There is love and righteousness and beauty - Zhang Yanling's impression

Zhang Yanling has an advocate in the article "Back to the Human World": write articles with feelings, righteousness and beauty. Zhang Yanling is so advocating and practicing. Affection is affection. Nowadays, sentiment has become a popular word. What is affection? Feelings are the original intention. What is the original intention? The original heart is the "white heart", that is, the heart of the naked child.

Zhang Yanling has an original intention. I once read Zhang Yanling's Background, which is about Zhang Yanling's college days. At that time, she founded the Poetry Club of Guangxi Normal University. What impressed me the most was her photograph of her reciting poetry under camel's peak in Seven Star Park: innocence, innocence, passion. Zhang Yanling is a student of the Chinese Department of the Class of 1980. It was a literary era, and even Guilin, which was far away in southern Xinjiang, was still full of literary enthusiasm. Nearly 20 years after leaving the university, she used "Background" to trace the literary atmosphere on and off campus at that time, which she regarded as her starting point, her way of coming, and her background.

Nowadays, people always associate Zhang Yanling with "Southern Literature". People pay attention to the current fanghua of "Southern Literary Circle", and ignore the former loneliness of "Southern Literary Circle". This publication was founded with the residual heat of the literary fever of the 80s. At the beginning of its establishment, it was like "a small lotus showing its sharp corners", which attracted widespread attention in the literary circles with its unique freshness. However, it did not take long for the sharpness to lose, the vision to be limited, and gradually become a "forgotten land". It was Zhang Yanling who made "Southern Literary Circles" out of the fog. In the 6th issue of 1996, Zhang Yanling presided over the new revision of "Southern Literature". In sync with the new look of the binding style, the cover of this issue of "Southern Literary Circles" has made a recommendation for key articles. Today, looking back at this issue of "Southern Literature", I am surprised that Zhang Yanling had such a vision, such a vision, and such boldness. It is often said that it is difficult to start a business, and it is even more difficult to keep a job. However, from 1996 to 2022, Zhang Yanling edited Southern Literature For 26 years, and she always maintained the height of this publication. This height is not only an academic height, but also an aesthetic height, but also a historical height.

20 years ago, when I first read "Background", I paid attention to the literary atmosphere of Zhang Yanling's college era, and paid attention to the little girl with a ponytail high behind her head in the photo, and I thought that the literary era was Zhang Yanling's background. This spring, when I reread this essay for the first time, I seemed to find for the first time that this essay had been written in Guilin Cultural City, and I seemed to realize for the first time that Zhang Yanling's literary background was broader, more far-reaching, and more majestic, she originated from the pioneering spirit of vigorous national liberation during the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, she originated from the Guilin Cultural City of 60 years ago, which for Zhang Yanling in the 80s, and she originated from the more distant Sun Yat-sen, who once spoke under Duxiu Peak. The painting saint Shi Tao, who was once the lord of the king city.

Human acceptance is really strange. In other words, the human mind actually has its own specific scope of acceptance. When I read Zhang Yanling's Background in the early 20th century, I focused on the 80s; Now, after nearly 20 years of my own indulgence in Guilin Cultural City, I have re-read "Background", and I realize that for Zhang Yanling, Guilin Cultural City has long been a long-standing, broad and profound existence. In "Background", Zhang Yanling said that the background is an infinite variable; In "Background", Zhang Yanling said that their teacher told them that literature must be accompanied by spirit and thought, and culture must be accompanied by creativity and activity.

I wonder why the "Southern Literary Circle" edited by Zhang Yanling can become an evergreen tree in the field of Chinese literary and art criticism, "the critical town of the Chinese literary circle", is really because Zhang Yanling has such a original intention, such a feeling, such a large and infinite amount of background, and a deep heart.

Righteousness is morality. In an age of profit, does morality still have a place? However, in my opinion, in Zhang Yanling's world, morality has always been placed in a lofty position. In this era of "not publishing and going out", Zhang Yanling, as the editor-in-chief of "Southern Literary Circles", many people flocked to it. In the eyes of most people, all they see is her glory, but they don't see her responsibility. I haven't been an editor, but I know the hard way to write a journal. It not only requires the ideological height and academic precision of the editor-in-chief, but also the ability to adapt to the complex situation of reality. The height of thought determines the pattern of the journal, the academic accuracy determines the quality of the journal, and the adaptability determines the survival of the journal. All of this, gathered in the editor-in-chief, condensed into one word, that is, responsibility.

Southern Literature has an important column: Critics today. "Critics today" was opened in 1998, and for more than 20 years, nearly 140 young Chinese critics have been introduced from the "post-50s" and "post-60s" to the "post-90s". In 2016, Zhang Yanling wrote a special article entitled "Friendship with today's Critics", she wrote: "The Southern Literary Circle is in the border of Lingnan, and it is difficult and never-ending to make the entire chinese literary criticism map less regrettable. We can only explore the new sharp in a variety of channels as much as possible, looking for those talented articles that are active in the literary scene and have a lot of potential, even if the spicy and fresh critical text comes from the doctoral student, as long as he has enough sincerity and personality in the face of the literary scene, enough sensitivity and vitality, even if the cultivation and theory are lacking, we are willing to recommend; The inclusiveness of the column must also have enough breadth and sensitivity, and radiate warmth because of genuine love and support. Then the classicization work we have carried out has a relatively systematic description of the present of literary criticism, and is left to the future of literature. "It's actually a kind of responsibility. When we see more and more academic journals focusing on famous people, paying attention to authority, and looking up at the stars, the southern literary circle has moved down, and it has dedicated such a large space to those young critics who have potential but have not yet become famous, which not only reflects vision, but also shows courage.

Beauty is aesthetics. Zhang Yanling moved from poetry to criticism, and the "Southern Literary Circle" edited by her strives for the beauty of literature and art, both in terms of article content and publication layout. Nowadays, journals place more and more emphasis on academic norms. This emphasis is undoubtedly correct, but it has also created a situation in which academic journals are cut to the right side and a thousand journals. However, reading the articles of the Southern Literary Circle, it will be found that under the premise of abiding by academic norms, the Southern Literary Circle retains the personality of the article to the greatest extent for the author. This kind of personality may be the personality of thinking, the personality of concepts, or the personality of the style, the personality of the style, the personality of the style, in a word, the personality of aesthetics. Zhang Yanling has never taken a "one-size-fits-all" approach. "One size fits all" is worry-free; Zhang Yanling adopted an "inclusive" approach. Speaking of this word, I can't help but think of Cai Yuanpei and think of Peking University. Zhang Yanling has studied at Peking University. She was in her early 20s. When she studied at Peking University, she not only had the "inclusiveness" in history, but also the "creative freedom" in reality. This is another background for Zhang Yanling's literary education and aesthetic accumulation. To achieve "inclusiveness", it is necessary to take responsibility. It is said that she is responsible again, but Zhang Yanling tolerates beauty, is the beauty of literature and art, and she bears the responsibility for beauty.

Many people know Zhang Yanling as the editor-in-chief of Southern Literature, but zhang Yanling as a critic and essayist. Of course I know. Not long ago I got her new collection, Light Makeup and Thick Wipes, and I read a lot of them. In fact, I have read most of these chapters more than once. However, every time I read it, I have new feelings. In the past, I admired her "Yale Solo Show", "This Shore and the Other Shore", and "Toward the Clouds", but this time reading, I still have feelings about "Looking at the End of the World". This is an essay written by Zhang Yanling when she was 36 years old. In the past, I just thought it was good, but after 20 years of re-reading, I felt a lot more profound. If the essays of "Yale Alone" are mostly written by others, "Looking at the End of the World" is written about himself, and it is written about the author's own journey as a mother to know himself and go to himself. Literature is not the cultivation of theory, but the experience of life. 20 years ago, I read "Looking at the End of the World", but it was only pi xiang's understanding; 20 years later, I read "Looking at the End of the World", because I have more life experiences as the basis, and my understanding becomes rich and profound.

Zhang Yanling has published a number of essay collections, such as "This Shore and the Other Shore", "Silent World", "Good Water Like the Wind", "Light Makeup and Thick Wipe", etc. When I first read her essay collection, I found that some of the literary and art criticism articles in it were not mixed. However, when I jumped out of preconceived notions, I realized that many of Zhang Yanling's literary reviews were actually essays. For example, the long article "Literary Imagination of the South", which is included in "Light Makeup and Thick Smearing", takes a number of Southwest literary classics such as "Bird Clothes", "Beautiful South", "Life Without Language" as the object, and carries out poetic interpretation, and the topics discussed and the objects of commentary determine that the article belongs to literary criticism. However, the language of the article is both speculative and poetic, conceptual and aesthetic, clear and flexible, and it cannot be read in prose.

Indeed, if Zhang Yanling edited the Southern Literary Circle, she tolerated the personality of critics and critics, then when Zhang Yanling herself conducted literary criticism, she actually opened up the two styles of literary criticism and essay prose. And it seems to me that she did this because of her early literary education, which made her unwilling to sacrifice the literary beauty of literary criticism as literature itself, even when she was engaged in seemingly abstract literary criticism.

What I want to say is that as the editor-in-chief of "Southern Literary Circle", as a literary critic and essayist, Zhang Yanling, everything she does is actually building a Guilin cultural city, and she is also loving literature and literary people, she has feelings and morality and aesthetics, and she is beyond the concept of utilitarianism.

(About author:Huang Weilin, Professor and Doctoral Supervisor of the College of Literature of Guangxi Normal University, Vice Chairman of Guangxi Literary and Art Critics Association)