With his exemplary writing in "Waking Up from the Hypnotic World: The Limits and Possibilities of Contemporary Poetry" (East China Normal University Press, January 2020) and "Concepts and Poems in the "Deep Drawing" of History" (People's Publishing House, October 2020), Professor Jiang Tao of the Department of Chinese of Peking University won the honor of "Literary Critic of the Year" at the 2021 Southern Literature Festival.
On October 23, the "2021 Southern Literature Festival" sponsored by The Southern Metropolis Daily, the New Era Civilization Practice Center of Shunde District of Foshan City, the Publicity Department of the Shunde District Party Committee (District Culture, Radio, Television, Tourism and Sports Bureau), and the People's Government of Beijiao Town, Shunde District were held in the Concert Hall of Shunde Beijiao Cultural Center. The six honors of the highly anticipated "2021 Southern Literature Festival" - Outstanding Writer of the Year, Novelist of the Year, Poet of the Year, Essayist of the Year, Literary Critic of the Year, and Most Promising Newcomer of the Year were unveiled one by one, and more than 100 writers, scholars, literature lovers and local readers in Shunde were jointly presented.
Jiang Tao, "Literary Critic of the Year" at the 2021 Southern Literature Festival and Professor of Peking University
*2021 Southern Literature Festival "Literary Critic of the Year" Jiang Tao
Born in 1970, he is a professor in the Department of Chinese, Peking University, whose research interests include modern literature and new Chinese poetry. He has published poetry collections "A Day in the Cave", "The Bird Classic", academic and critical monographs "Waking Up from the Hypnotic World", "Tower in the Apartment", "Bakunin's Hand", "New Poetry Collection and the Occurrence of New Chinese Poetry", etc.
*Award Speech:
Jiang Tao has the style of a theorist and maintains the intuition and sensitivity of a poet. He realized the depth of the poem, analyzed the details of the poem, felt the breath of the poem, and faced the limits of the poem. How can those vague and ambiguous concepts and images be clearly described in a meticulous and dedicated discourse analysis, Jiang Tao's writing is exemplary. His academic works published in 2020, such as "Awakening from the Hypnotic World: The Limits and Possibilities of Contemporary Poetry" and "Ideas and Poems in the "Deep Drawing" of History", identify the meaning of the individual from the overall vision and confirm the poet's creation from the historical context. The texts that Jiang Tao read carefully lead not only to poetry, but also to the social and cultural structure in which poetry grows. When poetry is rediscovered, the poet's spirit is reshaped.
Jiang Tao's book "Concepts and Poems in the "Deep Drawing" of History", People's Publishing House, October 2020
*Jiang Tao's thank you:
When I learned the news of my award, I was a bit surprised and a little nervous. My main profession is to do research in literary history, and occasionally to engage in some criticism of contemporary poetry, which is not a particularly lively and eye-catching field. The relevant work can enter the vision of the judges of the "Southern Literature Festival", and in addition to excitement, it also makes me feel a little at ease, feeling that the path I choose is not too remote, can resonate with peers and teachers, and even communicate with more people and the wider world. For a writer, a critic, this is not only a glory, but also a blessing.
My critical writing began in the mid-1990s. In that era, the transformation of contemporary poetic atmosphere and the transformation of the life of the entire era and the surging trend of humanistic academic thought had a strong correspondence. Reflections related to poetry seem to help an uneasy self find place and direction in uncertain historical feelings, which roughly establishes the starting point of a certain criticism. Later, he stumbled by mistake and embarked on the road of academic research, and because of the habits formed by daily work, he began to explore further, hoping to combine the problem vision and solid style of literary history research with the sensitivity of contemporary criticism. Looking back, the critical texts written by Laza in recent years are not systematic, and if the intention is pointed, it is roughly in two aspects: First, for a certain inertia formed in the concepts and feelings of contemporary poetry, we strive to maintain "vigilance within the system", and try to provide some reflective possibilities while defending and explaining. Second, try to construct a certain comprehensive and perspective vision in the interweaving of multiple dimensions such as literature, thought, society, and history, hoping to grasp the possibilities and limits of writing in specific era problems and social fabrics. It just so happens that the titles of the two books that entered the judges' field of vision: "Awakening from the Hypnotic World" and "Ideas and Poems in the Historical "Deep Drawing" roughly correspond to these two aspects. In my opinion, criticism is a better way to "serve" writing, not only to "produce" safe and comfortable knowledge, but also to take the initiative to produce knowledge about crises and possibilities, and to create a rich, tense, and enthusiastic ideological atmosphere for writing through sincere work.
The Southern Literature Festival, which includes the previous Chinese Media Literature Award, has a history of nearly 20 years and has become a tradition in itself. I believe that in everyone's mind, it represents a standard, a scale, and at the same time a flourishing literary imagination towards the future. Rilke said in his poem, "Give them two more days of southern climate /forcing them to mature," which I quoted as the title of a commentary. Thank you very much for the recognition and encouragement of the judges and teachers, so that I also have the opportunity to stand under the giant tree of southern literature and feel the warm air current blowing and beating. As a northern fruit that has been hanging for many years, although I dare not say that I can continue to ripen, I hope that my feelings and thoughts will not harden and scab prematurely, and I can still have fresh juice and gush at the moment.
*Interview with Jiang Tao:
Criticism can have a little more ambitious ambition
Nandu: In the review collection "Constantly Waking Up from a Hypnotic World", there are several articles that focus on the "personalization of the historical imagination" or the "personalization" and "barnyard history" of history in contemporary poetry writing, and have in-depth and meticulous discussions with different texts as incisions. Among the many problems facing contemporary poetry, why do you think this issue is important and deserves sustained attention? Years have passed since these articles were written, has this historical "personal" style of writing changed?
Jiang Tao: There are probably two origins for discussing this topic: first, around 2010, some of the more ambitious poets began to deal with historical or relatively major realistic themes with large-scale long poems and group poems, and the tension between the personalized perspective and the "behemoth" of history was also more interestingly revealed; second, the late critic Mr. Chen Chao used the generation of "personalized historical imagination" to summarize the transformation of contemporary avant-garde poetry since the 1980s. This discussion is quite important, but I personally feel that there is room for further development on how to understand the "historical imagination" and how to understand "personalization". To expand on the point, contemporary avant-garde poetry arose in the spiritual aura of "I do not believe", out of the reaction to the grand "history" of the revolutionary era and the solidification of "reality", contemporary poets generally tend to use style to eliminate historical oppression and imagination to release differences, "personalization of history" or "barnyard history", which roughly refers to such a generally accepted writing position. From a certain point of view, this may be the result of the "reversal" of history, but also with the modern or postmodern aesthetics, and there are many echoes with the contemporary intellectual fashion, over time, such a feeling or conceptual structure is also deposited, internalized in the consciousness of contemporary avant-garde poetry, and even becomes an unobtrusive "aesthetic ideology". My articles from previous years were generally intended to sort out the formation of the concept and the structure of feelings of "personalization of history", and also to examine its inherent limitations. Of course, in the eyes of many poets and critics, emphasizing the relationship between poetry and history is actually a self-obsessive-compulsive disorder left over from a bad literary era, and the autonomy of poetry is precisely reflected in the escape and confrontation of historical burdens. Behind such controversy, there may also be different expectations for the prospects and cultural character of contemporary poetry.
As I just said, "personalization of history" is not simply a style or writing method, but also a feeling and conceptual structure deposited within contemporary poetry, and when the social and cultural structure on which poetry relies has not changed much, such habits are difficult to loosen, and "personalization" has indeed brought great vitality to avant-garde poetry, but when it is deposited as a habit and an "ideology", it is necessary to be alert and maintain a certain open imagination. For example, poets are accustomed to writing from the side, the back, from the part and the edge, whether they can also stand on the front and face history and life with a more holistic sense; for example, contemporary poetry is used to playing the image of "heretics", and the posture will be stiff over time, and it is inevitable to become another one holding a shelf, whether it can also relax and gain new vision and new passion in the process of participating in cultural construction.
Nandu: In the article "How is the "Historical Imagination" Possible: Reading Notes of Several Long Poems", you analyzed the long poems of four poets, Bai Hua, Xi Chuan, Xiao Kaiyu, and Ouyang Jianghe. Does the third generation of poets devote themselves to long poetry writing, which means that they have another ambition and breakthrough in poetry?
Jiang Tao: In fact, this question has just been responded to. The people you mentioned are all the elders and brothers of the poetry circle that I respect more, and have benefited a lot from them over the years, and strong writing will arouse the impulse of criticism, which is why long poems are chosen as the object of discussion. In the article, I have made some reviews of the limits of several long poems, reviewed and reviewed, I still greatly admire the efforts of several poets to break through themselves and even the contemporary poetry pattern, in fact, this is also the ambition that has always existed in the history of new poetry, like Luo Yihe and Haizi once envisioned, writing poetry should not only be like lyricism, drinking water, looking at the moon, but also seeking a kind of "big poetry", a kind of writing that can correspond to the richness of our civilization and history. My criticism, in the eyes of some friends, may be a little harsh, and in the eyes of other friends, it may be too ambiguous, because I always want to say it and stop, and I refuse to make a clear judgment of merit and inferiority. This is probably related to an understanding of the ethics of criticism: it is easy to stand on the outside to make accusations and judgments, but it is difficult to understand the difficulty of breaking through in a common situation.
Jiang Tao, "Waking Up from the Hypnotic World: The Limits and Possibilities of Contemporary Poetry", East China Normal University Press, January 2020
Nandu: In your 2015 review article, you discussed the popularity of Yu Xiuhua and the Workers' Poetry Society, and thus discussed the attempts of contemporary poetry to intervene in the public sphere. Is it possible for contemporary poetry to get rid of its "marginal" situation and play some constructive role in soothing and nourishing the contemporary spirit?
Jiang Tao: My feelings are not necessarily accurate, in recent years, with the rise of new media for poetry, as well as the cultivation of a young generation of literary and artistic youth, although contemporary poetry is still on the edge, it seems to be lively, and events related to poets will also become the focus of public opinion from time to time. This shows that poetry still has its public nature, and even plays a role in some kind of "emotional education", in the process of reading, discussing and sharing, not only providing comforting emotions, but also providing a richer and more tense emotional model, which subtly plays a role. Our imagination of the publicity of poetry is sometimes too simple, as if publicity corresponds to the number of readers, whether it has a sensational effect, or whether it responds to some specific social issue. In fact, the generation of poetry publicity may also be quiet, like ripples on the water, linking more feelings, thinking, and bringing new understanding of the social situation we all share. Ma Yan has a sentence that I appreciate and quotes in the article: She said that poetry cannot do anything, but it wants to do something, which is its breadth.
Nandu: If poetry writing presupposes an extremely narrow audience, what is the point of criticism? Can poetic criticism carry a broader range of ideological and social functions?
Jiang Tao: The so-called "dedication to an infinite minority" seems to be a basic tenet of modern poetry. Modern poetry, or new poetry, is generally a fateful style, getting more misunderstandings than understanding, so relying on the judgment of peers will have a feeling of writing for Zhiyin, and will also make the exploration of language more profound. But if similar statements are repeated, they will become a kind of rule, a kind of "cliché", which will bring about a closed consciousness. The function of criticism is multifaceted, and it is necessary to praise the work of peers, to a certain extent, to warm up in groups, and to communicate writing and reading through perusal, but in addition, criticism can also have more ambitious ambitions, such as providing a more open and tense atmosphere of thought for writing and reading, which is also necessary, and in today's view, this is also particularly urgent. (Interview/Nandu reporter Huang Qian)