The documentary "Yuelu Academy" is being broadcast on Hunan Satellite TV. Because I wrote two corrective articles, I did not expect to get many private messages from readers. There are recognizers and there are critics. Some viewers believe that this is a popular science small program, and there is no need to nitpick. I don't hold this view, but when Yuelu Academy was officially promoted, it was marked with the words "large-scale historical and humanistic documentary." Documentaries and film and television dramas are different, and they should be carefully written and sentenced. Based on this, I would like to find a little mistake in the latest third issue of "Yuelu Academy" and hope that when they make subsequent revisions, they can change it.
In the third issue, Yuelu Academy talks about Wang Fuzhi's life and academic content. Of course, as I first commented on the documentary, the content of historical materials and stories occupies a lot of space, and the content of ideas is not only superficial, but also too few. But that's not the biggest problem with the third installment. In this issue, I think the most debatable thing is that the society established by Wang Fuzhi was defined as a "literary society" by the editors and directors of Yuelu Academy.
Historically, the records of Wang Fuzhi's "xingshe" are very limited, and in the current academic research, there is not much content for the "xingshe". However, in the 1980s, several scholars at Xiangtan University specialized in Wang Fuzhi and had some academic inferences about Wang Fuzhi's "Kuang Society". In the first issue of the Journal of Xiangtan University in 1988, I can see a research article on Wang Fuzhi's "Kuang Society".
In this highly theoretical article, the reader is informed that the record of the content and purpose of the activities of the "Kuang Society" "has not left any record", so only Many of Wang Fuzhi's poems and biographies can be found. The article in the Journal of Xiangtan University believes that Wang Fuzhi's Kuang Society, similar to the Donglin Book Club, the Fushui Shanfang Society, and the Fu Society in the late Ming Dynasty, belonged to the groups established by the readers with "social activities". To put it bluntly, it is a group with a stronger political nature.
The Xingshe and kuangshe belong to the two "societies" formed and participated in by Wang Fuzhi in the early days, and the nature of the two "societies" is similar. Based on the views of the Journal of Xiangtan University, Wang Fuzhi's "xingshe" really cannot be attributed to the literary society. Just as the revival of the late Ming Dynasty cannot be classified as a literary society. These societies do not study literary works at all, still less engage in poetry, songs, novels, and dramas. Hunan Satellite TV's "Yuelu Academy" said that Wang Fuzhi's "xingshe" was a literary society.
"Literary society" is actually a very modern term. In our current universities, there are often literary clubs in Chinese departments. The task of these literary societies is to study the content of literature. It can be said that before the rise of modern universities, there were no so-called literary societies. Why not? This is a very noteworthy cultural phenomenon.
In classical China, poetry, songs, drama novels, etc., have always been regarded as the content of "small roads", and readers are disdainful. In the "Dream of the Red Chamber" in the Qing Dynasty, Jia Baoyu especially could recite poetry, but what happened? His father directly criticized him, did not read useful books, and engaged in some useless things. In ancient China, although the literati would have some poetry and song, everyone basically looked down on these things. Inside the Confucian Avenue, I despise novels the most. In the "History of Chinese Literature", Mr. Qian Mu has a very thorough explanation of this contempt, and interested readers can read this book. I won't dwell on it here.
Therefore, a high-level institution like Yuelu Academy, a temple-level place of Confucianism, and engaging in literary societies is simply a fantasy, and it is a big fool to slip the world. If Wang Fuzhi were to engage in a literary society, he would not let the brothers and sisters of Yuelu Academy laugh to death. This is a very interesting point in traditional Chinese culture. It is also a point that the choreographers of "Yuelu Academy" may not understand. However, this point should be understood, and it should be understood as a little common sense of traditional Chinese culture.
Of course, in ancient China, the word "literature" had other meanings different from the poetry and song that we now think of as novels and dramas. "Literature" is sometimes the name of an official position, and sometimes it is also the meaning of "literature and classics". In the Analects, it is said that literature, Ziyou, Zixia. The word "literature" here means "literature and classics". It's a bit like the philology we talk about in modern Chinese.
So, can the "literary society" in "Yuelu Academy" take the meaning of "literature and classics"? It was Wang Fuzhi and others who got together in groups to study philology. If you force this to say this, if you point a gun at the old editor and let the old editor give a round lie, of course, you can say the same. However, one thing to know is that the two veins of Song Ming Confucianism are nothing more than dignity and Taoism. Although the Ming Dynasty already had a good accumulation, there is no material to prove that the disciples of Yuelu Academy gathered together at the end of the Ming Dynasty to give rhymes.
Based on the above, I think that Wang Fuzhi's meaning of "walking society", the society of action, interpreting it as "literary society" is nonsense. (Text/Ma Qingyun)
I couldn't afford to meditate and fall to the ground blindfolded, and I was amused by Hunan Satellite TV's "Yuelu Academy", is Confucianism like this?
"Yuelu Academy" premiered on Hunan Satellite TV, talking about Confucianism is ambitious, but there are too many stories and too few theories