"Ni Wenjian Language Class", by Ni Wenjian, Shanghai People's Publishing House| Guangqi Bookstore, published in September 2022, 359 pages, 59.00 yuan
This year, Ni Wenjian exploded the B station, and was also half teased and half seriously sealed by friends with the elegant name of "Ni Dahong". Wen Jian humorously said that he wrote the paper on the B station, thus finding another form of writing and publishing. And "Ni Wenjian Language Class" also came out in due course, and the countless video lessons of the circle of fans endorsed each other, which is the best way for him to practice the concept of literary research and realize the ideal of literary education, and it can even be said that the decades of silent cultivation condensed by this book have been transformed into a gorgeous music on the B station.
Ni Wenjian, Hong Kong, December 2000.
One
Ni Wenjian is one of the few scholars who has made real efforts in both the fields of literary research and language education, and he is also a rare idealist, and this "Ni Wenjian Language Lesson" also most clearly reflects the dual ideal of this idealist. Wen Jian has always been the most experienced in the close reading of texts, and constructing a kind of "poetics of reading" has always been his academic ideal; Giving students good lessons and doing the duty and duty of a normal university teacher to the greatest extent has always been the ideal of life that he consciously adheres to.
This book also confirms a feeling I have had over the years: Ni Wenjian's text reading skills and classical interpretation ability are rarely surpassed in the field of modern and contemporary literary studies, and the construction of "reading poetics" is naturally premised on the specific practice of text perusal and interpretation. Wenjian has long been committed to the interpretation and teaching of literary classics, paying attention to the methodological consciousness of text reading, and on this basis, constructing a "poetics of reading" with the text as the center, combined with the reading methodology and historical interpretation framework, is not only an academic ambition and mission, but also a natural progression.
Wu Xiaodong, Luo Gang, Liu Hongtao, Xie Maosong, Fan Zhihong, Qian Liqun, Ni Wenjian, and Xue Yi in Guilin, Guangxi, summer vacation in 1997. The result of this gathering was the "Guide to Middle School Students of 20th Century Chinese Literary Masterpieces" published in 1998.
"20th Century Chinese Literature Masterpieces Guide to Middle School Students Essay Volume II)", edited by Qian Liqun, commented by Ni Wenjian, Luo Gang, and Wang Weisong, Guangxi Education Publishing House, published in September 1998, 195 pages, 8.20 yuan
A few years ago, WenJian sent me an outline entitled "Methods of Close Reading of Literary Texts", according to his writing habits, it is estimated that there is no formal writing yet, I may wish to disclose a part of it exclusively. Of the various definitions he gave about "what is reading," I valued the following:
1. Reading is an implicit mental activity and cognitive behavior;
2. Reading is almost equal to learning, reading is discovery, invention, and even almost creative;
3. Reading has different goals, orientations, hierarchies, dimensions;
4. The text orientation of reading is the basis of various reading and research activities such as author orientation and reader orientation;
5. The basic purpose of text-oriented reading is to achieve a coherent understanding of the text at the chapter level, that is, to rationalize the reading experience (literary texts are likely to be the most complex) and "say a complete sentence" - and this sentence must cover the whole text, the so-called "read through" text.
The above definition of "reading" not only combines the content of cognitive psychology, but also based on literature, taking the grasp of "text integrity" as the general direction, and taking the "reading through" text as the point of return, indicating that the tip of the text has its own comprehensive and in-depth thinking on reading theory, and the prototype of "reading poetics" is roughly implied. Wenjian also invented many "Ni's" poetic concepts and theoretical categories, such as "reading text orientation", "saying a complete sentence", "reading through" text and "reading through" text, "reading" text and "reading out" text, "perusing", but also "re-reading (reading to sound) reading", "content = form" negative rhetorical view, and "formally interpreting text, is studying creativity", and so on. Of course, the tip of the text also has its own special explanation of these concepts and categories, rather than how to "formally interpret the text"? It is to implement the interpretation of text content in the exploration and even invention of text forms, and the form here includes both micro-rhetoric at the level of language expression words and sentences, such as core imagery, details, texture, intonation, etc., as well as macro-rhetoric at the more implicit chapter level, such as narrative mode, text structure, literary style and its variations, and so on. This series of categories of methodological significance is both in-depth, simple and operable, especially suitable for classroom teaching, so that while creating the poetic category, it also aims at classroom teaching, which can be said to explore a way to combine academic creation and teaching practice as effectively as possible.
With these "Ni terminology", it means that Ni Wenjian has formed his own unique theoretical vision when interpreting the text. Others also talk about perusing texts, but some people read texts for other purposes, for larger ideas or grandiose topics, just with the help of texts as examples. But the tip of the text is the real sense of the text as the center and destination, dedicated to reading the text through, read through, from the beginning to the end, from the texture to the structure, from the context to the writer's position, from the internal form to the external context... Thorough geographic clarity. This is what he advocates as "text-oriented", and also constitutes "text-centricism" of "Ni's". The "text center theory" and "text unity" are its great masters and the core vision of its "poetics of reading".
Ni Wenjian and mentor Mr. Qian Gurong, circa 2015.
Each work of literature actually has what the Turkish writer Pamuk called the "center" in his book The Naïve and Sentimental Novelist. A good writer both presents and hides this center, leaving the task of exploring this center to the reader, especially the knowing reader. Of course, different professional readers can read different centers from the text, and a work may not only have one center, but also the recognition of the center changes with the times. But can this center be captured during reading? How to get to the heart of the world of textual meaning? How to construct a holistic perspective? How do you discover the core secrets of the text? Does it really touch the soul of the text? The poetics of reading must in particular contain an understanding of the writer's mind and the soul of the text, and in this sense, the method of reading is not only a technique and technology, but also about how to be considerate, communicate with the heart, and reach the soul.
One of the poetic goals that Ni Wenjian pursues is the sympathy and empathy effect in reading, or how to be "moved" by the text during the reading process:
Whether it is re-reading or reading for the first time, I believe that as long as you read it carefully, you will be impressed, and most of them will praise from the heart: "Acacia Tree" is really a good article with sincere feelings and far-reaching meanings. With this foundation in place, I can ask the question I care about: Why do you, me, and everyone have such a common reading experience?
When I read Shi Tiesheng, I was most touched by "Acacia Tree", and I can still recall my feelings of being touched. But why get impressed? After reading the analysis of the tip of the text, there is a sense of transparent pleasure. He fully respects the empathy mechanism and empathy of ordinary readers, and then adds reading psychology to the process of aesthetic experience, which also has a revealing significance for understanding the emotional power of literature.
The so-called "text-based" of Wenjian is both textual poetics and historical poetics, especially in the reflection on the contextualized reading of texts. In the outline of "Methods of Peruse of Literary Texts", one discusses the issue of "context": "The context of the text has no boundaries, but the text itself constitutes its first context. The article "Man with This Heart, With This Reason: Perusing the Acacia Tree" in this book also expresses the same idea from the perspective of understanding the "discourse":
The anthropologist Malinowski once pointed out that the understanding of discourse is inseparable from context, and outside the context within the discourse, the context in which the discourse takes place, the so-called "context of situation" and the larger "context of culture" behind it are crucial. The context is not limited, understanding can thus be infinite, a thousand readers have a thousand Hamlets.
Ni Wenjian (back row, first from right) with his middle school Chinese teacher Wang Gendi (front row, second from left) and middle school classmates, circa 2005.
The context is therefore both the internalized context of the text itself, composed of context, but also the most external, connecting the "situational context" and "cultural context". In the 2021 article "Text, Context and Social History Perspective" published in the Literary Review, Wen Jian brought the historical perspective into the context of the text with the help of "Oh, Xiangxue" and its reinterpretation of interpretation:
For example, Tie Ning's novel "Oh, Xiangxue", when it was born in the historical situation in 1982, the attraction of the "plastic pencil case" to Xiangxue and its symbolism are beyond words in the minds of the writer and the readers she expects; And this also determined the basic understanding of the novel at that time. With the passage of time, the "modernization" meaning symbolized by the "plastic pencil box" is no longer self-evident for later readers, and even after its aura is off, the "plastic pencil box" is also facing questions about how to distinguish it from the "card" of Fengjiao, and the weight of the "small wooden box" made by the father; Such rereadings are based on a general grasp of the social history picture of the 1980s, and are driven by the key points of the text to achieve the "second activation" of historical materials; In fact, this "social history vision" of "second activation" is more productive because it is deeply embedded in the text. Therefore, we can be pleased to see that the rereading of the above re-reading is also happening: "Oh, Xiangxue" has an important term, "commune", for today's readers, this is more difficult to eat than the "plastic pencil box" and its symbol, because behind this, there is a deeper life world and emotional world of xiangxue, and in the text of the novel, "commune" not only promotes the heroism of the protagonist to step on the "train" to get eggs for pencil cases, but also determines the final return of the hero protagonist. Especially the writer's highest praise for this return. In short, in this vision, "Oh, Fragrant Snow" both tells the story of the enlightenment of the birth of a "modern" subject, and tells (okay?). Still not good? The story of the triumph of a "socialist newcomer" in the new period ...
Is such a vision a "social history perspective" or a "text-based view"? Obviously, my suggestion is to ask: where does this choice between the two come from?
The reason why I quote the above text in large paragraphs is because it condenses ni Wenjian's long-term text reading skills, especially good at insight into the secrets of the text from the core imagery and key plots of the novel, and then superimposes the text context and the historical context, and finally reflects the integrity and historicity of the text. From his repeated reading of "Oh, Xiangxue", it can be seen that the historical context (or specifically the "social history vision") and the text context are intrinsically unified in the overall framework of a text, which is both the textualization of the historical situation and the historicization of the interpretation of the text, as he said in the same article: "The 'social history vision' is not external, let alone external, but in fact, the 'text-based' is inevitably endogenous needs and inevitable actions." This also inspires the reader to understand the history embedded in the text as a kind of historical "action", so that the history within the text has a futuristic vision and can withstand being reread again and again, and it is in the "rereading of the rereading" that the real classic can reflect its historical and future.
Ni Wenjian (fourth from the right in the second row) attended the teacher's meeting of Teacher Wang Tiexian (second from the right in the front row).
Two
The "Between the Lines" section of the next part of the book is a side criticism of literary classics, and it is also Ni Wenjian's specific practice and test of his reading poetics. Side criticisms, including commentaries, commentaries, and heuristic questions, thus constitute a written presentation of the literary reading threshold, perhaps the most important of its kind. He once had a master who said to himself: "To elevate the side comments to important asanas, at least for my rereadings—sometimes even more intuitively than the papers." The reason why it is more intuitive than the paper is that the side criticism should directly hit the joints and hubs of the text with a specific and concise critical language, which is not only the basis of careful reading, but also the destination of careful reading, but also the careful reading itself. The "New Lesson Slogan Literature Book" carefully compiled by Wen Jian is a more full practice and embodiment of the side criticism method with textbook enthusiasm, and also has extraordinary requirements for the skill of careful reading. I was once dragged by him to participate in the compilation and approval of several units of the "Xueben", and once I had the feeling of being on the thief's boat, but I could only secretly complain bitterly, and found that this way of compiling, according to him, was indeed more difficult than publishing articles in core journals, because this was really not much false. And once you do it carefully, you will find that the side-reading interpretation is indeed an excellent solution for practicing the concept of text perusal.
"New Lesson Slogan Literature Edition 2.0 (High School Volume)", edited by Ni Wenjian, East China Normal University Press, published in 2019-2021 (the fifth volume to be published), 30.00 yuan / volume
One of the cores of peruse and intensive reading is to implement the experience between the lines of the text, and on this basis to summarize and improve the overall situation. Beginners in literary studies are often prone to fall into the trap of over-interpretation in the process of text interpretation, and in the view of Wenjian, "over-interpretation is not carefully read, especially without reflection on their own careful reading." The key to perusing and commenting on the "key points of the text" is to make an article on the key sentences and details, and then go deep into the texture and structure to reveal the deep mysteries of the literary text. Through ni Wenjian's capture of text syndrome, he often has insight into the unspoken parts of the text and the secrets hidden in the depths. For example, his re-reading of "Oh, Fragrant Snow" for many years, whether it is the "plastic pencil box" in that year or the insight into the "commune" in recent years, reveals the historical symptoms of an era. Literary details contain lamps that can illuminate an era. But this lamp of detail is sometimes hidden behind the shell of the text story, revealing only a faint glimmer of light from the gaps in the text, which needs to be captured through insightful perusal. The careful reading and side criticism of "between the lines" is to solve the "gaps" and read the symptoms, so that we can penetrate the candle and perceive the true spirit or unconscious "hidden in the depths of the text".
This kind of Cuding-style technique has already been revealed in Wenjian's analysis of the "Siege of the City" article "The City of Women "Encircled" and the "City" of The Siege of Women: From Novels to TV Series". If from Qian Zhongshu's god-like lofty posture, it is said that "The Siege of the City" "clearly generates the male-centric nature of the text", it is a novel proposition that ordinary readers can perceive, and wenjian not only captures the "gap" of a "subversive reading" of male power (whether this subversion of male power is Qian Zhongshu's self-consciousness) in the text, and at the same time has more insight into "the ideology of 'male power' is too strong, it not only makes the novel that consciously explores the relationship between the sexes become a woman" The text of "not present" and can still be 'solid' in a female director's 'reproduction' (referring to Huang Shuqin's TV drama version of "Siege of the City" – the author's press) is still 'solid', or even more vividly exposed", then at the same time, it is still unconsciously ideological gaps even in female authors (directors).
Teacher Ni Wenjian and Chen Zishan in Xi'an, 1994.
Teacher Ni Wenjian and Wang Xiaoming in Xi'an, 1994.
More importantly, you can avoid the unreadable joints in the text when writing articles, but you can't bypass the difficulties and critical points of the text by doing side comments. Wen Jian is accustomed to confronting these "key points" of the text head-on, so the life gate of many texts can be uniquely figured out by him, and then become a broad road to his so-called "perusal" and "rereading". According to the evaluation of Liu Dong, another fan of Wenjian, my doctoral student: "Teacher Ni has a kind of courage of 'God blocking the killing of God' and 'Buddha blocking the killing of Buddha'. Researchers should face the text head-on, we should talk about politics when we encounter politics, we should talk about human feelings when we encounter human feelings, and finally we must grasp a thing in our hands. This thing that is "caught in the hand" is what Wen Jian likes to say about "text texture" and "text integrity". Only by confronting the text head-on can we finally reach this totality and literature. What I admire most about Wen Jian is this kind of courage to face the text and attack head-on.
The head-to-head confrontation between the tip of the text and the text is sometimes difficult, and it takes a lot of hardship, and even affects many of his friends. The recent "Disaster of pond fish" comes from his dedication to reading through "Lotus Pond Moonlight". Judging from the massive number of WeChat chat screenshots that Wenjian sent me during the half-month period last fall, many of his friends were "destroyed" by him. After Wen Jian discovered the intertextuality of the "coal chip road" in the lecture at Station B, and then gave the textual basis and historical clues for the social and political reading, he reflected and re-asked some seemingly common sense questions: "What is the structural role of the "quite unquiet" at the beginning of "Lotus Pond Moonlight" in the whole text? Zhu Ziqing wrote that this "restlessness" in the back has been alleviated? Is there a sense of separation between the lyrics of the scene of "Lotus Pond Moonlight"? These questions seem to have been clear in the literary and linguistic circles for a long time, but the scriptures seem to have become incomprehensible again. And his new round of interpretation of literary classics began again, and finally crystallized into a wonderful side-review of "Lotus Pond Moonlight" in the next edition of this book. But I doubt he's going to stop there.
Ni Wenjian B station video was recorded for the first time, January 2021.
A working photo while recording a video
One of the conclusions of wenjian's round of re-reading is that Zhu Ziqing wrote a beautiful article with more form than content, and in the past, it was generally too important to the "quite unstable" at the beginning of "Lotus Pond Moonlight", and even he himself had explored the cause of this "unquiet", and then had the hypothesis of "social politics", "family" and "love", which were actually the results of over-interpretation of the connotation of the text. Wen Jian tends to think that "quite unsettling" is a reason and introduction to the author's writing, and it is difficult to interpret the meaning of small words. At least why Zhu Ziqing is "quite unsettling", the text does not provide any basis for an answer. Wenjian used WeChat to widely solicit the opinions of friends from all walks of life, and indeed forced out some quite creative new solutions, such as Mr. Zhao Gang of Tunghai University in Taiwan, who contributed an interpretation that seemed to me to be quite unexpected (unfortunately, it can only be sealed in Wenjian's mobile phone WeChat at present), and because he had not read this essay before, there was a freshness in the reading experience of "Lotus Pond Moonlight". I personally supported the subversive rereading of the tip of the text, but after reading Zhao Gang's new solution, Zhu Ziqing's "quite unsettled" made it impossible for me to be completely "quiet", and I began to think that this "unsettling" still contains a certain wholeness of related texts. The inherent lyricism of "Lotus Pond Moonlight" may therefore not be unconverted, and it is also due to the overall state of mind of the author and even the text.
The persistence of the literary tip also inspired me to further think about some of the ontological issues for classical reading. For example: Is the reinterpretation of the classics endless? Can the new interpretive framework cover past patterns? Is the holistic view available from every text? Does the principle of "super protection" of the classics also bring myths and superstitions? I also believe that these questions will be embedded in the future vision of the "poetics of reading" at the top of the text.
Teachers Hong Zicheng, Qian Liqun, Ni Wenjian, wu Xiaodong in Beijing, August 2022.
Three
Regarding the classic rereading scene of "Lotus Pond Moonlight" that occurred in the weChat back and forth, I prefer to see it as a show of Ni Wenjian's personality appeal.
Wen Jian has an excellent reputation among friends, and everyone thinks that he has a special personality charm, the kind of friend who is easy to make people look at each other and easily dedicates his heart. In today's generation, which is accustomed to maintaining a distance from each other, this kind of personality is gradually becoming rarer, perhaps close to the kind of "magnetic personality" that Tang Degang called his teacher Hu Shi. Because of this, Wen Jian is surrounded by a group of excellent friends, and among the contemporaries I know, there are Luo Gang, Mao Jian, Zhang Lianhong, Lei Qili, Sun Xiaozhong, Wang Weisong, Dong Limin, Xue Yi, Ni Wei, Ye Chengsheng and other friends. WenJian poured out his heart for the students' generation and won the love of many students. On the other hand, he is also clear about right and wrong, jealous and hateful, in the words of a friend, "can be green and white eyes", and the people who look up to him are always as good as ever, treat each other with sincerity, and always be consistent. The scene of the long night conversation happened to him and many friends, and you can also roughly think of his immersive teaching in class.
Ni Wenjian gave his father his eightieth birthday, August 2022.
WenJian's classroom teaching skills are indeed rarely matched. I had the privilege of interning in his literature classes, listening to and hosting his lectures, the kind of passion, the temptation to follow the good, the reasoning, the emotion, the empathy, the place, the test of the Method (which of course refers to as "method") ... I couldn't wait for anything, and I was envious of it. Unlike my way of attending classes, he did not have a speech, so there was always improvisation, there were bridges that made him feel wonderful, and after class, he also danced with eyebrows. But there is also a price, each time even if the same content is taught in previous years, it must be carefully prepared, so it takes a lot of energy and time in preparing for the lesson. The occasional negative effect is that the previous year's class was a colorful bridge, because this time it was not effective, or the new round of audience reactions were not timely, it is difficult to hide some frustration. I would say that he takes classes very seriously. And most of the most brilliant content in this book is the product of class. Therefore, Mao Jian once contributed the title of "Ni Wenjian's Class" to this book. Of course, now, the name "Ni Wenjian Language Class" is also appropriate, as long as you value "language" like Wenjian and understand "language" bigger than the sky.
Wen Jian once quoted a passage from Mr. Cai Xiang in the WeChat circle of friends to show his excitement:
Literary research, in its fundamental sense, is still how to face literary texts, the collection of historical documents, in the final analysis, is also to better open the text, rather than putting the cart before the horse. Therefore, when we emphasize the openness of disciplines to the outside world and to problematic scholarship, in fact, it is precisely the effort to keep the text in a state of eternal openness, and the openness of the text can lead to countless topics worth discussing. Frankly speaking, due to the emergence of universities, the meaning of the classics is no longer just "a hundred readings are not tired", but more likely, perhaps "a hundred words are not tired". The importance of interpretation has become the meaning of the topic of literary studies today.
Wen Jian should have a sense of the same spirit for this "hundred words", and most of his passion for class comes from this. One of the principles of "reading poetics" that he practices in the classroom is to "let the text be in a state of eternal openness", and "the poetics of reading" is also an open poetics, dynamic poetics. Wenjian likes to use "dynamic restoration" to describe its text interpretation, which is both a restoration and a dynamic and open process. It is precisely because of this dynamic and open understanding that he is very conscious of the methodology and the limits of inclusion in the "poetics of reading". Literature is emotional, ambiguous, and non-deterministic, and the practice of reading must follow the non-certainty of this text, but as a teacher, you cannot face students in ambiguous language, and you always have to tell ugly words in class. How to distill what can be taught without dismembering the richness and wholeness of literary texts in a fragmented way? What better way to embody a teacher's professional ethics than to make students aware of the limits of interpretation, to teach them the least and highest limits, to teach them all the methods they have understood?
Ni Wenjian (second from left) and Tang Yonghua (first from left) take hua normal university undergraduates to the Zhuhai campus of Beijing Normal University, 2020.
It has risen to the height of professional ethics, perhaps a little high, although Wenjian's sense of responsibility for students and the importance of classes are indeed well known. And his dedication and passion in the classroom is certainly not only out of self-awareness of professional ethics, I think he first got a sense of self-actualization pleasure. He recognizes teaching as an art, and in an interview, Wen Jian believed: "Real classrooms are more interactive and more attractive." Therefore, "I will not hesitate to spend several times the time, constantly changing the method to carry out various analogies and questions, and even stimulate students' curiosity and creativity through their own performances, so that students can understand the answers themselves." And when the student "successfully said along the ladder built by Ni Wenjian", the answer he expected was also the moment when he had the most sense of existence:
"It was a very painful moment!" Ni Wenjian cherished these moments, as he told his students: "Think about it, these are not a big deal, and you can't rely on them to evaluate the professor, but these moments are enough to taste for a lifetime." ”
It can be said that what Ni Wenjian experienced from his own literary reading and classroom teaching are the moments of life that the experts and professors who follow the rules and follow the steps cannot experience, the moments that stimulate the students' literary perception and philosophical thinking, the moments that get more recognition and appreciation from the audience and fans in the B station, and the infinite highlight moments for Wenjian. Indeed, these literary moments are worth a lifetime, and enough to reminisce about for a lifetime.