Liu Yongji's interest in the study of classical literature

Author: Jiang Junwei (Lecturer, Institute of Taiwan Studies, Wuhan University)

As a generation of masters of classical Chinese literature, Liu Yongji has made outstanding achievements in many fields, especially Qu Fu, Wenxin Carved Dragon and lexicology. In the 1960s, Liu Yongji put forward the idea of "using classical literary theory to examine the authors and works of classical literature" in his reading notebook "Silent Knowledge", which was different from the mainstream thinking of the 20th century and also limited Liu Yongji's academic influence for a long time. Liu Yongji has always adhered to this academic stereotype with a posture of "the tide cannot be swayed, and the atmosphere cannot be moved" (Wu Fangji's "Three Treatises on the New and Old Literary Views in the Eyes of My People"), for two main reasons.

First, it is based on his understanding and judgment of the development trajectory of Chinese literature. Liu Yongji has always opposed the rigid application of the Western literary theoretical discourse system to evaluate Classical Chinese literature, he said: "From the perspective of literary development, Western literary epics, dramas, and novels have developed the earliest, while China's lyric poetry has developed the earliest and most prosperous, and the reasons are different. In the west, there are so-called marching poets who are engaged in singing poetry, and the poems they sing are long stories, among which there are raps and accompanied by music, so they have developed into epics, dramas, and novels. In the oldest part of our country, it is the poem of 'Ode to beauty and ridicule' and the poem of 'The Laborer Sings His Deeds', both of which are lyrical and contemplative works, parting ways with the West and developing separately. Therefore, it is not uncommon to blindly use Western literary theory to "dismember" Chinese classical literary works and harshly rebuke the authors of classical Chinese literature; and the practice of "using Western literature to law and national literature to see its incompatibility instead of it, and to use today's ancient language and law to see its incompatibility instead of it" is not only a manifestation of governing scholars who "do not read books" but only "take novelty as high", but also an unwise move of "splitting the ancients and sacing culture". Respecting the unique development trajectory of classical Chinese literature and studying and evaluating various genres of literature under this premise seems to be a more reasonable path. From this, he came to the view that "classical literary theory is used to examine the authors and works of classical literature".

Using the discourse system of classical literature theory to study classical literature, Liu Yongji has done a good job and achieved fruitful results. Although liu yongji's academic propositions and practices are not lacking in "peers" among scholars of the same generation or even younger generations, in the trend of the times advocating opening up new ideas, creating new methods, finding new angles, and putting forward new insights, Liu Yongji and his colleagues are inevitably labeled as "outdated" and "old-fashioned". As a well-known "cultural conservatism" in China in the 20th century, Liu Yongji is actually far from being as "eating the ancients" and "clinging to the shortcomings" as people think, and his classical literary research practice has basically got rid of pure empirical evaluation and entered the "scientific category" of distinguishing names, body types, sources, positive changes, and evolution. In the special historical period of the transformation of Chinese scholarship from tradition to modernity in the 20th century, he not only did not refuse to learn new theories and concepts, but also began to "integrate China and the West" very early. His first academic monograph, Literary Theory, was the result of this attempt. Although this work, which was hailed by posterity as "China's first modern form of literary theory" (Jiang Yin's "Academic Rings"), basically relies on traditional Chinese literary theory in the selection of materials, its framework construction is a product of drawing on Western literary theory. It can be seen that Liu Yongji is not completely ignorant of the so-called "modern" or "Western" literary research theories and methods.

Second, it is closely related to the general environment he faced with the study of Chinese classical literature in the 20th century and even the development of Chinese scholarship. The 1920s, at the beginning of Liu Yongji's academic life, coincided with the rise of the "New Culture Movement" and the rise of Hu Shi and his "scientific method". The application of the so-called "scientific method" has indeed produced a large number of academic achievements. However, specific to the traditional Chinese field of literature, history and philosophy, can this "scientific method" solve all problems? Obviously, Liu Yongji does not think so. He once took the Analects as an example, saying that "the study of the near man is a new method, so he took the chapters of Confucius's answer to the disciples of the Analects and the people at that time asking filial piety, asking the government, and asking for benevolence, and compared them to each other, so as to judge them, saying that Confucius's ethical thought and political thought have such meanings, and pretending to be the method of induction", and criticized this method of governance as "suddenly seemingly orderly", but it gradually drifted away from "the true meaning of Confucius". The so-called "scientific method" is not that it cannot be used to govern learning, but it is obviously inappropriate to "know only this law, only this law" ("Broad Words").

The rise of the "scientific method" is a process in which a generation of scholars try to deconstruct and reshape traditional Chinese scholarship with Western discipline concepts and academic concepts. Although it has helped Chinese scholarship to establish disciplines and research methods that meet the "modern" standards, the "discomfort" of examining traditional Chinese learning with completely Western theories has long emerged. From this point of view, Liu Yongji's academic proposition and practice of "using classical literary theory to examine the authors and works of classical literature" is not a "check and balance" on the radical trend of the Chinese people since May Fourth who "abandon everything they have to follow people" ("Literary Theory"). For Liu Yongji, this kind of "checks and balances" is the choice of academic theory, but also the adherence of emotions, and eventually internalized into an unswerving firm belief. He not only firmly believed that "China is an ancient civilization, we have a set of academics, and we do not need any help", but even found a theoretical basis in line with the spirit of the times from the "unseen books in the world" Marxist-Leninist works that he "read in his later years" for the proposition of "using classical literary theory to examine classical literary authors and works". Behind these seemingly "pedantic" behaviors, there is his attachment to and adherence to the traditional Chinese academic path, and also his thinking and exploration of the rational path of Chinese classical literature.

Guangming Daily (2019.03.04 13th edition)