Realism(s) in Modern China
Through Anderson��s and Prof. Wang��s books, we are able to outline both the theory and the practice of Realism in modern China. In Anderson��s book, it is easy to consider that the debates between realistic groups of different standpoints were much eagerer and more violent than the debates between realists and romanticists. The diversity of modern Chinese Realism sometimes is not related to the poetic viewpoints of the participators but their politic positions. By reading Prof. Wang��s discussion on the lyric realism in Sheng Congwen��s fiction, the diversity of realism is manifested in the poetic aspect. First of all, I admit that I was confused by the distinction (or the ambiguity) of lyricism and romanticism. If Sheng Congwen��s fiction could be considered as ��lyricism,�� or in my understanding, lyric realism, how could he be a Realism writer? That is, if Sheng expressed his personal feeling, conveyed strong emotion or enthusiasm in his fiction, according to the definition of ��lyric,�� what is the difference between his realistic writing and Romantic writers such as Bai Wei, who shouted herself hoarse in Fight out the Ghost Tower? In my reading, Sheng Congwen��s fictions, just like the title ��Quiet,�� is quite quiet and calm in narrating tones. He never expressed his emotion excessively and most of the time we cannot recognize the implied author��s emotion in his fictions. Prof. Wang gave us the explanation my first question immediately in the begging of chapter seven in his book. Extending from Prof. Wang��s answer, in my understanding, Sheng��s fiction could be regarded as lyricism is because he expressed the emotion and collective subconsiousness of human rather his personal emotion that make his fictions lyric.
Wednesday, March 02, 2005
Realism
Anderson’s book is very inspiring in that he delineates in details the development of the so-called “realism” in the first part of last century– from the very beginning when the concept of “realism” was introduced to Chinese modern literature and increasingly became a hot issue either to the literary creations or to their critiques, along with numerous debates about the interpretation of the concept and the practice of the genre according to different political situations, finally to Mao’s 1942 “Talks at the Yan’an Forum” where he addressed the issue of national forms and established a orthodoxy of opinion about the political function of literature. But we cannot help but notice that the concept of “realism”, which Anderson took for granted from western literature and employed as a genre to compare with its Chinese counterpart, is too simplified in his usage. “Realism,” as he defined, “is a fundamentally epistemological exercise, which involves testing the capacity of language to capture and communicate the Real.” But to what extent “the Real” could be captured and communicated in the literary works? What is “the Real”?
As Anderson traces back and compared the Chinese and western tradition, he suggests that Chinese literature has no “realism” to the west definition. The reason, firstly, as we all know, is the different ways of the representation or reflection of the outside world (Chinese people used to integrate the outside into their inner world and comprehend the world from the inside-- “Tian ren he yi,” while in the western tradition early from Aristotle the outside world is alienated and understood as a object awaiting for comprehension); secondly, as Anderson develops, is that the value of Chinese history and literature is not for their own sake. In other words, he stresses the intent of the author during his literary creation and takes it as a standard to investigate the “real” representations in the literary works. The “Real,” as we would discern from Anderson’s account,
As Anderson traces back and compared the Chinese and western tradition, he suggests that Chinese literature has no “realism” to the west definition. The reason, firstly, as we all know, is the different ways of the representation or reflection of the outside world (Chinese people used to integrate the outside into their inner world and comprehend the world from the inside-- “Tian ren he yi,” while in the western tradition early from Aristotle the outside world is alienated and understood as a object awaiting for comprehension); secondly, as Anderson develops, is that the value of Chinese history and literature is not for their own sake. In other words, he stresses the intent of the author during his literary creation and takes it as a standard to investigate the “real” representations in the literary works. The “Real,” as we would discern from Anderson’s account,
the eye and the I: the mirror focuses
Ok, I have the flu, so this is going to be shorter than usual, and possibly influenced by cold medicine, and I am sorry I always seem to be posting so late.
One of the interesting explorations of realism that Anderson goesthrough is a discussion of the mirror as a metaphor for the realist fictional work. I had often thought of the same logical point that he goes on to raise...that the mirror is NOT in fact a faithful representation of reality (great news to me at the moment: I look like death). THe mirror, like the camera, and the train of movement in the realist story, is dependent upon viewpoint, upon focus. THis makes the discussion of focus on kinds of detail ostensibly superfluous to plot development especially interesting, particularly with regard to the writing of Shen Congwen. If we follow the logic that it is only in those inexplicable moments of blank lull, of fixated attention on a sheet or a landscape that reality can be viewed we must ask why. It is suggested by Anderson that because these things are not FUNCTIONAL to a plot because they disrupt and disjoint, they behave in their confounding, in a :lifelike" manner. THat realism should be a method by which we seek a knowing mimesis of the world that is real because of its pretensions of being BEYOND THE AUTHOR"S IMAGINATION is also telling. The reality sought therefore must be unknown...cannot be known. In this sense the moments of stillness and detail that pop up in works by shen congwen, a sort of managed compulsion to look, even as they are indeed subject to the control, behest and artifice of the author may well manifest a reality as well as it can possibly be described, in that it is in those places that meanings are sought and sought and sought by critics because there is no one solid meaning, because in fact those moments represent a state of not understanding that IS the only element close to a truly objective eye. In other words that which is unknowable is the only thing that approaches a true Reality, and it is not a reality that is inside our epistemological bounds, it is one that MUST lie just outside of it, and therefore be beyond the quotidienne, the experience of reality that is perhaps more like what we would expect of realism.
One of the interesting explorations of realism that Anderson goesthrough is a discussion of the mirror as a metaphor for the realist fictional work. I had often thought of the same logical point that he goes on to raise...that the mirror is NOT in fact a faithful representation of reality (great news to me at the moment: I look like death). THe mirror, like the camera, and the train of movement in the realist story, is dependent upon viewpoint, upon focus. THis makes the discussion of focus on kinds of detail ostensibly superfluous to plot development especially interesting, particularly with regard to the writing of Shen Congwen. If we follow the logic that it is only in those inexplicable moments of blank lull, of fixated attention on a sheet or a landscape that reality can be viewed we must ask why. It is suggested by Anderson that because these things are not FUNCTIONAL to a plot because they disrupt and disjoint, they behave in their confounding, in a :lifelike" manner. THat realism should be a method by which we seek a knowing mimesis of the world that is real because of its pretensions of being BEYOND THE AUTHOR"S IMAGINATION is also telling. The reality sought therefore must be unknown...cannot be known. In this sense the moments of stillness and detail that pop up in works by shen congwen, a sort of managed compulsion to look, even as they are indeed subject to the control, behest and artifice of the author may well manifest a reality as well as it can possibly be described, in that it is in those places that meanings are sought and sought and sought by critics because there is no one solid meaning, because in fact those moments represent a state of not understanding that IS the only element close to a truly objective eye. In other words that which is unknowable is the only thing that approaches a true Reality, and it is not a reality that is inside our epistemological bounds, it is one that MUST lie just outside of it, and therefore be beyond the quotidienne, the experience of reality that is perhaps more like what we would expect of realism.
Monday, February 28, 2005
"I have revolutionary feelings for you.": PArt 1: Yu Dafu, romancing the self/romancing the collective
I apologize for this response being so delayed, but I have had flu oddly off and on...I had it with mostly just muscle aches and headache last week, it went away, and now it's back with cough and stuff, probably made worse by standing out in the cold rather a lot. SO forgive my response not being as long and detailed as usual. I felt it was kind of important to write something about this topic though since lat week was a particularly Revolutionary one. This topic of Revolution + Love came up more than once in class and with the demos and all, the whole week was steeped in the theatre of revolution.
"I have Revolutionary Feelings for You"
So this is a bit of phraseology from the Cultural Revolution, but it is interesting to see the use of Revolution in Maoist discourse as a euphemism for love, romance or attraction. Maybe by this point it is less a case of revolution PLUS love than a case of revolution AS love, and love, (very) occasionally as revolution. Obviously this is much later than the writings we have been looking at but it in some ways represents an extreme end of the discourse inside the Geming jia Aiqing genre. “Free Love” was one of the underpinning concepts at work in the doctrines of New Culture, often tied up together with the "Woman Question" as posed by an overwhelming male group of intellectuals. Love, marriage and sex, loosened from their moorings of "traditional" morality became free and radical and consequently immediately subject to a new set of moralities often times conjunct to political philosophy imported from the West (usually through Japan). In my opinion sex, romance and especially their relationship to the family and to matrimony are always politically inflected if not overtly political, and so the heightened relationship and tension between these at times of political upheaval should come as no surprise. Examples in abound in the West also, (consider the persecution of homosexuals as a consequence of relations drawn between homosexuality and communism in the McCarthy era, for example). Sexual morality and the mores surrounding love are usually pivotal to cultural streams and consequently often come under fire even in the course of political change that seems unrelated to them. Furthermore in this week’s readings we are investigating ROMANTICISM… the idealistic, aesthetic, lyrical and overestimated. That poltical change that requires investment of passions (sic) should speak in the language of romance especially as constructed to be diametrically opposed to a system equally constructed as disdaining the will of the individual makes sense…we are to fall in love with the movement and with the idea of ourselves as agents in it. It might even be worth considering the romanticism of the protests of 1989 along this continuum.
Libidinal energy is a powerful thing, one to be channeled and used for the aims of the revolution, and sexual frustration or excess in this context take on meaning far greater that the desires of a particular body, just as romance extends its influence to the creation of the self, as hero or as villain, a caizi or a blackguard, in any event thus in Freudian terms overestimated, as in the case of the object of many libidinal engagements. Yu Dafu's struggle with himself on and off the page of fiction illustrates precisely the crux of the contradiction inherent in the mixing of romance, or sexuality and revolution, or nation saving. Essentially we are speaking of two related types of romance here, as presented by Leo Lee...the sexuality of the individual as directed onto others, that is the politics of correct and incorrect sexual practice, and secondly the romancing of one's image in the public eye, or as related to the masses. Obviously one arises from the other and they are very closely related, being essentially tied up with defining the self against some other, and the importance of one’s sexual practices…whether one masturbates every morning or not, are only significant if one perceives of oneself as somehow essential to the future of a nation that would be adversely affected by such things, even as it desires (sic) freedom. Leo Lee’s understanding of Yu Dafu pulls him in the end from his status as tragically flawed “superfluous man” or accidental romantic hero after years of struggle between his various selves into a comprehension of him playing a role, perhaps romanced by the public eye, perhaps knowingly playing to it. It is difficult to read works like Sinking and not detect moments where protagonist and narrator pull apart in ironic distance, and it is perhaps this complex distance which may be present in Yu Dafu’s view of himself that is often ignored in interpretation of his works and life (I am not altogether comfortable with the tendency of the analysis of Yu Dafu and Lu Xun’s works that rely heavily on diary…).
In essence, Yu Dafu in life and often in the portrayal of his protagonists pits sex against progress, and sexual politics as crucial to the moral health and character making of the nation, as it would be of the adolescent boy. Revolution is romantic, and the choice of sexual partner could mean the population of the landscape of the new Chinese Eden with revolutionary souls or the spreading of pestilence. In this he perpetuates traditional ideals, as did the discourse that would prevail in citing the moral health of the nation in relations with women.
"I have Revolutionary Feelings for You"
So this is a bit of phraseology from the Cultural Revolution, but it is interesting to see the use of Revolution in Maoist discourse as a euphemism for love, romance or attraction. Maybe by this point it is less a case of revolution PLUS love than a case of revolution AS love, and love, (very) occasionally as revolution. Obviously this is much later than the writings we have been looking at but it in some ways represents an extreme end of the discourse inside the Geming jia Aiqing genre. “Free Love” was one of the underpinning concepts at work in the doctrines of New Culture, often tied up together with the "Woman Question" as posed by an overwhelming male group of intellectuals. Love, marriage and sex, loosened from their moorings of "traditional" morality became free and radical and consequently immediately subject to a new set of moralities often times conjunct to political philosophy imported from the West (usually through Japan). In my opinion sex, romance and especially their relationship to the family and to matrimony are always politically inflected if not overtly political, and so the heightened relationship and tension between these at times of political upheaval should come as no surprise. Examples in abound in the West also, (consider the persecution of homosexuals as a consequence of relations drawn between homosexuality and communism in the McCarthy era, for example). Sexual morality and the mores surrounding love are usually pivotal to cultural streams and consequently often come under fire even in the course of political change that seems unrelated to them. Furthermore in this week’s readings we are investigating ROMANTICISM… the idealistic, aesthetic, lyrical and overestimated. That poltical change that requires investment of passions (sic) should speak in the language of romance especially as constructed to be diametrically opposed to a system equally constructed as disdaining the will of the individual makes sense…we are to fall in love with the movement and with the idea of ourselves as agents in it. It might even be worth considering the romanticism of the protests of 1989 along this continuum.
Libidinal energy is a powerful thing, one to be channeled and used for the aims of the revolution, and sexual frustration or excess in this context take on meaning far greater that the desires of a particular body, just as romance extends its influence to the creation of the self, as hero or as villain, a caizi or a blackguard, in any event thus in Freudian terms overestimated, as in the case of the object of many libidinal engagements. Yu Dafu's struggle with himself on and off the page of fiction illustrates precisely the crux of the contradiction inherent in the mixing of romance, or sexuality and revolution, or nation saving. Essentially we are speaking of two related types of romance here, as presented by Leo Lee...the sexuality of the individual as directed onto others, that is the politics of correct and incorrect sexual practice, and secondly the romancing of one's image in the public eye, or as related to the masses. Obviously one arises from the other and they are very closely related, being essentially tied up with defining the self against some other, and the importance of one’s sexual practices…whether one masturbates every morning or not, are only significant if one perceives of oneself as somehow essential to the future of a nation that would be adversely affected by such things, even as it desires (sic) freedom. Leo Lee’s understanding of Yu Dafu pulls him in the end from his status as tragically flawed “superfluous man” or accidental romantic hero after years of struggle between his various selves into a comprehension of him playing a role, perhaps romanced by the public eye, perhaps knowingly playing to it. It is difficult to read works like Sinking and not detect moments where protagonist and narrator pull apart in ironic distance, and it is perhaps this complex distance which may be present in Yu Dafu’s view of himself that is often ignored in interpretation of his works and life (I am not altogether comfortable with the tendency of the analysis of Yu Dafu and Lu Xun’s works that rely heavily on diary…).
In essence, Yu Dafu in life and often in the portrayal of his protagonists pits sex against progress, and sexual politics as crucial to the moral health and character making of the nation, as it would be of the adolescent boy. Revolution is romantic, and the choice of sexual partner could mean the population of the landscape of the new Chinese Eden with revolutionary souls or the spreading of pestilence. In this he perpetuates traditional ideals, as did the discourse that would prevail in citing the moral health of the nation in relations with women.
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