The "History of Chinese Children's Literature" focuses on a "history" character. "History" is the abbreviation of history. What is history? Simply put, it is everything that has happened in the past time. However, it is impossible to turn back the clock, and future generations have only described history. Description is incomplete, selective and subjective, becoming a conscious or unconscious "construction".
The attitude toward history or historiography, or the understanding, should be brought to our attention by the famous sayings of such scholars.
The first is The Year of Foss. In 1928, Fu Si Nian published an article entitled "The Purpose of the Work of the Institute of Historical Linguistics", in which he said:
Historiography is not history: every history is more or less tinged with the meaning of the ancient and modern times, and every time it takes the means of an ethicist, it is the skill of an essayist. Modern historiography is only the study of historical materials, using all the tools provided to us by natural science to sort out all the historical materials that can be encountered.
"Modern historiography is only the study of historical materials", which was later passed down as "historiography is historiography". This view highlights the importance of historical materials, emphasizing the restoration of history and the theory of deriving from history.
This was followed by Croce, who was hailed as the last representative of the Renaissance, who said that "all history is contemporary history". My understanding is that history is selectively recorded according to today's ideas and today's needs, that is, history, as a footnote to today, is still "alive" in the present.
The third is the Republic of China thinker Mei Guangdi, who said that "history is the record of human beings seeking unchangeable values." He does not explain in detail the understanding of "unchanging values", or can be understood as natural law representing justice, including truth, goodness and beauty, which is the ultimate pursuit of human beings. This is a transcendent utilitarian view of history.
The fourth is the German philosopher Gadamer, who proposed "effect history" and said: "The real object of history is not an object at all, but a unity of oneself and others, or a relationship in which there is both a historical reality and a historical understanding of reality." He believes that objectivity cannot exist independently of the subject, it must be expressed in the subject; subjectivity cannot be stipulated outside of objectivity, it must enrich itself from objectivity, and the activity of understanding is not the subjective conscious activity of the subject's understanding of the object, but the most basic mode of human existence, the process of mutual qualification of subject and object, and the object of understanding is not a fixed and unchanging object, but the unity of the subject and object limiting each other. Under the domination of this concept, he broke the dualistic opposition between subject and object, and made understanding move towards the fusion of subjectivity and objectivity, and the direction of dialogue between the interpreter and the object of understanding. History will no longer be an objective existence outside the body of historians, and historians can also enter history through their own efforts. Gadamer's hermeneutics highlights the great significance of historical research and provides a theoretical basis for rewriting history.
The above views on history have appeared and will continue to appear repeatedly in our research on the history of Chinese children's literature, and even affect our evaluation of a certain work. Children's literature scholars with different views of history will write different histories of children's literature. Not only that, but scholars who uphold different views of children and children's literature will also write different histories of children's literature because they use different evaluation criteria.
The second thing that should be noted in the "History of Chinese Children's Literature" is the term "literary history". Chinese literature has a long history, at least three thousand years of history, but Chinese the beginning of systematic study of literary history, it was published as late as the publication of Huang Ren's (Moses) "History of Chinese Literature" (not traditionally believed Lin Chuanjia's "History of Chinese Literature"), which has a history of only more than 110 years. The study of modern literary history began in 1929 with zhu Ziqing's "New Literary Studies" course at Tsinghua University, and has a history of more than 90 years. At present, the works on the history of ancient literature and the history of modern literature can be described as full of sweat and cattle, and the excavation of historical materials is not to say that it has been completely exhausted, but at least a basic document guarantee system has been established. Moreover, the research methods have also been continuously renovated, and they have been continuously rewritten, and a relatively mature and stable literary history form has been established. In studying the history of Chinese children's literature, we should learn more from the history of modern literature and draw useful methods and experiences. That is to say, the development of the modern literary literature protection system has been very successful. At present, the compilation of research materials on modern literary writers, the publication of complete collections (including letters and diaries), and the writing of biographical chronicles are relatively complete, and there are many research monographs on the study of individual writers. These published results and research results are constantly "cast", which can naturally smelt out a dazzling "treasure". In this situation, the rewriting of modern literary history in the future can only be partially changed, but it is difficult to completely overthrow the existing system. The main direction of modern literary research will surely enter the stage of in-depth study of individual writers, meticulous to the search, salvage, and interpretation of fragments and fragments. The emergence of modern literary philology is a sign of the maturity of modern literary research. This shows that modern literary research may achieve simplicity and Fang Zhihua, which is the characteristic of ancient literary research. Following this trend, the concept of "modern literature" may disappear and become a historical term. The emergence of new terms such as "Chinese literature of the 20th century" and "literature of the Republic of China" is precisely the way to break this dilemma. But it is a pity that the study of modern literary history has failed to continue Zhu Ziqing's "Outline for the Study of New Chinese Literature" and include "children's literature" in the scope of research, so that "children's literature" has a "abandoned" taste. In fact, "modern literature", as "modern" literature and "new literature", is largely due to the birth of children's literature. Children's literature best reflects the characteristics of new literature. If we still want to rewrite the history of modern literature, I think that Zhu Ziqing's "Outline for the Study of New Chinese Literature" regards the "children's literature movement" as a section of the history of new literature, which is worth restoring in today's works of modern literary history, and should continue to dig deeper to restore the proper position of children's literature in the history of modern literature.
To study the history of Chinese children's literature, we should also learn from the history of contemporary literature. "Contemporary literary history" is a well-criticized term because, in the eyes of many, there is a contradiction in time between "history" and "contemporary". I also disagree with this formulation. We can conduct contemporary literary research and even historical inquiry, but it is indeed inappropriate to call it "history" in a hurry. Zhu Ziqing's study of new literature is actually exploring the birth and development of new literature, but he only modestly calls it the Outline of New Chinese Literature Research, but does not call it the Outline of the History of New Chinese Literature, indicating that he has noticed this problem. In addition, the time frame of "contemporary" is currently capped to 1949, and the writers of that period are not the same era as the writers of the present, collectively called "contemporary", which has overwhelmed the word "contemporary". However, the academic community, which has accepted the term "history of contemporary literature" and offered this course in universities, has had to accept this formulation. For China, the relationship between children's literature and contemporary literature is actually closer than that of modern literature. Children's literature in modern literature as a whole was small, and many writers at that time lacked a clear sense of style. That is, taking "fairy tales" as an example, in the Republic of China period, there was no consensus on its connotation, let alone how many good fairy tale works there were? Although Chinese children's literature was born in the May Fourth period, it was only in 1949 that it ushered in a new period. It can be said that these two "births" are the tragic embodiment of the congenital inadequacy, malnutrition, untimeliness and ill-fated fate of modern Chinese children's literature. Hong Zicheng, a historian of contemporary Chinese literature, pointed out: "Left-wing literature with Yan'an literature as the main component entered the 1950s and became the only literary fact." That is to say, contemporary literature was born out of Yan'an literature. Contemporary children's literature became an integral part of contemporary literature and gained a new life in the 1950s in accordance with the general production mechanism of contemporary literature. Until now, the relationship between contemporary children's literature and contemporary literature has not changed substantially, and when we study the history of contemporary children's literature, we must attach importance to the study of contemporary literary history and not decouple again. The emergence of contemporary literature pointed out by Hong Zicheng also provides a direction for us to think about the emergence of contemporary children's literature (for example, whether we should strengthen the study of Yan'an children's literature, and what role Yan'an children's literature has played in the production of contemporary children's literature), this conclusion can also bring some enlightenment to our thinking about children's literature works that carry forward the main theme today. For example, the most classic theoretical literature of Yan'an literature is "Speech at the Yan'an Literary and Art Forum", and later socialist literature was developed on this basis.
Only by thinking clearly about the above questions can we better study the history of Chinese children's literature. At present, more than a dozen works on the history of Chinese children's literature have been published, especially those edited by Jiang Feng, and many colleges and universities use them as textbooks. There are three other books that deserve our attention, one is the "History of Chinese Children's Literature in the 20th Century" edited by Professor Zhang Yongjian of Central China Normal University, the other is the "History of Chinese Children's Literature" written by Mr. Liu Xuyuan, and the other is the newly published "History of Chinese Children's Literature" by Wang Quangen. They all depict the historical picture of Chinese children's literature, which is very rich and wonderful. However, I have repeatedly shouted "rewriting the history of Chinese children's literature", how to understand this "rewriting"? This involves many aspects of such as the concept of history, the historical materials of children's literature, the concept of children's literature, the trend of children's literature, the paradigm of children's literature and many other aspects. It should be noted that Mr. Liu Xuyuan's "Outline of the History of Chinese Children's Literature" is actually an excellent masterpiece of rewriting the history of Chinese children's literature, and the work I have done is precisely to respond to and supplement him, with a view to rewriting the history of Chinese children's literature to the end. I think this is also the deepest remembrance of Mr. Liu.
Editor-in-Charge: Long Yali
About the author
Eyebrows: Formerly known as Mei Jie, born in 1984, Hubei Huangmei people. Research modern literature and children's literature. He presided over the publication of "Chinese Children's Literature Towards the World's Fine Books" (Chinese, English, Korean and other editions), "The Complete Works of Feng Zikai", edited hundreds of children's literature books such as "Chinese Children's Literature Big Vision Series" and "Lin Haiyin Complete Children's Literature Collection", and participated in the point school work of "Deng Wenbin Collection", "Yu Blood Wheel Collection" and "Yu Wenjun Collection" in "Jingchu Library". In 2014, he was awarded the title of "China's Good Editor" and in 2018, he was awarded the title of China Publishing Rising Star. He is the author of "Notes on Langshan", "About the Abolition of Names", "Exploration of Modern Literary Historical Materials", "Missing Persons in Literary History", "Children's Books", "Notes on Feng Zikai - Pan-Children's Literature With Notes", "Huang Mei Wen Vein", "Mei Guangdi First Draft of the Annals". He has compiled "Xu Junyuan Wencun", "Mei Guangdi Wencun", and "Miscellaneous Records of QiQing Lou".
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