Cai Zongqi (Zhang Jingyi)
In the past ten years, Professor Cai Zongqi, a well-known sinologist, has been working closely with scholars at home and abroad to vigorously promote Chinese literature research in Greater China to overseas sinology circles and Western literary research circles, and won the Outstanding Editor-in-Chief Award of the American Association of Editors-in-Chiefs of Academic Journals in 2020. Mr. Cai came from a family of scholars, his father Cai Wenxian was Mr. Liang Shiqiu's senior foot, after graduating from the Department of Foreign Languages of Qingdao University, he worked as a professor in the Department of Spanish Languages of Sun Yat-sen University, and was a translator and shakespeare research expert. Mr. Cai Zongqi went to the United States for further study after obtaining a master's degree in English language and literature from Sun Yat-sen University, studied Classical Chinese Literature with Mr. Gao Yougong at Princeton University, and then taught at American universities for nearly 30 years, actively promoting Chinese literature and culture in the English-speaking world. He collaborated with Professor Yuan Xingpei to publish the How to Read Chinese Literature series at Columbia University Press. In 2013, Prof Choi went to Lingnan University in Hong Kong as a Chair Professor of Chinese, dedicated to connecting scholars at home and abroad to open up sinology research in the Chinese and English academic circles through different publishing platforms. Professor Cai Zongqi has recently published two new works: Grammar and Poetry: An Analysis of the Art of Chinese Poetry (Zhonghua Bookstore, published in October 2021) and Quarrying and Jade Attack: Cai Zongqi's Self-Selected Works (Nanjing University Press). The Shanghai Review of Books invited Dr. Huang Yu of the Global Institute for Advanced Study of Chinese Culture at Lingnan University to interview Professor Cai Zongqi and ask him to talk about the breakthroughs in classical poetry research methods and the challenges and opportunities for promoting Chinese literary culture overseas.
Grammar and Poetry: An Analysis of the Art of Chinese Poetry, by Cai Zongqi, Zhonghua Bookstore, October 2021, 344 pages, 78.00 yuan
Your new book, Grammar and Poetry: An Analysis of the Art of Chinese Poetry, analyzes the art of classical Chinese poetry from the three levels of rhythm, syntax, and structure, can you talk about the difference between your research methods and traditional poetics?
Cai Zongqi: For this question, in the process of writing this book, I actually have a relatively clear and self-conscious self-awareness. First of all, in the context of traditional Chinese scholarship, my academic research work can be said to be a response to the topic raised by Liu Daxun's following words: "If the syllables are high, the spirit must be high, and the syllables must be lower, so the syllables are the signs of the gods." Syllables are very different, so the words and phrases are the moments of syllables. Accumulate words into sentences, accumulate sentences into chapters, accumulate chapters into chapters, read them together, and see the syllables; sing and chant, and the spirit comes out. This passage raises important parts of poetry and the interplay between them. In this system, sound is the most basic, that is, "high syllables will be high." Above this, there are words and passages. From the perspective of reading, the interaction of these factors will produce an aesthetic feeling beyond language, which is what the ancients called divine qi. My research is to use modern analytical methods and analytical language to dissect the concept of divine qi. That is why I have adopted the word "dissection" in the subtitle of this book, and hereby explain that the purpose of this book is to solve the mystery of "divine qi" and analyze its generation principles. In fact, the concept of "grammar" mentioned in my poetry research is actually in a broad sense, referring to two factors, in addition to syntax in the traditional sense, but also includes two factors, prosody and structure, and the core of prosody is the problem of rhythm. The "poetic realm" refers to how the specific language interaction produces an aesthetic realm, which is what Liu Daxun calls "divine qi". From the perspective of structure, we can see that the ancients such as Liu Daxun and others used more intuitive language to explain the internal structure of Chinese poetry, while I tried to use a detailed text analysis method to find the characteristics of the above factors and the interaction between them.
What is the tradition of Western sinologists in the study of Chinese poetry, can you briefly describe it?
Cai Zongqi: In the first chapter of Grammar and Poetry, I start with this small book, or a long essay, published by Ezra Pound and Ernest Fenolloza, discussing the attempts of Western sinologists to analyze Chinese poetry from the perspective of Chinese character characteristics. The influence of the works of Fei and Pang on modern literature in the twentieth century in the West, especially modern poetry, is not insignificant, and it also has a profound impact on the study of sinology. Western scholars' evaluation of this book is mainly divided into two types, some people criticize the fallacy from the perspective of language, calling it "an ideographic myth", and some people think that there is no lack of insight in this book, which can capture the characteristics of Chinese poetic language. We will not dwell on this, but it is worth noting that this small book has spawned a new idea for Western sinologists to study Chinese poetry from the perspective of Chinese writing since the middle of the twentieth century. For example, Chen Shijun and Zhou Cezhong traced the origins of the ancient characters of "poetry", "xing" and "zhi", so as to find textual reference materials for the idea that religious dance is one of the origins of Chinese poetry. The reason why they had such a strong interest in ancient Chinese writing was obviously influenced and inspired by Pound. Of course, the academic origins of Chen and Zhou are not single, as early as the middle of the Qing Dynasty, Shuo Ru Ruan Yuan explored the relationship between "Ode" and dance through the sound training of the "Ode" character, while Chen and Zhou began to find the clues that Chinese poetry originated from primitive religious dances from the source of words, taking a similar path. The most obvious example of the influence of Pound's research method on European and American sinologists is found in the french sinologist Fran ois Cheng's monograph "Research on the Language of Chinese Poetry and Painting". He not only accepted Pound's influence, but also further exploited the creative misreading of Chinese characters and poetry, pointing out in the introduction to the book that the Chinese ideographic system (and the symbolic concepts that underpin it) determined a whole set of ideographic practice activities in China, including poetry, calligraphy, painting, mythology, and music. In order to illustrate the uniqueness of the ideography of Chinese characters, he cites the sentence "Wood End Hibiscus Flower" in Wang Wei's poem "Xinyiwu" as an example, indicating that Wang Wei uses the arrangement of five Chinese characters to express his impression of watching the flowering process of a tree, and then digs deeper into the deeper meaning of the "Hibiscus Flower" triglyped glyph structure to illustrate Wang Wei's attempt to use glyphs to reveal the internal relationship between man and nature.
Cheng's method of interpreting Chinese poetry from the shape of Chinese characters is the same as that of Fei and Pang, but this interpretation is very different from our experience of reading Chinese poetry today, and it is also completely contrary to the intention of the glyph selection embodied in the poetry creation of the ancients, and the ancient critics' discussions on the choice of glyphs. Liu Xun's "Wenxin Carved Dragon" has a chapter on "Practicing Characters", which is the only special text in traditional Chinese poetics to discuss the use of glyphs, but its discussion of glyphs revolves around the visual beauty of Chinese characters and has nothing to do with the lyrical process of sentimental objects.
How did you find a breakthrough between the tension between traditional Chinese poetry research and Western sinology in the Chinese poetry research tradition? Or, how do you position your research methods from a Chinese and foreign academic perspective?
Cai Zongqi: In a global academic context, my book is actually a continuation of the tradition of Western sinologists studying Chinese poetry since the twentieth century. In order to discuss the uniqueness of Chinese poetry from the perspective of world literature research, we must start with its linguistic characteristics. Since the writing research path just mentioned cannot be cracked, the remaining option is sound. The key point of my study in this book is sound, and each chapter uses sound as an entry point to dissect. This research method was influenced and inspired by two previous scholars. The first is the Japanese scholar Tomohisa Matsuura, who proposed in "The Character of Chinese Poetry: Poetry and Language": "The rhythmic structure of Chinese poetry is most closely related to the characteristics of the Middle Chinese; in the same way, the lyrical structure that has an inseparable relationship with the rhythmic structure is probably deeply affected by it." This shows that the lyrical characteristics of Chinese poetry are the rhythm of sound, and this view echoes the view of Liu Daxun that I introduced earlier. On this basis, we can continue to ask: how does the rhythm of Chinese poetry deeply affect the lyrical structure? How did the inseparable relationship between the two come about? However, this crucial issue is not discussed in ancient poetic writings. I think the reason for the disconnect between the study of prosodic structure and lyrical structure is that researchers ignore the link between the two: sentence structure. Each word of Chinese characters is pronounced as monosyllabic, and the vast majority of words are meaningful words or unfree morphemes that can be combined with other words, allowing Chinese poetry to develop a unique rhythm. This rhythm is characterized by the fact that the rhythmic rhythm and the rhythm of meaning are generally combined into one, but there is a separate tension between the two. It can be seen that the rhythm of Chinese poetry is inseparable from the syntactic relationship.
The other is my mentor, Mr. Gao Yougong, who was a pioneer in the use of modern grammar to analyze the relationship between poetry and poetry. One of the key words in the title of my book, Grammar and Poetry, is "grammar." Grammar, here refers specifically to the method of using poetic language, mainly covering the three aspects of rhyme, syntax and structure; poetic realm, refers to the aesthetic experience produced by the interaction and combination of these three, of which the best is considered to be able to present the reality of the subjective and objective worlds, often called "artistic conception" or "realm". Here I would like to explain in particular the concept of "Chinese poetic grammar" adopted in this book. As I wrote in the introduction, "Chinese poetry grammar" consists of three aspects: prosody, syntax, and structure. Of the three, the familiar term "grammar" covers only "syntax." Modern grammar research generally does not involve prosody and structure. This research orientation is entirely influenced by Western grammar. However, in the thousands of years of Chinese poetry tradition, rhyme, syntax, and structure have always been closely linked and inseparable. Since the 1960s, under the initiative of Mr. Wang Li, several scholars have tried to combine traditional word-order syntax with modern analytical syntax. On this path, Mr. Gao Yougong pioneered the research method of using modern grammar to analyze the relationship between poetry and poetry, not only theoretically expounding the desirability of using two sentence patterns of subject-verb and title commentary to analyze the evolution of Chinese poetry, but also successfully drawing on structuralist theory in a number of important papers written by himself and co-authored with Mr. Mei Zulin, revealing the mystery of the construction of Tang poetry from a syntactic perspective.
How do you integrate and expand these two specific approaches of thinking from different research backgrounds?
Cai Zongqi: I agree with Tomohisa Matsuura that the rhythm of sound determines the lyrical characteristics of Chinese poetry, and then conducts an in-depth and meticulous analysis of the sound rhythm of various major Chinese poetic styles. Mr. Gao's analysis of Tang poetry mainly starts from the subject predicate sentence and does not discuss the topic comment sentence. I tried to continue to explore, incorporating rhythm and structure into the scope of poetic grammatical analysis, while at the same time studying the object of study from Tang poetry to the entire poetic tradition, from the Book of Poetry to the Song Dynasty, and exploring the mysteries of poetic creation in various major poetic styles at the level of aesthetic theory. More specifically, in the process of writing the book "Grammar and Poetry", I began to analyze the art of Chinese poetry from the perspective of linguistic analysis, analyzing classical Chinese poetry from the three aspects of rhythm, syntax and structure, and showing the inline of the continuous interaction between the three. At the same time, through the exploration of the interaction between rhythm, syntax and structure, a major obstacle in the study of Chinese poetry is further opened, that is, the opposition between "pragmatic" linguistic analysis and "retreat" poetic research. I strive to make breakthroughs in both synchronic research and diachronic research, and strive to organically combine synchronic and diachronic research to open up new ways of Chinese poetry research.
You have not only devoted yourself to academic research, but also actively promoted the overseas dissemination of Chinese literary studies over the years, and have run a number of English-language journals covering classical and modern Chinese literature, as well as literary theory. You also led the organization of the Columbia University Press's "How to Read Chinese Literature" series of books. As a scholar of classical Chinese poetry, what is your vision and motivation to develop these academic publishing platforms?
Cai Zongqi: Confidant in the sea, the end of the world is nearby. I feel very lucky and grateful. When I graduated from Sun Yat-sen University, I received a postgraduate degree in English Language and Literature. When I studied in the United States, I was inspired by Mr. Gao's teachings and led me to the road of classical Chinese literature research. During his teaching at American universities, he was able to explore the field of Classical Chinese Literature overseas with a group of like-minded scholars. In the process of writing this book, I also had the privilege of gaining the trust of previous scholars such as Professor Yuan Xingpei, and the strong support of fellow scholars such as Professor Chen Yinchi and Professor Jiang Yin of Fudan University. It is this experience that makes me convinced that the world's scholars should not go their own way and stand still.
My original intention in proposing this idea is mainly in response to the current state of academic research. Western sinology research is a family of its own, while Chinese literature research itself has its own horizon limitations. Since the reform and opening up, the barriers between China's academic research and foreign studies have been broken, and there is a better understanding of foreign sinology research. However, the overseas Sinology community does not know much about Chinese academic research. I believe that to change the academic ecological landscape, we cannot rely on individual efforts alone. However, cooperation based solely on projects is also time-sensitive and may not be sustainable. In contrast, running academic journals is a long-term effective platform. Regarding the study of Chinese literature and culture, there are already some English academic journals in China, but if you want to go abroad, the key lies in the combination of strong and powerful, the gathering of first-class scholars, the creation of a high-quality publishing platform, and cooperation with the most famous publishing houses in the field of overseas sinology research. Under the purpose of this journal, I co-edited with Professor Yuan Xingpei and the Journal of Chinese Literature and Culture, published by Duke University Press in the United States, have achieved gratifying results in the past eight years, been recognized and praised by scholars and readers at home and abroad, and entered the A&HCI index system. With the strong support of Lingnan University, I also edited the English academic journal Prism: Theory and Modern Chinese Literature, which focuses on modern Chinese literature and theoretical research, and especially encourages young scholars to submit articles. The journal, which has published six issues since 2017, has entered the Scopus Citation Index Database and is currently in the ESCI Emerging Data Citation Index Database, eligible to apply for A&HCI Index in 2023. A special issue that has just been published invited Professor Dewei Wang of Harvard University's Department of East Asian Studies and two young scholars, Kyle Shernuk and Miya Qiong Xie, to co-edit. The theme of the special issue, "Chinese Literature across the Borderlands," is exactly what I want from the study of Chinese literature and culture—to break down academic barriers and encourage dialogue and communication. In addition, I also hosted the re-publication of lingnan journals at the Department of Chinese, Lingnan University in Hong Kong. Founded in 1929 and closed in 1952 due to the dissolution of Lingnan University, this journal has published many important articles by Chen Yinke, Wu Mi, Wang Li, Rong Geng and other academic giants. The resumption of the journal at Lingnan University in Hong Kong is intended to carry forward the centenary academic spirit of Lingnan University and continue the advantages of Lingnan University's literary and historical research.
I believe that in order to promote the intersection and collision of Chinese and Western cultures and jointly develop global Chinese studies, it is necessary to combine research, teaching and translation to carry out all-round and multi-faceted publishing and promotion attempts. The first level is that the three academic journals I just mentioned are mainly for experts and scholars in the field of Chinese literature and culture research; the second level is mainly to invite fellow scholars to work together to write mid-level publications targeting students and scholars, such as the series of books "How to Read Chinese Literature" co-published by me and Columbia University Press, which invited more than 140 scholars at home and abroad to participate in the grand event. This set of textbook publications introduces poetry, prose, drama, theory and other topics, published in English, supplemented by Chinese original texts and related translations, and is very popular with readers in the English-speaking world. From the perspective of sales, on the one hand, it has been recognized in the academic community, and on the other hand, it has also entered the field of vision of American public readers. In addition, I also try to broaden the scope of my research, hoping to invite Western scholars who are not Chinese cultural studies to participate in academic discussions on Chinese cultural studies. To this end, I invited Professor Carlos Rojas of Duke University's Department of East Asian Studies to chair the Theory Forum in the Journal of Prism, inviting scholars from outside the field of Chinese studies to participate in the submission. The third level was to promote Chinese literary culture to the masses, and I wrote a fifty-plus-page proposal while teaching in the United States, hoping to get funding to make a documentary about Chinese poetry to the English-speaking world, but unfortunately not from the relevant departments.
On the first two levels, you can say that it is fruitful. But at the third level, we have indeed encountered some difficulties and challenges. Can you tell us how you overcame the challenge and seized the opportunity to promote Chinese literature and culture overseas?
Cai Zongqi: After all, I may still be an idealist, and I have a kind of momentum that can't be turned back, huh. Recently, in addition to my academic research, I have also launched two new projects to disseminate Chinese culture. The first is the establishment of a new research institute. From 2017 to January 2022, I served as the Director of the Humanities Research Centre of Lingnan University, and with the strong support of the Hong Kong SAR Government and Lingnan University, this research center was renamed the "Global Institute for Advanced Study of Chinese Culture" on January 16, 2022, and I hope to make full use of Hong Kong's unique human geography advantages, gather the strength of scholars in the field of Chinese studies in the Faculty of Letters of Lingnan University, and invite well-known scholars and cultural institutions at home and abroad to participate in the academic dialogue with depth and breadth.
The second was to record a "How to Read Chinese Poetry Podcast." I invited more than a dozen well-known scholars at home and abroad to record a podcast program for the public with me, introducing the Book of Poetry, Chu Ci, Han Le Fu poems, Tang poems, Song Ci, Yuan Qu and Ming and Qing poetry to English-speaking audiences in an in-depth and simple way. We've been busy recording this show these months, hoping to launch it on major podcast platforms this Lunar New Year. With more abundant resources, we also plan to shoot a set of videos to make full use of new media formats to introduce chinese poetry to audiences at home and abroad.
Thank you Teacher Cai! At the end of the interview, can you say a few words of encouragement to readers who are interested in promoting Chinese literary culture overseas?
Cai Zongqi: As I just said, to promote Chinese literary culture to the world, the power of the individual is insignificant. I very much welcome all the readers, the scholars, to get involved. With the joint efforts of everyone, the academic dream of breaking down academic barriers and jointly expanding Chinese studies can be realized as soon as possible. Thank you!