Editor's Note
Creation and criticism, such as the wings of a bird, the axle of a car. The development of literary creation is inseparable from the prosperity of literary criticism and the efforts of generations of literary critics. In 1998, the Southern Literary Circle launched the "Critics Today" column, which has introduced more than 100 critics so far. Critics of different personalities speak "my view of criticism" with their sharpness, talent, and agility, and hundreds of articles have accumulated to form a sensitive, vivid, and full of vitality and talent.
Now the China Writers Network has re-launched these articles to share with you, so stay tuned.
Critics of the day
Hu Chuanji (Filmed in 2011)
He holds a bachelor's degree in history and a doctorate in literature, and is currently working in the Department of Chinese, Sun Yat-sen University. His academic interests include the study of the history of literary and artistic thought, as well as contemporary literature and cultural criticism. He is the author of "The End of liberal literary ideals (1945.08~1949.10)" and "The Love and Sin of chinese novels".
My view of criticism
Some understanding of the text
Hu Chuanji
The words are solemn, the words are feminine, the words are delicate, the words are funny... Words are like the expression of life, the mood is different, and there are traces of existence, innumerable and unseemly. Words create fictional stories, words confirm history, words express insights, words imagine the unknown and the future, words and existence are on the other side, and they are always separated. Every time humans manipulate words, it is as if they are probing the secrets of the world. Words are like the code of life and existence, both endless and mysterious.
In the case of Middle-earth, the relatively mature writing system was formed in a society in which property ownership began to be disputed, commonly known as a class society. To some extent, this shows that words participate in the construction of social order. Subsequently, writing gradually separated from pictures (because of the literary characters), and writing was used in the upper class. This change is a literal reaction to higher material requirements. The idea of setting up society and the expression of human destiny gradually become more and more detailed. Literature, commonly known in later generations, is the meticulous product of it. The differentiation of words can be seen as the result of the higher demands of the heart, spirit, and even the soul on this world. But the original appearance of "literature" is probably different from what is called literature today, and it is not a profession, occupation or discipline. In the era of the formation of words, the literary history and philosophy of later generations coexisted in a mixed posture. The ancients' literature, history and philosophy are inseparable, because the writing has a strong color for ruling the world. The thoughts of the mo, law, soldiers, and yin and yang schools of the world are self-evident; Lao Zhuang is detached from leisure, but in his birth feelings, there are also debates about ruling the world; when the poetry of Zhi Wei li stabs, it is even more difficult to be separated from state affairs. Because of this "rule" word, the aesthetic law of literary affection is not obvious from the beginning. The love of poetry is like an instinctive reaction that is stimulated by the way, and the beauty of poetry, more importantly, is a dignified quality trained by decent, grand, and solemn national etiquette. As for how the poems shine at the level of love and beauty after that, I will not mention them here. Imagination is not the exclusive property of ancient "literature", and ancient history and ancient philosophy (thought) also have a rich imagination that makes people's hearts convinced today. The division of literature, history and philosophy is a huge topic that cannot be unfolded, but the intimate and tense debates and arguments between them are more in line with the original free face of expression.
How big the world is, how can words be exhausted. Consider literature as one of the fascinating ways of expression.
Jumping from one expression system to another, involving criticism, is purely a mistake, or it is more like a windfall in earning a living and studying. In modern times, the separation of literature, history and philosophy has become very different, and the respective narrative and rhetorical techniques have become very different, but if you can put aside the view of the portal, you can roughly find that studying in different learnings, even if the learning is shallow and the knowledge is difficult to understand, you can also know a little bit of interest. Writing is an important way to read books, and it is also one of the ways to see the world. The charm of literature, in the final analysis, must return to the charm of words. The essential function of words is inseparable from description and expression, from this level, argumentation and creation, there is no question of who is attached to whom, but the thinking and expression of the two are different. The charm of literary and artistic creation may be clear at a glance and interesting to the public, but the charm of criticism and discourse may be more laborious, and the reader and writer must cross many boring and serious words, and have to bend over and even take great pains to realize it. There is no need to distinguish between discourse and creation. There is no need to decide between description and writing. "Romance of the Three Kingdoms" may not be lost to "Romance of the Three Kingdoms". Socrates, Shakespeare, each with a genius. Lao Nie and Cao Xia lived in different times, but they were both prophets. By extension, between literature and history, between ancient and contemporary, between different learning, between the view of portals, and the gap between ranks, it can be rested.
Unfortunately, most of my generation have been abolished from the literary ability and martial strategy, and the "description" of "describing but not doing" is already easy to say and difficult to do, let alone dare to talk about "doing". In the middle of this book, I made a pen and made a fool of myself. Moreover, although words can be called gods, they are also an illusion of life. If you do not understand the written language, you are in danger of being abandoned and isolated by the world. It is no exaggeration to say that words have the energy to rule the world, set order, and even enslave human beings. Taking the local area as an example, the unification of the Qin script, the new cultural movement advocating vernacular literature and "new literature", and the Red Revolution advocating literacy literacy classes are all profound understanding of the energy of writing. In a sense, words are symbols of order in the human world. What would the world be like without words? Literature is separated from words, can it still be literature? Huineng is illiterate, and when he hears it, he is enlightened, and his name is, "Bodhi has no tree, the mirror has no platform, Buddha-nature is always pure, where there is dust", "The body is a Bodhi tree, the mind is a mirror platform, the mirror is pure, where dust is stained." "Enlightenment is wisdom", Huineng was fortunate to have the Yifa. Theravada is a professor, a scholar who knows how to read and etiquette, and who has the anti-loss method. At this point, can we boldly ask questions, manipulate words, and seek eternal meaning, which can also be seen as part of the confusion and stupidity? However, some questions are only suitable for questioning, not for answering. The fate of words is also the fate of man. Think like this: Foolishness and wisdom coexist, and the world becomes the world; knowing foolishness and foolishness is calm.
The article was published in Southern Literature, No. 5, 2011
Critic Impressions
"The Wisdom of the Fox"
——About the Love and Sin of the Chinese Novel
Lingang
There is a "Standing Theory" in Lu Xun's "Weeds", which is actually a dilemma for telling the truth in the world: between "telling lies" or "being beaten". However, I think that good contemporary literary criticism is more challenging than Lu Xun's "argument". I myself have heard a lot about contemporary criticism, and although I occasionally do it, it is more often deterred. Because even if you have the courage not to be afraid of being "beaten", it is interesting to have a real clear-sighted talk. Otherwise, it's just noisy. In the field of criticism, the courage to criticize often does not mean that there is a discernment to criticize. To have a critical insight, in addition to being studious and thoughtful, it is also necessary to have enough sensitivity and exuberant talent. Keen and talented, non-learning but capable, it is more of a human nature endowment.
Issa Berlin borrowed a Greek fable to say that man has two kinds of wisdom, one is "the wisdom of the hedgehog" and the other is "the wisdom of the fox". The hedgehog understands only one thing, while the fox understands many intricate details. If this statement is generalized to literary research and criticism, then criticism needs "fox wisdom" more. People often use the word "world" to refer to poetry and novels, saying that a poem is a "world" and a novel is a "world". And the "world" must be diverse, complex and changeable, because they are really just the linguistic representation of the world in which we live. To dissect, accuse, and then analyze the world presented by this language is not the "wisdom of the fox" and does not see its work. The fox's keen sense of smell, sharp eyes, cunning mind, and clever strategy are just right for poetry and novels that deserve to be called "the world." The "wisdom of the fox" can make a big splash in the field of contemporary criticism.
In my opinion, Hu Chuanji is just such a cutting-edge figure in contemporary literary criticism with the "wisdom of the fox". The book "The Love and Crime of the Chinese Novel" (by Hu Chuanji, Taiwan's Xiuwei Information Technology Co., Ltd., 2011) is the result of her recent op-eds published in literary criticism magazines. As far as I know, she loves contemporary literary criticism, not something that has happened in recent years. When she was still studying for a master's degree, she wrote a critical column in the Southern Metropolis Daily,—— although this is what I learned about later. By the time she was studying for her doctorate, she was in a brave state, and her critical articles were becoming more and more outstanding, and she was exploring carefully to form her own critical style. Judging from this collection, combining the vision of the academy with the appreciation of the acquaintance is a major feature of her criticism. The academic style is more clear about the drawbacks of criticism, such as being too pedantic, too cumbersome, and unable to point directly to people's hearts. However, the benefits of the academy style for criticism may not be understood by everyone, such as the college's broader vision, which is conducive to in-depth text extraction of deeper problems, which can avoid a leaf obstacle. I remember reading a collection of literary criticism lectures by Canadian writer and critic Margaret Atwood not long ago, "Repayment: The Dark Side of Debt and Wealth", the author centered on the core of "debt repayment", starting from the ancient concept of justice, integrating daily experience, personal experience, historical stories, classic texts and economics, sociology, psychology knowledge, and deepening the theme of "debt repayment". After reading it, it is intellectually beneficial and eye-opening. You can say that it is literary criticism, or it can be said that it is a work of the empirical history of man and the history of ideas. If you hold the traditional concept of criticism, you can say that it is not like the way to write a critical article, but if you think about it, it is not another way to engage in criticism. Hu Chuanji's collection includes an article entitled "Complaining about New Traditions and Resentment Complexes", which is written in the same way as Atwood' meaning of "what the hero sees". She examines the "grievances" in the history of modern and contemporary literature as a "new tradition" and traces its ins and outs, although it is limited in space and cannot be spoken freely, but it does show her unique discovery of this literary history and her unique critical vision. I believe that in time, the accumulation of education to be learned is getting better and better, and Hu Chuanji will certainly be able to write more wonderful retrospective critical texts.
Criticism is the most opinionated thing, because it involves more indisputable fun. From this point of view, the field of criticism is actually the field of interest disputes. Therefore, anyone who writes criticism must have a bit of the arrogance of giving up on others. If there is no interesting proposition, this is good, or it is better not to criticize. Criticism is like this, rather than objective, it is better subjective; it is better to be comprehensive than one-sided; it is better to hit the nail on the head with the mediocre. After reading this collection, I know that Hu Chuanji is a critic with interesting ideas. For example, "The Intolerable Heart of the Novel" talks about the moderation of words and feelings; "Shame in the Heart" points out the nakedness of the narrative and the lack of shame; "The Sleepiness and Sin of Sexual Rap" examines the phenomenon of "sexual rap" in novel writing in an open postmodern context. What she pointed out is actually a new phenomenon that has emerged in the contemporary literary world in the past decade or so. Hu Chuanji's critical articles are both blunt and humorous and sarcastic, but also fully reasonable, and they are all clear-sighted and thought-provoking. Five years ago, Hu Chuanji applied for a doctorate in the Department of Chinese of Sun Yat-sen University, and the supervisor of the examination at that time was Professor Cheng Wenchao, but Mr. Cheng unfortunately passed away. Entrusted by him, I took over the rest. At the time of the interview, the time was in conflict with another interview I was going to attend, so I had to entrust two other teachers. Afterwards I asked how the interview was going, and they said, "It's okay, it's usual." Hearing this, I didn't think much about it. On the day of class, there was a clean, slightly thin, student-like figure with a short haircut. I was a little confused in my heart, "No... how..." Instead, she introduced herself first. This was the first time our teachers and students met, so we still remember it. Since then, she has given me the impression of being hardworking. Usually there are not many words, squinting, a few simple words, just sent off. But doing things was incredibly fast, and the idea for the paper was quickly proposed. Where comments were made, they were quickly amended and implemented. She also wrote several columns at the same time. Her academic interests go beyond literature, but I know that she is also involved in political philosophy and the history of ideas, and her reading horizons are not limited. The impression of "OK" is very different, not "ordinary", but extraordinary. It can be seen that even seeing it can be extremely unreliable. I sometimes think, such a thin body, how can I produce so many jobs? Seeing this thick manuscript, I feel the same way. However, the road to learning is long, and the criticism is endless. Whoever walks on the endless path of learning should remember the truth of coming to Japan for a long time. That's what we need to encourage. On the occasion of the publication of Hu Chuanji's "Love and Sin of the Chinese Novel", Lala Zaza wrote a few words, one to express her blessings, and the other to hope that she would make further progress in the years to come.
(Lin Gang, Department of Chinese, Sun Yat-sen University)
Read more
Impressions of a Critic
Zhang Yanling, Zhang Ping, editor-in-chief
Writers And Publishers September 2019
My View of Criticism
Guangxi Normal University Press, January 2016
Editor: Deng Jiefeng
Second instance: Liu Ya
Third trial: Chen Tao, Wang Yang