Remembering Mr. Wang Jisi: The fire of salary is endless

Mr. Wang Jisi

In October and December 1982, Mr. Wang Jisi edited "China's Top Ten Classical Tragedies" and "China's Top Ten Classical Comedy Collections" were successively published by Shanghai Literature and Art Publishing House, and quickly became bestsellers throughout the country. The ten classical tragedies include Guan Hanqing's "Dou E'e Grievance", Ma Zhiyuan's "Han Gong Qiu", Ji Junxiang's "Orphan of Zhao", Hong Sheng's "Hall of Eternal Life", Kong Shangren's "Peach Blossom Fan", etc.; the top ten comedies include Guan Hanqing's "Saving the Wind and Dust", Bai Pu's "On the Wall", Wang Shifu's "Xi Xiang Ji", etc., all of which are familiar with the classical Chinese opera Jinghua.

Ancient Chinese opera is mostly classified by theme and industry, or by regional genre, and there is no distinction between tragedy and comedy. Tragic comedy originated in ancient Greece, in which tragic writers are represented by Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides, and comedy writers are represented by Aristophanes, which is the source of mainstream Western drama. In modern times, Chinese also began to cite the European concept of tragic comedy aesthetics to discuss Chinese classical opera, for example, Wang Guowei once said that "Dou E'er" and "Zhao's Orphan" "even if they are listed in the world's great tragedies are not ashamed", after that, some people have tried to classify Chinese classical opera as tragedy and comedy, but there is no successful example, Wang Jisi edited the "China Top Ten Classical Tragedies Collection" and "China Top Ten Classical Comedy Collection" after the publication, the tragicomedy of Chinese classical opera is accepted by many ordinary readers. It is of great significance in the history of the development and research of Chinese opera.

In his youth, Wang Jisi studied at Southeast University, studied under the famous scholar Wu Mei, and later became famous at home and abroad for his annotation and study of Wang Shifu's "Records of the West Chamber", and gradually became a famous scholar of ancient literary history and classical opera. He began teaching at Sun Yat-sen University in 1948 until his retirement in 1990 at the age of 84. According to Huang Tianji, a professor at Sun Yat-sen University's Department of Chinese, even after "retirement, he still insisted on working." When I wake up in the morning, I sit at my desk and work endlessly." Due to the openness of his thinking and the broadening of his horizons, Wang Jisi's academic achievements in his later years were particularly remarkable, including these two collections of famous works that he drew on the aesthetic ideas of Western literature and art to sort out and classify Chinese classical opera.

Wang Jisi originally had no concept of tragic comedy. According to Professor Yi Xinnong's recollection, around 1979, during an academic exchange, he told Mr. Wang that Western drama has a tragic comedy, and ancient Chinese opera can also be divided into tragedy and comedy. Mr. Wang was very interested. It coincided with the Ministry of Education entrusting Sun Yat-sen University to hold a national higher education opera training class, presided over by Mr. Wang Jisi, who warmly invited Yi Xinnong to give a lecture to the class. Among Chinese them, Song Mianyou of Nankai University graduated from Sun Yat-sen University and was in the same class as Yi Xinnong, whose title at that time was only lecturer.

Yi Xinnong said that his special lecture is divided into two parts: first introduce the Western theory of tragic comedy represented by Aristotle's "Poetics", such as Aristotle said: "Tragedy is an imitation of a serious, complete, and long action... In order to arouse pity and fear, this emotion is cultivated (purified)", and some people believe that Greek tragedy expresses the dignity and meaning of life. Secondly, combined with theoretical analysis of the writer's works, focusing on the representative works of the three great tragedians of ancient Greece, such as "Prometheus", "Antigone", "Medea", and so on. Huang Tianji was an associate professor at the time, and he taught Guan Hanqing opera in the training class. Yi Xinnong said that their lectures in the training class were widely praised by students from all over the country, especially through the study of ancient Greek tragedies and comedies, which expanded the teaching and research ideas of classical Chinese opera, and Mr. Wang Jisi was also inspired, and his idea of editing the Ten Tragedies and The Ten Comedies was born in this training class.

Professor Huang Tianji said that Mr. Wang "especially likes to be close to young people, and he feels that when teaching is good, old experts can also draw what they lack from their descendants." He also said that Mr. Wang Jisi has a habit, "After he writes a good article, whether it is a long paper or a poetry miscellaneous feeling, he always has to copy it out and ask his students to give advice." Mr. Wang Jisi made a long preface to the Ten Tragedies and the Ten Great Joys dramas, each with more than 10,000 words, Professor Yi Xinnong said that After Mr. Wang wrote the first draft, he personally sent it to the door to order it to be revised, and he also unceremoniously proposed eighteen revision suggestions, and Mr. Wang was humble and accepted them one by one. Mr. Wang modestly wrote at the end of the preface to the Ten Great Joy Dramas: "The use of the aesthetic concept of tragedy and comedy to discuss China's classical opera is a new attempt, and our theory of European tragedy and comedy lacks in-depth research, nor does it explore the artistic characteristics of Classical Comedy in China." He then pleaded with experts and readers for correction.

As a colleague of the younger generation, Yi Xinnong and Mr. Wang Jisi have maintained close contacts and have always maintained close exchanges, in addition to asking for benefits, they often ask for warmth and warmth, and care about Mr. Wang's body and life. In the spring of 1990, When Mr. Wang occasionally suffered from a small illness, Professor Yi Xinnong went to visit and brought a volume of "Goethe's Conversation" with him, recommending that Mr. Wang read it. After a period of time, Mr. Wang was bedridden and sent himself to read the "Goethe Talk", and he was deeply touched. A few days later, he wrote a poem: "A bed is faint, and the deep love is idle." The group of books is tied up in the high cabinet, and the dream is heavier and heavier. Weimar should not be envied, Hao Liang can be invited. Be gracious to Goethe and be content to be at ease. He copied this five-word poem "Lying sick in the end of the year with the "Goethe Talk"" on a short note on rice paper and gave it to "Comrade Xinnong's Memory". The so-called "attentive thanks to Goethe", in addition to thanking this "Goethe Talk" for accompanying him through the lonely time on his sickbed, may also thank Western writers and thinkers, including Goethe, for inspiring his academic research in his later years, and he is also "content and self-indulgent".

Speaking of Goethe and Western writers, Professor Yi Xinnong also thought of the British novelist Herbert George Wells's "The Country of the Blind" and his 1979 article "From the 'Country of the Blind'" co-written with Mr. Wang Jisi.

Wells is the author of science fiction novels such as "Time Machine" and "Invisible Man", "The Blind Man's Country" is a short story, telling the protagonist Niu Nais mistakenly entered the blind country, the country is in a remote valley, the country people do not believe in the wonderful outside world, and clash with Niu Nais. The novel is strangely conceived and profoundly allegorical, satirizing those who are lonely and self-righteous under the illusion of the so-called progressive era. Wang Jisi read the translation of Chen Shiyi, an alumnus of Sun Yat-sen University, and believed that he coincided with Yi Xinnong's views, so the two co-wrote an article entitled "Thoughts from the "Country of the Blind"", signed by Ji Si and Xinnong, and published it in the fourth episode of the "Flower City" literary and art series.

At the end of the 1970s, the trend of ideological emancipation was ushered in, and the cultural circles cheered the arrival of spring while the debate of "Goethe and lack of morality" broke out. The so-called "Goethe" is not the German literary hero, but refers to the "song of merit and praise", attacking the newly emerging "scar literature", saying that "those who do not 'Goethe' are 'lacking in morality'". Wang Jisi and Yi Xinnong certainly disagreed with this view, and their articles were linked to reality by the blind country, believing that "opening the floodgates of darkness and breaking through the shackles of the feudal ideological tradition that has been inherited is an important task on the ideological front for a long time to come." "Flower City" is a literary journal that has just been launched, and after the article was published, it caused repercussions throughout the country, and some readers wrote letters to criticize the author for being a "lack of morality", but Mr. Wang Jisi was not moved, and he also published an article entitled "Let Go of the Horizon and Get Rid of the Shackles" in the 2nd issue of "Foreign Literature Studies" in 1980, talking about "The Country of the Blind" in the form of a book and adhering to his own views.

In January 2020, on the eve of Professor Yi Xinnong's birthday, he transferred his treasured Mr. Wang Jisi's hand, as well as the first edition of "China's Top Ten Classical Tragedies" and "China's Top Ten Classical Comedy Collections" edited by Mr. Yi Xinnong to the author. I think that Teacher Yi's move is also the meaning of Mr. Wang Jisi's other poem" in which "the salary is exhausted and the light is endless, and the eyes are long to see the spring star".