Zhou Mingquan (hereinafter referred to as Zhou):
Hello Teacher Chen, I recently made a simple combing of the history of modern Chinese literary criticism over the past hundred years and found a very interesting problem. The overall rise of the fifth generation of critics who grew up after the Cultural Revolution is very similar to the overall rise of the post-75s and post-80s critics who debuted after 2012. For example, in May 1986, the "Young Literary and Art Critics Conference" held in Hainan was attended by almost all young critics from all over the country. I looked at the list of participants, and in addition to you in Shanghai, there were Xu Zidong, Wu Liang, Cai Xiang, Wang Xiaoming, Mao Shi'an, and so on; in Guangdong there were Guo Xiaodong, Chen Jianhui, Yin Guoming, Zhang Aollie, and Chen Zhihong; in Beijing there were Zhang Ling and Li Jiefei; in Fujian there was Nanfan; in Hunan there was Chen Dazhuan; there was Liu Qi in Liaoning; there was Zhou Zhengbao in Xinjiang; there was Lu Wenhu in the army; and in Gansu there were Guan Weizhong, Qu Xuan, and so on; these were all young critics who were very active at that time. After the meeting, Lijiang Publishing House published the book "My View of Criticism", which included the critical views of 23 young critics, as well as the articles of five predecessors such as Chen Juntao and Zhou Jieren on young critics. The 3rd issue of Contemporary Literary and Art Thought in 1986 also launched the "Fifth Generation Critics Special Number", which was a very avant-garde move at that time. A generation of young critics has thus been thrust into the literary world.
At that time, many predecessors gave high praise to the fifth generation of critics. Zhou Jieren used four new ones in "New Tides : A First Sketch of New Critic Groups" - "new groups, new situations, new rhythms, new dimensions", and Xie Changyu said in "The Fifth Generation of Critics" that the fifth generation of critics had "a grand historical vision; a tenacious spirit of exploration; modern rational consciousness; and a profound sense of freedom". Chen Juntao in "Soar! In the "Fifth Generation of Critics", it is also commented that the fifth generation of critics are "sharp in thought, good at and good at discovering problems and thinking about problems" and "have a strong sense of subjectivity", in addition, Wang Meng also commented on the fifth generation of critics in "Reading And Commenting Articles", and gave high praise.
After 2012, the debut of the post-75s and post-80s critics is also in the way of the overall rise, especially the post-80s critics, in 2012, Yang Qingxiang, Jin Li, Huang Ping, three post-80s critics opened a column of "Three People Talk" in the "Southern Literary Circle", starting from the self-experience of choosing literature as a "career", tracing the development of literature and aesthetic transmutation in different historical periods, and refuting the entanglement and struggle of literature in various contexts. On May 13, 2013, the Creative Research Department of the China Writers Association, the Theoretical Criticism Committee and the China Museum of Modern Literature jointly held the "Youth Creation Series Seminar • Seminar for Post-80s Critics", which was the first high-level seminar for post-80s critics.
Zhang Yuanke summed up the two opportunities for post-80s critics to appear as a group, and he proposed the "North Pavilion South Society". "Beiguan" refers to the visiting researcher mechanism of the Museum of Modern Chinese Literature since 2012, from 2012 to the present, Yang Qingxiang, Jin Li, Huang Ping, He Tongbin, Liu Tao, Wang Qingfei, Cong Zhichen, Li Zhen, Xiang Jing, Fu Yichen, Xu Gang, Fang Yan, Yang Xiaofan, Ai Xiang and dozens of other post-80s critics have been included in the training system of visiting researchers; "Nanshe" refers to the "Post-80s Critics Wencong" that you led me to edit, which is the first centralized and large-scale promotion of post-80s critics in China.
In both incidents, you were direct participants, the collective debut of your generation was caused by special reasons after the "Cultural Revolution", and the debut of the post-80s critics also had some kind of historical coincidence. How do you see these two generations making their debut in a collective way? What is the historical coincidence between them?
Chen Sihe (hereinafter referred to as Chen):
I don't see much similarity between the rise of groups of two generations of critics because of the different contexts of the times. Put it this way, the overall rise of our generation of critics, you set it as 1986, the landmark event is the Hainan Conference, but before, the Hangzhou Conference in 1984, the Wanshou Temple Conference in 1985, the Xiamen Conference in 1986, etc., there have been many young scholars and young critics involved, if there is a sense of community, the Hainan Conference has already appeared. Therefore, when the Hainan conference was directly titled "Young Critics", it was a natural success. The second reason is that in 1985, the Institute of Literature of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences promoted the general trend of literary and art criticism methodology, so when you talk about the characteristics of what is new and what is new that some people have summarized at that time, they are all aimed at the phenomenon of what is old and what is old at that time. This is a historical phenomenon that advances with the times, a bit like the "May Fourth" period, a new trend of thought changed the mode of people's thinking, and a new critical discourse appeared. After the fifth generation, there is also a group of sixth generation critics, that is, Gao Yuanbao's generation, they are all born in colleges and grew up with the fifth generation, but they all have a relatively solid intellectual background. You see the first series of the "Fire Phoenix New Criticism Literature Series" edited by me, Gao Yuanbao, Zhang Xinxin, and Hu Heqing, three young critics, with very different disciplinary backgrounds, all of whom melted the knowledge of the disciplinary background into literary and art criticism. This is very different from the sociological criticism tradition of our generation, which has more or less inherited the older generation. The sixth generation has not gone through the event of a group rise, but it is also growing through our series of books, special publications, and professional titles in colleges and universities. In addition to the "Fire Phoenix" and "Approaching the End of the Century" edited by me, I remember that Shandong Literature and Art Publishing House launched a very good series of books, and the author team was mainly the critics of the sixth generation. The special issue relies on several literary criticism publications to promote, such as the "Contemporary Writers Review", "Southern Literary Circle", "Literary and Art Controversy", etc., all of which have played a great role. We carefully analyze the rise of these two generations of criticism groups, the fifth generation was under the guidance of the innovative theory of the Institute of Literature of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, and the joint efforts of various literary and art journals formed a general trend, and the sixth generation was gradually formed under the impetus of several non-governmental publications and series of books. You can see this cultural trend now: in the evolution of the three-dimensional value of "temple-square-folk", the position of group criticism is slowly moving, from front to back. However, after the 1990s, because of the more powerful impact of the market economy tide, the criticism team was further divided, and finally a dual interaction between media criticism and college criticism was formed. The development of the national economy in the new century, the perfection of the academy system, and the infiltration of capital forces into cultural construction have gradually diluted the rational force of college criticism, and media criticism has catered to external elements such as the power market, forming a chaotic situation of shouting and scolding. The new generation (i.e., the seventh generation) of young critics rose up in groups in such an environment, which is very different from the ecology of the previous two generations. You just talked about the "North Pavilion South Society", which may be a few points of strength for the formation of a new generation of criticism teams, but it is necessary to discuss from the background of a broader academic heritage, from the change of value orientation to find out the situation of this generation of critics wandering between academia and criticism, the interference of the college system with their critical cause, and the role that can be played between media criticism and college criticism, etc., are all spaces where you can do further research.
【Fire Phoenix New Criticism Series】
"Remembrance of the Spiritual Land" | Hu heqing | Xuelin Publishing House| 1994
"Habitat and Nomadic Land" | Zhang Xinxin | Xuelin Publishing House| 1994
"Saving the Earth", Gao Yuanbao| Xuelin Publishing House| 1994
week:
Okay, thank you Teacher Chen. I am currently doing interviews with the seventh generation of critics, and I am preparing to open a one-year column in "Appreciation of Masterpieces" to focus on interviewing twelve young critics, which is from these points you talked about.
Critics made their debut in a collective way, and later several older critics criticized the post-80s critics for hugging and warming up, replacing discussion literature. Later, I saw a piece by Li Jie called "Writing Before the Imminent Divergence: A Prospect for the "Young Critics Team"", which was also a criticism of the young critics team at that time. Although Li Jie's criticism is deliberately angry, now it seems that his criticism is not unreasonable. For example, the entire criticism he mentioned is facing the crisis of moving from youthfulness to celebrity, the aristocratization of young critics, etc., which is not only a problem of the fifth generation of critics, but also the criticism of each generation may face such a division. In your opinion, in addition to the normal way of debuting a literary critic, in addition to a lot of study and study, sufficient theory and reading preparation, what kind of way is the most normal way for a critic to debut? Is there really a problem with group heating?
old:
Literary criticism is not the same as academic research in universities. Literary criticism and literary creation have similar characteristics in the ecology of writing. For example, critics should always be on the front line of the literary world, follow the development trend of contemporary literary creation, and constantly observe, study, and react. A few years ago, the critic Radar died, and his students compiled a book for him, called "Radar Viewing Tide", I like this title very much, although "Radar" refers to specific people, but "Radar Observation Tide" describes the mission and characteristics of criticism. The critic wants to have an attitude, a position, and an opinion on the current life, and he needs to pour his views on life and literature into the study of literature and express it with the help of analyzing literary works.
However, academic research is different, and it is more about inheritance. Even in the discipline of modern and contemporary Chinese literature, the main focus of researchers is the study of the laws of literary history and the phenomena of literary history. In the past, Mr. Tang Tao's suggestion that "contemporary literature is not suitable for writing history" was opposed by many researchers, and I did not agree with Mr. Tang Tao's statement at that time. Now, after decades of research and practice, I kind of understand what he means. Contemporary literary creation is too close to the life of the times and has not yet been screened by time, so it is difficult to grasp its true value. However, this screening work, that is, the work of classicizing contemporary literature in the process of the great waves, should be undertaken by literary criticism. Because literary criticism is a struggle caught in the quagmire of the times, it and contemporary literary creation hand in hand to record and preserve the true information of this era, so its significance is great, is the premise and cornerstone of the construction of contemporary literary history, our contemporary literary criticism today, that is, an important reference for future literary history researchers, and even, because of the social strength and insight of literary criticism, it may itself become the object of attention of future literary history researchers. So, the relationship between literary criticism and future counterparts, it is an originality, not a legacy.
Given these characteristics of literary criticism, I think it is normal for critics to speak out collectively. I don't quite understand what kind of state you mean by "hugging and warming", but in the 1980s we often used another word: circle criticism. The meaning is about the same. Literary criticism sometimes requires collective action, such as seminars, a group of people, a group of people publishing a group of articles in a journal commenting on the same work, and playing the role of a "cluster grenade". This is not to avoid the need for literary critics to have personal opinions and personal choices, nor to deny the need for normal and healthy debates and differences between critics, nor to oppose the need for literary criticism to be pluralistic and from different theoretical schools of criticism, but to maintain the normal working form of critics who consult with each other and speak together. My ideal state of literary criticism is like the criticism of Belinsky, Chernyshevsky and Dubrovryupov, as well as Nekrasov and others around the magazine Modern Man. I used to say that critics should be "peer critics", which also meant the importance of communication between critics and writers. "Hugging and warming" only refers to a certain state, or a certain ecology of literary criticism, and the really good critics still have to rely on their own works and their own independent opinions to prove it.
Critics' criticism mainly sees the "hugging" of young critics, and does not pay attention to the individual education of critics.
From several academic conferences and series of books that were mainly young critics, including the "fifth generation of critics album" just mentioned, I saw many critics who were very active at that time, and then gradually disappeared into the literary world or switched to other research. In fact, every generation of critics is like this. Is this related to the loss of the humanistic spirit of the 1990s? Or are there other political and social factors? What do you think of the problem of a critic retiring after becoming famous?
This should be a normal phenomenon. Literary critics, like writers, are not a socially institutionalized profession, but an identity of spiritual expressors. He is a critic when he engages in this way of expression, and if he does not choose this way of expression, but chooses another way, he may no longer be a critic. When the social impact of literary criticism is particularly large, the number of people participating in the ranks of critics will be very large, and once the social impact of literary criticism is small, many people will quit and change their careers to do other things, which is very normal. In the 1950s and 1960s, there was a very famous critic in Hong Kong named Lee Ying-ho. I went to Hong Kong in 1988, the research topic is the influence of Western literary thought in Hong Kong, for this reason I interviewed some local scholars and writers, almost all of whom will mention this name affectionately, Li Yinghao introduced Western literary and artistic ideas, criticized literary works, and almost enlightened a generation of Young People in Hong Kong. But I didn't have a chance to visit him in Hong Kong, because at that time Lee Ying-ho had withdrawn from the stage of literary criticism. It is said that he died of kidney disease in his wife, and he was in pain, and he wrote letters to his dead wife every day to tell his inner feelings, and insisted on it for several years, and those letters to Yu Yu (his wife's name) were serialized in newspapers, causing a sensation and becoming bestsellers. Later, he wrote some lifestyle books, which were also popular. I saw many of his books in Hong Kong bookstores. But he was no longer a literary critic. This does not mean that he was not successful, he was still a successful essayist, or an expert in some other field. Let me give you an example. My teacher, Mr. Pan Xulan, is a well-known literary critic who has published a high-standard "Selected Literary Criticisms of Pan Xulan". However, after the 1990s, he gradually stopped writing about contemporary literary criticism, and his personal interests shifted to prose writing and academic essays. Once I asked him, why not do contemporary literary criticism? He replied to me solemnly: "I am not in good health and cannot move." What does this mean? Mr. Pan believes that it is too hard to engage in contemporary literary criticism, and it is necessary to read literary works for a long time, track the creation of writers, and grasp the trend of the literary world in a timely manner. He gave me an example of a so-and-so critic who follows up on more than sixty novels a year. He said that he himself was too old to devote himself to the field of contemporary literature and to follow the creation of writers. So he said, "I can't keep up." When he said this to me that day, he said it several times in a row, very helpless. However, Mr. Pan later became an outstanding scholar of literature and history, and his "Miscellaneous Sayings of Taiping" is a masterpiece that cannot be bypassed in the field of Taiping Heavenly Kingdom studies.
I give both examples to illustrate that literary criticism is a way of expression, and we can choose this way or we can give up and choose another way of expression. Everyone will have a specific reason. Of course, once these individual phenomena become common phenomena, there are still social reasons or other reasons behind them.
Radar | "Radar Tide"
People's Literature Publishing House | 2018
Pan Xulan | Selected Literary Criticisms of Pan Xulan
Hunan People's Publishing House| 1984
A large part of the "criticism weapons" used by critics now are introduced by translators of your generation and used in the practice of literary criticism. When I look at your "private reading history", it is mainly Western literary and artistic theories that have a great influence on you personally.
In the "Footstep Collection", you also said that during that time in 1983, you were "eager to read Western theoretical works and Western modernist works, deeply fascinated by Sartre's existentialism", and at the same time, you went to the Luwan District Library to give lectures on Western literary masterpieces, introduced Western modernist works, and opened a column in Hainan Daily" and so on. Later, you also assisted Mr. Jia Zhifang in editing the compilation of materials on the influence of foreign thought and trend theory in the history of modern Chinese literature. Why are you so interested in Western literary theory? Are your generation of critics keen to read and use Western literary theories? I remember talking to Kang Ling a few years ago, and he had a saying that in the study of Chinese literature in the 20th century, "turning your eyes to Western works" probably didn't need a reason, and if someone didn't read Western works at all, they needed to ask the reason. How do you see the influence of Western literary theory on contemporary Chinese literary criticism?
Yes, when I was studying, the door of the country had just opened, and Western theories (not only literary and art theories) poured into China along with various ideological trends, translating Western theories, introducing Western theories with half-understanding, and even hoping that literary and artistic chaos would be brought into play. Because the special period of ten years of history has been closed for too long, people's ideological power has almost been lost. It's like a person who is smothered in a tin jar and is about to suffocate, suddenly breathing fresh air, and whether there are harmful gases in this air or not, out of instinct, he has to take a sharp breath. Of course, there are also out of curiosity, there are also out of rebellion, the Use of Western theory as a resource for our thinking, is the characteristic of that era. That era was a relatively serious era, international exchanges had just started, there were many restrictions, Western material civilization had not yet covered the Chinese market on a large scale, and Western political systems and ideologies had not yet had an impact on China, so only literary and artistic theories, philosophical ideas, humanistic scholarship and so on had begun to be introduced. Although these ideological theories have also caused a lot of controversy and even harmful criticism in the process of introduction, in general, they are in line with the social tide of reform and opening up, and they are vast and unstoppable. Without looking at the world and absorbing a large number of Western theories, the dominant ideology of our entire nation cannot truly achieve liberation, and then society will not be able to make great strides forward. This state of affairs is very similar to the emancipation movement during the May Fourth period. The new ideas of democracy and science advocated by the "May Fourth" new cultural movement developed and popularized in the course of fierce conflicts and struggles with feudal traditional cultural ideas, unlike the new and old ideas that some media now understand as the original hello and self-righteousness of the old and new ideas, but only provoked by a few villains to cause disputes; similarly, the transformation of reform and opening up in the 1980s was a great ideological revolution, and the new ideas were carried forward and developed in the fierce conflict with the ultra-"Left" ideological trend and conservative concepts. It is also the sacrifices made by many pioneers in the ideological and cultural circles that China can get rid of the huge shadow of history and be pushed onto the correct path of strengthening the country and enriching the people. Without this premise, it would be difficult to deeply grasp the ideological and cultural situation of the 80s.
As for Western literary and artistic theory, more broadly speaking, the theory of western modern social thought is certainly not a panacea, nor is it a universal truth. Any theory needs to be tested in practice, but if you don't have the first step, if you don't have it, if you don't introduce it, if you don't absorb it, if you don't have it, then how can there be practice? At the beginning of the "May Fourth" period, some advanced intellectuals in China chose the path of the October Revolution in Soviet Russia and introduced the Communist International to lead the Chinese revolution, but the results proved to be failures in practice. The failure of the Great Revolution, the failure of the "Left" opportunist line of the 1930s, and the erroneous military decisions made in the early days of the Long March almost buried the revolutionary cause of the Communist Party proved that the theory of the practice of the Comintern was wrong, because it could not deal with the extremely cruel and inhuman Chinese ruling class. But if we reject the guidance of the Communist International from the outset and shut ourselves in an iron room and talk to ourselves, will the Chinese revolution be victorious in the end? Therefore, from the perspective of historical development, failure is the mother of success, and failure is also a link in the inevitability of the Chinese revolution. This is in line with Marxist dialectics. Only when there are failures in practice can there be the understanding that "practice is the only criterion for testing truth," and only then can Marxism be integrated with China's national conditions. We cannot do things after Zhuge Liang, and still less can we doubt the necessity and inevitability of looking at the world and introducing advanced Western ideas and theories because there are partial failures in the process of practice. China's strength is gained in international competition, not closed in an iron room and self-imposed, if it cannot truly know oneself and know the other, how can there be a hundred battles and victories? This is what the ancestors said.
Next, I can talk about my own thought growth path. Before I went to college, I worked on a street and worked as a librarian in a street library. But my main job was not in the library, where I was responsible for only one book review for middle school students, and most of it was done in my spare time (Sundays). In the street organs, my main job is to participate in the theoretical team of the political propaganda group and to publicize the situation and the party's policies to the residents. Another identity is the deputy secretary of the Youth League Committee. I don't need to sit in shifts for either job, I am free to move, I spend a lot of time reading and writing at home, and I am also involved in the book review team at the Luwan District Library. The nature of this book review group is similar to that of the street theory team, and its main task is to organize the literary and artistic youth in the factory to learn to write book reviews, and also compile a regular mimeographed book review journal. This is my original job, and from these quasi-professional jobs, you can imagine that I grew up learning under the mainstream discourse system at that time, but I never reached the point of maturity, because individuals could not really mature under the wrong mainstream discourse system. However, the study during this period had an impact on the development of my thinking. I carefully studied several Marxist-Leninist classics advocated by the state at that time, as well as important works on the history of Western philosophy (including Hegel's "Little Logic" and Zhang Shiying's annotations and introductions), and I also taught a series of courses on Western philosophy and dialectics in the street youth league committee. At that time, I was in my early twenties, studying and selling, and I spoke Shanghainese. Since 1974, my theoretical studies have followed the national political movement, using the library's collection to turn public into private and read all kinds of books. I read about the Hundred Sons and Hundreds of Families in the "BatchIng Lin And Approving Kong" movement, and Chinese history in the "Criticism of Confucianism" movement (the historical works of Fan Wenlan and Zhai Bozan, Guo Moruo's "Bronze Age", "Ten Criticism Books", "Li Bai and Du Fu", etc., and also systematically read the writings of the Tang Dynasty poet Liu Yuxi under the guidance of the older generation of librarians). Later (about 1975 onwards) the state advocated the study of political economy, I carefully studied Professor Chiang Xuemo's works on political economy, listened to his tutorial lectures, and further systematically read a series of works advocated by Mao Zedong on the restriction of bourgeois legal rights, mainly Lenin's theory of the state and his expositions on the practice of socialism in Soviet Russia after the October Revolution, and also read the first volume of Capital under the guidance of experts. I was young, simple-minded, and comprehensible, sitting down with lowly educated street cadres to study, and my advantages soon became apparent. I remember that at that time, there were two evenings a week in the street center group study, both of which were spare time, and I was always talking about learning experience every time I studied. To satisfy this vanity, there was a time when I read and studied almost all night. In this way, I made rapid progress, and although these political movements led people to one mistake after another in the general context, I was unaware that I was just reading the original works of Marxism-Leninism and the classic works in the field of literature and history, which laid the foundation for my future development. At that time, I called myself a Marxist.
In 1977, the state restored the college entrance examination system, and I was the first college student and was successfully admitted to the department of Chinese of Fudan University. With my knowledge reserve at that time, I was competent for any professional study of literature, history and philosophy. But since I entered the Chinese Department, I began to work hard in the direction of literary criticism and literary research. What I mean by this is that because the theoretical foundation was laid well, I was able to engage in literary research and literary criticism later. For example, if I had not studied the history of the international communist movement earlier, I would not have been particularly sensitive to Barkin's belief in anarchism, then my later study of Barkin may not be much different from the understanding of ordinary scholars; but the understanding of anarchism in the history of the international communist movement that I had originally studied was wrong, and I simply regarded anarchism as an enemy of Marxism, and did not see its excellent imagination and more humanity in designing utopian ideals. But if I am missing even the previous stage of learning, I may not have the self-correction of the latter stage. After entering the university until the entire 1980s, I was involved in the upsurge of learning Western theories at that time, and I felt that I still started from the ruins of ideas, because I felt that the theory I had originally studied did not work, and I should look for a more modern ideological theory to adapt to the modern development of Chinese society. My focus is more inclined to modern trends of thought, such as modern philosophy and other doctrines, and the field of literature and art also prefers the works of modernism, I do not reject classical theoretical theories, but I just feel that in the face of various problems in real society, the classical theoretical system cannot be used. My focus is not only on literary theory, I was once interested in the Yugoslav social system, after the drastic changes in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, I was also interested in the high welfare policy of The European Social Democracy, and I have always thought about the institutional practice of these countries in connection with the development of Marxist theory and the practice of the socialist system. Looking back, my basic position has roughly adhered to the following three points: First, I have always maintained interest and confidence in the original works of Marxism, and the Marxist position and viewpoint method is still the starting point for my thinking on issues, but it is not a political dogma; second, I still insist that the development of Marxism is pluralistic, Marxism can combine the actual conditions of different countries and practice its own path, socialist theory and practice should also allow pluralism, the bankruptcy of Stalinism, the collapse of the "Cultural Revolution". None of this means that socialism has failed, and perhaps it is a good omen that "a thousand sails have passed by on the side of the sinking boat, and a thousand wood springs in front of the sick tree." Third, perhaps I have read Capital and read too many Western critical realist literature works, I am very disgusted with the primitive accumulation history of capitalism in the early days, and I am very vigilant about the greed and corrosiveness brought about by capital, which is also the ideological premise for me to later participate in the great discussion of the humanistic spirit and value Mo Yan, Zhang Wei, Jia Pingwa and others in critical realist literature.
As for the absorption and application of Western modern literary and artistic theories and ideological theories, I have introduced some of them intermittently before. You've seen it all. Personally, I prefer Sartre's existentialism and Freud's psychoanalytic theories, but of course there are other theoretical doctrines. However, my absorption of Western theories, like my previous Marxist education, has never worked excerpting chapters and sentences, so my research papers rarely cite scriptures, under the banner of so-and-so doctrine, let alone show off Western theoretical theories. Chinese literature does not need to confirm the universality of Western literary theory, and of course, it does not need to confirm the immortality of local theories. Literature is literature, and you can feel the traces of certain ideological theories in literary works, but literature is not an explanatory word and image illustration of ideological theory after all.
Zhang Shiying | "Hegel's Notes on Small Logic"
Jilin People's Publishing House| 1982
Marx | Capital (Volume I)
Compilation Bureau of the Works of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China
People's Publishing House| 2004
Commenting on 20th-century Western literary criticism, Welleck said, "The 18th and 19th centuries were called the 'Age of Criticism.'" In fact, it was the 20th century that was best qualified for this title." In China, in the 1980s and 1990s, it was what Welleck called the "age of criticism." This era of criticism is mainly an era of construction with Western literary theory as a weapon. However, after entering the new century, "the tower of literary theory constructed in the West in the 20th century was almost destroyed, and the totality of literary theory no longer existed." This situation has caused anxiety and even panic among contemporary Chinese critics. Therefore, the idea of finding resources from local literary theories has a warm echo in the contemporary literary criticism circles" (Meng Fanhua). Some scholars have spoken out, emphasizing the construction of new literary theories based on traditional Chinese literary theory. How do you evaluate ancient literary theory? Is it possible to transform it into a new source of commentary and theoretical weapons in the contemporary era?
I don't think your question is clear. I haven't read Brother Meng's article, and some places still don't understand it. You say, "After entering the new century, the tower of literary theory constructed in the West in the 20th century has almost been destroyed, and the totality of literary theory no longer exists." Does this refer to a global phenomenon in the world or a local phenomenon that has emerged in China? What does "the totality of literary theory" mean? This premise is not clearly stated, and how can we understand that "contemporary Chinese critics feel anxious and even panicked"? Western literary and art theories from Plato and Aristotle to modern theories have been passed down for two thousand years, and the 21st century has only been twenty years. Besides, Chinese contemporary literary criticism is not part of the "totality" of Western literary theory, nor is it a derivative of Western literary theory, and chinese contemporary literary critics, especially our generation, almost no one has studied in the West and become an authentic descendant of a Western master. Today, as we did during the "May Fourth" period, there are Hu Shizhi, a descendant of Dewey, Liang Shiqiu, a descendant of Bai Bide, Zhu Guangqian, a descendant of Croce, and Qu Qiubai, a descendant of Marxist literary and art criticism, nor do we have critics like Liu Xiwei and Hu Feng who stayed in France and Japan. Is it possible that without Western theories, Chinese critics would not be able to speak?
There is another problem that is linked to this. We looked back at the upsurge in the theoretical community in the early 1980s to learn Western literary theory, and that was the truth. But this is premised. Because we are breaking free in a closed state of national doors and just facing the western modern world, we will be overly enthusiastic about learning and absorbing Western modern theories. Today has reached the 21st century and twenty years, after forty years of reform and opening up, China has a full understanding and communication with the Western world, China plays an increasingly important role in the world, so it is difficult for us to clearly distinguish between what is Western theory and what is China's local theory as it was forty years ago. Many ideological theories should be faced by mankind, the global village is actually very small, China is a member of the community of human destiny, theoreticians of various countries use different languages, retain different habits of thinking, and target the problems of different national conditions, but its meaning is aimed at the mutual understanding and integration of all mankind, which is a feature of the community of human destiny. Since it is a community, it is necessary to adhere to the pluralism and cosmopolitanism of culture, not the black-eyed chicken in the Grand View Garden, either you eat me or I eat you. If the space of the Western world is missing from the dimension of our current thinking, the old Zhuang Kong Meng, who is full of brains, can we really create a world-class Chinese culture?
So, Teacher Chen, in your forty years of literary criticism practice, how do you deal with the relationship between literary theory from the West and ancient literary theories in China, and whether both have had an impact on your critical practice at the same time, or do you deliberately choose one aspect of the influence and reject the theoretical legacy of the other? In my eyes, you are a literary theorist with original theories, and in the construction of your own theoretical system of literary history, which ones have been influenced by Western literary theory?
I can answer that question. Let us first put aside the spiritual labor of those experts who specialize in the study of Western literary theory, Western aesthetics, and specializing in the study of Chinese literary theory and the history of ancient criticism, and I am only talking about the relationship between being a contemporary literary critic and a theoretical resource. First of all, I think that the resources of contemporary literary criticism mainly come from the practice of contemporary literary creation, as well as the contemporary social life reflected by literature, that is, the relationship between the so-called "source" and "flow". "Source" is the practice of literary creation and the practice of social life, while literary theory or other ideological resources belong to the "stream" of literary criticism, and can also be understood as the different schools that constitute literary criticism. If the "source" and "stream" of literary criticism are reversed, then contemporary literature will be regarded as a prop to confirm a certain theory in the West, and literary criticism will become a word game, and the original meaning of criticism will be lost. Second, precisely because theoretical resources belong to "streams" rather than "sources", I consciously use theoretical resources as a way of life position, world view, and observation of literature, rather than as a theoretical basis for illustrated works. Those who are familiar with my article must be able to see that when I discuss the forms of folk culture, I propose the theory of the hidden structure of the work, which is obviously derived from the archetypal criticism of the West; my exposition of the aesthetics of folk hiding and dirt, from Bakhtin's theory of folk carnival. Demonic factors, avant-garde factors, confessional consciousness, etc., all come from Western literary theory. But I don't have to go around in a big circle to introduce the evolution of these Western theoretical concepts as I did with my doctoral dissertation. I just go directly into the text through these new concepts, new methods, and new ways, and the only thing that really provides the basis for my analysis is the text itself. The text is both the object of my criticism and the basis of my criticism. The issues I'm discussing are all China's. The same is true of my absorption and application of ancient Chinese cultural traditions. In 1988, when I analyzed "Ancient Ships", I used the ancient dialectical concept of the five elements living in harmony with each other, discussing the cycle of struggle between the Zhao (Fire) and Sui (Shui) families, and in 2019, I once again used the Five Elements Principle to interpret the structure of the character conflict in the script "The First Floor under heaven". But this is only a way of parsing the text of the work, not the theory of the five elements of yin and yang that I am promoting.
The Ten Critical Books | Guo Moruo | Oriental Publishing House| 1996
"Ancient Ships" | Zhang Wei | People's Literature Publishing House| 2004
He Jiping, | of "The First Floor under Heaven", | Beijing October Literature and Art Publishing House| 2004
Thank you Teacher Chen. These personal details are the real reflections that come from real life experience and bring us real inspiration. At present, there is more emphasis on traditional culture, but you always identify with modernity, dialogue, and pluralistic symbiosis, which is actually your inner real cultural self-confidence. Listening to your ideological growth path, I have a special feeling that it is difficult for people to live and think out of the context of their own times, but as long as they face it seriously, they will eventually end up on the same path. This may be the hope of breaking through nothingness. This reminds me of a passage of yours, and one that I personally like very much— "If an intellectual has no passion, no fervent desire, no pain, no unspeakable hidden intentions for contemporary life, then his knowledge, his learning, his talent, will become some sporadic and lifeless fragments." "The meaning and value of each generation's efforts may be reflected in the face of the pain and unspeakable hidden intentions of their generation.
Zhou Mingquan's Hidden Edges | Yunnan People's Publishing House| 2013
Chen Sihe's "The Development of Personality: A Biography of Ba Jin" | Shanghai Literature and Art Publishing House| 1992
Catalogue of | Issue 6, 2021
Everybody read everybody
Li Qingxi | absurdity and discipline— a comparison between the text of the novel "The Visitor" and the movie "Away from the Traces"
Cai Tianxin | prisoner of the years, but he taught free men to learn to praise - in memory of W. H. Auden
Critic Research Chen Sihe
Chen Sihe zhou mingquan | forty years of contemporary literary criticism - dialogue with Chen Sihe
Chen Sihe | prologue to "My Own Bookshelf"
Xie Youshun | become a creator—Chen Sihe as I understand him
"Zhongyuan" review series
Wang Chunlin| Dialect Requisition and the "Ritual Collapse and Happiness" of Rural Morality and Ethics: On Yan Lianke's Novel "Zhongyuan"
Zhao Dikai [Meaning] Mo Ran | The Redemption of Taohuayuan: On the Human Situation of Yan Lianke's "Zhongyuan"
New quick review
Xia Kejun | the Wang family's new writing journey: the reverse wandering of modern Chinese poetry
New Poetry Studies
He Jiayu | "Handmade" of Friendship, Action and Poetry: An Observation of Munch's Mimeographed Poems
Zhang Deming | comprehensive poetry and harmonious aesthetics- Wang Xuexin's poetry theory
Hu Qinghua | Language Experiment, Publicity and Another Kind of Everyday Life: On the Spiritual Dimension and Artistic Differences of the Creation of Mainland "Scholar-Type Poets" in the 21st Century
Trends and phenomena
Shi Long | metaphorical re-description: the textual structure and ironic mechanism of self-media writing
Zhang Yidan | the path to solve the dilemma of "Jiang Lang"--a discussion centered on the construction of the "talent" of the creative subject
Writer's Work Theory
Lu Jianhua | briefly discussed the emergence, development and impact of Wang Zengqi's "position theory."
Zhang Wen | Introduction to Zhang Wei's Poetics- Starting from the Book of Non-Fulfillment
Wang Yimei | the lost era, or the preservation of memory: On "Hello, Anna" and "Open Love Letters"
Bi Wenjun | young people who broke into art - Feng Jicai's "Artists" and youth images
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