin, The Methodology of Comparative Literature, Tianjin People’s Publishing House, 1993.

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those who are familiar with Han’s writing style would not doubt its originality; hence, the possibility of imitation with regards to its content, details and even the use of language can be basically excluded. The only thing that can be compared and discussed is the similarity between Pavić’s and Han’s works in the narrative form is that they both used entries to develop the content. The reason why I used “entries” instead of “dictionary” to limit the similar narrative features of the two novels is that I do not think Pavić’s Dictionary of the Khazars was entirely written in a dictionary format. I don’t know if the Chinese translation of Pavić’s works was complete; if it was, its text as a “dictionary” was incomplete. I don’t know either if in Serbian the term for “dictionary” has a unique connotation. If explored only in Chinese, the text of Dictionary of the Khazars is simply a compilation of a triad of the world’s three major religions (Christianity, Islam and Judaism), describing a thousand years of man’s adventure in search of some mysteries in history. The Khazar Dictionary in the novel has two-fold meanings. As the plot hub of the novel, the Khazar Dictionary is a Latin dictionary which documents a great religious polemic, “the Khazar polemic,” that took place in the Khazar Empire in the 8th and 9th centuries. This book is said to be the historical material left by Princess Ateh, the main participant in this polemic. With additions and revisions by various religious sects, it was made completely different from the original. Reconstructed, compiled and annotated by the publisher, the Daubmannus edition was eventually published in 1691. One year later, in 1692, however, it was destroyed by order of the Catholic Inquisition with only two copies surviving. Researchers of these religions in the 17th century found preserved fragments of the dictionary in their respective religious documents. Due to the destruction of the original, nobody could find it. It ends with scholars of these religions searching in vain for the Khazar Dictionary in the 1980s, one of whom claimed to have obtained the dictionary, though it was just an ancient key that could not unlock all secrets. The entire novel develops around the birth, compilation and search for this dictionary, even though it is imaginary, which is like the “Golden Pastures” in Zhang Chengzhi’s novel Golden Pastures. The other is Pavić’s claim that his novel is the product of this mysterious document, the Khazar Dictionary, as he not only completed the process by which researchers of these religions of the 20th century continued to explore the Khazar Question, but also compiled the book based on the form of three cross-referenced mini-encyclopedias, sometimes contradicting each other, each compiled from the sources of one of the major Abrahamic religions (Christianity, Islam and Judaism), so as to facilitate readers’ varying reading purposes. Therefore, Pavić referred to it as “a lexicon novel in

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100,000 words.”4 Altogether there are eighteen entries in this novel, divided equally into Hebrew, Moslem, and Christian sources on the Khazars’ conversion, six in each volume, in which only one is about language, namely ku (fruit in the Khazar language) in the Green Book, whilst the remaining entries are all about names. The names, such as Kaghan and Ateh, were frequently repeated in three books, and Cyril, a character from the Khazar polemic, was also introduced in one book. In other words, there are not many entries that address the history and legend of the Khazar polemic. More precisely, it is a novel that unfolds its text in chapters in terms of dictionary entries from three differing narrative perspectives. Pavić was not the first writer who developed the plot of a novel or formed part of its narrative content in the form of entries. Besides the more distant ones (whose origin can be dated to The Book of Changes or literary sketchbooks in the Ming Dynasty), “The True Story of Ah Q”, the most outstanding novel in the history of Chinese new literature, had employed unconsciously dictionary entries as its narrative form, in which over half of its chapters contain entries. For instance, Chapter One, “Introduction”, is such an entry that renders the meaning of “The True Story of Ah Q”. Ensuing chapters, such as “A Brief Account of Ah Q’s Victories”, “A Further Account of Ah Q’s Victories”, “The Revolution”, and “Barred From the Revolution”, with their narrative forms interspersed with comments, may be all referred to as entries. I am not sure about its application in other foreign literary works, though at least in Milan Kundera’s works translated by Han Shaogong, the application of defining dictionary entries as the narrative form is not infrequent. No matter whether 4 See Milorad Pavic, Dictionary of the Khazars, translated by Dai Cong and Shi Zhenchuan, Foreign Literature and Art, No. 2, 1994. It was the only published Chinese translation at the time. Although neither the editor nor the translators stated that this translation is an abridged version, the analysis and views of this paper are based on this translation. In December 1998, the single edition of Dictionary of the Khazars was published by Shanghai Translation Publishing House, which was translated by Nan Shan, Dai Cong and Shi Zhenchuan. While revising this article, I compared these two versions and found huge differences in terms of the content. In the single edition of Dictionary of the Khazars, there were 14 entries in “The Red Book”, 16 entries in “The Green Book”, and 12 entries in “The Yellow Book”. Among the deleted entries in the abridged edition of Dictionary of the Khazars, the entries such as “the Khazar polemic” and its participants “Ibn Kora” and “Isaac Sangari” were in all three books. Moreover, the order and content of the retained entries differed. Additionally, there are sections of “Supplement I” and “Conclusion” in the single edition. Evidently, the translation published in Foreign Literature and Art was an abridged edition. For this reason, I have abridged and revised the relevant paragraphs in this paper, but kept the original analysis based on the translation of the abridged edition of Dictionary of the Khazars.

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these writers termed such a way of writing “dictionary entries,” the basic form was to narrate in the form of defining dictionary entries, with its essential feature of conveying the writer’s specific ideas through reinterpreting some nouns (including names) and telling stories as illustrations. In “The True Story of Ah Q”, Lu Xun could surely have created its main character Ah Q as he had done with other characters, such as Old Chuan in “Medicine”, Run Tu in “My Old Home”, and Sister Xianglin in “The New Year’s Sacrifice”. But had he done so, it might have been difficult to achieve the in-depth analysis of Ah Q’s spiritual characteristics. Lu Xun attempted to explore the silent soul of his folk through Ah Q, but seemed to accomplish this by interpreting nouns such as “spiritual victories,” thus interspersing the narrative process with rational and natural comments. Such narrative form is inseparable from the writer’s desire to express his thoughts and comments in writing; when perceptual artistic imageries seem insufficient to convey his insights into these imageries, he must supplement them with personalized arguments. Hence, the dictionary entry-based narrative form is especially suitable for rational writers who hope to change fixed ideas through reinterpreting language, thus reshaping readers’ conventional understanding of their works. However, Milorad Pavić did not seem to be typical of this type of writer. Due to my limited knowledge of Western religions, I won’t comment on their development in Dictionary of the Khazars. In this novel, however, most of the entries Pavić chose are the names of characters, which are limited to the narrative function and fail to annotate words themselves. What the novel unfolds by means of the form of entries is its postmodern textual function, that is, what Pavić informs readers in “How to Use the Dictionary” is that they may read it in any way they desire. The Khazar Empire was a vanished historical legend in the novel; for more than a thousand years, the search for its historical mystery was blocked by the mysterious world: First each of the three religions compiled a set of documents to explain the Khazars’ conversion, making the historical truths ambiguous. Next, in the 17th and 20th centuries, researchers attempted to re-explore this part of history, but were disturbed by a series of religious evils. Those researchers, though from these religions, were mostly rebels of the church, who were all cursed when endeavoring to seek truth from pagan sources beyond the documents of their churches. If the researchers of the 17th century were merely disturbed by these evil forces in a mischievous way, more remarkably, the latter conspired to prevent three modern scholars from meeting together in Constantinople in the 20th century. This novel seems to reveal the terrible fate faced by man’s perseverant pursuit for truth, which has been inherited from generation to generation, as if it were Sisyphus’s road to martyrdom. To shatter man’s rosy dreams on this road of martyrdom, the secrets

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of the Khazar Empire would never be solved, which made Pavić eschew conventional closed narrative structure and plot and compile the documents of these religions within this open book. Therefore, the reader may read the three books of this dictionary – Yellow, Red and Green – in any order he desires, he may also pick any entry that interests him at a given moment. The entire structure of Dictionary of the Khazars is as follows: Meeting time & Meeting place

Participants in the Khazars Debate In 861 Summer Palace of the Khazar Empire

Researchers of the 17th century September 24, 1689 An Austro-Turkish battlefield in Walachia

Demons of the 17th century

Researchers of the 20th century October 2, 1982 A meeting in Constantinople

Christianity (The Red Book)

Kaghan Ateh Cyril

Avram Brankovich

Nikon Sevast (a left-hander who loves drawing)

Isailo Suk

Islam (The Green Book)

Kaghan Ateh Ibn Kora

Yusuf Masudi

Yabir Ibn Akshany (a poetry and piano lover)

Abu Kabir Muawia

Judaism (The Yellow Book)

Kaghan Ateh Isaac Sangari

Samuel Cohen

Ephrosinia Lukarevich (A woman with two thumbs)

Dorothea Schultz

The closing

Ateh

Demons of the 17th century Van der Spaak (Akshany) Mrs. Spaak (Nikon) Three-year-old son (Ephrosinia)

What we have available regarding this dictionary consists of The Red Book (Christian sources on the Khazar question), The Green Book (Islamic sources on the Khazar question), and The Yellow Book (Hebrew sources on the Khazar question). Serious readers may try to understand the book from chronologically ordered anecdotes, which requires shuffling, cross-referencing and even rearranging the entire eighteen entries. It is such an open structural novelty and romances between the living and the dead that constitute the narrative characteristics of Dictionary of the Khazars. In order to let readers take full advantage of this characteristic, Pavić applied the term “lexicon” to summarize his novel, as he reminded them by saying “After all, this book need never be read in its entirety; one can take half or only a part and stop there, as one often

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does with dictionaries.” Apparently, Pavić suggested the feature of this book by inviting readers to use it as any other lexicon either by looking up a word or a name that interests them at a given moment or by reading it diagonally to get a cross-section of all three registers – the Islamic, the Christian and the Hebrew. Therefore, Pavić’s Dictionary of the Khazars is not a textual lexicon, but a dictionary for open reading purposes. If compared from this perspective, one may find that what was not featured in Dictionary of the Khazars is exactly what Han Shaogong pursued in A Dictionary of Maqiao, which was moreover set down in linguistic form. In other respects, A Dictionary of Maqiao continues Han’s usual style of writing; that is to say, it is not particularly explorative. In terms of its artistic innovativeness, it is not as poignant as his Bababa or Womanwomanwoman published in 1985. Only in terms of its narrative form has Han Shaogong made great efforts in creating a new style – using the lexicographical style in writing novels. Both Kundera’s “short dictionary of misunderstood words” and Pavić’s “lexicon novel” are narratives that develop the structure and plot of the novel through dictionary entries, instead of writing it seriously into a dictionary. Han, however, grounded in these literary works, has actually produced A Dictionary of Maqiao in the form of a dictionary. We may further discuss and question the achievement of a novel’s aesthetic features through its lexicographical style as well as the soundness of the artistic genre of a dictionary novel, though we cannot deny Han’s originality in terms of its forms. Compared with Dictionary of the Khazars, such originality in A Dictionary of Maqiao is obvious. Firstly, grounded in a complete artistic conception, Han created a geographically fictitious village Maqiao by compiling its history, geography, customs, produce, legends and characters into a dictionary of the dialect of Maqiao as its symbol. Meanwhile, as a lexicographer and an educated youth who was sent to the countryside for re-education through labor, Han interpreted these entries, which led to a series of recollective stories. The literariness of the story is encapsulated in the narrative form of the dictionary; hence, differing from Kundera’s or Pavić’s works, what is read first is a complete dictionary about Maqiao, and then the other elements of the story. Differing from Han’s method, Kundera embedded entries in the general narrative of the novel as part of it, whilst Pavić resorted to the form of entries to develop the plot of the novel. In their narratives, the application of the entries was either to supplement the deficiency of the general novel narrative, or to fulfill the overall narrative needs of the novel. In the dictionary of A Dictionary of Maqiao, however, all is reversed, as the general narrative of the novel is subordinated to the functional needs of the dictionary. Naturally, I am skeptical of the regenerative nature of novels in the form of a physical dictionary. Geographically as a specific

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space, the existence of Maqiao differs greatly from the imaginary Khazar Empire, which exists only in literature and legend. Since the latter is a looming and haunted imaginary space, the text about it has to be open and indefinite, creating accordingly a revolution in the way we read it. As for the former, however, the certainty of Maqiao’s location makes it a closed text, which may only be read as an encyclopedic dictionary of knowledge with very limited fantasy. I can hardly imagine that a batch of imitations such as A Dictionary of Niuqiao and A Dictionary of Gaojiazhuang would emerge shortly after the publication of A Dictionary of Maqiao. From this perspective, writers such as Kundera and Pavić integrated entries into the general novel narrative for enrichment. Although, in the sense of a dictionary novel, such way of writing is fragmented, it fits varying literary applications and attempts with greater vitality, which has been manifested by Han Shaogong’s works. Han has perfected the dictionary entry-based narrative form and fixed it in novel writing, thus enriching the genres of novels, which is undoubtedly a unique success. If the dictionary entry-based narrative is studied as a narrative form of the novel, Han’s A Dictionary of Maqiao is a bold attempt at elevating this narrative form to the dictionary novel. Furthermore, compared with the significance of perfecting the form of dictionary novel, Han has achieved greater success in exploring its use of language in the process of establishing the form of dictionary novel. In previous works of other novelists, language was used as a tool to express the setting of the novel, while in A Dictionary of Maqiao, it becomes part of what the novel presents, and the setting is included in the display of the language itself, that is, Maqiao village lives in its dialect. Such efforts did not start with Han’s works. In the 1950s and 1960s, many writers of rural themes deliberately eschewed the public discourses which represent the power of the state, turning to local dialects of their people to portray village life in rural China. For instance, Zhou Libo used Northeast and Hunan dialects widely in his novels; since what was portrayed in his works was mainly an act of state power, these local dialects had to be extensively annotated. Now, Han has unified the language with the objects it portrays, employing the vocabulary of the villagers to illustrate village life. Although standard language was applied in interpreting these folk words, which Han had explained in the Editorial Note, the dialect of Maqiao was highlighted in the novel, in which lexical interpretations constituted the book’s most intriguing narratives. For instance, for the explanation of “Awakened” (Chinese: Xing), in eyes of Maqiao people, awakened means stupid. Someone awakened is a stupid fool. In Qu Yuan’s poem “The Old Fisherman”, there is a famous line, “Throughout the world all is muddy, I alone am clear; everyone is drunk, I alone am awakened (xing).” Hence, they learned the cruelty of reality from Qu Yuan’s tragic fate. This is like the imagery

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of “madman” in Lu Xun’s works, which not only serves as a tribute to the pioneers and a mockery of the nationality, but also expresses deep sympathy for Qu Yuan in its own way. All this was achieved not through the portrayal of characters, nor the expression of emotions, nor even through the rhetoric of language, but through the historical, folk, cultural and literary interpretation of a word. Even in some of more story-telling entries, the charm comes largely from the key words that make up the story. For instance, the explanation of the entry “Dear Life” (Chinese: Guisheng) narrates “Xiongshi’s death” in the stories of Zhihuang, his wife Shuishui, and their son Xiongshi with strong folk flavors. Apparently, however, its narrative focus was not characters but the emotions of the lower class displayed through these characters, which are the key elements revealed by the key words. Originally, Xiongshi was a boy of great character. After his tragic accidental death caused by a bomb, the novel focuses on the interpretation of a folk word: Dear Life. “Dear life” refers to a man’s life before the age of eighteen, or a woman’s life before the age of sixteen. According to Maqiao people, in a dear life, there were no worries about food or clothes, and one could mess about all day long. Then one would have to find a wife, set up home on his own, and have less fun in life. Later, one attains a “full life,” which refers to a man’s life up to the age of thirty-six and to a woman’s life up to the age of thirty-two. To live this long is to live fully, and anything after that is “cheap life.” Therefore, villagers were not grieved over Xiongshi’s accidental death; instead, they used the language of “dear life” to comfort Xiongshi’s parents, emphasizing how painful life could be when one grew up. What is moving are the words that reveal the extreme weariness of these villagers in a life of poverty and hopelessness. Hence, Xiongshi’s death was merely an illustration of the word “dear life.” From this we see the efforts made by Han Shaogong. Based on a comparative study of the two dictionary novels, it can be seen that the narrative form of A Dictionary of Maqiao was developed from the dictionary entry structure created by foreign writers, and it was not appropriate to label it simply as imitation. Even if there existed any possibility of imitation in such similar dictionary entry-based narrative form, it is just a general dictionary format, which is like “compilation instructions” in novels. However, this says no more than that an epistolary novel must have an addressee’s title, or that a diary novel must have a date and year. In terms of the development of this narrative form of dictionary novel, it was impossible for Han Shaogong to gain inspiration from The Book of Changes or from other ancient documents. He could only be influenced and inspired by the narrative form developed by entries in foreign novels, with the most direct evidence being his translation of Milan Kundera’s novels. Here I would like to reintroduce the concept of “influence” as described by the American scholar in comparative literature

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Joseph T. Shaw: “We may say a writer is influenced by foreign writers if his works exhibit an effect which cannot be explained either by the literary traditions of his own country or by his own paths.”5 The concepts of “influence” and “imitation” differ in comparative literature studies: “As opposed to ‘imitation’, the result of ‘influence’ is that the writer who has been influenced creates his own works. ‘Influence’ is not limited to specific details, certain imageries, ‘borrowings,’ or even ‘sources’ of material – which may all be included, though – instead, it is something that penetrates into the structure, permeates the organization of the entire work, and is expressed through art.”6 Apparently, the concept of “influence” is much broader than “imitation,” and it includes the function of certain associations. For instance, the idea that a novel can be written in a dictionary format may be derived from the narrative form of Kundera’s works, in which the plot is unfolded with entries, or the writer may directly or indirectly generate associations and free imagination from dictionary novels such as Dictionary of the Khazars, and then mobilize his lifelong experience and knowledge and end up generating something completely different from the source of his influence. In terms of the dictionary format, Pavić’s Dictionary of the Khazars is closer to Han’s A Dictionary of Maqiao than are Milan Kundera’s works. Hence, I felt skeptical first about Han Shaogong’s claim that he hadn’t read Pavić’s novel; by the time I had finished reading both novels, I felt convinced to some extent, as they are so different in the parts which should have looked identical. As discussed earlier, the elements that Dictionary of the Khazars does not possess are exactly those that A Dictionary of Maqiao pursues and are further fixed in a specific language, whilst the most entrancing elements in the former are also missing in the latter. The best part about Dictionary of the Khazars is its open text, which matches perfectly its entry-based narrative form. In the novel, the documents of the three religions narrate the same historical event from three differing perspectives and viewpoints, and cross-reference each other through three perspectives, showing rich imageries through cross-reference. Readers will be impressed by this and directly feel that their previous reading experience has been challenged and undermined. It is through the narrative feature of an entry’s polysemy and cross-reference that such an impression becomes striking. In his past works, Han Shaogong has repeatedly emphasized breaking 5 Quoted from Comparative Literature Research Materials, compiled by the Comparative Liter­ ature Research Group from the Department of Chinese Literature, Beijing Normal University. Beijing Normal University Press, 1986, p. 119. 6 See the entry of “influence” in A Small Dictionary of Comparative Literature, in Liu Jiemin, The Methodology of Comparative Literature.

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the certainty and causality in the narrative of novels, which was manifested not only in his master works in “The Search for Roots” series, such as Bababa and Homeward Bound, but also in A Dictionary of Maqiao. This shows that he has been endeavoring to find a narrative mode suitable for the openness of text in novel writing. If he had read Dictionary of the Khazars, Han would not have been indifferent to its unique narrative form. What we see now in A Dictionary of Maqiao, however, is that all the explanations of entries revolve around the accuracy and knowledge of a dictionary. Despite the fact that the characters in this novel are separated superficially by entries, they are presented in a strictly linear narrative sequence. Even if there exist differences of opinions, such as the fate of Long Stick Xi within a single entry, a high degree of harmony and completeness among entries in the entire dictionary remains eminent. Originally, the history and customs of Maqiao were not devoid of mysterious phenomena; if they had been especially developed in the form of an entry, it would not have produced a resemblance to those in the Khazar Empire. Instead, they may manifest the influence and correspondence of a deep spiritual connectedness between the two. However, in the text of A Dictionary of Maqiao, such inspiration is conspicuously missing; this seems a pity, which also shows Han’s lack of sensitivity in taking advantage of the most outstanding part in the narrative method of dictionary novels such as Dictionary of the Khazars. Hence, Han’s claim that he had never read Pavić’s Dictionary of the Khazars did hold water. Even so, it cannot be completely excluded that Han Shaogong was influenced by Dictionary of the Khazars. The paths of such influence may be multi-faceted, such as exposure to the introduction and recommendation of writing novels in the dictionary format, or learning indirectly that some foreign novels were written in the dictionary format. Smart writers can draw inferences from such hearsay and create their works grounded in their own culture by virtue of their rich lived experience and understanding and imagination of the dictionary format. The acceptance of external influences does not negate originality; on the contrary, the prosperity of writers’ enormous genius in creativity triggered by the encounter with a certain literature constituted an important phenomenon in the Chinese literary history of the 20th century. It is groundless that some scholars, when discussing the phenomenon of literary imitation, referred to Lu Xun’s “A Madman’s Diary”, which shares the same title with Nikolai Gogol’s novel “Diary of a Madman”. Firstly, Lu Xun did not imitate Gogol, though he might have been influenced by Gogol in writing novels in the narrative form of the diary of a madman, which is understandable for those who have read these texts. Although both novels end with the appeal of “Save the children,” Gogol showed the despair of the powerless in the society through the cry for

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help from the mouths of the weak, whilst Lu Xun, from the stance of enlightenment, appealed for man’s repentance and transformation. There might be creative inspirations between these “Save the children,” but they have nothing to do with imitation. Secondly, in spite of the variety of foreign influences in Lu’s “A Madman’s Diary”, it retains Lu’s most direct and unique insights into the national culture. Lu Xun did not discard his distinctive personality because of external influences, as the symbolic application of the “man-eating” imagery demonstrated his originality. It is highly irresponsible to conclude that Lu Xun imitated Gogol because they both wrote diary novels and employed mad men as protagonists. However, we cannot deny either that Lu Xun was influenced by foreign literature, including Gogol’s works, before he wrote “A Madman’s Diary”. Though there were Chinese writers of the 20th century who imitated foreign writers that they admired (such as Hong Shen’s The King of Hell Zhao as an imitation of Eugene O’Neill’s The Emperor Jones), what is more worthy of studying is how Chinese writers may produce their original works with acceptance of these foreign influences. The same information was also obtained in A Dictionary of Maqiao. Assuming that Han Shaogong had gained the knowledge that “novels can be written in the dictionary format” from the trends in world literature, he compiled his “dictionary” with his Chinese-style approach and built the language kingdom of Maqiao with his own lived experience. The “Maqiao” portrayed in this dictionary novel reveals Han’s own thinking and spirit of participation in the history and status quo of his national culture, which cannot be replaced by any Western literary imageries. The conceptual elements in Han Shaogong’s novels remain strong, which does not help the narrative of these works. In some of his past novels, the characters are grotesque and the plot absurd; yet there always exists an impression that Han was deliberately trying to illustrate ideas that he hoped to convey to readers. A Dictionary of Maqiao makes language itself a narrative. As a dictionary editor, Han reasonably stored his conceptual elements in the interpretations of words which contain such conceptions, including the identification of some irrational phenomena in Maqiao’s customs (for instance, in the entry “Maple Demon” (Chinese: Fenggui), Han’s repeated explanations of the meaning of non-causation were proof of his power of reason.) Nevertheless, the generalization of language to the idea is limited; hence, Han had to rely on folk imageries and stories to supplement his inadequate grasp of reason. Although the manifestation of hidden folk life was restricted by the entries selected by Han in advance, it enriched the connotation of words with its richness. For instance, in the interpretation of the word “Form” (Chinese: Ge), Han showed two opposite and complex folk attitudes toward power. If the story of Mingqi reflects the penetration of state power among the people,

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making them develop a reverence for the symbol of a certain privilege of “Forms,” then in the interpretation of “Clout” (Chinese: Sha), the sexless appellation of “Brother Wan”, reflects the alienation of “Form” in the folk unconsciousness. I especially like the portrayal of some truly hidden folklore and common people in this dictionary novel. The stories of Maqiao people can be divided into three categories: political stories, such as stories of Bandit Ma, Maogong and Yanzao; folk custom stories which tell everyday stories of the country village, such as Zhihuang’s story, the story of an elder named Luo about philosophy, and Benyi’s story about “streetsickness”; and the ones that are difficult to understand or tell even in rural villages, such as the stories of Tiexiang, Wanyu and Ma Ming. In my eyes, the second and third categories are more fascinating. Maqiao itself is a realistic miniature of the society in which national power and folk culture are mixed, where various ideologies constitute a world of filthiness and vivacity. Power, through discourse and its interpretation of discourse, represses the vitality of the folk world, whilst folk custom stories mirror how repressed people reject the official culture of the national power in their own way. Benyi later became the symbol of power in this folk society, though his early “streetsickness” in the city manifests vividly the general mindset of peasants who were not adapted to modern culture. Zhihuang’s story unfolded through the entry of “Precious” (Chinese: Baoqi). Prior to that, it is the entry “Jackal-Fiend” (Chinese: Chaimengzi) which introduced a jackal fish which didn’t eat plants but rather other fish. It was the fiercest of all fish, but could also at times be most stoic. In the novel, it could serve as a symbolic hint, while, “Precious” meant stupid and “preciousness” meant stupidity, which conceals the rights in “Minjian” and the unyielding resistance to authority. The third type of hidden folk tales, such as those of Wanyu, Tiexiang and Ma Ming, are more intriguing. Their desires, griefs and ways of living were oftentimes beyond comprehension for other village folks, that is to say: even the normal social order co-constructed by the power system and “Minjian” could not tolerate the unfettered growth of these vitalities. These folks could only grow and express themselves in a dark space; though in the eyes of the normal world, they were grumpy and irrational, in their own realm, they remained equally real and alive. These complex folk tragedies may not be thoroughly rendered and conveyed by limited obscure entries or incomplete interpretations, though the darkness behind these words offers room for ample imagination. The success of Han Shaogong’s A Dictionary of Maqiao has raised a new topic in the field of comparative literature research in contemporary China, which may arouse more academic enthusiasm for further research on this phenomenon between international cultures, thus transforming the traditional way of impact study. In previous impact study, the focus was on the “similarity”

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between two texts, that is, on the fact that constitutes the “influence,” while little attention was paid to the originality of those who are influenced in the process of acceptance and digestion. Especially, with the world entering the information age, the influences between various ideas and between differing cultures may work through numerous tangible and intangible channels. When people are immersed in a world of information all the time, it is becoming increasingly impossible or unreliable to follow the traces of influence. In terms of contemporary Chinese literature, which is deeply immersed in the whirlwind of world culture and literary information, its originality is not judged by its acceptance of external influences, but by the great creativity growing behind such influences. I refer to Chinese writers’ creativity in their writings, such as what Han Shaogong’s has done in A Dictionary of Maqiao, as a global element in contemporary literary creations. Han not only applied the narrative form of lexicography in writing novels, but also implemented a series of experiments on how to highlight the dominance of language in literature. Furthermore, in his writings, Han endeavored to bridge the gap between language and the world, to minimize the separation between words and things, and to construct the integration of “language and existence.” It is not difficult to perceive through his efforts the ideological and academic trend worldwide and the experimental trend of literature since the 20th century. In this dictionary novel experiment, Chinese writers and foreign writers have established at least a corresponding structure similar to conspirators, in which the traditional structure of “teacher and student” in previous impact study has been disintegrated, whilst the “influence” has drawn writers from all over the world, consciously or unconsciously, into this universal game. As a Chinese participant, Han also provided new rules and content for the game. So far, imitation is invalidated; if the dictionary novel is acknowledged in the world literature, A Dictionary of Maqiao and Dictionary of the Khazars should enjoy the identical status and representativeness. Just as we explore the modern literary genre of “prose poetry”, the works of I. Turgenev, C. Baudelaire and Lu Xun should also enjoy the same reputation. If the world excludes Chinese writings from its original domain, treating it merely as the recipient and derivative of Western literature, it will only reveal the incompleteness and injustice of world literature itself.

Chapter 10

Daemonic Elements in Hard Like Water by Yan Lianke F. Dostoevsky quotes a passage from The Bible · Luke 8:32–33 (rsv) on the title page of The Demons: “Now a large herd of swine was feeding there on the hillside; and they begged him to let them enter these. So he gave them leave. Then the demons came out of the man and entered the swine, and the herd rushed down the steep bank into the lake and were drowned.” It remains controversial whether Dostoevsky’s application of this story was accurate in describing the chaotic ethical and social conditions of Russia at the time, though the metaphor of “the possessed” is thought-provoking concerning some crazy stages in human history, at which demons, as an imagery of the object, restricted the rationality of the subject and meanwhile perpetrated a disastrous deed through the irrational madness of the subject. With regard to such madness, the Christian classics and Dostoevsky’s novels refer to it as “demonic possession,” while in literary history, there is a corresponding phenomenon: the daemonic.1 Based on a relatively straightforward interpretation, it can be rendered as “daemonism,” which may further be understood from the biblical story that Dostoevsky quotes. There exists a sense of salvation behind the story, as when the possessed swines were drowned, the man who had been possessed by demons was healed. From my perspective, the daemonic is mainly reflected in the moment when the herd rushed down the steep bank into the lake, which indicates that such daemonism contains a certain divine will, encapsulating the intent of great creation in the midst of great destruction. Concerning the world’s reality in the 20th century, one may see that Dosto­ evsky’s worries about the daemonic were not only insightful, but also prophetic, 1 In The Oxford English Dictionary, “demonic” means “Of, relating to, or of the nature of, supernatural power or genius=ger. dämonisch”. In this sense, it is usually spelt “daemonic” for distinction. Also in Webster’s Third New International Dictionary, “demonic” is spelt as “daemonic”, indicating “activating or compelling like an indwelling or ministering force: having extraordinary genius.” And “daemon” is interchangeable with “daimon”, which is similar to its Greek origin “δαίμων” in spelling. Also “daemonic” is interchangeable with “daimonic”. Both terms “daimon” and “daimonic” were used by Rollo May in Love and Will. Wolfgang M. Zucker also used the term “daimon” in his research on the daemonic nature in ancient Greek literature and philosophy. In view of this, this paper adopts “daemonic” and “daemonism”. See: The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd edition, 1989; Webster’s Third New International Dictionary, Encyclopaedia Britannica 1986; The Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, ed. by C. T. Onions, Oxford University Press 1966. © Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2022 | doi:10.1163/9789004522978_011

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as reality has become completely different from that in previous centuries. Under the premise of highly developed civilizations and the great release of man’s instinctive desire by virtue of the advancement of science and technology, big events such as two world wars, the fascist movements in Germany and Japan, the Jewish concentration camps, the Vietnam War and the Cambodian massacre, the Chinese Cultural Revolution, and the worldwide campaign against terrorism triggered by the September 11 attack, can all serve as source materials to re-examine the phenomenon of the daemonic. Based on this, this study aims to explore the variations of the daemonic and the significance of their global elements in contemporary Chinese literature through a textual analysis of the novel Hard Like Water2 by the contemporary writer Yan Lianke. 1

The Embodiment of “The Daemonic” in the World Literary Creations and Its Application in Literary Research

Originated in ancient Greece, the term “daemonic” has a long tradition in Western literature. However, it was usually employed in the works and discussions of poets and theologians. It seems it is only in modern times that this term has attracted the attention of literary critics. In his popular book Love and Will published in 1969 by American psychologist Rollo May, the connection between love and the daimonic (daemonic) was explored in Chapter 5, in which a whole section was devoted to the historical evolution of the concept of the daimonic (daemonic). May acknowledged in his notes that this part was based on Wolfgang M. Zucker’s paper, entitled “The Demonic: From Aeschylus to Tillich”.3 By contrast, May’s book does not offer much in terms of historical knowledge; meanwhile, from pertinent materials cited in Zucker’s paper, one finds few opinions on the daemonic imagery in individual works available within the academic community, whilst systematic elaborations were sparse. It was Lu Xun who had remarked this issue much earlier and was the first to explore the daemonic elements from the perspective of world literary history. Lu’s “On the Poetic Power of Maras” was written in 1907.4

2 See Yan Lianke, Hard Like Water, Changjiang Literature and Art Publishing House, 2001. This is a novel set in the context of the Cultural Revolution. All quotations from this novel in this article are from this edition. 3 Wolfgang M. Zucker, “The Demonic: From Aeschylus to Tillich”, in: Theology Today, 26 (1969), No. 1, pp. 34–50. 4 “On the Poetic Power of Maras” was written in 1907. It was first published in No. 2 and No. 3 of Henan Magazine in February and March, 1908. Now it is available in The Complete Works of Lu Xun, Vol. 1, People’s Literature Publishing House, 1981.

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Both May and Zucker traced their discussions of the daemonic to ancient Greece. The root of the term “daemonic (daimonic)” is daimon, derived from the ancient Greek δαίμων. Based on this, we may analyze the original meaning of this term in ancient Greek literature. The term “daimon” was frequently employed in the writings of ancient Greek philosophers. In Plato’s Apologia, Socrates was accused of corrupting young people’s souls and believing in gods he had created rather than the ones honored by the state. Socrates did not hesitate to admit that his own god was a voice he had met at an early age, which always prevented him from doing what he was about to do, but never ordered him to do anything. Since the daimon approached him in a mysterious way, it was impossible for him to disobey its voice; even when sentenced to death, he was determined to accept it without hesitation, as the voice of the supernatural did not stop him. Several impressions can be drawn from Plato’s Apologia. Firstly, the daimon was a god opposed to other gods honored by the Greek state at that time; from the orthodox stance, it could also be referred to as “demon”. Secondly, it approached men in some mysterious way and instructed their behavior, which was so-called “demonic possession”. Furthermore, it was destructive to the state ideology and social order at the time; hence, the state had to put Socrates to death. Last but not least, the subordination of the possessed to this power was unconditional and above all, even above life, as he might perceive the creation of a future new world in the destruction of the established social order. In another dialogue, entitled The Symposium, Plato explored the connection between daimon and Eros through Socrates’s dialogue with the witch Diotima, who told Socrates that Eros is not a god but a daimon between god and mortals, who has the ability to interpret and convey all that passes between gods and humans. “It is by means of daimons that all divination can take place, the whole craft of seers and priests, with their sacrifices, rites and spells, and all prophecy and magic. Deity and humanity are completely separate, but through the mediation of daimons all converse and communication from gods to humans, waking and sleeping, is made possible.”5 Eros is one of the daimons; he is son not only of Poros (Resource) but also of Penia (Poverty). “He is in fact hard and rough, without shoes for his feet or a roof over his head. […] But on the other hand, he also resembles his father, scheming to get what is beautiful and good, bold and keen and ready for action, a cunning hunter, always 5 Plato, The Symposium, ed. by M. C. Howatson and Frisbee C. C. Sheffield, trans. by M. C. Howatson, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2008, p. 39. (Cambridge Texts in the History of Philosophy)

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contriving some trick or other, an eager searcher after knowledge, resourceful, a lifelong lover of wisdom, clever with magic and potions, and a sophist.” (Ibid., p. 40) Plato went on to argue that such a power of love actually comes from the impulse of reproduction, namely, the instinctive need for the continuation of life. (The Symposium, 202e–203e, 206c–206e) For the first time, Plato demonstrated the connection between daimon and sex. In other words, daimon includes sexual impulses and primitive vitality. It is a force that combines divinity and humanity, which does not come from the outside but from man’s inner motivation. Later, this interpretation of eros directly inspired the libido theory of the Austrian psychologist Freud, who loved to relate his theory to Plato’s eroticism.6 The term “daimon” was also employed in the writings of other ancient Greek philosophers, such as in Heraclitus’ famous saying: “Man’s character is his daimon”,7 which relates this concept to man’s inherent nature. In the ancient Greek tragedy, Aeschylus directly depicted the magic of daimons in Persians, which tells the story of the ancient Persian King Xerxes crossing the Hellespont with 200,000 soldiers and 600 ships to invade Greece, only to be defeated in the madness of his attempt to lock the sea in chains like slaves. The tragedy is not a positive manifestation of the failure of the invasion, but a lament over the tragic fate of the Persian king through the nightmares of his mother and the ghost of his father Darius. The following is the conversation between Darius and his wife: Ghost of Darius: And how did a land army of that size manage to get across the water? Queen: He contrived means to yoke the strait of Helle, so as to create a pathway. Ghost of Darius: He actually carried that out, so as to close up the mighty Bosporus? Queen: It is true. Some divinity must have touched his wits. Ghost of Darius: Ah, it was a powerful divinity that came upon him, to put him out of his right mind! v. 721–7258

6 It took time for Freud to accept Plato’s view of eroticism. See: Rollo May, Love and Will, New York: Norton 1969, pp. 81–88. 7 Wolfgang M. Zucker, “The Demonic: From Aeschylus to Tillich”, in: Theology Today, 26 (1969), No. 1, p. 37. 8 Aeschylus, Persians, Seven Against Thebes, Suppliants, Prometheus Bound, edited and trans. by Alan H. Sommerstein, Cambridge: Harvard University Press 2008, pp. 93–95. (Loeb Classical Library)

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Darius then condemned his son with a monologue: “He thought, ill-counselled as he was, that he, a mortal, could lord over all the gods and over Poseidon. Surely this was a mental disease that had my son in its grip! (v. 749–750)” (Ibid., p. 99) The “powerful divinity” that drove the Persian King Xerxes out of his right mind was a daimon. Aeschylus pointed out that the powerful daimon would not only make man unable to control his own destiny and suffer destruction, but also related it to man’s unsound mind. Therefore, men possessed by daimons must take responsibility for their own mistakes. By summarizing the complex meanings of these Greek sources to define this term “daimon”, one may be convinced that the daimon was not negative in the eyes of ancient Greeks. Instead, it seemed to be connected with gods, but was different from a god; it was between god and mortals. It had great magical powers, but often fanned humans’ irrational impulses; hence, it was both independent of human consciousness and closely related to the human personality, mindset and instinct. In other words, it was destructive of a certain normal order of society, including the orthodoxy of social ideology (Socrates), the constraint of social ethics and morality (Diotima), the sanctity of the laws of nature (the Persian King). However, in this strong motive of destruction, there still exists the instinct and the will to create. According to Rollo May, “The daimonic is any natural function which has the power to take over the whole person. Sex and eros, anger and rage, and the craving for power are examples. The daimonic can be either creative or destructive and is normally both.”9 From ancient Greece to the Western literature of the 20th century, the tradition of the daemonic was never interrupted. However, the later Christian teachings completely expelled the concept of demons from the world of the gods to make the world of God and the world of demons completely opposed, thus forming a fixed thinking mode of binary opposition. The connection between demon and daemonism was torn apart, simplifying and castrating the rich connotations of daemonism. Therefore, what was left in medieval literature were evil demons with much less entrancing daemonism. Accordingly, another connotation of daemonism, which is pertinent to secular and folk culture, slowly evolved. “Daimon” was translated as “genius” in Latin, which means the patron saint; in late Latin, it was applied to refer to creativity, talents and genius. In modern Western culture, daemonic elements were often transferred to genius artists. According to Zucker, The rediscovery of the demonic as a force that cannot be measured in terms of good and evil was due to the anti-rational cult of the genius at the end of the 18th century. It was the expression of a fundamental 9 See Rollo May, Love and Will, New York: Norton 1969, p. 123.

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opposition to the Enlightenment, to the utilitarian middle-class concept of order, and to the prevailing moralistic and intellectualistic theology. Such expression needed as its social precondition the breakdown of the old social system and the emergence of a new marginal class of artists who were no longer merely skilled artisans. It is at this time that the designations artiste and Künstler came in use, designations which did not mean simply specific occupations, but a way of life outside of the hierarchy of social and economic values. At the same time poets began to see their kinsmen and associates in the visual artists and musicians rather than, as before, in philosophers and scholars. Precisely because secular and clerical princes lost the means for guaranteeing employment and income for the painters and musicians of their households, the practitioners of the various arts became free agents and developed their own ideology of genius. According to this new viewpoint, the artist was no longer a man who simply had learned the use of brush and chisel or could play different musical instruments, but he now was gifted with some supernatural power; he had genius, or even he himself was “a genius”. A genius is not an ordinary human being; he belongs to a different order and can neither be understood nor judged by society. His acts do not conform to the norms of accepted behavior, but also his work has a superhuman quality that makes it incomparable with the work of other men. Thus, the artist can neither share the comforts and rewards of socially useful occupations, nor does he feel compelled to submit to the restrictions and prescriptions of social conventions. The essential point, however, is that this extraordinary, marginal position of the artistic genius is not the result of free choice, but the effect of being possessed by a semi-divine power, namely “genius”. The exercising of an artistic endowment is therefore not an achievement, an action of man, but a painful suffering, a passion. Therefore, the usual categories of good and evil, of useful and useless, do not apply to the genius. What he does and what he suffers is his fate. He is not a genius because he is an extraordinary artist; rather, he is an artist because he is possessed by a genius.10 Such genius-possessed daemonism makes the artist conscious of remaining opposed to the secular society. He is independent and defiant, often obeying the call of the soul and disregarding social morality and national laws; hence, he is 10 See Wolfgang M. Zucker, “The Demonic: From Aeschylus to Tillich”, in: Theology Today, 26 (1969), No. 1, pp. 41–42.

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also treated as a demonic maniac by this mediocre society. In Western romantic literature, the romantic tradition of resisting the social power and acting independently was carried forward by British poets G. Byron and P. B. Shelley, Russian poets A. Pushkin and M. Lermontov, and Eastern European poets A. Mickiewicz and S. Petőfi, most of whom had a strong sense of resistance to power. When their country or other weak countries were bullied by stronger ones, their rebellious consciousness turned into strong patriotism. Hence, their daemonism was often associated with exaggerated heroism. It was this stance that Lu Xun took in “On the Poetic Power of Maras”, summarizing and promoting the daemonic. Grounded in serious research, some Japanese scholars concluded that most of Lu’s source materials came from studies such as “Byron, the Great Demon of Literature and Art”,11 which were popular in the Japanese academic community. However, it was precisely this that showed Lu Xun’s talents in synthesizing world literature and making it serve for realist ideas that most Japanese scholars lacked at that time. Lu Xun summarized Byron’s daemonism from scattered biographical works on Western poets by Japanese scholars, before he synthesized the tradition of the “Poetic Power of Maras”: “The words of Maras were from Sanskrit. In Europe, Maras were referred to as satanic, such as G. Byron, the leader of daemonic poets, who rebelled against all secular conventions and dared to engage themselves in the struggle against them. It began with the English poet Byron and ended with the Hungarian poet Petőfi.”12 This is the daemonic tradition of Western literature integrated by Lu Xun to meet China’s practical need of “seeking new different voices from foreign countries.” The 20th century witnessed both the destruction of old civilizations by the cultural ideologies of Western modernism in a rebellious manner and the new daemonic tide raised by fascism in the midst of this rebellion, which challenged Western theological tradition and modern civilization as never before since the Renaissance, grounding the new focus on the concept of “the daemonic” in reality. It was within such historical settings that the great German writer Thomas Mann reinterpreted the classic imagery of Faust in his novel Doktor Faustus, lending profound artistic expression to the extremely complex generation and encounter of modern German culture with reality as well as the dreadfulness of its future. In this novel, the protagonist Adrian Leverkühn was a gifted musician who signed a contract with the devil. The fundamental difference between Leverkühn and Goethe’s Faust was that the former strictly confined his 11

See Kitaoka Masako, A Study on the Source of the Poetic Power of Maras, translated by He Naiying, Beijing Normal University Press, 1983. 12 The Complete Works of Lu Xun, Vol. 1, People’s Literature Publishing House, 1981, p. 66.

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creations to the realm of music; not only was his study completely cut off from the surroundings, but his mindset was also completely cut off from the outside world. The critic Georg Lukács commented sharply this phenomenon, saying, “Während die Intelligenz, mit der er zu tun hat, in groteskem Totentanzschritt eines tiefreaktionären Snobismus der faschistischen Barbarei entgegeneilt, … ‘Weltscheu’ ist seine typische Haltung zu der Menschheit seiner Gegenwart”13 (English: While his academic peers are rushing toward the barbarity of fascism in a grotesque, ultra-reactionary and pharisaical dance of the dead, … [this new Faust] typically remains socially reserved towards his fellow human beings.) This typical attitude may also explain why many prominent modernist writers of the 20th century regarded “the daemonic” as a primitive emotion and driving force in man’s inner world. In a journal article, the author explored this great maze-like work from the theoretical perspective of the daemonic, developing Rollo May’s definition of “the daemonic”: It refers to a phenomenon of catharsis of the brutality of primitive life beyond the control of normal reasoning, occurring in a violent state in which both creative and destructive elements coexist. With the advancement of human civilization and the progress of rationality, it is often suppressed and transformed into unconsciousness. It may occur in spheres of weaker rationality, such as in geniuses’ artistic creations, in certain athletic competitions, in various criminal desires or sexual impulses. It may also be externalized into objective social movements, sometimes manifested in wars, in antisocial institutions, antisocial orders and revolutions. Additionally, in the process of its creative and destructive movement, the destructive elements are the leading ones, since destruction implies new life, being indispensable in creation. However, if there is only destruction without creation, it does not mean das Dämonische, either.14 Although das Dämonische in German shares the same meaning of the daemonic in English, the key point is to emphasize that the daemonic is “beyond the control of normal rationality” and “in the process of its creative and 13 14

See Georg Lukács, “Die Tragödie der modernen Kunst”, in: Georg Lukács, Thomas Mann, 5. Auflage, Berlin: Aufbau Verlag 1957, S. 53. Quoted from the thesis entitled “On the Significance of das Dämonische in Doktor Faustus by Thomas Mann” by Yang Hongqin, Associate Research Fellow at the Institute of Foreign Literature, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. Some chapters of this research were published in Contemporary Writers Review, No. 2, 2002 and Journal of Fudan University, No. 3, 2003.

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destructive movement, the destructive elements are the leading ones,” which highlights the inward trend of the daemonic, reflecting a holistic analysis of the evolution of daemonic elements to the emergence of fascism within the context of reality. Modern Chinese literature has been included in the world pattern from the very beginning; it is connected directly or indirectly with world literature, though it cannot be separated from the real conditions of its own material environment. Hence, as a Western tradition, the daemonic is not alien to Chinese modern literature; instead, it has its own characteristics in its own context. Starting with what Lu Xun advocated in “On the Poetic Power of Maras”, such artistic elements can be traced back to the madman. When he was facing the full pressure of traditional and conservative social morality, he fantasized horrible scenes of being “eaten,” replacing “the eaten” with “man-eaters”, which reveals that everyone could be a “man-eater.” The madman’s limpid consciousness, along with his madness of defying tradition and antagonizing the vulgar society at all costs, came from the Byronic imagery of the daemonic, which was also Lu Xun’s sinicized understanding of the Western daemonic tradition in romanticism. His inner world shrouded in darkness, the madman made the imagery of “man-eating” a universal primitive instinct, thereby integrating the daemonic elements in Nietzsche’s and Freud’s modern theories. In Lu’s prose poem Wild Grass, daemonic imageries were fairly frequent. Unlike the demons in the novel, these symbolic imageries were more a voice that embodied the narrator’s inner struggles, which, like the demons in Dostoevsky’s literary world, are the “fractured ego on the surface of consciousness, the altered ego.”15 It is precisely Lu Xun, grounded in China’s realist settings, who synthesized centuries of daemonic elements in Western literature and provided for the world unique daemonic elements rooted in the Chinese semi-colonial and semi-feudal society. Unlike the gods and demons in traditional Chinese novels or fox fairies and tree monsters in ghost romance stories, these westernized Oriental daemonic imageries evolved toward two dimensions, namely, crime and sickness, inviting mad men and criminals as leading bearers of daemonic elements. Like their Western prototypes, the imageries and connotations of daemonic elements in Chinese literature have been constantly changing as their settings change. Within this context, it is not difficult to find a change of connotations of literary imageries with the change of settings in the novel Hard Like Water by the contemporary writer Yan Lianke. Frankly speaking, the protagonist’s revolutionary acts in his hometown, Cheng Gang, served as a call 15

See Reinhard Lauth, Die Philosophie Dostojewskis, München: R. Piper Verlag 1950. It was translated into Chinese by Shen Zhen et al., The East Press, 1996, p. 330.

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for destroying traditional Confucian culture: the Chengs’ ancestral hall and memorial archway. In the political turmoil of the Cultural Revolution, this was superficially a minor disaster, which would not encounter any resistance concerning the revolutionary situation of the time. In terms of its anti-traditional cultural origin, it was difficult to sever the connection between this character and the madman imagery within the broader context of anti-traditional culture during the May 4th New Literature Movement. The Red Guard movement during the Cultural Revolution imitated unconsciously the spirit of the May 4th New Literature Movement and Lu Xun’s pioneering spirit, which may also be pertinent to the madman and daemonic imageries.16 2

The Daemonic Elements in Hard Like Water

It would be inappropriate to evaluate Hard Like Water merely in terms of the theme of the Cultural Revolution, since from the perspective of revealing the true history of the Cultural Revolution, this novel often deviates from the facts. However, as a novel that reproduces the daemonic elements, it is precisely not a literary product that portrays details of everyday life during the Cultural Revolution, rather it highlights spiritually the weirdness and reality of the times, whilst it is the Cultural Revolution that provided an arena for such grotesque human desire. The book cover blurb of this novel reads: “This book is not purely about a love affair between a young man and a young woman with eroticism, madness or perversion, but a nightmare that once swept this small village and even the entire nation. Twenty years ago, we were intoxicated in this nationwide reveling; twenty years later, who would probe the depths of humanity for the origin of this sin? …” This is typical Chinese literary criticism: on one hand, it implies that there exists eroticism, madness and abnormality between the lines; on the other hand, it emphasizes that the writer’s intention was to explore the deeper causes of China’s Cultural Revolution. Here, human 16

In the Red Guard movement during the Cultural Revolution, there prevailed a big play called “Dare to Unmount the Emperor”, which described the story of a Red Guard who was persecuted for opposing Liu Shaoqi during the Cultural Revolution. This hero was known as a “madman” of the new era. This play was also discussed in Yang Jian’s Underground Literature in the Cultural Revolution, Beijing: Zhaohua Press, 1993. Another example is that in the model opera Red Lantern, Li Yuhe has a line in “Fighting Hatoyama at the Banquet”, which was originally “the devil is one foot tall, the virtue ten (feet)”. In its revised edition published in 1970, the line was changed to “virtue is one foot tall, the devil ten (feet)”. It can be seen that the Red Guards and the “Gang of Four” rebels, which were dominant at that time, regarded themselves as “madmen” and “demons”.

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factors and societal factors constituted a pair of interactions, which can be interpreted as human factors, such as eroticism, were restricted by the more essential societal settings, or, such a historic disaster was closely connected to eroticism, madness and abnormality in human nature. If a conception is required to cover such weak connections between an individual’s eroticism and a nation’s mad memories, it has to be: the daemonic. Previous works on the Cultural Revolution overemphasized historical authenticity and ideological criticism, whilst the degeneration of human nature was subject to overall political criticism and ideological reflection. In Yan’s novel, however, all was reversed, and the daemonic became the main object. As a master of ghost stories, Yan Lianke peopled his “The Balou Hills” novels with ghosts and let his narrator appear to be walking on the intersection of Yin and Yang. In his writing, ghosts, who often coexist with mortals, are like ordinary peasants from central China, who are kind, weak, timid and sneaky and sometimes resort to secular shelters. However, in Hard Like Water, Yan depicted a pair of demons with extremely strong feelings and fierce stories surpassing life and death. With its narrator as a prisoner on death row who is about to be shot, the narrative of this novel may be interpreted as the narrator’s insane self-statement walking the boundary between Yin and Yang. Since this narrator was a ghost who had already been dead for years when he reappeared at the end of the novel, he swept through decadence and sentiments of the ghost world in the Balou hills, highlighting effectively the horror and charm of the daemonic elements. Compared with the imagery of the madman in Lu Xun’s works, Gao Aijun in Yan’s Hard Like Water advanced man’s “demonic” side, making evil desires dominate his daemonic characters. From ghost stories to the daemonic, Yan Lianke’s inspirations achieved a fundamental leap, as he moved from the gentle satire of reality to revealing from the depth of humanity the fatal spiritual damages caused by the Cultural Revolution. Since demons were expelled from the world of God in the Middle Ages, the daemonism and demons had to be separated in Western literature. In Western literary classics, the daemonic is regarded as a kind of heroic mental fanaticism, which is often inspired or induced by demons. Faust is Goethe’s masterpiece. Goethe made this clear in conversations with Johann Peter Eckermann on March 3 and March 8, 1831: “Mephistopheles is much too negative a being. The daemonic manifests itself in a thoroughly active power… In Byron, also, this element was probably active to a high degree.”17 Goethe said he was also influenced by it, which means that in some ways he was possessed by the daemonic, 17

See Johann Peter Eckermann, Conversations of Goethe, trans. by John Oxenford, 1906, here http://www.hxa.name/books/ecog/Eckermann-ConversationsOfGoethe-1831.html.

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like Faust. In terms of characteristics, Faust had distinctive daemonic features; his daemonism was inspired by the temptation of the demon. This reflects the corresponding structure of “daemonism-demon” in Western literary works, such as in Thomas Mann’s Doktor Faustus and Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov. In Chinese novels, specific daemonic imageries are rarely seen; they are usually replaced by abstract objects, such as moonlight in “A Madman’s Diary”: “Tonight the moon is very bright.” Then the moonlight became the “demon” that triggered the madman’s daemonism, as when he saw it he felt “in unusually high spirits,” while during the past thirty-odd years he had been “in the dark.”18 This generalization of demons is an artistic technique in Chinese daemonic novels. In Hard Like Water, the daemonic imagery, which induced Gao Aijun and Xia Hongmei’s “revolutionary madness,” was precisely the music during the Cultural Revolution. Now when referring to the fanaticism during the Cultural Revolution, few people may turn to the unbearable torture caused by revolutionary music, which, far from soothing, was full of intimidation and detrimental to mental health. In Hard Like Water, Gao and Xia had to be musically stimulated every time before becoming frenzied. This sound came first from a broadcast, and then gradually from their inner illusions. The music had the magical power to overwhelm them, thus completely destroying and intoxicating their sanity. Such “music-demon” symbol not only realistically captured people’s emotional sensations during the Cultural Revolution, but also depicted faithfully some symptoms of Gao’s and Xia’s mental madness, which accounted for the conjunction between the spirit of the times during the Cultural Revolution and daemonism. Furthermore, it may be inferred that is a corresponding structure in the world between Gao and Xia, that is, the daemonic elements in Gao were induced after his encounter with Xia. Xia also played the demon’s role in her relations with Gao, as in their secret meetings, music became her tool to seduce Gao, demonstrating its “revolutionary” illusions. This story can be taken as that of a chronically depressed ex-soldier who, on his way home, attempted to seduce a mad woman (the train tracks symbolized this unsuccessful sexual offence), which led to his future sexual fantasies. However, this woman was the embodiment of the “demon” who triggered Gao’s political ambition and political mania, as he once confessed: “I was possessed by the revolution. I was possessed by Xia Hongmei. I was possessed by both the revolution and love.”19 This seemed to be a footnote to the seduction structure. The places where they madly made love, such as graves, ravines and excavated underground tunnels, 18 See The Complete Works of Lu Xun, Vol. 1, p. 422. 19 See Yan Lianke, Hard Like Water, p. 35.

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were all in the eerie underworld, oftentimes haunted by demons. In the grave, Xia danced naked to seduce Gao. When they were making love, Gao’s knee touched a human bone. He said while touching Xia’s body: “She seemed to be waiting for my touch for thousands of years. And this took place when we both lay down here in the grave.” (Ibid., p. 86) Throughout their love affairs, the spirits seemed ubiquitous. When Xia and Gao were making love madly in the underground tunnel, a passionate conversation between them further illustrates such seduction: (Xia) You get that grain of dirt off me. (Gao) Did you ask the County Magistrate to get it off you? (Xia) County Magistrate Gao, remove the dirt from my breast. (Gao) My goodness, you commanded the County Magistrate? (Xia) Commissioner Gao, lick the dirt off with your tongue. (Gao) Good Heavens, you call your Commissioner Gao the way you call your kid. (Xia) Governor Gao, lick the dirt off my nipple with the tip of your tongue. …… (Gao) Call me the revolutionist. (Xia) Genius revolutionist, you are the rising star over the land of China. The spring water on the tip of your tongue moistens the thirsty people and the earth. Please use your spring water to wash away the dirt on my nipple. Ibid., pp. 172–173

By saying this, Xia deliberately integrated the desire for sex into the desire for power and ignited Gao’s political ambitions in the intoxication of his high sexual drive, unfolding a brilliant prospect. Meanwhile, Gao also ascended step by step to power under the stimulation of Xia’s passionate sexual desire. From sexual desire to political power, the daemonic desire accumulated in Gao’s subconscious burst out violently. Hence, it is easy to see from their above conversation Xia’s role as a seductress. More serious problems came, as Xia’s husband followed her to the underground tunnel, where a murder took place. Careful readers will observe that Xia remained active and calm throughout the violence, as she promptly alerted Gao, who referred to it as “a reminder from Heaven” and quietly covered up the case. From insane sex to political power and to brutal murder, things were changing. The original spirit of rebellion is fundamentally gone; the Byronic poetic power of Maras has turned into a Karamazov-style primitive frenzy and murder. In the course of their desire and struggles, the daemonic elements

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eventually connected spiritually with the Cultural Revolution through the demonstration of these two little people’s sin and sickness. Since the main victims of the Cultural Revolution were top Communist Party leaders and intellectuals, the majority of studies and pertinent literary works focused on their struggles and sufferings and much less on the general public as active supporters in this nationwide movement. “The experiences, feelings, and behaviors of most ordinary Chinese people, along with their interactions with the nation’s politicians,”20 were fatally overlooked. Grounded in the broader social setting of the Cultural Revolution, Yan Lianke’s Hard Like Water spotlighted the spirit of this particular era through the depiction of its daemonic elements. Most noteworthy were the meaning-making connections between the desires of ordinary peasants, the tragic fate of their resistance and the Cultural Revolution. The most striking feature of the Cultural Revolution is the way it affected the behavior of millions of people. The Austrian psychoanalyst and Marxist sociologist, Wilhelm Reich once had a famous argument: “Since fascism, whenever and wherever it makes its appearance, is a movement borne by masses of people, it betrays all the characteristics and contradictions present in the character structure of the mass individual. It is not, as is commonly believed, a purely reactionary movement – it represents an amalgam of rebellious emotions and reactionary social ideas.”21 As Freud’s favorite student, Reich developed a unique interpretation of the structure of human character. In his opinion, [there are] three different layers of the bio-psychic structure in the evaluation of human reactions…. These layers of character structure are deposits of social development, which function autonomously. On the surface layer of his personality the average man is reserved, polite, compassionate, responsible, conscientious. There would be no social tragedy of the human animal if this surface layer of the personality were in direct contact with the deep natural core. This, unfortunately, is not the case. The surface layer of social cooperation is not in contact with the deep biologic core of one’s selfhood; it is borne by a second, an intermediate character layer, which consists exclusively of cruel, sadistic, lascivious, rapacious and envious impulses. It represents the Freudian “unconscious” 20

See Wang Shaoguang, Reason and Madness: The Masses in the Cultural Revolution, Hong Kong: Oxford University Press, 1993, p. 1. 21 Wilhelm Reich, The Mass Psychology of Fascism, ed. by Mary Higgins and Chester M. Raphael, M. D., New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux 1980, “Preface to the Third Edition”, p. xiv.

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or “what is repressed.” … [In] the third, deepest, layer, which we call the biologic core … under favorable social conditions, man is essentially honest, industrious, cooperative, loving, and, naturally healthy  … It is this unfortunate structuralization that is responsible for the fact that every natural, social, or libidinous impulse that wants to spring into action from the biologic core has to pass through the layer of secondary perverse drives and is thereby distorted. This distortion transforms the original social nature of the natural impulses and makes it perverse, thus inhibiting every genuine expression of life. Ibid., pp. xi–xii

Similar to this were people’s reactions during the Cultural Revolution (1966– 1976); when the lower classes opposed the social hypocrisy of the surface layer, rebellious emotions tended to accumulate in the second layer, leading to strong, distorted expressions before they were transformed into daemonic desires. If Reich’s theory of character structure were used to explore Cheng Gang, where Gao Aijun returned after his service in the army, we might find it was a decent moral society, embodying the surface layer of Reich’s theory. As the “Hometown of Brothers Cheng Yi and Cheng Hao (the Confucianists of the Song Dynasty)”, Cheng Gang was not only the authoritative symbol of traditional ideology over the past thousand years, but also the aggregation of local folk customs with Cheng as the mainstream surname. The story took place between 1967 and 1969, the most chaotic period during the Cultural Revolution which had the most severe impact on the established social order. Strangely, like a worldly paradise, Cheng Gang witnessed the harmonious co-existence of the official mainstream culture and the folk culture in this traditional society. Cheng Tianqing, who represented the grassroots power of the society, and Cheng Tianmin, who played the role of the patron saint of folk culture, were still in solid control of the social order in Cheng Gang (There was also County Magistrate Wang, who represented the higher official power). However, what did the triad of authority, morality and order bring to the people of Cheng Gang? Let’s look at the families of the two protagonists: Xia Hongmei’s husband, who was Cheng Tianmin’s son, was sexually impotent. Apart from using acupuncture treatment, he was helpless in dealing with Xia’s madness caused by sexual repression. By contrast, Gao Aijun’s wife, who was Cheng Tianqing’s daughter, was no better than an animal, as she knew nothing about love but reproduction. Their vitality had withered; lifeless, they were walking dead. Hence, the daemonic nature within Gao spurted out, resisting the oppression of such enormous social morality, and his striking sexuality with Xia blossomed as a thrilling flower of life rooted in all the hidden oppression and constraint.

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Although such sexuality was what Reich referred to as the second layer of the character structure, which was inevitably accompanied by chaos, crime and bestiality, it was filled with the overwhelming power of vitality and revelry and enormous capacity both to destroy and to regenerate. Therefore, it is reasonable to associate Gao’s desires and behavior with mass movements during the Cultural Revolution. Several features are prominent if daemonic elements are applied to interpret Gao Aijun’s mad behavior during the Cultural Revolution. Firstly, the enormous repressive forces he was facing – traditional authority, moral authority and even his own sexual repression – were almost unshakable, which means his rebellion could only take shape abnormally. Furthermore, such abnormality seriously violated the norms of social morality, as it could only be fully demonstrated in depravity, sin or madness. Last but not least, such daemonism needed to be induced by “demon” imagery as a medium, which reflects the corresponding structure of “daemonism-demon.” In Chinese literature, it is most appropriate to position such a rebellious element in the context of the Cultural Revolution. Gao’s daemonic nature, from the perspective of the ancient Greeks, may explain that his attempt to blow up the Cheng’s ancestral hall was his rebellion against the traditional ideological authority, while his fanatical sexuality and act of murder was the destruction of the traditional family morality. What was lacking in Gao was the contempt and offense of the sanctity of the laws of nature. It was Yan Lianke’s oversight that Gao did not repeat the Persian King Xerxes’ mistake after he had seized the power of the village cadres. This is because during the Cultural Revolution, the destruction of natural ecology by new powers in the countryside for the sake of achieving greater political success was the spirit of the times, while “Learning from the Dazhai Movement in Agriculture” and “Transforming the World” were the mainstream themes at the time, and remain most detrimental to society to date. I did not mean to demand that Yan imitate strictly the original connotation of the daemonic; however, considering the leading daemonic elements during the Cultural Revolution, it is incomplete for the protagonists’ daemonism to be attributed only to their desires for sex and power, not for things (a variation of the augmentation of productivity). Hence, the imagery of Gao was not fully fledged due to his lack of initiative in labor work. 3

The Cultural Revolution Narratives and Daemonic Elements in Contemporary Literature

Next, we will move on to the internal connections between daemonic elements and the Cultural Revolution narrative in contemporary literature and the

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weaknesses in Yan’s Hard Like Water. I would like to start off with a brilliant critique of Hard Like Water, in which the author compared Gao Aijun’s revolt in 1967 with May ’68 in France, arguing that within the two differing sociocultural spatial structures, the educated youths’ rebellion and mad love seemed to verify the enormous destructive power of irrational desire. He pointed out immediately that In terms of spatial expressions, the differences between two stories lie in that the harsh slogan on the streets of Paris – “Plus je fais l’amour, plus j’ai envie de faire la révolution; plus je fais la révolution, plus j’ai envie de faire l’amour” (English: The more I make love, the more I want to make revolution; the more I make revolution, the more I want to make love) – shows the unity of rebellion and sexual behavior behind the mass blasphemy movement. Together, they existed as subversive forces against social hypocrisy, ethics and far-right political systems, which not only attained a public impact, but also triggered great changes in the ideological and artistic fields. Gao and Xia’s revolution in 1967, instead, was precisely a god-building movement, which attempted to transcend the narrative framework of “revolution + love.” In the beginning, like some illegal secrecies, Gao and Xia’s love affairs wandered around like ghosts, flourishing grotesquely in the remote and shadowy “underground”, such as tunnels, graves, ditches and uninhabited riverbanks. On the other hand, those exempted from the social ethics of universal abstinence, the prohibition of the display and depiction of privacies and “abnormal” sexual behaviors, even in secret, were often only the “above-ground” powers, with dance parties reserved for senior cadres, confidential movies that were dismissed as “porn grass,” and rapes of educated youths by rural cadres too. Hence, the author may encounter some unpredictable dangers in the process of constructing the narrative space of the themes “revolution and sex”, such as how to deal with the connectedness between their connotations and mutual references and how to handle the “degree” of commonality in elucidating individual historical memories.22 If this global phenomenon is approached through historical comparative studies, one can see the huge gap between May ’68 in France and China’s Cultural Revolution since 1966. Superficially, there exists a huge dissociation in the relationship between the desire for power and for sexuality in Hard Like Water. However, if such a relationship is examined in terms of daemonic elements, 22

Nie Wei, “The Lost Historical Mirror in Spatial Narrative: Reading Notes on Hard Like Water”, Contemporary Writers Review, No. 4, 2002.

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one may find that they belong precisely to the same daemonic desire, as the protagonists (Gao Aijun and Xia Hongmei) did not dispel the passion for revolution because of sexuality, instead, they co-existed consistently in their consciousness. The similar family situation made them feel the pressure of power and repression of sexual desire, and they also realized in order to achieve sexual liberation, they first had to destroy the power of their own families, that is, the power of the village grass-roots organization. These aims were not divided but integrated, which was proved at the end of the story with Gao and Xia making love madly on the Cheng’s Confucian classics. The daemonic elements in the Cultural Revolution not only connected man’s various desires, but also connected the ultimate goal of the Cultural Revolution with man’s desires. Compared with May ’68 in France, China’s Cultural Revolution was far more brutal and complicated, as almost all political behaviors at the time reflected a clash of wills between the highest power groups, whilst individuals’ behaviors and destinies could hardly reflect faithfully this fundamental will. It was unlikely to unify people’s revolt against various imposed authorities and the destruction of the power system of their political enemies by the supreme authority. With diverse aims of seizing a certain political power, obtaining more material distribution, taking revenge for personal grudges, and even fulfilling certain desires, the nationwide grassroots rebellions during the Cultural Revolution were concrete and tangible. Yet the ultimate goal of these movements was to defeat political enemies and to “combat and prevent revisionism,” which was highly illusory and irrelevant to the general public. Hence, to realize meaning-making connections between the two, it might only be possible to mobilize their primitive desire for such a big and illusory goal, which explained precisely why daemonism became the fundamental driving force behind the Cultural Revolution and clarified the connectedness between the god-building movement and the primal desire. Generally, the god-building movement was super-structural and illusory, whilst daemonism can precisely make folk careerists, big and small, across society assume themselves as a god, and that their selfish behaviors may affect the entire country and even revolutions worldwide. When the authority of the state was devastated, the national rebel groups under the command of the supreme authority, that is, the so-called Proletarian Command, led the country to a polytheistic chaos. According to P. Tillich, “the demonic element in polytheism is rooted in the claim of each of the divine powers to be the ultimate […].”23 This is also revealed in Xia Hongmei’s most abject flattery of Gao Aijun, and the means she employed was similar to those that were used 23

Paul Tillich, Systematic Theology 1 (Reason and Revelation, Being and God), London: SCM Press LTD 1978, p. 222.

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for the adulation of the highest authority in the god-building movement during the Cultural Revolution. It is these minor god-building movements that established a broad societal foundation for authoritarianism. Therefore, in such a revolutionary era, the primal desire expressed no positive significance of blasphemy against authority, but rather varied manifestations of the desire for power. Simply put, Gao Aijun’s romantic behavior reflected part of the privileges that only the “above-ground” hierarchy could enjoy. Furthermore, the daemonic elements not only connected the ideology of the higher power groups with the rest of society, but also played a decisive role within their struggles during the Cultural Revolution.24 This reminds us of the famous “The Grand Inquisitor” passage in Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov, which is about Christ’s return to Earth in Seville at the time of the Inquisition. He performed a number of miracles (echoing miracles in the Gospels) but was arrested by Inquisition leaders and sentenced to be burnt to death the next day. The Grand Inquisitor visited him in his cell, saying “… And Thou hast no right to add anything to what Thou hadst said of old. Why, then, art Thou come to hinder us? For Thou hast come to hinder us, and Thou knowest that. But dost thou know what will be to-morrow?”25 The Inquisitor followed the three questions that Satan had asked Jesus during the temptation of Christ in the desert in order to rule the people, even though it was all done in the name of Christ. Hence, even Christ himself could not overthrow the world created in his name. If He wished to correct all this, the only solution was to let Himself be burnt to death or to be crucified again as what the secular world considered the “demon.” It can be shocking if this segment is applied to explore the connection between Mao Zedong and the Cultural Revolution. What Dostoevsky intended to convey to us is that the real world no longer needs Christ, even though we assume we are still his followers; what persists are the Karamazov primal forces: covetous, lewd and brutal primal desires. Within such chaos, it is difficult to distinguish between the claims of demons 24

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Complex as this issue is, there exist rich materials about the Cultural Revolution which can be regarded as implications of the daemonic elements. In the early days of the Cultural Revolution, Mao Zedong repeatedly used metaphors related to the image of devils to criticize party leaders at all levels. For instance, Mao criticized the Publicity Department of the Communist Party of China: “You are the Palace of Hell, little devils dare not come. Down with the Palace of Hell and liberate little devils.” Also, he criticized the Lin Biao Group: “I guess their original intention was to use Zhong Kui’s power to defeat little devils.” (See Mao Zedong’s Manuscripts since the Founding of the People’s Republic of China, Vol. 12, Central Literature Publishing House, 1998, pp. 31, 72.) Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov, trans. by Constance Garnett, Chicago: Encyclopaedia Britannica Inc., 1952, p. 129. (Great Books of the Western World, Volume 52)

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in the name of Christ and the rebellion of Christ that might be implied in the demons’ rampage. If this is used to compare Gao Aijun’s and Xia Hongmei’s behaviors based on their “revolution and primal desires,” one may find they were repeating the Karamazov farce. The inner isomorphism of the release of their desires for power and for sexuality is far more profound and complex than French youth’s slogan in May ‘68: “Plus je fais l’amour, plus j’ai envie de faire la révolution; plus je fais la révolution, plus j’ai envie de faire l’amour” (English: The more I make love, the more I want to make revolution; the more I make revolution, the more I want to make love), as the seemingly distinct and contradictory movements of primal desires (of the “above-ground” and “underground” ones) still remain spiritually unified on the highest godbuilding trajectory. Since daemonism has such extensive and profound coverage in the Cultural Revolution narratives, when we re-evaluate Hard Like Water, the weaknesses are evident. As I discussed earlier, this novel is questionable in terms of its authenticity concerning the details of life during the Cultural Revolution. As a highly conceptual writer, Yan Lianke often sacrifices the authenticity of details for the sake of presenting ideas. Taking man’s primal desire for sex as the protagonists’ primary drive for power and revolution, though it may fully demonstrate the madness and might of man’s primal desire, fails to connect in-depth such primal desire with the fundamental guiding ideology and cultural system at the time. Hence, the brutality of the Cultural Revolution cannot be thoroughly and profoundly revealed. If revolt and sex in May ’68 in France constituted synchronous rebellions that overturned the power structure of society at the time, we may find the daemonic in Yan Lianke’s Hard Like Water did not produce the power to overthrow the supreme authority of the state; instead, it could only be referred to as self-centered and superficial dalliance and dissolution at the secular level of society. Twenty years ago, when the godbuilding movement during the Cultural Revolution still had residual authority in people’s minds, Hard Like Water might have had some subversive impact; twenty years later, however, when people’s memory of the Cultural Revolution has become blurred, the primal desire in this novel may only serve as a farce instead of inspiring them to further explore the roots of this historical tragedy. After finishing this novel, what impression can a young reader have of the Cultural Revolution who had never heard of it before? The reason why I discussed Hard Like Water was not in reference to Yan Lianke’s works; here, I would like to approach the one question that has long puzzled me: how should we summarize the tragic events that occurred in our past at the beginning of the new century? In today’s frivolous society, Yan Lianke is among the few serious thinkers and writers who explored the daemonic

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elements of the Cultural Revolution. This proves precisely the destiny of such an intellectual cohort. My inquiry is, what is the significance of today, when we take history only as an old story that has nothing to do with us? Apparently, many of us regard today as a new world with no history. Globalization, like the fantasy of Alibaba, unfolds before us a brilliant vision all at once, whilst what guides us to this prospect is also a groundless theory of globalization, which, like a horizontal transplant, separates us completely from our not so distant history. When history becomes organically disconnected from us, it resembles a doll that can be dressed up by any theory at any will. I didn’t mean to criticize Yan Lianke for applying the primal desire of libido to interpret the absurdity and atrocity of the Cultural Revolution with excessive colors of recreation, since the theory of libido is also connected with the daemonic theory in Western literature. Nor did I mean that the daemonic is the only approach to interpret the Cultural Revolution. A review of literary works in the last two decades of the 20th century reveals very few reflective descriptions of such a huge historical phenomenon like the Cultural Revolution. There are objective limitations, but writers’ lack of clear ideological and theoretical guidance is apparently an indispensable factor. The first theoretical breakthrough in the reflection of the Cultural Revolution is about confession. Senior writers represented by Ba Jin once provided a model of noble character for the Cultural Revolution narratives of later generations. Undoubtedly, with his daemonic Cultural Revolution narrative, Yan Lianke took a big step from the narrative stance of confession. Like the concept of confession, the concept of the daemonic is also derived from the long history of Western culture. If we are to introduce this concept to interpret Chinese history and literature, we should firstly explore the connection between this concept and our cultural system as well as its role in it. In this regard, I have to refer to the attitude of Western culture toward the daemonic elements. Originated in the West, the daemonic was long rejected as a heresy by the orthodox Christian world. How would people approach this cultural element generally viewed as a heretical evil, especially after the world wars and the Fascist movement? As the most authoritative contemporary religious theorist of the daemonic, Paul Tillich discussed the daemonic with great tolerance in Systematic Theology, in which he regarded it as an element that even God might possess. While discussing the Christian doctrine of the Trinity, Tillich emphasized the second principle (the Son), saying, “Without the second principle, the first principle would be chaos, burning fire, but it would not be the creative ground. Without the second principle, God is demonic, is characterized by absolute seclusion, is the ‘naked absolute’ (Luther).”26 He preferred 26

Paul Tillich, Systematic Theology 1 (Reason and Revelation, Being and God), p. 251.

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God to be referred to as Father in Heaven rather than the Lord, because “If God is addressed as ‘Father in Heaven,’ the lord-like element is included. The two cannot be separated; even the attempt to emphasize one over the other destroys the meaning of both. The Lord who is not the Father is demonic; the Father who is not the Lord is sentimental.” (Ibid., p. 287) Here, Tillich did not mean to emphasize the question of love, but to re-summon the daemonic that had long been expelled from Christianity. Since even the imagery of God might be daemonic without a correct interpretation, the existence of the daemonic has to be confronted rather than avoided. Only by placing the daemonic at God’s side can we always be alert to it, recognize it and limit it. With the inclusion of the daemonic, newer elements may emerge from Western culture to restrain it. It is precisely in this way that Western culture itself is dialectically enriched, strengthened and developed in the process of constantly embracing its opposites. Let us return to the Cultural Revolution narratives to understand this issue. In terms of the Cultural Revolution narratives, from confession to the daemonic, is there a possibility that, like Tillich, we find the root and origin of daemonic elements in our own cultural traditions? When we tend to avoid intentionally or even refuse to discuss serious issues like the Cultural Revolution and to isolate them from us today, we may not only overlook the existence of the daemonic, but also discard the cultural tradition which embraces it. In the 20th century, in order to promote the country’s modernization, Chinese intellectuals have, on their own initiative, broken their ties with the cultural traditions in which they are grounded; however, they have never given proper recognition and vigilance to daemonic elements deeply rooted in the core of their culture. Just as the daemonic may exist in an individual, it may also be hidden in the inner core of a culture, which can cause fission and combustion within the core, triggering self-renewal and growth of the culture. The Cultural Revolution is also daemonism in our cultural tradition today; if we choose to forget it, narrate it comically, or isolate it from our traditions, we will never be able to accept sincerely the historical truth, nor will we be able to narrate faithfully a history of the Cultural Revolution that touches us.

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Daemonic Elements in Zhang Wei’s Fictions Desire is a real energy, a little like uranium waiting to be tapped – The mightiness … Zhang Wei, in Book of Foreign Province

∵ 1

Reasons for Applying Daemonic Elements to Interpret Zhang Wei’s Fictions

The idea of this topic was derived from an article1 I recently read on Doktor Faustus by the great German writer Thomas Mann. Although I have not yet read this novel discussed in the article, the daemonic elements extracted from the German and European literary traditions aroused great interest for my focus of research, namely, whether the global elements2 could be reflected in contemporary Chinese literature, whether they reflect the synchronized thoughts of Chinese writers with their foreign colleagues in the progress of globalization, and how these global elements could be better localized. For this reason, I have endeavored to apply the daemonic elements in the study of contemporary Chinese literature. First, I used them in understanding literary works with the theme of the Cultural Revolution,3 then I explored the characteristics of daemonic elements in the historical process of globalization and other pertinent issues. With the advent of the new century, there are two major events, namely China’s entry into the World Trade Organization (WTO) and the new global confrontation after September 11, 2001, that may directly affect our thinking about the spirit of humanism and the way we perceive the world 1 Here I refer to the thesis entitled “On the Significance of das Dämonische in Doktor Faustus by Thomas Mann” by Yang Hongqin, Associate Research Fellow at the Institute of Foreign Lit­ erature, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. Some chapters of this research were published in Contemporary Writers Review, No. 2, 2002 and Journal of Fudan University, No. 3, 2003. 2 For the theory of “global elements”, please refer to “Global Elements in Chinese Literature of the 20th Century” in Part 2 of this book. 3 See “Daemonic Elements in Hard Like Water by Yan Lianke” in Chapter 10 of this book. This paper is its sequel.

© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2022 | doi:10.1163/9789004522978_012

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today. Impressively, the former marks a watershed in China’s economic and cultural development through its effective incorporation into the globalized system, whilst the latter reflects that, with the dissolution of the global Cold War caused by ideological opposition, the main rivals for world hegemony have become more ambiguous, bloodthirsty and insane, resulting in the formation of irrational or demonized confrontation. More inspirations may arise when these phenomena are approached through the perspective of daemonic elements. I have expressed similar thoughts while discussing the theme of the Cultural Revolution in Yan Lianke’s novels. The social life of contemporary people developed from history and today they still live in history. Just as we all realize that the disaster of the Cultural Revolution did not appear out of nowhere, our contemporary life also did not, but instead, stepped out of the shadow of history. Hence, when we examine the humanistic pursuits of contemporary intellectuals, we cannot but notice that even though restricted horizontally by the competition of global economic interests, the phenomena in contemporary China still need a holistic overview historically, because the shadow of history always exists, and the daemonic elements may operate differently in differing contexts. The last decade of the 20th century witnessed drastic changes in Chinese society, in which the elite class of intellectuals rapidly disintegrated. I once referred to it as the “nameless” era, indicating that there is no longer a unified ideology that can cover all people’s words and deeds, and that everything has become relative and pluralistic. Out of despair for traditional paths of intellectuals and their value orientation, a group of writers who had expectations for society turned to “Minjian” which had always been obscured by mainstream culture. Although “Minjian” is an imaginary literary creation with differing forms of contrast to the pompous reality, in the eyes of these writers, it is precisely the destination of their ideals and personalities, and the base from which they challenge and criticize the status quo of society. Zhang Wei was one of the first writers to have found his “Minjian”, which is a natural, free and living world on the vigorous earth. September’s Fable best demonstrates Zhang’s folk idealism. Instead of viewing “Minjian” as an escapist retreat from reality, Zhang Wei maintained his critical stance of the intellectual elite while writing The Ancient Ship and further produced a series of controversial medium-length and full-length novels, such as Book of Foreign Province and Recall Mallow, which have aroused more intense controversies. These bigoted controversies suggest the strangeness and anxiety of the critics over some novel elements in Zhangwei’s works, including inquiries which transcend the realistic political level and the natural folk level and confront a variety of complexities in the process of China’s modernization, and his own

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unique spiritual journey and adventure. Nevertheless, these two works are important for Zhang, as they do not represent a new peak of his literary creations, but the presentation of direct connectedness between literature and present life, in which exist new elements that traditional critical terminology cannot cover. What cannot be named in life should be first named in literature, as literary terms are available. For sake of convenience in further discussions, I resort to this ready-made term: the daemonic. For the definition of this term, I was strongly inspired by the study of daemonic elements in the aforementioned article on Doktor Faustus. Like the protagonist in Doktor Faustus, the protagonist in Zhang Wei’s Recall Mallow is also a genius-artist, who has a similar adventure of symbolically pledging his soul to the demon. This reminds me of the Faustian pursuit in Western literature. Considering the eccentricity of the two protagonists in Book of Foreign Province, it is reasonable to name such personalities as daemonic elements. This concept maybe further extended to the narrative of the Cultural Revolution in Seven Kinds of Mushrooms. The three works, from Seven Kinds of Mushrooms to Book of Foreign Province and further to Recall Mallow, constitute a complete developmental trajectory of Chinese daemonic elements as “power struggles during the Cultural Revolution → personal emancipation during the Reform and Opening-up period → pursuit of desires in the era of globalization.” These behaviors and mindsets may to some extent be labeled by concepts such as madness, primal desire (libido), sabotage desire, and sense of original sin. Rollo May, American psychiatrist and author of Love and Will, once referred to the importance of naming in psychotherapy, “[The relief, rather, comes from the act of] confronting the daimonic world of illness by means of the names. The doctor and I stand together, he knowing more names in this purgatory than I and therefore technically my guide into hell. Diagnosis (from dia-gignoskein, literally ‘knowing through’) may be thought of, on one side, as our modern form for calling the name of the offending demon.”4 The naming serves to better confront all complexities; hence I applied the term “daemonic elements” to some characters in the works of Zhang Wei and Yan Lianke to inspire courage in the face of the daemonic. The connotation of the term “the daemonic” was explored when I was analyzing the daemonic elements in Hard Like Water by Yan Lianke. Since this term refers to “a phenomenon of catharsis of the brutality of primitive life beyond the control of normal reasoning, occurring in a violent state in which both creative and destructive elements coexist”, it has to present itself in a certain form of irrationality, which cannot be tolerated by morality and social norms 4 Rollo May, Love and Will, New York: Norton 1969, p. 173.

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in our daily life. At the same time, it is deeply rooted in the primitive instinct of man and always shares the message of its existence in the form of its connectedness with human nature, thus arousing people’s memory of happiness and desire. To understand such a new type of character imageries full of internal dialectics in literature, we have to transcend the traditional thinking of binary opposition and reorient the artistic horizon from the external world to the innermost, leaving all clear opposites and conflicts ambiguous and dim. Zhang Wei’s writing, for instance, has undergone great changes in recent years, as the absolute narrative mode based on binary opposition in his previous works has been completely overthrown, which is manifested in The Ancient Ship as the bitter revenge of the two warring families of Sui and Zhao,5 and in Baihui and in Family as the antagonism between two families and two lineages.6 Although the character structure in Book of Foreign Province follows the binary opposition, the complexity of the characters’ personalities has blurred the opposition of the “for” and “against”. If two oppositional groups of characters in this novel are customarily listed, by taking Shi Lin (Weever as his nickname), Shi Ke (Snapper as his nickname), Shi Xiang (Baboon as her nickname) and Shi Hui as the “for” group and Shi Dongbin, Shi Ming and Ma Sha as the “against” group, one may find the difference between these groups lies only in the realm of morality, not metaphysically in their personalities. In other words, there is no such a thing as “good man” or “bad man.” In the story, the entrepreneur Shi Dongbin eventually falls in love with Shi Hui, and the stray female baboon escapes from her patron Shi Lin and falls for Shi Dongbin’s bodyguard (Electric Eel as his nickname), all of which dispels the distinct character imageries highlighted in Zhang Wei’s previous works. The comparison of the body parts of Weever and Electric Eel is also thought-provoking, which indicates that the antagonism in characters’ ideology or personality has mutated to a pure life form, and the strength of libido has become a fundamental mockery of man’s destiny. Turning to Recall Mallow, the two protagonists Qi Ming and Chunyu Yangli, rather than antagonistic, constitute a complementary relationship. The other noticeable change in Zhang Wei’s writings is that, as a conscious, reflective and serious writer on social development, he perseveres in protecting the natural ecology whilst opposing destructive economic development and man’s depredation and destruction of nature for any reason. Such an attitude made 5 For the analysis of The Ancient Ship, see my paper, entitled “On the Correspondence of the Structural Model of Novels · To Zhang Wei’s ‘The Ancient Ship’”, in Brushing Dragon and Snake. Shandong Friendship Publishing House, 1997, pp. 395–400. 6 For the analyses of Baihui and Family, see my paper, entitled “The Voice Driven by Conscience”, in Quangeng Collection, Shanghai Far East publishing house, 1996, pp. 161–178.

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Zhang Wei vigilant of economic development in the past decade. As early as the mid-1980s when he was writing The Ancient Ship, Zhang left a meaningful detail at the end of the story. With the end of a long and brutal class struggle in Wali, the Luqing River in town was rising again, when ominous news came that the geological team in search of groundwater had lost an aluminum tube loaded with radium. Undoubtedly, radium symbolizes new contradictions and dilemmas in the scientific era, which also implies intellectuals’ new direction of humanistic care in the new economic era. In the 1990s, with his rediscovery of “Minjian”, Zhang Wei had always adopted in real life an attitude of refusal and evasion toward economic development. Under the pressure of the economic tide, the protagonist in Baihui retreats again and again, and the legendary epic ballad of Xu Fei can be heard endlessly, with the imaginary “Minjian” being his ideal paradise. At the end of September’s Fable, the village slumped because of the collapse of an underground mine, but the spirit of the village soared like a galloping steed, symbolizing the exuberant vitality arising from “Minjian”. Thus, the folk idealism is accomplished through its flourishing artistic commitment. Although an air of despair pervades Book of Foreign Province, instead of negating arbitrarily the goals of developer Shi Dongbin and others, Zhang Wei describes the coastal development with mixed feelings. The critic Lei Da was the first to sense this change in Zhang’s works and commented, “The change in Zhang Wei’s writings is also reflected in the way he treats all lives more objectively, calmly and peacefully, not from a conceptual and righteous perspective, but from that of life. If his initial anger at the collapse of morals in an era of commercialization seemed a bit that of a distant bystander, he has now become more practical, deeming it as integral to one’s entire life. There always exists some reason for people like Shi Dongbin and Ma Sha to survive.”7 Evidently, this not only refers to the change in character arrangement from his previous novels; more importantly, it reveals that he has stopped placing his soul and ideals in past history or in a imaginary “Minjian”, but instead is directly confronting the hard reality of current social life, where he intends to explore the humanistic ideals of intellectuals. However, this does not indicate that Zhang Wei accepts and compromises with reality; instead, his criticism remains plaintive and poignant and his despair remains perplexed and noble, which reminds readers of the sadness of classical Russian writers when they were facing the social transformation which “turned everything upside down.” The criticism of Zhang’s protagonists 7 See Lei Da, “Reflections After Anger – Zhang Wei’s Book of Foreign Province”, in Guangming Daily, February 15, 2001.

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of reality and despair remains sincere and serious; their helplessness, frustration and pain are overwhelming in the face of social upheavals and those who suffer. Confronting such a real life means facing the objective co-existence of filth and vitality in life, or in other words, facing what the daemonic refers to as “a violent form in which both creative and destructive elements coexist.” This not only reveals the primitive state of life, but also contains personality connotations engaged in such a life. Obviously, what Zhang cares about is the latter, as he has been seeking the voice of the humanistic spirit in the roar of the economic tide. Such exploration makes Zhang’s works argumentative, as if he once again followed Sui Baopu in The Ancient Ship to read Qu Yuan’s Heavenly Questions (also translated as Questions to Heaven), as he has a range of sharp questions to inquire about heaven and earth. Nevertheless, our life has undergone tremendous changes. Today, in the complexities of social life lie enormous desires and passions of millions of people. On the one hand, the blind masses, inspired by the golden opportunities of this era with endless desires and imagination, remain desperate to take risks for wealth and power; on the other hand, there exists an all-inclusive social network of men of power, thrusters, speculators, adventurers, corrupters, exploiters and foreign capital forces, who take control of the entire society, devastatingly generating so-called “miracles.” At this time, what most essentially constitutes people’s behavioral motivation or stimulates them to pursue their desires can only be the desire inspired by themselves rather than the so-called external ideal or an objective goal of life; I take this inner desire as “the primal desire.” In the Western literary tradition, the primal desire is also an expression of daemonism, since the latter can be expressed in various forms. I hesitated when using the term “primal desire,” as I had little idea whether it had a corresponding concept in Western literature, although this widely accepted Chinese term is a translation. It was Taiwanese scholars who first applied this term in the translation of Freud’s works; libido, for example, in Lin Keming’s translation of Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality (in German: Drei Abhandlungen zur Sexualtheorie), was translated as “原欲 (the primal desire)”. Some scholars from Mainland China have also translated the term as “the primal desire”, though now the transliteration “li-bi-duo (libido)” is more commonly used. In Freud’s early works, sexual desires and their energies were referred to as libido; in his later works, Freud expanded this concept to include all life instincts, including self-love, love of others, self-preservation, sexuality, the desire to reproduce, and the tendency to grow and to fulfill one’s potential. C. Jung also believes that anything related to instinct may be referred to as libido. In psychoanalysis, however, the concept of “instinct” refers to the lower

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base of personality, the biological psychology persisting in human evolution, that is, the residual of man’s primal desire that can not be eliminated.8 In my opinion, one more concept of “life” should also be introduced to understand the concepts of primal desire (libido) and instinct. Instinct is inseparable from the primitive structure and impulse of life, that is, “life instinct” and “death instinct” as summarized by Freud. In the triad of libido – instinct – life, libido is the most essential element connected with sexual impulse, whilst life is its final category. In Western cultural traditions, the religious tradition cannot be overlooked. The Bible says that there were two trees in the Garden of Eden, one was the Tree of Knowledge and the other was the Tree of Life. The ancestors of human beings committed the original sin because they broke the code of the Tree of Knowledge. Since knowledge-based civilization leads to the suppression of man’s life instinct, the resistance to this suppression can only come from the Tree of Life that has not yet been decoded by human beings. Only through tireless exploration and pursuit of the Tree of Life can humans embrace the progress of humanity by overcoming the consciousness of original sin and affirming self-existence. As the fruit of the Tree of Life, the theory of primal desire cannot be regulated by the rubrics rationality or civilization, nor can it be summarized by the genealogy of human knowledge. The confrontation and conflict between primal desire and original sin would be further addressed in Zhang Wei’s works. However, when the Western concept of primal desire (libido) is transplanted to the world of contemporary fiction characterized by the description of the reality of Chinese society, there still exists a serious misunderstanding. I once pointed out in my criticism of Yan Lianke’s Hard Like Water that Yan’s application of libido to interpret the absurdity and atrocities of the Cultural Revolution was excessively playful and overlooked the historical and social causes of the Cultural Revolution. Similarly, primal desire plays an important role in today’s social development. In the ancient Chinese cultural traditions, however, sexual repression could not constitute all connotations of man’s primal desire for life. Hence, when we apply daemonic elements to interpret the Chinese term “原欲 (primal desire)”, it should not be rendered as “primitive desire” (here only referring to “libido”), but as “archetypal desire”, that is, basic desires, goals and their forms established in mankind’s long-standing social practices. What should be explored next is, in the great wave of desires in contemporary Chinese society, which ones belong to the archetypal desire, namely 8 This paragraph refers to The Dictionary of Literary Psychology, edited by Lu Shuyuan et al., Hubei People’s Publishing House, 2001, pp. 198–200.

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the most essential desire, and how does this relate to daemonic elements? This can be resolved by exploring Zhang Wei’s most recent works. 2

Daemonic Elements in Zhang Wei’s Works: Different Kinds of Primal Desires

In my research on daemonic elements in Hard Like Water, examples were provided to demonstrate the complexities of the term “the daemonic” in the ancient Greek literature; apparently, it was not negative in the eye of ancient Greeks. It seems to be connected with gods, in spite of huge differences; it is the medium between men and gods. It is supernatural and often stirs up trouble when man’s rationality runs weak, subverting a certain civilized order or normal authority in the society. The objects of such subversion include the orthodoxy of social ideology, the constraint of social ethics and the sacredness of the laws of nature, even though there exists an instinct of creativity in this powerful subversive motive. If this rubric is taken to explore comprehensively the “archetypal desire” and daemonic elements in Zhang’s works, I think his Seven Kinds of Mushrooms written in the 1980s can be approached as our starting point, with his Book of Foreign Province and Recall Mallow in the 1990s as the main material for our research body. “Desire trilogy” is my artistic summary of these three works of Zhang, in which “desire” constitutes an unconscious and implicit structure in his creations. On the explicit structure, Zhang Wei is a dualist, with the realistic level of politics and the folk level of nature always interwoven in his artistic world, oftentimes incompatible with each other. In his The Ancient Ship and Family, which depict the realistic level, the folk dimension withdraws from his artistic vision, whilst in his other works, such as Into the Wild and September’s Fable, which depict the folk level, his beautiful philosophy of the Earth has diluted the harsh struggles of real life. It is precisely due to readers’ contrasting expectations that each of Zhang Wei’s works has aroused heated debates. The realistic level reflects the conscious projection of Zhang’s personality created by social settings and social education, which reveals the critical stance of the intellectual elite, while the folk level better reflects his feminine and subtle artistic style, as he is a folk singer who belongs to the Earth, and his writing style is confined by folk elements which are incompatible with reality. Daemonic elements, by contrast, belong to the third level, beyond the aforementioned levels, representing part of man’s spiritual world. The study of “Minjian” in contemporary literature leaves me with a feeling that is hard

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to express clearly, as I think “Minjian” is not a battlefield that provides writers with sharp conflicts with reality, but a kind of world in itself, coexisting with reality while remaining incompatible with it. Hence, it preserves aesthetic elements that are not acceptable in reality, revealing in the meantime the ideal of free development of humanity. Furthermore, its many grotesque and hideous phenomena reveal a different, coarse way of being, which justifies rather than replaces the existence of many forms of life. The utopian nature of the so-called “folk idealism” is also reflected here, which is beautifully manifested in Zhang’s September’s Fable. Nevertheless, the daemonic elements reveal the other explicit spiritual aesthetic dimension, which confronts the sharpness and cruelty of conflicts in reality; in other words, it is derived precisely from the negative effect of the advancement of modern civilization. At the same time, it presents the spiritual resistance to the civilized system in a destructive manner. Zhang Wei’s skepticism of modernity, along with his concern for the ecological environment and his insights into the aesthetic spirit of the folk world oozing with filthiness and vivacity, has contributed to his exploration and presentation of daemonic elements in his works. It is noteworthy that the aesthetic elements of the daemonic and its spiritual composition remain far from full-fledged in contemporary Chinese literature, as daemonic elements in both Yan Lianke’s and Zhang Wei’s works at the level of the “archetypal desire” have not yet reached the thrilling depth in Western modern literature, such as man’s evil nature, guilt and confession, and revenge and terror. The difference between Yan’s and Zhang’s works is that the manifestation of the daemonic in Yan’s writings is intentional, with many of his good pieces haunted by ghosts and other amazing imageries, while daemonic elements in Zhang’s works are more unintentional. Therefore, we find while reading Zhang’s works that daemonic elements are oftentimes broken, chaotic and complex, but it is precisely through these unintentional depictions that we seem to view the primitive state of the daemonic more clearly. Seven Kinds of Mushrooms: Struggles for the Desire for Power and the Prototype of Primal Desire during the Cultural Revolution An early manifestation of daemonic elements in Zhang Wei’s fiction series is his Seven Kinds of Mushrooms, a grotesque novella. Although it has not yet attracted due attention from researchers, it remains an early work that not only embodies his pursuit of “Minjian”, but also emphasizes demons and daemonic imageries. Its beginning paragraph follows: 2.1

“Treasure”, an ugly male dog, is hard to domesticate, as his character is actually closer to that of a wolf. The man who named him is Old Ding, chief of this area. Treasure had dirty fur and a fierce look since he was young and

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killed many of his companions and cats…. Many men attempted to kill him but failed. Interestingly, Treasure follows every word that Old Ding says, and they remain close to each other. When Old Ding says, “Treasure, you are envied,” his malevolent eyes are moist as he stares at his poker-faced master: thin and short, with a bulging forehead and a wide-open square mouth. Oh my wise master, brave and mighty, heroic and invincible.9 Treasure’s daemonism, along with his guileful master, stands out in this passage; it was like Faust’s patrol with Mephistopheles. This evil dog rampaged in the woods and was poisoned by spiders. In his stupor, he saw the horror and malevolence of the human world, which was sung in folk songs: “With thousands of stories based on poisonous mushrooms, I, Treasure, also know a few.” Since the era of this novel is the Cultural Revolution, it features the language and narrative details of that specific period. Compared with the outside world (the headquarters of the forestry station), the mysterious woods were an independent kingdom, with Little Liu as the leader of the forestry station annex designated by the headquarters, though nobody cared about it. Self-appointed as the head of this remote forestry station annex, Old Ding was supported by all creatures in the woods, including Treasure, the evil dog, thus constructing a mythical folk world. This was also a world filled with desires: in the eyes of poor peasants outside the woods, it was a paradisiac place, as poor girls could disguise themselves as ghosts to steal corn cakes, while in the eyes of the authorities, it was a terrible and unruly independent kingdom. The most exciting part of the story is the inspection of the forestry station annex by the working team from the headquarters, who fled in fear of the horrible images formed by withered trees in the woods. The absurdity of the story drives the plot with swift shifts of the narrative between men and dogs, constituting a fascinating account of grassroots power struggles that were common during the Cultural Revolution. “In the twilight, with mountain-like shadows of trees, Treasure stepped out to patrol.” This constitutes not only the start of the myth but also the growth of desire. The real patrolman, however, was not a dog but his master, Old Ding, the owner of Treasure and head of the forestry station annex; this evil dog was merely the projection of the daemonic within him. He ruled the woods but remained righteous; in order to maintain his dominance in the woods, Old Ding used all his power and intrigues to fight fiercely against Little Liu, the leader designated by the headquarters of the forestry station and eventually resorted to witchcraft to put Little Liu to death. Although Little Liu was a 9 Zhang Wei, Seven Kinds of Mushrooms, Shandong Literature and Art Publishing House, 2001, p. 1.

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clown-like character, Old Ding behaved wickedly and mercilessly to kill others in the struggle for power and profit. Other than applying the daemonic to analyze his words and deeds, it is impossible to defend him, as a demonized personality is oftentimes unscrupulous. The way Old Ding defeated Little Liu was also demonizing, mixing social struggles and folk witchcraft. In the beginning, he resorted to ideological means, using stories, ballads and posters, to fabricate history and make up crimes to generate great mental pressure for Little Liu. Then he used folk witchcraft to deal with the working team sent by his superiors. Although Old Ding indirectly resorted to the evil forces of society to bring about Little Liu’s death, everything sounded excessively vicious and ironic. If this fight had taken place in normal society, it would have been a tragic case; however, when it happened in the magic folk world, it became a mischievous game of demons. Ironically, Little Liu, Old Ding’s rival, had long given up power struggles. Trapped in love, Little Liu went insane and was later framed and died a terrible death. Old Ding, the daemonic head of the woods, who was “brave and mighty, heroic and invincible,” however, also became miserable and helpless because of the loss of love and later degenerated like a clown, following Little Liu’s tragic destiny. Old Ding becomes lifelike in Zhang Wei’s words: “Old as he was, the man was energetic, with robust desires and novel ideas emerging from his bulging forehead. Old Ding once fell in love with many women, and each affair was accompanied with exciting stories.”10 In Zhang’s words, Old Ding serves as a symbol of desire, who loves power and women and meanwhile remains fully confident in his control of all resources in the woods. His other “feat” was his mastery of mushrooms in the woods. His years of dedication to his research, entitled “Identifying Mushrooms”, led to a major scientific project. Seven kinds of mushrooms, some good and some bad; deciphering their code of life represents man’s primal passion and long-cherished wish to conquer nature. Seduced by the demon Mephistopheles, Faust grew greedy for power and sex and eventually lost himself in attempting to reclaim the land from the sea. With his soul almost possessed by the demon, Faust sighed at the beauty of the world, which implies man’s enormous desire in conquering nature for greater wealth. Whether it was the reclamation of the sea or the seven kinds of mushrooms, it confirms an important prototype of man’s desire, that is, the conquest of nature and the acquisition of wealth, which may also be attributed to the desire for things. An overview of Old Ding’s desires, namely, desires for power, sex and things, reveals that they respond to the three interpretations of the daemonic in ancient Greek literature, which contain three basic prototypes of the primal desire. Both nutritious and poisonous, the seven kinds 10

Zhang Wei, Seven Kinds of Mushrooms, p. 29.

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of mushrooms actually symbolize the god-demon symbiosis of all kinds of desires. Old Ding would resort to any means at all cost to fulfill his desires, among which the uttermost was not the libido (desire) for sex, but that for power. This is of course inseparable from China’s long history of centralized monarchy; in a polygamous society, it was easy to satisfy the desire for sex; in a centralized state, however, it was difficult to fulfill the desire for power. The saying “I can take his place” encapsulates precisely a primal desire of Chinese people, which can also be referred to as an archetypal desire. Seven Kinds of Mushrooms is set in a remote forestry station annex during the Cultural Revolution. Although it unfolds wonders in the woods through parables, by taking the desire for power as the leading form of the primal desire, the story not only emphasizes the traditional features of Chinese culture, but also highlights the spirit of the Cultural Revolution era. In an era of extreme material scarcity and extreme oppression of human nature, revolution stimulated a desire for power that permeated the country. The Cultural Revolution itself was a vicious power struggle within the ruling clique led by Lin Biao, the deputy commander who had bluntly referred to Chinese history as a history of coups. In order to subvert the entire state machinery, the rebellious flame ignited by demons started from the bottom of the society, provoking overwhelming political intrigues and ideological struggles, and the desire for power ascended as the biggest and most primal desire of millions of Chinese people. With the end of the Cultural Revolution and the advent of the era of Reform and Opening-up, the intimidating shadow of politics gradually withdrew from societal life, with humanity first awakening in the ideological liberation movement. The desire to liberate humanity ascended to become the new spirit of the times; compared with the desire for things, the release of libido began to become part of the daily life of Chinese people. The disintegration and recombination of numerous marriages and families in Chinese society in the 1980s was permeated with people’s romantic imagination of individual liberation, and with an unprecedented and idealistic social atmosphere and a movement to liberate humanity. As Part II of Zhang Wei’s Desire trilogy, Book of Foreign Province depicts such an era of social transformation, with the desire for human liberation as its narrative theme and as an archetypal desire, this desire still contains rich connotations. Book of Foreign Province: The Desire for Survival and the Desire for Life in the Era of Human Liberation Book of Foreign Province11 directly depicts the ongoing economic development with a peculiar narrative structure. Through the complex artistic imagery of 2.2

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Zhang Wei, Book of Foreign Province, The Writers Publishing House, 2000.

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Shi Ke, Zhang Wei constructs a connection between social development and personal destiny with his profound insights: Shi Ke, the protagonist, is a bored intellectual who feels like an outsider in the roaring economic development and plays the role of an idle critic in the society of the time. Paradoxically, the director of the economic development movement was not the real mayor of the city, but Shi Dongbin, who was Shi Ke’s nephew and grandson of a famous capitalist in the days when today’s vigorous coastal development was precisely the dream of this old generation. Therefore, “… looking at the now disappearing coastline, Shi Ke said eventually, ‘The Shi family has had this idea since the last generation and succeeded in this one.’ Over the past hundred years, the history of the Shi family is a miniature of that of modern China, where there were great plans and bloody struggles, flights and betrayals. History repeats itself with enormous suffering, and the Shi family has finally returned to the center of the society. Nevertheless, only one of them, having seen through the world of mortals, retreated to live in innocence by the sea and finished writing Book of Foreign Province.”12 Transcending the familial distribution of characters in Zhang Wei’s previous works, this novel presents a confrontation between a person and a world. After working in Beijing for several decades, the old scholar, Shi Ke has retired and gone back to Ji’nan, and further to his remote hometown by the sea to escape the world and finish an inexplicable book. With its title pending and some sporadic thoughts as the content, Shi Ke eventually decided that, since he lived in a remote place far away from the capital, this book, accordingly, could be referred to as Book of a Foreign Province. Here, “foreign province” may not only be interpreted as the disparities between Beijing (the capital)  – Ji’nan (the capital city of Shandong province)  – Shi’s remote hometown by the sea, but also as the gaps between globalization  – nationalization – ruralization. It was precisely what Shi Ke felt when the peace of the coast was swept by the roaring economic development and there was no way back. In this continuous retreat, the distortion of the structure of binary opposition is tangible: what confronts Shi Ke was no longer a cohort or a clique, but the world filled with desires. With his retreat from this hustling and bustling world, he saw people suffer when driven by desires. Confronting the world of desires, Shi Ke was living like an ascetic monk with a very few supporters, such as beautiful Shi Hui and the kind but impotent pinecone-picking old man, which sounds fairly frustrating. In the world of desires, by contrast, people were living energetically and ambitiously, driving the wheels of the times

12

Xu Junya, “Witness of the Time of Two Utopian Heroes – Comments on Zhang Wei’s Book of Foreign Province”, Central Daily · Supplementary, January 14, 2002.

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by exerting themselves on the edge of sin and creations, shining brilliantly in the arena of life. If the characters in the world of desires confronted by Shi Ke are analyzed from the perspective of primal desire, or if primal desire is temporarily interpreted as libido in Western psychoanalysis, then we may explain why Zhang, through the words of Shi Lin, gives each character an animal nickname. Although these nicknames seem to strengthen the allegorical nature of the story, they do not possess any physical meanings. Based on the theory of primal desire, man’s degeneration into animal nature or his atavistic intentions reveal the unconscious expression of his repressed animal drives. The animal nicknames of leading characters are almost always aquatic animals (such as Weever, Snapper, Crocodile and Eel) and primates (Baboon), which contain an intentionality appropriate to the initial state of life. Controlled by primal desire, these characters can be divided into two categories, one belonging to the desire for existence (such as Shi Ming, Shi Dongbin and Ma Sha), the other the desire for life (such as Shi Lin and Baboon). The basis of these desires, namely the archetypal desire, is that for sex (sexuality). The first category of characters all had painful lived experiences as their humanity was once excessively repressed, making them choose the right to live as the top priority. Take Shi Ming as an example: he had a terrible experience in childhood that left him in fear and anxiety of being castrated all his life. In the dark days during the Cultural Revolution era, he resolutely took advantage of his visits abroad to flee the country and further concealed his childhood sexual fears with his sexual mania, which earned him a scolding from Shi Ke: “In your eyes, lechery becomes patriotic.” Nevertheless, compared with Shi Ke, his younger brother, who seemed prematurely aged with outdated information, stale knowledge and boring language, Shi Ming was energetic, knowledgeable, trendy and good at accepting new scientific information and his strong desire for survival was the greatest motivation for his career success. Shi Ming’s daemonism lies in his impulsiveness: for sake of survival, he made every effort to survive and develop at the expense of destroying the interests of the nation and the family or of the lives of his families and friends. This demonstrates the co-existence of destructiveness and creativeness in him, making Shi Ke gasp in admiration that “Desire is a real energy, a little like uranium waiting to be tapped – The mightiness …” Apparently, Shi Ming is not a simplified imagery; instead, all the complexities that transcend all the moralities in his personality make him intriguing. Shi Dongbin, the son of Shi Ming, best resembles his father. A research of the genealogy of characters in Zhang Wei’s works reveals that Shi Dongbin was like ill-fated heroes such as Sui Jiansu in The Ancient Ship. Similarly, he, too, had been tortured in those dark days, but once he

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met favorable economic opportunities, the genetic elements of daemonism flowing in his blood stirred him to use the power of corruption secretly to create a family kingdom (The episode is hidden in Shi Dongbin’s relationship with the mayor.). In Zhang Wei’s earlier works, such an imagery would have been excessively vulgar and disgusting; however, in Shi Dongbin, the turning point emerged with his love for Shi Hui, which indicates the light in life that transcends his survival consciousness. Like Chunyu Yangli in Zhang’s Recall Mallow, out of affection for beauty and for love in life, with his primal desire transforming from the desire for existence to that for life, Shi Dongbin shines with the desire for love. When the instinct of life is concentrated on the desire for love, a life that can produce true and passionate love is a life of hope. In the story, Shi Lin (Weever as his nickname) represents the real spirit filled with abundant desires for life and love, reflecting naturally the instinct of life. Along with Baboon, he seems to have come from ancient times into modern civilization in a very untimely manner. It was natural for Shi Lin to engage in the revolution; it was only when the social order loosened greatly and the shackles of civilization were shattered by the revolution that his daemonism could go rampant. This can be referred to as the poetic “old landlord era.” He caressed women countless times, becoming affectionate in the name of revolution; but once the social order was re-established, even if he was the founder and hero of the new system, he had to be suppressed and punished by the civilized system. Herbert Marcuse once cited Freud’s theory to interpret the conflicts between primal desire and civilization: “‘Happiness’, said Freud, ‘is not a cultural value’. Happiness must be subordinated to the discipline of work as a full-time occupation, to the discipline of monogamic reproduction, to the established system of law and order. The methodical sacrifice of libido, its rigidly enforced deflection to socially useful activities and expressions, is culture.”13 At this time, there was no such harmonious love, and the romantic “old landlord era” had to give way to social order and civilized norms, in which the Weever had no choice but to die miserably. In the revolutionary years, Shi Lin’s attachment with countless women never left for him any son or daughter. It cannot be said that he was in spiritual love, but may be interpreted that his love for women was purely involvement in life, which is like what Freud said that “[…] sexual love is a relationship between two people, […] the pair of lovers are sufficient unto themselves, do not even need the child they have in common to make them happy.” (Ibid., p. 41) In modern civilization, primal desire has to compromise with reality; Shi Lin’s and Hu Chunyi’s marriage symbolizes the 13

Herbert Marcuse, Eros and Civilization. A Philosophical Inquiry into Freud, Boston: Beacon Press 1974, “Introduction”, p. 3.

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transformation of the pleasant instinct of life to the social reality. Hu Chunyi, with her Christian family background, represents civilization, rationality and responsibility. They gave birth to a beautiful daughter, Shi Hui, and established a family praised by the society. Nevertheless, driven by the impulse of primal desire, Shi Lin’s life plunged uncontrollably into tragedy, which reveals that the compromise of primal desire with civilization eventually proved to be a failure. Since primal desire could not be restrained, Shi Lin’s universal love was not tolerated by the civilized system till his death, nor understood by his wife. If Shi Lin symbolizes “desire”, then Baboon symbolizes “sin”, which is also an important concept of the daemonic. Similar to a witch, Baboon used herb medicine to bathe Shi Lin and used the female body to comfort the impotent old man. From the perspective of folklore, she played the role of an ancient folk witch, hence, she was able to decide on the death ceremony of Shi Lin in the end. With Zhang’s unique and exquisite folk narrative ability, Baboon has become one of his most lifelike and likeable female characters. Like a wild ape in nature, she was free from any restraints. In the primitive folk concept, survival is the top need and the first ethical rubric of life, whilst the concept of sin does not exist. It was only in the era of civilization that the state machinery created the concept of “guilt” to rule over people. Due to her unhappy childhood, Baboon was first positioned on the primal desire for survival: growing up in the fallen modern city and a broken family was for her fraught with danger. However, she was born beyond the concept of guilt. Every time, she would face up fearlessly to the demonic settings and fight against them to protect her own right to survive. Furthermore, the primal desire for survival contains the connotation of fighting guilt with guilt itself, such as Shi Ming’s treason and Shi Dongbin’s corruption, which highlight such connotation. What Baboon shows, instead, is its most essential part, which is more innocent and closer to the origin of life. After her arrival at the sea and protected by Shi Lin, Baboon’s anxiety caused by the threat to survival disappeared; what filled her and Shi Lin was the joy and blossom of life. At this time, the primal desire in her body underwent a fundamental transformation, moving from the previous survival instinct to a higher stage of life instinct with higher quality. There is an interesting detail in the story: Shi Lin was initially taken care of by his daughter, Shi Hui, who represents the purest ideal of modern civilization. However, with Baboon’s arrival, Shi Hui felt lost and left her father deliberately, as she could hardly tolerate such a rough life. Shi Hui and her mother once suspected that Baboon was Shi Lin’s illegitimate daughter. This suspicion was derived from some primitive “blood” inheritance between Shi Lin and Baboon, that is, the archetypal desire for life. Baboon’s strong desire for life was also manifested in her hospice care of her guardian Shi Lin. In order not to let this old man suffer on his

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deathbed, she ended his life with arsenic. Legally speaking, it was murder; but in the primitive folk sense, what she did was in accordance with the primal desire of the death instinct in life. The most puzzling was that Baboon finally fell in love with the electric eel, namely Shi Dongbin’s bodyguard, betraying her patron, Shi Lin. This indicates that she became clearly aware of love in humanity, which made her unconscious desire for universal love in Shi Lin turn into a more specific desire for sexual love in the electric eel. Once she realized this change, she ended her role as a witch for Shi Lin and learned to be a “normal person.” Just as Shi Lin had to compromise with modern civilization, and to marry Hu Chunyi to learn to be normal, Baboon, who was wild, primitive and full of primal desires in life, equally had to compromise with the civilized system and learn to be a “wife.” Satisfyingly, her marriage with the electric eel was also based on strong sexuality, retaining a certain primal desire. The world of desires confronted by Shi Ke was full of daemonic elements of destruction and creation. Even though they were divided into desires for survival and those for life, it can still be seen that there existed consistent destructive elements. What Shi Ming destroyed were orthodox concepts of nationality, whilst Shi Dongbin destroyed traditional notions of society. Similarly, what Shi Lin destroyed were oppressive moral ideas, whilst what Baboon destroyed were mainstream evil ideas. From the perspective of the modern civilized system, they were all sinful. In its great destruction, the primal desire for existence created a dynamic social change and a new spirit of personality; also in its great destruction, the primal desire for life not only created a new concept of personality and of life, but also forced people to explore the more rational and richer side of humanity through various shields of modern civilization. Generally, the daemonic was usually grounded in destruction, and creation was oftentimes based on utopian ideals, which can be seen in Shi Lin and Baboon. Once turned into reality, these creative elements would inevitably conflict with modern civilization. The worse result would be the great release of destructive elements in the primal desire for survival that may cause catastrophes beyond man’s control, such as the fascists of the 1930s and the Cultural Revolution in China in the 1960s. As the desires for sex and for love are basic desires in man’s life instinct, in the social ethos of pursuing human liberation, sexual desire has become the most important feature of primal desire. In Book of Foreign Province, desires were included in sexuality to spotlight the spirit of the times, which basically captured the spiritual trait of the era. In the social ethos in China in the 1980s, however, the liberation of humanity was always connected with the desire to develop the social economy and to reform the political system. Therefore, when the troubles in the story were all attributed to sexuality, the other

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prototype of desire, which also promoted social development and human liberation, namely the desire for things and the daemonic elements formed by the combination of desires for things and for sex, had not yet been seriously explored. In the story, Shi Dongbin revealed Zhang Wei’s constant bookish approach, as once he fell in love with Shi Hui, his millions of family wealth and the future of the Shi family became much less important, which indicates he could not make rational decisions as a modern capitalist. Classic writers of Marxism have always believed that in the process of capital accumulation and development, man’s plunder of profits and wealth constitutes the most fundamental desire: “As capitalist production, accumulation, and wealth become developed, the capitalist ceases to be the mere incarnation of capital. He has a fellow-feeling for his own Adam, and his education gradually enables him to smile at the rage for asceticism, as a mere prejudice of the old-fashioned miser.”14 Marx’s so-called “his own Adam” refers to the inflated consumption of sexual desire in the capitalist era, and such a primal desire which coincides with “modernization” is inflated with the continuous expansion of capital and wealth, just as Shi Dongbin’s sexual relationship with Ma Sha was established on his flourishing career, his persecution-like pursuit of Shi Hui was also built on his confidence in great wealth. Nevertheless, as for how Shi Dongbin makes painful and unromantic choices between desires for things and for sex after falling in love with Shi Hui, Zhang Wei did not provide readers with further answers, but continued this exploration in his ensuing works, such as the story of Chunyu YangLi, an artist in Recall Mallow, which unfolds new artistic scenes in which the daemonic prevailed in the era of materialism. Recall Mallow: Prevalence of “the Daemonic” in the Era of Materialism It is a sign of human alienation in the capitalist era when desires for capital and wealth are given top priority, thus obscuring the most essential desires in humanity. If Recall Mallow had emphasized merely the connectedness between artists and the market economy in society in this sense, it would be no more than a repetition of the efforts made by previous critical realist writers. What is invaluable in this novel is that Zhang Wei did not repeat the thinking inertia of his predecessors and himself on this topic; instead, what he confronted was a new subject. The rushed, poorly organized and unharmonious narrative between the lines may be attributed to Zhang’s intense thoughts in the face of the chaotic reality. In the story, the predicament confronted by Chunyu Yangli

2.3

14 Karl Marx, Capital, Vol. I, here: https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1 /ch24.htm#S3.

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can be referred to as the continuation of the perplexities faced by Shi Dongbin, although as a native Chinese intellectual, Chunyu not only transferred his main desires from the primal desire for sex to the sublimation of art, but also dared to take serious action in the face of difficulties. As I have discussed earlier, the daemonic elements do not belong to the humanistic category of the traditional intellectual elite, nor to the idealistic category of the imaginary folk world; instead, as a spiritual orientation from Western culture, they especially refer to a spiritual strategy with the depraved and decadent tendency raised by Western modernism during the cultural transformation in the West. Although the profound artistic revelation of such countermeasures and the consequence of its practices is already evident in Western literature, it remains absent in Chinese literature. Whether or not Zhang Wei is aware of it, his exploration has actually brought a new topic to contemporary literature: What are the new features of daemonic elements in the era of materialism? What is the “era of materialism”? Recall Mallow is set in the Chinese society of the 1990s, when people, encouraged by “some people get rich first” and stimulated by the goal of “striving for a well-off society”, were in fanatical pursuit of money, wealth, consumption and pleasure. In this era, the social system of the market economy guaranteed the legitimacy and feasibility of people’s pursuit of desires, and the liberation of humanity passed from rationality to the great release of primal desire of “one’s own Adam,” mercilessly abandoning the idealism expressed in humanity in the 1980s and devouring all affectionate humanistic elements by wealth-based desires. Faust had envisioned that man would prove his worth by conquering nature; but in this era, the vision had been transformed into man’s naked acquisition of the material world. This means the desire for things had become the basis of all desires, that is, the most essential primal desire among all primal desires. Literature is supposed to be the best response and reflection of the times. An overview of fiction in the 1990s reveals that very few writers portrayed fascinating love stories. Instead, there were stories about prostitutes and would-be prostitutes or stories about trendy people who would sell their bodies to satisfy material desires. The desire for things had become the dominant monster in society. Our literature, however, has never seriously expressed the mental and physical sufferings experienced by intellectuals in such social settings. Consequently, with the fading of the call for the humanistic spirit,15 arrived inevitably the daemonic elements.

15 This alludes to the failure of the “re-thinking humanistic spirit” movement initiated by some Chinese intellectuals in the 1990s. I was part of this movement.

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In Recall Mallow, the story of Chunyu Yangli reminds me of Thomas Mann’s Doktor Faustus, which tells a story about an artist who encountered difficulties in his creation and was tempted by the demon to sign a contract with to help him create superb music to set his works apart from the classical music of Beethoven’s time at the price of happiness in his lifetime. It is said that this story was based on modern musicians such as Gustav Mahler and Arnold Schönberg. Modernist art is an anti-traditional daemonic art that is incompatible with social reality, which aims to eliminate the mediocrity and impetuosity of our world with its greatest unconventionality and to reactivate the vitality of Western culture. The musician walled himself up in his study, completely isolated from society. His daemonism was mainly reflected in the two symphonies he composed, namely Apocalipsis cum figuris and Dr. Fausti Weheklang (English: Revelation with Figures and The Lamentations of Dr. Faustus), which were inspired by his engagement with the demon, even though the latter did nothing but serve as an intermediary in the story. Next, we will explore how in Zhang’s words, the daemonism in Chunyu Yangli was stimulated in Recall Mallow. These daemonic elements eventually pushed modern art to its doom, which is also the Chinese style of daemonic mischievousness. A similar story happens in the second paragraph of Chapter II, Volume II, when Chunyu encountered a miracle in life when he felt stymied in his artistic creation. On the train he met a demon-like person, Old Guangjian, who was his junior high school classmate, “one year older than Chunyu, this man is also middle-aged, has much grey hair and wears glasses. […] His shoes are shiny and he wears a big ring on his finger.” Although he looks tacky and used to be a real fool in his schoolwork, now he has become a rich man. Out of curiosity, Chunyu wanted to find out “what kind of magic was generated by this omnipotent world” and followed Old Guangjian to the resort, which turned out to be a fairy-tale adventure. After coming back from this world of desires, Chunyu completely lost his artistic soul, resolutely gave up his artistic career (in his own words, it was a temporary “farewell” or “leave”), and plunged into the world of desires for a life of daemonic adventure: he went into business but eventually returned defeated. Superficially, Chunyu’s life path was the opposite of the possessed musician’s in Thomas Mann’s Doktor Faustus; however, based on their incompatible attitudes toward their living environment, one may feel their shared dispositions. They were both social outcasts and self-proclaimed geniuses, which corresponds to the transformation of daemonic elements from religious mythologies to secular culture since the 19th century. Born in a “red revolutionary family”, Chunyu developed his fearless pride and noble disposition during the Cultural Revolution; he grew up in a poor rural village and was once poisoned by eating

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fish and then saved by his adoptive mother who used mallow leaves. The folk “poison” had penetrated into him and cultivated and shaped his rebelliousness and cynicism, thus, he was called “rube donkey.” His first mentor as he grew up was Auntie Tao Tao, a half-witch half-mother whom Zhang writes best about. It was Auntie Tao Tao who gave him a complete personalized education. An overview of Chunyu’s extraordinary childhood suggests that his family, living environment and education had paved the way for his uniqueness. His first act of defying prevailing ideas in society was to look for and make friends with another young genius, Qi Ming, out of his pure artistic impulse, although the latter was extremely lonely because of his poor family background. Chunyu’s visit was a turning point in Qi’s life, which was also a proof of his heroic courage to challenge the prevailing class conventions. Chunyu possessed all the fine qualities of a genius: intelligence, courage, energy, human desire and tremendous charisma. Nevertheless, when they both became artists, Qi was well accepted by the secular world and became a “success” with both fame and wealth because of his docile compliance with the requirements of the society and with the laws of the market. Chunyu, by contrast, remained unyielding in his aggressiveness to fight against all social factors that were detrimental to art and was gradually driven into the isolation and desperate self-abandonment. This potentially divine being became mired in the real world. Later, at his “Farewell to Art” Chunyu declared, “When someone like Qi Ming got a foreign prize, someone like Jin San got photographed with the UN officials, folks, that brings us to a serious inquiry – what’s wrong with art these days?” Mixed with fanatical jealousy and serious reflection, his discontent reveals that when art has been manipulated by the market and influenced by the mainstream artistic tastes (that is, in the globalized era, the value of art is often determined by the amount of money in the art market), it is advisable that talented artists should consciously quit the commercialized art world. He would rather satisfy his desire for things through economic activities in other fields than sell out his artistic conscience, which could also be deemed as his last attempt to defy the secular world. Instead of rejecting the social ethos, Chunyu threw himself into the business world, hoping to create a new world for artists, that is, the little island where he once lingered. Chunyu’s plunge into the business world was itself daemonic, just as that German musician’s plunge into hell. Readers’ interpretations of Chunyu’s characteristics as a model artist in the current society are divided in two aspects: on the one hand, he is regarded as a fallen artist, or not an artist at all, but as a contemporary cultural hooligan; on the other hand, he is considered to be a contemporary hero, a “prince” or a god, hence, his incompatibility with reality and his failure are heroically tragic. The former opinion was mostly based on the orthodox perspective of

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the man’s personality, whilst the latter was affected by Zhang’s artistic implications, although neither captured the specificity of daemonic elements in him. Lacking insights into the daemonic elements, the former opinion standardized the personality of artistic imageries in a simplistic pattern, while the failure to see the daemonic elements in Chunyu in the latter debased him from divinity to filthiness and vivacity. Actually, the daemonic elements in Chunyu were not mysterious; instead, it was a tragedy caused by the particular social setting in China. Chunyu Yangli was the product of the Cultural Revolution in the 1960s and globalization in the 1990s. As a young teenage lad, Chunyu felt touched at the sight of a painting and further found Qi Ming in distress regardless of the secular prejudice. Later on, they became close friends for a while. When this story is studied in the context of the Cultural Revolution, that is, the era when the entire nation was castrated and deprived of independent will, Chunyu’s genius for daring to rebel stands out. In other words, daemonic elements in which destruction and creation coexist best reflect the characteristic of the rebellion during the Cultural Revolution. However, with China entering globalization since the 1990s, everything has been moving toward institutionalization, standardization and commercialization. Once again, in the general trend of society, man started to lose his independence and primal desire for life, surrendering to the dominance of globalization. In this social context, when a large number of mediocre men gained power by virtue of the mediocre social system, such a vigorous personality like Chunyu lost the possibility of social favor. When creativity loses opportunities for survival and fails to generate new vitality, only daemonic destruction and vulgar resistance are left. This is the tragedy caused by society, and is also his own tragedy. Furthermore, it is the result of the “conspiracy” of the two seemingly different eras of the Cultural Revolution and globalization: Chunyu’s weaknesses are evident, which may also be referred to as one of the Chinese daemonic features. What he lacks is, first, the necessary “talent” and second, the due “virtue,” whilst these are precisely the tragedy of a whole generation caused by the general lack of education during the Cultural Revolution. Artistic, professional talent was far from sufficient to respond to the challenges of the times or to the new governance of globalization. In addition, the lack of morality in individuals’ personalities failed to restrain their desires or to regulate the connection between individuals and the society. Traditionally, what matters as a man grows up is the development of his talents and the cultivation of his morality. In face of the great trends of society, lack of the aforementioned talents or morality may contribute to a man’s loss of individuality and the growth of his arrogance. His inner anxiety, irritability and stupidity may eventually lead him to a tragic end. Some personal tragedies seem to be the “result” of globalization, but they are

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actually the “consequence” of ignorance and barbaric rule during the Cultural Revolution era. Unfortunately, Chunyu, who was forced down the road of arrogance, and Qi Ming, who unconsciously took the other road of individuality loss, constitute a sharp contrast of the two tragic outcomes of Chinese intellectuals in the trend of contemporary globalization. The other Chinese-style tragedy of Chunyu is his being surrounded by socially undesirable groups. In the story, Zhang Wei discarded completely the family-based binary opposition of characters in his previous works; instead, in Chunyu’s world, he placed a cohort of undesirables, such as crickets, barns, professors, and the like, which is a typical “encapsulated” setting that Chinese intellectuals often encounter in society. By contrast, the musician in Thomas Mann’s Doktor Faustus, whose activities were strictly limited to his study, was isolated from society. Hence, this musician deemed daemonism a primal emotion and drive in his inner world. While in China, intellectuals like Chunyu, who have become frustrated with the intellectual community and “Miaotang”, may still find their cultural retreat, that is, “Minjian”. The so-called “retreating to Minjian” has always been the last retreat of elite intellectuals, so Chinese intellectuals’ image of daemonism is often reflected in the struggles of the outside world, which is also reflected in the so-called idea of “enforcing justice on behalf of Heaven,” and the chivalrous culture is also a kind of Chinese daemonism. In modern society, however, “Minjian” serves as a projection of “Miaotang” and the times, its own moral norms have been destroyed in the great social changes. In turn, the filthiness and vivacity of “Minjian” has bred a batch of social scum, or, in Lu Xun’s words, “those who surround you.” Lacking any creativity, these social undesirables would not make any positive impact; instead, they would survive by strutting in borrowed plumes. Furthermore, the power they were attached to is what Lu Xun referred to as “the powerful,” namely, the famous, the talented and the rich. Lu Xun sharply pointed out that when one becomes “powerful,” “regardless of his ‘power,’ I think he would always be closely surrounded by others. The result is, for himself, this would gradually turn him into a fool or a puppet; for outsiders, this would make them fail to see what he really is, but rather the illusion manifested in the eyes of those who surround him.”16 For the first time in his literary works, Zhang Wei created such a visual connection between the “powerful” and those who surround him in the folk world. In his relations with Xue Cong and others,

16

Refer to Lu Xun’s essay “Random Thoughts on the detained Yu Si (English: Threads of Talk)” collected in And That’s That (Chinese: Eryi Ji), in Vol. 3 of The Complete Works of Lu Xun, People’s Literature Publishing House, 1981, p. 486.

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Chunyu’s being surrounded by others highlighted the ugliness and harshness of his daemonism. Since the daemonic is so ugly and harsh in the era of materialism, what has it brought to the construction of humanity? And how did Zhang Wei deal with it? In Western literature, grounded in archetypal desires, daemonism is understood as a spiritual phenomenon opposed to divinity and is always morally tainted. The first time that the musician in Thomas Mann’s Doktor Faustus met the demon was in a brothel, where the demon turned into a prostitute and infected the musician with syphilis. This best reveals the essence of daemonic elements in terms of its materiality and animality. Nietzsche once regarded daemonism as a sign of the fall of humanity. In “Vom Gesicht und Räthsel” (English: “On the Vision and the Riddle”), namely the third volume of Also Sprach Zarathustra (English: Thus Spoke Zarathustra), he tells a story through the mouth of Zarathustra, in which he was moving upward in defiance of the spirit that sat atop him, desperately pulling him downward. It goes as follows: Upward – in defiance of the spirit that pulled it downward, the spirit of gravity, my devil and arch-enemy. Upward  – even though he sat atop me, half dwarf, half mole, lame, paralyzing, dripping lead into my ear, lead-drop thoughts into my brain. “Oh Zarathustra,” he murmured scornfully, syllable by syllable. “You stone of wisdom! You hurled yourself high, but every hurled stone must – fall! Oh Zarathustra, you stone of wisdom, you sling-stone, you star crusher! You hurled yourself so high – but every hurled stone – must fall! Sentenced to yourself and to your own stoning; oh Zarathustra, far indeed you hurled the stone – but it will fall back down upon you!”17 William Barrett thinks that “the dwarf is the image of mediocrity that lurks within Zarathustra-Nietzsche, and that mediocrity was the most frightening and distasteful thing that Nietzsche was willing to see in himself. Nietzsche discovered the shadow, the underside, of human nature, and he had correctly seen it as a side that is present inescapably in every human individual.”18 Nevertheless, for Nietzsche, precisely this was unacceptable. Hence, he let Zarathustra 17 18

Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra: A Book for All and None, ed. by Adrian Del Caro and Robert B. Pippin, trans. by Adrian Del Caro, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2006, p. 124. (Cambridge Texts in the History of Philosophy) William Barrett, Irrational Man: A Study in Existential Philosophy, New York: Doubleday & Company Inc. 1962, p. 193.

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eventually conquer his inner mediocrity by claiming that “I – or you! But I am the stronger of us two – you do not know my abysmal thoughts! That – you could not bear!”19 Apparently, he hoped to separate himself from the mediocre daemonism in his inner world through the depth of his thoughts and the nobility of his spirit. A careful overview of Zhang Wei’s “trilogy of desires” shows that only the primal desire for sex depicted in Book of Foreign Province connects consciously with the liberation of humanity pursued by Chinese intellectuals, while the desire for power in Seven Kinds of Mushrooms and that for things in Recall Mallow go against the conscience of intellectuals, which highlights Zhang’s criticism and the conflict between divinity and daemonism. In artistic imagery such as Chunyu, Zhang Wei has integrated his serious thoughts on the humanistic spirit of intellectuals facing the challenge of the times. His customary way of opposing the “rise” and “fall” of two rival families has been transformed to in-depth reflections on daemonism within one specific individual, that is, there co-exist “rising” and “falling” elements in Chunyu. The “rising” elements are derived from an artist’s profound insights into beauty; Zhang’s exquisite descriptions of a natural island, an oil painting full of mallows, and the pain Chunyu suffers between Xue Cong and Su Mian due to his kindness and enormous love, constitute the most touching passages in the story, symbolizing the brightness and ideality in Chunyu’s personality, so as to balance the sinking and destruction of daemonism in him. Like a spiritual lyric poem, the story depicts Chunyu’s split soul as well as the great pain it suffers. Zhang has put him several times in a state of coma or of semi-coma in a dream-like form, whether out of love or pain, illustrating the highly abstract nature of the novel in terms of its artistic qualities. 3

The Overall Limitations of Daemonic Elements in Zhang Wei’s Fictions

In my previous discussions of the daemonic elements in Zhang Wei’s works, I had intentionally avoided one element, that is, the imagery of the opposite of primal desire, which remains the most controversial, such as Shi Ke in Book of Foreign Province and Qi Ming in Recall Mallow. A review article that I had read criticized frankly that the failure of Recall Mallow lies mainly in the absence of an overall structure for Qi’s story and Chunyu’s story: “Qi is no more than a puppet who serves as a contrast and a foil, and a passive illustration of Chunyu’s 19

Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra: A Book for All and None, p. 125.

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story.”20 This critic was right only in terms of the structure of the story. The problem is that his critical premise assumed that Qi’s story is of equal importance to Chunyu’s; hence, a certain symmetry had to be established; but what if the original structure was not symmetric for these two characters? Just as Shi Ke and Shi Lin, who do not remain symmetric in Book of Foreign Province, both novels were structurally designed with a specific narrator, that is, one person narrates a world of desires. In Book of Foreign Province, such special narrator is Shi Ke, and in Recall Mallow, it is Qi Ming. Basically, both narrators are old-fashioned humanists who hold a conservative critical view of the world of desires, which is gradually unfolded through their detached observations, reflections and queries. Apparently, the narrators are not only just detached observers, but also among those who participate in the era of materialism, as they engage actively in social life and sometimes benefit from it. Therefore, the pivotal role they play in the novels does not lie in their own stories, but in their thinking, arguments and queries, which bears some resemblance to the narrative of Thomas Mann’s Doktor Faustus. If so, then the story of Shi Lin and that of Shi Ming and his son Shi Dongbin form a kind of juxtaposition, whilst the story of Chunyu independently unfolds his connectedness with those who surround him and with several women. There is no, nor need there be, a corresponding or symmetrical structure between these stories and the stories of their narrators themselves. This does not mean, however, that the narrators’ own stories are less important; compared to their narrative tasks, their stories serve clearly as a further illustration of their stances. For example, what we see in Shi Ke is the pain and helplessness of a sexually impotent man, so as to contrast with how overwhelming the surging sexual desire can be in a robust man (Shi Lin) in the world of desires. Meanwhile, the ensuing inquiry emerges: even if Zhang Wei has taken the narrators as the representatives of certain ideas, has he expressed these ideas well? On this point, I agree with that critic, since the biggest flaw in these novels is that they fail to fully express, depict and criticize the daemonic elements in the world of desires that the narrators confront. Since Shi Ke in Book of Foreign Province and Qi Ming in Recall Mallow serve not as first-person narrators in the story but remain amidst the narrator and leading characters, their attitudes, views and stances toward the world of desires are not only expressed through their voices, but also indirectly through their imageries. Many of their behaviors are intended to illustrate certain of their ideas and concepts; hence, whether or not their imageries are fully-fledged becomes 20

Wu Jun, “Another Kind of Restlessness – A Brief Discussion on Zhang Wei’s Novel Writing: Taking Recall Mallow as An Example”, Shanghai Wenhui Daily, March 22, 2002.

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crucial in this sense. What Zhang’s writing reveals are unprecedented contradictions in the imagery formation of these two narrators, which are grounded in Zhang’s traditional humanistic attitudes toward the drastic changes in life. Nevertheless, through his sensitivity to life as a professional writer, Zhang has sensed a new humanistic element in the upheavals of life, that is, the mightiness of the daemonic elements, which he has been endeavoring to explore in Book of Foreign Province and Recall Mallow, and has created nearly brandnew characters in contemporary literature. However, his narrative discourse turns out to be powerless in terms of how to interpret these newly created characters. Therefore, the entire imagery of Shi Ke as the narrator in Book of Foreign Province remains dry and weak, as he once quoted a poem by a Western poet to portray himself: “Forgive me for my hopeless love. I am over forty-nine, childless, with my hands empty except for this one book.”21 What Shi Ke lacks is precisely such hopeless but sincere love, and he does not understand that “this one book” carries the energy of the poet’s entire life. Without deep love of life, and without curiosity or interest in life in constant change, blind escape, rejection and denial are not effective ways of fighting, nor aggressive criticism. Therefore, the comments in Shi Ke’s notes, along with his arguments with his brother, read pedantic and bookish. And what about Qi Ming? Although his conformity to social trends made him successful, he has completely lost aggressiveness when facing the darkness in life. Furthermore, without any passion or excitement for life, he has even become indifferent and helpless to his beloved in life. Comparing Chunyu’s fanatical and painful love for Xue Cong and Qi’s insincere love for “little angel” (the nickname of a girl), the difference between their respective characters becomes evident. Although Qi’s love story was also touching, it was no more than a socialite’s romance, which is far from the primal desire for love. It is noteworthy that Zhang Wei did not mean to make Shi Ke and Qi Ming dry and weak; actually, he is fairly good at creating such characters, such as Sui Baopu in The Ancient Ship. But why do Shi Ke and Qi Ming in these two works leave contrasting impressions? It is not Zhang’s own weakness, but the powerlessness of the weapons he applies in criticizing the world. Since the daemonic he was facing is essential desires rooted in the depth of human nature, which cannot be easily denied, he had to integrate it into humanity by exerting its positive creativity. In terms of Nietzsche’s insights into the fall of the dwarf, William Barrett pointed out that if Nietzsche had not articulated the boundaries of the dwarf, “it would have been wiser, and even more courageous, to admit who the dwarf really was and to say, not ‘Either thou or I’ but rather, ‘Thou 21

Zhang Wei, Book of Foreign Province, p. 4.

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and I (ego) are one self.’”22 Evidently, it is impossible to eliminate daemonism in one’s inner world; the correct attitude should be as courageous as that of Goethe’s Faust, who takes the demon as both his servant and subordinate: “The devil, […] just as our devil, if joined to ourselves, may become a fruitful and positive force; […] Goethe knew full well the ambiguous power contained in the traditional symbol of the Devil. Nietzsche’s immoralism, though stated much more violently, consisted in little more than the elaboration of Goethe’s point: man must incorporate his devil or, as he put it, man must become better and more evil; the tree that would grow taller must send its roots down deeper.” (Ibid., p. 190) Unfortunately, neither Shi Ke nor Qi Ming possessed such a Faustian spirit; hence, they could not proceed to a positive and perfect human nature. From the Cultural Revolution to the general trend of globalization, Chinese society has undergone unprecedented changes, in which the daemonic was freed over again from the bottle sealed with Solomon’s seal. In other words, the existence of daemonism has subverted not only the tender theories of humanity in ancient Chinese culture, but also the beliefs, ethics and other ideologies that had dominated Chinese society for decades. In the face of this profound conceptual change, literature always remains most sensitive. Similar artistic images in Zhang Wei’s recent works, such as Chunyu Yangli and Shi Lin, have enriched contemporary literary creations with new interpretations of the times through their complex humanistic connotations and prominent connotations of desire. In my opinion, however, the interpretation of these artistic images in academic circles is unsatisfactory, as our further understanding of these artistic connotations in these innovative works has been restricted by theoretical deficiencies. Artistic creations require constant study of new life phenomena; similarly, artistic theories also require careful study of new human factors and literary factors, so as to interpret new phenomena in life. Therefore, facing the daemonic elements means facing all kinds of trials and responses of human nature itself in today’s society, which indicates that studying daemonic elements will bring positive significance not only to artistic creations, but also to the reshaping of certain personalities in social development. As for what unique elements this Western theoretical concept may produce for the development of Chinese society as well as its culture, it is the next topic regarding the global elements in world literature that will be addressed in future research. 22

William Barrett, Irrational Man: A Study in Existential Philosophy, p. 194.

Chapter 12

The Folk Narrative of Brothers from the Perspective of Bakhtin’s Folk Theory 1

Folk Tradition and Grotesque Realism: The Revelation of Bakhtin

Without any external non-academic pressure, the publication of Yu Hua’s Brothers spontaneously aroused a heated debate among critics, the confrontation of whose opinions largely came from the difference in their aesthetic approaches, rather than the realm of ideology. Although it involved as usual a range of value assessments of current society, most importantly, it revealed personal reflections and adjustments in the field of literary aesthetics. Hence, this novel sparked an aesthetic inquiry aimed at resolving aesthetic problems. To better understand this debate, I reread Rabelais and His World by Bakhtin, who discussed Rabelais as follows: It is precisely this specific and radical popular character of Rabelais’ imageries which […] explains Rabelais’ “non-literary” nature, that is, the nonconformity of his imageries to the literary norms and canons predominating in the 16th century and still prevailing in our times, whatever the changes undergone by their contents. Rabelais’ nonconformity was carried to a much greater extent than that of Shakespeare or Cervantes, who merely disobeyed narrow classical canons. Rabelais’ imageries have a certain unrestrained anti-establishment character. No dogma, no authoritarianism, no narrow-minded seriousness can coexist with Rabelaisian imageries; these imageries are opposed to all that is finished and polished, all pomposity and every ready-made solution in the sphere of thought and world outlook.1 Bakhtin further argued that since the European Renaissance, there have been two types of realist art, one is mainstream realism, which focuses on the world of daily life, and the other is grotesque realism derived from the folk culture of humor. The latter, he said, follows “the ever-growing, inexhaustible,

1 Mikhail Bakhtin, Rabelais and his World, trans. by Helene Iswolsky, Bloomington: Indiana University Press 1984, pp. 2–3.

© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2022 | doi:10.1163/9789004522978_013

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ever-laughing principle which uncrowns and renews.”2 Since the Renaissance, the tradition of grotesque realism has been gradually obscured by the tradition of mainstream realism, while since the romantic movement, it has oftentimes been hidden and rekindled fragmentarily in various folk texts. Reading these arguments, the imagery of Baldy Li gradually becomes clear. As the lucky dog of the times who had every human vice, Baldy Li, a vulgar nouveau riche and evildoer, did not seem to be repulsive to readers; on the contrary, he was welcomed by them. This may be because this imagery best reflects some collective unconscious in our society. It seems difficult to find appropriate rhetoric to understand or analyze him, as the entire narrative about Baldy Li opposes the aesthetic tradition since the May 4th New Literature Movement and conflicts with the literary education and tastes that we have taken for granted, thus challenging our self-esteem. As an alternative to mainstream contemporary aesthetics, Yu Hua’s Brothers reminds us whether we hope to understand Baldy Li or the novel itself, we have to detach ourselves, free ourselves from established literary standards and aesthetic conventions and our self-righteous literary tradition. This is precisely the essential principle of grotesque realism that Bakhtin referred to: degradation, self-degradation. (Ibid., p. 19) Bakhtin, in emphasizing this concept, summarized its definition: “the lowering of all that is high, spiritual, ideal, abstract; it is a transfer to the material level, to the sphere of earth and body in their indissoluble unity.” (Ibid., pp. 19–20) Its more concrete interpretation is that between artistic elements such as spirit and matter, heaven and earth, and upper body and lower body, the artistic imagery of grotesque realism would choose the latter. This is not merely a partial aesthetic taste escaping from the constraint of aesthetic conventions, nor a deviation from classical tastes, such as Shakespeare and Cervantes that Bakhtin depicted. Instead, this is a comparatively thorough degradation on a larger scale, which means being degraded to the folk literature tradition obscured by the mainstream aesthetic taste, and being degraded to the realism based on grotesqueness as its leading feature. The folk aesthetic of contemporary Chinese literature that we face today differs greatly from the folk tradition in medieval Europe. However, when we learn from Rabelais’ folk literature tradition, we may find that since the May 4th New Literature Movement, our essential aesthetic standard has been mixed with the literary tastes of the European bourgeoisie, which gradually ascended to the mainstream culture after the Renaissance, the literary tastes of socialist realism in the former Soviet Union, and the avant-garde literary tastes in Western modernism in the 20th century. It 2 Mikhail Bakhtin, Rabelais and his World, trans. by Helene Iswolsky, p. 24.

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was precisely these aesthetic standards that restricted the enlightenment spirit of the May 4th New Literature and its narrative. In the enlightenment narrative that highlights intellectuals, folk imageries created by writers not only contrast the humanitarian concerns of intellectuals with the sufferings of those at the bottom of the society, but also contrast the former’s foresight with the latter’s ignorance and numbness, and the former’s independence and loneliness with the latter’s blindness and stupidity. Apparently, as two potentially opposing aesthetic trends, enlightenment and degradation pose differing interpretations of folk culture. From the representative writer of avant-garde literature in the 1980s to the pioneer of folk values in the 1990s, Yu Hua demonstrated that each step of his literary creation was a subtle inheritance of his previous works. He inherited the critical core of the avant-garde literature of the May 4th Movement, but changed the external form of aesthetics, exploring in depth the expression of folk culture. His avant-garde works reveal the cruelty and inhumanity of the Cultural Revolution era, constituting his leading accomplishments in terms of realist compassion and ideological depth that other contemporary avant-garde writers can hardly reach. Similarly, Yu’s strongly folk-oriented novels, despite their outward form of sentimental plots, are still wrapped in the stance incompatible with the social reality and far removed from the reality of ordinary little folk. Most invaluable of all, Yu’s writing trajectory has been closely related to reality. An overview of his works reveals that all his attempts to deviate slightly from reality proved unsuccessful, yet with his artistic sensitivity he was always able to adjust in time and return to the right track. Brothers is a contemporary masterpiece; for Yu Hua himself, it seems to be an unexpected miracle. In the Afterword, he wrote: “The narrative steered my writing”,3 which allowed him to expand the novel from its envisioned length of 100,000 words to over 500,000 words. In the transfer of aesthetic categories, Yu’s narrative abandoned the avant-garde writing of the 1980s and sentimental folk stories of the 1990s, thus leading him to a harsh, wild, grotesque and unknown new world and a new realm, that is, a folk world beyond the mainstream aesthetic taste. Part One of Brothers largely follows Yu’s usual style of writing, even though some changed elements between the lines may have made sensitive professional readers uncomfortable and indignant. By Part Two the aesthetic style has become completely unfamiliar, which indicates that Yu’s aesthetic approach has been passively but completely transformed.

3 See “Afterword in Brothers”, printed on the back cover of the single edition of this novel, Shanghai Literature and Art Publishing House, 2006.

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The form of folk culture in contemporary literature, which includes folk stances, folk narratives and folk aesthetics, is a rather complicated subject, particularly in terms of its total rebellion against the aesthetic taste we take for granted. We see a perfect example in Brothers. I would like to illustrate my understanding of certain characteristics of folk narratives by taking some detailed descriptions provided by this novel as examples. 2

Peeping Details in Hidden Text Structure

More than once I have heard friends say they felt profound anger while reading Brothers, in other words, they felt their dignity had been violated. That is to say, the aesthetic taste that critics have long cultivated is being challenged. While seriously looking forward to Yu’s new works for new thrilling imageries or tear-jerking stories, the critics never expected a cheeky little ruffian to jump at them making faces. Similarly, they had expected Yu Hua to reveal in depth the distortion of human nature during the Cultural Revolution or in the commodity economy. Instead, beyond their wildest expectations, Baldy Li, that ungrateful little ruffian, hiding next to the women’s latrine, incredibly committed that shameful deed; and Yu even played it up with great fanfare over dozens of pages. The reason why this peeping incident ignited the public anger was not only the vulgarity of the incident itself, but also that the very site of the scene was stinking and disgusting. What in blazes was Yu’s intention? Let’s start with this opening detail: What role did Baldy Li’s peeping incident play in the structure of the novel? Let’s expand the topic to clarify the role of this incident. A concept, namely hidden text structure, was raised for discussion while I was serving as the editorin-chief of The History of Contemporary Chinese Literature.4 In the textual composition of a literary piece, in addition to the carefully constructed explicit structure constituted by the theme, plot and character design of the work, there exists another kind of unconscious expression hidden within the text, namely the narrative model composed of mythological prototypes, folklore and classic narratives, which is buried deeply amidst the characters, restricting the artistic charm of the text. I refer to such a literary phenomenon as the hidden text structure, which together with the explicit text structure of the work constitutes a relatively complete textual meaning. A study of the hidden text structure in Brothers may reveal a peculiar connection of characters. 4 See The History of Contemporary Chinese Literature, edited by Chen Sihe, Fudan University Press, 1999.

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In a graduate seminar I chaired, a student once raised this question: Was Song Fanping indirectly responsible for the indecent death of Baldy Li’s father, Liu Shanfeng? In the story, when Song entered a latrine and saw someone hanging upside down peeping at women’s butts next door, he screamed, causing Liu to fall into the cesspool and die, leaving behind this untold disgrace on his family. Since Liu’s body was salvaged by Song Fanping, people saw this and praised his courage, ignoring that he was the cause of this tragedy. This was a very interesting question. If we inquire further and finish the entire story, a potential prototype behind it would emerge: inadvertently, Song Fanping brought about the death of Liu Shanfeng, Baldy Li’s father. Later, he married Li Lan, Baldy Li’s mother. Years later, again inadvertently, Baldy Li led to the death of Song Fanping and his son Song Gang.5 A further analysis of this Hamlet model of revenge may reveal surprisingly that the structure of Baldy Li’s revenge is rather symmetrical: for Liu Shanfeng, Song Fanping’s inadvertent scream as he entered the latrine was fatal, which made him drown in the cesspool. The corresponding revenge was that Baldy Li’s unintentionally fatal disclosure at a political criticism meeting sent Song Fanping to the warehouse, where he suffered inhuman torture until he died on the street. For Baldy Li, instead, the revenge corresponding to Song Fanping’s killing his father to marry his mother is Baldy Li’s possession of Lin Hong as well as the indirect blow it caused to Song Gang. The novel begins with Song Fanping’s “killing his father to marry his mother” and ends with Song Gang’s suicide as a result of his discovery of Baldy Li and Lin Hong’s affair. Such a symmetrical hidden narrative mode beautifully concealed in the text structure of Brothers is indeed amazing. Now, we may analyze the peeping incident at the beginning of the novel. Supposing the hidden text structure works, then this incident cannot be taken as a boring triviality; instead, it may be quite the opposite. Baldy Li’s father had died before he was born, leaving no impression on him. However, his father’s genetic inheritance had begun to ferment in him from the time of his early sexual desires, when he began to express them indistinctly on benches and tree poles. If symbolism in traditional folk literature is applied to interpret this, it is precisely being possessed (which in Hamlet is the appearance of a ghost). This mysterious force gradually led him to the realm of eroticism, and eventually, at the age of fourteen, he was nabbed for peeping at five women’s bottoms in a public pit toilet. As a public incident, everything in Liu Town seemed to have returned to fourteen years earlier when Baldy Li’s father died from peeping at 5 See Jing Wen, “Death Events and Patterns of Revenge”, Contemporary Writers Review, 2, 2007. This paper explored in depth the prototype of this story.

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women’s butts in a latrine. This reminded people in Liu Town over again that Baldy Li was the son of Liu Shanfeng. More importantly, it is not only that Liu’s blood was resurrected in Baldy Li, but that the latter finally had the chance to announce to people in Liu Town through his physical growth: I am son of Liu Shanfeng, like the protagonist in traditional Chinese martial arts novels who realizes revenge and declares in the end: I am the son of so-and-so. From the perspective of the hidden text structure of the novel, this coming-of-age ritual was not fortuitous, but an integral connection in the entire logic of revenge. Rather than trivial, it was a solemn and significant starting point. The novel begins with the uproar over the peeping incident, with the narrator noting that Li Lan always liked to talk about Song Gang as being a chip off the old block when she was still alive. When she talked about Baldy Li, she would say that he and his father were completely different sorts of people, on completely different paths. This is because she deeply loved Song Gang’s father, Song Fanping, while Liu Shanfeng, Baldy Li’s biological father, was the one that brought her great harm. But after the peeping incident, she was forced to admit bitterly that Baldy Li was also “a chip off the old block.” More interestingly, when Yu inadvertently put Baldy Li’s story into a Hamletlike archetype of revenge, it was discovered that everything in both was moving in opposite directions. Hamlet’s story was explicitly centered on the goal of revenge, but till the end of the story, Hamlet has not yet won; Baldy Li’s revenge, instead, was pushed forward unconsciously. Ironically, Baldy Li did not intend revenge, as he had been “refusing” it unconsciously. When he learned Lin Hong and Song Gang were in love, Baldy Li did not generate the most legitimate “revenge” idea, but resolutely went to the hospital for a vasectomy. This is the only detail that does not fit Baldy Li’s personality, as such a deed would only be done under rational circumstances. Hence, the reader would have felt stunned and surprised at Baldy Li’s choice. This illogic can only be interpreted as the existence of a more powerful force than unconscious revenge, which led him to use physical restraint to reject genetic desires. Jia Pingwa also wrote similar details in Qin Qiang (or Shanxi Opera): After Bai Xue’s marriage, Madman Yinsheng castrated himself to restrain his own behavior. Yinsheng’s madness in castrating himself symbolizes the elimination of his physical desires, which also indicates his love for her would remain only at the spiritual level. In Brothers, instead, what Baldy Li chose was a rational and legitimate family planning measure, which only suppressed his fertility, not his sexuality. In other words, Baldy Li rejected Liu Shanfeng’s genetic endowment, choosing to consume all his life power in this life. Therefore, after the operation, he retained his vigorous and tenacious physical charm. If life cannot continue

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through reproduction, then its desires, pleasure instinct and creativity become dominant. Accordingly, Baldy Li’s nearly insane sexual abilities were particularly highlighted. Why did Baldy Li express his rejection of revenge by ending his own reproductive ability? From the perspective of his spiritual and physical growth, one can see that Baldy Li was motivated by two elements (genetic and educational). One was the inheritance of his father Liu Shanfeng, the other was the subtle spiritual education from Song Fanping. Given that the former had died before he was born and that the latter, despite having shared life’s hardships with him, also died when he was young, the influence of his two fathers on his development was always obscure and unconscious. Baldy Li was not the initiator of the peeping incident that the novel exaggerates at the beginning; instead, it was a legacy and echo of scandals of his father, Liu Shanfeng. When it occurred, people in Liu Town said that Baldy Li was indeed the son of Liu Shanfeng, or they were like two melons from the same vine. It is Liu’s genetic endowment that played a role, which was accomplished through reproductive heredity, whether or not Baldy Li was conscious of it. His choice for a vasectomy, instead, was precisely his rejection of reproduction, that is, in him, Liu’s genetic code will completely end. Baldy Li peeped at Lin Hong in his fourteenth year, and Liu’s genetic code was associated with desire and lust; when he ascended to the direction of a welfare factory for the disabled and met Lin Hong again, he suffered two nosebleeds. Again, people in Liu Town connected his nosebleeds with the peeping incident years before, which seems once again to emphasize the power of “blood”. When Lin Hong got married, Baldy Li refused to change her from his object of lust into an object of revenge; instead, he chose to end Liu’s bloodline reproduction, which can be understood as his instinctive rejection of Liu Shanfeng. Apparently, Liu’s genetic code was embodied, manifested and completed in him and was also consumed excessively and abnormally. It was precisely this that shaped Baldy Li’s daemonic personality. Why did Baldy Li choose to express his unconscious rejection of revenge by ending his reproductive ability? Unlike Hamlet who hesitated in abstract discussions of “to be or not to be,” Baldy Li, instead, instinctively refused revenge. As discussed earlier, being a chip off the old block, Song Gang should by blood have inherited from his father Song Fanping; but in the story this was precisely not the case. Some of Song Fanping’s most fascinating life codes and all of his inner virtues, such as his fearless dunking spirit when playing basketball, his revolutionary spirit when waving the red flag, his rogue spirit when fighting with his neighbors, his optimistic spirit when facing inhuman torture, as well as his indomitable creativity and generous loving care of others, were precisely

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imparted to Baldy Li and further manifested by him. What shaped Baldy Li as Liu Town’s premier tycoon was not the indecency and playfulness inherited from Liu Shanfeng, but the spiritual kinship with Song Fanping, the son of a landowner. As a mother, Li Lan had felt this. Therefore, when she rode to the grave on the truck carriage designed especially for her by Baldy Li, she was glad to see that his son, like Song Fanping, again made her proud. Evidently, Baldy Li’s growth was influenced and induced by two forces: one was the genetic code of Liu Shanfeng, while the other was the spiritual disposition of Song Fanping. The fierce conflict between “qi (energy)” and “blood” constituted Baldy Li’s complex personality and personal charisma. If all of Baldy Li’s behaviors after the peeping incident were listed, the following sequence would appear: peeping – information exchange – taking Li Lan to the grave – arranging a send-off for Li Lan  – accepting Song Gang  – ascending to the direction of the welfare factory for the disabled – failure in proposing marriage – vasectomy surgery – becoming the king of garbage – making a fortune in Japan – the virgin beauty competition – adultery with Lin Hong – Song Gang’s death In this schema, the events in normal font were caused by Liu Shanfeng’s genetic factors and those in bold font were attributed to Song Fanping’s spiritual impact, having an alternating effect on Badly Li. Hence, while his genetic inheritance pushed him toward the unconscious revenge, it was the spiritual force in him that rejected this terrible bloodlust. Although his adultery with Lin Hong in the end made the revenge unconscious prevail, it remains hard to say that their affair and its consequences were a sin, as the relationship between Song Gang and Lin Hong also constituted betrayal and injury to Baldy Li. What differs is that Baldy Li had the vasectomy operation to end his reproductive ability, while Song Gang chose to end his life to maintain his love to Baldy Li and Lin Hong. We seem to realize so far that Baldy Li was reluctant to see his revenge mission succeed, since, compared with Hamlet and his usurper uncle Claudius, Song Fanping meant something different to him. Song’s inadvertently killing his father Liu Shanfeng and later marrying his mother Li Lan out of true love constituted the other half of Baldy Li’s disposition. If the inheritance of blood led him down the road of revenge, then the person he intended to murder was not only Song Gang, the son of Song Fanping, but was even more himself, as he intended to avenge himself, or to murder himself. Therefore, after Song Gang’s suicide, Baldy Li lived like a walking corpse, becoming the object of revenge and victim of his own genetic code.

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We may explore the prototypal characteristics of revenge from the role of Lin Hong, who, as the most beautiful woman in Liu Town and the object of voyeurism, the subject of gossip and even psychosexuality of men of the town, was always living amidst words of humiliation. This made her a symbol of impurity in the hidden text structure of the novel. Since Baldy Li’s coming-of-age ceremony took place after Song Fanping’s death, this made Song Gang take his place as the object of Baldy Li’s unconscious revenge, whilst Li Lan served as a holy image in the story. Lin Hong eventually took on the roles of Gertrude, Hamlet’s mother and Queen of Denmark, and Ophelia in this Hamlet-like revenge. A second thought on how Hamlet, the avenger, insulted his mother in this play6 reveals that this was definitely not what Baldy Li meant to say to his mother Li Lan. For the substitute Lin Hong, however, Baldy Li did not have much loving care. After peeping at her in a latrine, he shamelessly played up her body secrets among men of Liu Town, trading these divulgences for bowls of three-flavored house-special noodles, which can be referred to as a public announcement of his coming-of-age ceremony, even though this was done by humiliating Lin Hong. Therefore, we have reason to re-explore her situation in this prototype: when Baldy Li did not mean to retaliate against Li Lan, Song Fanping and Song Gang, he hurt Lin Hong unconsciously. From the peeping incident and Baldy Li’s public declaration of love for and adultery with her in the end, Lin Hong was always being hurt. However, it was this adultery that led to Song Gang’s death, which helped Baldy Li inadvertently complete the mission of revenge. Lin Hong’s role seems diverse if Hamlet’s revenge archetype is again applied in our analysis: in the peeping incident, she played the role of Ophelia; in adultery and fornication, she played the role of Gertrude; and in the completion of final revenge, she and Baldy Li unconsciously became the plaything of their fate, acting as Hamlet-like avengers. By elaborating this hidden text structure, we may easily find that one of the key scenes, the peeping incident, sets up the overall framework of the text, in which the future destinies of Baldy Li, Lin Hong and Song Gang, who was not yet involved, have been pre-arranged: Baldy Li ended with unconscious revenge, Song Gang ended with the death of a martyr, and Lin Hong ended with the depravity of humiliation. Simply put, everything had portent and retribution.

6 See “Nay, but to live / In the rank sweat of an enseamed bed, / Stew’d in corruption, honeying and making love / Over the nasty sty!” (Shakespeare, The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, Act III scene 4, v. 2485–2488)

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Folk Narratives: Three Forms of Vulgar Rhetoric

Grounded in our updated understanding and definition of the connotation of the peeping details from the perspective of hidden text structure, this study still needs further analysis of the significance of such details in the entire folk narrative from the perspective of the explicit structure of the text. Even though the aesthetic critics of this novel would admit that such an analysis is interesting, the following fact cannot be overlooked. In describing the peeping details, Yu Hua intentionally heaped on vulgarized rhetoric, such as the public pit toilet, peeping, women’s bottoms, women’s genitals as men’s desires, and the place where Liu Shanfeng, for the sake of a glimpse, lost his life, his body covered with feces. In other words, the men of Liu Town were all intoxicated by peeping and gossiping about such extremely vulgar and petty objects of desire. Isn’t this an insult to pure literature? If pure literature is defined as the salon literature of the literati or the aristocratic literature in the ivory tower, of course there is nothing wrong with this judgement. Yu Hua’s transition from avant-garde literature to folk world, however, seems to have gone too far, as the folk world in his works refers precisely to contemporary life, in which he has implicitly integrated the message of the folk culture tradition. It would not be difficult for us to understand that the vulgar rhetoric of the folk narrative is precisely the essential expression of this novel, as long as we are able to confront the prevalent entertainment of the lower classes, to discard the so-called “petty-bourgeois culture” that permeates urban literature today, and truly care conscientiously about the collective unconscious interests of the masses. The folk narrative I refer to contains two connotations. One is the large amount of vulgar rhetoric comprising the ancient folk culture tradition. Due to the absence of modern civilization in primitive society, its vulgarity is permeated with voyeuristic curiosity about various body phenomena and life forms. In folk rhetoric, feces, urine and nosebleeds are substances that flow naturally from the human body and are not considered shameful; particularly, women’s genital organs are worshipped because of their reproductive capacity. During the May 4th New Culture Movement, Zhou Zuoren once pointed out that both the lower and upper parts of a human body were equal and integral, it was man himself who divided them by the concept of hierarchy;7 hence, in ancient Chinese folk legends, food that was often converted from feces, urine and blood 7 Zhou Zuoren, “Upper and Lower Parts of Human Body”, in Book for a Rainy Day (“Self-selected Works of Zhou Zuoren”, proofread by Zhi An), Hebei Education Press, 2002, pp. 73–75.

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remains popular even today.8 The other is that, in the context of modern civilization, folk culture, lacking the possibility to express itself completely, manifests itself fragmentarily under the umbrella of modern culture. Due to the reference of modern culture, however, these folk narrative forms were labeled with such qualifiers as vulgar, dirty and indecent, and further excluded from mainstream aesthetics from the moment of their emergence in literary works. Bakhtin describes the body art in his definition of the “grotesque” artistic style as follows: […] the grotesque body is not separated from the rest of the world. It is not a closed, completed unit; it is unfinished, outgrows itself, transgresses its own limits. The stress is laid on those parts of the body that are open to the outside world, that is, the parts through which the world enters the body or emerges from it, or through which the body itself goes out to meet the world. This means that the emphasis is on the apertures or the convexities, or on various ramifications and offshoots: the open mouth, the genital organs, the breasts, the phallus, the potbelly, the nose. The body disclosed its essence as a principle of growth which exceeds its own limits only in copulation, pregnancy, childbirth, the throes of death, eating, drinking, or defecation.9 By taking these vulgar expressions as leading rhetorical features of Rabelais’ Gargantua and Pantagruel, Bakhtin points out forthrightly that it is these folk narrative elements that made Gargantua and Pantagruel difficult to be accepted by readers for a long time. Many scholars not only reject the work, but also distort it with modern concepts. Russian scholar A. N. Veselovsky once commented, “If you like, Rabelais is cynical, but as a healthy village boy who has been let loose from a smoky hut into the spring air; he rushes madly on, across the puddles, besmirching passersby with mud and laughing merrily when lumps of clay cover his legs and face, ruddy with spring-like, animal 8 Several folk sayings are as follows: For example, Shanxi vinegar was said to be made from the urine of a girl (or the Empress Mother). Durian, the king of fruits in South Asia, was said to have been made of a stool left by Zheng He during his voyages to the West. There are more legends for blood, the most famous of which is Chinese spinach, which was said to be dyed by the blood of the loyal minister Bi Gan in Investiture of the Gods. In Chinese folk culture, the excrement of gods, saints and historical figures is not considered dirty, offensive, profane or disrespectful. Red Sorghum, for example, details the use of urine to make wine, resurrecting a kind of folk saying. Also, excrement remained popular as children’s toys in literary works, such as the one in the famous Counter-Japanese War movie “Landmine Warfare”. 9 Mikhail Bakhtin, Rabelais and his World, trans. by Helene Iswolsky, p. 26.

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gaiety.”10 Bakhtin criticized Veselovsky’s metaphor for being too modern, saying, “To besmirch means to debase. But grotesque debasement always had in mind the material bodily lower stratum, the zone of the genital organs. Therefore, debasement did not besmirch with mud but with excrement and urine. This is a very ancient gesture. The modern euphemism ‘mudslinging’ is derived from it.” (Ibid., p. 147) Bakhtin’s argument seems grounded in the tradition of European folk culture since ancient Greece, despite the fact that no one seemed to raise a positive view on this point until Bakhtin justified the vulgar rhetoric. This reminds me that when our critics criticize writers for their use of vulgar expressions, they may have forgotten that living in the folk world for years has made these writers sensitive to messages beyond modern civilization. In peasants’ discourse, traditionally, there is no contempt attached to feces or urine; hence, Jia Pingwa’s employment of plentiful vulgar rhetoric in describing the life of peasants in Qin Qiang (or Shanxi opera) reveals precisely his familiarity with the local folk culture. Similarly, let us look at how Bakhtin interprets the description of genital organs in the folk cultural tradition by giving an example of the most indecent abuse and cursing. He says, “Modern indecent abuse and cursing have retained dead and purely negative remnants of the grotesque concept of the body. Our ‘three-storied’ oaths or other unprintable expressions degrade the object according to the grotesque method: they send it down to the absolute bodily lower stratum, to the zone of the genital organs, the bodily grave, in order to be destroyed. But almost nothing has remained of the ambivalent meaning whereby they would also be revived; only the bare cynicism and insult have survived.” (Ibid., p. 28) Although I do not speak French or Russian, I assume “three-storied” oaths may be similar to our oral “three-character curses” in folk culture. Interestingly, some Chinese scholars have also studied the cultural connotations of the so-called “three-character curses” in Chinese, even though they seemed to have never noticed the implication of sending others down to the absolute bodily lower stratum to be destroyed and to revive. Were genital organs regarded as life regenerators in the folk culture of ancient China? I am afraid this requires further inquiry, which may add to our understanding of the artistic symbolism of man’s genital organs. A further review of the application of vulgar rhetoric in the folk narrative of Yu’s Brothers informs us that it is impossible for a modern novel to reproduce completely the positiveness of folk narrative, even though some of its residual connotations are neatly included in the buzzwords used by the writer. Consider the following social phenomena: When a large number of rural 10

Mikhail Bakhtin, Rabelais and his World, trans. by Helene Iswolsky, p. 146.

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migrant workers flood into cities far away from home for job opportunities, in their daily lives of hard labor and no entertainment, how do they spend their leisure time? Does the vulgar rhetoric used in their gossiping “dirty talk” and “dirty jokes”, in watching pornographic videos, in some low-level consumption of pornography, in the constant employment of genital-related catchphrases to release anger, mock themselves and curse others after losing money in gambling constitute the main content of their spiritual leisure? When these phenomena are written into literary texts, three forms are generally taken. The first is a comparatively simple description, in which the writer copies directly the obscene language in reality, letting his characters constantly spit indecent abuse and curses. The second is that the writer euphemistically expresses his characters’ indecency through descriptions or hints about the lower part of the human body. The third is a more complicated and delicate description, in which the writer uses more abundant connotations to describe metaphorically the lower part of the human body, highlighting the desire for reproduction and regeneration of life. These various forms always exist at different literary levels. Hence, as a reasonable phenomenon from the perspective of the folk narrative, vulgar rhetoric should not be denied arbitrarily. Notably, A Dream of Red Mansions, one of the four great Chinese classical novels, is a masterpiece rich in all three kinds of vulgar rhetoric.11 Similarly, Yu’s Brothers also highlights the application of these three forms of vulgar rhetoric. For instance, the intoxication with peeping details of Baldy Li and other men of Liu Town reflects the role of the first form of vulgar rhetoric. As to Baldy Li’s ill-breeding and the despicable mentality of other men of Liu Town, there seems to be no better way to depict them realistically other than to record their language faithfully. Additionally, the identity of the hidden narrator of this novel remains ambiguous, who, as one of the men of Liu Town, was about Baldy Li’s age and shared a similar social background. Every time he talked about “our Liu Town”, his language was as vulgar and coarse as Baldy Li’s, thus integrating Baldy Li’s imagery and the style of the entire novel. This is reflected in Baldy Li’s idea of holding a virgin beauty contest: … whereupon Baldy Li gushed forth with ideas while walking back and forth in his office. He uttered the word “fucking” twenty times. He was going to make those fucking reporters come running back like mad dogs. He wanted the fucking television reporters to broadcast his Hymen 11

For example, Xue Pan reciting poems and Precious Mirror of Love belong to the first form, Qin Keqing’s death in Tian Xiang Lou belongs to the second, and the psychosexuality, which pervades the entire novel, is the third.

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Olympics live and also to have it streamed live on the fucking Internet. He wanted the fucking sponsors to take out their fucking money, and to have fucking ads for the games plastered all over the streets and alleys. He wanted to have those fucking beauties wear fucking bikinis and sashay up and down the street, and to have the fucking townspeople of Liu feast their fucking eyes on the spectacle. He wanted to establish a fucking organizing committee, find some fucking political leaders to serve as fucking chairmen and fucking deputy chairmen, and find ten fucking men to come serve as fucking judges. Pausing briefly at this point, he specified that the ten judges must all be fucking males and no fucking females. Finally, he told PR Liu, “And you will be my fucking spokesman.” With pen and paper in hand, PR Liu quickly recorded Baldy Li’s fucking instructions.12 In this hilarious narrative, the narrator first summarized twenty “fucking” that Baldy Li was about to utter, then in a simulated tone he repeated eighteen of them. Further, he quoted directly a “fucking” that Baldy Li uttered to PR Liu, before the twentieth, namely the last “fucking” was added in his narrative. Conceivably, this narrator was a double for Baldy Li’s character. Noteworthily, despite their vulgarity and coarseness, the above utterances may probably not make readers familiar with lower-class discourse in Beijing feel awkward and strange, as they depict vividly the vulgarity of the everyday language there. Apparently, Baldy Li’s exaggeration of “fucking” not only manifests an overnight millionaire’s ostentatiousness and unscrupulousness, but also involves a mindset of mocking the powerful and undermining authority. Interestingly, in Baldy Li’s indecent abuse and cursing, except for one noun, that is, hymen, all subjects and objects were modified by “fucking”. I take this intentional negligence as understandable, as the virgin complex is a fatal flaw in Baldy Li and his biggest taboo. Simply put, the proliferation of vulgar language indicates the unconscious revolt of the lower classes by blaspheming the world, but it does not mean that there are no taboos to be treasured or cherished in the folk world. With this in mind, it becomes easy for us to understand not only the significance of vulgar rhetoric, but also that of Baldy Li’s peeping incidents and of a virgin beauty contest in Liu Town. The holding of a virgin beauty contest is also the most criticized vulgar narrative in Yu Hua’s Brothers. Like the peeping incident, it is a mass revelry centered on the female genitals. Although the peeping incident is notorious for its corrupting morality, this contest has become the GDP of Liu Town, where the sex craze cannot be blamed on a small ruffian, but is manifested as a grand universal 12

Yu Hua, Brothers (Part Two), Shanghai Literature and Art Publishing House, 2006, p. 298.

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exhibition. In this exhibition, the obscenity was diminished by the fact that it was expressed through the scenes that appealed to the public, and the vulgarity was expressed through euphemisms, which highlights the second form of vulgar rhetoric. Since the purpose of our discussion was not to eliminate the vulgarity in folk narrative, but to explore the importance of using vulgarity to fulfill the structural needs of the novel, we may find that associated with the virgin beauty contest was still the peeping incident, and the two echo each other. In the earlier discussion, we considered the peeping incident as Baldy Li’s coming-of-age ceremony, which plays an important role in the hidden text structure. The reason why Baldy Li completed his coming-of-age ceremony by peeping was self-evident, as his father, Liu Shanfeng, lost his life for the sake of a glimpse, and Baldy Li had every reason to repeat the history. The narrator did not say whom Liu Shanfeng peeped at, but Baldy Li’s peeping object was identified. Among the five women who were peeped at, Lin Hong was the only person involved in Baldy Li’ fate and was also the one who helped him finish his coming-of-age ceremony. The problem, however, goes beyond this. In addition to announcing that he is the son of so-and-so to demonstrate their blood relation, the so-called coming-of-age ceremony also proves that he is now an “adult man”. As a prop, Lin Hong not only helped prove Baldy Li’s blood relation identity, but also became his first object of desire to make him a “man.” The peeping incident enabled Baldy Li to talk about women on the same level as adult men of Liu Town, which made him a “man” who understands sex between a man and a woman. What made him feel wimpy and uncomfortable, however, was that he never succeeded in peeping at Lin’s private parts. In his many exchanges with other men of Liu Town, Baldy Li always felt extremely sorry to inform them that he was nabbed just when he was about to peep at his object’s bare butt. After the peeping incident, Baldy Li always hoped to lose his virginity with Lin, but she chose to marry Song Gang instead. Hearing this, he was so angry that he went to hospital for a vasectomy operation. Baldy Li’s sex life, as merely a symbol of fornication, was never completed with love and life reproduction. Other than clarifying his blood relation with Liu Shanfeng, the peeping incident never allowed him to complete his coming-of-age ceremony as a “man”. Instead, it made him lose his chance for love forever. As Liu Town’s premier tycoon, Baldy Li evidently did not lack the opportunities to meet virgin beauties. Additionally, given his family background, Baldy Li had no reason to value the significance of a hymen, since his mother, Li Lan, was humiliated by marrying Liu Shanfeng as a virgin; after Liu’s death, her marriage with Song Fanping as a widow brought her unlimited glory. Nevertheless, why did Baldy Li have such a deep virgin complex? I am afraid the answer

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lies in Lin Hong. In the story, when Song Gang announced he and Lin Hong were getting married and handed Baldy Li the invitation, the latter refused it and said sadly, “The rice is already cooked. What is there to celebrate?” Later, when Song returned to Lin’s home and told her what Baldy Li had said, Lin also snorted, saying “The rice is already cooked. What kind of hope is he holding on to?” Song heard this with surprise and wondered how it was that she and Baldy Li had used the same expression. Apparently, Lin and Baldy Li seemed to be alluding to the same thing at the same time, that is, the virgin connection between them was completely broken. As a Chinese folk proverb, “The rice is already cooked” implies that a girl’s virginity is over. It seemed destined that Lin and Baldy Li had a contract in life, which was completely broken due to Song’s intervention. This explains precisely Baldy Li’s primal impulse for the vasectomy operation, which also reveals the pain of his “virgin complex”. Holding the so-called virgin beauty contest manifested his attempt to use money to make up for the loss of his childhood as well as his erotic passion, as well as his attempt to relive the peeping incident that happened at his fourteenth year, as if the course of time could be reversed. In Yu Hua’s Brothers, the virgin beauty contest was not only rendered into a folk revelry in which the entire Liu Town participated, but also stirred up the nation’s economy. Various strange phenomena emerged, such as media wars, fraud, corruption and bribery, erotic trading, collusion between money and power, and commodity counterfeiting, which also brought together all ugliness under the umbrella of the market economy. Nevertheless, in this world where money talks, this virgin beauty contest was destined from the very beginning to be a peeping event without its peeping object. Baldy Li was no longer the small ruffian of those days; the entire Liu Town participated enthusiastically; all sorts of beauties swarmed in, and all kinds of disguised female mysteries revealed themselves before Baldy Li, the premier tycoon of Liu Town. Nevertheless, Baldy Li’s peeping regret at his fourteenth year turned out to be a real regret that he could never heal. On a much larger scale, the virgin beauty contest mirrors the peeping incident down to the last detail. What is irreconcilable is the absence of the peeping object of the time. The arrival of an itinerant charlatan Zhou You in Liu Town could be taken as the demon’s participation and interference in this earthly revelry. By selling artificial hymens at the juncture of the virgin beauty contest, this charlatan used falsehood to disguise what is generally missing in society, trapping Baldy Li in the ecstasy of fake virgins. It seems to be the masquerade set up by Bakhtin in folk theory, in which illusions constitute the elements of the present world, with the truth missing. Zhou You’s last great act was to delude the honest man Song Gang with the illusion of making

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a fortune so as to take him away with ease, which eventually brought Lin Hong back to Baldy Li. Hence, the unconscious revenge was almost realized. Liu Town’s virgin beauty contest centered around hymens; particularly, Baldy Li prepared various lighting tools to peek at a virgin’s hymen, which seems not only vulgar, but also obscene. In the story’s folk narrative, however, a range of folk imageries were integrated into its narrative structure, such as the imageries of revelry which restricted the scene of the virgin beauty contest itself, immersing the entire narrative in elation. Interestingly, the imagery of masquerade restricted the special scene of Baldy Li’s peeping at female bodies; artificial hymens which were propped open hid the truth of life behind falsehood, blocking his dream of recovering his virginity. Additionally, through Zhou You’s activities, the demon hopped about like an elf doing wicked things among the frantic crowd. By restricting entire narrative scenes, these folk imageries placed the erotic narrative in the banter and ridicule of the folk world, and the original ambiguity was lost. I attribute such features in folk narrative to play. Generally, in literary works, the erotic narrative is expressed by metaphor, hints, innuendos and symbols, indicating the ambiguity of sexual psychology. Folk narratives, instead, often restore sexual consciousness to a healthy and lively state of play. For instance, the following conversation depicts Baldy Li’s farewell to Virgin Beauty #1358, who won the first-place award in the Inaugural National Virgin Beauty Contest held in Liu Town. … While shaking hands with #1358, Baldy Li quietly asked her, “How old is your child?” At first she looked confounded, but then she laughed knowingly and whispered back, “Two.” Apparently, calm and silent deception, along with tacit teasing, constitutes the most exciting feature of grotesque folk art. Compared with many pretentious and feeble urban lust narratives, such vulgar rhetoric reads much healthier and richer. There also exist more elaborate forms of vulgar rhetoric, such as applying symbolic markers to suggest lower parts of the body, which, in Freudian dream interpretations, has many similar metaphors, such as long pointed objects and round vessels, indicating male and female sexual organs respectively. In folk narratives, it is normal that organs in the lower part of the body are oftentimes exaggerated; even in contemporary Chinese sculpture, painting and architectural art, this still occupies a large place. Puzzlingly, vulgar art, which is not forbidden in figurative artistic creations, becomes obscenely repugnant and even taboo when it comes to abstract descriptions. Hence, Bakhtin emphasized

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the meaning of life reproduction over again when discussing the depiction of the lower part of the human body in folk traditions. In my opinion, this can be deemed as the evaluation rubric for vulgar rhetoric, that is, the role of vulgar imageries in folk narratives is to see whether they can create the aesthetic effect of life reproduction. Here is one of my experiences: when I met a translator in Japan in 1995 who translated novels by the Chinese writer Gao Xiaosheng, he asked me the meaning of a Chinese folk saying “going for a journey in the toilet”. I suppose this comes from the folk custom of drowning baby girls in the countryside south of the Yangtze River, by which they were often left to suffocate in the toilet. Since the saying “going for a journey” seemed to mean going in and coming out, my answer was it perhaps means reincarnation. Given Bakhtin’s association of the genitals with the rebirth of life, then Gao’s reference in this folk saying does make sense. It seems that the toilet is a metaphor for the female womb, which means returning to the mother’s womb to be reborn, namely, to be reincarnated. This example shows similar indications shared in Chinese folk sayings. If this example is well-grounded, then we may understand the imagery that echoes the beginning and the end of Brothers, that is, after the death of his elder brother Song Gang, Baldy Li felt so despondent that he decided on a trip into space at a cost of millions of dollars. Taking only Song Gang’s ashes with him, Baldy Li was ready to leave the earth. Yu’s Brothers begins like this: Baldy Li, our Liu Town’s premier tycoon, had a fantastic plan of spending twenty million U.S. dollars to purchase a ride on a Russian Federation space shuttle for a tour of outer space. Perched atop his famous goldplated toilet seat, he would close his eyes and imagine himself already floating in orbit, surrounded by the unfathomably frigid depths of space. He would look down at the glorious planet extended beneath him and, realizing that he had no family left down on Earth, could only weep. When he created this imagery, Yu Hua did not seem to have completed the entire conception of the story, hence, his writing proceeded in a “possessed” manner, without echoing the imagery in the beginning. Then, in the last section of the novel, Yu abruptly echoed the opening paragraph, depicting hastily that Baldy Li’s purpose was to place Song Gang’s ashes into orbit. In Russian, Baldy Li suddenly declared that “From this moment on, my brother Song Gang will be a space alien!” The implications of this imagery are self-evident. What I am particularly interested in, rather, is Baldy Li’s famous gold-plated toilet seat, which had already been forgotten by Yu himself. Vulgar rhetoric pervades Brothers; in the

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opening paragraph, this vulgar gold-plated toilet seat was dubbed “famous.” In the plot of the story, however, its fame was never addressed, which indicates it was nothing but a dispensable prop that Yu used at will. However, if we imagine this gold-plated toilet seat as a woman’s womb, then the meaning of returning to the mother’s womb for reincarnation becomes evident. Baldy Li had lived through two of the most important and craziest eras in contemporary China, progressing from “little landlord”, “Little Buttpeeper”, “the Trash King of Liu” to “the GDP of Liu”. As the son of the debauched Liu Shanfeng, Baldy Li was pushed by unconscious revenge to kill Song Gang unintentionally. Nevertheless, he was also endowed with Song Fanping’s disposition and shared with Song Gang the intimacy of brotherhood. Without his brother Song Gang, what did Baldy Li have left to live for? This is precisely the significance of “brothers” who share weal and woe in life. In this sense, the walking dead Baldy Li and Song Gang’s ashes are juxtaposed imageries, while the gold-plated toilet seat and the spaceship are opposite ones. Both Baldy Li and Song Gang need to be reborn on Earth for their souls to rise again and soar into the heavens. Hidden beneath its despair is the rebirth of life. How magnificent is such imagery of life!

Appendices Appendix I: Thoughts on the Relationship between Chinese and Western Literature1 Before the establishment of comparative literature in China, the study of the relationship between Chinese and Western literature was part of the study of Chinese literature. Particularly in the study of modern Chinese literature since the end of the 19th century, the relationship between Chinese and Western literature2 involved the following aspects: the formation of the Chinese modern literary movement and the formation of new literary concepts under the influence of Western social ethos and literary trends, the influences of Western literature on Chinese writers, the introduction and translation of Western literature in China, the study of Chinese writers in the West and their contacts with Western writers, as well as the history and status of Chinese writers writing in foreign languages and their works translated and published abroad.3 Except for the last one, they have all constituted important phenomena in modern Chinese literature. However, after 1955, Chinese literary theorist Hu Feng’s view that the country’s May 4th New Literature was “a transplantation of Western progressive literature in China” was officially criticized and rejected because it was regarded as culturally nihilistic, thus further restricting the study of the relationship between Chinese and Western literature. Scholars who studied modern Chinese literature preferred to emphasize 1 At the invitation of Professor Meng Hua of Peking University, this article was written in 2009 for the Chinese special issue of the French journal of comparative literature, and was further translated into French by Mr. Zhang Yinde before being published in Revue de littérature comparée, No. 1, 2011. This article was originally published in Comparative Literature in China, No. 2, 2011. 2 From the beginning of the 20th century to around the May 4th Movement, “Western literature” generally refers to the literature of the whole of Europe, Russia, the United States and other regions. However, with the rise of the Left-wing Literary Movement in the 1930s, Soviet Russian literature was listed separately and did not belong to the concept of “Western literature”. Since the 1950s, the literature of the former Soviet Union and the socialist countries in Eastern Europe has not been included in the concept of “Western literature”. Since the 1980s, the concept of “the relationship between Chinese and Western literature” has been vague. The “Western literature” referred to here in this article generally does not include the literature of the former Soviet Union after 1917 or the literature of the Russian Commonwealth of Independent States today. 3 This paper focuses on the study of the relationship between Chinese and Western literature in the field of modern Chinese literature since the end of the 19th century, and does not cover the influence of the translation, introduction or dissemination of ancient Chinese literature in the West.

© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2022 | doi:10.1163/9789004522978_014

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the relationship between modern literature and national traditions, endeavoring to avoid topics such as influences from Western literature. When such influences had to be discussed, they were often expounded from a critical perspective. Even so, however, the academic community still could not avoid discussing the relationship between the works of important writers such as Lu Xun, Guo Moruo, Ba Jin, Cao Yu and Western literature. Additionally, during that period, the research of overseas Sinologists filled the gaps in this area, such as A History of Modern Chinese Fiction by Hsia Chih-tsing (or C. T. Hsia), who evaluated 20th century modern Chinese fiction within the frame of reference of Western literature, thus establishing the status of important writers such as Qian Zhongshu and Eileen Chang (Zhang Ailing) in the history of modern Chinese literature. Meanwhile, in his The Romantic Generation of Modern Chinese Writers, Leo Ou-fan Lee analyzed the works of Chinese writers such as Lin Shu, Su Manshu, Lu Xun, Guo Moruo, Yu Dafu and Jiang Guangci in the light of Western romantic ideas. There were more Western Sinologists who interpreted Chinese literature with a rich background in Western literature, who revealed that the intellectual interest and creative nutrition of Chinese writers were derived mainly from profound influences of Western literature. As these academic works were successively translated and introduced in China from the 1980s, Chinese researchers at that time, who had long been isolated and ill-informed, accepted completely with their vehement enthusiasm for the world (especially for the West) such a viewpoint, that is, that the transformation of Chinese literature from its tradition to modernity and the development of the New Literature movement were influenced and guided by Western thoughts and literature. Such influences and guiding significance in the history of Chinese literature of the 20th century continued until 1949, when the People’s Republic of China was founded. Another round of new relationships between Chinese and Western literature did not begin until the 1980s. With the establishment of comparative literature in China, the study of the relationship between Chinese and Western literature became an important part of this discipline. In the 1980s, the study of the relationship between Chinese and Western literature enjoyed unique advantages when a large number of Chinese students were studying in Western countries, when Western literary theories were being gradually introduced to China and when the comparative study of Chinese and Western poetics took off under the inspiration of scholars in Taiwan. Firstly, it was a research discipline that regarded Chinese literature as an independent category from a comparative perspective, rather than a pure response to Western academics. Secondly, instead of being built from scratch, it had already attained a certain degree of academic accumulation and achievements in domestic and overseas research. Furthermore, it involved multiple disciplines with promising prospects, that is, its formation was grounded in the research field of Chinese literature, especially in modern and contemporary literature;

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then it entered the field of comparative literature for further development, giving birth to newer disciplines, such as translation study and reception study. The study of the relationship between Chinese and Western literature has had a pioneering significance for the study of Chinese literature. Less than a hundred years since the end of the 19th century, Modern Chinese Literature, as a second-level discipline4 of Chinese Language and Literature recognized by the Ministry of Education, remained too weak in its connotations to compete against other long-standing sub-disciplines such as Ancient Literature and Ancient Philology. However, once the research on the relationship between Chinese and Western literature, Chinese and Japanese literature, and Chinese and Soviet literature were included, its research realm opened up new horizons. In the 1980s in China, there was a widely circulated collection of academic essays entitled Towards World Literature,5 which discussed the relationship between modern Chinese writers and Western literature. The title of this collection captures the anxiety of Chinese authors, who believed that Chinese literature was isolated and excluded from the “world”; therefore, the relationship between Chinese writers and world literature had to be emphasized to promote Chinese literature’s move toward the “world”. In Chinese, moving “toward” somewhere implied that Chinese literature had not yet been integrated with the literature of the “world”, and had yet to be accommodated by the “world”. The leading approach in studying the relationship between Chinese and Western literature includes impact study and reception study of comparative literature. When the discipline of Comparative Literature was introduced into China, it was impact study that was initially widely recognized, which, as a methodology, required mastery of two or more languages to extensively read substantial materials, collect abundant literary evidence, and seek and verify the clues of transnational influences of literature. Similar to traditional Chinese textual research, this approach developed a sense of trust 4 According to China’s higher education system, the Ministry of Education divides the various disciplines of university education into a number of first-level disciplines, on the basis of which departments are established, such as the departments of Chinese language and literature, history, philosophy and mathematics. Each first-level discipline is divided into a number of second-level disciplines, on the basis of which academic programs (such as doctoral programs and master’s programs) and departments are thus established. For example, the first-level discipline of Chinese Language and Literature includes eight second-level subjects, namely Ancient Literature, Modern and Contemporary Literature, Literature and Art, Chinese Language and Philology, Linguistics and Applied Linguistics, Comparative Literature and World Literature, Ancient Philology and Ethnic Minority Literature. 5 Towards World Literature: Modern Chinese Writers and Foreign Literature, edited by Zeng Xiaoyi, Hunan People’s Publishing House, 1985. This book explored how more than ten Chinese writers, such as Lu Xun, Guo Moruo, Ba Jin, Cao Yu and Shen Congwen, accepted the influences of Western literature, which had a great impact upon publications at that time.

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among Chinese researchers due to its rich knowledge and rigorous textual research. Meanwhile, in impact study, Western literature exported its culture, whilst Chinese literature was the recipient. In order to maintain the recipient’s national self-esteem and initiative, researchers naturally turned to the theories and methods of reception study. Applied oftentimes in a juxtaposed manner, these two approaches not only needed abundant evidence to verify the influences of Western literature on Chinese literature, but also used the theory of reception to emphasize the selective initiative of Chinese literature with regard to Western influences. In other words, even if Chinese literature has accepted the influences of Western literature, it is not completely equivalent to the latter; Chinese literature has its own characteristics and laws of development. This conclusion can be applied to all studies on the relationship between Chinese and Western literature. Each nation uses its own language and thinking to engage in aesthetic activities and work on literary creations under specific historical conditions; hence, it has its own dynamics of emergence and laws of development. The purpose of impact study in comparative literature is not to reach such an evident conclusion, but to examine the complex process of the dissemination and acceptance of literary factors among several languages to discover the possibilities of literary communication and the laws of human nature behind it. As a highly challenging work, it requires an in-depth understanding of research subjects in Western literature and Chinese literature before accurate judgments can be made. However, among the researchers in the early stage of comparative literature in China, few had such talents. Researchers who are proficient in the language and literature of a certain Western country may not necessarily understand Chinese literature. While researchers of Chinese literature were investigating the relationship between Chinese writers and the West, they relied largely on Chinese translations of Western literary works or evaluated the influences of these Western writers based on the accounts of Chinese writers. Therefore, except for some researchers who have received long-term professional training while studying abroad who can be more competitive in this kind of research project, it is rather difficult for average researchers of modern Chinese literature to advance the study of the relationship between Chinese and Western literature to a higher level. The other difficult dilemma is that it would be easier for impact study to find the dissemination route of influences in an environment where information channels were not yet developed, such as in ancient times: what a Western missionary saw and heard during his travels in China, inspirations that someone gained while reading a book. However, with information having become more developed and cultural influences across borders more universal and routine, it is more difficult for people to seek various clues of the “influence” through a particular phenomenon. Furthermore, in an environment where information is becoming increasingly complex, all kinds of information may be transmitted to the recipient, making it hard for

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the latter to characterize his literary creations as being influenced by any particular aspect. Nevertheless, the textual interpretation of the influences of artistic thinking and of artistic thinking that is influenced differs from the textual research of classical literature. As a vague and complex phenomenon, it is fairly difficult to distinguish impact factors with traditional textual research methods. Here is a typical case. In the 1980s, almost all scholars studying the relationship between Chinese and Western literature in China accepted the views of Western scholars such as Achilles Fang6 and others, who believed that the “Eight Don’ts Doctrine” advocated by Hu Shi at the early stage of the New Literature Movement came from the manifesto of the Imagist School of Poetry in the United States. Some scholars even compared literally the theoretical propositions of the two sides, arguing that Hu Shi was indeed influenced by the latter, despite the fact that Hu Shi himself did not admit it, claiming that although his poetic propositions had much in common with those of the latter, it was not because of influences.7 Chinese researchers at the time (myself included) were inclined to the conclusion based on impact study, assuming that this was a matter of hard evidence. Some scholars even wrote papers to speculate why Hu Shi did not acknowledge such influences.8 It was not until later that a scholar raised his own arguments that it was possible that Hu Shi did not read about the Imagist Manifesto, rather, that his new poetic propositions were generated through his independent thinking and his debates with friends.9 As a good lesson learned in this case, I started to reflect on whether in the study of the relationship between Chinese and Western literature, we had too much confidence in the influences of Western literature, whilst ignoring the existence of other factors that we do not know or cannot verify, that is, in the context of increasingly closer international communication, people may reach some similar conclusions without direct impact when facing the same kind of phenomena under similar circumstances. 6 Achilles Fang, “From Imagism to Whitmanism in Recent Chinese Poetry: A Search for Poetics That Failed”, in: Indiana University Conference on Oriental-Western Literary Relations, ed. by Horst Frenz and G. L. Anderson, Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press 1955, pp. 177–189. 7 Hu Shi recorded the six principles of the Imagist Manifesto in his diary in late December in 1916 in Diary of Hu Shi Studying Abroad and claimed that “These propositions have much in common with what I advocate.” See Diary of Hu Shi Studying Abroad [4 volumes], Vol. 4, Shanghai Commercial Press, 1947, pp. 1071–1073. This edition of Diary of Hu Shi Studying Abroad was reproduced by Shanghai Scientific and Technical Literature Publishing House in 2014. 8 See Wang Runhua, “The Origin of Chinese New Poetry Revolution from the Connotation of ‘New Trend’”, in Wang Runhua’s Research on the Connection between Chinese and Western Literature, Taipei Dongda Book Co. Ltd., 1978, pp. 227–245. 9 See Shen Yongbao, “Did ‘Eight Things’ originate from the Imagist Manifesto? – On the Origin of Literature Reform”, Shanghai Culture, No.4, 1994.

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Another phenomenon may also be inferred from this: even if the influences were tangible, the recipient’s living environment and cultural background may determine that he can make independent choices based on his knowledge and intelligence. Even though there exist similarities between the influences of Western literature and his independence, the latter matters. If these two phenomena are put together for study purposes, not from the perspective of “dissemination – acceptance”, but from that of the subjectivity of an individual thinker, we may find that in an era where information is common, in spite of differing cultural traditions and national language barriers, it is highly possible for people from different countries and cultures to transcend the estrangement to generate similarities and commonalities between them. Although they may differ in expression, the key elements remain similar. The investigation of such similarities should become a new perspective for the study of the relationship between Chinese and Western literature. It is not the study of similarities based on specific one-to-one impact study, but the juxtaposition of two or more similar parties as the research object, thus investigating the complex and rich features formed by such similarities. I refer to the study of such similarities as the study of global elements. “Global” indicates a kind of interconnected human community, that is, we live on the same earth; whilst “global” serves as a dialogue platform for human communication on this earth. Dialogues do not exclude the possibility of influences, as the latter are omnipresent in any information-rich environment. Dialogues are not only free expressions of two or more parties, but also a kind of communication in a general sense, which include the occurrence and possibilities of influences. In previous studies on the relationship between Chinese and Western literature, the theories of impact study and reception study restricted the basic model of research. However, from the perspective of global elements to study such relationship, one may find that the original unidirectional formula of “source of influences – communication process – field of acceptance” is broken. Global elements are common ones shared by all countries in the world, or the common problems faced by mankind. The study of global elements means to investigate and study the aesthetic responses of Chinese and Western literature in the face of some common phenomena of human beings. Through the dissemination of influences or independent expressions, the uniqueness of different cultures and similarities manifested among them constitute a rich unity; this is precisely the phenomenon of world literature that comparative literature needs to care about. Therefore, it is not difficult for us to understand the error of the said concept of “towards world literature”. For the “world”, that is, the West, China should not consciously become an “other” and expect to be accepted by the “world”. In the framework of this universally connected “world”, China, along with other countries and regions in

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the East, and all countries and regions in the West are also part of the “world”, in which they stay interconnected and mutually influenced, demonstrating rich differences. Within the context of universal contact and information exchange, when differing cultures of these countries are able to present its unique charm, namely, being recognized as part of the world culture, may similarities between them be identified in such diversities.

Appendix II: Comparative Literature and More AcademicOriented Education10 First of all, we should admit that the place of comparative literature in humanities in higher education institutions is fairly special. Firstly, a researcher needs to be competent in more than one foreign language; secondly, he must have the knowledge of Chinese and foreign literary history required for his research work across national, disciplinary and linguistic boundaries; thirdly, the study of literature, particularly the interdisciplinary study of comparative literature, is inseparable from the knowledge of related subjects; hence, a researcher should also develop his expertise in fields other than literature, such as culture, art, politics, sociology, religion and psychology. Although such an encyclopedic educational philosophy and the internal requirements of the discipline are established in theory, they remain challenging in practice and utopian in the field of humanities. It is precisely due to its utopian nature that comparative literature is fascinating. However, its status quo reveals that this fascinating disposition of comparative literature in higher education institutions is fading. Theoretically speaking, any university that has the right to confer doctoral degrees in the first-level discipline of Chinese Language and Literature can set up a postgraduate program in “Compara­ tive Literature and World Literature”. Although “Comparative Literature” and “World Literature” are referred to as vaguely conceptualized disciplines, their integration indicates that even if a university lacks the faculty in comparative literature, it may 10

This article was written for the 70th birthday of Professor Yan Shaodang of Peking University and was also included in Academic Research of Yan Shaodang – Commemorative Collection of Mr. Yan Shaodang at His 70th Birthday published by Peking University in August 2010. Also, this article addressed my efforts in the construction of the discipline comparative literature and in the promotion of more academic-oriented education in the Department of Chinese Language and Literature at Fudan University. See the “Advanced Studies and Training for Master and Doctoral Students in Comparative Literature and World Literature at Fudan University”, drafted by Yang Naiqiao, proofread by Chen Sihe, published in Comparative Literature in China, No. 1, 2010.

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enroll graduate students of comparative literature as long as it has faculty of national literature. The other situation that is envisioned is that if the Department of Chinese Language and Literature lacks professors proficient in foreign languages or teaching experience in national literature, it may still manage to offer comparative literature courses as long as someone can base his lectures on textbooks such as Introduction to Comparative Literature. Especially when the discipline of comparative literature is extended to interdisciplinary and cross-artistic research fields, its arbitrariness will be further expanded, and even become “boundless”. As a result, comparative literature has been questioned both inside and outside the discipline since the beginning of its establishment, along with emerging “disciplinary crises” from time to time. In his introductory book for graduate students in comparative literature, Professor Zhang Longxi wrote, “Scholars of comparative literature, especially those who study Eastern and Western comparative literature, probably often encounter distrust, apathy, skepticism and even hostility from all areas of expertise in their college.” He continued his argument: “Since comparative literature has to surpass disciplinary boundaries, and the comparison between China and the West has to transcend huge cultural differences, it will inevitably enter or invade the professional fields of other disciplines, thus producing suspicion and even hostility. This makes sense.”11 The reason for such suspicion and hostility within the discipline cannot be completely excluded, as Professor Zhang argued, “it was because of their relatively limited vision and narrow-mindedness”; the real cause, apparently, was not the subjective limitations of critics. A simple hypothesis may be proposed: there are two graduate students who have the same IQ, the same level of diligence, and receive the same level of teaching by the same faculty. One student spends five successive years in a national literature program for both MA and doctorate, while the other spends the same amount of time in a multinational literature program, that is, comparative literature. In terms of breadth of knowledge, that of the latter is obviously greater than the former’s; however, in terms of the amount of systematic study and training of specialized knowledge, the latter may only be half as good. Now the question is: which of these two kinds of teaching is more conducive to developing students into real experts? In this simple hypothesis, answers to the challenge of comparative literature can be found, that is, if the five-year postgraduate study is considered as the end of education for cultivating a qualified expert, then a national literature major will be more competitive than a comparative literature major. Nevertheless, we have to bear in mind that it may take much longer to cultivate a scholar. From the perspective of longer-term development, will the student who studies comparative literature have greater potential? 11 Zhang Longxi, Introduction to Comparative Literature Studies, Fudan University Press, 2009, p. 41.

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The following question is pertinent to this discussion. Professor Zhang continued in his book: “An excellent scholar of comparative literature should firstly be an expert in a certain field, then an expert with much broader academic interest, expertise and vision. Specialization and encyclopedic knowledge are like the two axes of academic study, which are indispensable in his accomplishments. Only when both are fully and evenly developed, can he make greater achievements in his field.”12 I cannot agree more with this viewpoint. The following discussion on the goal of cultivating talents in comparative literature is also based on this, that is, an excellent scholar of comparative literature should first be an expert in a certain field, which can also be expressed in reverse: comparative study is not just a prerogative of comparative literature. The knowledge repertoire of an excellent expert in any field must be far beyond the amount of knowledge required by his profession; he must at the same time achieve mastery of knowledge and expertise in various disciplines and fields. This means, he already has the makings of an outstanding scholar of comparative literature. Then, in developing an outstanding scholar, which should be more prioritized, specialization or encyclopedic knowledge? From the perspective of education, there are rules to follow. The argument developed in the previous case is “An excellent scholar of comparative literature should first be an expert in a certain field.” This proposition emphasizes that one has to first be a specialist before becoming an encyclopedic scholar of comparative literature. The other case reveals that with the same number of years of education, the priority should be given to cultivating experts in national literature, as it may take longer to develop scholars of comparative literature. For example, the number of educational years is considered. Within the same number of years of academic study, students majoring in comparative literature may not be able to compete with those majoring in national literature in terms of basic knowledge of national literature; however, the breadth of their knowledge is much greater than that of the latter. This was exactly the vitriol once often used against the discipline of comparative literature, namely, those who are not good at either Chinese literature or foreign literature would have to study comparative literature. The fact is this vitriol may only work over a limited period of time; if one studies the same way with doubled or longer time, the advantages of comparative literature will gradually emerge. The educational attainment in comparative literature is directly proportional to the length of study time; as the study time increases, the breadth of research vision and the growth of research ability may increase geometrically. Later, if a scholar of comparative literature proceeds to study the national literature of a certain country, his academic advantage will be self-evident. 12 Zhang Longxi, Introduction to Comparative Literature Studies, Fudan University Press, 2009, p. 42.

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This does not mean that a graduate student majoring in national literature research does not need to continue his studies after graduation. If he is still engaged in professional studies, he will continue to develop and expand his fields of research. This is precisely what was discussed earlier, “An excellent expert in any field, … has actually the making of an excellent scholar of comparative literature.” If this proposition works, then we might as well consider it further: a graduate student first studies some national literature, and then expands his field of study into the literature of other countries, thus attaining the competence of a comparative literature scholar; whilst the other graduate student has laid a solid academic foundation for a scholar of comparative literature during his study, and then develops his field of research in the studies of national or transnational literature, thus attaining the due competence of a scholar of comparative literature. Which of these two ways of cultivation is more reliable? This is not a matter of “All roads lead to Rome”, because we have to consider not only differing kinds of social pressure that a student must endure when he leaves school, but also all the possible physiological conditions that may make learning more unfavorable as he ages. Hence, we have to admit that the postgraduate level in higher education is the most beneficial of all stages of learning. This is not only because higher education institutions currently remain the places least affected by various utilitarian trends in society. More importantly, the traditional humanistic strengths and academic faiths are well retained in the country’s higher education institutions. Although they are not a social vacuum, and are corrupted and affected by money worship, they remain a shelter for persevering idealists. For young newcomers who entered higher education institutions with mental sufferings caused by the exam-oriented education in middle and high schools, higher education institutions serve as the only shelter to heal their trauma. Being energetic and eager to learn, they find their ideals positively encouraged. Their undergraduate general education and professional education have laid a solid foundation for them; hence, they have been well prepared for the cultivation of a scholar at the graduate level. In this sense, the graduate education of comparative literature plays a crucial role. The subject matter of comparative literature is not a single field, but a professional field integrated with other disciplines in an interdisciplinary manner. Therefore, it cannot demonstrate its advantages in a limited time of learning, but serves only as an ideal learning to integrate other disciplines, absorbing comprehensively their strengths and characteristics. Only after long-term study can students majoring in comparative literature gradually demonstrate the advantage of comparative vision and eventually take a leading role in the academic field. This is what distinguishes comparative literature from other disciplines. Strictly speaking, comparative literature has no clear professional boundaries, nor particular professional scope. Its goal is not to cultivate specific vocational skills, nor to develop students’ competitiveness for employment, nor even

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to cultivate experts of a certain specialty. Instead, it is intended only to cultivate a certain qualification and capacity, so that learners can be competent for any related academic research, including the construction and development of comparative literature itself. Wilhelm von Humboldt, the pioneer of modern education in Germany, pointed out that universities were designed with two missions, that is, the exploration of science and the cultivation of intelligence and morality. The “science” (German: die Wissenschaft) that he emphasized was not history or natural science in general, but pure science (German: die reine Wissenschaft), that is, philosophy.13 Humboldt positioned philosophy as the core concept of the spirit of universities at that time, thus establishing the tradition of spiritual life for German universities. Although in today’s China, within the specific educational context and the post-modern cultural atmosphere, it is unlikely that philosophy, as a “pure science” leading all disciplines, will ever reproduce its power, we still need to find a discipline within the humanities that can perform a certain function, that is, can take other humanities and social sciences as its subject matter with the purpose of learning, penetrating and synthesizing the knowledge of other disciplines, so as to recover the status of philosophy as a “pure science” in the liberal education of German universities in the 18th century. That can only be comparative literature. In view of the fact that the “comparative” vision and methodology has established an all-encompassing prerequisite that comprehends languages, arts, ethnicities, nationalities and disciplines, whilst “literature” in a broad sense also includes the traditional humanities and other social sciences such as politics, society, law, religion, culture and psychology, this determines that comparative literature is able to comprehend all the humanities, to harness diverse linguistic and disciplinary knowledge, and to take the cultivation of great scholars as its educational goal. This is precisely the stance taken for the relationship between comparative literature and the ideal of more academic-oriented education discussed in this article. Do we still need to define this more academic-oriented education? With increasing job pressure and the widening social gap between the rich and the poor, alongside the transformation of society and the rise of new industries, the social demand for university education is rising rapidly. Considering the increasingly pressing appetite for quick success and instant benefit among middle school students and the consequences of an exam-oriented education which undermines their normal learning ability, the university has to lower its educational standards and discard traditional rubrics of 13

See Wilhelm von Humboldt, “Über die innere und äußere Organisation der höheren wissenschaftlichen Anstalten in Berlin”, in: Wilhelm von Humboldt, Werke in fünf Bänden, hrsg. von Andreas Flitner und Klaus Giel, Bd. 4: Schriften zur Politik und zum Bildungswesen, 3. Auflage, Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft 1982, pp. 253–265.

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professional education so as to meet the needs for more and more talents in emerging professions in society. With the increasing proportion of liberal education courses and the fixed proportion of required courses, the only type of courses that higher education institutions can reduce are core or major courses. Before the Cultural Revolution, the core courses in the undergraduate program in the Department of Chinese Language and Literature filled a complete four-year education, with a five-year undergraduate education once being established in Peking University and Fudan University. However, the actual number of core courses in the same undergraduate program now is less than three years, which is equivalent to the length of education in junior colleges years before. This is attributed to the fact that university seniors have to spend more time on social internships and job hunting. As a result, today’s four-year undergraduate students majoring in humanities at a comprehensive university are likely to be less qualified for professional jobs. Apart from the few of them who continue their graduate studies, the majority of these students can only undertake non-specialized jobs after graduation. I qualify such general cultivation of talents in undergraduate programs as socialized education or non-academic-oriented education, which is not aimed at cultivating professionals in the humanities, nor real experts, scholars or masters in the academic fields. Its function, instead, is to generate more job seekers to meet the needs of the society. In order to compensate for the shortage of core courses in undergraduate programs, more and more institutions of higher education have strengthened their postgraduate programs, particularly at the master’s level. It is necessary and effective to recruit new graduate students in the second-level discipline and collectively offer basic courses for them. Nevertheless, serious problems persist. With the continuous increase of graduate degree programs in the humanities and the expansion of the number of new graduate students, the relationship of supply to demand in society has reached a saturated state. Except for a few majors, such as emerging disciplines like Teaching Chinese to Speakers of Other Languages (TCSOL), employment has become a serious social problem for graduate students, not to mention finding jobs suited to their professional study. This has prevented a lot of them from establishing solid professional confidence and designing for themselves an academic path as a life ideal. Plenty of graduate students in the humanities remain at a loss. This is because, firstly, the society does not provide them with sufficient employment opportunities; secondly, they lack professional confidence; and thirdly, the quality of teaching staff is limited. These factors contribute to a vicious circle in the cultivation of graduate students in the humanities. Therefore, the graduate education system of humanities is moving inevitably toward the path of socialized vocational education. In this case, is it possible for tomorrow’s experts, I mean, experts of the humanities, to surpass their predecessors to reach new heights academically? Our education

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in the humanities is basically a failure, which reveals objectively why people today often complain that “It’s hard to find a master” or “It’s not as what it used to be.” We should remain soberly aware that without an appropriate educational mechanism and educational ideal to cultivate masters, it is impossible for “masters” to emerge. The university education system dominated by politics before the Cultural Revolution could not produce great masters, nor did the system of educational revolution during the Cultural Revolution, nor the educational system dominated by economics, quantitative management and quick success and instant benefits after the Cultural Revolution. A “master” in the humanities is first and foremost intellectually energetic, which means his expertise and professionalism in the humanities are far above average. Secondly, his academic prominence and contributions have attained unprecedented importance, which has not only profoundly influenced contemporary spiritual life, but will also exert an important influence on later generations. Thirdly, he serves as a role model as a diligent teacher and has cultivated a complete academic team and developed his unique thoughts and theories, which represent his charisma. In addition to being gifted, masters of the humanities are not born, but are cultivated under a complete academic and educational mechanism. Without a good humanistic setting and educational ideals, it is impossible to cultivate real masters. Our dream of a strong nation today does not reserve a proper place for our future philosophers, thinkers, writers and scientists in the humanities. Without dreams today, the world will have no future. Some great scholars (or “masters”) can serve as examples. For instance, most of Chen Yinke’s works were written by dictation in his later years after he lost his sight; Qian Zhongshu’s academic achievement was best manifested in his Guan Zhui Bian (to which Qian himself gave the English title of Limited Views. Essays on Ideas and Letters), completed during the Cultural Revolution, when he was approaching old age; Ji Xianlin’s translation of the Indian epic The Ramayana from Sanskrit into Chinese was also completed in his later years during the Cultural Revolution. The reason why the achievements of these scholars are irreplaceable and cannot be surpassed is that when they were young, they spent all their time cultivating themselves while others were busy writing books, that is, they achieved their irreplaceable status as great scholars through continuous learning. Taken together, they all share the following common features. First, they were multilingual and academically competent; second, they had studied vast literary materials in diverse languages and developed expertise in their own fields with encyclopedic knowledge; third, in their long, tireless study and lofty academic work, they had cultivated their unique scholarly personality with an independent spirit and free thinking; last but not least, they had devoted their life to mastering a wealth of knowledge, thus forming their conscious independent attitude toward life and philosophy of life. In this way, they cultivated themselves through

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learning, which enhanced their academic accomplishments. Furthermore, their academic endeavor led to their independence of spirit and freedom of thought, thus establishing an independent life. There are four core concepts in the classical German idea of university established by W. v. Humboldt,14 which constitute not only the pinnacle of modern intellectuals’ ideal personality, but also ideal qualities that are missed nowadays in the education of the humanities and in the cultivation of talents. The absence of this educational ideal is fatal. Aren’t the four dimensions of the academic personality established by senior scholars and masters precisely the ideals for cultivating talents in comparative literature? Students are first required to be competent in multiple foreign languages; secondly, they are required to master a wide range of subjects and strive to be knowledgeable; thirdly, humanistic ideals are applied to guide their moral cultivation toward a perfect personality; last but not least, if these aspects are to be achieved, great efforts must be made, which means scholars must remain independent and solitary, seeking happiness in life by learning. The first two are essential for embarking on comparative literature, the third reflects the higher level of personality cultivation promoted by knowledge accumulation, and the fourth reveals the attitude of life to attain such heights. This is a complete educational process and educational ideal, and the characteristics of talent cultivation in comparative literature are closest to such an ideal. Therefore, comparative literature is a more academic-oriented education, whose educational ideal naturally does not reflect the features of socialized, popularized and vocational education. Let us consider a variety of social professions that liberal arts students are engaged in, such as civil servants in a government agency, senior secretaries in an enterprise and media practitioners. Is it necessary for the career development of these students to be competent in classical languages and knowledge of classical culture or to accumulate the knowledge of scholars such as Chen, Qian and Ji? If not, frankly, it is a waste of educational resources. The conclusion is different, however, if this knowledge structure is examined within the professional context of the humanities, especially among scholars engaged in studies of comparative literature. If one is engaged in Chinese and Western philosophy, history, literature and art, such a knowledge base is actually a qualification or a threshold. This is precisely the difference between a more academicoriented education and a general socialized vocational education, the functions and characteristics of which should not be confused or interchanged.

14 The four core concepts in the classical German idea of university are Bildung (education), Wissenschaft (science), Freiheit (freedom), and Einsamkeit (seclusion). See Chen Hongjie, Die deutsche klassische Universitaetsidee und ihre Rezeption in China. Beijing: Peking University Press, 2006, pp. 49–68.

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The path of a more academic-oriented education is not new to our generation of scholars who grew up in the aftermath of the Cultural Revolution. Our generation, having survived the hardship of the Cultural Revolution and passed National College Entrance Examinations (NCEE) to enter higher education institutions, has an in-depth understanding of what it is like to scale the academic heights. At that time, most of the older generation of scholars of humanities were still alive and perceived in their suffering the hope of future academic development. They hoped that in the last stage of their lives they would continue to work to impart their knowledge and ideals to the later generations like a baton. Having benefited from the words and deeds of the older generation of scholars, we all had a clear idea of what academic paths should be. However, in the past three decades, the country has been anxious to modernize, and the growth of wealth and the disorder of distribution have fostered a social orientation of seeking quick success and instant benefits, thus deteriorating the environment of the humanities and academic paths in a vicious circle driven by profit. It should be admitted that our generation of scholars has not yet been able to truly attain the level required by the times, and we have not yet been able to surpass our predecessors. Nevertheless, we remain committed to pointing out the right track and prerequisites for the cultivation of outstanding scholars of humanities (let alone masters) to the later generations. Thirty years ago, the education system did not accept the ideas and practices of more academic-oriented education; for the past three decades, the education system has also overlooked the ideal and implementation of more academic-oriented education. Hopefully, in the future, with the country growing stronger and people becoming richer, the more academic-oriented education of the humanities will not only have the necessary social security and psychological foundation, but also win greater social esteem; what we may lack at that time are feasible methods and approaches. Therefore, like a glimmer in the darkness, the idea and ideal of more academic-oriented education need to radiate constantly the spark of life. If mid-level higher education institutions have to go in the direction of socialized vocational education, then comprehensive universities like Fudan University ought to adhere to the ideal of more academic-oriented education. If all institutions of higher education have to go in the direction of socialized vocational education, then their humanities ought to pursue the ideal of more academic-oriented education. If all disciplines have to go in the direction of socialized vocational education, then at least a few, such as comparative literature, ought to promote the ideal of more academic-oriented education on their own. This explains why the Department of Comparative Literature and World Literature at Fudan University has developed this “Advanced Studies and Training for Master and Doctoral Students in Comparative Literature and World Literature at Fudan University.” Perhaps people will not oppose or reject a more academic-oriented education in the field of comparative literature, although it is not only an educational ideal, but also

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the implementation of an educational plan for the future. Regarding the particularity of comparative literature, there are two issues that lack in-depth exploration. One is the possibility of the allocation of the faculty at the Department of Chinese Language and Literature in higher education institutions at present, and the other is the purpose of the cultivation of talents. The former reflects methods and conditions, while the latter is about values. As these two issues have not yet been fully discussed, although core courses in comparative literature have been offered by the Department of Chinese Language and Literature at comprehensive universities in China, including master’s and doctoral courses, this remains insufficient for the improvement of the quality of this discipline itself. An ideal consensus on these two issues depends on full discussions by scholars at the frontline of education. Due to the length of this article, I will just offer a brief account of the vision we had when developing this plan and the work that has been done to implement it. Firstly, in order to implement more academic-oriented education, comparative literature must be defined as a pure science. Unlike philosophy in the 18th century, it is certainly impossible for comparative literature to “dominate all other disciplines as the ultimate destination of all kinds of phenomena and knowledge in the world.” However, the particularity of comparative literature makes it possible to create the necessary conditions for outstanding scholars of the humanities. Chen Yinke was a historian, Qian Zhongshu was an expert on classical literature, and Ji Xianlin was an expert on Oriental languages, but their scope of knowledge surpassed by far their areas of expertise. This “transcendence” itself reflects the expertise and breadth of the making of a humanist. Broadly speaking, this is the research perspective and knowledge provided by the discipline of comparative literature. One might argue today we lack faculties for the cultivation of masters, hence such an ideal is just a utopian fantasy. My answer is that even in the past China probably did not have the faculties to cultivate masters. Therefore, at that time, talented young scholars all traveled to study in higher education institutions in Western countries, absorbing diverse scientific knowledge to broaden their academic horizon. Today it is still impossible for Fudan University to have the faculty and ability to cultivate masters. However, what we can do is to create a good environment for cultivating outstanding talents and bolster our students’ confidence and enthusiasm for academic careers. The planning can reflect such a consciousness, that is, in order to fulfill the ideal of more academic-oriented education, the Department of Chinese Language and Literature at Fudan University has continuously done its utmost to recruit talents from home and abroad at all levels in the fields of comparative literature, comparative linguistics and classical studies, who have updated the knowledge structure of our faculties. Within just a few years, the discipline of comparative literature at Fudan University has emerged with a new look ahead of its counterparts at home and abroad.

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In order to improve the faculty of a discipline, we must break open traditional disciplinary boundaries and synthesize not only all the resources of the discipline of Chinese Language and Literature as the basis for the construction and development of individual disciplines, but also integrate the particularities of individual disciplines. In the original discipline structures of the Department of Chinese Language and Literature at Fudan University, even though comparative literature started early, it was neither a traditional discipline nor a strong one. In the department, ancient literature has a strong tradition of studying ancient literary theories, the field of literature and art has its strengths in the study of Western aesthetics and literary theories, and there are also scholars engaged in the study of foreign influences on modern and contemporary literature. Due to the dominance of traditional disciplines, the growth of comparative literature as a discipline has also been limited. For a long time, it has remained in the comparative study on the relationship between Chinese and foreign literature, the study of translatology and other relatively marginal disciplines and has not been able to make any big breakthroughs. Since 2006, we have changed our way of thinking. On the one hand, we recruited experts and research teams and took Chinese and foreign comparative poetics as the priority and future direction of the discipline’s development, establishing the curriculum of five modules, that is, “Comparative studies on Chinese and Western Literature and Poetics”, “World Literature Studies”, “Comparative studies on German Language and Culture and South Asian Culture”, “Study of East Asian Literature” and “Cross-Art and Cultural Studies”. Meanwhile, talents were recruited from overseas who engaged in Indo-European literary studies and comparative language studies. Returning overseas students competent in more than a dozen ancient Indo-European languages together with language talents from the History Department of Fudan University have tremendously enriched the faculty in the fields of multilingual teaching and comparative languages. The introduction of talents is just one of many solutions. To improve the level of teaching, we cannot rely only on the strength of faculties in a single discipline, but must also mobilize the strength of first-level disciplines. Therefore, when designing graduate courses for comparative literature, we break resolutely with the traditional practice that students attend only core courses offered in their own field, ensuring that they also enroll in other courses such as Western literary theory, philology, ancient Chinese language and literary history provided by other disciplines. Furthermore, a strong backing and abundant resources for the reform of the curriculum in comparative literature have been united with the assistance of the inter-disciplinary and inter-departmental teaching platform and the support of excellent faculties of the humanities at Fudan University. It is precisely because comparative literature is an open discipline that it must open up its enclosed curriculum system and transform the traditional curriculum of dominant disciplines which has imposed pressure and challenges on comparative literature into its curriculum resources, thereby enriching

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graduate students of comparative literature with knowledge from the courses offered by other disciplines. Although symposiums are offered as supplementary courses for graduate students of comparative literature to expand their academic horizon, they serve also as one of many solutions to overcome the shortage of our faculties with the backing of experts from other research institutions. Every year, international experts and scholars from various disciplines are invited to Fudan University for academic purposes, such as offering lectures or symposiums; similarly, domestic counterparts are also invited for the same purposes. In order to cultivate students’ wide academic interests and broaden their academic horizon, we include the credits for their attendance at cuttingedge academic lectures and their own academic seminars in the assessment system for required courses. In the past, the students voluntarily attended cutting-edge lectures at the University without strict attendance and assessment. Now, in order to improve students’ free and undisciplined style of academic study and to strengthen their team spirit, academic lectures and seminars are included in the formal assessment, making them an organic part of the curriculum construction. In this way, core courses offered by instructors within the discipline, elective courses by those from other disciplines, academic lectures and symposiums by experts from other institutions, along with seminars organized by graduate students themselves, constitute an open course series with multiple knowledge structures. One might continue to wonder, even if all resources of the first-level disciplines at the Department of Chinese Language and Literature are mobilized, can we cultivate qualified talents in comparative literature? Although I am not optimistic, at least, we do provide for graduate students a broad teaching platform for further professional study and lay for them a relatively solid knowledge foundation. Therefore, in our plan, we not only emphasized the six-year continuous postgraduate and doctoral study system (two years for a master’s degree and four years for a doctoral degree), but also increased accordingly the course credits, thus emphasizing the consistency of this more academic-oriented education. Meanwhile, one of my ideas to implement the ideal of more academic-oriented education is to encourage students majoring in comparative literature to go abroad for further study, to further broaden their academic horizons and to work with renowned professors in various academic fields worldwide. Graduate students in comparative literature do not necessarily focus narrowly in the study of comparative literature; instead, they may explore various fields of humanities with a comparative knowledge structure and academic vision. For instance, they may engage in ideological, cultural, theoretical, historical and social studies, and they also may integrate the study of some specific national literature to further develop their own academic competence.

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Therefore, in our opinion, the goal of cultivating talents set by the discipline of comparative literature is not to produce generally qualified talents for the purpose of social employment, nor does it need to cultivate a large number of professional talents for our nation, but it must embrace lofty academic ideals and take the cultivation of excellent scholars of the humanities for the future as its mission. This goal is longterm; and the educational achievements of comparative literature cannot be fulfilled before twenty years’ time. Therefore, there are two targets for cultivating talents in our plan. One is that within six years or more, professionals with full competence in comparative literature and pertinent fields will be cultivated through our own ideal educational practices and work for higher education institutions and other academic organizations domestically. The other is through the mechanism of overseas study to recommend top students to world-class universities for further study, so as to reserve talents for future academic development. This may be a utopian ideal. However, if education loses its utopian spirit and ideals, will it still be education? Everything depends on hard work.

Appendix III: The Spiritual Foundation of Comparative Literature as a Discipline15 – On René Étiemble’s “Comparative Literature is Humanism”

1 René Étiemble’s Teaching Ideals of Comparative Literature

Since 2010, my colleagues and I have initiated a teaching reform at Fudan University, “the Advanced Studies and Training at the Graduate Level in Comparative Literature”,16 which includes the implementation of a joint study system for graduate and doctoral students, the extension of the length of study for doctoral students, the requirement for competence in three or four foreign languages for students during their graduate studies, curriculums for courses such as ancient Greek, Latin and Sanskrit, curriculum setting for graduate courses such as advanced ancient Chinese and Philology, and the internationalization of postgraduate education through international cooperation. The purpose of this reform is clear. We envision comparative literature not as a 15

16

This paper was a keynote report for The 10th Annual Meeting of the Chinese Comparative Literature Society and International Symposium, which was held at Fudan University from August 9 to 11, 2011. At the invitation of Professor Cao Xu, it was first published in The Journal of Shanghai Normal University, No. 1, 2012. See “Appendix II: Comparative Literature and More Academic-Oriented Education” and the “Advanced Studies and Training for Master and Doctoral Students in Comparative Literature and World Literature at Fudan University”, drafted by Yang Naiqiao, proofread by Chen Sihe, and published in Comparative Literature in China, No. 1, 2010.

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discipline that cultivates general talents or provides certain vocational skills for society, but as a discipline of the humanities that involves multidisciplinary knowledge, harnesses multi-linguistic skills and cultivates idealistic learning goals. It will become the foundation of the humanities. With a history of more than 80 years, the Department of Chinese Language and Literature at Fudan University boasts more than one hundred professors of language and literature and a cohort of renowned experts and scholars who have exerted important influence in the research fields of excavated literature and ancient Chinese characters, Western aesthetics and literary theory, history of ancient literary criticism, history of Sino-foreign literary relations, the evolution of the history of Chinese literature, linguistic rhetoric and Eastern and Western classical language studies. It is precisely these dominant disciplines that constitute the essential foundation for comparative literature. This teaching reform we are experimenting is intended to mobilize these dominant disciplines of the Departments to serve the teaching and research programs of comparative literature, thus achieving the actual goal of more academicoriented education. It should be noted that our teaching reform has been implemented for just over a year, and its intended effect is not yet observable; with numerous difficulties ahead, it required tenacious efforts on our part. The reason why I first raised this program in today’s report is that it is directly related to the subject of this report. The idea of this program originated from Comparaison n’est pas raison: La crise de la littérature comparée (English: Comparison Is Not A Reason: The Crisis In Comparative Literature) by René Étiemble (1909–2002), the late master of comparative literature in France, who issued an appeal in Chapter Two, that is, in higher education institutions, “the teaching of comparative literature must be centralized.” He explained: “In my opinion, comparative literature will be seriously taught only when each of the countries interested in it will organize at least one Institute, grouping 15 to 20 professors, a corresponding number of assistants and research directors, selected not only for their broad education, but in such a way that all the large families of languages be sufficiently represented, relative to their role.”17 Obviously, his concept of the teaching faculty for comparative literature was far beyond what was needed for general national literature. It is in this regard that I was inspired by Étiemble’s wisdom and vision. Although the development of comparative literature in China may not have such a wealth of expertise in European languages and cultures, it has its own characteristics. Additionally, as we engage in the study of comparative literature within the context of China’s longstanding culture and cultivate the next generation of specialists in the humanities, we 17 René Étiemble, The Crisis in Comparative Literature, translated and with a Foreword by Herbert Weisinger and Georges Joyaux, East Lansing: Michigan State University Press 1966, pp. 13–14.

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must “centralize” all the academic strength of the University to serve this fundamental discipline of the humanities. In other words, if an institution hopes to administer the discipline of comparative literature successfully, it should first manage well its firstlevel disciplines, such as Chinese Language and Literature, as well as other pertinent disciplines of the humanities like foreign languages, literature and history, philosophy and art. Only by relying on the overall teaching and research of the humanities, and only from the perspective of one or more first-level disciplines of the humanities, can we accurately assess the potential achievements of the discipline of comparative literature in this institution.



2 Comparative Literature is Humanism: Thus Spoke René Étiemble

René Étiemble was an encyclopedic humanist with rich and multifaceted academic achievements. In China, his work in Sinology entitled L’Europe Chinoise was translated into Chinese and published more than a decade ago; then in 2008, its revised edition was published, both of which have been influential in the country’s higher education institutions. Although his Comparaison n’est pas raison: La crise de la littérature comparée is only a few dozen pages long and many of its ideas have been repeatedly cited in comparative literature textbooks, it has never been completely translated into Chinese, and his idea of “comparative literature is humanism” was raised in this booklet. In 1984, the journal of Foreign Literatures sponsored by Peking University published Luo Peng’s translation of Comparaison n’est pas raison: La crise de la littérature comparée. In this basically fully translated text, a few passages were deleted, including a section titled “Comparative Literature is Humanism” in Chapter One “Introduction”. Luo had a note in the Afterword saying that “Considering that some of the discussions in the article are limited in time and space and outdated and of no great significance to the study of comparative literature in today’s China, some minor abridgements are hence made, which shall not compromise the integrity of the entire article.”18 In Luo’s eyes, the proposition of humanism seemed outdated and no longer important. In 1985, Shanghai Translation Publishing House published Collected Translations of Com­parative Literature Studies edited by Gan Yongchang and his two colleagues, in which Chapter Three of Étiemble’s booklet, entitled “Objects, Methods, Programs” translated by Dai Yun, was included. Presumably it was translated from English. In his Afterword, Dai introduced the main contents of this booklet and for the first time, he summarized Étiemble’s idea of “comparative literature is humanism” as follows: “He [Étiemble] maintained that the literature of each nation should be regarded as the common spiritual wealth of all mankind and as an interdependent whole. The literature 18

It was first published in Foreign Literatures, No. 2, 1984, p. 138, and later included in Selected Works of Étiemble, p. 49.

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of different nations and their interrelations should be viewed from the holistic view of world literature, and comparative literature should be regarded as a cause that can promote people’s mutual understanding and be conducive to human solidarity.”19 Although this summary can be deemed appropriate in expressing Étiemble’s humanist ideals, it sounded superficial and was not his own words. In 2006, SDX Joint Publishing in Beijing published Selected Works of Étiemble, which was included in the series of Bibliothèque de France. Luo’s abridged translation of Comparaison n’est pas raison: La crise de la littérature comparée from twenty years ago was also included without any revision. Therefore, although the discipline of comparative literature in China has made great progress in the past twenty years, as far as the spiritual foundation of this discipline is concerned, Étiemble’s ideas have not yet been paid due attention by Chinese researchers. Indeed, in the section titled “Comparative Literature is Humanism” in the first chapter of The Crisis in Comparative Literature,20 Étiemble did not elaborate on the idea of “comparative literature is humanism”, which was consistent with the overall narrative style of this booklet, but this proposition deserves our attention. Although we may feel a little uncomfortable with the literal language structure of “what” is “comparative literature”, which seems too arbitrary and simplistic, from its alternative perspective, the simple assertion that Étiemble made of his idea was sufficient to demonstrate that he was serious about this proposition. Beyond the almost all-encompassing and extremely complex system of comparative literature, he needed an absolute spirit to lay the foundation for this discipline, which is his humanisme (English: humanism). In this section, Étiemble began with two quotes, one a statement about world literature in the well-known “The Communist Manifesto”, and the other from Montesquieu. Marx’s words are omitted here, while Montesquieu’s are as follows: “If I knew something useful to me but injurious to my family, I would reject it from my mind. If I knew something useful to my family but not to my country, I would try to expunge it. If I knew something useful to my country but prejudicial to Europe, or else useful to Europe but inimical to mankind, I would view it as a crime.” (Ibid., p. 9) According to the general understanding of men at the time, the concepts of “Europe” and “mankind” referred to here may have similar connotations. The Enlightenment thinker Montesquieu once explicitly argued that in the face of mankind or of Europe, such things as the state, the nation, the family and the individual are nothing. Marx, on the other hand, more clearly established this understanding of the “world” on the basis of the great industrial age, claiming that it was independent of the subjective will of man: national and local 19 Translation of Comparative Literature Studies, edited by Gan Yongchang et al., Shanghai: Shanghai Translation Publishing House, 1985, p. 121. 20 René Étiemble, The Crisis in Comparative Literature, pp. 9–10.

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one-sidedness and narrow-mindedness become more and more impossible, “and from the numerous national and local literatures, there arises a world literature.”21 Neither of these two quotes addresses the subject of “humanism”. My understanding is that the fact that Étiemble quoted classical Marxist writers reflects his practical intention in writing this booklet: in 1963, he was trying to counteract political ideologies that intervened in the development of comparative literature in Europe. In addition to the criticism of the so-called French School by the American School, Étiemble also noticed the emergence of the discipline of comparative literature within the socialist camp of the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. In 1962, an international conference on comparative literature was held by the Hungarian Academy of Social Sciences in Budapest, in which scholars in the socialist camp attempted to integrate comparative literature with Marxist ideology to fight against Western cosmopolitanism. Étiemble welcomed unhesitatingly the challenge from the socialist camp and quoted Marx and Montesquieu, calling for scholars from the Eastern and Western camps to unite under the banner of “world literature” or “humanity” so as to transcend ideological differences or national rivalries to develop the literary study of the “world” together. The following quote illustrates Étiemble’s humanistic stance: “I was pleased to hear our colleague from the Moscow Academy of Sciences maintain that comparative literature must study not only relations between different literatures in the modern and contemporary period, but also, in its totality, the history of these relations, even if it meant going back to the most ancient past.”22 In his words, returning to the “most ancient past” referred to the birthplace of human multiculturalism, which also reflected the humanistic spirit of comparative literature that Étiemble upheld. In response to the misconception of Soviet scholars that scholars of French comparative literature studied only the literature after the 16th century, Étiemble responded with a series of sarcastic remarks: “It is as though the study of relations between Greek and Latin literatures could not, or was not, supposed to interest us! It is as though the relations between the Greek world, the Arab world, the Hebrew world, the Latin world, the Slavic world, and the Mongol Empire in the Middle Ages were not worthy of our attention. It is as though when dealing with the origins of tragedy and comedy, the comparatist could, nowadays, ignore Canon Etienne Drioton’s book, Le Théâtre égyptien, an indispensable prelude to any consideration of Greek tragedy and comedy, and consequently of European drama.” (Ibid., p. 10) Étiemble’s self-justification was based solidly on his confident academic vision and background, which manifested that these 21

Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, “Manifesto of the Communist Party”, in: K. Marx and F. Engels, Collected Works in 50 Volumes, vol. 6: Marx and Engels 1845–48, Moscow: Progress Publishers 1976, p. 488. It should be clarified that the word “literature” in Marx’s “world literature” does not refer to literature in the narrow sense; instead, according to “Literatur” in German, it includes science, art, philosophy, politics and the like. 22 René Étiemble, The Crisis in Comparative Literature, p. 9.

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multicultural origins beyond ancient Europe lay within his research realm of comparative literature. Then he turned his eyes to the East, including Japan. He pointed out that “As for Japanese comparatists, […] if they have good reasons to study […] the influence of English and Italian letters on Natsume Soseki, or of French literature on Akutagawa Ryanosuke, how could they, without betraying the spirit of our discipline, neglect the ancient and lasting relations which united them to China and the Buddhist world?” (Ibid.) Here, Étiemble used a concept, that is, the spirit of a discipline, which seems to encompass an all-embracing cultural world, including ancient Greece, Latin, Jewish, Arabia, Rome, the Levant and Slavic regions, ancient Egypt, Mongolia, Japan, China and India (Buddhism). In this world, multiple cultures coexist and interact with each other, forming a great phenomenon of human culture abundant in vitality and growing endlessly since ancient times. Therefore, “Will it be objected that, […] our study of comparative literature will become so in time as well, and that consequently no teacher will be able to obtain more than its rudiments, were he to labor all his life? I answer that I am limiting myself so far to defining the spirit of our discipline.” (Ibid.) Here, again, he italicized the “spirit” of the discipline, which means that he defined this spirit as humanism, and indeed only humanism can permeate all human cultures: it not only penetrates the multicultural roots of mankind, but also penetrates the study of modern and contemporary literature that we are engaged in today. In very simple language, Étiemble defined the spiritual foundation of comparative literature.



3 Back to the Beginning: Revisiting René Étiemble’s “Humanism”

Étiemble was neither isolated nor the first in exploring the proposition that “comparative literature is humanism”. Paul Van Tieghem (1871–1948), an early scholar of the French School, noticed this in his report at the Fourth International Conference on the History of Modern Literature by observing that “we already know about humanism in the 15th and 16th centuries. The study of comparative literature leads to a new kind of humanism, which is more extensive and richer than the former, and more capable of bringing countries closer to each other… Comparative literature … compels those who practice it to adopt an attitude of sympathy and understanding toward our peoples under heaven, and to adopt a cultural liberalism without which no common work can be attempted among people.”23

23 Quoted from P. Brunel et al., Qu’est-ce que la littérature compare?(English: What is Comparative Literature), Paris: Colin, 1983, translated by Ge Lei et al., Beijing: Peking University Press, 1989, p. 93. In this translation, the word “humanism” is interchangeable with “humanitarianism”.

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When the Second International Conference on Comparative Literature was held in Chapel Hill in the United States in 1958, René Wellek (1903–1995) published his famous research entitled “The Crisis of Comparative Literature”, criticizing the impact study of positivism by the French School, in which he began by explicitly denouncing the “most serious sign of the precarious state of study is the fact that it has not been able to establish a distinct subject matter and a special methodology. I believe that the programmatic pronouncements of Baldensperger, Van Tieghem, Carré and Guyard have failed in this essential task. They have saddled comparative literature with an obsolete methodology and have laid on it the dead hand of 19th century factualism, scientism, and historical relativism.”24 Apparently, Wellek’s criticism was not only directed at the research content and methodology of the French School, but also at positivism (and factualism, scientism, and the like), which was the spiritual foundation of the discipline. In another article entitled “Comparative Literature Today” published in 1965, he proposed a relationship between comparative literature and humanism, which traced his dissatisfaction and criticism of scientism in comparative literature to Irving Babbitt (1865–1933), the representative of the American New Humanism and quoted Babbitt’s famous prediction that “comparative literature will prove one of the most trifling of subjects unless studied in strict subordination to human standards.” Wellek continued that “the right meaning of ‘humanism’ was the issue at Chapel Hill and is still the issue in comparative literature today.”25 Therefore, we can also regard Wellek’s humanist stance as a challenge to the positivism behind the tedious textual research of the French School. In 1983, Pierre Brunel and two other French scholars of comparative literature corevised and published the book Qu’est-ce que la littérature comparée? (English: What is Comparative Literature?), which again responded to Étiemble’s ideas. They summarized in the Introduction that “comparative literature, accepted as a common cultural tool, in France is still seeking its platforms of advanced scientific research…It seems to be oscillating between two fundamental missions: one is its extensive innovations in humanism in various forms, the other is that it is a science.”26 This means that until 1983, scholars of comparative literature in France remained interested in the following issues. Does comparative literature belong to a tool-based methodology or a discipline 24 René Wellek, “The Crisis of Comparative Literature”, in: René Wellek, Concepts of Criticism, ed. and with an Introduction by Stephen G. Nichols, Jr., New Haven and London: Yale University Press 1963, p. 282. 25 René Wellek, “Comparative Literature Today”, in: René Wellek, Discriminations: Further Concepts of Criticism, New Haven and London: Yale University Press 1970, p. 39. 26 P. Brunel et al., Qu’est-ce que la littérature comparée?(English: What is Comparative Literature?), Paris: Colin, 1983, translated by Ge Lei et al., p. 11. In this translation, the word “humanism” is interchangeable with “humanitarianism”.

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with higher platforms? What is its spiritual foundation? And where is the humanistic spirit of the discipline manifested? The publication of Étiemble’s Comparaison n’est pas raison: La crise de la littérature comparée in 1963 stirred the field of comparative literature. The most enthusiastic were Georges Joyaux and Herbert Weisinger, two professors of comparative literature at Michigan State University, who not only quickly translated this booklet, but also developed the idea thoroughly in the Translator’s Foreword, in which they claimed that “comparative literature is a constant reminder that literature is the vessel in which the spirit of man, of all men, is stored.”27 Furthermore, they grounded literature directly in human nature, stating that The ultimate core of human nature  – whatever we might define it to be  – seems finally to be occupied by the same questions – of life and death and the future life, whether here on earth or elsewhere; of birth and growing up; of the challenges to the emerging person; of marriage and family; of love and ambition and joy, and of overcoming the obstacles in their path; of hate and anger and fear and sorrow, and of their consequences; of despair and of hope; […] and around these few great central themes literature wondrously weaves its manifold threads, over and over again, into new and unforeseen shapes, countless in their variety, yet single in their origins and purpose. Art does not shape, it reshapes; the artist does not create, he recreates; the reader does not experience, he re-experiences. Making, considered in all its aspects, is thus a profoundly social phenomenon: it is men calling each other across the gulfs of separation in which they are enisled, and it is the role of comparative literature to sharpen our ears to this call. Ibid., p. xxi

In these two translators’ interpretation, the proposition that “comparative literature is humanism” matters. However, it is not a new problem to use the theory of human nature to explain literary phenomena, as the relationship between humanity and lit­ erature is not completely equivalent to that between humanism and comparative literature. Étiemble regarded the diversity of human culture as the root of humanism, emphasizing the equal relevance among all races and cultures of human beings, which was still far from the similarity generated by human nature’s restriction on literature. If we only approach Étiemble’s humanistic views from the perspective of human nature, we have not yet fully understood his extensive and profound academic ideal.

27 René Étiemble, The Crisis in Comparative Literature, “Foreword”, pp. xxii–xxiii.

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Therefore, we must explore further the following topics. Why is humanism the spiritual foundation of comparative literature as a discipline? What can the spirit of humanism bring to comparative literature? And from which perspective should we identify the significance of humanism for the discipline of comparative literature? When we revisit Étiemble’s humanistic stance and his brief argument that “comparative literature is humanism”, I am reminded of Jean-Paul Sartre (1905–1980), another great French humanist intellectual and thinker in the 20th century, who once said that “L’Existentialisme est un humanisme” (English: Existentialism is a humanism). France is a country with a long tradition of humanism, where intellectuals and scholars have rich interpretations of “humanism” that differ from our common sense. It is well known that existentialism is a philosophy that emphasizes existence before essence and the individual’s choice in the world, which seems to have little to do with humanism, which emphasizes universality. However, Sartre divided humanism into two types and argued that “18th century atheistic philosophers suppressed the idea of God, but not, for all that, the idea that essence precedes existence. We encounter this idea nearly everywhere: in the works of Diderot, Voltaire, and even Kant. Man possesses a human nature: this ‘human nature’, which is the concept of that which is human, is found in all men, which means that each man is a particular example of a universal concept – man.”28 Let’s classify this humanism for the moment as a kind of explanation of human identity in terms of universal humanity, which is what we normally think of as humanism. Sartre further introduced another kind of existential humanism: It states that if God does not exist, there is at least one being in whom existence precedes essence – a being whose existence comes before its essence, a being who exists before he can be defined by any concept of it. That being is man, or, as Heidegger put it, the human reality. What do we mean here by ‘existence precedes essence’? We mean that man first exists: he materializes in the world, encounters himself, and only afterward defines himself. […] Thus, the first effect of existentialism is to make every man conscious of what he is, and to make him solely responsible for his own existence. And when we say that man is responsible for himself, we do not mean that he is responsible only for his own individuality, but that he is responsible for all men. Ibid., pp. 22–23

28 Jean Paul Sartre, Existentialism is a Humanism, trans. by Carol Macomber, introduction by Annie Cohen-Solal, notes and preface by Arlette Elkaïm-Sartre, ed. by John Kulka, New Haven & London: Yale University Press 2007, pp. 21–22.

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What Sartre emphasized was man’s ability of social practice. There is no abstract essence of man before he engages in social practice; however, in differing social practices, he may try to shape what kind of man he is. It is practice that creates the unique human nature that varies greatly. This difference reflects and highlights further the power of the subjectivity of man; therefore, it is also a type of humanism. From the proposition that “Existentialism is a humanism”, I realize the complexity of the connotation of “comparative literature is humanism”. The disci­pline of comparative literature was born in Europe, the origin of humanism. When we recognize the universality of humanism, it may give people an illusion that humanism is equivalent to Eurocentrism. Meanwhile, even within the Western academic community, there have been great differences in the interpretation of humanism.29 When we revisit the field of comparative literature, we may find Étiemble’s interpretation of humanism interesting. In his view, universal humanism belongs not only to the literary character of a nation, but also to all nations, be they Greece, Rome, China or Japan; furthermore, the exchange of differing cultural traditions will enable comparative literature to transcend the boundaries between the East and the West. When I read that he enthusiastically integrated the ancient civilizations from eastern China and India to Africa and Australia into his scope of comparative literature, I felt it hard to see how he would use Eurocentric humanism to cover them. The only thing that civilizations of various origins all over the world have in common is that they are the product of the long history of human labor and practice. Therefore, no matter how colorful and different, all civilizations on earth are human civilizations; it is man who creates culture. Let’s revisit Sartre’s theoretical starting point. Since existentialism, which emphasizes it is man’s subjectivity in practice that determines his essence, is called a humanism, then, the emphasis of cultural differences and of the separation and criticism of Eurocentrism by anti-colonialist cultures is actually equivalent to emphasizing that it is the practice of various ethnic cultures, especially the cultures of the Third World, that determines the essence of culture. Culture is the product of eulogizing man’s subjectivity in practice. Humanism, therefore, can serve as a symbolic spirit in the study of multicultural differences.

29

For example, in Qu’est-ce que la littérature comparée?(English: What is Comparative Literature? (English: What is Comparative Literature?), P. Brunel et al. recorded the response of the Harvard professor of comparative literature, Harry Levin, to Étiemble’s argument, who appropriately warned that this term, namely humanism, was a 19thcentury creation which fit over a fairly long period of time and that it allowed for no ambiguity. (Translated by Ge Lei et al., p, 11)

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4 The Identity of Life and the Difference of Culture: The Disciplinary Spirit of Comparative Literature

However, we all know that difference is nothing but a superficial phenomenon stipulated by the characteristics of materials, which does not bring meaning to comparison. For example, there exist differences between a dog and a bench, though there is no point in comparing them. Only under the premise of the identity of things can a comparative study of their differences make sense. For example, we may compare the differences between a dog, a cat, or even a rabbit as a pet on the premise of “pets”; however, if such a premise is removed, the comparison will lose its significance. Today, comparative literature has become a discipline with extremely complex connotations; never before has the research subject of a discipline accommodated so many languages, cultures and academic backgrounds as comparative literature. Given that scholars of comparative literature vary in language competence, disciplinary backgrounds and even research interests, what motivates them to gather together for communication and discussion purposes? When literary and cultural phenomena across nations and languages are compared, or when full attention is paid to the differences of things and the uniqueness of a national culture is emphasized, is a fundamental spiritual force needed to delimit our discipline, thus making it the common foundation of our academic faiths? Before these big questions are answered, I would like to address first a specific small question: Can the two types of humanism described by Sartre be organically unified in the discipline of comparative literature? Since Sartre’s emphasis on the humanism of man’s differences in his social practices seems easy to understand, does there exist a higher form of identity at the spiritual core of this diverse humanism? In other words, is it possible for men and the cultures they create to achieve a new integration on a higher level? If the answer is yes, then the spiritual foundation of the discipline of comparative literature can be solidly laid, and the comparison of all human civilizations on earth can be thus realized on this higher identity. The answer to this question comes back to man himself. In the classic works of early masters of comparative literature, the answer to this question was somewhat inadequate, because the scientific development of that era and its impact on people’s ideas remained at the abstract level of human nature. In Europe, before the discovery of evolution, the creation of man by God basically answered the question of the nature of man. After the Renaissance, although humanism became popular and the universal theory of human nature replaced God, the essence of human nature remained an empty assumption. It was not until the establishment of the theory of evolution in 1858 that the scientific exploration of biological heredity gradually replaced the abstract theory of human nature. Since the end of the 20th century to the beginning of the 21st century, scientists have completed the sequencing of the human genome and the

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DNA sequencing of the genetic material of dozens of plants and animals, finding that the genes of human beings and other organisms retain a very close relationship. The analysis of the human gene sequence proves that “all humans living on the earth today, regardless of color, ethnicity and language, belong to the same species, that is, Homo sapiens. Tens of thousands of years ago, many different species lived on Earth, such as Australopithecus and Neanderthal man in Europe, who are either extinct or intermixed.” The more similar the species are in life, the closer their genetic DNA is. “Identical twins share exactly the same DNA, and siblings share more than 99.95 percent of their DNA. Any two modern humans share more than 99.9 percent of their DNA in common, while humans share only about 95 percent of their DNA with their closest relative chimpanzees.”30 Science has proved the identity of human life, which differs from the genetic material of other organisms. The sequencing of genes has proved not only the physical existence of the essence of human life, but also proved that it precedes its social practice. Additionally, the genetics of life has also revealed the secrets of the great migrations of ancient humans. Although there still exist controversies in academic communities, most research suggests that about 40,000 or 50,000 years ago, a small group of modern humans migrated out of Africa, first into Asia and then into Europe. This migration has only happened once.31 Hence, this proves that the essence of human life determines that there are no superior or inferior races or groups in the world, and the so-called “survival of the fittest” competition is caused by the objective environment. Therefore, in the face of the latest achievements in biological sciences, we seem to be able to believe that there exists a higher identity of the genetic material of life 30 31

Song Jian, “Human Nature, Animal Nature, Insect Nature – The 150th Anniversary of the Theory of Evolution”, Frontier Science, 2009 (1), p. 8. Wang Daohuan, “The Great Migration of Human Beings”, Science Development (Taiwan), No. 361, January, 2003, pp. 74–75. Also, see Gary Stix, “Traces of a Distant Past”, in: Scientific American 7(2008), pp. 56–63. In this paper, Stix wrote, “The first whole-genome studies earlier in this decade looked at differences among populations in short repetitive stretches of DNA known as microsatellites. More recently, the scope afforded by whole-genome scans has widened further. In February two papers, one in Science, the other in Nature, reported the largest surveys to date of human diversity.” The results of this analysis, along with those of anthropologists, archaeologists, linguists and biologists, provide evidence for the “out-of-Africa hypothesis” of modern humans, “that a small population of humans moved out of the continent, then grew in size in a new home until another subgroup of ‘founders’ broke off and moved away – a process that repeated itself until the entire world was settled.” Grounded in a large number of statistics, few scientists still hold a banner for a strict interpretation of multiregionalism. However, some new propositions suggest that “after humans migrated out of Africa they interbred extensively with archaic species such as H. erectus. Eswaran’s model suggests that as much as 80 percent of the modern human genome may have been subject to the effects of this kind of interbreeding.”

Appendices

373

beyond cultural differences. The identity of life genes restricts our diverse spiritual world. So-called human nature seems to lie between man’s life genes and his cultural practice, which is not only the psychological and physiological reflection of the identity of life, but is also related to the particularity of the cultural environment in practice. That is to say, it has the characteristics of practicality, sociality and class to a certain extent. Therefore, human nature is both abstract and concrete. Literature, instead, is the spiritual phenomenon closest to life. Unlike academic works in their rational format, excellent literature and art start directly from individual sensibility to present the impulse of life. This is precisely what is emphasized in the English translation of Étiemble’s booklet: Literature is always the expression of the core of human nature. Let’s revisit comparative literature as a discipline. What I want to emphasize now is that the subject matter of comparative literature is literature, and it has to be literature, in order for it to be closely connected to the identity of the core of human life. The comparison and display of the differences in human races, cultures and even individual lives is ultimately for a serious mission, that is, to explore and understand the ways of human communication and world harmony at a higher level of life, which is the humanistic spiritual foundation of the discipline of comparative literature.

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Book Series

Zhongguo xinwenxue daxi《中国新文学大系 1917–1927》（10 卷）(English: Chinese New Literature Series, 1917–1927) (10 Volumes). Shanghai: Shanghai Liangyou Book Co. LTD, 1935–1936. Zhongguo xinwenxue daxi · jianshe lilun ji《中国新文学大系·建设理论集》(English: Chinese New Literature Series · Collection of Theoretical Construction). Edited by Hu Shi 胡适 (1891–1962). Zhongguo xinwenxue daxi · wenxue lunzheng ji《中国新文学大系·文学论争集》(English: Chinese New Literature Series · Collection of Literary Controversies). Edited by Zheng Zhenduo 郑振铎 (1898–1958). Zhongguo xinwenxue daxi · xiaoshuo yi ji《中国新文学大系·小说一集》(English: Chinese New Literature Series · Novels) (Collection I). Edited by Mao Dun (Shen Yanbing) 茅盾（沈雁冰）(1896–1981). Zhongguo xinwenxue daxi · xiaoshuo er ji《中国新文学大系·小说二集》(English: Chinese New Literature Series · Novels) (Collection II). Edited by Lu Xun 鲁迅 (1881–1936). Zhongguo xinwenxue daxi · xiaoshuo san ji《中国新文学大系·小说三集》(English: Chinese New Literature Series · Novels) (Collection III). Edited by Zheng Boqi 郑伯奇 (1895–1979). Zhongguo xinwenxue daxi · sanwen yi ji《中国新文学大系·散文一集》(English: Chinese New Literature Series · Essays) (Collection I). Edited by Zhou Zuoren 周作人 (1885–1967).

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Zhongguo xinwenxue daxi · sanwen er ji《中国新文学大系·散文二集》(English: Chinese New Literature Series · Essays) (Collection II). Edited by Yu Dafu 郁达夫 (1896–1945). Zhongguo xinwenxue daxi · shi ji《中国新文学大系·诗集》(English: Chinese New Literature Series · Poetry). Edited by Zhu Ziqing 朱自清 (1898–1948). Zhongguo xinwenxue daxi · shiliao suoyin《中国新文学大系·史料索引》(English: Chinese New Literature Series · Index of Historical Data). Edited by A Ying 阿英 (1900–1977).



Newspapers and Periodicals

Xin qingnian《新青年》(English: New Youth). It was first published on September 15, 1915 and ceased to be published in July 1926. The first volume was named Qingnianzazhi《青年杂志》(English: The Youth Magazine), and the second volume was renamed Xin qingnian《新青年》(English: New Youth). Xiaoshuoyuebao《小说月报》(English: Short Story Monthly). It was first published in August 1910 and ceased to be published in December 1931. Dongfangzazhi《东方杂志》(English: The Eastern Miscellany). It was first published in March 1904 and ceased to be published in December 1948.

Index Aeschylus 277–278 Persians 277 the Persian King Xerxes 278–279, 289 aestheticism 23, 32, 85, 87, 103, 163, 166, 178, 184–185 Ai Qing 4, 173 Ai Wu 72 ancient Greek 43, 143, 150–151, 276–278, 289, 303, 306 Andreyev, Leonid 32, 85, 103, 198 anti-capitalist 29, 31, 117 anti-rational 16, 29, 38 antisocial 24, 28–29, 117, 281 anti-traditional 11, 16, 22, 28–29, 38, 166, 171, 173, 176, 180, 283, 315 art for art’s sake 163, 178, 184–185 Artsybashev, Mikhail 103 avant-garde 162, 178, 185 avant-garde literature x, 23–24, 161–163, 166–167, 174, 178, 180, 184, 190–191, 193–194, 326, 333 Dadaism 23, 163, 166, 173 expressionism 23, 32, 102, 163, 166, 169, 171–173 futurism 23, 32, 163, 166, 168–170, 173 Apollinaire, Guillaume 169 Marinetti, Filippo 166–169 Mayakovsky, Vladimir 167–169 surrealism 23, 163, 166, 173 Aragon, Louis 188 Breton, André 166 Éluard, Paul 188 the avant-garde spirit x, 161–162, 176–177, 184–186, 196 Ba Jin 4, 62–63, 69, 72, 101–102, 146, 294, 344 Caprice Recorded 63 Fire 69 Perish 69 The Family 146 The “Torrents” Trilogy 147 Babbitt, Irving 11, 367 Bacon, Francis 164 Bai Xianyong 5

Bakhtin, Mikhail xiii, 324–325, 334–335, 339–340 Rabelais and His World 324–325, 334–335 Balzac, Honoré de 32, 87, 100, 164 La Comédie Humaine 87 Bao Tianxiao 74 Barrett, William 319, 322 Baudelaire, Charles 23, 32, 85, 162, 184, 198 Bei Dao 6 Bergson, Henri 26, 29, 49, 171 Bian Zhilin 247 Boccaccio, Giovanni 54 Decameron 97 Brecht, Bertolt 17 Brunel, Pierre et al 367 Qu’est-ce que la littérature comparée 367 Bürger, Peter 163, 175, 178 Theorie der Avantgarde (English: Theory of the Avant-Garde) 163 Byron, George Gordon 68, 74, 82, 280, 284 The Isles of Greece 75 C. T. Hsia 12, 344 A History of Modern Chinese Fiction 12, 344 Cai Dongfan 193 Cai Yuanpei 3, 224–226, 237 Calinescu, Matei 23, 161n7 Five Faces of Modernity. Modernism, Avant-Garde, Decadence, Kitsch, Postmodernism 23n4, 161n7 Camus, Albert 35 The Outsider 35 Can Xue 6, 109 Cao Yu 4, 8n3, 143, 150, 152, 173, 344 The Wilderness 173 Thunderstorm 8n3, 143, 150–151 Chateaubriand, François-René 19, 70 Chekhov, Anton 38, 84–85 Chen Duxiu 3, 27, 83–84, 161, 164, 178–179, 184, 192, 195 Call to Youth 27n7, 178 Defense for New Youth Criminal Case 179

Index Chen Duxiu (cont.) On Literary Revolution 164 On the History of Modern European Literature and Art 83–84 Chen Yingzhen 5 Chen Yinke 355, 358 Cheng Fangwu 87 Literalism and Vulgarism 87 Cheng Xiaoqing 193 Chenzhong Society 34, 192 Christian 43, 47–48, 51, 54, 59, 177, 274, 294, 311 comparative literature 130, 135, 151, 261, 272, 343–344, 346, 348–350, 352–353, 357–362, 366–367, 369, 371, 373 empirical approach 138–139, 142–145, 147–149, 151 foreign influences 140, 143, 145, 147, 149–150, 157 global elements x, xii, ix, 129, 137, 151–153, 155–156, 163, 190, 197, 260, 275, 296, 323, 348 imitation 269 impact study 130–131, 135–136, 138–140, 142, 151–155, 260, 272, 345–346, 348, 367 influence 268–269 influence – acceptance 138, 150, 154, 156 more academic-oriented education 353, 356–358, 360, 362 parallel study 153, 155–156 reception study 154–155, 345–346, 348 the relationship between Chinese and foreign literature 14, 130–131, 135, 137–138, 142, 152, 154–156, 359 synchronization and asynchronization 14, 22, 28 Comparative Literature in China (journal) 129 confession 45–48, 65–66, 294–295 consciousness of confession 45–48, 50–51, 53–55, 57–59, 63, 66 Courbet, Gustave 100 D’Annunzio, Gabriele 168 daemonic 274n1 daemonic elements 75, 275, 282, 284–287, 289–292, 294–298, 302–304, 312–315, 317, 319–323

383 daimon 276–278 the daemonic 164, 274–276, 278, 280–282, 284, 289, 293–295, 298, 301, 303, 305–306, 311, 313, 319, 322–323 Dai Wangshu 173, 185, 195 Dante Alighieri 54, 76 The Divine Comedy 76, 97 Darwin, Charles 29, 164, 176 Daudet, Alphonse 38, 84, 100 David Der-wei Wang 159, 188–190, 193 Fin-de-siècle Splendor: Repressed Modernities of Late Qing Fiction 1849–1911 159 repressed modernities 159, 188–189, 192–193 Debate on Local Literature 6 decadence 36, 166, 184 Deng Tuo 108 Dickens, Charles 83, 164 Ding Ling 4 Dostoevsky, Fyodor 32, 48, 103, 180, 186, 274, 282 Karamazov character 48 The Brothers Karamazov 285, 292 The Grand Inquisitor 292 The Demons 274 Du Fu 72, 224, 227–229, 234 Du Pengcheng 60 In the Days of Peace 60 Einstein, Albert 26, 36, 48 Eliot, T. S. 17, 24, 26, 38, 43, 49, 201n18 The Waste Land 201n18 Tradition and the Individual Talent 17n10 Engels, Friedrich 14, 87, 230 A Letter to M. Harkelas 87 A Letter to P. Ernst 87 enlightenment 36, 38 enlightenment intellectual 50, 222, 225–226 Étiemble, René 362–368, 370, 373 Comparaison n’est pas raison: La crise de la littérature comparée 362–366, 368 comparative literature is humanism 363–366, 370 Europeanized 180–182, 188, 192 existentialism 25, 35, 369

384 Fadeyev, Alexander 57 The Rout 57 Fan Boqun 160n6, 188 Faulkner, William 43, 102 Fei Ming 19, 67–68, 70, 73, 226 Feng Xuefeng 4, 89, 91, 115 Feng Zhi xi, 195, 197–199, 201–204, 206–211, 213–230, 232, 234–258 Du Fu 227 Goethe’s Old Age 232 Songs of Yesterday xi, 198, 207 The Collection of Sonnets xi, 199, 203–204, 206–211, 213–259 Flaubert, Gustave 32, 100 folk culture 7, 41, 272, 326–327, 333, 335 the folk culture of humor 324 folk narrative 311, 327, 333–334, 338, 340 explicit text structure 327 hidden text structure 327–329, 332–333, 338 vulgar rhetoric 333, 335–338, 340–341 Freud, Sigmund 25, 48, 171, 277, 282, 287, 301 libido 301 Gao Xiaosheng 5, 63, 65, 341 Prison of the Heart 63, 65 Gautier, Théophile 23 Goethe, Wolfgang von 14, 73–74, 77, 82, 85, 164, 196, 224, 230–234, 251, 284 Dichtung und Wahrheit 232 entsagen (English: renounce) 231–232 Faust 231, 280, 285, 305–306, 323 Mephistopheles 284, 305–306 metamorphosis 230, 233 Selige Sehnsucht 233 Gogol, Nikolai 103, 270 Diary of a Madman 270 Save the children 270 Golding, William 49, 51 Lord of the Flies 49, 51–52 Gu Cheng 117 Guo Moruo 3, 39, 44, 54, 74–75, 77, 85, 169, 172, 184, 192, 195, 344 Bottle 97 Futuristic Poetry and Its Criticism 169 Nature and Art: My Empathy with the Expressionists 172 Starry Sky 97

Index The Goddess 34, 39, 55, 74, 76–77, 80, 97, 133, 182–183, 196 Guo Xiaochuan 4 Han Shaogong xi, 6, 260–263, 266–273 A Dictionary of Maqiao xi, 150, 260–261, 266–273 Hauptmann, Gerhart 32, 164 He Qifang 13 Hegel, Georg Wilhelm 29, 164 Hemingway, Ernest 20 The Old Man and the Sea 20 Hong Shen 173, 271 The King of Hell Zhao 173, 271 Hou Yi 80 Howe, Irving 25 Huang Chunming 5 Huang Fan 6 Huang Zunxian 180, 188 Huanzhu Louzhu 193 Hu Feng 4–5, 63, 92, 99, 343 self-expansion 92 self-struggle 92 Hu Shi 3, 11, 30–31, 38, 76, 84, 86, 114, 134, 147, 161, 167, 180, 183, 195, 347 Changshi (English: Trial) Anthology 183 Eight Don’ts Doctrine 31, 147, 195, 347 The History of Vernacular Literature 180 Hu Yuzhi 85 Literalism in Modern Literature 85 Hugo, Victor 75, 78, 82, 97, 164 Les Misérables 75 humanism 27, 29, 35, 38, 51–52, 56, 58, 61, 97, 176, 296, 363–371 humanitarianism 36, 55, 78, 176–177, 186 humanity 48, 50, 61, 63–64, 283–284, 307, 312, 314, 365, 368 Humboldt, Wilhelm von 353, 356 Huxley, Thomas Henry 114 Evolution and Ethics 114 Hyeongjun Jeon 152 Ibsen, Henrik 32, 38, 75, 85, 171 idealism 74, 77, 80, 314 imagism 23, 32, 37, 148, 169 individualism 35, 53, 55, 67, 69, 71, 77, 91 individuality 29, 49–50, 52, 55–56, 61, 67, 77–78, 80, 97, 106, 317

Index individual liberation 146–147, 307 Ionesco, Eugène 186–187, 191 Discours sur l’avant-garde 187n51, 191n54 James, William 29, 36 Jia Pingwa 19, 43, 329, 335 Mountain Notes 19 Qin Qiang 329, 335 Taochong 19 The First Record of Shangzhou 19 Jia Zhifang xiii, 130 Jiang Guangci 68, 88, 344 revolution plus romance 68 Wind of the Field 88 Ji Xianlin 355, 358 Joyce, James 26, 38, 43, 49, 102, 201n18 Ulysses 201n18 Jung, Carl Gustav 246, 255, 258, 301 Kafka, Franz 24, 26, 102, 201n18 Das Schloß (English: The Castle) 201n18 Kant, Immanuel 29, 164, 222 Kuangbiao Society 34, 192 Kundera, Milan xi, 263, 266, 268–269 The Unbearable Lightness of Being xi Kuprin, Aleksandr 85 Lafargue, Paul 88–89 Lao She 4, 79, 91 Rickshaw Boy 91 le nouveau roman (the French new fiction group) 49 Lenin, Vladimir 88–89 Leo Ou-fan Lee 22, 27, 74, 344 Modernism in Modern Chinese Literature 22 The Romantic Generation of Modern Chinese Writers 75n3, 344 Lermontov, Mikhail 280 Li Hangyu 20, 43 The Last Fisherman 19 Li Jinfa 76, 195 Li Ping 65 When the Sunset Disappears 65 Liang Shiqiu 148 Lin Shu 83, 114, 344 Lin Yaode 6 literalism 84–85

385 literary evolution 33, 74, 84 Literature for Art 86–87 Literature for Life 85–86, 98, 101, 103–104, 176, 185 Liu Bannong 144 Liu Binyan 5, 109 Liu Qing 4 Liu Shahe 5 Liu Suola 119–120, 122–123 Blue Sky, Green Sea 123 Seeking the King of Folk Songs 123 You Have No Choice 119 Lowell, Amy 30n10, 37 Preface to Some Imagist Poets 30n10 six principles of imagism 30n10 Lu Wenfu 5 Lu Xinhua 62 Scar 62 Lu Xun 3, 8n3, 39, 44, 50, 52, 54, 58, 65, 67, 74, 89, 91, 97, 99–100, 103, 107, 111, 115–116, 143, 176, 178–180, 184, 186, 192, 198, 224, 226, 242, 264, 268, 270, 275, 280, 282, 284, 318, 344 A Madman’s Diary 8n3, 34, 39, 50, 52–53, 55, 117, 143, 176, 181, 186, 270, 285 A Small Incident 56 man-eating 50–51, 53, 55, 117, 176–177, 271, 282 On Cultural Bigotry 98, 164 On the Poetic Power of Maras 83, 98, 164, 275, 280, 282 Save the children 51–52, 271 The Soul of Sparta 98 The True Story of Ah Q 34, 39 Wild Grass 34, 102, 122, 182, 226, 282 Lukács, Georg 281 Die Tragödie der modernen Kunst 281n13 Luo Fu 5 Luo Men 5 lyricism 67, 74–76 Ma Junwu 74 Madame de Stael 139–140 Maeterlinck, Maurice 32, 85 mainstream literature 189–191, 193 Mallarmé, Stéphane 184 man who confesses 49, 56, 58, 60–61, 63, 65

386 man’s confession 49, 55–56, 58–59, 66 Mann, Thomas 280 Doktor Faustus 280, 285, 315, 318–319, 321 Adrian Leverkühn 280–281 Mao Zedong 59, 162 Marcuse, Herbert 310 Marx, Karl 14, 48, 313 Marxism 47, 88–90 The Communist Manifesto 14, 364 Maugham, W. Somerset 17 The Razor’s Edge 17 Maupassant, Guy de 38, 84–85 May, Rollo 275, 278, 298 Love and Will 275, 298 May ’68 in France 290–291, 293 Mei Guangdi 11, 30, 147 Mo Yan 6 model opera 9 modern 26 Modern (magazine) 22, 24, 26–28 modern consciousness 15–16, 26, 29, 33–34, 40, 43, 49, 51–52, 54–56, 66, 102–103, 117 modern resistance consciousness 111, 116–117, 120–124, 164 modernism 24–26, 28, 31–33, 35–36, 38, 42, 44, 49, 52, 74, 81–82, 86, 109, 136, 162, 164, 166, 184–185, 280, 314 modernity 23–24, 152–153, 163, 189, 191–192 Montesquieu 364–365 Mu Mutian 87 On Literalistic Literature 87 mysticism 32, 36 naturalism 73, 84–85 new 27 New Youth (magazine) 27, 32, 74, 85, 171, 173, 178, 184, 195 Nietzsche, Friedrich 26, 29, 49, 75, 85, 120, 143, 176, 198, 282, 319, 322 Also Sprach Zarathustra 144, 319 nihilism 120, 144, 179 O’Neill, Eugene 173, 271 The Emperor Jones 173, 271 The Hairy Ape 173 On the broad paths of realism 95

Index pastoral lyric novels 19, 67–68, 70–72, 80 Pavić, Milorad xi, 260–261, 263–266, 269 Dictionary of the Khazars xii, 260–266, 269–270, 273 Peng Dehuai 95 personal lyric novels 67–72, 80 Petőfi, Sándor 74, 280 Ping Lu 6 Plato 276 Apologia 276 The Symposium 276–277 Plekhanov, Georgy 88–89 Poggioli, Renato 163, 165, 177 The Theory of the Avant-Garde 165 Pound, Ezra 17, 37, 167 Proust, Marcel 102, 201n18 Pushkin, Aleksandr 85, 180, 186, 280 Qi Dengsheng 5 Qian Xuantong 184 Qian Zhongshu 4, 193, 344, 355, 358 Qu Qiubai 88, 92, 104 Foreword to A Collection of Short Stories by Famous Russian Writers 104 Qu Yuan 77, 79, 267 Rabelais, François 48, 324, 334 Gargantua and Pantagruel 48, 97, 334 re-blooming flowers 5, 60, 108, 112 realism 24, 38, 42, 68–69, 74, 78, 81–88, 90–96, 100, 102–103, 108–109, 112, 163, 167 critical realism 34, 36, 166, 175 grotesque realism 324–325 intervening life 93, 99 portraying life as it really is 91–92, 100, 102, 110 pseudo-realism 93–96, 98, 108 realist fighting spirit 96–97, 99–100, 102–104, 106–112, 116, 120, 124 Red 1930s 11, 35 Reich, Wilhelm 287–288 The Mass Psychology of Fascism 287n21 Rilke, Rainer Maria 199–203, 205–206, 211, 213–214, 216, 224, 235, 237, 242, 245, 251, 253–254

Index Rilke, Rainer Maria (cont.) Auguste Rodin 202 Briefe an einen jungen Dichter 202, 237 Die Aufzeichnungen des Malte Laurids Brigge 199–200, 202 Die Sonette an Orpheus (English: The Sonnets to Orpheus) 201, 206, 211–214, 235, 253–254 Die Weise von Liebe und Tod des Cornets Christoph Rilke 202 Duineser Elegien 201, 205 romanticism 23–24, 36, 38, 67–69, 71–82, 87–88, 97, 103, 145, 164, 282 daemonic romanticism 166 English romantic literature 73 French romantic literature 73 German romantic literature 73, 198 Rousseau, Jean-Jacques 47, 68, 71, 73–74, 164 Les Confessions 47 Saint Augustine 47 The Confessions 47 Sartre, Jean Paul 49, 369–371 Existentialism is a humanism 369–370 Schopenhauer, Arthur 29, 75, 164 Shakespeare, William 85, 97 Hamlet 328 Shao Quanlin 95 Portraying Middle Characters 95 Shao Yanxiang 5 Shaw, Bernard 22, 85 Shelley, Percy 68, 73–74, 82, 280 Shen Congwen 4, 19, 70, 73, 91, 193 Shen Yanbing 3, 32, 64, 86, 88, 90, 134, 145, 166, 170–171, 184, 186 Disillusionment 170 Midnight 64, 88, 90, 170 The Reasons for the Rise of Various New Schools in Literature 167 Wu Sunfu 64, 90–91 Short Story Monthly (magazine) 145, 166–167, 169, 171, 184 Shu Ting 117 The Voice of a Generation 117 Sienkiewicz, Henryk 85

387 Sologub, Fyodor 85, 103 Song Chunfang 169, 172, 184 German Expressionist Drama 172 Song Zelai 6 stream of consciousness 29, 36, 102, 184 Strindberg, August 32, 85, 171–172 Ghost Sonata 172 Sturm und Drang 97, 230 Su Manshu 74–75, 83, 344 Preface to Anthology of Tidal Sound 83 Su Xuelin 70 On Shen Congwen 70 Sun Li 4, 19, 72, 102, 106 The Chronicle of Baiyangdian Lake 19 The Lotus Lake 19 symbolism 23, 26, 32, 76, 85, 87, 102, 163, 166 Tagore, Rabindranath 85, 196 the Creation Society 31, 34, 74, 76, 80, 86, 88–89, 103, 145, 169, 172, 185–186, 192 the Crescent School 30, 76 the Cultural Revolution 9, 61–63, 66, 99, 117, 121, 283–285, 287–289, 291–298, 302, 305, 307, 317 the dispute of “revolutionary literature” 90 The Eastern Miscellany (magazine) 29, 169 the French School 139–140, 154, 366–367 the holistic view of China’s New Literature  ix the Left-wing Literary Movement 192 the left-wing literature 11, 186 the Literature Research Association 34, 85–87, 98, 101, 103, 134, 145, 186 the Mandarin Duck and Butterfly School 8, 26, 160n6, 175–176, 188 the May 4th New Literature Movement 3, 11, 26, 81, 110, 113, 145, 158, 160, 163–164, 166, 171, 174, 178–180, 183, 185, 188, 190, 192, 325 the Red Guard Movement 113 the Revolutionary Literary Movement 192 the Russian populists 57 the Scar Literature 40, 43, 62, 65, 93, 99, 108 The Sing-Song Girls of Shanghai 180 the South Society 175–176, 188 the Sun Society 76, 88–89

388 the War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression 4, 7, 9, 41, 69, 199, 203, 206, 210, 215, 252 three value orientations 7 Guangchang 6n1, 7, 109, 111 Miaotang 6n1, 6–7, 109, 318 Minjian 6n1, 6–7, 110–111, 272, 297, 300, 303–304, 318 Tian Han 3, 54, 85, 96, 108, 192 Tillich, Paul 291, 294–295 Systematic Theology 294 Tolstoy, Aleksey 57 The Road to Calvary 57 Tolstoy, Leo 32, 48, 57, 75, 85, 101, 180, 186 A Confession 48 aristocrat in confession 48, 57 Trotsky, Leon 89 Turgenev, Ivan 32, 85, 103, 139 Valéry, Paul 102, 201n18 Charmes 201n18 van Gogh, Vincent 224, 235–237 Van Tieghem, Paul 139–140, 366 La littérature comparée 139 Verlaine, Paul 184 vernacular 30, 38, 50, 76, 148, 180, 182–183, 188, 191–192, 195 Voynich, Ethel L. 65 The Gadfly 65 Wang Anyi 6, 117 The Terminal of This Train 117 Wang Guowei 114, 164 Wang Meng 5, 43, 63, 123 Butterfly 63 Cloth Gift 63 The Motley Colors 43 Wang Wenxing 5 Wang Youhua 6 Wang Zengqi 72–73 Wang Zhaojun 64 A Funeral before Dawn 64 Wang Zhenhe 5 Wellek, René 367 Comparative Literature Today 367 The Crisis of Comparative Literature 367 Wen Yiduo 76, 101, 195–196, 209 Dead Water 196 Whitman, Walt 85, 196

Index Wilde, Oscar 32, 85, 164, 184, 198 Woolf, Virginia 201n18 Jacob’s Room 201n18 Wordsworth, William 68, 71 world literature 10–16, 136–138, 345, 348 Wu Han 108 Wu Mingshi 19, 69, 72 Golden Serpent Night 70 Romance in the Northern Country 19, 69 Wild as the Waves 70 Wu Mingshi Series 70 Wu Yu 55 Man-Eating and the Feudal Ethical Code 55 Wu Zhihui 179 Xia Yan 4 Xie Liuyi 85 Naturalistic Novels 85 Xu Xing 121 Variations Without A Theme 121–122 Xu Zhimo 3, 76, 195 Baby 76 Poison 76 White Flag 76 Yan Fu 114 Yan Lianke xii, 275, 282, 284, 287, 289, 293, 297–298, 302, 304 Hard Like Water xii, 275, 282–293, 298, 302–303 Lenin’s Kisses (Shouhuo) xii The Four Books (Sishu) xii Yan Shaodang 138, 349n10 Yang Lian 117 Yang Mo 60 The Song of Youth 60 Yeats, William Butler 17 Yu Dafu 3, 34, 39, 53–55, 58, 65, 67–68, 70, 72–74, 85, 169, 192, 344 A Thin Sacrifice 56 Fallen 54, 74, 80 Nights of Spring Fever 56 Stray Sheep 54 Yu Guangzhong 5 Yu Hua xii, 324, 326–327, 333, 341 Brothers xii, 324–333, 336–341 To Live xii

Index Zeng Pu 74 Zha Mingjian 153 Zhang Ailing 193, 344 Zhang Chengzhi 6, 43, 109–110, 119–120 Golden Pastures 81n7 River in the North 119 Zhang Dachun 6 Zhang Henshui 193 Zhang Longxi 350–351 Zhang Wei xii, 6, 110, 296–301, 303–304, 308–309, 313, 320–323 Baihui 299–300 Book of Foreign Province xii, 297–300, 303, 307–313, 320–323 Family 299, 303 Recall Mallow xii, 297–299, 303, 310, 313–323 September’s Fable xii, 297, 300, 303–304 Seven Kinds of Mushrooms xii, 298, 303–307, 320 The Ancient Ship xii, 297, 299–301, 303, 309, 322 Zhang Xianliang 5, 58, 61 Love in the Dungeon 61 Mimosa 61

389 Zhang Xinxin 43, 109, 117–120, 122–123 Dreams of Our Age 117, 123 On the Same Horizon 118, 123 Peking Men 123 Zhang Zhejun 141, 151 Zhang Ziping 145 Zhao Shuli 4, 95–96, 108 Go Exercise 95 Zhong A-cheng 43 Zhou Libo 4, 267 Zhou Tianlai 193 Zhou Yang 4, 92 Zhou Zuoren 3, 32, 34, 67, 85, 103, 107, 176, 226, 333 The Creek 34 Zhu Guangqian 29 Zhu Ziqing 148, 160n6, 189, 204 Zola, Émile 32, 75, 83, 85, 87–88, 100, 164 Zucker, Wolfgang M. 275, 278 The Demonic: From Aeschylus to Tillich 275