Professor He Ping's new book on contemporary Chinese literary criticism, "The Return of Criticism", which aroused my interest and curiosity in reading, was the word "return": what is "field"? Why "go back"?
At first glance at "returning to the scene", I took it for granted that it was nothing more than the meaning of returning to the scene, but after checking the dictionary, it was specifically pointed out that after the actor finished acting, he performed again at the request of the audience, and the premise of returning to the scene was of course that the program should be performed well. Since this is the case, Professor He's use of "returning to the scene" here is obviously a kind of borrowing, and it seems that it is not completely when you think about it. So the question arises: the so-called "return" means that it was once there, then left, and now needs to be returned; what scenes does the so-called "field" specifically refer to? Why return?
Although such a question is not without the suspicion of dropping the book bag, if we cannot clearly grasp some of these prerequisites, we will not be able to recognize and evaluate the significance and value of Professor He Ping's new work. Although "The Return of Criticism" as a whole is divided into three parts: "Ideological Trends", "Writers" and "Scenes", in my opinion, the main point of the book is more on the "preface" entitled "Return to the Scene: Reconstructing Literary Criticism of Dialogue and Action". It is in this "preface" that Professor He comprehensively explains his observations, understandings and propositions on the word "returning to the scene", while the three parts of the main text are his own practices around "returning to the scene" to engage in contemporary Chinese literary criticism.
To tell the truth, although I do not fully agree with the judgment and definition of a very small number of phenomena involved in Professor He's "Preface" entitled "Returning to the Scene: Reconstructing Dialogue and Action", I also think that some words can actually be said more bluntly and more clearly, and may not require too much academic language packaging, but I hold a highly agreeable position on the overall opinion of the "preface". In order to illustrate this point, I have tried to summarize and repeat the main points in Professor He's "Preface" as necessary in more straightforward and clear language. To sum up, the essence of this preface is: on the one hand, before and after the new century, due to the comprehensive effect of marketization and the influence of capital entry on new media, literary writing has undergone changes in differentiation, circle layering and aesthetic degradation; on the other hand, in the face of this increasingly inflated and complex literary scene, does literary criticism have the concepts, thinking, vision, capabilities, techniques, methods and styles to match it? The newly admitted literary criticism practitioners do not have the "barbaric growth" of the predecessor critics and the long-term criticism of the history of literary writing freedom, they have been disciplined from the beginning in the "CNKI" thesis writing system based on the university academic system, therefore, they do not have and do not need sufficient literary aesthetics and the ability to reach the literary scene and grasp the literary scene, but only need to use the "CNKI" and other electronic resource libraries to make literary criticism into "papers".
It can be seen from this that Professor He Ping basically refers to and intends the word "returning to the scene". The so-called "field", that is, the field of literature, is only today's "field" is no longer yesterday's "field", regardless of whether the aesthetic power of today's "field" has been degraded, but it is an indisputable fact that it has become more and more differentiated and layered; the so-called "return" means that no matter what the quality of the "field" in the past, literary criticism and critics are in the "field"; and many "circle layers" in today's "field" after the change, literary criticism and critics are not only absent, but also may not be able to be in the "field". It is precisely on the basis of this status quo that literary critics and critics do have the necessity of "returning".
If the above summary does not misinterpret Professor He Ping's original intention, then I generally agree with it. The reason for this is that Professor He's description is indeed an objective existence; second, I also agree that the problems reflected by these phenomena are indeed an important deficiency in the construction of contemporary Chinese literary criticism. In the following category, which can be roughly attributed to professor He's description of "'barbaric growth' and a long history of critical stylistic writing freedom", as a witness and witness of that era, no matter how high or low, only the facts are spoken. From the new period opened at the end of the 1970s to the middle of the 90s, whether it is a positive judgment that it is a literary era or a literary golden age, most of the generations of critics at that time did exist as witnesses, not only witnesses, but also participants and even creators, from the so-called "scars" to "knowledge of youth", "reflection", "reform", "root-seeking", "pioneer", "new realism", "new state", "women", "youth"... This series of literary trends or literary phenomena, from "praise and exposure", "return of realism", "cultural roots", "methodology", "subjectivity", "modernism", "postmodernity"... In this series of literary controversies and discussions, in addition to playing the role of witnesses, the three generations of critics at that time also played the role of participants and even initiators at the same time, including but not limited to the discovery and research of a new literary phenomenon until they were promoted, discovering their new shoots, summarizing their successes and failures, and promoting their development, which was definitely a state of "presence" throughout the whole process. Although the discoveries, research and impetus of the time may still be raw, crude and even mechanical deficiencies, sensitivity, honesty and constructiveness are undoubtedly the mainstream, so some scholars call it an era of literature and an era of criticism. Although the loss of literary sensationalism began to appear in the late 1980s, and the voices of "literature losing sensational effect" and "where are the pioneers of the past" have emerged, this tradition still stubbornly persists until the first half of the 1990s. Later, the state of "absence" described by Professor Ho began to emerge and indeed became more and more intense, and at this time it was almost the starting point for the more typical state of diversity in literature. On the one hand, it is the further weakening of the literary sensational effect, and on the other hand, it is indeed difficult to summarize or summarize the so-called "main literary tide" with one or two key words. But the absence of the "main tide" does not mean that there is no "small tide", and there is no shortage of "waves", the question is whether it can still maintain a "presence" state at this time, and go deep into it to observe and make keen discoveries. But unfortunately, almost from this point in time, the state of "absenteeism" described by Professor He Ping began to intensify, and the so-called literary criticism that "responded to changes with invariance" or became large or blind began to gradually become a climate, and the seeming "presence" was actually missing or aphasia became a common feature of many critical texts. As for the kind of "newly admitted literary criticism practitioners" mentioned by Professor He, "from the very beginning they were disciplined in the 'KNOWLEDGE' thesis writing system based on the university academic system, therefore, they do not have and do not need sufficient literary aesthetics and the ability to reach the literary scene and grasp the literary scene, but can make literary criticism into 'papers' with the help of electronic resource libraries such as 'KNOWLEDGE'", which is a matter after the beginning of the new century.
To use a less appropriate analogy, if the facts described by Professor He and each of them are more or less false, it is really a fulfillment of the old saying that "feng shui turns in turns". I remember that in the last 20 years of the last century, one of the more criticized points of literary criticism was that it was too emotional and fragmentary, lacking "disciplinary" and "systematic", and now Professor He feels that a prominent problem in criticism now is that "it does not have and does not need sufficient literary aesthetics and the ability to reach the literary scene and grasp the literary scene, but can make literary criticism into a 'thesis' with the help of electronic resource libraries such as 'CNKI'." The two seem to be contradictory and conflicting, but in fact, they are not necessarily. In my opinion, the essence of this superficial disagreement is ultimately a question of how to view literary criticism in its entirety and scientifically construct a system of literary criticism. This is also the fundamental reason why I think the question raised by Professor He Ping is very important.
From the perspective of discipline construction, scientific literary criticism should be a complete system. At the bottom level, the first thing should be the observation, appreciation and criticism of various literary phenomena, including writers' works, literary trends, and theoretical criticism, which are the basis for the development of normal scientific literary criticism; the middle level should be a number of professional disciplines that carry out literary research from different angles and different professions, such as language, style, structure, society, archetypes... These are all intermediaries from the bottom to the construction of disciplines; the top layer is the relatively macro abstract basic principles of literature. I understand that Professor He Ping's "field" mainly points to those different scenes at the bottom, and the so-called "return" is also in this regard, which is indeed to the point. Nowadays, many literary criticisms do rarely see critics' careful reading and appreciation of the original works and emotional investment, more just take some ready-made, fashionable theories or terms, seemingly sophisticated, but in fact, they are only cruising on the edge of the most basic "field" domain or even not entering at all, so that the so-called scientific literary criticism naturally cannot be talked about. In this sense, Professor He's proposal of "returning to the scene of criticism" is both very important and has a strong practical pertinence. Not only that, but the three parts of his "thought", "writer" and "scene" that constitute the main body of this new work are his own practices in the "field", including the proposition of "literary curation", which is also a method of how to "field". How these conclusions and judgments can naturally be discussed, but the correctness and importance of the premise of "presence" and its practice are the most important values and meanings of this book.
Author: Pan Kaixiong
Planner: Shao Ling
Editor: Xu Luming
Editor-in-Charge: Huang Qizhe
*Wenhui exclusive manuscript, please indicate the source when reprinting.