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Conditions of literary modernities: a conceptual history of Chinese literature, 1860-1925
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Conditions of literary modernities: a conceptual history of Chinese literature, 1860-1925
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Conditions of Literary Modernities: A Conceptual History of Chinese Literature, 1860-1925 ! by ! Yu-Kai Lin ! A Dissertation Presented to Faculty of the USC Graduate School University of Southern California In partial fulfillment of the Requirements for the degree Doctor of Philosophy (Comparative Literature) ! ! August 2015 ! ! Dissertation Committee Professors Dominic Cheung (Chair), Akira Mizuta Lippit, Brian Bernards ! ! ! Unpublished work © 2015 Yu-Kai Lin ! ! ! ! ! ! of 1 222 Table of Content ! Introduction 3 Chapter One: Wen and Wenxue in the Ancient Chinese Context 27 Chapter Two: Articulating “Literature” in the Chinese Context 62 Chapter Three: The Negotiated Concept of the Novel in Late Qing China 104 Chapter Four: Lu Xun and the Question of “Fiction” in Chinese Literature 135 Chapter Five: Imagining the National in Late Qing Literary Production 163 Glossary of Chinese Characters 194 Bibliography 205 ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! of 2 222 Conditions of Literary Modernities: A Conceptual History of Chinese Literature, 1860-1925 ! Introduction ! This dissertation investigates the historical and discursive condition in which “Chinese literature” (zhongguo wenxue) emerges as a concept indicating a world literary system. Contrary to existing scholarship that emphasizes “the modern” in exploring Chinese literary modernism but sees “Chinese literature” as a given and ahistorical concept, my work explores the compound itself, revealing how it became an independent knowledge category that implies a global literary world. By understanding “Chinese literature” as an overdetermined concept that develops out of a complex discursive network, I argue that Chinese intellectuals had assimilated and negotiated with various social, ideological, and scientific concepts, from ancient China, modern Western countries, and Japan, to imagine and articulate a universal idea of literature in Chinese terms. This work thus intervenes in the ongoing debate on the concept of “world literature” by asking whether or not this concept is capable of explaining literary traditions derived from cultural con- texts outside those of the West. By demonstrating the multiple and different ways of imagining “literature” as a cross-cultural and transhistorical idea in the Chinese context, this research points to a plural understanding of the modern concept of literature whose meanings are determined lo- cally and contextually. This dissertation revolves around a central question: how is the idea of literature articu- lated, contested, and circulated in the Chinese context in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, during which China was undergoing a radical transformation? This question is impor- of 3 222 tant for two reasons. First, it challenges the often taken-for-granted equation between the West- ern concept of literature and the Chinese notion of wenxue, which was an ancient term that was only later re-appropriated to translate the modern idea of literature. Rather than taking such an equation for granted, this dissertation explores various discursive networks that enable this con- ceptual connection, historicizing the emergence of modern Chinese concepts that are related to literature. Second, although this dissertation aims to problematize the conceptual equivalence between the English “literature” and Chinese “wenxue,” it still retains the idea of a universal concept of literature and examines how such a concept is constructed and circulated in Chinese terms. In other words, the aim of this project is to delineate the emergence of “wenxue” as a modern concept by pointing to its universal implication as well as cultural specificity. I argue it is this double implication of Chinese concepts of literature that allow Chinese intellectuals to ac- count for a Chinese literary history under the framework of a world literary system. By demon- strating the conceptualization of “Chinese literature” as a result of the internationalization of both local (ancient Chinese) and foreign (modern Western and Japanese) literary forms, this re- search shows that what we now call modern Chinese literature should be understood not only as a new literary practice but a new set of concepts, ideas, and terms that provide new ways of mak- ing sense of the world. And since these neologisms are a result of internalization and internation- alization of both local and foreign, traditional and modern cultural norms, modern Chinese litera- ture should be examined from a global and cross-cultural perspective. A quick survey of the current scholarship on modern Chinese literature will tell us why this inquiry is important and might in fact further our understanding of Chinese literary tradition. The discipline that we know as modern Chinese literature has generated many thoughtful debates of 4 222 and fruitful discussions since C.T. Hsia published his pioneering A History of Modern Chinese Fiction in 1961. In this book, he marks 1917 as the beginning of modern Chinese literature since that is the year Hu Shi and Chen Duxiu proposed a literary reform (or literary revolution in Chen’s parlance) to transform Chinese literary practice. Prior to the dawn of the twentieth centu- ry, Confucianism played an important role in regulating and shaping various aspects of Chinese society, including religious practice, social conduct, political order, moral standard, cosmological imagination, and literary tradition which had been considered a form of Confucian pedagogy that emphasizes the ethical nature of writing. The saying of “Wenyi zaidao” (literarily: “the function of literary writing is to convey the Dao”) indicates that the primary purpose of literature is to pass on the teaching of ancient sages. Such a Confucianism-oriented imagination was not chal- lenged in a serious manner until the May Fourth Movement (ca. 1915-1925) in which Chinese intellectuals started to criticize Confucian traditionalism and attempted to conceive a new way of practicing and understanding literature. It is for this reason that the May Fourth Movement is of- ten considered the birth of Chinese (literary) modernity. Interestingly, when C. T. Hsia wrote A History of Modern Chinese Fiction (1961), he identified himself as a scholar more of Western literature than Chinese literature. Throughout his book, he compared Chinese and Western liter- ary works, evaluating the former according to the latter’s standards. For example, he argues modern Chinese writers are unlike their Western contemporaries such as Leo Tolstoy, Joseph Conrad, Fyodor Dostoevsky, and Thomas Mann who aim to reveal the cultural symptoms of modern civilization. Contrary to Western authors’ self-reflective and critical attitude toward modernity, modern Chinese writers have displayed an obsession with the political fate of China in its process of modernization and spent less energy in excavating the universal nature of human of 5 222 beings as a whole. C.T. Hsia describes May Fourth literature’s superficiality and immaturity as a result of its “failure to engage in disinterested moral exploration” (xlii). He also believe a gen- uine literary work is distinguished by its in-depth description and revelation of human beings’ eternal struggle in facing all kinds of moral dilemmas and tensions in actual lives. It is obvious that Hsia’s evaluation of Chinese works is really based on a modern, Western concept of litera- ture, which shapes his historicization of what we now call modern Chinese fiction. It is interest- ing to see that what allows Hsia to delineate a modern Chinese literary history that is related to but different from its classical tradition is the ahistorical concept of “Chinese literature” that can be confined and defined by the prefix, modern. 1 This emphasis of “the modern” continued to the 1970s and became the main criterion by which scholars evaluated May Fourth’s literary legacy. The most notable example is perhaps the way Lu Xun was evaluated in the PRC and U.S. before the 1990s. While Lu Xun was already an established and famous writer in his lifetime, his name was quickly elevated to a cultural symbol of the entire Chinese nation after his death in 1936. Admittedly, the idolization of Lu Xun is part- ly a result of Chinese Communist Party’s endorsement of him as the most politically-correct left- ist writer. Even Mao Zedong openly praised Lu Xun as “the representative of the large majority of the nation and the most correct, courageous, resolute, loyal, and sincere fighter against the en- of 6 222 Although Hsia’s approach was criticized by later critics for unreflectively applying the Western model on Chinese 1 materials, David Der-wei Wang in his reappraisal of History of Modern Chinese Fiction argues that one need to un- derstand this work in the historical context in which it was written. Hsia wrote in an age in which modernism domi- nated the Western academy, it is understandable that a non-Western scholar like him would choose to adopt a West- ern framework to investigate a non-Western literary tradition. Instead of creating an effect of Eurocentrism, it is per- haps his strategy to reclaim and promote the importance of modern Chinese literature that was still neglected in the Western world at the time. Wang also argues that the criticism that Hsia’s work is Eurocentric may as well run the risk of homogenizing the concept of “the modern” (xiandai) since “the concept and practice of modernity has always been determined by a series of continual transcultural and translingual interactions and collisions.” David Der-wei Wang, 2001, xii-xvii. The concept of “the modern” is therefore not as singular and monolithic as it is often imaged to be. emy, indeed an unprecedented national hero.” Hsia has pointed out that this posthumous idoliza 2 - tion of Lu Xun had served the interest of Communist Party which sought to “use Lu Xun’s writ- ings to reinforce the impression of Kuomintang decadence and corruption.” Although the Com 3 - munist party’s use of Lu Xun as an icon of propaganda is less effective when Hsia published his work, the myth of Lu Xun had continued throughout the 1960s and 70s. In spite of the fact that Lu Xun’s works had already been critically acclaimed in communist China, his works were not considered important by most U.S.-based literary critics. Even C. T. Hsia’s appraisal of Lu Xun is not as high as one might have expected. Hsia argues that Lu Xun failed to achieve the height of a world-class modern author because he had ultimately succumbed to a political regime and limited himself to criticizing only a few apparent faults of traditional Chinese culture . Lu Xun, 4 in Hsia’ eyes, is only “the victim of his age rather than its self-appointed teacher and satirist.” 5 Hsia’s critical stance against the Communist literary movement invited some criticism. Jaroslav Průšek, for example, criticized Hsia’s work as unscientific and overly subjective. Průšek argues that Hsia would have developed a more sympathetic understanding of Lu Xun and other modern Chinese writers had he tried to evaluate their works against the background of the histor- ical condition in which they wrote. Průšek suggests that literature has its function and mission at any specific social-historical moment, and that the aim of May Fourth’s new literature is to over- throw Chinese feudalism and foreign imperialism. He emphasizes that the enemies in the process of abolishing feudalism and imperialism are “the landowners, usurers, speculators, and the com- of 7 222 C. T. Hsia, 1961, 29. 2 Ibid. 3 Ibid: 54. 4 Ibid. 5 pradore bourgeoisie.” And since modern Chinese writers are writing in a time in which the en 6 - tire nation is at stake (national crisis? be more specific!), it is impossible for them to “to engage in disinterested moral exploration” as Hsia has suggested. It is obvious that Průšek deploys a Marxist perspective to contrast and insinuate Hsia’s bourgeois stance that leads Hsia to ignore the issues of class struggle. Interestingly, although Průšek disagrees with Hsia’s bias against the leftist literary movement, he also falls into another ideological snare in which literature only be- comes a vehicle for the proletariat’s class struggle. While Průšek and Hsia contradict in their ide- ological belief, both retain the rhetoric of “the modern” to refer to Chinese literary work pro- duced after 1917. The only difference is that Průšek would probably define the modern literary qualities as being scientific, objective, and realistic. As he claims in his critique on Hsia’s work: “There can be no doubt that a book treating of modern and the most recent Chinese literature demands a quite exceptional measure of objectivity” since “the generation of Lu Hsün was the 7 first to create a modern realistic literature in China.” 8 Such an ideologically-charged view on Lu Xun was not challenged until Leo Ou-fan Lee published his Voices from the iron house: A study of Lu Xun in 1987. In this work, Lee repudiates any one-sided interpretation of Lu Xun by revealing the psychological complexity of Lu Xun’s writerly mind. Lee argues that Lu Xun’s literary world is not as consistent and systematic as it is often thought to be, but instead, is characterized by a series of contradictory forces such as hope and despair, enlightenment and barbarism, rationalism and romanticism, determination and hesi- of 8 222 Jaroslav Průšek, 1980, 199-200. 6 Ibid: 195. 7 Ibid: 202. 8 tation, death and rebirth, the personal and the collective, and modernism and traditionalism. On the one hand, Lee continues C. T. Hsia’s demythification of Lu Xun as an iconic leftist writer by excavating the psychological depth of his works; on the other hand, Lee also reaffirms the mod- ern mindset of Lu Xun by revealing how he oscillates between his quest for modernity and his sympathy and even longing for the tradition. Contrary to the common understanding of Lu Xun as an anti-traditionalist, Lee argues that Lu Xun’s enthusiasm and research in traditional Chinese fiction have far surpassed those of his immediate predecessors such as Yan Fu and Liang Qichao —both had tried to elevated fiction from its inferior status in Chinese literary tradition. By inves- tigating Lu Xun’s intellectual connection with the heritage of Chinese cultural tradition, Lee con- cludes that it is Lu Xun’ efforts in reworking and renovating the tradition that make him a great modern writer. 9 The theme of modernity continues to dominate the discussion on modern Chinese litera- ture in the 1990s. Another important work was published in 1997—David Der-wei Wang writes Fin-de-Siècle Splendor: Repressed Modernities of Late Qing Fiction, 1849-1911 to explore and further unpack the concept of modernity in the Chinese context. He argues that Chinese literary modernism had taken place long before the May Fourth Movement. Late Qing intellectuals had been conducting all kinds of literary experiments by writing fictions with various themes includ- ing scientific fantasy, erotic escapades, didactic utopias, chivalric stories, and revolutionary ro- mances, to imagine and articulate different versions of modernities. Such diversity and multiplic- ity of late Qing literary world were nonetheless repressed by later May Fourth writers who were mostly concerned about the political fate of China. Wang's work thus creates a paradigmatic shift of 9 222 Leo Ou-fan Lee, 1987, 191. 9 that deemphasizes the overly invested May Fourth legacy by highlighting the contribution of late Qing writers as the most active and productive participants in Chinese literary modernism. By 10 revealing the heteroglossia of late Qing literary world, Wang points to the double nature of Chi- nese literature at the turn of the twentieth century that is at once the symbol of an end of an old era and a signal of the birth of a new age. More importantly, the literary splendor created by late Qing intellectuals is perhaps all the more pertinent to our contemporary rumination on the con- ception of post-modernity. Wang’s insight has much to tell us about the formations of modern 11 Chinese literature: first, the representations of literary modernism are multiple and different and therefore Chinese modernism is not only an overdetermined phenomenon but also a composite concept; second, since modern Chinese literature should include late Qing literary practices that have escaped May Fourth writers’ purview, my work seeks to further examine other writings in the late Qing period that are not necessarily included under the traditional framework of litera- ture such as editorials, essays in newspapers or magazines, and legal documents. Lastly, since it is the heterogeneity and multiplicity that constitute the base of modern Chinese literature, future researchers of this field should aim to reflect such diversity and variability in their methodology and approach to modern Chinese literature. The scholarship on modern Chinese literature is of course not limited to the works I dis- cussed above. What I have enumerated here is only a glimpse of an enormous amount of books and authors that have dealt with similar issues. Other works that have been widely read include of 10 222 Before David Der-wei Wang published his book, Milena Doleželová-Velingerová had edited The Chinese Novel at 10 the Turn of the Century to investigate the importance of late Qing fiction. Doleželová-Velingerová, however, argues that late Qing fiction is just a prefigurement and transition to modern Chinese literature since it helps develop many literary themes and techniques that later blossom in the New Literature Movement. Doleželová-Velingerová, 1980, 3-15. Also see David Der-wei Wang, 1997, 16. Ibid: 12. 11 Chen Pingyuan’s Zhongguo xiaoshuo xushi moshi de zhuanbian (Changes in the narrative pattern of Chinese fiction; 2003), Zhongguo xiandai xiaoshuo de qidian: qingmo minchu xiaoshuo yan- jiu (The starting point of modern Chinese fiction: a study of fictions of late Qing and early Re- public periods; 2005), and Patrick Hanan's Chinese Fiction of the Nineteenth and Early Twenti- eth Centuries (2004). Among which Chen Pingyuan’s investigation of the transformation of liter- ary techniques and narrative patterns in late Qing fiction from a social science’s perspective is perhaps the most influential and has received widespread attention in Chinese academia over the past ten years. Chen deploys a scientific method in quantifying and categorizing modern Chinese fiction, and provides detailed statistics of the frequency of appearance of certain modern literary techniques and narrative patterns in Chinese fiction produced during the late Qing and early Re- publican periods, to delineate how a quantitative change leads to a qualitative change in literary production. Chen’s work thus provides a clear view on how and when Chinese writers began to actively appropriate modern literary techniques in literary creation. The lineage of scholarship that I sketch above has explored various aspects of the nature of Chinese literary modernism. My book aims to further this line of inquiry by including an analysis of a wider range of social networks and knowledge systems which provided a discursive condition for May Fourth writers to delineate a concept or history of “Chinese literature” as an independent knowledge system that is comparable to other national literary traditions. Rather than focusing on the concept of modernity in pursuing our study of modern Chinese literature, I propose to investigate the concept of literature itself by examining how it is conceptualized as a category in Chinese terms. Indeed, a major unexplored question in existing scholarship on mod- ern Chinese literature is that we often assume a universal concept of literature is already at work of 11 222 in the late Qing and early Republican periods. However, this assumption overlooks the linguistic and cultural differences between the Chinese and Western literary traditions which create a gap that needs to be negotiated and articulated within the local language. As previously mentioned, wenxue, the modern Chinese term for literature, was originally an ancient term that derived from Confucian writings. It was first used in the Analects when Confucius commented on two of his disciples’ literary ability: “Ziyou and Zixia are distinguished for their literary acquirements.” 12 To Confucius, wenxue is often understood as the act of learning literary tradition that is associat- ed with the cultivation of a true noble person (junzi). In fact, in an ideal Confucian education, wenxue is one of the four qualities of sagehood: dexing (virtuous behavior), yanyu (language), zhengshi (governance), and wenxue (learning of the literary tradition). Moreover, each of these qualities cannot be separated from each other since each constitutes one part of an education of a true gentleman. That is to say, the classical meaning of wenxue is confined to a knowledge sys- tem that is regulated by Confucian virtues. Later Chinese scholars also follow Confucius’ lead in understanding wenxue as a moralistic concept. Xunzi, for instance, argues in Dalüe [The great compendium] that wenxue is a form of knowledge that aims to build a mature personhood: “Man to wenxue is like chiseling and polishing to jade. As it is said in the Book of Song, ‘As knife and file make smooth the bone, so jade is wrought by chisel and stone.’ This is knowledge” (juan 19). During the Han dynasty, the understanding of wenxue is divided into wen [writing] and xue [learning]—and sometimes wenzhang [articles] and wenxue [academic learning]. Although 13 wenxue is more carefully categorized at the time, the connotation of the learning of Confucian of 12 222 The original sentence is very short and brief: “Wenxue. Ziyou, Zixia.” 12 For more discussions on the ancient meanings of wenxue, see Yun-Yi Zeng and Qing-Ming Ke, 1978, 2-6. 13 classics is still crucial to Chinese literati’s understanding of the term. Such a moralistic under- standing of wenxue had continue to dominate Chinese people’s imagination of literary writing in the following centuries until the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. From this brief discussion of the etymology of wenxue in the premodern Chinese context, we can see that the modern equation between wenxue and literature is by no means apodictic and natural. A long process of cultural negotiation must have taken place to articulate these two terms that derived from different traditions. How did Chinese writers at the turn of the twentieth centu- ry negotiate the difference between this classical Chinese term and the modern, Western concept of literature? When does wenxue become an artistic concept that refers to universal human expe- riences and how does it become an independent category of knowledge that is different from his- toriography and philosophy? Moreover, before wenxue came to articulate the modern meaning of literature, how did Chinese intellectuals refer to the concept of “Western literature” in the second half of the nineteenth century during which a huge amount of Western works were translated into Chinese? To investigate the transformation of Chinese literary imagination during the turn of the twentieth century, one also needs to examine a classical Chinese genre, xiaoshuo, that is now un- derstood as fiction or the novel. Many scholars have also pointed out that fiction has become the most popular literary form in China as a result of the massive introduction of foreign works dur- ing the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries; hundreds of foreign novels were introduced to China that not only changed the Chinese people’s understanding of fiction but also fostered the rise of “new fiction” (xin xiaoshuo), which is a term that was first used by Liang Qichao in 1902 to delineate a modern picture of China. His famous article, “On the Relationship between Fiction and the Government of the People” (1902) has long been interpreted as a seminal work of 13 222 that aims to enhance the status of fiction in Chinese literary tradition. “Fiction is the crowning glory of literature” (xiaoshuo wei wenxue zhizui shangcheng) , the much-quoted sentence from 14 that article, has now almost become an indisputable fact to many scholars who easily assume that a modern concept of the novel has already been articulated in the Chinese context by that time. In addition to the revolution of Chinese fiction, Liang also calls for a revolution of poetry. In Yinbingshi shihua (Poetry talks from the ice-drinking studio), he endorses the poems of Huang Zunxian whom he believes to be the most important poet who has successfully introduced new (Western) ideas through classical (Chinese) literary forms. Liang writes, “Among all recent poets who can incorporate new ideas in the classical form, Huang Gongdu is the exemplar.” Else 15 - where in his work, he also proposes a revolution in the field of poetry (shijie geming) to articu- late the utilitarian value in poetic creation. However, such a proposal did not receive the same 16 amount of attention as did Liang Qichao’s call for a revolution of xiaoshuo. Moreover, since late Qing, xiaoshuo has gradually replaced the central status of poetry in Chinese literary hierarchy and become the most popular form of literary production. However, this term, xiaoshuo (literally “small talks”), like wenxue, was also an ancient Chinese term that did not mean anything similar to the modern concept of the novel. It was first mentioned by the ancient Chinese philosopher, Zhuangzi, who described xiaoshuo as tawdry way of winning honor and fame: “Winning honor and renown by means of xiaoshuo will prevent one from achieving great understanding.” Dur 17 - of 14 222 Kirk Denton, 1996, 283. 14 Liang Qichao, 1998, 2. 15 Although Liang Qichao had mentioned “a revolution in the field of poetry” in his earlier work Xiaweiyi youji (A 16 trip to Hawaii; 1900), it was not until he published Yinbingshi shihua that he further consolidates the belief that poetry should serve the interest of political utilitarianism. Huang Kai-fa, 2007, 32. See also Jianhua Chen, 1985, 321-40. Zhuangzi, 1997, 550. 17 ing the Han dynasty, xiaoshuo was defined by Ban Gu, an official historian, as “street talks and alley gossips” and was listed as an insignificant school of thought alone side a list of classical 18 Chinese philosophies such as Confucianism, Daoism, and Legalism. The inferiority of xiaoshuo has thus been ingrained in the Chinese imagination of literary tradition, in which historiography constitutes an important part of it. It is for this reason that Liang Qichao’s proposal of “new fic- tion” as an exemplary form of literature is often seen as an epistemological break from the Chi- nese narrative tradition that emphasizes the value of historicity and reality. We can see that the classical concept of xiaoshuo is greatly different from the modern concept of the novel which features the fictionality of narrative. The way in which the Chinese “xiaoshuo” merged with Western “novel” is therefore another important question that awaits further investigation. If the rise of “new fiction” has played a crucial role in the formation of Chinese literary modernism, an investigation of the conceptual complexity of xiaoshuo will help us delineate the rise of new lit- erature in the early twentieth century. Indeed, if wenxue and xiaoshuo have already been taken as the exact Chinese translation of literature and novel respectively before the May Fourth Move- ment, why would have the entire generation of May Fourth intellectuals written articles, orga- nized writers’ group and literary associations, to redefine and negotiate the concepts of wenxue and xiaoshuo in the Chinese context. Most May Fourth intellectuals have written articles that sought to compare and describe the differences between the Chinese and Western literary tradi- tions. The cultural and linguistic distinctions between the East and West were treated as an im- portant issue by the May Fourth writers. There is no reason for contemporary scholars to ignore the cultural and linguistic sensitivity that May Fourth writers had in their inquiry into the emer- of 15 222 Lu Xun, 2005, 7. 18 gence of modern Chinese concepts of literature. A historicization of various terms that are related to the rise of modern Chinese concept of literature will also further open up our current discussion on world literature (Weltliteratur) . 19 One major debate on world literature is that whether such a concept is capable of explaining lit- erary traditions in cultural contexts outside those of the West. Many scholars have pointed out the danger of romanticizing world literature as a theoretical tool in encompassing various literary traditions that might not be in an equal relation with one another. For example, Franco Moretti argues world literature is often just a compromise between Western literary forms and local ma- terials, and a result of an unbalanced relation between the East and West, in which the latter al- ways plays the dominant role in regulating literary production and circulation, while the former remains a passive recipient. World literature, he emphasizes, is facilitated by global capitalism which is based on a set of unequal economic and political relations. While Moretti’s argument has met with some criticisms for its rather Eurocentric perspective, it reminds us of the danger of overestimating the mobility of local (i.e., non-Western) literary forms as well as their capability in shaping the contour of literature on a global scale. Emily Apter, for another example, criticizes world literary studies for often assuming a linguistic transparency and easy translatability, there- of 16 222 The idea of world literature was first mentioned by Goethe in a conversation with his disciple, Eckerman, in 1827. 19 Goethe foresaw the advancement of world literature as an inevitable trend that will challenge any parochial study which does not examine literature from a cross-cultural perspective. He argued, “We Germans are very likely to fall too easily into this pedantic conceit, when we do not look beyond the narrow circle that surrounds us. I therefore like to look about me in foreign nations, and advise everyone to do the same. National literature is now rather an un- meaning term; the epoch of world literature is at hand, and everyone must strive to hasten its approach.” See Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, 2014, 19-20. Goethe’s intention, however, was not to create a level playing ground for all literary traditions around the world, but to urge his fellow Germans to restore the beauty of European literary pat- terns by returning to ancient Greeks. While his aim for a universal European literature only reflects his personal preference and cultural taste, his idea of world literature has proven to be a transhistorical insight that is still valid almost two hundred years later. Of course, Goethe could never realize that his conversation with Eckerman would become one of the most widely-discussed topics in literary studies nowadays. by neglecting the untranslatable elements in each culture or literary work. From these scholars’ 20 points of view, there is a difficulty in representing non-Western literary traditions within the cur- rent framework of world literature, which is either seen as a global system (Franco Moretti) that is dominated by Western literary forms, or an academic paradigm (Emily Apter) that thrives on a questionable belief in translation. Moretti and Apter’s works thus differ but supplement each oth- er in an interesting way. While the former suggests a universality of a global literary system that is regulated by Western literary forms, thereby neglecting the mobility of non-Western traditions in constructing a universal literary imagination, the latter implies the diversity of literary worlds but argues that such a plurality cannot be represented by a singular cognitive framework. Moret- ti’s work thus supplements Apter’s in terms of the latter’s lack of an imagination of universal lit- erary system, and Apter’s argument, in turn, corrects Moretti’s Eurocentric tendency, reasserting the individuality and singularity of each cultural tradition and that each literary (con)text is irre- placeable in and by itself. The differences between these two authors provide a good example to think about an important question concerning the validity of the concept of world literature: how can we reconcile the two seemingly contradictory arguments that world literature must be on the one hand, a universal framework, and on the other, a culturally-sensitive concept? Apter calls for a plurality of “world literatures” in her Against World Literature: On the Politics of Untranslata- bility (2013), but what she means by the plurality of “world literatures” is basically the total sum of different dimensions of social activities that are related to both the production, circulation, and consumption of literature in the world. While her stress on a wide range of discursive analysis is of 17 222 Emily Apter, 2014, 360. For other criticisms on the concept of world literature, see Aamir Mufti’s “Orientalism 20 and the institution of World Literature” and Immanuel Wallerstein’s “The National and the Universal: Can There be Such a Thing as World Literature?” admirable and important, the lack of a encompassing framework might keep the readers wander- ing in the immense sea of social factors, cultural and international relations, as well as ideologi- cal and value systems, without knowing where to deploy an anchor to locate oneself in the criti- cism of world literary studies . 21 Instead of discarding the framework of a universal literary system, I argue it is crucial to keep this framework but propose to focus on the concept of literature itself to unravel the multi- ple social and cultural relations and forces that constitute and regulate the phenomenon of what we call world literature. After all, it is on this universal concept of literature, however it is trans- lated in different languages, that our entire academic enterprise on literary studies is founded. It is also through the imagination of a universal concept of literature that the scholarship on world literature is made possible in the first place. In addition, such a concept is not only conceived as cross-cultural but also transhistorical; that is to say, this concept is synchronic and diachronic at the same time. It refers to both a set of cosmopolitan values that are relatable to general human experiences as well as a standardized gauge with which modern critics use to evaluate and his- toricize literary writings generated in the entire span of human history. In other words, it serves as a point of connection between contemporary literary imagination and ancient narrative tradi- tion which comes before the invention of modern concept of literature, without which any con- struction of national literary history will not be possible. Even for scholars who endeavor to theorize “world literature” as a useful analytical tool that can be deployed to evaluate works grew out of various cultural contexts, the question of lit- of 18 222 Indeed, Apter is more interested in exploring the notion of untranslatability as a creative form of failure rather 21 than working on investing on the concept of world literature. erature is also not considered a possible point of inquiry. David Damrosch, who is the most rep- resentative in making world literature into a discipline, for example, argues that world literature is “not an infinite, ungraspable canon of works, but a mode of circulation and of reading.” He 22 does this to distinguish the concept of world literature from that of literature itself, emphasizing that the former implies a process of circulation and translation in which a text travels to a differ- ent cultural zone outside its origin while the latter is too general a concept to give a clear defini- tion. It is clear that Damrosch’s take on world literature emphasizes more on the concept of “the world” and shows less interest in “literature” per se. He argues that it is a better idea not to give any firm definition of literature as such, since it “is a question that really only has meaning with- in a specific literary system” . Although Damrosch’s model on world literature creates a reflexi 23 - ble theoretical space in which different perspectives on world literature can coexist and be equal- ly recognized, if we simply ignore the question of literature and reframe ourselves from examin- ing and exploring how literature itself can be differently imagined in various cultural and social contexts, we might as well exclude the possibility of further unpacking the multiplicity of world literature, either as a concept, a practice, or a phenomenon. In fact, Damrosch himself also sees world literature as a changing concept that is charac- terized by its multiplicity. He points out that one leading characteristics of world literature today is its variability because what constitutes world literature and how it is defined really depend on specific cultural and historical conditions . If we take Damrosch’s observation as the guideline 24 of 19 222 David Damrosch, 2003, 5. He thus clears the doubt on world literature that whether or not one needs to be profi 22 - cient in several languages to conduct world literary studies. Ibid., 14. 23 Ibid., 281. 24 for future world literary studies, our aim is not to find the most definite and correct definition of world literature, but to diversify its implication, making it a plural concept, by exploring its mul- tiple natures and representations. Such a project would require collective efforts of scholars spe- cializing in different knowledge fields to explore how a concept of world literature is differently imagined and articulated. And as he himself has indicated, this is a project which specialists and generalists can and should work together to build a more complete and nuance understanding of literary production around the world. Moreover, a multifarious and interdisciplinary perspective will also accommodate the two different skills of “close reading” (that is proposed by most liter- ary scholars) and “distant reading” (which is proposed by Moretti). It is in this sense that our in- quiry into the rise of modern Chinese literary concepts that are characterized by an universal im- plication is important in diversifying our understanding of world literature. I believe an analysis of a non-Western literary tradition might give us a different view on how world literature is con- ceptualized in the culturally-diverse world. In her essay “Literature as a World,” Pascale Casanova proposes “world literary space” as a conceptual framework to re-establish the connection between literature, history, and the world, while maintaining “the irreducible singularity of literary texts” . She argues “space” is a better 25 term than “system,” since the former implies a set of interconnected agents, positions, and forces that are constantly struggling with each other. Such a complex of social dynamic can also be un- derstood as a form of structure, which, to her, better describes the dominant-dominated relations in the real international world. Although Casanova has aimed to expand the scope of world liter- ary study by investigating a wider range of social relations, her approach is criticized for assum- of 20 222 Pascale Casanova, 2005, 193. 25 ing a rather Eurocentric perspective since she still sees Europe as the origin of the world literary space . Casanova’s argument reminds us of Moretti’s observation that the West European liter 26 - ary pattern always plays the dominant role in world literary circulation, while non-Western tradi- tions have been limited to the role of a passive recipient. While such a criticism obviously stands out as a problem, a bigger problem is perhaps that world literature is often considered something that is developed out of a clear origin, or marked by a clear boundary, and, therefore can be easi- ly depicted by an East-West, impact-response model. If different literary cosmopolitanisms have always existed in human history and are represented through different dynamics of cultural net- works, these different literary cosmopolitanisms must have interacted with one another in ways that create new texts or concepts that bear the marks of different civilizations. That is to say, the boundaries between different cultural systems must not be as clear as it is often assumed in cur- rent models of world literary study. A few scholars have started to explore literary cosmopolitanisms in non-Western worlds to balance the homogeneous, Eurocentric perspective on world literary circulation. For example, Karen Thornber proposes to replace Casanova’s choice of the word, “space,” with “nebulae” to emphasize the ambiguous cultural boundary in east Asian communities. By drawing examples from Taiwan, Japan, China, and Korea, Thornber reveals how cultural products in East Asia are constantly in motion, posing as well as receiving influences from one another, over the course of history, thereby fostering a culturally-overdetermined environment. In this view, cultural circula- of 21 222 Casanova writes, “Without gong into detail, we can say that it appeared in Europe in the 16th century, France and 26 England forming its oldest regions. It was consolidated and enlarged into central and eastern Europe during the 18th century and especially the 19th centuries, propelled by Herderian national theory. It expanded throughout the 20th century, notably through the still-ongoing decolonization process: manifestos proclaiming the right to literary exis- tence or independence continue to appear, often linked to movements for national self-determination.” Ibid., 195. tion in East Asia is not characterized by a one-way trajectory but multiple interactions that con- stitute “fluid spaces of transculturation” in which various linguistic, artistic, political, and ideo 27 - logical frontiers shift and change all the time. Thornber then defines these fluid spaces as “artis- tic contact nebulae” to highlight the complex cultural exchanges in (post)(semi)colonial East 28 Asia in which dramatists, musicians, painters, writers, and artists from different cultural tradi- tions interact and mutually influence each other. Thornber’s concept of artistic contact nebulae thus modifies any theoretical framework that prioritizes Western literary traditions by recogniz- ing the specificity of non-Western cultures, without romanticizing them as alternative universal models. By complicating the question of literary circulation, Thornber has invited us to rethink about the validity of any theoretical model that is constructed by the center-periphery relation. One of my aims in this dissertation is to initiate a dialogue between world literature and Chinese literature, revealing that Chinese literary study is in itself a kind of world literary study. Since the rise of modern Chinese literature—not only as a practice but also, in particular, a con- cept that indicates a global library system as well as a universal aesthetic experience—is already a result of a phenomenon of world literary circulation. Engaging with modern Chinese literature is conducting research on word literature. It is that universal quality that I want to unravel and explore in a cultural context that is drastically different from the West. And since this is a study of how the universal literary experience is articulated and conceptualized in a specific linguistic tradition, I want to emphasize that such a universality is characterized by its double implication: it implies both a cross-cultural connectability and cultural specificity at the same time. Take the of 22 222 Ibid., 463. 27 Ibid. 28 Chinese term, xiaoshuo, for example. In order to be counted as a modern, universal literary con- cept, xiaoshuo must accommodates both its ancient philosophical or historiographical meanings, as well as its newly-annexed connotations of a universal literary concept, so that whenever one mentions this Chinese term, we can immediately relate to our imagination of a universal literary concept that is called the novel. This double referentiality of the modern Chinese concept of xi- aoshuo, is perhaps the defining characteristics of all modern translation of Western literary con- cepts in all non-Western languages . Indeed, our contemporary understanding of the concept of 29 literature is universal and transhistorical, but at the same time, time and place-specific. Derrida has pointed out that literature is characterized by a double gesture: it simultaneously particular- izes and universalizes a supposedly-personal experience. He argues that literary writing creates a reiterable example of a feeling, emotion, or experience that is supposedly to be unique to the au- thor. Literature is thus something that is at once universal and personal in its practice. Derrida derived this insight from his engagement with literary works written in French and English, but this insight can be equally applied on works produced in non-Western traditions. The only ques- tion is: how is this double effect manifested in other linguistic contexts? This, perhaps, is a ques- tion that worths our attention and analysis. I want to reemphasize that I want to uphold that the modern concept of literature, regard- less of its translation in any language, is by nature cross-cultural and universal. My question is of 23 222 Many scholars have pointed out that the rise of wenxue as a modern literary concept is influenced not only by the 29 importation of Western novels, but also through the Japanese mediation of Western knowledge. While this specula- tion may seem probable as most elite Chinese intellectuals in late Qing and early Republican periods had either vis- ited or studied in Japan, it is sometimes difficult to measure the exact extent to which how Japan exerts its influence on the formation of modern Chinese literary concepts. In addition, distinguishing the Japanese mediation (of West- ern knowledge) from Western cultural influence is not going to help much answer our inquiry into the universality of a modern concept of literature. This is why I propose to investigate how certain Chinese terms such as wenxue and xiaoshuo become modern concepts that are characterized by their Chinese-ness and universality at the same time, that is to say, how they become concepts rooted in the Chinese tradition but at the same time relatable to other cul- tural traditions. how such a universality is imagined and articulated in different cultural contexts. By investigat- ing how the idea of universality is negotiated, translated, and imagined in different cultural tradi- tions, we can diversify current literary studies by pointing to a multiple and varying global liter- ary system. Since our aim is to diversify our understanding of the modern concept of literature, we must turn our attention to the actual words that refer to that concept, detailing how they make such a concept possible in the first place. Take the ancient concept of wenxue for example. Some scholars have tended to believe that the term, wenxue, had already assumed the meanings of the modern concept of literature as early as the Six dynasties (c. 222 – 589) because Chinese literati at that time had already paid attention to the rhetorical embellishment of refined writings (for example, both Liu Xie’s Wenxin diaolong [The Literary Mind and the Carving of Dragons] and Xiao Tong’s Wenxuan [Selections of Refined Literature] emphasize the importance of rhetorical embellishment), while others argue that the term, wenxue, had more diverse definitions compared to the modern concept of literature precisely because of the unique Chinese concept of wen. Both arguments are common and legit- imate for it really depends on the individual critic’s emphasis on either the difference or similari- ty between the ancient concept of wenxue and modern notion of literature. This is a conundrum that many scholars face when they seek to conceptualize early Chinese literary texts. Can they be properly categorized as literature in modern English? Is it fine to assume that wenxue had already embodied the modern meaning of literature? To what extent is wenxue equivalent to literature as a modern, universal concept and in what historical and linguistic contexts are we comparing these two terms. On the one hand, we need to admit that there is a gap between the Chinese and Western cultural and linguistic traditions, but on the other, we also need to recognize that wenxue of 24 222 must serve at some point of Chinese linguistic development, a concept that corresponds to our modern imagination of a universal concept of “literature.” This question is difficult to answer because of the varying criteria with which we judge either the classical concept of wenxue or the modern concept of literature. These different criteria will in turn lead to different assessments of the relation between wenxue and literature. Perhaps a comparative study on the relation between the Chinese “wenxue” and English “literature” will make more sense in the case of China during the late nineteenth and early twen- tieth centuries, since by that time not only the modern Western concept of literature had been es- tablished but also the encounter between China and the West had been more drastic and frequent than ever. For example, Raymond Williams argues that the term, literature, began to be associat- ed with an awareness of writing as a professional practice as early as the mid eighteen century. 30 Catherine Gallagher, also argues that during the eighteenth century, the term “fiction” became a more recognizable literary concept and ceased to be merely a word denoting pretense or decep- tion . However, in the premodern Chinese context, to what extent can we argue that the concept 31 of wen or wenxue has already implied the modern connotation of literature is a dubious question for it really depends on what quality of literature that we want like to emphasize. For instance, if we consider rhetorical embellishment as an essential characteristic of literature, we can certainly argue that the concept of wen or wenxue in the third century is already close to what we call liter- ature nowadays. Nevertheless, if we consider the ambiguity and complexity of wen in the classi- of 25 222 See Raymond Williams, Keywords: A Vocabulary of Culture and Society (New York: Oxford University Press, 30 1976), p. 152. See Catherine Gallagher, “The Rise of Fictionality.” In The Novel Volume 1: History, Geography, and Culture, 31 edited by Franco Moretti (Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2007). I will discuss more about this later in this book. Fore discussion on the rise of the novel as literary concept, see also Ian Watt, Rise of the Novel (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001) in which he discusses the rise of the novel from a socio-historical perspective. cal Chinese context, particularly during the pre-Qin period (221–206 BC), during which the Chi- nese scripts had yet to be unified, and the far-reaching New Literature Movement that took place in the early twentieth century (c. 1915 – 1925), during which the concept of wenxue was radical- ly redefined by the modern May Fourth writers, we can easily assume there must be a difference between wenxue and literature. I argue the relation between wenxue and literature, should be dis- cussed with more caution for we do not want to fall into the danger of using the modern concept of literature to judge the ancient concept of wen. ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! of 26 222 Chapter One: Wen and Wenxue in the Ancient Chinese Context ! The New Literature Movement in China during the late 1910s and 1920s is characterized by a literary reform that sought to establish a new Chinese literary tradition. During the May Fourth period, the call for a fundamental reexamination of Chinese culture, politics, identity and diplomacy had reached new heights, so much so that Chinese intellectuals no longer believed political reform alone could change the fate of this declining nation. This recognition of political reform’s limit urged May Fourth intellectuals to search for new goals and tools to perpetuate the unfinished project of modernizing China. May Fourth intellectuals might still believed that mod- ernization is a necessary path to pursue after, but unlike their late Qing predecessors who priori- tized institutional changes, the May Fourth writers had come to realize that literary modernity is equally important to cultivate a nation before its people can even recognize the right and value of a modern individual. It is under this circumstance that Chinese literary production was subject to serious discussion and redefinition. While contemporary scholars generally agree that Chinese literature underwent a radical transformation during the May Fourth period, the question that whether we can identify wenxue, an ancient Chinese terms derived from Confucian classics, with the modern concept of literature, is yet to be fully investigated. Indeed, the traditional Chinese concept of wenxue is complex and ambiguous, especially when one considers the term, wen, which has a wide range of implications and connotations in ancient China. What comes to one’s mind is perhaps Confucius’ famous re- mark, “Even though King Wen has perished, didn’t wen continue to exist in me?”. To Confucius, wen refers to the cultural heritage of Zhou dynasty which can be passed down to anyone who of 27 222 studies and follows the teaching of ancient sages. In this rendering of wen, what is important is perhaps the act of practicing a set of cultural rules and revitalizing a tradition that Confucius val- ues. Peter K. Bol thus argues, “In the Analects, the term ‘wen’ can mean the external appearances and forms in general as well as the normative patterns and models” that derived from the Zhou 32 Dynasty. Zong-qi Cai even suggests that wen has “so broad a semantic field that it practically covers the entire spectrum of traditional Chinese culture” since even when this term is used in a 33 more specific sense, it still refers to various Chinese cultural elements such as “royal posthumous title, ritual objects, rites and music, norms and statutes; dignified deportment, the polite arts, graphic cosmic symbols, eloquent speech, writing, rhymed writing, and belles-lettres.” In other 34 words, the classical implication of wen is almost as diverse as a culture itself. While scholars have generally recognized the diverse implication of wen, how does this term emerge as a concept that can be used to refer to the hitherto social forms and cultures, and what gives rise to the diverse implication of wen are questions that are yet to be fully explored. In addition, what kind of universal implication is imagined when this term is used in different contexts and in different ways? And how is the universal implication of the classical concept of wen different from the modern concept of literature? To answer these questions, I appropriate the modern linguists’ perspectives on classical Chinese languages to reflect on the multivalence of wen. By drawing on their researches on the phonology, morphology, and lexicology of Chinese languages in pre-Qin (i.e., before 221 BC) China, I argue there are several layers of ambiguity of 28 222 See Peter K. Bol’s "This Culture of Ours": Intellectual Transitions in Tang and Sung China (Stanford: Stanford 32 University Press, 1992), pp. 1, 84-5. See Zong-qi Cai, “Wen and the Construction of a Critical System in ‘Wenxin Diaolong’” in Chinese Literature: 33 Essays, Articles, Reviews (CLEAR), vol. 22 (December 2000), p. 1. Ibid. 34 that characterize the concept of wen. I then trace the mythological origin of Chinese language to reveal the first possible set of connotations of wen, demonstrating how it develops and becomes a concept that implies a transhistorical value. I argue an analysis of the transhistorical imagination of wen is crucial to our understanding of the concept of literature in Chinese terms, since it is this transhistoricity that provides the basis for articulating a cultural heritage and envisioning a tradi- tion. It is also this transhistoricity that is gradually built into the concept of wen that allows us to comprehend as well as to conceptualize the hitherto texts, cultural practices, and traditions. ! Three layers of ambiguity of wen: a linguistic perspective ! Scholars have been periodizing the development of Chinese language in different ways. Bernhard Karlgren, for example, has divided up the development of Chinese language into five phases: the proto-Chinese (le proto-chinois; the pre-Shijing era), the archaic Chinese (le chinois archaïque; between the Shijing and end of the Eastern Han), the ancient Chinese (l’ancient chi- nois; the Six and Tan dynasties), the middle Chinese (le chinois moyen; the Song dynasty), and the old Mandarin (le vieux mandarin; the Yuan and Ming dynasties) . Wang Li, for another ex 35 - ample, periodizes the history of Chinese language into four stages: the archaic period (shanggu qi), the ancient period (zhonggu qi), the recent period (jindai), and the modern period (xiandai) . 36 Other linguists have divided the development of Chinese language into either two or three phas- of 29 222 See Karlgren’s Études sur la phonologie chinoise (Stockholm: Leyde et Stockholm, 1915), p. 32. This work was 35 later translated into Chinese by Zhao Yuanren (Yuen Ren Chao) 趙元任, Luo Changpei 羅常培, and Li Fanggui 李 ⽅方桂 under the title, Zhongguo yinyun xue yanjiu 中國⾳音韻學研究 (Beijing: Qinghua daxue chubanshe, 2007). See Wang Li 王⼒力 , Hanyu shigao 漢語史稿 [A sketch of the history of Chinese language] in Wang Li wenji 王⼒力 36 ⽂文集 vol. 9 (Jinan: Shangdong jiaoyu chubanshe, 1988). es. Some scholars even argue there is no need to periodize the history of Chinese language at all, since any periodization will ultimately fall short of accuracy and it is always difficult to find the most correct historical point to dissect the Chinese linguistic development . However, no matter 37 how the history of Chinese language is periodized, for many linguists, the study of Old Chinese (or “archaic Chinese” in Bernhard Karlgren’s parlance) is particularly difficult not only because of its variations of phonology, morphology, and lexicology , but also because of the insufficient 38 records and documents that we have on such an ancient language. In other words, any investiga- tion of Old Chinese will have to recognize its linguistic complexity before any specific claim can be made on a term or concept that derived from this context. Take the phonological study of Old Chinese for example. Many scholars have pointed out that our present knowledge of Old Chinese is mostly based on the rhyming system of the early Chinese classical texts such as the Classic of Poetry (Shijing) and Songs of Chu (Chu Ci) which are usually held as primary sources for our understanding of ancient Chinese phonology. Howev- er, the rhyming system of Old Chinese can only be restored to a limited extent, because of the of 30 222 See Shi Cunzhi 史存直, Hanyu cihui shi gangyao 漢語詞彙史綱要 [A guideline of Chinese lexicology] (Shang 37 - hai: Shanghai huadong shifan daxue chubanshe, 1989), pp. 136-138. For more discussion, see Fang Yixin ⽅方⼀一新 , Zhonggu jindai hanyu cihui xue 中古近代漢語詞彙學 [Lexicology of ancient and recent Chinese languages] (Bei- jing: Shangwu yinshu guan, 2010), pp. 6-26, and Jiang Shaoyu 蔣紹愚, Jindai hanyu yanjiu gaikuang 近代漢語研 究概況 [An overview of the study on modern Chinese] (Beijing: Beijing daxue chubanshe, 2001), pp. 1-7. I want to clarify that these different perspectives, though rendered in linguistic terms, are more a convenient way 38 of identifying the various ambiguities of the concept of wen, rather than discipline-specific linguistic fields that are still differently interpreted and categorized by modern linguists. The same rule also applies on my use of terms such as “word,” “phrase” and “character,” which I do not make a clear distinction, but is nonetheless a much debated top- ic among linguists among certain camps of modern linguists. For example, I will not concern about whether it is appropriate to translate the Chinese term zi 字 with “word,” or ci 辭 with “phrase.” These questions will be more useful in some cases of linguistic studies. I will also use the term, “compound,” as it is commonly understood, and assume that a “compound” can be made of several “words.” What I want to demonstrate at the beginning of this chapter is simply the different layers of ambiguity and various dimensions of complexity of the concept of wen. For more discussions on the concepts of “word” and “phrase” in Chinese linguistic studies, see Yuen Ren Chao, A Grammar of Spoken Chinese (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1968); Jerome L. Packard (ed.), New Ap- proaches to Chinese Word Formation: Morphology, Phonology and the Lexicon in Modern and Ancient Chinese (Berlin and New York: Mouton de Gruyter, 1998). fragmented and insufficient records that we have about the pre-Qin (i.e., before 221 BC) linguis- tic context . Take the pronunciation of two Chinese characters—jiang 江 (“river”) and gong ⼯工 39 (“decoration”) —for example. The phonetic component of the character jiang is the character 40 gong, but does that mean the ancient pronunciation of the character jiang is “gong” or the ancient pronunciation of the character gong is “jiang”? Is it possible that both characters shared the same (or at least a similar) pronunciation that is neither “jiang” or “gong”? Moreover, even if there is a phonetic connection between these two characters, does that mean they shared a similar mean- ing? These questions are difficult to answer since there are simply too little materials that we can work on to determine the exact pronunciation of this or that term. In fact, the study of Old Chi- nese is mostly based on written records and documents that can only help us get closer to the primordial linguistic situation but can never reproduce it. This is perhaps why the phonology of Old Chinese is often considered the most difficult part of Chinese phonology as a whole . 41 During the Han dynasty (206 BC – 220 AD), there gradually appeared a trend of exegeti- cal study that is called the “vocal explanation” (shengxun) which is a practice of defining a word by its homophones or near-homophones. For example, in Xu Shen’s Shuowen Jiezi [“Discussing words and analyzing characters”], a Chinese dictionary compiled during the Eastern Han period (25-220), the word tian 天 (“heaven”) is defined as dian 巔 (“mountains”). From a phonological of 31 222 See Fang Kuei Li, “Archaic Chinese” in David N. Keightley, ed., The Origin of Chinese Civilization (Berkeley 39 and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1983), pp. 393-408. All the pinyin provided in this chapter, unless specified, are based on the modern Mandarin pronunciations, while 40 the English glosses are for identification only and are mostly based on their modern meanings. The English glosses are not intended as definitive semantic reconstruction of these ancient characters, since the meanings of these char- acters are subject to change in different historical periods. See Dong Tonghe 董同龢, Zhongguo yuyin shi 中國語⾳音史 [History of Chinese Phonology] (Taipei: Zhonghua 41 wenhua, 1954), pp. 8 and 182-189. perspective, this definition implies two possibilities— either these two words had similar pro- nunciations as they do now, or they were actually pronounced exactly in the same way. Another example is the word ma ⾺馬 (“horse”) which is defined by Xu Shen as nu 怒 (“anger”) and wu 武 (“military”). In this entry, nu and wu are near-homophones. Nevertheless, in modern Chinese mandarin, the word for “horse” is pronounced as “ma” which is very different from either “nu” or “wu.” Could it be possible that the Old Chinese pronunciation for the character “horse” is not “ma” but something that is similar to “nu” or “wu”? This is another question that is difficult to 42 answer. Perhaps we can even speculate a possible semantic connection that exists between these two words—ma and wen—based on Xu Shen’s logic. If the character ma is defined by wu (“mili- tary”) which is a term that was already widely used as the counterpart of wen (“writing”) by the Eastern Han period to refer to the ancient sage ruler—the Wu King of Zhou (Zhou wu wang) , is 43 it possible that the concept of wen can serve as an antonym or counterpart of the concept of ma in the Old Chinese context? While this may sound like a wild speculation which is yet to be test- ed empirically, the fact that the pronunciation of a Chinese word can potentially change its rela- tion with others adds the first layer of ambiguity of the ancient concept of wen. of 32 222 Of course, these questions will ultimately depend on how these terms were used for rhyming in the Shijing, which 42 unfortunately gives us little evidences to make a systematic reconstruction of the archaic sounds of these terms. In his attempt to reconstruct the phonological system of Old Chinese, Fang Kuei Li 李⽅方桂 carefully confines his analysis to the standard language of the northern China plains and neglects all the dialects that existed in the Zhou times. Li’s analytical model that premises on the dialect-standard language relation is a modern linguistic invention which leads him to emphasize more the organizing rules of Old Chinese (which he defines as the “standard language of the northern China plains”) rather than the diversities and differences of the ancient linguistic situation. However, in more than one places in his work, he still admits that it is almost impossible to distinguish a standard language from the dialects: “From practical experience, we know that few literary documents and standard languages are free from dialect mixtures.” See Fang Kuei Li, “Archaic Chinese” in David Keightley, ed., The Origin of Chinese Civi- lization (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1983), p. 395. In fact, the term wenwu ⽂文武 (“the literary and the military”) constantly appears in many ancient texts such as the 43 Analects, Zhuangzi, Mozi, Hanfeizi, and the Records of the Grand Historian (Shiji). For example, it appears in the chapter of Jielao 解⽼老 in Hanfeizi 韓非⼦子 : 國家必有⽂文武 官治必有賞罰 (A country must have civil and military officials; the governance [of these officials] must be based on rewards and punishments.) Lothar von Falkenhausen is right to point out that there are multiple and different seman- tic strains of wen in the ancient Chinese context. In his study of the concept of wen in early Chi- nese classical texts and bronze inscriptions which were associated with ancestral cults during the Zhou dynasty (1046 – 256 BC), Falkenhausen suggests that the term wen did not have a consis- tent and therefore locatable origin, since sometimes this term can be used to denote almost con- trary meanings: ! I suspect that the use of the same graph, in a very limited number of circumstances, for the word wén, “pattern,” is very probably a faux-ami. As Arthur Waley suspected (see above) , wén, ‘pattern,’ seems to be a separate word with its own semantic trajectory. It 44 is interesting for being one of a number of Chinese words that can convey diametrically contrary meanings: the regular, refined texturing of wén 紋 all too easily transmogrifies into its alternate, wèn 紊, ‘disorder’ (perhaps implying the confusion resulting from a dazzling overabundance of ornament, or from ill-designed ornament) . 45 ! What is not made explicit here is that the way wen is pronounced can actually change the way it is supposed to mean since changing a term’s pronunciation may generate a totally different con- cept. While it is almost impossible to determine the exact pronunciation of wen during the Zhou of 33 222 Arthur Waley argues that wen in the context of Shijing is mostly “a stock of epithet of ancestors. We do not know 44 what it means…Possibly quite distinct from this is another word, written with the same character. This means a pat- tern, and hence ‘a written symbol,’ book-learning as opposed to battle-prowess, the ‘pen’ as opposed to the ‘sword,’ the arts of peace as opposed to those of war.” Quoted from Lothar von Falkenhausen, “The Concept of Wen in the Ancient Chinese Ancestral Cult” in Chinese Literature: Essays, Articles, Reviews (CLEAR), vol. 18 (December 1996), p. 1. Ibid., p. 17. 45 period , a time no one can live to testify its actual linguistic condition, the fact that hundreds of 46 dialects and topolects coexisted at that time gives us a chance to imagine the scenario of a con- versation between two different dialects speakers: what is meant when one utters the word wen may not be always rightly received by the other who would pronounce the same word with dif- ferent intonations or even pronunciations. The phenomenon is certainly not limited to wen alone, but consider the time in which different connotations of wen had yet to be developed into and distinguished by various composite Chinese words (such as wén 紋 and wèn 紊), the graph of wen ( ⽂文 ) must contain in itself all possible connotations and denotations that are associated with its sound. The polyphony of Old Chinese will thus inevitably complicate the concept of wen. The polymorphic nature of Chinese characters is also important in shaping the conceptual ambiguity of wen. Like many Chinese characters that derived from the oracle bone and bronze scripts during the Shang and Zhou dynasties, wen had gone through a long course of develop- ment before it came to assume its current shape. As one of the earliest Chinese character, wen took different scriptural forms in both the oracle bone and Bronze scripts. Although there seem to be certain rules such as Xu Shen’s “Six Writings” (liushu) that govern the formations of ancient Chinese characters, when it comes to the identification of a specific graph, one can only rely on the interpretation of its graphic shape or a later Chinese lexicographical work such as Shuowen jiezi. The polygraphic nature of ancient scripts thus adds another layer of ambiguity of wen in the Old Chinese context. For example, there are respectively five and seven different graphs in the oracle bone and Bronze scripts that are now identified as wen: of 34 222 According to William Baxter and Laurent Sagart’s reconstruction of Old Chinese, wen might be pronounced as 46 *məә[n], while in the Middle Chinese, mjun. The notion “*[X]” means that either *X or something else that has the same Middle Chinese reflex as *X. For more information, see William Baxter and Laurent Sagart, Old Chinese: A New Reconstruction (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2014), pp. 7-8, 287-288, 365. ! Oracle bone scripts: Bronze scripts: ! Some scholars have interpreted these graphs of wen as a tattooed human body. Take the oracle bone scripts as an example. The external lines that construct the basic shape of each graph repre- sent a human form, while the tiny symbol that lies at the center of that form is interpreted as the tattoos. From this perspective, the character wen 紋 (“tattoo”) is only a later variation of wen ⽂文 (“writing”). A passage that is often quoted to support such an interpretation is a parable from the Zhuangzi: “A man of Song tried to sell ceremonial caps in the country of Yue, but the people of Yue cut their hairs and tattoo their bodies (duanfa wenshen 斷髮⽂文身 ). It is useless to wear such things.” Other scholars have interpreted the graph of wen as a pictorial representation of a “per 47 - son with heart.” Take the graphs of wen in the Bronze scripts for instance, the symbol of two cir- cles (one closed and the other unclosed) that connect to each other is often interpreted as a hu- man heart, which is sometimes abstracted into a dot, as the last graph in the list of Bronze scripts shows. In this case, the ancient graphs of wen in the Bronze scripts again imply a human body or form. These early graphs of wen were later developed into various other characters with their own specific meanings such as wen 玟 (“the texture of jade”), wen 彣 (“motley” or “variegated of 35 222 See Zhuangzi: “ 宋⼈人資章甫⽽而適諸越 越⼈人斷髮⽂文身 無所⽤用之 .” 47 in color”), wen 馼 (“a horse with white body and red mane”), wen 汶 (“mouth water”), or fei 斐 (“adornment”). Take the word fei 斐 (“adornment”) which is a combination of two separate char- acters—fei 非 (“not”) and wen ⽂文 (“writing”)—as an example. Xu Shen had specifically identi- fied the character fei (“adornment”) as “that which is distinguished from wen 分別⽂文也 .” He ex- plains, “the meaning [of the character fei 斐] derived from the word wen ⽂文 while its sound from the word fei 非.” Duan Yucai (1735 – 1815) later commented on Xu Shen’s interpretation of the 48 word fei (“adornment”): “What Xu Shen meant by ‘that which is distinguished from wen’ is that generally speaking, fei (“adornment”) is wen (“writing”), but analytically speaking, fei (“adorn- ment”) is that which is different from wen (“writing”). The character fei (“adornment”) derives form the character fei (“not”) [for] the character fei (“not”) means wei 違 (“against”).” Although Duan’s conclusion that the character fei (“adornment”) derives from the character fei (“not”) is probably a result of his literal understanding of Xu Shen who defines fei (“adornment”) as “that which is distinguished from wen,” if we follow Duan’s interpretation (“generally speaking, fei (‘adornment’) is wen (‘writing’), but analytically speaking, fei (‘adornment’) is that which is dif- ferent from wen (‘writing’)”), the concept of fei (“adornment”) must contain the connotations of wen and those that are not wen, despite of how wen is defined here. If the character wen (“writ- ing”) here means adornment, the character fei 斐 (“adornment”) will mean that which is both adorned and unadorned. A contemporary scholar Dong Laiyun, however, argues that Duan Yucai might be incorrect, since the ancient graph of the character fei 非 (“not”) represents the wings of of 36 222 Shuowen jiezi: “ 斐 分別⽂文也 從⽂文 非聲.” 48 a bird and thus implies “flying” (fei ⾶飛 ). The character fei (“adornment”) therefore means “abun- dant colors and adornment,” which is actually closer to its modern meaning . The variations of 49 the graphs of wen might have already given us enough headache, but if we consider all the com- plexities and variations of the ancient graphs of wen and their later transmogrification into other Chinese characters, it might not be too difficult to surmise that what we know as Chinese classics such as Shijing and Shangshu might contain a more diverse ways of production (the way they are written) and reception (the way they are read and understood). Chinese writing system in the Old Chinese period is indeed diverse, as different styles of scripts were developed in different states. The highly pluralized writing system in the Warring States period (457 – 221 BC) is often called the “Large Seal Script” (Da zhuan) and it was not until the rise of the Qin empire that a standard- ized writing system that is known as the “Small Seal Script” (Xiao zhuan) was invented and 50 promulgated. Although the so-called “Small Seal Script” is often understood as a newly-estab- lished unified writing system that sought to replace the “Large Seal Script,” a term generally used to refer to the plurality of scripts in the Warring States period, the difference between the Small and Large Seal Scripts is really only a later invention that seek to emphasize the lineage of the development of Chinese languages . It is not my aim to reiterate all the details of the various 51 scripts of wen in ancient China, as such information can be found in other scholarly works that focus on the origin of Chinese scripts. What I want to point out here is that the polymorphic na- ture of wen is also an important factor that might lead to the difficulty of coming up with a clear of 37 222 See Dong Laiyun 董來運, Hanzi de wenhua jiexi 漢字的⽂文化解析 [The interpretation of Chinese characters] 49 (Shanghai: Shanghai guji chubanshe, 2002), p. 81. The “Small Seal Script” is said to be invented by the prime minister of the Qin empire, Li Si (c. 280 – 208 BC). 50 See Qi Gong 啟功, Gudai ziti lungao 古代字體論稿 [A sketch of ancient typeface] (Beijing: Wenwu chubanshe, 51 1999), pp. 3-16. definition of wen in the early classical Chinese context. Indeed, the reconstruction of Old Chi- nese is relatively deficient (at least by far) compared to that of the Middle and Modern Chinese, primarily because of the lack of sufficient records and evidences . As William H. Baxter and 52 Laurent Sagart suggest, early Chinese texts only provide incomplete information about pronunci- ations, and this probably means that many characters had more than one pronunciation then . In 53 short, the coexistence of a variety of Chinese scripts in the Old Chinese context contributes to the second layer of ambiguity of the ancient concept of wen. A preliminary morphological study of wen will also reveal this term's epistemological complexity. Wen is now associated with “writing” in general, but it had been used to denote a wide range of things such as ritual ceremony and its related objects, rites and music, royal titles and legal statutes, etiquette and decorum, arts and graphic symbols, rhymed and unrhymed writ- ings, word and speech, cosmic order, patterns of geographic configuration, ripples on the surface of water, or the texture of fabrics, woods, rocks, plants, and animals’ skins and furs, and so on and so forth . Moreover, the multivalence of wen in classical Chinese can be either expressed by 54 the monosyllabic morpheme of wen or multi-syllabic morphemes such as wenxue ⽂文學 (“litera- of 38 222 This situation, of course, will be improved as new documents are excavated. For example, the archeological dis 52 - coveries of bamboo strips from the Guodian archeological site in the Hubei province in 1993 (the discoveries were made public in 1998) provides linguists with new substantial documents to reconstruct the Old Chinese. For the lat- est reconstruction of Old Chinese, see William H. Baxter and Laurent Sagart’s Old Chinese: A New Reconstruction (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2014). See William H. Baxter and Laurent Sagart, “Word Formation in Old Chinese” in Jerome L. Packard (ed.), New 53 Approaches to Chinese Word Formation: Morphology, Phonology and the Lexicon in Modern and Ancient Chinese (Berlin and New York: Mouton de Gruyter, 1998), p. 69. Zong-qi Cai argues that the concept of wen has so broad a semantic field that “it practically covers the entire spec 54 - trum of traditional Chinese culture.” Cai agues that it was not until the publication of Liu Xie’s The Literary Mind and the Carving of Dragons (Wenxin diaolong) in the fifth century, Cai Zong-qi suggests, that the term, wen, started to be used specifically to refer to literary writing. See Zong-qi Cai, “Wen and the Construction of a Critical System in ‘Wenxin Diaolong’” in Chinese Literature: Essays, Articles, Reviews (CLEAR), vol. 22 (December 2000), pp. 1, 12. ture” in modern Chinese), wenzhang ⽂文章 (“essays” in modern Chinese), wenxian ⽂文獻 (“docu- ments” in modern Chinese), wenjiao ⽂文教 (literally “culture and education” in modern Chinese), wende ⽂文德 (literally “culture and virtues” in modern Chinese), wenwu ⽂文物 (“historical relics” in modern Chinese), wenzi ⽂文字 (“script” or “word” in modern Chinese), wenci ⽂文辭 (“phrase” in modern Chinese), wenmo ⽂文墨 (literally “paper and ink” in modern Chinese), wencai ⽂文采 (“literary talent” or “rich and bright colors” in modern Chinese) and etc. One can immediately notice that these multi-syllabic Chinese compound terms are in one way or another associated with our modern understanding of literature in its broadest sense. However, one needs to take precarious step in equating these compound terms’ modern meanings with their ancient ones, which might not be the same as they are now. There are semantic differences between the classi- cal concept of wen (and it really depends on in which historical period this term was used and how it is or was paired with another term to form a new compound term with a specific connec- tion) and how it is understood in modern Chinese. While a thorough investigation of the above mentioned terms is far beyond the reach of this book, we can at least attempt to describe some of the resonances and dissonances created by the various and different uses of wen that imply an imagination of a transhistorical value. To what extent and in what sense is wen a universal con- cept? How do we evaluate the universal implication or imagine a universal quality of wen in the pre-modern context? Does a universal implication exist at that time and how is it different from the modern concept of literature? The next part of this chapter focuses on the early classical Chi- nese texts that were produced in the Old Chinese context (from pre-Qin to the end of the Han) to explore the concept of universality in the pre-modern context. of 39 222 ! The heteroglossia of Wen ! Perhaps the multivalence of wen in the Old Chinese context can be understood as a kind of heteroglossia that is somewhat similar to its Bakhtinian sense. In his famous essay “Discourse in the Novel,” Bakhtin argues that there always exist two contrary tendencies which constantly embattle with each other within the same body of a language that nonetheless constitute its en- tirety: one is the “unitary language” which is often a national or officially-recognized literary language that seeks to centralize and unify the verbal-ideological world; the other is the social and historical heteroglossia which refers to the “discourses in the open spaces of public squares, streets, cities and villages, of social groups, generations and epochs” that always diversify and 55 decentralize the “unitary language.” Bakhtin’s theoretical framework thus provides a useful model for our engagement with the concept of wen in the pre-modern context. I argue Bakhtin’s conceptualization of a language is de facto characterized by a holistic yet multi-layered histori- cal-semantic structure that is full of resonances and dissonances among voices or speeches from either a contemporaneous world (“discourses in the open spaces of public squares, streets, cities and villages”), or different historical periods (“generations and epochs”). In other words, in the present form of an imagined “unitary language” lies a mixture of different linguistic practices from both the present world as well as disparate historical periods. There is thus a cosmopolitan and transhistorical implication posited in this theoretical model. In the case of wen, no matter how this term was defined in a specific historical period, it is difficult not to base one’s definition of 40 222 See M. M. Bakhtin, The Dialogic Imagination. Ed. Michael Holquist. Trans. Caryl Emerson and Michael Holquist 55 (Austin and London: University of Texas Press, 1981), p. 269. more or less on the different voices and speeches in which wen was either specifically defined or randomly mentioned in the past, and that these semantic residues are accumulated in the present linguistic context in which this term is used. In other words, when one mentions wen at a specific historical conjuncture, it is hard not to surmise that this wen must have in some way echoed with other utterances of wen either in the contemporaneous world or in the hitherto historical periods. What needs to be stressed is that the notion of “the contemporary” or “the present” should not be limited to the temporality of our own but is valid to any historical moment in which a writer or speaker lived as long as he or she mentions or articulates wen as a concept. Therefore, Confucius (551–479 BC) will be a contemporary commentator of wen in his own time who attempted to summarize what this term could mean from the ancient past to the moment he used the term. The variety of denotations and connotations of a single word thus coexists within the same imagined unity of a single language in a contemporaneous world, creating an infinite expanding web of implications of that word that might either correspond or contradict to each other. Hence, there are always resonances and dissonances between this or that wen in different historical periods. For example, the concept of wen that was invoked by Confucius to summarize the various as- pects of culture of the Zhou dynasty that he treasured and preserved created a resonance with 56 the “wen” that appears in the royal title of the King Wen of Zhou (Zhou wen wang), allegedly the first Chinese emperor who received the title of wen, but had a dissonance with other uses of wen, which might be simply used to refer to the natural (as opposed to the cultural) patterns in the physical world such as the ripples on the surface of water or the texture of woods, rocks, or ani- of 41 222 Peter K. Bol defines wen as “the external appearances and forms in general as well as the normative patterns and 56 models” that Confucius derived from the Zhou dynasty. See Peter K. Bol’s "This Culture of Ours": Intellectual Transitions in Tang and Sung China (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1992), pp. 1, 84-5. mals’ skins and furs. While the opposition between the natural and the cultural may not be al- ways useful in the dynamics of Chinese culture, it is clear that Confucius, at least based on how he was recorded in what we now call the “Confucian classics,” emphasizes more on the cultural and humanist implication of wen. If the classical implication of wen is as diverse and self-contradictory as a culture itself, giving a precise and conclusive definition of wen is almost impossible. Perhaps the ultimate im- plication of wen is the invention of meaning itself, that is, the very function and origin of lan- guage per se. It is for this reason and with all the reservation of the different layers of ambiguity of the concept of wen that we now turn to discuss the Chinese mythological stories on the origin of language. ! Wen and the Origin of Language ! There are several stories concerning the origin of wen in the Chinese mythology. One of such is Fuxi’s invention of bagua (literally “eight trigrams” ), an early Chinese symbolic system 57 designed to represent the natural reality. As a mythological figure, Fuxi is described as having a body of a dragon (which is similar to the shape of a snake in the Chinese tradition) and a head of a human being, which is similar to another mythological figure, Nuwa, who is also depicted as possessing a snake-like body and a human face. While Nuwa is said to create the material form of human beings from the clay, Fuxi is said to bring forth cultural and social order through the invention of the trigrams. Another story of Fuxi that is relevant to the origin of the written lan- of 42 222 Hereafter: trigrams. 57 guage is that he began to tie cords with ropes as a way of recording. As Confucius comments on the beginning of writing: “In earliest times, knotted cords were used in administration. Later sages changed this, introducing written documents and bonds for regulating the various officials and supervising the people.” Although the making of cords is not exactly a kind of the written 58 language as some scholars have argued, the use of different devices to represent the natural reali- ty and actual occurrence is certainly an indication of the emergence of meanings per se. And more importantly, I argue the process of transcribing the natural phenomena into a system of rep- resentation is a gesture that is characterized by an universal implication, since what this represen- tational system creates is a form of repeatable and transferable knowledge which can be passed down to another person other than the maker or author himself. From an anthropological per- spective, this representational system provides the condition of an early form of cultural commu- nity. It is widely known that Lévi-Strauss sought to apply Ferdinand de Saussure’s structural lin- guistic to his anthropological study, in which he argues that myth is a type of speech that is capa- ble of revealing the entire structure of a language. Lévi-Strauss even suggests that mythical sto- ries, however random and unpredictable they may seem, are governed by a universal law since myths of different cultures are oftentimes similar to each other . That whether Lévi-Strauss’s 59 argument of a universal law is Eurocentric is certainly an issue that worth debating and dis- cussing, but the fact that a mythical story about the origin of language is recorded and passed of 43 222 See Xicizhuan 繫辭傳 (Dazhuang ⼤大傳 ; hereafter XCZ): 上古結繩⽽而治 后世聖⼈人易之以書契 百官以治. The 58 translation I use here is based on Richard Rutt’s version of The Book of Changes (Zhouyi) (Surrey: Curzon Press, 1996), p. 422. It is widely known that Lévi-Strauss sought to apply Ferdinand de Saussure’s structural linguistic to his anthropo 59 - logical study, in which he argues that myth is a type of speech through which the structure of an entire language can be revealed. He even goes on to suggest that mythical stories, however random and unpredictable they may seem, are actually governed by a universal law since oftentimes these myths of different cultures are rather similar to each other. See Claude Lévi-Strauss, Structural Anthropology (New York: Anchor Books), 1967. down to later generations implies a kind of inter-personal and thus transhistorical connection be- tween the early creator of this myth and its latter followers. In the Chinese case, the half-dragon (or snake)-half-human creators of humanity imply the an animalistic nature of Chinese written language. Moreover, according to Confucius and other later Chinese literati, a kind of mysterious diagram is naturally revealed to Fuxi in some markings on the back of a dragon, sometimes a dragon horse, that emerged from the Yellow River and Fuxi then made the trigrams based on that diagram . Yu the Great, the founder of the Xia dynasty (c. 2070 – c. 1600 BC), the first Chinese 60 dynasty, was also mentioned as an ancient figure who is related to the origin of early Chinese writing. It is said that a mystic document was presented to him on the back of a tortoise from the Luo river which he took it as a revelation of the norm of natural world . This story is often men 61 - tioned side by side with Fuxi’s. Another story of the origin of the written language is attributed to Canjie, who is said to invent Chinese characters based on the footprints of birds. The naturalis 62 - tic and animalistic nature of the human invention of written language in the Chinese tradition is therefore obvious. Perhaps the word, “invention,” is not the most appropriate term to describe the origin of either Fuxi’s trigrams, Yu’s mythic document, or Cangjie’s script which are often un- of 44 222 See XCZ: The Yellow River yielded a chart, the Luo River yielded a document; sages took them as norm 河出圖 60 洛出書 聖⼈人則之 . See Richard Rutt’s translation, p. 419. Commenting on Confucius’s XCZ, Kong Yingda 孔穎達 (574-648) wrote in Zhouyi zhengyi 周易正義 (Commentaries on The Book of Changes): “The chart was revealed through the dragon from the Yellow River; the document was manifested through the tortoise from the Luo River” 河龍圖發 洛龜書感. See also Liu Xie 劉勰’s Wenxin Diaolong ⽂文⼼心雕龍 (hereafter WXDL): The Yellow River brings forth the eight trigrams; the Luo River contains the ancient nine-chaptered document 河圖孕八卦 洛書韞乎 九疇. Ibid. 61 See Xu Gan’s 徐幹 (170-218) Zhonglun 中論: Canjie invents writing by observing the footprints of the birds 倉頡 62 視⿃鳥跡⽽而作書 . Wang Chong 王充 (27-100) also argues in Lunheng 論衡: [With] the heaven and earth as the chart and document, Canjie made the script accordingly 天地為圖書 倉頡作⽂文字 . Later, Cai Yong 蔡邕 (132-192) wrote in Caizhong langji 蔡中郎集: The beginning of script and chart derives from the footprints of birds 字畫之始 因于 ⿃鳥跡 . See also Hanfeizi 韓非⼦子 : The ancient sage Cangjie made the script 古者蒼頡之作書也. derstood as the three versions of the origin of wen, since these early Chinese symbolic systems or documents were naturally revealed to, rather than being created by, the ancient sages. Re- arrangement and reworking are perhaps better terms to describe the process of the emergence of Fuxi’s trigrams, Yu’s document, and Canjie’s script. The kind of universality that is implied in these mythological stories concerning the origin of the written language is hence characterized by a naturalistic, if not exactly mimetic, relation to the natural and cosmological order. Given the fact that these ancient sages are often tribal leaders themselves (Fuxi and Yu), perhaps the belief in the Mandate of the Heaven (tianmin), an early Chinese religious and philosophical belief that was often employed to legitimize the status of an emperor, had its root in these myths of the birth of written language. It is perhaps not a coincidence that the King Wen of Zhou, the first Chinese monarch who received the title of wen, is also often considered the first monarch whose rulership is legitimized through the Mandate of the Heaven . 63 From an etymological perspective, the pictorial configuration of this character, wen, may also derive from the basic element of the trigrams that consist of two kinds of lines that are jux- taposed in the number of three to represent a particular aspect of reality : the broken line (“- -”) 64 and unbroken line (“ -”). These two kinds of lines are later referred to as yao ( ⽘爻 ), a character that consists of two sets of crossing lines. The pictorial formation of yao is thus similar to wen ( ⽂文 ), which also consists of two sets of lines that are either crossed or seem to cross. Just as the trigrams is a device designed to represent the reality, we may surmise that what wen is character of 45 222 See Maoshi zhengyi ⽑毛詩正義 : The Wen King established the Zhou dynasty after receiving the Mandate of the 63 Heaven ⽂文王受命作周也 . While the broken line is later referred to as the yinyao (the feminine pattern of crossing), the unbroken line is 64 called the yangyao (the masculine pattern of crossing). that implies a constantly changing world. What this character seeks to capture is the physical movement of the world just as yao is a symbol designed to predict and represent the order of the natural world. As Confucius explains in his commentaries on the trigrams: “The mixture of things is called wen.” Perhaps, the mixing of things not only implies the movement of mixing 65 but also the materiality of the concept of wen . 66 In this approach to the understanding of wen, the formation of this character is itself a pictorial manifestation of the external, universal, natural world, as it not only sorts out and mate- rializes the various abstract ideas about the function of the universe, but captures the physical but transient movements. In other words, the making of the trigrams as a possible origin of wen is deployed to encapsulate abstract ideas, physical objects, and even the movements occurring in the world, into an understandable and predictable form of written symbols. It thus can be argued that the invention of trigrams as an early form of written language has in effect eternalized the transient lives of the living things through the embalmment of words. It reminds us the famous story of Socrates on the invention of letters in the Western tradition. Theuth, an ancient Egyptian god, who was said to invent a variety of arts including numbers, arithmetic, geometry, astrono- my, and above all, the letters, visited Thamus, the Egyptian king, who lived in Thebes at the time. Theuth presented his inventions to King Thamus who either praised or blamed with reasons that were not discussed in details by Socrates. But when it comes to the letters, which Theuth of 46 222 See DZ: 物相雜 故曰⽂文 . Richard Rutt translates this sentence as: “Events have mutual relationships, realized as 65 patterns.” See Richard Rutt’s translation of The Book of Changes (Zhouyi) (Surrey: Curzon Press, 1996), p. 429. Yuan Jin 袁進 therefore suggests that the term wen might originally refer to some kinds of sequential configura 66 - tions of images and colors. See Yuan Jin, Zhongguo wenxue gainian de jindai biange 中國⽂文學概念的近代變⾰革 (Shanghai: Shanghai shehui kexue yuan chubanshe, 1996), p. 1 believed to be capable of improving the wisdom of the Egyptians people and enhancing their memory, King Thamus replied: ! Most ingenious Theuth, one man has the ability to beget arts, but the ability to judge of their usefulness or harmfulness to their users belongs to another; and now you, who are the father of letters, have been led by your affection to ascribe to them a power the oppo- site of that which they really possess. For this invention will produce forgetfulness in the minds of those who learn to use it, because they will not practice their memory. Their trust in writing, produced by external characters which are no part of themselves, will discourage the use of their own memory within them. You have invented an elixir not of memory, but of reminding; and you offer your pupils the appearance of wisdom, not true wisdom, for they will read many things without instruction and will therefore seem to know many things, when they are for the most part ignorant and hard to get along with, since they are not wise, but only appear wise. 67 ! Contrary to Theuth’s belief in the written characters in improving the wisdom of Egyptian peo- ple, King Thamus considered it as a defective device that brings forgetfulness and ignorance. The ambiguous effect of the invention of written language either as a remedy or poison to the human wisdom is elaborated and reinterpreted by Derrida as a way to reexamine the entire Western philosophical tradition that premises on a series of oppositions. The Greek word, pharmakon, has a rather ambiguous implication: remedy, poison, philter, drug, recipe, charm, medicine, sub- of 47 222 See Plato, Phaedrus. 67 stance, spell, artificial color, and etc. Through Derrida’s lens, what Socrates has revealed— through the words of Plato—is a much more ambiguous and contrasting image of the function of writing, which preserves but destroys at the same time the living wisdom, enabling the condition of knowledge by un-privileging the position of the original speaker as the center of the produc- tion of truth. Socrates’ focalization on the question of the letters can be read with another story in which he debases the professional reciters and performers of poems as he does not recognize their profession as a form of art. To him, the poets are the interpreters of God and the reciters of poems are only the interpreters of interpreters of God . The poets produce poetry when they re 68 - ceive inspiration and only when they receive inspiration; they do not create but rather speak through the voices of Muse through the medium of language. The reciters and performers of po- ems are thus at the bottom of this chain of representation. ! Wen in the Analects ! If the founding philosopher of the Western tradition had long noticed the double-edged function of the letters, how did ancient Chinese thinkers comment on the use of written charac- ters in their own terms? More specifically, how did Chinese philosophers evaluate the nature of wen, which is associated with the written language? It is interesting to see that the origin of wen does not really imply any negative meaning in Chinese mythology. The emergence of the early form of Chinese written language not only originated from some kind of divine power of nature but more importantly, was naturally revealed to ancient sages who subsequently brought forth of 48 222 Socrates thus argues: “For all good poets, epic as well as lyric, compose their beautiful poems not by art, but be 68 - cause they are inspired and possessed.” See Ion. social and cultural orders. The emergence of the Chinese written language is hence upheld as a sacred occurrence that creates and illuminates humanity. This is very different from the story re- counted by Socrates in which the value of the written language is limited to its mnemonic func- tion, which would only destroy the wisdom that is treasured by the Egyptian King. Humanity in its ideal form, in Socrates’s story, already existed, pure as it is since it is yet to be contaminated by the invention of the written letters. The ancient Chinese thinkers, if we take Confucius as an example, is obviously more positive than his Western counterpart in terms of his attitude toward the nature and use of written language. A well-known story of Confucius might further explain this difference. When Confucius was trapped in a place called Kuang, he said: “After King Wen perished, does wen cease to exist here [with me]? If Heaven intends to destroy wen, it would not have let its descendants to take part [in the succession of wen]. What can the people of Kuang do to me?” That whether we interpret wen in this passage as writing, knowledge, culture, or civi 69 - lization, is not going to contradict the fact that what is emphasized by Confucius here is the sig- nificance of transmission of wen as a cultural heritage. The ultimate value of wen, as a form of knowledge that ancient sages obtained through observing the law of the natural world is that it can be passed down to the next generation. Interestingly, while the Chinese mythology about the origin of wen indicates a nature-and-animal informed recording system, from the perspective of Confucius as a compiler and elaborator of these mythic stories, the concept of wen has started to imply a transhistorical value. The significance of wen (either as a form of writing, ritual, knowl- of 49 222 See Lunyu, 9.5: ⼦子畏於匡 曰⽂文王既沒 ⽂文不在茲乎 天之將喪斯⽂文也 後死者不得與於斯⽂文也 天之未喪斯⽂文也 69 匡⼈人其如予何 . Simon Leys translates wen here as civilization while Annping Chin renders it as culture. See Leys’s translation in Nylan's The Analects (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2014), pp. 23. See also Chin’s translation in her edition of The Analects (Lunyu) (New York: Penguin, 2014), p. 131. edge, culture, or civilization) is first and foremost characterized by its transferability and trans- missibility. The ultimate value of wen is premised more on its receiver, rather than its creator. A closer examination of other passages in the Analects will reveal that this kind of tran- shistorical implication is key to Confucius’s understanding of wen. To him, wen denotes the kind of mannerism that true gentlemen (junzi) should possess and the cultural legacy that Confucius himself learns from the Zhou dynasty . For example, he said: “The Zhou dynasty modeled itself 70 upon the two preceding dynasties. What a splendid civilization. I am a follower of Zhou.” If we 71 compare Confucius’s earlier comment on the death of King Wen of Zhou and the continuation of wen with this passage, the concept of wen is considered the equivalence of the civilization or cul- ture that originated from the Xia and Shang dynasties, blossoming in the early Zhou period, and is inherited by Confucius and his followers. In other words, the term, wen, is used by Confucius to denote the secession of some kinds of cultural value or social norm that derived from an an- cient past and still survives in Confucius’s time. There is indeed a diachronic implication in the usage of wen that is similar to the modern concept of literature. Nevertheless, different from the modern concept of literature that emphasizes the aesthet- ic qualities of the written narrative, the classical concept of wen contains other implications that are not exclusive to the texts. Yet, these implications are still in some ways connected to the cen- tral mission of Confucius whose aim is to preserve and pass down the Zhou’s tradition. It is per- of 50 222 As Peter K. Bol argues: “In the Analects, the term ‘wen’ can mean the external appearances and forms in general 70 as well as the normative patterns and models” that derived from the Zhou dynasty. See Bol’s "This Culture of Ours": Intellectual Transitions in Tang and Sung China (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1992), pp. 1, 84-5. See Lunyu, 3.14: 周監於⼆二代 郁郁乎⽂文哉 吾從周. This English translated is based on Leys’s. See Nylan’s edi 71 - tion of The Analects, p. 8. Annping Chin translates this sentence as “Zhou took stock of the two previous dynasties. Splendid is her culture! I follow the Zhou.” See Chin, The Analects (Lunyu), p. 33. All the following translations of Lunyu will be based on either Chin’s or Leys’s with slight modifications. haps for this reason that wen is also defined by Confucius as a kind of sincere and diligent learn- ing attitude. For example, when Confucius was asked by his student that why Kong Wenzi, an official working in the state of Wey (c. 812-478 BC), was given the posthumous name, wen, he replied, “[Kong Wenzi] was quick and eager to learn and was not ashamed to seek advice from those who were inferior to him. Therefore, he was given the posthumous name wen.” Com 72 - menting on the cultivation of true gentlemen, Confucius said: “If the native material [zhi] out- weighs refinement [wen], you have a rustic. If refinement outweighs the native material, you have a scribe. When there is a right balance of native material and refinement, you have a gen- tleman.” In another passage, Confucius commented, “A gentleman enlarges his learning in the 73 classics [wen] and restrains himself with ritual; therefore, he is not likely to go wrong.” It is 74 interesting that whether wen is interpreted as refinement, a kind of diligent and sincere learning attitude, or even the classics that Confucius complied and treasured. They all boil down to a kind of personal cultivation essential to the secession of the tradition that grew out of pre-Confucius’s time. Again, the term, wen, is often used to refer to a kind of cultural lineage that Confucius had tried so hard to establish and maintain. ! of 51 222 See Lunyu, 5.15: 敏⽽而好學 不恥下問 是以謂之⽂文也 ; trans. Chin, The Analects, p. 68. Simon Leys translates wen 72 here as “civilized.” See Leys, The Analects, p. 13. See Lunyu, 6.18: 質勝⽂文則野 ⽂文勝質則史 ⽂文質彬彬 然後君⼦子 ; trans. Chin, The Analects, p. 89. Leys translates 73 wen here as “culture.” See Leys, The Analects, p. 16. But either one translates wen here as refinement or culture, it represents a kind of quality that is crucial to cultivation of true gentlemen [junzi]. See Lunyu, 6.27: 君⼦子博學於⽂文 約之以禮 亦可以弗畔矣夫. It is interesting to see that both Leys and Chin 74 translate wen here as literature, but this translation needs some clarifications since, as Michael Nylan himself also points out, “Needless to say, the very notion of literature had a very different content in the time of Confucius, but the basic idea that the mind is uniquely enlarged by the literary experience as also expressed in Western culture.” See Leys, The Analects, p. 88. Chin also translates wen here as literature, p. 94. It is perhaps more appropriate to translate this wen as the classics that Confucius compiled. Wenzhang ⽂文章 ! In addition to wen, there are other terms such as wenxian (“documents and archives” in modern Chinese) and wenzhang (“essays” in modern Chinese) that appear in the Analects. For instance, one of Confucius’s students, Zigong, noted: “The master’s view on wenzhang can be gathered and heard, but not his views on the nature of things and the Way of Heaven.” Simon 75 Leys translates wenzhang here as “culture” while Annping Chin translates this term as “accom- plishments in literature and the cultural tradition.” While both translations work perfectly with 76 their previous rendering of wen as either culture or civilization, the term, wenzhang, may as well be translated as Confucius’s lectures on the classics such as the Classic of Poetry (Shijing), Book of Documents (Shangshu), Book of Rites (Liji), Classic of Poetry (Yuejing), and etc. These clas- sics not only record the social and cultural conditions of the pre-Zhou period but also represent Confucius’s efforts in compiling and interpreting these ancient documents that were otherwise too scattered and abstruse to understand to his contemporaries. Of course, the actual authorship and original date of these ancient documents have long been disputed and debated by scholars, and there is still no definite answer on this question. Some recent scholars tended to believe that the Analects was actually written and compiled by multiple authors after Confucius’s death in 479 B.C., for although several Han dynasty’s texts that describe the Analects can be found right after Confucius’s death, there was a long period of relative silence about this work for almost of 52 222 See Lunyu, 5.13: 夫⼦子之⽂文章 可得⽽而聞也 夫⼦子之⾔言性與天道 不可得⽽而聞也 . 75 See Leys, The Analects, p.13; Chin, The Analects, p. 66. 76 four hundred years after Confucius’s demise. . Mark Csikszentmihalyi noted: “the Analects is 77 likely not an ‘original’ layer of Confucianism and at best provides a imperfect window onto the identity of the major religious and philosophical founder figure of Confucius.” Instead of an 78 honest reflection of Confucius’s life and times, the Analects “represents a complex space occu- pied by a number of people who claimed to his spiritual or ethical followers.” Similar views 79 had been made about other Confucian classics by other scholars. For instance, Liu Qihua argued that the Book of Documents “only represents the first-hand record of the Xia, Shang, and Zhou dynasties, preserving the precious ancient and scientific information. It was only complied by Confucius later as one of his history textbooks for his students.” It is obvious that Liu empha 80 - size is the relation between the Book of Documents and historical conditions that the former re- veals in pre-Confucius time, rather than Confucius’s later connection with and elaboration of the text. Contrary to this approach is the insistence on the status of these works as classics and the fact that these works have been passed down to later generations, producing concrete effects on the development of Chinese literary tradition. Edward Shaughnessy opined, “Without a doubt, there has been a few scholars who studied the ancient linguistic materials from this period [the pre-Confucius period]—the oracle bone script from the Shang dynasty as well as the Chinese bronze inscriptions from the Western Zhou period. However, these scholars often tended to ig- nore—whether consciously or unconsciously—the fact that these classics have been passed of 53 222 See Mark Csikszentmihalyi’s “The Formation of the Analects” in Michael Nylan’s edition The Analects (New 77 York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2014), pp. 152-165. Ibid., 164. 78 Ibid., 164. 79 See Liu Qihua 劉起釪’s preface in Shangshu xueshi 尚書學史, quoted in Gu Jiegang 顧頡剛 and Liu Qihua’s 80 Shangshu xiaoshi yilun 尚書校釋譯論 V ol.1 (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 2005), pp. 1-24. down through generations.” The observation of the multilayered production and authorship of 81 “Confucian classics” is certainly illuminating, as it draws our attention to the multiple origins of these works, thereby revealing different ways of engaging with the ancient texts. However, if we consider the fact that these “Confucian classics” have influenced the entire later Chinese literary development, as well as the East Asian civilization in general, it is still important to maintain the kind of research that features on textual analysis. After all, that the these texts have been hailed, read, and studied as “Confucian” classics over generations only reinforces the diachronic impli- cation and transhistorical value of these works. ! Wenxian ⽂文獻 and wende ⽂文德 ! Wenxian, which now denotes documents and archives in modern Chinese, perhaps had a rather dual meaning in Confucius’ times. As Arthur Waley once suggested, the term, wen, in Shi- jing might appear to be a separate word with its own trajectories . In other words, we should not 82 confuse wen with other characters even when it is used as part of a compound such as wenzhang, wenxian, and even wende (literally “wen-virtue”). In the case of wenxian, we should also proceed to separate this compound by understanding wen and xian individually. For example, Confucius noted: “I am able to speak about the rites of Xia, but the state of Qi is not able to provide the evi- dence to illuminate what I say. I am able to speak about the rites of Shang, but the state of Song is not able to provide the evidence to illuminate what I say. This is because both the records and of 54 222 See Edward L. Shaughnessy, Before Confucius: Studies in the Creation of the Chinese Classics (Albany: State 81 University of New York Press, 1997), p. 3. See Arthur Waley’s The Book of Songs (New edition, New York: Grove, 1960), p. 346. 82 worthy men of erudition [wenxian] are insufficient in these two states. If they were, I could sup- port my words with [more] evidence.” As it is accurately observed by both Leys and Chin, the 83 compound, wenxian, should not be simply translated as “records or archives” but ought to be un- derstood as two separate words: wen and xian; while the former denotes the actual material doc- uments and records from the Xia and Shang dynasties, the latter refers to scholars who can accu- rately interpret these ancient archives . In another passage, Confucius mentioned wende when 84 he reprimanded his student, Ran Qiu, who was working for Lord Ji but was unable to prevent the latter from planning a military attack on Zhuanyu, an autonomous domain in the state of Lu: ! “I have always heard that what worries the head of a state or the chief of a clan is not poverty but inequality, not the lack of population but the lack of peace. For if there is equality, there will be no poverty, and where there is peace, there is no lack of population. And if people who live in far-off lands still resist your attraction, you must draw them to you by the moral power of civilization [wende].” 85 ! The concept of de (literally “virtues” in modern Chinese; translated as “moral power” by Simon Leys) is another important quality essential to a true gentleman. It is often interpreted as a kind of 55 222 See Lunyu, 3.9: 夏禮 吾能⾔言之 杞不⾜足徵也 殷禮 吾能⾔言之 宋不⾜足徵也 ⽂文獻不⾜足故也 ⾜足則吾能徵之矣 . See 83 Chin, The Analects (Lunyu), p. 30; Leys, The Analects, p. 8. According to the Shiyan 釋⾔言 [Interpretation of the language] chapter in Erya 爾雅, the oldest Chinese dictionary 84 compiled in the Zhou period, the term, xian, denotes sages: 獻 聖也. See Xu Zhaohua’s 徐朝華 Erya jingzhu [Con- temporary commentaries on Erya] 爾雅今注 (Tianjin: Kainan daxue chubanshe), p. 105. See Lunyu, 16.1: 丘也聞有國有家者 不患寡⽽而患不均 不患貧⽽而患不安 蓋均無貧 和無寡 安無傾 夫如是 故遠 85 ⼈人不服 則修⽂文德以來之 . See Leys, The Analects, p. 49; Chin, The Analects (Lunyu), pp. 270-271. of invisible power that nonetheless produces actual and material effects. Like wen, de is acquired through continuous and conscious efforts. As Confucius noted: “Failure to cultivate de, failure to explore what is learned [xue], failure to stand by what I considered to be right, failure to reform what is not good—these are my worries.” If we understand the first four sentences as consisting 86 of two sets of parallelism, the term, de, would correspond to xue (literally “learning” or “what is learned”), which might be a contrast that Confucius intended to highlight. What is learned from the classics may refer to the idea of wen, while what is cultivated as de means the internalization of the knowledge that is learned [from the classics]. In this case, wen and de imply a two-phase process of the completion of secession of a cultural tradition. The classical knowledge is first of all preserved through the diligent learning of the ancient documents and records; it is then inter- nalized by learners and practitioners of the ancient culture, turning the latter into well-inculcated personality that can in turn influence other people. A true gentleman is thus a living embodiment of cultural legacy. As Confucius explains, “The moral power of the gentleman is wind, the moral power of the common man is grass. Under the wind, the grass must bend.” This is perhaps the 87 most widely-cited passage concerning the concept of de in the Analects. ! ! of 56 222 See Lunyu, 7.3: 德之不脩 學之不講 聞義不能徙 不善不能改 是吾憂也. See Leys, The Analects, p. 18; Chin, 86 The Analects (Lunyu), p. 98. The term, 脩 xiu, which is used as a verb to describe de, originally meant 脯 fu, i.e., sweetened and marinated meat that are mixed with cassia and ginger. It is therefore interesting to see that the con- cept of de, which is characterized by xiu and fu, implies a process of scenting and flavoring an originally dull and plain body. The cultivation of de is like the marination of meat, adding only to its flavor and taste. It is also appro- priate to point out that the concept of de, at least for Confucius, depends on the physical form of human beings so that it can be either carried out or felt as some kind of (moral) power. See Duan Yucai’s 段⽟玉裁 definitions of this word in Shuowen jiezi zhu 說⽂文解字注 : 析⾔言之則薄析曰脯 捶⽽而施薑桂曰段脩 ; Quoted from Tang Kejing’s 湯可 敬 Shuowen jiezi jinshi 說⽂文解字今釋 V ol. 1 (Changsha: Yuelu shushe), p. 580. See Lunyu, 12.19: 君⼦子之德風 ⼩小⼈人之德草 草上之風 必偃. See Leys, The Analects, p. 49. 87 Shi and poem ! Confucius and his followers’ reiteration of the pedagogical and moral significance of an- cient documents has nonetheless created the effect of canonization, making certain texts or doc- uments appear to be a standardized narrative form. For example, the compiling of the Classic of Poetry (Shijing) is not just a collection of ancient folk songs, odes, and poetic works; it is also a document that categorizes a group of originally unrelated and scattered texts in the name of shi, which later became a literary form that we now translate as poetry . Many scholars have pointed 88 out that Shijing had already existed in pre-Confucius time under the title of Shi (Poetry). Hence, the question is that whether such a title refers to the work itself or a specific literary form? The term, shi, is mentioned by Confucius on several occasions, but to what extent is it used to refer to the the work itself, and to what extent is it employed to denote a specific literary forms? This is a difficult question. In Shangshu, emperor Shun is recorded to make the following comment: “Po- etry (shi) expresses the heart’s intent; singing (ge) prolongs the utterance of that expression; the sounds accompany the chanting; the melody harmonizes the sounds.” This passage is arguably 89 one of the earliest definitions of shi in the Chinese classics, and is later widely cited by scholars as the basic understanding of poetry. In this passage, shi is described as a kind of narrative that is different from singing. And whether we interpret the term, shi, here as a written or spoken narra- tive, it is set up as a contrast with ge as a verbal and performative expression. Therefore, it is less likely that shi here is used to refer to the work Shijing itself, but a form of narrative—whatever it of 57 222 See Albert Richard Davis, The Penguin Book of Chinese Verse (Baltimore: Penguin Books, 1970). 88 See the chapter entitled “Canon of Yao” 堯典 in Shangyu: 詩⾔言志 歌永⾔言 聲依永 律和聲. 89 is—that is different from singing and chanting. Such an ambiguity can also be observed in sever- al passages in the Analects. For example, when commenting on the importance of shi, Confucius said: “Drawing inspiration from poems (shi); steady your course with the rites [li]; find your ful- fillment in music [yue]” and elsewhere, “Little ones, why don’t you study shi? It can provide 90 you with stimulation and with observation, a capacity for communion, and a vehicle for grief. At home, it can also enable you to serve your father, and abroad, to serve your lord. You will learn there the names of many birds, animals, plants. and trees.” In another passage, Confucius ar 91 - gued: “The three hundred poems (shi) can be summarized in a single phrase: ‘Think no evil’.” 92 In the first example, poetry (shi) is consciously differentiated from other forms of cultural prac- tices such as rites (li) and music (yue). It is also a bit ambiguous to tell if Confucius is referring to shi as a form of narrative that can help express one’s emotions and sentiments and also adds to one’s knowledge, or merely to the work Shijing itself. In the last passage that I quoted above, it is obvious that the term, shi, refers to the work Shijing specifically since Confucius mentions the the three hundred works that are collected in the Shijing. Despite such a diverse function of shi and the fact that it is compared and paralleled with rituals and music, it is interesting to see that many scholars still choose to render shi in these two passages as capitalized “Poems” or “Odes,” indicating their reference to the work itself. Of course, there is nothing wrong with such transla- tions since they do reveal the canonicity of a work that we know as the Classic of Poetry nowa- days. Indeed, as Chow Tse-Tsung argued, from the Zhou dynasty on, many Chinese writers who of 58 222 See Lunyu, 8.8: 興於詩 ⽴立於禮 成於樂. See Leys’ translation in Nylan’s The Analects, p. 22. 90 See Lunyu, 17.9: ⼩小⼦子 何莫學夫詩 詩可以興 可以觀可以群 可以怨 邇之事⽗父 遠之事君 多識於⿃鳥獸草⽊木之 91 名. See Leys’ translation in Nylan’s The Analects, p. 53. See Lunyu, 2.2: 詩三百 ⼀一⾔言以蔽之 曰思無邪. See Leys’ translation in Nylan’s The Analects, p. 5. 92 discussed the meanings of shi based themselves on the formula provided by the Book of Docu- ments: “Shi yan zhi” (Poetry expresses the heart’s intent), or at least appealed to a similar idea . 93 This definition has dominated Chinese literary criticism throughout the following centuries. For example, in the Commentary of Zuo (Zuo Zhuan), there is a sentence that clearly models after the formula of poetry in the Book of Documents. That sentence reads, “Poetry is for expressing the heart’s intent.” In other parts of the Book of Commentary, whenever the term shi is mentioned, 94 it is always followed by an actual quotation from the Classic of Poetry. For instance, in the chap- ter of “Xigong jiunian” [The ninth year of the Duke of Xi], a passage reads: “It is thus recorded in Shi: A flaw on the white jade may be ground away. But for a flaw in speech, nothing that can be done.” In another chapter, “Yingong yuannian” [The first year of the Duke of Yin], a sen 95 - tence goes, “Shi argued that there will be no shortage of filial sons, for the Heaven will always bless such people.” It is obvious that the term, shi, in the Commentary of Zuo refers mostly to 96 the Classic of Poetry (Shijing) per se. Later Confucian scholars such as Mencius and Xunzi also used the term, shi, to refer to the work Shijing itself, or at least allude to the conventional definition of shi that was established in the Book of Documents. For example, Mencius wrote: “Hence, the critics of shi (or Shi?) will not let its rhetorical embellishment outshine its language, or its language obscure the intent [of the poet], or rely on their personal import to understand the intent [of the poet]. This is how the of 59 222 See Chow Tse-Tsung, “Early History of the Chinese Word Shih (Poetry)” in Wen-Lin: Studies in the Chinese Hu 93 - manities, vol. 1 (2001), p. 155. See the chapter of “Xianggong ershi qinian” [The twentieth-seventh year of the Duke of Xiang] in Zuo Zhuan: 詩 94 以⾔言志 . See Zuo Zhuan: 詩所謂⽩白圭之玷,尚可磨也,斯⾔言之玷,不可為也 . 95 See Zuo Zhuan: 詩曰孝⼦子不匱 永錫爾類 其是之謂乎. 96 comprehension of a work is achieved.” Although we are not quite sure of the reference of shi 97 used by Mencius here as it can equally refer to Shijing specifically or poetry in general, it is ob- vious that the intent of the original author is considered by Mencius to be the most important el- ement in prescribing the meanings of a work. This perhaps reaffirms the conventional definition of shi as the expression of one’s heart’s intent that is laid out in the Book of Documents. In other writings of Mencius, shi refers mostly to the Shijing, since a quotation from that work is always given after the term, shi, is mentioned. For example, in a passage that records a conversation be- tween Mencius and the Hui King of Liang, Mencius quoted a passage from the Shijing: ! Mencius replied, “Only the virtuous [truly] are able to enjoy these things. Those who are not virtuous, although they might have such things, cannot [truly] enjoy them. The Poetry [shi] says, ! He began by measuring the spirit tower, He measured it and planned it. The common people worked on it, Finishing before a day was out.” 98 ! of 60 222 See the chapter of Wanzhang [Ten thousand essays] in Mencius: 故說詩者 不以⽂文害辭 不以辭害志 以意逆志 是 97 為得之. See Mencius: 孟⼦子對曰 賢者⽽而後樂此 不賢者雖有此 不樂也 詩云 經始靈臺 經之營之 庶民攻之 不⽇日成之 . 98 For English translation, see Philip J. Ivanhoe (ed.), Mencius, translates by Irene Bloom (New York: Columbia Uni- versity Press, 2009), p. 2. Although Irene Bloom translates the term, shi, here as “ode,” it is obvious this passage is cited from the Shijing. I thus render the term shi as the capitalized Poetry. In another passage of Mencius, a quotation from the Shijing is also given: “The King was pleased and replied: ‘What other people have in their minds, I measure by reflection,’ it is speaking about someone like you.’” It is obvious in Mencius’s writing, the word shi functions mostly as an ab 99 - breviation of the work Shijing. To sum it up, although the term shi can refer to both a literary form and an actual work in the Analects, the meaning of shi had gradually solidified in later Confucian classics. This perhaps indicates that the status of shi as a literary form has gradually been secured and therefore it is no longer necessary to reiterate its meaning and function like Confucius did. ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! of 61 222 See Mencius: 王說曰 詩云 他⼈人有⼼心 予忖度之 夫⼦子之謂也 . Ibid., p. 8. Again, Irene Bloom translates the word, 99 shi, here as “ode,” but this passage recited by the king is obviously from the Shijing. Chapter Two: Articulating “Literature” in the Chinese Context ! “What is literature? This question has been discussed by many authors. One might argue that ‘literature conveys Dao.’ But Dao is Dao; literature is literature. —Liu Bannong 劉半農, 1917. ! “We have often heard of voices calling for ‘Literature! Literature!’ ‘Preserving classical litera- ture!’ or ‘Creating new literature!’ But what is literature? Not only readers but I too am troubled by this question.” —Luo Jialun 羅家倫, 1919. ! “Both speech and writing are means of conveying ideas and feelings. If such deliveries are done nicely and wittily, it is literature. But what qualifies ‘nicely’ and ‘wittily’? This is hard to say.” —Hu Shi 胡適, 1920. ! Literature =wenxue? ! While the meanings of wenxue can be potentially complicated by the multivalence of wen, some scholars have tried to reveal the aesthetic implication of wenxue in the pre-modern context. Zeng Yongyi and Ke Qingming, for example, argue that although wenxue had much of 62 222 broader meanings in the ancient Chinese context , it had come to bear the modern connotation 100 of literature as early as the Six Dynasties (222–589), since literary works at the time had been evaluated according to their “depth of thoughts” (chensi 沈思) and “sophistication of rhetoric” (hanzao 瀚藻). The two authors thus maintain that Chinese literati in the Six Dynas 101 - ties had already “defined literature (wenxue) from an artistic (yishu de 藝術的) viewpoint,” 102 concluding that the concept of literature at that time is no different from today’s. However, such a conclusion might be potentially problematic for neither “literature” nor “art” was considered an independent category of knowledge before the twentieth century . Although the terms wen and 103 yi ( 藝) had been paired together by Ban Gu 班固 (32–92) in his yiwenzhi 藝⽂文志 (which is now often translated as “treaties on literature”), a section in the Book of Han (Hanshu 漢書), the con- cept of yiwen 藝⽂文 (literally “art literature”) was still understood as a branch of historiography. It is the concept of shi ( 史) that serves as the overarching framework of Chinese cultural tradition. of 63 222 Zeng and Ke argue the term “wenxue” denoted “general knowledge” in the Confucius’ time and “academic 100 study” in the Han dynasty. See Zeng Yongyi 曾永義 and Ke Qingming 柯慶明, Zhongguo wenxue piping ziliao huibian—lianghan weijin nanbei chao 中國⽂文學批評資料彙編 ─ 兩漢魏晉南北朝 (Taipei: Chengwen chubanshe, 1978), pp. 2-6. Ibid., 6. 101 Ibid. Yuan Jin takes a different approach toward this question. He argues that the Chinese concept of aesthetics 102 (mei 美) had always been associated with the “Doctrine of the Means” (zhongyong 中庸) which he believes to be originated from Confucius’ teaching: “being expressive of enjoyment without being licentious; being expressive of grief without being excessive.” 樂⽽而不淫 憂⽽而不傷 . See Yuan Jin’s Zhongguo wenxue gainian de jindai biange 中 國⽂文學概念的近代變⾰革 (Shanghai: Shanghai shehui kexue yuan, 1996), pp. 133-54. He Changsheng 賀昌盛 also notices that the concept of art (mei 美) had never been an independent intellectual 103 concept in the Chinese intellectual tradition. The first occurrence of this term indicating a separate knowledge field might be found in an English-Chinese dictionary complied by a British missionary, Wilhelm Lobscheid (1822-1893) in 1866. See He Changsheng, Wanqing minchu wenxue xueke de xueshu puxi 晚清民初⽂文學學科的學術譜系 (Bei- jing: Zhongguo shehui kexue chubanshe, 2012), p. 75. What is often discussed about yiwenzhi is Ban Gu’s list of ten schools of thought that emerged during the Zhou dynasty, including Confucianism, Daoism, Mohism, Legalism, Agriculturalism, Nominalism, the Miscellaneous School, the Yin-Yang School, the School of Diplomacy, and the School of Minor-talks (xiaoshuo ⼩小說 ), among which the School of Minor-talks is considered the least important. Two things can be observed from this list. First of all, what was understood as yiwen actually referred to a variety of knowledge and value systems ranging from the cultiva- tion of an individual, the belief in the strength of a nation, the knowledge of diplomatic relations, to the study of mysterious natural forces. In this view, the term yi denotes the set of skills that are considered important to a specific school, while wen means the records of these skills and knowledge. The classical connotation of yiwen is thus diverse and ambiguous. Second of all, the term, xiaoshuo, which is now the modern Chinese term for the novel, was actually a school of thought that is comparable to other classical Chinese philosophies. This reveals that the way xi- aoshuo was conceptualized then is different from it is now. While it is known that xiaoshuo had been considered an inferior form of writing and a subcategory of historiography in the Chinese tradition, what is under explored is the way in which this term came to translate the modern notion of the novel, which is now considered a cat- egory of literature. One may recall Liang Qichao’s 梁啓超 (1873–1929) famous article in 1902, “On the Relationship between Fiction and the Government of the People,” in which he proposes a revolution of fiction (xiaoshuo jie geming ⼩小說界⾰革命 ), seeking to redefine xiaoshuo as the of 64 222 exemplary form of wenxue . But the question is: when he mentions xiaoshuo and wenxue in 104 that article, does he already have in mind a modern concept of literature? I argue the contempo- rary equation between wenxue and literature was yet to be fully established at that time, since Liang did not define wenxue as an artistic concept in that article but simply as a political tool to covey political ideologies. Although later he did use wenxue to refer to poetry and lyrics in Yin- bingshi shihua 飲冰室詩話 (Poetry talks from the ice-drinking studio; hereafter: shihua) in which he displays an appreciation of the beauty of poetic language , it is still hard, in my opin 105 - ion, to say that the concept of art or aesthetics had already existed as an independent category of knowledge or academic discipline in Liang’s understanding of wenxue. In fact, it is not until the mid 1900s in which Wang Guowei introduced European aesthetic theories to Chinese readers that the concept of art had gradually become a more recognized subject of study. Indeed, the dif- ference between art as an independent category of knowledge and it as a simple appreciation of the beauty of things is not always clear in Liang’s writing, especially when his comments on the concept of this term are often so short and brief, making it difficult to determine his definition of wenxue in an absolute sense. However, maintaining such a difference in our inquiry into Liang’s of 65 222 He writes: “ ⼩小說為⽂文學之最上乘 ” (xiaoshuo is the exemplary form of wenxue). See Liang Qichao, “ 論⼩小說與 104 群治之關係” in Liang Qichao wenji 梁啟超⽂文集 (Beijing: Beijing yanshan chubanshe, 1997; hereafter LQW), p. 282. Kirk Denton translates this sentence as “fiction is the crowning glory of literature.” See Kirk Denton, ed., Mod- ern Chinese Literary Thought: Writings on literature 1893-1945 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1996; here- after MCLT), p. 72. He writes at the beginning of Yinbingshi shihua: “I love my friends as well as wenxue. Whenever I read about the 105 poems and lyrics of my friends whose words are full of fragrance, I’d recite them so that I can imprint them on my mind.” 我⽣生愛朋友 又愛⽂文學 每於師友之詩⽂文辭 芳馨菲惻 輒諷誦之 以印於腦. If we judge this sentence alone, it is clear that Liang Qichao had recognized the beauty of language as one of the qualities of wenxue; but if we judge the overall argument of this work and the fact that Liang’s conception of literary reform is always political by nature, we may also argue that wenxue has yet to be imagined as an independent category of knowledge whose value is free from any utilitarian purpose. See Liang Qichao’s Yinbingshi shihua 飲冰室詩話 in his Yinbingshi quanji 飲冰室全 集 (Tainan: Dafu shuju, 1990), vol. 4, p. 74. thought will be helpful in revealing the various layers of meanings of wenxue not only in Liang’s works but also in the late Qing context in general. For now, it is perhaps safe to argue that wenx- ue, at least in the case of Liang Qichao, has yet to become a well-defined field of knowledge that is free from the influence of any utilitarianism. A closer analysis of shihua will reveal that Liang’s proposal of a literary reform is actually charged with utilitarian purposes. While shihua is often considered the work in which Liang proposes a revolution of poetry (shijie geming 詩界⾰革命 ), a proposal that is often compared to his previous call for a revolution of fiction, in this work, Liang still considers the introduction of new ideas and thoughts the pri- mary purpose and value of new poetry. This is perhaps why new poetry is referred to as the “po- etry of new knowledge” (xinxue zhishi 新學之詩) in Liang’s shihua. He praises Huang Zunxi 106 - an ⿈黃遵憲 (i.e., Huang Gongdu ⿈黃公度 , 1848–1905), a late Qing poet whose works are consid- ered by him as the exemplary form of new poetry: “Among all recent poets who can incorporate new ideas into the classical form, Huang Gongdu is the exemplar.” Elsewhere in the same 107 work, Liang also maintains, “If the work [of Huang Gongdu] needs a title, I would name it as The Modern History of India, A Brief History of Buddhism, On the Religion of the World, or The Relation between Religion and Politics.” In other words, the ultimate aim and value of new 108 poetry, like new fiction, is to disseminate the modern, Western knowledge, rather than to convey of 66 222 Ibid., 74. 106 Ibid., 74. Elsewhere in Yinbingshi shihua, Liang Qichao also praises Qiu Fengjia 丘逢甲 for using the vernacular 107 language in poetic writing. Ibid., 76. 108 the aesthetic quality of literary language . Liang might have recognized the beauty of poetic 109 language, but his primary concern has always been political by nature. It is for this reason that I turn to Wang Guowei 王國維 (1877–1927), whose works pro- vide another perspective on the changing connotation of wenxue during the first decade of the twentieth century. Wang published a series of articles that emphasize the relation between aes- thetics (meixue 美學)/art (meishu 美術) and the value of literature (wenxue) in the mid 1900s. Although he does not make a clear distinction between aesthetics and art, and seems to relate these two terms with others such as philosophy (zhexue 哲學) and literature, he repeatedly argues that literature is not politics and should not serve any utilitarian purpose. To him, the ultimate value of art is to represent human beings’ eternal struggle against their desires and to alleviate the anxiety caused by such desires. While Wang does not provide a detailed explanation of either the concept of art or that of literature, he does start to mention wenxue in his elaboration of art . 110 This gradual articulation of art and literature, I argue, is important since it lays the foundation for the later New Literature Movement during which Chinese intellectuals had continued to redefine wenxue as an artistic and independent knowledge category. It is also through this synchronization of art and literature that May Fourth writers are able to consciously compare and negotiate the of 67 222 Yuan Jin even opines that although Liang Qichao highly endorsed Huang Zunxian’s pioneering poetic works and 109 called for a revolution of poetry, what Huang did is merely incorporating a few Western, scientific phrases into his works that actually “jeopardize the aesthetic quality of poetry” 破壞詩的美感. See Yuan Jin’s Zhongguo wenxue gainian de jindai biange 中國⽂文學概念的近代變⾰革 (Shanghai: Shanghai shehui kexue yuan, 1996), p. 184. What should be noted is that Wang Guowei has a rather general idea of what he means by art (or aesthetics) as he 110 only defines it as that which is pure and free from any utilitarian purpose. In this paper, I will follow his definition and will not make any further distinction between the concepts of art and aesthetics, nor will I provide clarification of these two terms. This is not to say that such inquiries are not important, which of course merit further researches. However, for the sake of this paper which is limited by its length, I will focus on the concept of wenxue and hope that future researches will be conducted to enrich our understanding of the concept of art in the Chinese context. A more recent work on the similar topic will be Ban Wang's The Sublime Figure of History: Aesthetics and Politics in Twentieth-Century China (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1997). difference between the Chinese and Western concepts of “literature.” In my analysis of May Fourth intellectuals’ discourses on wenxue, I focus on how wenxue is distinguished from wenzi (written language ⽂文字 ) and eventually becomes a universal concept that implies transcultural values. The analysis of the emergence of modern Chinese concept of wenxue is indeed important for it allows us to rethink about the precondition of our imagination of a global literary system (understood in various names: world literature, comparative literature, transnational literature, and etc.) in the Chinese context. This issue is complicated and would require a book-length work to elaborate the rise of wenxue as a modern concept in a more detailed way. In this paper, I only aim to discuss a few key authors who play important roles in this process to reveal the zigzagged routes that wenxue takes before its arrival in contemporary Chinese semantics as a new term that indicates a universal value system . 111 ! The rise of wenxue as literature: etymology and lexicography ! Recent scholars have started to pay more attention to the the Western and Japanese influ- ence on the formation of modern Chinese language. In the case of literature, the question gets a bit more complicated since China also a rather long literary tradition. The assumption that there has always been a corresponding concept in Chinese that is equivalent to the modern, Western of 68 222 In regards to the universal implication that is implied by the modern concept of literature, it is noteworthy to 111 point out that such an implication is both synchronic and diachronic. That is to say, the modern concept of literature is imagined as cross-cultural and transhistorical at once: on the one hand, it is considered a kind of lingua franca that can be immediately understood throughout the current world; on the other hand, it becomes a criterion with which one can use to evaluate and delineate the development of a literary tradition. Indeed, the historicization of a literary tradition sometimes requires an ahistorical concept of literature. It is perhaps for this reason that there emerged an amount of writings on Chinese literary history since the early twentieth century. concept of literature is a fallacy that ignores the linguistic and contextual difference. It is perhaps for this reason that many recent scholars choose to adopt an etymological approach to investigate the rise of wenxue as a modern literary concept . For example, Federico Masini suggests that 112 wenxue was first invoked by Giulio Alenio, an Italian Jesuit missionary, to translate the Western concept of literature in Zhifang waiji 職⽅方外紀 (Record of Places outside the Jurisdiction of the Office of Geography) as early as 1623. Masini bases his argument on a sentence quoted from Alenio’s work: “All Western countries highly esteem literature” (ouluoba zhuguo shang wenxue 歐羅巴諸國尚⽂文學 ), thereby suggesting that the first equation between wenxue and literature may be dated back to the seventeenth century. This view, however, is not supported with other substantial evidences and Masini also did not provide a complete list of texts which he consulted that lead him to such a conclusion. Drawing on Masini’s research, Lydia Liu, however, argues 113 that Masini’s speculation might be anachronistic since the semantics of “literature” in seven- teenth-century Europe is different from that in the post-Enlightenment era. Liu suggests that the translation of literature as wenxue might happen later in the hands of an American missionary in the nineteenth century, and this translation was brought to Japan and then reintroduced to China in the early twentieth century. Liu, however, does not explain who this American missionary is, nor does she elaborate how this translation traveled to Japan and came back to China. She merely of 69 222 Raymond Williams argues that the term literature began to be associated with an awareness of writing as a pro 112 - fessional practice as early as the mid eighteenth century. See Raymond Williams, Keywords: A Vocabulary of Cul- ture and Society (New York: Oxford University Press, 1976), p. 152. See Chu-ren Huang’s “A Book Review on The Formation of Modern Chinese Lexicon and Its Evolution toward a 113 National Language: The Period from 1840 to 1898 by Federico Masini” in The China Quarterly, No. 145 (March 1996), pp. 230-231. describes this process as “a round-trip diffusion” to underscore the cross-cultural and trans- 114 lingual connection between modern Chinese and Japanese. Liu’s model is useful in revealing the multi-linguistic nature of the concept of literature in the East Asian context, but falls short of the analysis of how such a concept is actually constructed and circulated in a specific cultural con- text. For example, in her analysis of the canonization of modern Chinese literature, she takes Zhao Jiabi 趙家璧’s Compendium of Modern Chinese Literature (Zhongguo xin wenxue daxi 中 國新⽂文學⼤大系 ) which was published in 1935 as an example to demonstrate how May Fourth writers’ literary works are legitimized through Zhao’s periodization and categorization. She ar- gues that xiaoshuo (fiction), shige 詩歌 (poetry), xiju 戲劇 (drama), and sanwen 散⽂文 (familiar prose) are used as the four basic categories in Zhao's work that describes the literary scene of May Fourth China. Interestingly, instead of exploring the “translingual formation” of xiaoshuo, shige, xiju, and sanwen, Liu simply equates these four terms with fiction, poetry, drama, and fa- miliar prose: “The Compendium organized all literary works around these categories, which were understood to be perfectly translatable into ‘fiction,’ ‘poetry,’ ‘drama,’ and ‘familiar prose,’ re- spectively, in English.” The linguistic and contextual difference between English and Chinese 115 traditions, at least in the case of modern Chinese literature, is not treated as an issue here. Indeed, Liu’s argument will be more illuminating had she explained how these terms were actually circu- lated and used in the Chinese context. of 70 222 Lydia Liu, Translingual Practice: Literature, National Culture, and Translated Modernity—China, 1900-1937 114 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1995), pp. 35, 273, 391. Ibid., 235. 115 In addition the Japanese influence on modern Chinese literature and language, we should also pay attention to the influence of Western missionaries who have been working, writing, translating in China as early as the sixteenth century. Analyzing the works of these Western mis- sionaries might give us another clue of how the Western concept of literature was introduced to China. Tsai Chu-ching's meticulous study on the English-Chinese/Chinese-English dictionaries published during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries provides a good example to explain how wenxue is synchronized with literature. She argues that Western missionaries have started compiling English-Chinese dictionaries as early as the 1820s for the purpose of learning Chinese and spreading Christianity. However, the Chinese definitions of literature in these dictionaries 116 at the time were heavily influenced by the Confucian tradition in which literary writings were still understood as ancient writings or the act of learning classical literary tradition. For example, literature was translated by Robert Morrison, a British Protestant missionary, as “xuewen” 學⽂文 (learning to read) and “haogong guwen” 好攻古⽂文 (fond of studying ancient writings) around 1815. It was later translated by Walter Henry Medhurst, another British missionary, as “wenzi” ⽂文字 (language), “wenmo” ⽂文墨 (writing and ink), “wenzhang” ⽂文章 (essays), and “guwen” 古 ⽂文 (ancient writings) in 1847. In 1866, Wilhelm Lobscheid, a German missionary, further de- ployed “wenxue” ⽂文學 (literature?) and “jinwen” 今⽂文 (contemporary writing) to define litera- ture. These early definitions of literature have influenced the way wenxue is understood by Chi- nese intellectuals, especially those who compiled English-Chinese or Chinese-English dictionar- of 71 222 See Tsai Chu-ching (Cai Zhuqing) 蔡祝青, “The Modernizing Process of the Circulation of Literary Conception: 116 A Study on the Entry ‘Literature’ in the 19th and Early 20th-Century English-Chinese Dictionaries” ⽂文學 觀念的現 代化進程:以近代英華/華英辭典編纂⽂文學 相關詞條為中⼼心 in Journal of The History of Ideas in East Asia, vol. 3 (2012), pp. 275-335. ies in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Feng Jingru 馮鏡如 (F. Kingsell), for ex- ample, listed wenxue as one of the Chinese definitions of literature in A Dictionary of the English and Chinese Languages, which he published in 1899 . 117 Although wenxue was already listed as a possible translation of literature in the late nine- teenth century, it was not until Yan Huiqing 顏惠慶 who published An English and Chinese Standard Dictionary (Yinghua Da Cidian 英華⼤大辭典 ) in 1908 that wenxue was more specifical- ly defined as a term closer to the modern concept of literature. Yan defined wenxue as such: “the collective body of literary productions of a country or an age, in general or in some special de- partment…a body of literary compositions which, to the exclusion of merely philosophical [or] scientific, and technical works, are occupied mainly with that which is spiritual in its nature and imaginative in its form, whether in the world of fact or the world of fiction…The profession of letters…belles-lettres.” Tsai Chu-ching thus suggests Yan Huiqing’s An English and Chinese 118 Standard Dictionary might represent Chinese intellectuals’ first attempt to define wenxue in a modern sense. 119 Tsai’s exegetical analysis has shed much light on the modern connection between litera- ture and wenxue. However, our inquiry into the rise of wenxue as the modern Chinese term for literature cannot stop at the analysis of dictionaries. If the modern meaning of wenxue has been established as early as 1908, how are we going to account for the New Literature Movement of of 72 222 His dictionary is mostly based on Lobscheid’s English and Chinese Dictionary which was published in 1866. 117 Ibid., 316. 118 Tsai’s article is obviously more ambitious than what I have summarized here as it even explains how “literature,” 119 “wenxue,” and “bungaku” were defined and synchronized in dictionaries complied by Japanese scholars in the late nineteenth century. the late 1910s and 1920s in which the meaning of wenxue is again subject to redefinition and de- bates? The rise of the New Literature Movement and its debates reveal that the definitions of lit- erature in these dictionaries cannot guarantee the standardization of Chinese intellectuals’ under- standing of wenxue. Moreover, what kinds of discourses were circulated, around or before 1908 that lead Yan Huiqing to define “literature” in a dictionary in such a specific way? Yan may have based his definition of “literature” entirely on Nuttall’ s Standard Dictionary of The English Lan- guage and Webster’ s International Dictionary of the English Language, which are two of the most widely-circulated dictionaries at the time , but the actual ways in which the concept of 120 “literature” was received and negotiated by Chinese readers require further analysis. In the rest part of my essay, I propose to investigate the ways in which wenxue was dis- cussed and defined outside the realm of dictionaries. I focus on the relation between wenxue and art, as well as wenxue and language, during the early twentieth century, to provide a preliminary research into the conceptual history of wenxue in the Chinese-speaking context. I argue that some kinds of aesthetic values were built into the definition of wenxue in the early twentieth century, in which the concept of art began to be defined as an independent field of knowledge, whose value is universal and beyond the reach of utilitarianism. I do not, however, aim to further ex- plore the differences between wenxue as an ancient term and literature as a modern concept, since such an analysis will easily lead to an essential assumption of either an apodictic Western concept of literature or a Chinese notion of wenxue. I also do not attempt to designate a precise year, work, or person as the absolute origin of the modern equation of literature and wenxue. On of 73 222 I owe this information to Professor Tsai Chu-ching. 120 this part, I agree with Lydia Liu that we should allow for “a fluid sense of etymology” to ac 121 - count for the complexity of the East Asian linguistic context. ! Wang Guowei and the rise of “literature” as an aesthetic concept ! As early as the late 1890s, Chinese intellectuals such as Yan Fu 嚴復 (Ji Dao 幾道), Xia Zengyou 夏曾佑 (Bie Shi 別⼠士 ), Liang Qichao, and Kang Youwei 康有為 have all written arti- cles that emphasize fiction’s potential in civilizing a nation. For example, in 1898, Kang Youwei argues in the Catalogue of Japanese Books (Riben shumu zhi ⽇日本書⽬目誌 ) that fiction has the potential in modernizing a nation by conveying political knowledge. This view is later adopted and valorized by Liang Qichao in the name of “new fiction” (xin xiaoshuo 新⼩小說 ) which he be- lieves to be a literary form that can fundamentally transform the entire nation. He argues in his far-reaching article, “On the Relationship between Fiction and the Government of the People,” that “If one intends to renovate the people of a nation, one must first renovate its fiction.” 122 Contrary to the traditional understanding of fiction as a low-class literary form, Liang emphati- cally argues that fiction has a “profound power in transforming people’s minds” and therefore 123 should be considered an “exemplary form of literature (wenxue).” Although fiction and litera 124 - of 74 222 Lydia Liu, Translingual Practice: Literature, National Culture, and Translated Modernity—China, 1900-1937 121 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1995), p. 35. MCLT, p. 74. See also LQW, p. 282. 122 Ibid. 123 The fact that fiction and literature (or xiaoshuo and wenxue) are already paired together as early as 1902 provides 124 another example for us to measure how literature/wenxue was imagined understood at the time. ture are already discussed together at the time, it is not altogether clear if Liang’s use of the term “literature” is already a modern expression of literature that is defined by a set of artistic or aes- thetic values. Yet, if we judge by the fact that Liang sees fiction primarily as a carrier of ideology and a means through which political messages can be disseminated, chances are that he still de- ploys this term in a way that sees literary writing merely as a vehicle to convey truth or knowl- edge . The aesthetic qualities of literature are nowhere discussed in his article. From the per 125 126 - spective of May Fourth writers, Liang may have laid the foundation for fiction to become a rec- ognized literary form, but the question of literature per se in terms of its qualities, forms, and in particular, aesthetic meanings remains unexplored. Such a utilitarian view on literature continues to dominate Chinese literary criticism in the first decade of the twentieth century, during which most critics still follow the lead of Liang Qichao and Kang Youwei and see fiction—and perhaps literary writing in general—as essentially a political tool. 127 While this utilitarian view on literature is widely accepted at the time, a few writers have started to define literature from an artistic viewpoint since the mid-1900s. The most notable ex- of 75 222 This idea, as some may argue, is not that different from the Chinese tradition of wenyi zaidao ⽂文以載道 (litera 125 - ture conveys Dao). In discussing Hu Shi’s article on literary, Leo Ou-fan Lee also argues that Hu Shi’s proposal is the “modern credo” of wenyi zaidao. The only difference is that this new “Dao” is no longer related to the Confu- cian classics but rather “individual personality and its unadorned, uninhibited expression.” See Benjamin Schwartz’s Reflections on the May Fourth Movement (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1973), p. 76. This will contradict Ban Wang’s view that Liang Qichao is among the early Chinese figures in pushing the aes 126 - thetic to the front of the national scene and public debate. See Ban Wang, The Sublime Figure of History: Aesthetics and Politics in Twentieth-Century China (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1997). The trend of “new fiction,” which was initiated by Liang Qichao in 1902, after fifteen years of development, has 127 begun to be subject to criticism by some May Fourth writers who were seeking a new form of literature that could reach out to the public other than the small group of highly-educated literati. In fact, after thirteen years of the publi- cation of “On the Relationship between Fiction and the Government of the People,” Liang Qichao himself also de- plored the development of “new fiction.” He argues that recent fiction writers have gone astray and only wrote sto- ries that “promote robbery and licentiousness.” See Liang Qichao's “Gao xiaoshuo jia” 告⼩小說家 in Yinbing shi heji 飲冰室⽂文合集 , vol. 12 (Taipei: Zhonghua shuju., 1960), pp. 67-68. ample is perhaps Wang Guowei, who emphasizes the significance of aesthetics (meixue) and its relation to the value of literature (wenxue). Many scholars have pointed out that Wang has played an important role in introducing the modern concept of literature to China. For example, Yuan Jin argues that Wang Guowei had sought to introduce the Western concept of literature to China long before Jing Songcen ⾦金松岑 and Huang Ren ⿈黃⼈人 introduced the Western literary thoughts . 128 Other scholars also maintain that Wang Guowei is the first Chinese author who applies the mod- ern concepts of literature and aesthetics to Chinese literary studies . Contrary to most scholars 129 who accredit Wang as the forerunner of modern Chinese literary criticism, Li Guisheng argues that Wang’s view on literature has yet to reach the height of “pure literature” (chun wenxue 純⽂文 學) which indicates an autonomous and self-sufficient imaginative world. Li bases his argument on M. H. Abrams’s classification of four categories of literary theories (i.e., the mimetic theory that emphasizes a work’s relation to the external world, the pragmatic theory that focuses on a work’s relation to the reader, the expressive theory that explores a work’s relation to the author, and the objective theory that highlights a work’s relation to the work per se). Li argues that Abrams’s classification can be reformulated into a sequence according to the purity of literature that is implied in each theory. For example, he maintains that the mimetic theory that emphasizes a work’s imitational relation to the external world implies the least pure form of literature, be- cause “the primary function of language is to record and describe the world…if literature is of 76 222 See Yuan Jin, Zhongguo wenxue guannian de jindai biange 中國⽂文學觀念的近代變⾰革 (Shanghai: Shanghai 128 shehui kexue yuan chubanshe, 1996), pp. 78-83. See Zhao Limin 趙敏俐 and Yang Shuzeng 楊樹增’s Ershi shiji zhongguo gudian wenxue yanjiu shi ⼆二⼗十世紀中 129 國古典⽂文學研究史 (Xian: Shanxi remmin jiaoyu chubanshe, 1997), p. 41. merely about capturing the world, there will be no obvious difference between it and the ordinary language.” On the contrary, the objective theory that focuses on a work’s relation to the work 130 per se implies the purest form of literature since this perspective solely and exclusively values the imaginative literary world described in the work itself, disregarding any personal or social factor or utilitarian purpose that may influence the way this work is evaluated. Judging from this perspective, Wang Guowei may argue that the value of literature is not determined by any politi- cal utilitarianism, but he still believes that the function of literature is to represent and alleviate the reader’s inner struggle. Li thus concludes that Wang’s conception of literature cannot be un- derstood as the purest form of literature which is characterized by an entirely self-sufficient world that is free from any purpose-oriented evaluation . While Li’s argument is interesting and 131 refreshing, such an argument is potentially problematic and misleading in terms of his reliance on the concept of “pure literature.” Indeed, what qualifies a pure literature may have different interpretations and can be subject to further debates. Basing his understanding of pure literature entirely on a rather ungrounded interpretation of M. H. Abrams’ work might be dangerous as well, since Abrams’s real focus is not on the concept of literature itself but methods of classify- ing literary theories. Although Li’s conception of pure literature could be problematic, his study has the merit of pointing out the danger of accrediting Wang as the first Chinese writer who deployed the term wenxue to denote the modern concept of literature. In my own analysis of Wang’s conception of of 77 222 See Li Guisheng 李貴⽣生 , “Chunbo hujian—Wang Guowei yu zhongguo chun wenxue guannian de kaizhan” 純 130 駁互⾒見 —王國維與中國純⽂文學觀念的開展 in Zhongguo wenzhe yanjiu jikan 中國⽂文哲研究集刊 , vol. 34 (March 2009), p. 174. Ibid., pp. 176-204. 131 literature and art, I will focus on how Wang’s use of wenxue is accompanied by other terms and knowledge categories such as philosophy, art, and language, demonstrating that wenxue has yet to become a fully independent category of knowledge system in Wang’s writings. In addition, rather than searching for and relying on a specific definition of literature, I seek to reveal the transcultural and cosmopolitan awareness that Wang displays in his theorization of wenxue as a form of art. I argue it is this gradual articulation of wenxue with an awareness of universal human nature that marks Wang’s most remarkable contribution to the modernization of the concept of wenxue . 132 In 1904, Wang Guowei published “A Review on Dreams of the Red Chamber” in 133 which he elaborates the aesthetic value of this classical Chinese fiction written in the eighteenth century. He begins the article by relating art to human life, arguing that the basic condition of humanity is governed and regulated by desires, which will only produce pain when they are not satisfied. Art, however, can ease the anxiety that is created by unsatisfied desires and obliterate the distinction between the inner self and external world. He quotes Goethe: “What in life doth only grieve us/That is art we gladly see.” He then compares Dreams of the Red Chamber 134 (hereafter: Dream) with Christopher Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus, arguing that the purpose of lit- of 78 222 Ban Wang has pointed out that Wang Guowei’s theory of aesthetics has a rather complex political and ideological 132 motive. For more in-depth discussions on the political implication of Wang’s writings, see Ban Wang's The Sublime Figure of History: Aesthetics and Politics in Twentieth-Century China (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1997). See Wang Guowei’s “Hong loumeng pinglun” 紅樓夢評論 in Wang Guowei quanji 王國維全集 (Hangzhou/ 133 Guangzhou: Zhejiang jiaoyu chubanshe, Guangdong jiaoyu chubanshe, 2009; hereafter WGQ), vol. 1, pp. 54-80. See WGQ, p. 58. 134 erature as a form of art is to represent human beings’ eternal struggle against their own desires. 135 In Wang’s view, Dreams is the exemplar of art, since its story is a complete tragedy that contra- dicts Chinese readers’ expectation of a happy ending. Wang’s effort in exemplifying Dreams in his elaboration of the significance of aesthetics makes his article unique at the time since most Chinese critics still view literature from a utilitarian viewpoint. Of course, one may argue that 136 Wang’s view is utilitarian itself since art for him also exists for a specific purpose. But perhaps the opposition between art and the utilitarianism that Wang has conceived is more of a result of his equation between utilitarianism and political reform, which is an ideology that was quite popular at the time. In 1905, Wang published “The Call of Philosophers and Artists” to further his view on 137 the independent value of art. He argues that philosophy and art are two of the most sacred and noble forms of knowledge in the world. Contrary to the popular view at the time that sees artistic production and philosophical argument useful only when they are related to the country’s devel- opment, he claims that the value of art and philosophy is determined by its own sacredness. He emphasizes, “What philosophy and art aim to achieve is the attainment of truth—universal, eter- nal truth, not temporary idea.” Although in this article, philosophy and art are often paired to 138 - of 79 222 Wang Guowei considers poetry, drama, and fiction as the three most representative categories of art, which is 135 defined by him as an artistic expression of human beings who are always troubled by various desires and needs. Ibid., 59. Yu Ying-shih 余英時 even credits Wang Guowei as the first Chinese critic who evaluates Dreams from a literary 136 perspective. Yuh-wen Kuo also argues that Wang Guowei, if not necessarily the first, is among the first group of Chinese intellectuals who commented on Hong lou meng’s aesthetic value. See Kuo Yuh-wen 郭⽟玉雯 ’s “Wang Kuo- wei’s Commentaries on the Dream of the Red Chamber and Schopenhauerism” 王國維《紅樓夢評論》與叔本華 哲學 in Hanxue yanjiu 漢學研究, vol. 19, no. 1, (2001), pp. 277-308. See Wang Guowei, “Lun zhexuejia yu meishujia zhi tianzhi” 論哲學家與美術家之天職 in WGQ, pp. 131-3. 137 See WGQ, p. 131. 138 gether and used interchangeably, it is clear that art is the main focus for it is articulated as an in- dependent and universally-understood value system. This can also be seen from the fact that Wang repeatedly draws on the European aesthetic theorists such as Kant and Schopenhauer to build his argument. The term, literature, is only briefly mentioned and ambiguously implied in both categories of art and philosophy. That is to say, although some kinds of aesthetic meaning have being built into the concept of literature, literature is yet to become a singular field of knowledge that is independent from philosophy, history, classics, or politics. The ambiguous status of literature can also be observed in Wang Guowei’s other articles. For example, he published “On the World of Scholarship in Recent Years” in which he com 139 - pares “literature” with “philosophy,” arguing that the study of literature and philosophy cannot be conducted merely for the purpose of political education. He argues that literature is not that different from philosophy, whose value is ignored and merely treated as a tool for education. In- stead of differentiating the two concepts, he concludes, “To develop academic learning (xueshu 學術), one must pursue it as an ultimate purpose, not a tool.” If xueshu, which can be roughly 140 translated as academic learning in general, is the term that he uses to summarize the study of “literature” and “philosophy,” it is hard not to suspect that the term, literature (wenxue) is still defined by its ancient semantics in which it is understood as “general knowledge” and “academic of 80 222 See Wang Guowei’s “Lun jinnian zhi xueshujie” 論近年之學術界 in WGQ, pp. 121-125. 139 See WGQ, p. 125. 140 learning.” Wang argues in another article, “On the Introduction of Neologism” which his 141 142 published in 1905, that “one of the most notable phenomena of [the development of] literature in recent years is the introduction of neologisms.” Although he seems to specifically talk about 143 the development of literature in this article and does not pair “literature” with other terms such as “art” and “philosophy,” it is clear that he defines literature as “language” or “social thought” in general , since he spends the rest of the article discussing the Chinese translation of certain 144 English words such as “evolution,” “sympathy,” “space,” “time,” “intuition,” and “idea.” This conceptual ambiguity again indicates that literature is yet to be understood as a specific and in- of 81 222 In 1906, Wang published “Miscellany on Literature” in which he pairs “literature” and “philosophy” again. He 141 maintains that the value of literature cannot yield to any utilitarian purpose: “All academic studies can be pursued for fame and wealth, but not philosophy and literature. Why? The scientific research is always conducted for utilitar- ian purposes and this is why it never contradicts the interests of the society and politics…But if a philosopher suc- cumbs to the interests of politics, sacrificing his pursuit of truth, there will be no true philosophy…So is literature; the kind of literature that is decorative and expressive is not true literature.” He concludes that the study of literature should be pursued for its own sake. See Wang Guowei, “Wenxue sanlun” ⽂文學散論 in Wang Guowei Wenji 王國維 ⽂文集 (Beijing: Zhongguo wenshi chubanshe, 1997; hereafter WGW), vol. 1, p. 24. See Wang Guowei, “Lun xinyu zhi shuru” 論新語之輸入 in WGQ, pp. 126-130. 142 See WGQ, p. 126. 143 Elsewhere in the article, Wang Guowei writes, “Language is the representation of thoughts. Thus the introduction 144 of new thoughts means the introduction of new language. A decade ago, the introduction of Western knowledge was limited to physical science. This is why although neologisms were introduced, they did not form an obvious impact on wenxue.” Ibid., 127. dependent field of knowledge. Literature is only vaguely understood as a synonym of language or general knowledge . 145 Despite the ambiguous status of literature it seems clear that this term is gradually articu- lated with the concept of art in Wang Guowei’s writings. It is perhaps through his efforts in artic- ulating and valorizing the concept of art in the Chinese context that later critics are able to con- struct a Chinese literary history and even propose a literary reform without having to legitimize the artistic value of literary creation . In short, before the New Literature Movement took place 146 in the late 1910s, the term wenxue had slowly emerged as a concept associated with art, ceasing to be a mere vehicle for political education. This perhaps explains why Chinese writers during the May Fourth period generally refer to literary writings as wenyi ⽂文藝 (literally “literature- art”), a term that is continually in use even in contemporary Chinese-speaking context. of 82 222 In 1907, Wang Guowei published “The Position of Classical Gracefulness in the Realm of Aesthetics” in which 145 he re-appropriates a classical Chinese term guya 古雅 which can be roughly translated as “classical gracefulness” and develops it into a Chinese theoretical concept of aesthetics. He particularly mentions Kant’s concepts of the beautiful (youmei 優美) and the sublime (hongzhuang 宏壯), and compares them with the concept of guya. Wang contends that while Kant’ theory of aesthetics emphasizes the transcendental and universal nature of the judgment of aesthetics, guya is defined by empirical, personal, and time-space specific experiences. Although Wang does not further explore the contextual difference between the Chinese and European literary traditions, he constructs guya into a concept that is specific to the Chinese context. This redefinition of guya consolidates Wang’s theorization of aesthetics, which is crucial to the understanding of literature. See Wang Guowei, “Guya zhizai meixue shanghai weizhi” 古雅之在美學上之位置 in WGW, pp. 31-35. For more discussion on the concept of guya, see also Luo Gan 羅鋼, “Wang Guo-Wei de guya shuo yu zhongxi shixue chuantong” 王國維的“ 古雅說” 與中西詩學傳統 in Nanjin daxue xuebao, vol. 3, 2008. Available at <http://www.literature.org.cn/Article.aspx?id=65006.> In 1910, Huang Ren also published Putong baike xin dacidian 普通百科新⼤大辭典 in which he defines literature 146 as that which is “related to human cognition and is primarily characterized by its connection to aesthetics.” See Huang Lin ⿈黃霖 ’s “Tantan 1900 nian qianhou de sanbu zhongguo wenxueshi zhuzuo” 談談1900年前後三部中國⽂文 學史著作 in Fudan daxue xuebao 復旦⼤大學學報 , vol. 1, 2005. Available at <http://www. ⽂文学遗产 .中国/Arti- cle.aspx?id=62891.> This emphasis on the relation between aesthetics and humanity perhaps finds its clearest state- ment in Guan Da-Ru’s 管達如 “Shuo xiaoshuo” 說⼩小說 , an article published in 1912, in which Guan argues “Litera- ture is a form of art, and fiction is a form of literature. Human beings have the tendency to enjoy aesthetics, and so there is no one that does not enjoy literature and fiction. See Chen Pingyuan and Xia Xiaohong, ed., Ershi shiji zhongguo xiaoshuo lilun ziliao ⼆二⼗十世紀中國⼩小說理論資料 , vol. 1 (Beijing: Beijing daxue chubanshe, 1997), p. 380. ! The separation of literature from language ! As early as the mid-1900s, a few Chinese writers have begun to write on Chinese literary histories. For example, Lin Chuanjia 林傳甲 (1877-1922) published Zhongguo wenxue shi (A History of Chinese Literature) in 1904. Huang Ren also published a work on Chinese literary his- tory under the same title around 1910. Dou Jingfan 竇警凡 (1844-1909) published Lichao wenx- ue shi (A Literary History of Chinese) in 1906. Although these works might represent Chinese intellectuals’ early efforts in clarifying the concept of literature by making it an independent field of knowledge, the discursive effect these works create is very limited and therefore does not con- stitute a conceptual revolution among Chinese readers. It is not until the May Fourth period that the concept of literature is fervently-discussed and radically-redefined so much as that wenxue appears as a neologism, which invites almost all May Fourth writers to create “new” and “mod- ern” meanings for this ancient Chinese term. While much scholarship has been devoted to situat- ing the New Literature Movement in the broader socio-political context of the May Fourth peri- od , I want to focus on how the concept of literature is actually articulated and emerges as a 147 brand new concept that demands new interpretations. May Fourth writers generally acknowledge the connection between aesthetics and literature, but they further clarify the concept of literature by differentiating it from the language. This conceptual differentiation is crucial in revealing the of 83 222 For more discussions on the May Fourth Movement, see Yu-sheng Lin’s The Crisis of Chinese Consciousness: 147 Radical Antitraditionalism in the May Fourth Era (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1979). See also Liang Shiqiu’s 梁實秋 “Wusi yu wenyi” 五四與⽂文藝 in Wusi lunji 五四論集, ed. Zhou Yu-shan 周⽟玉山 (Taipei: Cheng- shan chubanshe, 1980), pp. 543-548. specificity of May Fourth intellectuals’ theory of literature. On the one hand, it allows them to challenge the Chinese literary tradition, which is predominantly represented by Confucian clas- sics. On the other, it creates a condition of possibility for May Fourth intellectuals to define liter- ature as a special kind of discursive space that is capable of accommodating different ideas and thoughts—particularly those that are considered necessary to the literary reform. In 1917, Hu Shi (1891-1962) published “Some Modest Proposals for the Reform of Lit- erature” on the second issue of New Youth (Xin Qingnian), a literary magazine at the time that aims at introducing Western social thoughts. Hu Shi proposes a literary reform that purports to abandon classical literary expressions and promote the use of the vernacular language. His article soon invites a series of debates and discussions on the nature of literature. While some critics ar- gue that classical Chinese (wenyan ⽂文⾔言 ) should be entirely replaced by vernacular Chinese (baihua ⽩白話 ), others defend the orthodoxy of the former, maintaining that classical Chinese is still useful in carrying and conveying Western knowledge. There are still others who argue that Chinese written language should be abandoned altogether and replaced by Romanized letters or Esperanto. Despite various positions are taken, it is obvious that language (written or oral) has become the main criterion with which literature is understood and evaluated. Hu Shi provides eight guidelines for the literary reform: “1. Writing should have substance. 2. Do not imitate the ancients. 3. Emphasize the technique of writing. 4. Do not moan without an illness. 5. Eliminate hackneyed and formal language. 6. Do not use allusions. 7. Do not use parallelism. 8. Do not of 84 222 avoid vulgar diction.” It is interesting to note that these guidelines are directly or indirectly 148 related to the question of language (classical or vernacular), including its use, value, form, con- tent, and social function. Of particular importance is the way Hu Shi differentiates literature from language when proposing a new literary practice. He writes: ! The greatest malady of letters [wenxue] in our nation today is language without sub- stance. All one ever hears is ‘If writing is without form, it will not travel far.’ But nothing is said about language without substance, nor what function form should serve. What I mean by substance is not the ‘literature conveys Dao’ [wenyi zaidao] of the ancients.” 149 ! It is noteworthy to point out that Hu Shi begins by identifying the major problem of Chinese lit- erary tradition as “language without substance.” By quoting a famous saying of Confucius, he suggests that Chinese literary tradition has long being governed by Confucian doctrines that em- phasize on the moral and educational nature of literary writings. Hu Shi tries to break away from this tradition by relating literature with “feeling” and “thought”—the two qualities that he con- siders crucial to a new form of literature. However, by identifying the lack of such qualities as the major problem of Chinese literature, the underlying logic is that literature no longer merely consists of beautifully-written words or morally-indoctrinated writings that are associated with Confucian classics. Literature is now considered a special concept that can accommodate all pos- of 85 222 Hu Shi’s proposal includes: 1. Writing should have substance. 2. Do not imitate the ancients. 3. Emphasize the 148 technique of writing. 4. Do not moan without an illness. 5. Eliminate hackneyed and formal language. 6. Do not use allusions. 7. Do not use parallelism. 8. Do not avoid vulgar diction. The English translation here is based on Kirk Denton’s. See MCLT, pp. 123-4. Ibid., 127. 149 sible sensations, emotions, thoughts, and ideas that fall outside the permitted realm of Confucian doctrines. To further explore this new possibility of literature, Hu Shi continues to elaborate what he means by the literary substance. He writes in the section on feeling: ! Feeling. In the “Great Preface” to the Book of Songs is written” “Feelings come from within and are shaped through language. If language is insufficient to express one’s feel- ings, then one may sigh; if chanting or singing is insufficient, then one may dance with one’s hands and feet.” This is what I mean by feeling. Feeling is the soul of literature. Literature without feeling is like a man without a soul, nothing but a wooden puppet, a walking corpse. (What people call aesthetic feeling is only one kind of feeling.) 150 ! As Hu Shi has implied through the passage from Book of Songs, the literary substance, feelings, cannot be fully expressed through language, which is only one of the many ways through which this literary substance can be revealed. Speaking, sighing, chanting, singing, and dancing are all possible ways to express feelings, a quality that Hu Shi considers so crucial to the constitution of literature. From this perspective, literature is exalted to a place and understood as a concept that is different from the language, which is merely a medium via which feelings or thoughts can be delivered. Moreover, since feelings “come from within,” it implies that literature is a spontaneous and personal exploration of one’s inner self that is expressed through the external medium of the of 86 222 Ibid. To a certain extent, this definition is already somewhat similar to William Wordsworth’s definition of poetry 150 which he defines as the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings. See William Wordsworth’s “Preface to Lyrical Ballads” (1802). Available at <http://www.english.upenn.edu/~jenglish/Courses/Spring2001/040/preface1802.html.> language. From this perspective, literature is elevated to a place to where there is no direct and easy access, except through an exploration of one’s inner world. The final sentence in the para- graph is also worth our attention. What is called the aesthetic (meigan 美感) is only one kind of feeling that is crucial to literature. In other words, what literature is capable of conveying is not only the value of aesthetics that Wang Guowei had tried so hard to articulate in the 1900s, but also a person’s living experiences which includes all possible emotional reactions that one might have. It is in this sense that literature becomes an all-inclusive concept that refers to all kinds of ideologies. This logic is also revealed in Hu Shi’s definition of “thought,” the other substance that he considers crucial to literature: ! Thought. By “thought” I mean one’s views, perceptions, and ideals. Though need not de- pend on literature for transmission, but literature is enriched by thought and thought is enriched by the value of literature…As the brain is to man’s body, so is thought to litera- ture. If a man cannot think, though he be attractive in appearance and capable of laughter, tears, and feelings, is this really sufficient for him? Such is the case with literature. 151 ! Although Hu Shi defines that what he means by thought as “one’s views, perceptions, and ideals,” he does not really explain what kinds of thought are considered proper in the realm of literature. This definition thus potentially includes all possible meanings and portrays literature as a category of knowledge that is capable of growing, evolving, and developing. From this per- of 87 222 Ibid. 151 spective, literature is an open-ended project that consists of inexhaustive experiences and an end- less exploration of the self in relation to the world. In addition, the content of literature is no longer determined by the Confucian tradition that emphasizes on the value of ancient knowledge which is transmitted from the previous to next generation. In fact, Confucius considers himself more as a guardian of the tradition than a creator of knowledge. This is why literary writing from the Confucian perspective is considered a medium through which ancient sages’ moral teaching can be delivered, and as a result, the con- cept of literature (wenxue) in traditional Chinese context is not that different from the concept of language. It is in this sense that Hu Shi’s definition of literature marks a breakthrough in the de- velopment of wenxue as a modern literary concept. Although Hu Shi divides literature into two new categories, his descriptions are rather figurative and metaphoric. In particular, the metaphors that he uses are often associated with hu- man bodies. For example, in describing “feelings,” he says “Literature without feeling is like a man without a soul, nothing but a wooden puppet, a walking corpse.” In depicting “thought,” he suggests that “If a man cannot think, though he be attractive in appearance and capable of laugh- ter, tears, and feelings, is this really sufficient for him? Such is the case with literature.” These metaphoric depictions that invoke various images of human bodies perhaps reveal May Fourth intellectuals’ belief that ultimately it is the actual people that need to be awakened and enlight- ened before any institutional reform can be successful, and language, as the carrier of thoughts, is the key to the door of modernization and cure to illness of the social body of this declining na- tion. In discussing the script reform in China during the 1930s, Andrea Bachner also argues that such kind of corporealized metaphors are used by Chinese language reformers to articulate the of 88 222 symbolic function of a new Chinese language that is crucial to the building of a modern Chinese nation-state. She suggests that the linkage between bodies and language in this context indicates the Chinese intellectuals’ desire for national, cultural, and perhaps racial stability of an imagined homogeneous Chinese nation. While Bachner’s example of the corporealized metaphors come 152 mainly from the writings of Hu Yuzhi 胡愈之 (1896-1986), a Chinese writer in the 1930s, judg- ing by Hu Shi’s definition of literature, it is clear that the discourses on “corpographies,” to bor- row Bachner’s parlance, have emerged as early as the May Fourth period. Hu Shi’s view on literary reform soon invites a fervent discussion on the definition of lit- erature. Chen Duxiu (1879-1942) published “On Literary Revolution” subsequently on New Youth to respond to Hu Shi’s article but he further positions this literary reform as a revolution. He comes up with three ideological tenets for the literary revolution in the article: “(1) Down with the ornate, sycophantic literature; up with the plan, expressive literature of the people! (2) Down with stale, pompous classical literature; up with fresh, sincere realist literature! (3) Down with obscure, abstruse eremitic literature; up with comprehensible, popularized social literature!” It is clear that what Chen aims to promote is a new form of literature distinguished 153 by its clarity and sincerity in opposition to an old literary practice that is characterized by obscu- rity and formality. Although Chen lists three sets of binary concepts in separating the old and new forms of literature, he also distinguishes “the writing of literature” (wenxue zhi wen ⽂文學之 ⽂文 ) from “the writing of practical composition” (yingyong zhi wen 應⽤用之⽂文 ), criticizing that of 89 222 See Andrea Bachner, Beyond Sinology: Chinese Writing and the Scripts of Culture (New York: Columbia Univer 152 - sity Press, 2014), pp. 4, 14, 19-25. See MCLT, p. 141. 153 Chinese literary writing has been confined in traditional literary expression that focuses on rhetorical embellishment and moral indoctrination, and therefore has lost its independence and self-confidence . While the writing of literature is yet to be fully developed, the writing of prac 154 - tical composition including inscriptional writings and epitaphs still dominate literary production in China. He therefore advertises for a new form of literature characterized by its expressiveness, realistic description, and the potential to benefit the majority of the people. Different from Hu Shi’s definition of literature that focuses on the experiences and exploration of the self, Chen Duxiu’s emphasis lies on the social responsibility of literature in representing the entire society and nation. However, like Hu Shi, Chen Duxiu’s agenda of literary revolution also presupposes a separation of literature from the language and writing in general. Liu Bannong (1891-1934), following Hu Shi and Chen Duxiu’s discussions, also tries to define literature by differentiating it from the language. He writes in “My View on Literary Re- form: What is literature?”: “This question has been discussed by many authors. One might argue that ‘literature conveys Dao.’ But Dao is Dao and literature is literature.” Although various 155 English Chinese or Chinese English dictionaries have been published before the May Fourth pe- riod and many of which have defined wenxue as literature , it is clear that these dictionaries 156 have yet to standardize May Fourth writers’ understanding of the term, wenxue, which is still un- derstood by many as a concept derived from the Confucian literary tradition. The definition of of 90 222 See Chen Duxiu 陳獨秀, “Wenxue geming lun” ⽂文學⾰革命論 in Zhonguo xin wenyi daxi: wenxue lunzhan diyi ji 154 中國新⽂文藝⼤大系 : ⽂文學論戰第⼀一集 , ed. Hu Shi (Taipei: Dahan chubanshe, 1977; hereafter ZXWD), p. 88. See Liu Bannong 劉半農, “Wozhi wenxue gailiang guan” 我之⽂文學改良觀 in ZXWD, p. 108. 155 See Tsai Chu-ching’s “The Modernizing Process of the Circulation of Literary Conception: A Study on the Entry 156 ‘Literature’ in the 19th and Early 20th-Century English-Chinese Dictionaries” ⽂文學 觀念的現代化進程:以近代英 華/華英辭典編纂⽂文學 相關詞條為中⼼心 in Journal of The History of Ideas East Asia, vol. 3 (2012), pp. 275-335. literature in the Chinese context, as Liu Bannong’s article has indicated, is yet to be fully settled down toward the end of the second decade of the twentieth century. 157 Liu Bannong agrees with Hu Shi and Chen Duxiu’s proposal for a literary reform, but he proposes to clarify the concept of literature in Chinese (wenxue) by resorting to the English defi- nition of literature. He writes in both Chinese and English: ! To define the boundary of wenxue, one should follow the Western scholarship by differ- entiating everything into wenzi Language and wenxue Literature. In English, the term Language is translated as “Any means of conveying or communicating ideas” which means that wenzi only transmits meanings literally. And yet, Language is also used inter- changeably with yuyan Speech and kouyu Tongue, which are defined separately as fol- lows: “LANGUAGE is generic, denoting, in its most extended use, any mode of con- veying ideas, SPEECH is the language of sound: and TONGUE is the Anglo-Saxon term for Language, especially for Spoken Language.” Hence, wenzi is no difference from yuyan, since it is also characterized by its function to get ideas across easily and ef- fectively…As for Literature, it is defined as “The class of writing distinguished for beauty of styles, as poetry, essays, history, fictions, or belles-letters [sic]” which is dif- ferent from the kind of wenzi represented by the common yuyan. What I mean by wenxue in the rest part of my article will be based on this definition. (This is my personal opinion of 91 222 Nevertheless, Liu Bannong clearly sees literature as an artistic concept as he writes, “Literature as a form of art 157 has been recognized by writers in the world. See ZXWD, pp. 108-9. Ibid., 109. 158 and that’s why it is only a presumption, not a conclusion.) [All English words that ap 158 - pear in the original text are highlighted in bold font.] ! In this long paragraph, not only does the concept of literature is carefully differentiated from that of language, but the concept of language itself is also categorized into speech and tongue. More importantly, Liu has cited an amount of English words (literature, language, tongue, and speech) and the way they are defined in the English-speaking context, to clarify their corresponding Chi- nese terms (wenxue ⽂文學 , wenzi ⽂文字 , kouyu ⼜⼝口語 , and yuyan 語⾔言 .) Such an effort in synchro- nizing the English and Chinese linguistic contexts reveals that the definitions of the term wenxue are yet to be standardized among the Chinese intellectuals. As Liu emphasizes at the end of this paragraph, what he proposes is “only a presumption, not a conclusion.” It is clear that the mod- ern equivalence between wenxue and literature is still in the process of forming by the time. To further clarify what he means by literature, Liu continues, “Literature is defined by its spirit. It happens in the minds of the writers, who must be able to deploy his will and conscious- ness, merging them with emotions, and express them in words.” This definition reminds us of 159 Hu Shi’s earlier definition of literature as an expression of the writers’ inner world through the external medium such as the language. Liu’s contribution to the literary reform is distinguished not so much by his definition of literature, but by his awareness of the contextual difference be- tween English and Chinese, and more specifically, his conscious efforts in synchronizing the se- mantics of these two languages, through paralleling a list of English and Chinese words in corre- of 92 222 Ibid., 111. 159 sponding manners. Although Liu Bannong disagrees with Hu Shi and Chen Duxiu on totally obliterating the classical language, he still separates literature from the language, arguing the former is characterized by its spirit, which the latter lacks. He emphasizes that it is not that lan- guage should be spiritless, but that spirit is to be found in the things that are described, not in the words per se. The argument that literature should be conceptually separated from language continues to 1919. Luo Jialun (1897-1969) published “What is Literature?—The Definition of Literature” in which he argues that what literature aims to achieve is more than fulfilling the function of lan- guage itself. Structurally speaking, his article is similar to Liu Bannong’s. Both start by recogniz- ing the ambiguity of the concept of literature in the Chinese-speaking context and subsequently resort to the Western (primarily English) definitions of literature to settle down the debate of the literary reform. Luo Jialun begins by arguing: “We have often heard of voices calling for ‘Litera- ture! Literature!’ ‘Preserving classical literature!’ or ‘Creating new literature!’ But what is litera- ture? Not only readers but I too am troubled by this question.” It is surprising to find out that 160 almost two years after Hu Shi and Chen Duxiu’s call for a literary reform, there is still a prom- inent writer such as Luo Jialun, who thinks it is necessary to further clarify the relation between literature and the language. This perhaps indicates that the meanings of literature are still in de- bate and yet to be determined. Luo Jialun makes a bold claim in his article that in the past one hundred years, only two Chinese authors have attempted to define what literature is—Ruan Yuntai 阮蕓台 and Zhang of 93 222 See Luo Jialun’s “什麼是⽂文學︖? —⽂文學界說 ” originally published in Xinchao 新潮, 1.2 (1919). 160 Taiyan 章太炎. While Ruan maintains that “only rich thoughts and sophisticated rhetoric can 161 be defined as the literary,” Zhang defines literature as “a study on the laws and forms of what are written on the bamboo and silk.” Since Ruan is a proponent of classical parallel prose (pianwen 駢⽂文 ), Luo argues that Ruan’s understanding of literature is largely confined to classical prose that is characterized by parallelism and rhythmic structure. As for Zhang, who suggests all writ- ten texts on bamboos and silks can be regarded as literature, generalizes literature as an umbrella term that refers to everything that is written in the Chinese history. Luo Jialun thus argues that these two definitions are either too narrow (classical prose) or too general (all written texts). Like Liu Bannong, Luo Jialun also proposes to resort on Western critics’ definitions of literature to clarify the concept of wenxue. The first thing he does is to separate wenzi (language) from wenx- ue (literature). He gives an interesting example to elaborate such a difference: “When we learned English for the first time, we were leaning the English language, not the English literature. My article ‘What is Literature?’ is hence a work consists of Chinese words, not necessarily a work of literature.” He subsequently offers a long list of quotations from a range of authors including Ralph Waldo Emerson, William Henry Hudson, Leigh Hunt, Matthew Arnold, T. H. Huxley, Stopford Brooke, and Henry Hallam. Of particularly interesting is that even the English biolo- gist, T. H. Huxley, who is known for his advocacy of Charles Darwin's theory of evolution, also appears on the list. Although Huxley simply defines literature as “belles-lettres,” Luo Jialun takes it as a point of departure to explain why literature is not just beautifully-written words. He emphasizes that beauty is only one quality of literature and Huxley’s take on literature is thus not of 94 222 Luo Jialun might have exaggerated his claim since writers such as Hu Shi, Chen Duxiu and Liu Bannong have all 161 tried to (re)define the concept of literature as early as 1917. that different from Ruan Yuntai’s which also prioritizes sophisticated rhetoric as the essential el- ement of literature. While the four writers in the May Fourth period have different emphasis in defining the concept of literature, they all made a distinction between literature and language, allowing them to give the latter additional rooms for explanations. And since language is understood as a medi- um through which literature is expressed, the proponents of literary reform can retain the right of determining the content as well as the concept of literature. This also allows May Fourth writers to position “literature” at a special place “untainted” by classical literary tradition. ! The rhetoric of “life” ! While the concept of literature is gradually differentiated from the language, the term “life” (rensheng ⼈人⽣生 ) slowly emerges as a popular rhetoric among the discourses on the defini- tions of literature during the May Fourth period. The definition of literature as an expression of life is crucial yet different from other definitions because it allows May Fourth writers to define literature as human experience that is at once personal and universal, specific and general, there- by creating a holistic view on humanity. Indeed, some readers may point out that Wang Guowei had compared art with human life in his “A Review on Dreams of the Red Chamber” as early as 1904. However, Wang’s understanding of human life is still limited to a physiological perspec- tive as he argues that the basic condition of mankind is governed and regulated by desires, which will only produce pain when these desires are not satisfied. Such a physiological understanding of humanity is reflected in his choices of terms in denoting the concept of life. For example, he of 95 222 uses “shenghuo” ⽣生活 (“life” or “living”) and “rensheng” ⼈人⽣生 (“life”) interchangeably to refer to the physiological nature of living. The kind of life that is understood as one’s various experi- ences from birth to the moment before death, is still absent, at least not specified, in Wang’s arti- cle. It is not until 1910 that Huang Ren begins to define life in a more general way by relating it to literature. In Zhongguo wenxue shi, Huang Ren argues the three main purposes of life are truth, goodness, and beauty—and literature is associated with all three categories. Although crit- ics had associated literature with life as early as 1910, the rhetoric of life has yet to become a widely-discussed and invested concept in defining literature. It is not until 1918 that the idea of literature begins to be closely and specifically defined through the rhetoric of life that is under- stood as an assemblage of all possible human experiences. In December 1918, Zhou Zuoren 周作⼈人 (1885-1967), Lu Xun’s brother, published “Humane Literature” in which he argues for a kind of literature that features on humanitarianism (rendao zhuyi ⼈人道主義 ), a term that he deploys to negotiate the rhetorical opposition between “the old” and “the new” during the New Literature Movement. He writes, ! “New” and “old” are really inadequate terms; actually, according to the principle that there is “nothing new under the sun,” we can speak only of “right” and “wrong” but not of “new” and “old.” If we use the term “new” as in “New Literature,” then we use it to mean “newly discovered” but not “newly invented.” 162 ! of 96 222 See MCLT, p. 151. 162 Although generally considered a leading intellectual of the New Literature Movement, Zhou was obviously not satisfied with the mainstream discourses that all too often establish an absolute dif- ference between the new and old literature—terminologies which he believes to be misleading and thus unable to address to the crucial problem of Chinese literary tradition—the lack of a con- cern for the well-being of humanity. It is for this reason that he proposes to use “humane litera- ture” to replace “new literature” to clarify the goal of literary reform. It should be noted, howev- er, that the kind of “humanitarianism” that Zhou Zuoren emphasizes cannot be understood as a concept denoting the altruistic practices of or belief in charity or philanthropy, but one that seeks to theorize the nature of literary production in an age in which global awareness is crucial to the survival of not only an individual, but humanity as a whole. He explains, “what I call humanitar- ianism...is rather an individualistic ideology of basing everything on man.” It is clear that hu 163 - manitarianism was still a neologism which is new to Chinese readers and, therefore, is open to interpretations and elaborations. It is also interesting to note that Zhou Zuoren connects humani- tarianism with individualism, emphasizing the correlation between individual and mankind in general, as he explains, “Within humanity, a man is just like one tree in a forest. If the forest thrives, the single tree in it will also thrive. But if we want the forest to thrive, we have to care for each single tree.” The simile of a tree (as to an individual) and forest (as to humanity as a 164 whole) portrays a dynamic framework that not only accommodates the particularity of a single person but also relates this particularity to a broader picture of mankind. The emphasis on the universal understanding of man can also be observed from the Japanese term—ningen ( にんげ of 97 222 See MCLT, p. 154. 163 Ibid. 164 ん or ⼈人間 in Chinese)—that Zhou Zuoren appropriates to explain what he means by individual- ism. The fact that he needs to resort to the Japanese term to define the meaning of individual 165 - ism indicates that these various ideas of humanity, humanness, humanism, and humanitarianism are yet to be fully established in the Chinese context. Many scholars have pointed out the con- nection between Zhou Zuoren’s theory of literature and classical Chinese literary traditions of shi yan zhi 詩⾔言志 (poetry expresses emotions or thoughts) and wenyi zaidao (writings convey Dao). For example, Ernst Wolff argues that Zhou Zuoren obviously chooses to stand on the side of the shi yan zhi tradition since it allows him to elaborate humanitarianism and individualism as modern literary concepts. “This adherence to the yen-chih philosophy of literature,” Wolff writes, “with its insistence on freedom of individual creativity in art and the high value placed on the esthetic element in literature, rather than on the moral that is may preach, brought him rather close to an ‘art for art’s sake’ concept of literature.” In elaborating Zhou Zuoren’s concept of 166 individualism, David Pollard also maintains that since this term did not exist in the Chinese con- text, it can only be understood through an analysis of the tradition of shi yan zhi and the values that this tradition embraces. Although scholars have elaborated Zhou Zuoren’s theory of litera 167 - ture by tracing its roots in Chinese literary tradition, I want to focus on how he develops his theo- ry by incorporating new rhetoric that works to transform wenxue, a term derived from Confucian of 98 222 Kirk Denton’s translation of “geren zhuyi de renjian benwei zhuyi” 個⼈人主義的⼈人間本位主義 as “an individual 165 - istic ideology of basing everything on man” excellently captures the all-inclusive connotation of individualism (geren zhuyi) that Zhou Zuoren tries to establish here. I simply want to point out that Zhou’s choice of words reveals the fact that the ideas of individualism and humanitarianism are still vague and ambiguous at the time. See Ernst Wolff, Chou Tuo-jen (New York: Twayne, 1971), pp. 83-84. 166 See David E. Pollard, A Chinese Look at Literature (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press 167 1973), pp. 53-71. classics, into a universal concept that is to be equally understood by readers from different cul- tural backgrounds. While concepts such as humanity, humanness, individualism, and humanitarianism are introduced in Zhou’s article, he feels the need to explain these intricate neologisms in a simpler way, and “human life” (rensheng) seems to be the perfect rhetoric to encompass as well as sum- marize these various concepts and, particularly, the dynamic relation between individuality and humanity. In defining what he means by “humane literature,” Zhou Zuoren concludes, “Writing that applies this humanitarianism in its recordings and studies of all questions concerning human life, that is what we call humane literature…” By highlighting human life as the ultimate goal 168 and content of literature, Zhou has expanded the narrow definition of life which was simply un- derstood as the representation of desires in Wang Guowei’s writings into a cosmopolitan human condition that presupposes the universality of individuality and vice versa—a cross-cultural rep- resentation of human experience that can be readily shared and understood by people around the world. Though, like Wang Guowei, Zhou Zuoren also uses shenghuo and rensheng interchange- ably, the connotations of these two terms in Zhou’s writings have changed. Human life has be- come a rhetoric that bears a cosmopolitan implication. It refers to the experiences of people in an international world. Moreover, his insistence that the understanding of any individual should not be separated from that of mankind leads him to conclude that any reader or writer of humane literature, name- ly, new literature, should not confuse criticism with proposals. “In criticizing the writings of the old, we have to realize their time and age, to correctly evaluate them and allot them their rightful of 99 222 See MCLT, p. 155. 168 position. In propagating our own proposals we must also realize our time and age.” The 169 rhetoric of age (shidai 時代) is crucial here since it becomes an important criterion with which one can measure and balance his or her criticism of either the old or new literary production. For Zhou Zuoren, there should not be any quick and easy opposition between the old and new litera- ture, nor a radical difference between the modern writers and classical essayists. Instead, one can only consider the boundary of literature based on “our time and age” without staking out other 170 boundaries. This logic leads Zhou Zuoren to believe in the common fate of humanity that is equally shared by every individual living in the same age. He concludes, “Because mankind’s fate is one and the same, the anxiety about my own fate should therefore also be anxiety about the common fate of mankind. That is why we should speak only of our time and age and not dis- tinguish between Chinese and foreign.” This conclusion that one should no longer speak of the 171 difference between us and them, Chinese and foreign, again reveals the cosmopolitanism in Zhou Zuoren’s view on literature as well as his inquiry into the literary reform during the May Fourth period. The discursive effect that Zhou Zuoren’s “Humane Literature” produces is unprecedent- ed. It opens up another wave of discussion on literature that is articulated through the rhetoric of life. For example, Luo Jialun concludes in his “What is Literature,” an article published in 1919, of 100 222 Ibid., 160. 169 Ibid. With the aid of Darwin’s theory of evolution, the twentieth century consciousness becomes a popular 170 rhetoric among the May Fourth intellectuals. For more discussion on the changing concept of history, see Leo Ou- fan Lee’s “In Search of Modernity: Some Reflections on a New Model of Consciousness in Twentieth Century Chi- nese History and Literature” in Ideas Across Cultures: Essays on Chinese Thought in Honor of Benjamin I. Schwartz, ed. Paul A. Cohen and Merle Godman (Cambridge: Harvard, 1990). See also Lee Ou-fan, Lee Ou-fan lun zhongguo xiandai wenxue 李歐梵論中國現代⽂文學 , ed. Ji Jin 季進 (Shanghai: Shanghai sanlian, 2008), pp.1-43. See MCLT, p. 161. 171 that “Literature is the expression and criticism of life.” In 1921, Lu Xun comments in his post- script to his translation of “Sanpu youwei men de zuihou” that what a writer should aim to cap- ture is the truth of “ningen” (Japanese kanji for human life). In the same year, Liu Yi 六逸 em- phasizes in his “On the Methods of Writing Fiction” that what a novelist should depict is the 172 various representations of life, and new literature is the discovery of a new perspective on human life. In his famous essay, “Naturalism and modern Chinese fiction,” Shen Yanbing’s 沈雁冰 173 (Mao Dun 茅盾) also argues that the function of literature is to represent the universality of life. In 1922, Qu Shiying 瞿世英 equates the domain of fiction with that of life itself . Although 174 various articles are published in the following years and Zhou Zuoren’s rhetoric of life is con- stantly invoked and appropriated to define the purpose of literary production, no one has felt the need to further clarify what the rhetoric of life actually or may differently mean. It is as if Zhou’s “Humane Literature” has sufficed to elaborate the relation between literature and life . 175 ! ! ! ! of 101 222 See Liu Yi’s “Xiaoshuo zuofa” ⼩小說做法 in Yan Jiayan 嚴家炎, ed., Ershi shiji zhongguo xiaoshuo lilun ziliao 172 ⼆二⼗十世紀中國⼩小說理論資料 , vol. 2 (Beijing: Beijing daxue chubanshe, 1997; hereafter ESZXLZ), pp. 195-201. See Shen Yanbing’s “Ziran zhuyi yu zhongguo xiandai xiaoshuo” ⾃自然主義與中國現代⼩小說 in ESZXLZ, pp. 173 226-240. See Qu Shiying’s “Xiaoshuo de yanjiu” ⼩小說的研究 in ESZXLZ, pp. 241-275. 174 It is not until 1942 in which Luo Jialun published Xin rensheng guan 新⼈人⽣生觀 (A new perspective on life) that 175 the discussion on life reaches another peak. However, in this work, literature is no longer the center of discussion. Conclusion ! In this article, I have explored the rise of wenxue as a term that is associated with art in the 1900s and its emergence as a neologism in the late 1910s and early 1920s. However, the question that if we can see wenxue as the Chinese translation of the English term, literature, still remains. After the course of transformation of the connotation of wenxue during the first two decades of the twentieth century, does this term, as Ernst Wolff suggests, come closer to the modern concept of literature? I argue that there is always a part of the modern Chinese seman 176 - tics that prevents wenxue from becoming a complete translation of the English term, literature, not so much because wenxue was an ancient Chinese term later reintroduced to define (translate?) the Western concept of literature, but that this Chinese term has been paired, com- bined, circulated, and invested with various terms, concepts, meanings, and discourses that are either new or old to Chinese readers over a long course of history of the encounter between Western and Chinese civilizations. The question of language is obviously important to the devel- opment of wenxue as a modern literary concept. Since most ideas pertaining to the modern con- cept of literature such as art, fiction, national boundary, and cosmopolitan mindset, were still ambiguous, if not totally absent, in late nineteenth and early twentieth-century China, Chinese intellectuals at the time could only resort to cultural resources that were available to them and appropriated existing terms from their own language, sometimes creatively and sometimes false- ly, to make sense of any idea that was new or foreign to them. Even though recent scholars have pointed out that various English-Chinese or Chinese-English dictionaries had been published in of 102 222 See Ernst Wolff, Chou Tuo-jen (New York: Twayne, 1971), p. 84. 176 which wenxue is listed as a Chinese definition of the English “literature” long before the New Literature Movement, there was still a huge gap between how wenxue was understood as a term and how it was imagined as a field of knowledge as it is now. The construction of wenxue as a modern literary concept that presupposes a cosmopolitan awareness is not a quick and easy task; it requires efforts of generations of writers, translators, dictionaries compilers, intellectuals, mis- sionaries, reformers, and traditionalists, from both the East and West, to make the contemporary hypothetical equivalence between wenxue and literature even possible at the surface level. Although wenxue is now widely-accepted as the modern Chinese term for literature, the way it is imagined and articulated as a universal and transcultural concept is filled with turning, rerouting, detouring, diverging, and even dead-ends. We may accept the hypothetical equivalence between the Western concept of literature and its various counterparts in many other linguistic traditions to maintain the possibility of transcultural communication; however, we cannot ignore that fact that the way literature is imagined as a universal category in each linguistic context is characterized by a different constellation of terms or concepts as well as a changing web of dis- courses and knowledge systems that either collaborate or contradict with one another. In a cul- tural tradition that is radically different from the West, the modern concept of literature can only be translated into a non-Western language by appropriating existing terms and creating a discur- sive space in the local linguistic context to accommodate and negotiate with all possible mean- ings and interpretations of that foreign concept. It is for this reason that no matter how the con- cept of literature is translated and articulated, the way it is integrated into the local discursive system might contain alternative connotations, create new semantics, and therefore, further open up our understanding of what literature is. of 103 222 Chapter Three: The Negotiated Concept of the Novel in Late Qing China ! In the history of Chinese writing, the concept of xiaoshuo dates back to the fourth century before the Common Era. Zhuangzi (369 BCE-286 BCE) was the first person who mentioned this term in a comment: “Winning honor and renown by means of xiaoshuo will prevent one from achieving great understanding” (Zhuangzi, 1997: 550). Around the first century, xiaoshuo was recorded in Ban Gu’s (32-92) Hanshu, in which xiaoshuo was listed as one of the ten non-Con- fucian schools of thoughts. However, Ban Gu described xiaoshuo as the least important school that was not worthy of attention since xiaoshuo was only the “street talks and alley gossip col- lected by the minor historians (baiguan)” (Lu Xun, 2005: 7) in ancient times possibly for the purpose of assisting ancient rulers in governing the people. Ban Gu’s definition of xiaoshuo thereafter dominated Chinese historians’ understanding of xiaoshuo. It was not until the six- teenth century that xiaoshuo became a genre that was more specifically defined. Hu Yinling (1551-1602), a bibliographer in the Ming Dynasty, classified xiaoshuo into six categories and 177 this classification was later considered the first effort in the history of Chinese bibliography to systematically classify xiaoshuo in a way that made this term refer to a notion not necessarily related to historical writings. However, the complete semantic merging of xiaoshuo and fiction occurred much later in the Chinese history (Laura Wu: 1995: 371). In addition to the genealogi- cal specificity of xiaoshuo, we should also note that xiaoshuo was mostly written in Classical language, an extremely condensed form of writing different from vernacular Chinese. It was not of 104 222 Hu classified xiaoshuo as follows: zhiguai (records of the strange), chuanqi (tales of the marvelous), zalu (anec 177 - dotes), congtan (miscellaneous notes), bianding (researches), and zhengui (moral admonitions). until the fourteenth century that the xiaoshuo writers began to write in the vernacular language. This lineage of change marks another specificity of the Chinese concept of xiaoshuo when com- pared to the Western notion of the novel. However, for contemporary Chinese-speaking writers and readers, xiaoshuo is the modern Chinese term for fictions, and particularly, novels. This hy- pothetical equivalence was taken for granted by intellectuals for over a century and was rarely subject to serious investigation. It is as if the translation of the term xiaoshuo as novel is self- 178 evident. In this chapter, I would like to challenge this assumption and investigate the ways in which this Chinese term was subject to negotiation with the Western concept of the novel in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. In fact, some of the earliest accounts of the uses of xiaoshuo to refer to foreign novels were found in the daily journals of the Chinese envoys in the Qing Dynasty. Zeng Jize, one of the early Qing court’s envoys sent to England, mentioned in the diplomatic report dated 20 th April 1878—“Reading British xiaoshuo since seven thirty in the morning” (Chen, 2005: 26). In another diplomatic report, Huang Zunxian, the Qing court’s first envoy to Japan, also mentioned xiaoshuo in a brief sentence: “There are many Japanese xiaoshuo writers nowadays” (Ibid: 26-27). Despite the brevity and randomness of these occurrences, it is interesting to see that the term xiaoshuo was already used to designate narrative works outside the Chinese context. Since the Qing court was forced to interact with the newly-emerged West- ern and Japanese imperial powers in the second half of the nineteenth century, it is perhaps not surprising to see that the Chinese intellectuals had started to relate their own literary tradition to of 105 222 Even in the academic discourses of sinology nowadays, the term xiaoshuo was sometimes used indistinctively to 178 refer to the western concept of the novel. the foreign one by appropriating existing Chinese concepts such as xiaoshuo and others. How- ever, what remains in question is whether these early uses of xiaoshuo were already valorizing the term as a notion that bears the modern meaning of the novel as a Western concept. To what extent was xiaoshuo used as the Chinese equivalent of the Western concept of the novel and to what extent was xiaoshuo merely understood as a traditional notion specific to the Chinese con- text? These questions are important not only because these early uses of xiaoshuo as the term for foreign novels and fiction have not yet been subject to investigation, but also because they ap- peared long before Liang Qichao’s (1873-1929) publication of his famous essay in 1902—“Lun xiaoshuo yu qunzhi zhi guanxi” (On the relationship between fiction and mass management) in which Liang argued for a revolutionary understanding of xiaoshuo by redefining it as a form of literature par excellence (“xiaoshuo wei wenxue zhi zui shangcheng”) (Liang, 1997: 282). 179 I want to propose an investigation of the discourses centering on the concept of xiaoshuo in the late Qing period and elaborate the process of the negotiation between xiaoshuo as an an- cient Chinese notion and this term as the translation for the Western concept of the novel. As Liang Qichao’s essay in 1902 was generally considered the first essay that proposed a brand new understanding of xiaoshuo, I want to point out that such a proposal, in spite of its far-reaching influence on the development of modern Chinese literature, was not an overnight and singular event, but a symptomatic one that reveals the changing nature of xiaoshuo during the late nine- teenth and early twentieth century. In this chapter, I will base my argument on the analysis of the ways in which the term xiaoshuo was subject to uses, and misuses, in designating various narra- of 106 222 In the Chinese tradition, xiaoshuo was not considered a form of literature but writings of little values. 179 tives in that period. I will also examine the theoretical discourses and debates centering upon the concept of xiaoshuo in that period. ! Gulliver’s travel to China and the displaced origin of Western literature ! The translation of Western works in China dated back to the eighth century in which one of the earliest Chinese translations of Bible was documented in the Nestorian Stele that was re- discovered in 1625. However, the massive introduction of Western literature into China did not take place until the second half of the nineteenth century during which some Western missionar- ies began to travel in China to spread Christianity by occasionally translating a few Western lit- erary works. After the Opium Wars that took place between 1839-1842 and 1856-1860, the in- teraction between China and the West became more frequent. As the defeated country, the Qing government was forced to accede to the Western imperial powers and started to send envoys to Western countries and Japan since 1868 to learn new technologies. Compared with the amount of information on technologies introduced to China at that time, there was very little translation of Western literature. Chen Pingyuan even points out that, between 1840 and 1896, there are only seven translated works of Western literature (Chen, 2005: 24-29). Although this estimation might be low since there is already a sizable amount of Christian literature translated into Chi 180 - nese mainly by Western missionaries who lived in China during the second half of the nineteenth of 107 222 Christian literature is a vast and somewhat general category that encompasses a variety of writings that deal with 180 the theme of Christianity. While this chapter will not extend its discussion to the Christianity-related writings since they represent another vast research field, I merely want to point out that the introduction of western literary texts began much earlier than the late nineteenth century. Please see D.C. Cheung’s work on Matteo Ricci and the cir- culation of Christianity in China for more discussion. Dominic Cheung, 2002, 3-85. century (Murdoch, 1882; Hanan, 2004; Lai, 2012), it is legitimate to say that there is scanty dis- cussion on the conceptualization of “Western literature” as an independent field of knowledge. Before the ambitious yet short-lived national reform (the Hundred Days Reform) that took place in 1898, the Chinese intellectuals only had a slight inkling of what Western literature was like. The tepid reception of Western literature among the Chinese intelligentsia in the second half of the nineteenth century can be explained by two reasons. First, the primary concern of the Qing government at that time was the acquisition of the modern technologies from the West. Hence, most of the envoys and students sent to study abroad were focusing on fields such as politics, economics, laws, and military technologies. Learning about Western literature was hardly an urgent issue from the government’s perspective. Second, xiaoshuo had long been considered 181 an insignificant form of writing in the Chinese historiography. Ban Gu’s definition of xiaoshuo as street talks and alley gossips in the first century had continued to govern the way xiaoshuo was imagined and understood in the nineteenth-century China. This lineage of understanding 182 xiaoshuo in the Chinese context further contributed to the neglect of the introduction of Western literature in the late Qing period. of 108 222 Liang Qichao later in his Qingdai xueshu gailun (the intellectual trends in the Qing period) deplored the poor 181 understanding of western knowledge, “One of the biggest misfortune in the late Qing period about the movement of learning western thoughts was the absence of the participation of all our students studying abroad. The most active members in this movement were all intellectuals who were not familiar with foreign languages and because of that, our understanding of western thoughts was unavoidably petty, incomplete, abstract, superficial, and erro- neous.” Liang Qichao, 1959. It is important to note that xiaoshuo was originally a notion different from that of literature (wenxue). It was not 182 until the early twentieth century that xiaoshuo began to merge with the notion of literature. Nevertheless, even the Chinese concept of wenxue was subject to a process of negotiation before this term merged with the western notion of literature in the early twentieth century. Drawing on the research of Federico Masini, Lydia Liu suggested that wenxue, the Chinese term for literature, was first appropriated by the foreign missionaries who translated the west- ern notion of literature with this ancient Chinese term wenxue, which was later valorized in Japan as bungaku. The term was then reintroduced in modern Chinese as wenxue and started to bear the modern connotation of literature Lydia Liu, 1995, 273. Among the Western literary works introduced to China between 1840 and 1901, the fol- lowing lists only some of the most important examples: Yishi yuyan (Aesop’s Fables), translated by Robert Thom around 1838 and published in Guangdong bao (Canton newspaper) in 1840; Tanying xiaolu (notes on countries overseas), a story roughly based on “A V oyage to Lilliput” in Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’ s Travels and published anonymously in Shen bao (Shen newspaper) from 21 th May to 24 th May in 1872 ; Yishui qishi nian (a sleep of seventy years), a story loosely 183 based on Washington Irving’s Rip Van Winkle and published anonymously in Shen bao in 1872; Xinxi xiantan (idle talk morning to evening), a partial translation of Edward Bulwer-Lytton’s Night and Morning by Jiang Zhixiang (a.k.a. Lishao Jushi) in 1872; An le jia (safe and sweet 184 home), the Chinese edition of Mrs. O.F. Walton’s Christie’ s Old Organ which was translated by Mary Harriet Porter in 1882; Bainian yijiao (a sleep of one hundred years), an abridged Chinese version of Edward Bellamy’s Looking Backwards: 2000-1887 translated by Timothy Richard in 1891 . While the actual number of the translated works in the second half of the nineteenth 185 century may exceed the number of works listed above since it only includes the works that were more or less discussed by scholars in the past decade or so, it is noteworthy to see that most of these translated works were done by Westerners who lived in China at the time. For example, Yishi yuyan, one of the early Chinese translations of Aesop’s Fables, was translated in 1838 by an of 109 222 It should be noted that Shen bao was a newspaper founded by a British businessman, Earnest Major (1841-1908) 183 in Shanghai and was published from 30 th April 1872 to 27 th May 1949. The story was originally published in the newspaper under a pseudonym, Lishao Jushi. It was Patrick Hanan 184 who identified this pseudonym as Jiang Zhixian, the first editor of Shen bao. Patrick Hanan, 2004, 85-109. Timothy Richard’s translation of Looking Backwards first appeared in a Christian monthly publication in China 185 that was published between 1845-1919—Wanguo gongbao (the ten thousand nations' common newspaper). David Der-wei Wang argued that this translation marked the “advent of western science fiction in late Qing China.” David Wang, 1998, 310. Englishman who worked in a Far Eastern trading company—Jardine, Matheson & Co., which ran most of its business in the southern coastal China. This translation was first published in 1838 but was banned by the Qing government for political reasons. The work was later reprinted in 1840. While the 1838 edition was no longer available, the 1840 one may give us some in- sights into the way “Western literature” was introduced in China. In the 1840 edition, the con- tent of the work was divided into four parts: the Chinese version of the fables, the English ver- sion of the fables, the English transliteration of the Mandarin Chinese, and the English transliter- ation of the Cantonese Chinese. It seemed obvious that Yishi yuyan was written for the purpose of “language learning” (Cheung, 2002: 79). Dominic Cheung even pointed out that this work was written for the English readers who aspired to learn Chinese (Ibid: 80). As the preface of this work indicates: ! I wrote this work not to display my skills in writing but to provide a gateway to leaning Chinese for those who are from England and other foreign countries or people who have no access to Chinese. [Ibid] ! Judging from the way this work was introduced, it was obvious that this work was targeted at Western readers who might want to learn Chinese. However, we can also argue that this work was written for Chinese readers as well since the preface was written in classical Chinese rather than in English. It is unreasonable to assume that the beginners learning Chinese would be able to understand this preface which was written in the very dense classical language. In spite of the ambiguous intended readership of this work, it was obvious that this work was naturalized and of 110 222 sinicized as a Chinese work. For instance, in the Chinese translation of the story “The Wolf and the Lamb,” the story begins with a sentence, “pangu chu, niaoshou jie neng yan” (In the time of Pangu, all birds and beasts could speak). It should be noted that Pangu was a figure from the an- cient Chinese mythology that was said to create the earth. The way this story was introduced by incorporating a Chinese mythological figure indicates that it was naturalized in the Chinese con- text without making the readers aware of the “original Western status” of this work. Even the English version of “The Wolf and the Lamb” adhered to the Chinese version and was translated as such: “When Pwan koo first began, all birds and beasts could speak.” By juxtaposing the Chinese and English versions together, it was obvious that the Chinese version was given the original status in relation to the English version. The translator’s effort to sinicize Aesop’s Fables was also revealed in the way the “trans- lation” of this work was introduced. On the cover of this work, the writer and translator were introduced as follows: ! 意拾喻⾔言 [yishi yuyan; the Chinese transliteration of Aesop’s Fables] ESOP’S FABLES WRITTEN IN CHINESE BY THE LEARNED MUN MOOY SEEN-SHANG, [Mr. Mun Mooy; pronounced in Cantonese] AND COMPILED IN THEIR PRESENT FORM (With a free and a literal translation) BY HIS PUPIL SLOTH of 111 222 ! With a rather unusual spelling (“Esop’s Fables”), the work was said to be written by a Chinese author, Mr. Mun Mooy, whose student, Sloth—allegedly Robert Thom himself—translated this Chinese work. It is interesting to see that this work was presented as a Chinese work that was later translated by Robert Thom, who more or less obscured the authorship by placing Mr. Mun Mooy as the writer of this Chinese work. Although to Western readers, the work may immedi- ately appear to be a translation or at least a rewriting of the famous Aesop’s Fables, to the Chi- nese readers who might not be familiar with the Western tradition, it may merely appear to be an original Chinese work accompanied by an English translation. It can be seen from this case that before the dawn of the twentieth century, the Chinese people’s understanding of Western literature was mainly facilitated by the Westerners who trans- lated the Western literary works not so much in order to introduce Western literature but for other reasons such as language learning and promoting Christianity. Nevertheless, these early transla- tions of Western literature did not really change the way xiaoshuo was imagined in the minds of Chinese readers. In fact, the concept of the novel or fiction was far from being lucid in the Chi- nese context at that time. This could be observed from the fact that when these early translated works were published, they were immediately summarized as a form of narrative not so much different from the indistinct Chinese concept of xiaoshuo. For example, when Xinxi xiantan, ar- guably the first translation of Bulwer-Lytton’s Night and Morning, was published in Yinghuan suoji (global miscellany) , this translated story was introduced with a preface that defined this 186 work by the genealogy of the Chinese concept of xiaoshuo: of 112 222 Yinghuan suoji was a monthly publication in Shanghai between 1872 and1875. 186 ! The origin of xiaoshuo dates back to ancient history. Yuchu listed nine hundred works 187 as the origin of miscellaneous writings (zashuo). The stories written in the Tang Dynasty were the precursors of trifling notes (suoji). During the Yuan and Ming Dynasty, the mundane practice of story-telling (pinghua) was popular because of its flamboyant and easily-accessible vernacular language. Thus, one can suggest that the original purpose of xiaoshuo was to entertain the audiences and to document the histories that were un- recorded. Nevertheless, I would maintain that the primary function of xiaoshuo is to cul- tivate human minds…A famous writer in the West wrote this work to encourage modesty and humility through the vivid descriptions of true gentlemen and hypocrites. This work is therefore as much illuminating as it is virtuous. Since the work was translated section by section, this work was now a Chinese-language xiaoshuo (huawen xiaoshuo) with the title—Xinxi xiantan. This work will be serialized and published [in Shen bao] to increase our understanding of the Western world [from the perspective of] the central land (zhong- tu; read: China). The readers must not take this work as an ordinary vernacular xiaoshuo that bears little value. By Lishao Jushi at his studio in Shanghai on the eighth day of the last month in the year of Renshen . [Aying, 1960: 195-196] 188 ! of 113 222 Yuchu (c. first century) was a writer in early Han Dynasty. Yuchu’s Yuchu zhoushuo (Yuchu’s comments on the 187 zhou dynasty) is one of the works listed in Ban Gu’s list of xiaoshuo in Hanshu. Yuchu zhoushuo, however, was no longer existent. The year was 1872 according to the Gregorian calendar. 188 It should be noted that when this work was published, the name of the story’s original author and translator were not mentioned. Lishao Jushi (layman of the laddle) was the only pseudonym that appeared at the end of the preface. It seemed that the background information of the foreign work was not important to the Chinese authors at that time, at least in the eyes of the editors of the newspaper. What mattered to the xiaoshuo writers and commentators then was the moral im- plication of any writing that could be listed as xiaoshuo. Indeed, xiaoshuo writers after the Tang Dynasty (618-907) were constantly forced to justify their works by emphasizing the works’ moral functions since xiaoshuo had long been considered an inferior form of writings compared to poetry and historical writings. The Chinese idiom of “castigating the vices, encouraging the virtues” (cheng e yang shan) almost became the only publicly-recognized value of writing xi- aoshuo since the Ming Dynasty (1368–1644). Such a moralistic view on xiaoshuo continued to prevail in the nineteenth century and shaped the way this notion was understood by the Chinese people. From this perspective, it is not surprising that when Bulwer-Lytton’s Night and Morning was first translated in Chinese, the work was still read as a story that encouraged Confucian virtues such as modesty and humility. Moreover, although the author of the preface identified this work as a translated piece whose original author was “a famous writer in the West,” the story was still understood under the rubric of xiaoshuo as a traditional Chinese concept. The brief genealogy of xiaoshuo provided at the beginning of the preface indicates that the term xiaoshuo is a genre with a long history. This rather vague and general conceptualization of xiaoshuo nevertheless provides a framework that allows it to include more narrative works across cultures and works that were written in different languages. Furthermore, if we note that this translated story was mainly distinguished by its pos- of 114 222 sible moral implication and not by its foreignness, we will realize that, from the perspective of the preface’s author, there is no generic or genealogical difference between this Western work and any other Chinese work that was listed as xiaoshuo in the Chinese history. The fact that this work was originally a foreign one was completely downplayed as soon as its moral implication was discovered (or articulated). The exotic background of this work was also reduced to a utili- tarian purpose (“to increase our understanding of the Western world”) so as to further justify, however ironical it sounds, the work’s current status as a “Chinese-language xiaoshuo.” In other words, the late Qing writers’ presumption of translation was not founded on the imagination of two equal and separate bodies of (national) literature, but the fact that this foreign piece of writ- ing, through the act of translation, was made intelligible according to the Chinese concept of xi- aoshuo. As the expression of “Chinese-language xiaoshuo” indicated, what mattered to the Chi- nese authors at the time was that this foreign work was now rendered in an accessible language, not that there was any generic difference between the original work and the translated one. Thus, it can be inferred from this preface that the idea of Western literature was still far from being clear at the time since xiaoshuo was still the predominant concept by which the Chinese intellec- tuals imagined what is, and what is not, “literature” in late Qing China. After all, since xiaoshuo was still imagined as a genre defined by its heterogeneity and all-inclusive referential frame- work, there was no point for the Chinese authors to specify this Western work as a “Western xi- aoshuo.” Besides immediately subsuming the foreign literary works under the rubric of the Chinese tradition of xiaoshuo, these Western stories were further naturalized to cater to the Chinese read- ers by changing all the story’s characters and settings into Chinese ones. As a matter of fact, ar- of 115 222 guably the first two Western literary works published in China in 1872—Jonathan Swift’s Gul- liver’ s Travels and Washington Irving’s Rip Van Winkle—were not strictly “translation” from the modern perspective. These two stories, which were widely considered the earliest translation of Western fictions, were significantly abridged and modified to the extent that they appeared to be almost entirely new stories. For example, when the first translation of Gulliver’ s Travels was published in Shen bao in 1872, there was no explanation in the newspaper concerning the work’s original author and translator. Although the story appeared with a new title, Tanying xiaolu, which can be roughly translated as “notes on countries overseas,” this translated work was by no means about a story that took place in a Western country but, instead, an island located in the southeastern China Sea. In this story, the original character in Gulliver’ s Travel was changed into a son of a Chinese fisherman who lived by the seashore in the Zhejiang province. The story was loosely based on “A V oyage to Lilliput,” the first part of Gulliver’ s Travels, and ended with the character visiting an unknown foreign country with an idiosyncratic name, “the country of eight hundred draughts-in-law” which was of course the creation of the translator. Another 189 major modification was the beginning of this translated story. ! A friend of mine sent a manuscript to our newspaper office yesterday, saying that this manuscript contains the latest discovery of antiquity. But my friend did not know any- thing about the original author and the content of this manuscript. It is likely that the manuscript was found among the old books. Judging from the faded color and mouldy of 116 222 Babai xifu guo (the country of eight hundred draughts-in-law) was an alleged ancient country located near Chi 189 - ang Mei in Thailand nowadays. smell of the ink, this document appears to be an antique of more than three hundred years old. I now transcribe it here to enrich our understanding of the strange. [Shen bao, 21 th May 1872] ! It is interesting to see that how the first translation of Gulliver’ s Travels was actually subject to re-creation with all the characters and settings in the story sinicized for the Chinese readership. To borrow Te-Hsin Shan’s words, this Western work was “nativized, domesticated, and natural- ized so that it appeared as any other Chinese work” (Shan, 2004: 94). Tanying xiaolu was “pre- sented as an original work rather than a translation” (96). In fact, as David D.W. Wang has sug- gested, “the practice of translation in the late Qing era was such a loosely defined vocation that it necessarily included paraphrasing, rewriting, truncating, translation relays, and restyling” (Wang, 1998: 303). Such practices of translation thus further revealed how “foreign literature” was imagined. It was obvious that the main concern of the publishers of Shen bao was to increase its readership when this newspaper was first published in 1872. The story was serialized for the first four days in the first month of Shen bao’s publication. We can infer from the introduction of this story that its main purpose was to entertain the newspapers’ readers and possibly to invite their submissions (“A friend of mine sent me a manuscript to my newspaper office yesterday, saying that this manuscript contains the latest discovery of antiquity”). However, the serializa- tion came to a sudden stop on 24 th May 1872 without any prior or further explanation. The 190 reasons for this abrupt stop of serialization are yet to be clarified, but since the content of a of 117 222 In the last day of the story’s publication, the editor of the newspaper indicated that the rest part of the story will 190 be published in the next issue, but this promise was not kept. newspaper was ultimately determined by the readers’ reaction (Shan, 2004: 97), we can infer that this story was not really well-received because of its characteristics of and appearance as xi- aoshuo which did not fit the newspaper that featured on the social reality. The inferiority of xi- aoshuo in the tradition of Chinese literary writings might be another reason for the sudden halt of the story’s serialization. At any rate, by the end of the nineteenth century, Western literature was yet to be conceptualized as a distinct field, and even the idea of a Western work defined by its original authorship and linguistic specificity was yet to be established at that time. ! Kang Youwei’s catalogue of Japanese books ! Although as early as 1878, Zeng Jize, a Qing court’s envoy sent to England and France, had used the term xiaoshuo to refer to the Western literary work, Zeng’s comment was so short and random that nothing decisive can be concluded in terms of the nature of the expression of “British xiaoshuo.” It was not until Kang Youwei’s publication of Riben shumu zhi (catalogue 191 of Japanese books) in 1898 that the use of xiaoshuo as a referent to non-Chinese works was more specifically situated in the discussion of foreign literature. As the leading reform-minded intel- lectual in the late Qing Dynasty, Kang compiled an annotated list of Japanese books that were devoted to introduce the Western knowledge at that time and presented the list to Emperor Guangxu (1871-1908) who was trying to initiate a national reform. In the spring of 1898, this list was published under the title Riben shumu zhi and a preface was added to this publication. In the beginning of the preface, Kang wrote: of 118 222 See Chen Pingyuan’s discussion on the Chinese envoy’s daily journals. Chen Pingyuan, 2005, 26-27. 191 ! The strength of Western countries does not lie on their military power, but on their intel- lectual studies and constitutions. There is a study on every term and item. In the field of natural science (li), there are psychology and biology; in ontology (qi), chemistry, optics, electricity, and gravitology; in education (meng), agronomy, engineering, finance, and metallogeny. Each field of knowledge is studied by the experts. This is why the Western countries dominate the world now. [Kang, 2007: 263] ! From the way Kang recapitulated the Western scientific disciplines, we can see that there was a gap between the traditional Chinese knowledge system and the Western one. This difference was obviously more than one of taxonomy. In fact, the traditional Chinese categories that Kang men- tioned (li, qi, and meng) in the passage cannot be easily translated into either English or modern Chinese, for these concepts that stemmed from traditional Chinese epistemology might already be in the process of transformation when Kang started to connect these categories with the West- ern ones. Indeed, what amazed Kang at the time was the expertise and specificity of the Western sciences which came to China (through Japan) without corresponding Chinese concepts ready for immediate conceptual (and not just linguistic) translation. Such a lack of preexistent concepts was further reflected in the way Kang categorized the narrative works in the non-Chinese con- text. In Riben shumu zhi, Kang categorized the Western knowledge into fifteen fields under 192 of 119 222 One should, of course, note that the development of Japanese kanji terms might have a direct influence on 192 Kang’s categorization since the initial aim of Riben shumu zhi was to introduce western science through the sup- posedly-more-accessible Japanese translation. Albeit the linguistic exchange between modern Chinese and Ja- panese is important, for the purpose of this chapter, I will only focus on the Chinese readers’ encounter with the western literary works in the late Qing period. which many subfields were added. The fifteen fields of knowledge include: biology, physics, religion, history of geography and maps (tushixue), politics, laws, agronomy, industry, finance, education, literature (wenxue), words and languages, arts, novels (xiaoshuo), and the military books (Ibid: 264-265). It is interesting to note that xiaoshuo was listed as a separate category along with “literature” and “words and languages.” Moreover, upon closer inspection, we will note that the term xiaoshuo was actually mentioned in various fields such as politics, arts, novels, and education. For example, in the field of education, Kang mentioned “jiaoyu xiaoshuo” (edu- cation novels) in an annotation of a Japanese book. In the field of politics, Kang mentioned xi- aoshuo when arguing for the importance of preserving social customs: “The study of history had been considered utmost important in China, but the so-called official history or chronicle was [only] a description of the emperor or the country. The vast resources on social customs were unrecorded. Those who did not find social customs important despised them as xiaoshuo” (Ibid: 337). In the field of arts, Kang also wrote: “To educate the mass with the classics is not as effec- tive as xiaoshuo” (Ibid: 484). Although with these various comments on xiaoshuo, Kang seemed to recuperate xiaoshuo from its low status in the Chinese tradition, it is interesting to see how this term was subject to uses in a rather indistinctive and ambiguous way. While xiaoshuo was men- tioned and discussed throughout the fifteenth fields of knowledge in the book, the term xiaoshuo only appeared three times in the fields such as “literature” and “words and languages” which seemed relevant to the modern concept of the novel. In the field of “literature,” Kang listed one work with a title containing the term xiaoshuo—Xiaoshuo shigao (manuscript of the history of xiaoshuo). In the field of “words and languages,” two other works with titles containing the term of 120 222 xiaoshuo were again listed. However, this term was found nowhere else in these two fields that seemed most relevant to the modern concept of the novel. The use of this term was further complicated in the field of xiaoshuo which was listed as an independent field of Western knowledge in Kang’s catalogue. In this field, Kang mentioned an extensive array of genres of xiaoshuo that Kang may have coined, borrowed or appropriated from the Japanese categorization of shōsetsu, the Japanese term for xiaoshuo. Although some of the Japanese genres of shōsetsu may have Chinese roots, many of them have developed new meanings in the Japanese context. While the contextual difference between shōsetsu and xi- aoshuo requires further investigation, it does seem that Kang was comfortable in using all these genres in designating various works from different cultural contexts. The genres of xiaoshuo that Kang mentioned in this particular field include: tuyuan xiaoshuo (rabbit garden novels), xueyi xiaoshuo (skills learning novels), zhentan xiaoshuo (detective novels), caipan xiaoshuo (judg- ment novels), renqing xiaoshuo (human emotions novels), gailiang xiaoshuo (reform novels), chaoxian xiaoshuo (Korean novels), ouzhou xiaoshuo (European novels), zhengzhi xiaoshuo (political novels), shehui xiaoshuo (social novels), zhengzhi huaji xiaoshuo (political satire nov- els), zhengjiao xiaoshuo (political education novels), xinan xiaoshuo (new novels), shishi xi- aoshuo (news novels), tiedao xiaoshuo (railway novels), and shangye xiaoshuo (commerce nov- els). It is interesting to see that among these various genres of xiaoshuo, there are only two gen- res that referred specifically to works written in the foreign contexts—“Korean novels” and “Eu- ropean novels.” Moreover, among the hundreds of works listed in this field, there is only one “translated work” (at least judging from the titles)—Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe, which was translated twice into Japanese, separately by Tsutomu Inoue (1850-1928) and Kakudo Ushiyama of 121 222 (1869-1906). There are, of course, other works in this list that seemed to be some kinds of rewriting or translation of the Western literary works such as Ouzhou xiaoshuo huang qiangwei (a European novel: the yellow rose) and Yingguo xiaozi zhi zhuan (the story of a pious British 193 boy). However, according to the Japanese titles of these two works, they were “authored” by Encho Sanyutei—a Japanese writer in the nineteenth century, and the names of the original Western authors were omitted. Although it is premature to conclude that the nineteenth-century Japanese translators tended to reduce the cultural specificity of Western literary works like the Chinese translators did, it is clear that by the end of the nineteenth century, the Chinese intellec- tual such as Kang Youwei had started to introduce the Western literary forms in Chinese through the Japanese categorization of shōsetsu. Despite the inconsistency and ambiguity of Kang’s appropriation of the term xiaoshuo, Kang was consistent in emphasizing xiaoshuo’s potentiality in modernizing the nation by con- veying political knowledge. Kang argued that xiaoshuo is a form of writing distinguished by its mundanity, accessibility, and the use of the vernacular language. Therefore, to Kang, xiaoshuo is a convenient and effective tool of civilizing the people and modernizing the nation. When dis- cussing the importance of the elementary education in China, Kang listed four ways of improv- ing the education system, and the fourth way is the construction of a kind of xiaoshuo specifical- ly for the young children: ! of 122 222 The yellow rose (originally Sárga rózsa in Polish) was a polish novel written by Mór Jókai in 1893. The English 193 translation of this work was published in 1909. Since Kang Youwei’s Riben shumu zhi was published in 1898, the Japanese translation of The yellow rose might be based on the original or other translated versions of this work. The original Japanese title of this work was Koshobi: Oshu shosetsu (the yellow rose: a European novel). But Kang Youwei mistakenly reverted the title into “a European novel: the yellow rose.” As a matter of fact, it is sometimes hard to distinguish the titles of the Japanese books from Kang Youwei’s brief annotations that were placed alongside those listed works. The fourth is youxue xiaoshuo (children education novels). I asked a publisher in Shang- hai, “What are the best-selling books?” The publisher replied, “The [Confucian] classics are not as popular as the eight-legged essays (baguwen). The eight-legged essays are not as popular as xiaoshuo.” Xiaoshuo originated from the Song Dynasty and was written in the slang and the vernacular language. This is why xiaoshuo has the widest readership. Xiaoshuo is certainly the best way to educate, moralize, and entertain our young children. [Ibid: 410] ! In another passage on books for teenagers, Kang also argued: ! It is easy to facilitate the mass management and to enlighten the uneducated with xi- aoshuo. [But to accommodate xiaoshuo as a category of bibliography], we can extend the Han-Dynasty bibliography from the original seven categories to eight, and expand the Jin-Dynasty bibliography from the original four categories to five. As a big country with a long history of poetry, isn’t the circulation of xiaoshuo an urgent task? Among those who are literate, there are many who do not read the classics, but there are none who do not read xiaoshuo. Thus, we should educate the people with xiaoshuo instead of the clas- sics; influence the mass with xiaoshuo instead of the history; elaborate the ideas with xi- aoshuo instead of the quotations of the sages; and bring order to the nation with xiaoshuo instead of the laws…Today, there are only few people who are literate, and even fewer who are well-educated in literature. The classics were outdated and so it is urgent to of 123 222 translate xiaoshuo and study them [yiyi xiaoshuo er jiangtong zhi]. The study of xi- aoshuo is already well-established in the West, but not in Japan. [Ibid: 522] ! From these two passages, we can learn that, for Kang, what really distinguished xiaoshuo from other forms of writing was the accessibility of xiaoshuo because of its use of the vernacular lan- guage. It is for this reason Kang did not consider xiaoshuo a category of literature but, instead, made careful distinction between xiaoshuo and other traditional Chinese literary forms such as poetry, drama and the eight-legged essays. Despite of the exclusion of xiaoshuo from the realm of literature, the mundanity and accessibility of xiaoshuo made it a potentially powerful medium in carrying political messages. Such a potential was clearly recognized by Kang who tried to elaborate xiaoshuo’s pertinence to the management of the people and the building of a modern nation-state. In this sense, Liang Qichao’s landmark essay in 1902, “On the relationship between fiction and mass management” was only a modified version of Kang Youwei’s elaboration of xi- aoshuo. But even Kang’s elaboration of xiaoshuo was nothing new but an extension of Ban Gu’s time-honored definition of xiaoshuo as the unofficial history written by the minor officials to fa- cilitate the governance of a country: ! The earliest writers of xiaoshuo might be the minor historians in the ancient times who collected the street talks and alley gossips. Confucius said, ‘Even byways are worth ex- ploring. But if we go too far in the byways we might be bogged down.’ Therefore, gen- tlemen do not write xiaoshuo, but they did not dismiss xiaoshuo altogether, either. Xi- of 124 222 aoshuo contains the sayings of the common people and so it is still worth recording” (Lu Xun, 2005: 7-8). ! From this passage, we can see that Kang Youwei’s elaboration of xiaoshuo was still influenced by Ban Gu’s definition which also revealed xiaoshuo’s possible political nature. What really dis- tinguished Kang Youwei’s definition from Ban Gu’s was that Kang Youwei was consciously us- ing this term in a cross-cultural context. When Kang was referring to the different genres of xi- aoshuo in the Japanese context, Kang was hoping to transplant the Western knowledge to the Chinese context through the Japanese translation. This means that xiaoshuo, as a field of knowl- edge, together with other fourteenth fields of knowledge mentioned in Kang’s catalogue, should be considered essentially “Western.” Therefore, although Kang’s understanding of xiaoshuo was still significantly influenced by the traditional Chinese notion of xiaoshuo, Kang was already us- ing this term as a “Western” category that bears the connotation of Western modernity. As Kang emphatically argued, “The classics were outdated and so it is urgent to translate xiaoshuo and study them. The study of xiaoshuo was already well-established in the West, but not in Japan now” (Kang, 2007: 522). What made Kang naturalized this “Chinese” term as a “Western” con- cept in this statement merits our consideration. It seems that when this term was used as a cate- gory, it is fundamentally universal if not exclusively Western or Japanese. Additionally, when this term was used as a common noun, it referred to either the Chinese texts or the Western ones. That is to say, although Kang would certainly admit that xiaoshuo, as a term, derived from the ancient Chinese historical writings, Kang was for sure using this term with a new connotation by 1989. of 125 222 For Kang, the concept of xiaoshuo was not only the carrier of modernity but also a lingua franca and a universal concept that was trans-historical and trans-cultural. From this viewpoint, although Kang’s use of the term xiaoshuo appeared to be ambiguous and indistinct, it was not because Kang lacked precision in defining this form of writing called xiaoshuo, but because Kang was using this term as a double concept which referred to a specific category of knowledge and a common noun for any literary narrative at once. ! The emergence of the “new novel” ! Although the concept of xiaoshuo was gradually developed into a universal generic term, the connection between xiaoshuo and the Western concept of the novel was still far from stable. Kang may be the first author who explored the genres of xiaoshuo in the cross-cultural context; however, it was Liang Qichao, Kang Youwei’s student, who started to note the difference be- tween xiaoshuo as a traditional Chinese concept and xiaoshuo as a modern Western category. Liang Qichao adopted Kang Youwei’s understanding of xiaoshuo as an effective tool in civilizing the poeple, but Liang Qichao further defined xiaoshuo as the exemplary form of literature in “On the relationship between fiction and mass management,” Liang’s most-quoted article published in 1902. However, before Liang published this article, which later became the manifesto of the literary movement known as “the revolution in the field of xiaoshuo” (xiaoshuo jie geming), Liang had started to elaborate the generic difference between xiaoshuo in China and xiaoshuo in the West. In “Yiyin zhengzhi xiaoshuo xu” (preface to the translation and printing of political of 126 222 novels), an article Liang published in Qing yi bao (Qing discourses newspapers) in 1898, Liang wrote: ! The genre of zhengzhi xiaoshuo (political novels) originated from the West…Zhongtu xi- aoshuo (literally, central land novels; read: Chinese novels) originated from Ban Gu’s list of the nine school of thoughts and Yuchu’s account of xiaoshuo in Yuchu zhoushuo. However, there were very few nice works of xiaoshuo written in China. Water margin provided a heroic account of a group of outlaws and Dreams of the Red Chamber set the example for writing romances. In general, the genres of xiaoshuo in China developed in two extremes: one that invited burglary and the other prurience. In the beginning of the reforms in the European countries, some of the renowned European intellectuals and au- thors often expressed their experiences and political ambitions by writing xiaoshuo… When a work of xiaoshuo was published, the public opinion in the whole country would change. The political improvement of America, England, Germany, France, Austria, Italy and Japan was primarily the result of the popularization of the political novels. As a fa- mous British author once wrote, “Xiaoshuo is the soul of a nation.” Isn’t it true? Isn’t it true? The translation of the Western works pertinent to the contemporary Chinese politics will be published at the end of this newspaper. [Chen and Xia, 1997: 22] ! What distinguished this statement from Kang Youwei’s discussion of xiaoshuo was that the generic difference between “Western xiaoshuo” and “Chinese xiaoshuo” was first brought into discussion. While Kang may be the earliest author who valorized the term xiaoshuo in the dis- of 127 222 cussion of literary works in a cross-cultural context, Liang is the first author who elaborated a “Western genre” that originated from the Western tradition (“The genre of zhengzhi xiaoshuo originated from the West”). As Liang drew from the examples of “zhengzhi xiaoshuo” in coun- tries such as America, England, Italy, Germany, France, Austria and Japan, the cultural root of “Western xiaoshuo” was separated from that of “Chinese xiaoshuo.” By emphasizing the West- ern origin of zhengzhi xiaoshuo, Liang was already distinguishing the conceptual difference be- tween xiaoshuo as a traditional Chinese notion and xiaoshuo as a modern Western genre. In this regard, Liang’s discussion of the generic specificity of zhengzhi xiaoshuo as a Western product marked a break from Kang Youwei’s unspecified uses of xiaoshuo in referring to all non-Chinese works. The difference between Chinese xiaoshuo and Western xiaoshuo was also discussed by other writers at the time such as Lin Shu, Qiu Weixuan, and Cai Fen. For example, Lin Shu in his preface to his translation of Uncle Tom’ s Cabin noted that the grammatical difference be- tween the work’s original language and Chinese might affect the reception of the Western work in China. Lin Shu wrote: “Please note that there are grammatical differences between classical Chinese and the Western language. I translated this work from its original language into classi- cal Chinese. Those who are devoted to the learning of the Western knowledge must not devalue this (translated) Western work because of the syntactical difference that might distort the beauty of the original work” (Ibid: 27). In “xiaoshuo yu minzhi guanxi” (novel and its relation to the civilization of the public), Qiu Weixuan wrote, “The Chinese writers have long been depreciating the study of xiaoshuo. However, in Japan and Western countries, only the most erudite authors took up the task of writing xiaoshuo” (Ibid: 31). In “xiaoshuo zhi shili” (the power of novels), of 128 222 Cai Fen held a similar argument, “The European and American xiaoshuo were mostly written by the erudite and well-learned intellectuals who observed the world trends and the human nature… As for xiaoshuo in our country, writing xiaoshuo was only considered a leisure activity. Our xi- aoshuo thus contained very few political thoughts and, instead, were full of obscene languages” (Ibid: 32). These observations of the differences between xiaoshuo in China and xiaoshuo in the West clearly presupposed an unequal relation between the Western modernity and the Chinese traditionalism in a larger context since this unequal relation was exemplified by many intellectu- als at the time to be the difference between Chinese xiaoshuo and Western xiaoshuo. From Kang Youwei to Liang Qichao, Lin Shu to others, many of the influential intellectuals at the time were convinced that xiaoshuo was the key to the modernization of the Chinese nation. This collective belief culminated in Liang Qichao’s publication of the article in 1902—“On the relationship be- tween fiction and mass management,” in which Liang argued for a revolution of xiaoshuo. Liang began his article with a paragraph that later became the most widely-cited passage in the discus- sions of the formation of modern fictions in the late Qing period: ! To renew a nation, one cannot but renew this nation’s xiaoshuo (yuxin yiguo zhiming, buke buxin yiguo zhi xiaoshuo). Thus to renew the morality, one must renew xiaoshuo; to renew the religion, one must renew xiaoshuo; to renew the politics, one must renew xi- aoshuo; to renew the customs, one must renew xiaoshuo; to renew the skills, one must renew xiaoshuo; to renew human minds and characters, one renew xiaoshuo. Why? Xi- aoshuo has an incredible power of governing the humanity. [Ibid: 33] of 129 222 ! Liang clearly considered xiaoshuo the ultimate way of modernizing the nation and the sheer standard of measuring the humanity. Xiaoshuo was hailed as the cure-all of the backwardness and all other national defects. Liang’s valorization of xiaoshuo culminated in the last passage of the article in which Liang wrote: ! The quality and position of xiaoshuo resemble the air and the dust. Xiaoshuo is the un- avoidable part of the social world. Thus the authors and booksellers can assume the pow- er of maneuvering the sovereignty of a nation. Alas, if this can be put into practice for a long time, the fate of our country will be secured. This is why if we want to reform the governance of the people, we must start with a revolution in the field of xiaoshuo; and if we want to renew the nation, one must begin by renewing xiaoshuo (yu xinming, bizi xin xiaoshuo shi). [Ibid: 37] ! With the far-reaching influence and omniscient capability, xiaoshuo was even crucial to the sur- vival of a nation. Although in the article Liang valorized xiaoshuo to the fullest extent, Liang was clearly aware of the existent gap between between xiaoshuo in China and xiaoshuo in the West and particularly, the gap between the current form of xiaoshuo and its new form to-be. As Liang reiterated the term “xin” (new, newness, or renew) in the article, the differences between the traditional Chinese xiaoshuo and its future form equatable to the Western notion of xiaoshuo was imagined and negotiated through the rhetoric of the “new.” However, the connotation of this rhetoric remained unclear since Liang did not provide any explanation of what a new form of of 130 222 xiaoshuo will be except its highly political function that was already articulated by Kang Youwei. Such a rhetoric of the “new” thus remained a vague one for it was only a temporary negotiation of bigger concepts such as past and now, old and new, the traditional and the modern, the Chi- nese and the Western, and so on and so forth. We should note that this article was published in the first issue of Xin xiaoshuo (new nov- els), a literary magazine that Liang Qichao founded in 1902. Besides arguing for a new form of xiaoshuo, Liang also maintained that xiaoshuo is the form of literature par excellence (Liang, 1997: 282). This statement was later considered the manifesto of modern Chinese fiction and its break from the traditional philosophical and bibliographical writings. However, this epistemo- logical break was not found on a clear elaboration of what the new form of xiaoshuo is but an ambiguous and reiterated rhetoric of the new. As the title of this literary magazine indicated, this publication was devoted to the promotion of what was temporarily or conveniently called xin xi- aoshuo (the new novel or neo-novel). It was as if this compound had become a generic notion itself that signaled the new form of xiaoshuo that Liang argued for in his article. Nevertheless, the question of genericity of xin xiaoshuo can be further complicated since in Chinese, the lexical category of the term “xin,” like many other terms, is determined by the syntax and the context. It is not enough to determine whether “xin” was used as an adjective (new) or a verb (renew) in this compound term, xin xiaoshuo. The same lexical ambiguity can also be observed in Liang’s arti- cle. Liang began with the sentence, “To renew a nation, one cannot but renew the nation’s xi- aoshuo (yu xin yiguo zhiming, buke buxin yiguo zhi xiaoshuo).” Liang ended his article with an- other similar sentence, “if we want to renew the nation, one must begin by renewing xiaoshuo” (yu xin ming, bizi xin xiaoshuo shi). What was uncertain here was the ways Liang of 131 222 used the term “xin.” In the first sentence, the term “xin” was used in conjunction with the term “xiaoshuo” in a double negative sentential structure: one cannot (buke) but renew (buxin) the na- tion’s xiaoshuo (yiguo zhi xiaoshuo). Since the “xin” here was preceded by an auxiliary verb “buke” (cannot), it was clearly that this “xin” was used as a verb. However, in the second sen- tence, “xin” was used right before “xiaoshuo” without any preposition or genitive case particle such as “de” (of) between these two words. This made the lexical category of the term “xin” dif- ficult to determine since it can either be a verb (renew) or an adjective (new). If this “xin” was an adjective, the last sentence would have to be translated as “one must begin by new xiaoshuo” instead of “one must begin by renewing xiaoshuo.” The lexical and syntactical ambiguity thus further left the generic status of “xin xiaoshuo” undecidable. In the same issue of this literary magazine, Liang also published his first “political novel” under the title Xin zhongguo weilai ji (future of the new China). In the preface to this work, Liang wrote: ! I reread this work after it was finished. It is similar to but different from the traditional category of xiaoshuo (shuobu). The work resembles the minor history (baishi) but not quite. The work can be read as an argument but it is not. I do not know what kind of genre (wenti) this work belongs to. [Chen and Xia, 1997: 38] ! From this example, we can again see that Liang’s neologism of “xin xiaoshuo” was not a clear concept but a rather ambiguous imagination of a new form of literature. In spite of Liang’s belief in the political function of xiaoshuo, Liang seemed less certain about how to actually write a nar- of 132 222 rative closer to his idealization of “xin xiaoshuo” for he was still grappling with the traditional Chinese concepts such as shuobu and baishi. In another article, “Xin xiaoshuo diyi hao” (on the first issue of Xin xiaoshuo), an article that Liang published in Xinmin congbao (new citizen newspaper) in 1902, Liang also wrote, “Most scholars who are familiar with the Western knowl- edge know that xiaoshuo is the exemplary form of literature. However, this is not so in China where most intellectuals are scornful of xiaoshuo…This is why it is difficult to negotiate the dif- ference between the new meanings of xin xiaoshuo (new novel) and the genres of jiu xiaoshuo (old novel)” (Ibid: 39). In the translator’s note of the Chinese version Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe in 1902, the anonymous translator wrote, “The whole work is based on the monologue of the character. Thus, this work belongs to the genre of a diary (riji tili), which is completely dif- ferent from the traditional Chinese genres of xiaoshuo. If this work is to be translated according to the Chinese genres of xiaoshuo, the translation will be a painstaking process. Today, every- thing in China is undergoing a reformation and xiaoshuo is no exception. Therefore, I still trans- lated this work according to its original genre of a diary” (ibid: 49). It was obvious that the intel- lectuals at the time were still searching for a new way of conceptualizing the new form of “Chi- nese xiaoshuo” that is different from both the traditional Chinese notion of xiaoshuo and the Western one in the dawn of the twentieth century. The traditional Chinese categories of xiaoshuo were still invoked to define to the “new” xiaoshuo and to negotiate its difference from the West- ern novels and their genres. From this perspective, we should not see Liang’s essay in 1902 that argued for a literary revolution in the name of xin xiaoshuo a singular and independent event but one that reflected a long process of the negotiation of the Chinese and Western genres of the form of writing that was called xiaoshuo in China and the novel in the West. Although Liang of 133 222 sought to create a new form of Chinese literature through the neologism of xin xiaoshuo, Liang was unable to fully elaborate the generic specificity of such a new literary form. Liang was ob- viously aware of the generic difference between xiaoshuo in China and xiaoshuo in the West, and Liang had tried to overcome that difference via the rhetoric of the “new.” But this rhetoric re- mained only a temporary rhetorical device that worked to symbolically bridge the gap between the traditional Chinese form of xiaoshuo and the Western literary form that we call novel nowa- days. The present-day translational equivalence between the term xiaoshuo and the term novel is a hypothetical one. The term xiaoshuo had its root in the Chinese tradition and was mediated through the Japanese term shōsetsu in the late nineteenth century, while the notion of the novel has its origin in the Western tradition and was introduced to China during the nineteenth century through the various translations of the Western works. The clash of the two notions, xiaoshuo and the novel, was nevertheless a clash of cultures since the differences between the complicated networks of languages, discourses and assumptions need to be negotiated so that a hypothetical equivalence between xiaoshuo and the novel can exist. The gradual equation between the Chi- nese notion of xiaoshuo and the Western concept of the novel is thus a long process of negotia- tion that merits our investigation. Since the field of modern Chinese fictions had become one of the most vibrant and popu- lar research areas in sinology since the mid twentieth century, we should keep investigating the rise of the Chinese literary modernism by paying attention to the Chinese literature’s intersection with the Western tradition. After all, the modern Chinese literature that we know today would not be possible were it not for China’s encounter with the Western literary modernism. of 134 222 Chapter Four: Lu Xun and the Question of “Fiction” in Chinese Literature ! The question of how to conceptualize and evaluate fiction as a concept in the Chinese literary tradition has perplexed many scholars. This is especially true for those who search for a generic counterpart for the Western term “fiction” in Chinese narratives. As early as 1956, John Bishop noted in “Some Limitations of Chinese Fiction” that it might be problematic to evaluate Chinese literature according to the Western standards of fiction. He writes, “I must admit to take arbitrarily the fiction of the West as a standard against which to measure works in a wholly unre- lated literature, a questionable procedure if used merely to arrive at a value judgment, but a justi- fiable method if used to localize and appraise the different development in comparable genres of two distinct literatures.” Although Bishop’s main argument is that Chinese fiction lacks the 194 individual mode of story-telling and originality that are central to Western fiction, he does point out that the term “fiction” might not be the perfect conceptual tool with which to analyze works of Chinese literature. Almost twenty years later, Eugene Eoyang wrote a response to Bishop’s article, arguing that Chinese fiction and its artistic originality should be understood in the context of oral literature, since many classical Chinese stories were transmitted orally. The creativity 195 of Chinese fictional works is thus revealed in the process in which narrators constantly need to of 135 222 John Bishop, 1956, 239. 194 Eoyang argues that the tradition of oral storytelling plays a significant role in the development of Chinese fic 195 - tion. Drawing from the example of the transmission of classical tales in the tenth century, Eoyang argues that early Chinese storytellers often performed for a largely illiterate audience, and they constantly needed to recast their sto- ries in a shorter and serialized framework, using repeated and easily-recitable sentential structures to appeal to live audiences. The so-called lack of artistic originality of Chinese fiction is thus more of a result of the need to ac- commodate the audience. It was not until much later that Chinese fictional works were circulated through publica- tion which requires a group of readers. The transition from oral to written transmission, Eoyang argues, should not be downplayed. Eugene Eoyang, 1977, 53-69. See also Andrew H. Plaks, 1977, 309-352. re-tell and re-create the stories to cater to different live audiences. While Bishop and Eoyang were aware of problems involved in comparing fiction in the Western and Chinese contexts, both authors still use the phrase “Chinese fiction” in framing their arguments. The unreflective use 196 of xiaoshuo as a translation for “fiction” has led to an inadequate understanding of the connec- tion between the two genres. The connection between the two seems even more tenuous when one considers the fact that, even in the Western context, fiction was not really considered a liter- ary concept until the eighteenth century. At that time, the rise of the middle class was accompa- nied by a burgeoning publishing industry and the appearance of the “novelist” as a profession. 197 Indeed, even in modern English, fiction is sometimes, if not always, used as a synonym of novel and the two terms are often used interchangeably even in some academic writings . This con 198 - ceptual ambiguity thus further complicates our inquiry into the linguistic and conceptual rela- tionship between xiaoshuo and fiction. Historically, the Chinese definition of xiaoshuo itself is complex. During the Han Dy- nasty (206 B.C.E.-220 C.E.), xiaoshuo is listed by Ban Gu (AD 32–92) in Hanshu as one of the ten schools of thought. Xiaoshuo is described as an insignificant, morally suspect form of writ- of 136 222 Although Eoyang emphasizes the qualitative difference between fiction in the West and fiction in the Chinese 196 context, he still equates the English concept of fiction with the Chinese term xiaoshuo without calling into question this translation. He writes, “Hsiao shuo ⼩小說 , ‘small talks,’ seems to put fiction in its place” (sic.). Eugene Eoyang, 1977, 53. Catherine Gallagher, 2007, 338. 197 Although from a modern critic’s point of view, “fiction” is divided into different forms such as the novel, novel 198 - la, and short story, these categories are modern inventions that result from the rise of modern publishing industry and the growth of a wide spectrum of readership. It is thus common to see contemporary writers using “fiction” as an umbrella term to refer to all fictional works. The interchangeable use of “fiction" and the novel (and certainly other genres) is not just an issue of categorization, however, but one that is related to the changing definition of “fiction” from being a term denoting lies and counterfeit to a specific literary concept. I will discuss this in detail in the latter part of the article. ing and is defined as materials that are excluded from the official historical documents of the im- perial court. The concept of xiaoshuo was thus originally embedded in the Chinese tradition of historiography and had little to do with the modern novel. It was not until the late nineteenth century that some reform-minded Chinese intellectuals began to construct new, “modern” mean- ings for the term xiaoshuo. Kang Youwei (1858-1927) and Liang Qichao (1873-1929), for ex- ample, are among the first group of Chinese intellectuals to link xiaoshuo with national reform. Liang’s famous article “Lun xiaoshuo yu qunzhi zhi guanxi” (On the relationship between fiction and mass management; 1902) maintains that xiaoshuo possesses an enigmatic power to trans- form human minds and change the fate of an entire nation. The article is an example par excel- lence of the way in which xiaoshuo was imbued with new meanings at the turn of the nineteenth century. In this article, Liang coins the term xin xiaoshuo (new fiction), which almost became a standard term to denote the new forms of writing and literary theory that emerged during the late Qing period. Contemporary scholars generally agree that Liang’s creation of the term xin xiaoshuo marks the beginning phase in the development of modern Chinese fiction and literature in gener- al. However, Liang’s conceptualization of xiaoshuo is quite different from the prevailing con 199 - temporary understanding of fiction as he saw xiaoshuo as a primarily political tool for dissemi- nating ideological messages and did not explore the development of xiaoshuo as a literary or aes- thetic concept. An examination of how the ancient Chinese term xiaoshuo came to be used to of 137 222 For a further discussion of the beginnings of modern Chinese literature, see David Der-wei Wang, 1997, 16. See 199 also Chen Pingyuan, 2005, 1-25. translate the modern concept of fiction is thus needed to further our understanding of what we now call “modern Chinese fiction.” The question of how xiaoshuo come to translate “fiction” is further complicated by a con- sideration of the cultural exchange between Japan and China during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It is very likely that the classical Chinese term was first appropriated by Ja- panese scholars as a neologistic term to translate the Western concept of the novel and was only later adopted by Chinese intellectuals for the same purpose. Various scholars, including Federico Masini and Lydia Liu, have discussed this issue. While the translingual connection, to borrow 200 Liu’s parlance, between modern Japanese and Chinese is an important subject, this paper focuses on two other questions: first, how does the Chinese term xiaoshuo articulate the Western concept of fiction? Second, what linguistic and conceptual assumptions underlie the merging of a tradi- tional Chinese concept such as xiaoshuo and a modern (Western) literary notion such as fiction? In this vein, one might consider the huge number of translated foreign novels that circu- lated in China during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Indeed, these translations of Western literary works spurred Chinese intellectuals’ interest in developing new ways of un- derstanding literature. Lin Shu’s Bali chahua nu yishi (Past stories of the Camellia-woman of Paris), a translation of Alexandre Dumas’s La Dame aux Camélias, for example, met with unex- of 138 222 Federico Masini suggests that the Chinese term wenxue was first used by Giulio Alenio, an Italian Jesuit mis 200 - sionary, to translate the Western concept of literature in Alenio’s work Zhifang waiji [Record of places outside the jurisdiction of the office of geography] as early as 1623. Lydia Liu argues that the translation of literature as wenx- ue might have been accomplished later by a nineteenth century American missionary. She suggests that this transla- tion was subsequently brought to Japan and then reintroduced to China in the early twentieth century. Although Liu does not explain who this American missionary was and how this translation traveled first to Japan and then back to China, she describes this process as “a round-trip diffusion” to underscore the cross-cultural and trans-lin- gual connection between modern Chinese and Japanese. Tsubouchi Shōyō’s Shōsetsu Shinzui [The essence of the novel], published in 1885, is generally considered the seminal work in transforming the Chinese compound xi- aoshuo (pronounced as shōsetsu in Japanese) into a widely accepted term for “novel” in the Japanese context. pected success when it was published in 1898. Lin Shu’s translation influenced the development of Chinese literature in the early twentieth century. Over the course of Lin Shu’s life, he and 201 his co-workers translated over two hundred literary works (mostly novels) from countries such as England, France, America, Russia, Norway, Switzerland, Spain, and Japan. These translations 202 may have played a role in slowly changing the way in which the term xiaoshuo was understood. However, we still need more concrete evidence that this term was being consciously used and developed as the Chinese counterpart for the Western concept of fiction, which was taken as a universal concept that could refer to literary works across different cultural regions. It is for this reason that we must begin our discussion by re-examining Lu Xun's (1881-1936) Zhongguo xi- aoshuo shilue (the English edition of this work is entitled A Brief History of Chinese Fiction), which was published in 1925 and is now generally considered the first systematic study of Chi- nese fiction. Lu Xun’s A Brief History of Chinese Fiction merits our attention since it has, in 203 effect, created a paradigm for the study of xiaoshuo. From today’s point of view, it is not an 204 exaggeration to say that any research which attempts to deal with the genealogy of xiaoshuo or fictional work in China must begin with, or at least take into account, this ground-breaking work. Indeed, Lu Xun’s work has, de facto and de jure, generated a discipline, a kind of knowledge, of 139 222 The so-called Mandarin Ducks and Butterflies School, which was active in the early Republican period, may be 201 seen as a literary school that continued the writing style of Lin Shu’s Bali chahua nu yishi. For more information on Lin Shu, see Michael Gibbs Hill’s Lin Shu, Inc. 202 Xiaoshuo is sometimes translated as “Chinese fiction,” but elsewhere it is also referred to as “prose fiction” or 203 simply “fiction.” The inconsistency with which this term is translated into English suggests that the connection between xiaoshuo and fiction should not be taken for granted. In this book, Lu Xun traces the concept of xiaoshuo from the fourth century B.C.E. all the way to the nineteenth 204 century, providing a comprehensive trajectory for the development of xiaoshuo in the Chinese context. genre, or field of study, which, in modern scholarship on Chinese literature, is called xiaoshuo (often translated as “fiction” or “Chinese fiction”). The effects of this work thus cannot be 205 underestimated. In this chapter, I begin by contextualizing Lu Xun’s work on xiaoshuo in a series of polit- ical and social changes that took place in late nineteenth and early twentieth-century China. I particularly analyze his appropriation of social Darwinism and use of an evolutionistic frame- work to define xiaoshuo as a universal, translatable concept that is nonetheless rooted in the Chi- nese tradition. I then investigate the ambiguous relationship between fiction and xiaoshuo, that is, the act of translation that equates the former with the later in English scholarship. My point, however, is not to reiterate that xiaoshuo and fiction stem from two different cultural traditions, thereby concluding that the two terms should not be considered equivalent to each other. Rather, I focus on the transformation of xiaoshuo from being a traditional Chinese historiographical no- tion to a modern literary concept characterized by its universality such as fiction. I argue that the modern definition of xiaoshuo is characterized by its double implication as both a Chinese and universal literary concept that can be readily translated to other languages. I engage in a detailed analysis of Lu Xun’s A Brief History of Chinese Fiction to demonstrate the enigmatic connection between xiaoshuo and fiction. My analysis reveals that Lu Xun’s historicization of xiaoshuo as a literary concept specific to the Chinese tradition is inherently undermined by his understanding of 140 222 For example, Judith Zeitlin defines xiaoshuo as “the modern Chinese term for prose fiction of any length, partic 205 - ularly the novel…it is likewise the modern term for prose fiction or novel in Japan and Korea.” Judith Zeitlin, 2006, 249. In discussing the development of modern Chinese literature, Lydia Liu also equates xiaoshuo with fic- tion. Liu writes, “The Compendium [Zhongguo xinwenxue daxi] organized all literary works around these cate- gories, which were understood to be perfectly translatable into ‘fiction’, ‘poetry,’ ‘drama,’ and ‘familiar prose,’ respectively, in English.” Lydia Liu, 1995, 229. of fiction as a universal literary category. I aim to demonstrate that Western definitions of fiction are relevant to understanding Lu Xun’s work ! Xiaoshuo and Evolutionism ! The ambiguous relationship between fiction and xiaoshuo, as discussed by Lu Xun, can first be explained through an examination of the socio-historical context in which he wrote. While historically the concept of xiaoshuo is rooted in the Chinese historiographical tradition, I argue that Lu Xun’s genealogy of xiaoshuo is closely related to ideological developments in ear- ly twentieth-century China. Lu Xun was a firm supporter of the New Culture Movement (ca. 1915-1920s), which called for the establishment of a new Chinese culture and literature based on Western concepts such as democratic procedure, scientific methodology, and, in particular, the use of the vernacu- lar language. In a way, the New Culture Movement provided the basis for the upsurge in Chi- nese nationalism in the 1920s. The escalation in nationalism was triggered by a large-scale, stu- dent-based protest against the Chinese government on May 4 th , 1919, in the wake of the resolu- tion of the Versailles Treaty, which awarded Shandong Province to Japan. The resulting nation- alistic socio-cultural movement was known as the May Fourth Movement. Lu Xun’s famous writings on the problems of Chinese culture have been read as a prominent exponent of the May Fourth Movement. The May Fourth Movement can also be considered a reaction to the series of domestic and international political failures suffered by China during the late Qing and early Re- of 141 222 publican periods. After the Qing Empire was defeated in the First (1839-3842) and Second Opi- um Wars (1856-1860), some Chinese officials initiated reform measures geared towards the adoption of Western military technology. During this period, the first groups of Chinese students were sent to Japan and other foreign countries for modern education. However, these reforms, which were later known collectively as the Self-Strengthening Movement (1861-1895), ultimate- ly failed. In 1895, the Qing was defeated by Japan in the first Sino-Japanese War (1894-5). The Treaty of Shimonoseki, which concluded the war, forced the Qing court to pay a huge indemnity, open multiple ports, and cede Taiwan and Penghu islands to Japan. The loss to Japan dealt a crushing blow to the Qing regime. The demand for political reform was voiced by several pro- gressive intellectuals, including Liang Qichao and Kang Youwei, who proposed social, military, and economic reforms. In 1898, Liang, Kang, and others succeeded in initiating the reform, but, after only about a hundred days, a coup d'état by the conservative Empress Dowager Cixi put an end to the reform movement. In addition to the frustrating experience of dealing with the Qing court, these reform- minded Chinese intellectuals also had to contend with local warlords, who aspired to restore the Qing dynasty even after it fell and was replaced by a Republican government. In the first three decades of the twentieth century, the Republic of China was repeatedly threatened by attempts at monarchical restoration. During this time, Lu Xun gradually became convinced that the eradica- tion of what he saw as the submissive mentality of the Chinese people was a necessary precondi- tion for reform. He decided to become a writer, and sought, through his works, to intervene the political status quo by engaging socio-cultural issues. Unlike Liang Qichao and Kang Youwei who saw literature as a passive carrier of political messages, Lu Xun’s construction of “modern of 142 222 Chinese literature” and a history of Chinese fiction is itself a political response to imperialism and globalization. In other words, Lu Xun came to see Chinese literature not only as a reflection of but, more importantly, an intervention in Chinese modernity. The cultural-political context in which Lu Xun wrote complicates his understanding of xiaoshuo as a concept specific to the Chinese literary tradition. How does Lu Xun reconcile the cultural specificity of this concept with the related global idea of national literature and national identity? In other words, in constructing a literary history specific to China, how does Lu Xun account for the influence of Western literature? The answer may be found in the way in which late Qing and early Republican Chinese intellectuals appropriated certain Western concepts. Like many progressive intellectuals, Lu Xun sought to transform traditional Confucian social structures, or as described by Vera Schwarcz, “those elements of the Confucian tradition that comprised the lijiao, the cult of ritualized subordination.” Many May Fourth intellectuals 206 sought for what they considered to be a more scientific and logical worldview to replace the tra- ditional Confucian outlook. As a result, as elucidated by Schwarcz, these intellectuals “kept 207 on borrowing, translating, and adopting Western ideas even as their contemporaries lapsed into increasingly fervent anti-foreignism.” These intellectuals were heavily influenced by Western 208 literary and philosophical discourses. One of the most interesting examples is the concept of evolution, which appealed to many Chinese intellectuals. The Darwinian theory of evolution is introduced to China through Yan Fu’s translation of T.H. Huxley’s Evolution and Ethics (1893) of 143 222 Vera Schwarcz, 1986, 3. 206 Ibid., 97. 207 Ibid. 208 which introduces Darwin’s doctrine and its application to moral philosophy. Yan Fu, however, did not translate the entire book since he only focused on introducing the concept of evolution, leaving the part on ethics untouched. Not only did he change the title into Tian yan lun (On evo- lution), he also included many of his own interpretations in his translation. Yan Fu’s Tian yan lun is therefore not a rigorous translation of Huxley’s Evolution and Ethics from the modern per- spective, but a semi-original work that interprets and modifies Huxley’s explanation of Darwin’s theory of evolution. It was under this circumstance that the theory of evolution was introduced to China . 209 The concept of evolution was nevertheless widely accepted by Chinese intellectuals since it is an illuminating perspective to envision a new Chinese culture. Lu Xun’s acceptance of the principles of evolutionism was closely tied to his promotion of vernacular literature and, in par- ticular, in his construction of a history of xiaoshuo. In “The Historical Development of Chinese Fiction,” a lecture series delivered by Lu Xun in 1924, he argued as follows: Many historians have told us that the history of mankind is evolutionary, and China is no exception. But when we look at the evolution of China, we are struck by two phenomena in particular. One is that the old returns long after the new has appeared—in other words, retrogression. The other is that the old remains long after the new has appeared—in other words, amalgamation. Does that mean evolution failed to take place? No. It just takes place at a slower pace. That’s why, for a hotheaded person like me, it feels as if “one day passes [as slowly as] three autumns.” The same applies to literature and art—as well as of 144 222 Under such a circumstance, it is hard to draw a clear line between the original Darwin’s theory of evolution and 209 social Darwinism in the late Qing context xiaoshuo, which is a category of literature. For instance, we can still find in modern writ- ings the dregs of the Tang and Song Dynasties and even the ideas of primitive man. In my lecture today, I would like to ignore these dregs—popular as they still are—and try to find evidence of progressive development in our regressive and chaotic literature. 210 From this passage, we can see that Lu Xun’s historicization of Chinese fiction is teleological and places the development of Chinese fiction within a distinct cultural context. However, Lu Xun’s historicization of Chinese fiction within an evolutionary framework complicates the establish- ment of an absolute distinction between Chinese history and human history in general. In at- tempting to establish the generic and historical specificity of xiaoshuo, Lu Xun is nevertheless compelled to imply the commonality of all human histories. As Lu Xun explains, “the history of mankind is evolutionary, and China is no exception…The same applies to literature and art—as well as xiaoshuo, which is a category of literature.” By framing his discussion of xiaoshuo in 211 terms of national unity and evolutionism, Lu Xun ironically points to a possible connection be- tween what he specifies as xiaoshuo and its counterparts in other cultural traditions. If there is a specifically Chinese genre of xiaoshuo, it is, first and foremost, embedded in a transcultural and transhistorical framework. Lu Xun describes the development of Chinese literature, “When we look at the evolution of China, we are struck by two phenomena in particular. One is that the old returns long after the new has appeared—in other words, retrogression. The other is that the old remains long after the new has appeared—in other words, amalgamation.” In light of Lu Xun’s of 145 222 Lu Xun, 1959, 393. 210 Ibid., 393. 211 call for a new form of Chinese literature, his reference to “the old” most likely refers to the clas- sical language. And since Lu Xun associated the classical language with Confucian dogma, he supported the use of the vernacular language and believed that vernacular literature held the po- tential to revolutionize society. In this respect, “the new” is logically associated with imported (Western) modernism and nationalism. If nationalism, as Benedict Anderson has pointed out, requires the imagination of the existence of others in the distant parts of a single nation, it is 212 this imagined collectivity of China as a unitary community that allows Lu Xun to naturalize the regressive and chaotic literary developments as part of the evolutionary process of China. Lu Xun’s appropriation of evolutionism also sheds light on the way in which he trans- forms xiaoshuo from an ambiguous ancient term to a specific generic concept and, more impor- tantly, from a concept specific to Chinese literature to a universal notion. According to Lu Xun, because the formation of xiaoshuo was evolutionary, the concept of xiaoshuo is necessarily con- nected to other concepts. This explains Lu Xun’s description of the development of Chinese lit- erature as a process characterized by “retrogression” and “amalgamation.” Just as an organism undergoes mutation and transformation, the concept of xiaoshuo develops over time. From this perspective, the logic of evolutionism enables Lu Xun to articulate xiaoshuo as a concept that is fundamentally unique but, at the same time, inextricably connected to other literary genres that developed in different cultural contexts. The term xiaoshuo, or Zhongguo xiaoshuo, or its Eng- lish translation as “Chinese fiction,” is allowed to retain its specificity without ruling out its gen- erality. Such is the double nature of Lu Xun’s project in A Brief History of Chinese Fiction. of 146 222 Benedict Anderson, 2006, 22-36. 212 ! The Double Nature of Fiction: Exemplarity and Non-referentiality ! We also need to clarify the Western concept of fiction before we move on to investigate its connection with xiaoshuo in Lu Xun’s work. According to the Oxford English Dictionary (hereafter OED), fiction is defined as: 1. a. The action of fashioning or imitating…2. Feigning, counterfeiting; deceit, dissimula- tion, pretence…3. a. the action of ‘feigning’ or inventing imaginary incidents, existences, states of things, etc., whether for the purpose of deception or otherwise…b. That which, or something that, is imaginatively invented; feigned existence, event, or state of things; invention as opposed to fact…c. A statement or narrative proceeding from mere inven- tion; such statements collectively…4. a. The species of literature which is concerned with the narration of imaginary events and the portraiture of imaginary characters; fictitious composition. We thus learn that, as a common noun, fiction denotes an action, or the process of acting. As im- plied by words “fashioning or imitating,” fiction is that which is generated anew or at least apart from whatever is considered factual. Fiction, in this sense, is a common noun that refers to any event, incident, or state of being, as long as it can be demarcated from that which is recognized as authentic. Fiction is thus an empty term that can incorporate almost anything into its defini- tional space. Precisely because there are numerous examples of fiction, there are no limits to fic- of 147 222 tion’s referential territory. This first axiomatic definition of fiction thus justifies its connection with any referent in any language. However, in addition to being a common noun, fiction also creates an effect of a proper noun, whose singularity is defined by its generic identification with a specific form of literature. As the fourth definition of OED states, fiction is also “the species of literature which is con- cerned with the narration of imaginary events and the portraiture of imaginary characters; ficti- tious composition.” In other words, apart from being an inclusive signifier, fiction is also “the species of literature” (my emphasis) that refers only and specifically to a particular kind of writ- ing prescribed by the rules of literature. The definite article (“the”) with which the fourth defini- tion begins indicates the absoluteness of this meaning, suggesting that fiction is both a proper name and a common noun. It is a proper name when it is used to refer exclusively to the form of literature that is called fiction (“The species of literature…”), but it is also a common noun when it is used to refer to anything (which indeed includes any form of writing) that is not to be taken as fact. Fiction, from this perspective, is both specific and universal. In her examination of the mid-eighteenth century English novel and the rise of fictionali- ty as a recognized literary concept, Catherine Gallagher has also discussed the double nature of fiction. Drawing upon the definitions of fiction found in the OED, Gallagher argues that, in the eighteenth century, the term “fiction” ceased to be a subcategory of dissimulation (“deceit, dis- simulation, pretense”) and became a literary phenomenon (“the species of literature”). In or 213 - of 148 222 Gallagher writes, “As this sense of the word gained greater currency, mainly in the eighteenth century, an earlier 213 frequent meaning of ‘deceit, dissimulation, pretense’ became obsolete. Although consistently contrasted with the veridical, fictional narration ceased to be a subcategory of dissimulation as it became a literary phenomenon. If the etymology of the word tells us anything, fiction seems to have been discovered as a discursive mode in its own right as readers developed the ability to tell it apart from both fact and (this is the key) deception.” Catherine Gal- lagher, 2007, 338. der to emphasize the historical emergence of fiction as a literary form, Gallagher downplays the variety of definitions attached to fiction and reduces them to the polarized concepts of “decep- tion” and “literature.” However, she also notes that, in eighteenth-century English novels, fiction as a literary concept is characterized by what she calls nonreferentiality: “The key mode of non- referentiality in the novel was, and still is, that of proper name.” This is because, in the seven 214 - teenth-century, novelists such as Daniel Defoe, Delarivier Manley, and others began to assume the existence of “a correspondence between a proper name in a believable narrative and an em- bodied individual in the world.” For example, Defoe asserts the existence of an individual 215 named “Robinson Crusoe” without ruling out the possibility of this figure being merely fictional or allegorical. “The proper names do not take specific individuals as their referents, and hence none of the specific assertions made about them can be verified or falsified.” Moreover, since 216 any general referent is indicated through a particular yet explicitly nonreferential character, the novels are considered realistic even though their constituents may only be imaginary. When 217 viewed in this sense, nonreferentiality is a literary device that invites greater referentiality, since the referent of the story is no longer singularly referential but has become universally relatable. of 149 222 Ibid., 341-342. 214 Ibid., 341. 215 Ibid., 341. Gallagher describes the novelists of eighteenth century England as follows: “What distinguished the 216 new writers from the libelers was the insistence that the human referent of the text was a generalization about and not an extratexual, embodied instance of a ‘species.’ Certainly the novel provided imaginary instances, but it renounced reference to individual examples in the world. The fictionality defining the novel inferred in the cre- ation of instances, rather than their mere selection, to illustrate a class of persons…The claims to truth and fiction were not in contradiction with each other; practitioners understood that the novel’s general applicability depended on the overt fictitiousness of its particulars.” Ibid., 342. Ibid., 342. 217 Nonreferentiality thus simultaneously particularizes and universalizes, specifies and pluralizes, the referent of the stories. ! The Double Nature of Xiaoshuo ! The definitions of fiction discussed above resonate with Lu Xun’s A Brief History of Chi- nese Fiction not only because of the way in which Lu Xun translates xiaoshuo as fiction but also because of the way in which xiaoshuo as a generic concept is introduced and contextualized. 218 The preface to A Brief History of Chinese Fiction provides an interesting but ironic account of Lu Xun’s impetus for composing the work. The way in which Lu Xun discusses Chinese literary history suggests interesting resonances with the definitions of fiction discussed above. There has never been a history of Chinese fiction, other than in the histories of Chinese literature written by foreigners. Although discussions of the history of Chinese fiction have recently appeared in some publications by Chinese authors, in these works the dis- cussion of fiction generally accounts for less than one-tenth of the entire work. Hence, we still lack a detailed account of the development of Chinese fiction. 219 of 150 222 Zhongguo means “Chinese” or “China,” but the translation of xiaoshuo as “fiction” or “novel” is more ambigu 218 - ous, as I shall explain later. However, we should bear in mind that, in English-language scholarship, the word xiaoshuo is often used interchangeably with the term “fiction.” This and subsequent quotations from Zhongguo xiaoshuo shilue are based on the English edition of this work, A 219 Brief History of Chinese Fiction, which is translated by Yang Xianyi and Gladys Yang, with some modifications. Lu Xun, 1956; 2005, V ol. 9. It is striking to see that the preface to this groundbreaking work on the history of Chinese fiction begins ironically with a statement of the absence of a history of Chinese fiction. We can certain- ly interprets the first sentence of the work as Lu Xun’s criticism on the lack of writing on the tra- dition of Chinese fiction. However, if we consider the weight that this work carries in the Chi- nese literary history and the fact that it is often credited as the first Chinese publication on the development of Chinese fiction, we might as well try to take this preface as literally as possible and examine the potential implication of this preface. As a work that purports to present the history of Chinese fiction, A Brief History of Chi- nese Fiction is supposed to be based on truth and fact. However, Lu Xun begins by negating the existence of a history of Chinese fiction, which is exactly what the work purports to discuss. Therefore, A Brief History of Chinese Fiction in fact addresses the absence of a brief history of Chinese fiction. One might thus ask: how does Lu Xun intend to relate the history of Chinese fiction when he, at the same time, denies its existence? The only possible course of action is to invent a history of Chinese fiction, that is, to write a fictional work entitled A Brief History of Chinese Fiction. When viewed from this perspective, we might consider this work to be more of an exploration of the idea of “fiction” per se. The ambiguous opening statement also comes with an interesting provision. That is, there are two exceptions to the statement that “there has never been a history of Chinese fiction”: first, the histories of Chinese literature written by foreigners, and second, the history of Chinese fiction written by other Chinese authors in Lu Xun’s time. Lu Xun’s disregard for the latter is due to their brevity and simplicity appeared in some publications by Chinese authors, in these of 151 222 works the discussion of fiction generally accounts for less than one-tenth of the entire works. But Lu Xun’s disregard for the former—“the histories of Chinese literature written by foreign- ers”—is amusing. It is as if there is a kind of inherent essence in what Lu Xun terms Zhongguo xiaoshuo, or Chinese fiction, and a historical account of Chinese fiction will not be authentic if it is not written by a Chinese author. Indeed, the use of the modifier Zhongguo (meaning “Chi- nese” or “China”) suggests that the term xiaoshuo should be understood in the Chinese context and thus should not be confused with the term’s generic relative in the Western tradition. How- ever, this emphasis also suggests the opposite, that is, a correspondence between xiaoshuo and fiction outside of the Chinese context. Xiaoshuo’s combination of cultural specificity and im- plied universality recalls Gallagher’s discussion of referentiality and fiction in the Western con- text. That is, the nonreferentiality of xiaoshuo as a concept enables its application to different cultural traditions. Lu Xun’s historicization of xiaoshuo thus produces an effect that makes this term both a Chinese concept and a universal one. Although Lu Xun is dissatisfied with the accounts of xiaoshuo written by foreign and Chinese authors, he is keenly aware of the correlation between writing and the making of history, in particular, the significance of the written word in constructing the history of Chinese fiction. The preface goes on to explore this issue: Although this book is concerned entirely with a specific history, it only provides a rough outline. I wrote it because, when I was giving lectures on this subject three years ago, I feared that my defects as a speaker might make it difficult for my audiences to under- stand, and so I jotted down this outline and had it copied for my students. In order not to of 152 222 give the copyist too much trouble, I compressed it by using the classical language, omit- ting certain examples but keeping the main outline, which I have been using ever since. After being copied so many times, these notes are finally being printed now. Although the process of preparing the manuscript for printing has been laborious, a printed text is better suited to our purpose [of circulating this work]. 220 After criticizing the shortcomings of other histories of xiaoshuo, Lu Xun turns to the limitations of his own project; the work, he said, is only “a rough outline” that is characterized by condensa- tion and omission. It is interesting to see that instead of continuing his initial statement that what he tries to account for is an absent history, Lu Xun now defines his work as an abridged version of xiaoshuo’s history. It is as if any account of the history of xiaoshuo will never be complete since this literary concept will keep on growing and developing. And yet, it is through this care- ful formulation of the history of xiaoshuo as a brand-new (since it has never been written) and open-ended (since what is presented here is only an outline) project that Lu Xun is able to argue for a concept of xiaoshuo that is at once specific to China and relatable to other cultural contexts. The Ambiguity of Xiaoshuo: An Etymological Study Lu Xun’s formulation of xiaoshuo is also distinguished by his painstaking etymological study of this ancient Chinese term. He indicates that the term xiaoshuo was first used by ancient philosopher Zhuangzi 莊⼦子 (369 B.C.-286 B.C.), who discussed “winning honor and renown by means of xiaoshuo.” According to Lu Xun, Zhuangzi uses the expression xiaoshuo to mean the of 153 222 Lu Xun, 1956. 220 sayings of little importance that was used to achieve petty personal ends. Zhuangzi’s defini 221 - tion of xiaoshuo thus differs greatly from the way in which this term is understood today. By the first century A.D., the meaning attached to xiaoshuo gradually changed and became closer to the modern understanding of xiaoshuo. As philosopher Huan Tan 桓譚 (circa 43 B.C.-28 A.D.) wrote, “The writers of xiaoshuo string together odd sayings and parables to make short tales which contain matters for use in daily life.” Xiaoshuo is thus taken as a form of narrative that 222 is related to social reality. Throughout the Han period, xiaoshuo was considered a trivial form of literature. According to Lu Xun, xiaoshuo occupied an ambiguous position in the official docu- ments of the Han Dynasty: Ban Gu’s [32-92] History of the Former Han Dynasty contains a section on literature. 223 The third part of this section gives a brief account of works written by non-Confucian philosophers from the ancient past up to Ban Gu’s time. Ban Gu identifies ten schools of literature but comments that “only nine schools are worth reading”; the works of xi- aoshuo are excluded from the official categorization scheme. A separate entry listing fif- teen works of xiaoshuo is nevertheless appended at the end of this section. 224 of 154 222 Ibid., 1. 221 Ibid. The quotation from Huan Tan is credited to an early source which is no longer extant—Xinlun 新論. 222 Scholars believe that this work was written around the first century. Hanshu, normally translated as History of the Former Han, is also sometimes rendered as The Book of Han. It is 223 the first historical account in China that focuses exclusively on a single dynasty. The work hence established the “dynasty mode of historical writings” for the centuries to follow. William Theodore de Bary and Irene Bloom, 1998, 373. Lu Xun, 1956, 2. 224 Xiaoshuo is both included in and excluded from Ban Gu’s categorization scheme; it is recognized as a form of literary narrative, but is explicitly singled out as inferior in comparison with other literary forms. As Lu Xun observes, xiaoshuo is “appended as a separate entry” and “excluded from the official categorization scheme.” Unlike other philosophical-literary entries, xiaoshuo is identified as a miscellaneous hodge-podge that is difficult to classify. It is not exactly a school of philosophy, but it also shares certain features in common with other forms of philosophical dis- course. In Hanshu, Ban Gu provides an explanation of the way in which he treats xiaoshuo: The writers of xiaoshuo succeeded the baiguan (minor officials), whose task was to col- lect street talk and alley gossip. Confucius says: “Even byways are worth exploring. But if we go too far we may be bogged down.” Gentlemen thus do not undertake the writ 225 - ing of xiaoshuo, but neither do they dismiss xiaoshuo altogether. Xiaoshuo contains the sayings of the common people and so it is still worth recording. 226 According to Ban Gu, the function of early xiaoshuo was to preserve socio-cultural customs and folk mores that would otherwise be excluded from official history. Such records were valued only when they served a political purpose; they were written by government officials as a way to of 155 222 Although Confucius has been credited with this statement, according to the Analects it was actually his student 225 Zixia who made this comment: “Zixia says, ‘Although the byways no doubt have their own interesting sights to see, one who wishes to reach a distant destination fears becoming mired. This is why the gentleman does not take the byways.’” Confucius, Analects, trans. Edward Slingerhand (2003) 19.4. Lu Xun quotes this passage from Ban Gu’s historical writings in the first chapter of his book. Lu Xun, 1956, 3. 226 monitor and govern the subjects. From this perspective, it is difficult to distinguish early xi 227 - aoshuo from historical accounts, since no clear distinction is made between the general concept of shi 史 (history) and other conceptual categories. Shi is considered the ultimate framework through which to approach all types of writings. 228 Even the concept of xiaoshuo per se is a broad and vague category that encompasses a variety of writings, such as anecdotes, historical legends, biographies, and supernatural tales. 229 It was not until the mid-eleventh century that supernatural tales were no longer considered histo- ry (shi) and all works listed as xiaoshuo were classified as philosophy. In the sixteenth centu 230 - ry, the bibliographer Hu Yinglin (1551-1602) classified xiaoshuo into six categories: zhiguai (records of the strange), chuanqi (tales of the marvelous), zalu (anecdotes), congtan (miscella- neous notes), bianding (research), and zhengui (moral admonitions). The classification system devised by Hu Yinglin is often viewed as the first attempt to understand xiaoshuo as a singular of 156 222 The tradition of minor officials recording street talk has also been understood as a way “to help the ruler to un 227 - derstand country ways and morals.” Lu Xun, 1956, 6-7. The possible connection between xiaoshuo and the ac- counts of minor officials of the first century is also described in the official book catalogue of the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911), the Siku Quanshu Zongmu Tiyao (Annotated catalog of the complete imperial library). Ji Yun (1724-1805), the chief editor of this work, writes, “Ban Gu told us that the writers of xiaoshuo were the succes- sors of the minor historians who collected information. The tradition of historical writing can be traced back to Sima Qian’s (145? - 86? B.C.) Shiji. Shiji covers the 228 entirety of Chinese history from the Yellow Emperor to the time when Sima Qian himself lived. This work is divided into five sections: benji, biao, shu, shijia, and liezhuan. But nowhere in these five sections is philosophy or literature listed as a subcategory. Ancient thinkers such as Confucius and Zhuangzi, whom are later catego- rized as philosophers, are classified separately in shijia and liezhuan. Laura Hua Wu even argues that, as late as the sixteenth century, xiaoshuo was still used as an umbrella term to 229 refer to a variety of subgenres. Wu writes, “The xiaoshuo genre as defined…remained an umbrella genre cover- ing a medley of subgenres, narrative or non-narrative, literary or non-literary, fictional or non-fictional.” Laura Hua Wu, 1995, 369. Lu Xun, 1956, 5. 230 genre, which encompasses a variety of subgenres. By the end of the eighteenth century, the 231 boundaries of xiaoshuo as a genre were further delineated. Legends and unofficial biographies were no longer classified as shi. Instead, they were classified exclusively as xiaoshuo, which was itself categorized as a genre of philosophy. Although the definition of xiaoshuo changed and became more specific over time, the term was throughout defined in relation to the philosophical and historical traditions. From this perspective, the bibliographical classification schemes from the first to the eighteenth century are merely, as described by Lu Xun, “a branch of historical sci- ence.” Lu Xun further quipped that, “we cannot expect these bibliographers to break their 232 own rules.” That is to say, from Lu Xun’s point of view, xiaoshuo as an independent literary 233 concept had yet to be born even in the eighteenth century. If Lu Xun’s etymological study of xi- aoshuo tells us anything, it is, first of all, the essential ambiguity of xiaoshuo as a generic and historical concept. Lu Xun's study further suggests the possibility of negotiating and reconciling the differences between the Western and Chinese concepts by re-articulating a Chinese literary history. ! ! ! ! of 157 222 Laura Hua Wu, 1995, 369-371. 231 Lu Xun, 1956, 9. 232 Ibid. 233 Creative Writing: Lu Xun’s Formulation of Xiaoshuo as a Literary Concept ! If the historical roots of Chinese fiction are intertwined with historical and philosophical writings, how does Lu Xun delineate xiaoshuo as a specific literary genre? The question can be answered by examining Lu Xun’s descriptions of xiaoshuo. Throughout A Brief History of Chi- nese Fiction, Lu Xun is intent on distinguishing works that were intended as literary creations from those that were not. The writer’s creativity thus becomes an important standard in evaluat- ing the fictionality of any work that is to be defined as xiaoshuo. For example, Lu Xun does not consider the writings of minor officials to be fiction because these officials wrote not for creative purposes, but rather in order to preserve social customs. Lu Xun emphasizes the fact that “these officials were collectors, not authors.” When discussing supernatural tales from the third to 234 sixth centuries, Lu Xun also discredits their fictional value: 235 Shamanism was widespread in ancient China and, during the Qin and Han Dynasties, there were much talk of spirits and saints…Then Hinayana Buddhism gradually spread to China. Since these religions had much to say about spirits and miracles, the fourth, fifth and sixth centuries produced many works dealing with the supernatural. Some were writ- ten by the literati, others by religious devotees. Although the literati differed from the of 158 222 Ibid., 10. 234 In modern scholarship, zhiguai (the records of the strange) written during the Six Dynasties (220-589) has often 235 been compared with chuanqi (the tales of the marvelous), which became popular during the Tang Dynasty (618-907). Zhiguai have often been defined as brief and unembellished stories, while chuanqi have been de- scribed as long and elaborate. Although Hu Yinglin discussed the conceptual differences between zhiguai and chuanqi, it was not until the publication of Lu Xun’s A Brief History of Chinese Fiction that the two were distin- guished as two different narrative forms. Buddhist and Daoist writers, whose aim was to spread their religious beliefs, they did not intend to write fiction, either. People during that period recognized the difference be- tween humans and spirits, but the existence of the latter was nonetheless taken as fact. Thus, writers recorded supernatural tales in the same way as they did stories about human beings. There was no distinction between the factual and the fictional in these stories. 236 Lu Xun argues that the influence exerted by indigenous religious beliefs and Buddhist doctrine on supernatural narratives indicates that such narratives should not be considered xiaoshuo. Al- though modern readers might consider such tales “supernatural,” their authors considered them to be fact; therefore, these tales cannot be understand as fiction. Lu Xun's discussion of zhiguai further suggests that, for him, the crucial defining characteristic of fiction is authorial intent. In discussing chuanqi, Lu Xun likewise argues: Xiaoshuo, like poetry, underwent radical changes in the Tang Dynasty. Although the tales written during this period still dealt with marvels and strange phenomena, the plots be- came more elaborate and the language more polished. Compared with the brevity and simplicity of the tales produced during the Six Dynasties [220-589], this was a great evo- lutionary advancement. Another, more significant change was that, by this time, writers were consciously writing fiction. 237 In this passage, Lu Xun again defines the difference between fiction and non-fiction in terms of the self-conscious authorial intention to engage in creative writing. According to Lu Xun, Tang of 159 222 Lu Xun, 1956, 45. 236 Ibid., 85. 237 tales are distinguished from their Six Dynasties predecessors by the Tang authors’ conscious cre- ation of fictional characters. As an example of this phenomenon, Lu Xun discusses an early Tang tale “Bu jianzong baiyuan zhuan” (A supplement to the legend of the white ape Jiang Zong). The story centers on remarkable events in the life of a government official named Ouyang He, who was a real historical figure. During the Liang Dynasty (502-557), Ouyang He embarked on a southern expedition. While he was away on this expedition, his wife was kidnapped by a white ape, and, by the time she was rescued, she was already pregnant with the ape's child. A year later, she gave birth to a child who looked like a monkey. Later, Ouyang He was executed for unrelated reasons, and his friend, Jiang Zong, adopted this child. Despite of the child’s mon- key-like appearance, he became a successful official. According to Lu Xun, the existence of 238 this story suggests that, by the seventh century, the short story format was already being used to serve a variety of functions other than recording historical events. Lu Xun argues that this story was obviously written by one of Ouyang He’s political enemies. As Lu Xun notes, “the story is described as a supplement to the story of Jiang Zong. It is evident that the tradition of inventing stories to slander people dates back to the early period of Chinese fiction.” Lu Xun thus con 239 - siders the tales written during the seventh century to be the first corpus of writings that resemble “fiction,” understood as a form of narrative that is not grounded in factual authenticity. Lu Xun quotes Hu Yinglin’s discussion of the development of supernatural tales: “Although tales de- scribing supernatural phenomena were popular during the Six Dynasties, these stories were not of 160 222 The story is found in Li Fang’s Taiping guanji in juan 444 under the title, “Ouyang he.” For more discussion on 238 this story, see Wu Zhida, 1991, 31-35. Lu Xun, 1956, 87. 239 entirely imaginary. Many of them are based on hearsay or false reports. The Tang Dynasty literati, on the other hand, deliberately invented strange adventures out of creativity and curiosity.” The criteria used by Lu Xun to evaluate the fictionality of a given work thus raises 240 the question of what fiction (or xiaoshuo, to be more specific) is in the Chinese context. Unlike earlier definitions of xiaoshuo, Lu Xun’s definition is not dependent on a classification scheme, but rather hinges on authorial intent. According to the literary-historical narrative constructed by Lu Xun, beginning in the Tang Dynasty, writers began to compose literature for a variety of rea- sons, such as criticizing the political enemies and impressing the examiners in the civil service examination. The authenticity of a story is no longer the main criterion of determining a 241 work’s value. The creation of fictional characters and scenarios in the Tang tales at once particu- larizes and universalizes the referents in the story, qualifying them as fiction in the modern sense. Since the stories realistically describe not a singularly referential event, but a universally relat- able instance, the credible and the imaginary are no longer two contradictory concepts. In this chapter, I draw upon Lu Xun’s A Brief History of Chinese Fiction to examine the complexities involved in translating the Chinese term xiaoshuo as “fiction. I argue that Lu Xun describes xiaoshuo as a concept that is both specifically and universally applicable to other cul- tural contexts. In order to make the ancient Chinese term xiaoshuo a globally relevant, “modern” of 161 222 Ibid., 85. Also see Lu Xun, 2005, V ol. 9, 73. 240 In “The Historical Development of Chinese Fiction,” Lu Xun explains that, “towards the middle of the eighth 241 century, there were more writers of fiction. Even those who had previously despised short stories now started to write them. This change was connected to the social environment at the time. Civil service candidates were in the habit of giving a sample of their writings to influential figures at court upon reaching the capital. If their compositions—usually their best poems—were praised, the candidates would have a better chance of passing the examination. Towards the end of the eighth century, literati grew rather tired of poetry, and some started to write stories and won fame through them.” Lu Xun, 1956, 408. literary concept, Lu Xun delineates its history from the ancient past to an open-ended future. Lu Xun’s historicization or theorization of xiaoshuo is also geared towards enabling Chinese literary production, ancient and contemporary, to enter the domain of world literature. As the title of Lu Xun's work indicates, the book presents the history of Chinese xiaoshuo, meaning there can also be a history of English xiaoshuo, French xiaoshuo, German xiaoshuo, Italian xiaoshuo, or Ja- panese xiaoshuo. The project of building a national literature requires the discursive construc- tion of a seemingly unified and enclosed literary domain, which is nonetheless capable of grow- ing and expanding. In a non-Western context, however, such a project also requires incorporat- ing, negotiating, and reworking existing terms, concepts, and discourses, which, in many cases, were originally derived from very different cultural contexts. Lu Xun’s re-introduction of xi- aoshuo provides us with a good example of this process. ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! of 162 222 Chapter Five: Imagining the National in Late Qing Literary Production ! The concept of the novel underwent a drastic transformation in the last decade of the Qing dynasty during which the idea of China as a dynastic realm was gradually challenged and eventually replaced by the conceptualization of a modern Chinese state. However, to what ex- tent is the concept of the novel in late Qing China already a literary concept presupposing a na- tional framework is a question that is yet to be fully explored. This paper analyzes how the changing conception of “the national” is negotiated and contested in the discourses pertaining to the development of late Qing fiction in the last decade of the Qing dynasty, which is described by some scholars as one of the most prolific stage of Chinese literary development. Indeed, ever since Liang Qichao advocated “new fiction” as an effective tool to disseminate political ideals in 1902, fiction had become one of the most popular forms of literary creation in late Qing China. Aying even argues in Wanqing xiaoshuo shi (A history of late Qing fiction; 1937) that late Qing fiction represents the most vibrant stage in the development of Chinese fiction and is character- ized by its sensibility to social and political issues (Aying, 1996: 1-4). Lu Xun in his Zhongguo xiaoshuo shilue (A brief history of Chinese fiction) also describes fiction written after the Boxer Rebellion that took place around 1900 as "fiction of condemnation" (qianze xiaoshuo) to specify late Qing fiction’s function in exposing social problems and providing criticism (Lu Xun, 2005: 291). To date, both Lu Xun and Aying’s views are still widely accepted and their works are con- sidered some of the most important sources on the study of late Qing fiction . 242 of 163 222 For other discussions on late Qing fiction, See Shi Meng, 1993: 1-34, Chen Pingyuan, 2005: 1-32, 254-284, Yang 242 Lianfen 2003: 54-83, Xie Zhaoxin 2003: 10-20. Although sinologists generally have no problem recognizing the significance of late Qing fiction in terms of its historical specificity and contribution to the development of modern Chi- nese literature, debates always arise when scholars attempt to categorize late Qing fiction under the framework of modern Chinese literature. The question that whether or not one can consid 243 - er late Qing fiction part of modern Chinese literature always appears to be a conundrum that in- vites endless debates. Milena Doleželová-Velingerová, for example, argues in her The Chinese Novel at the Turn of the Century that late Qing fiction should be regarded as a prefigurement of, as well as a transition to, modern Chinese fiction, because Late Qing fiction writers have devel- oped qualities of modern Chinese literature that later blossom in the May Fourth Movement— such as the construction of fiction as a literary form and the use of the vernacular language in literary production (Doleželová-Velingerová, 1980: 3-15) . 244 David Der-wei Wang continues Doleželová-Velingerová’s inquiry into late Qing fiction by exploring the thematic diversity of late Qing’s literary world in Fin-de-Siecle Splendor: Re- pressed Modernities of Late Qing Fiction, 1849-1911. Wang, however, argues that late Qing fic- tion is not merely a prelude or transition to modern Chinese literature, but the most prosperous stage of Chinese literary modernism (Wang, 1997: 16). He contends that the diversified literary representation of late Qing fiction is repressed and marginalized by the high-minded May Fourth of 164 222 Ever since C.T. Xia publishes A History of Modern Chinese Fiction (1961) in which he designates 1917 as the 243 inception of literary modernism in China, modern Chinese fiction becomes a more recognized discipline in the United States. Xia’s choice of 1917 is understandable since that is the year Hu Shi publishes “A preliminary dis- cussion of literature reform” (Wenxue gailiang chuyi) in the first issue of La Jeunesse (or New Youth; Xin Qingn- ian), a literary magazine launched in Shanghai in 1915. Together with Chen Duxiu’s “On literary reform” (Wenx- ue gailiang chuyi), the two articles play important roles in shaping the direction of the New Literature Movement that took place during the late 1910s and 1920s. Oldřich Král and Zlata Černá publish a three-volume work under the title, Contributions to the Study of the Rise 244 and Development of Modern Literature in Asia, between 1965 and 1970, outlining the historical condition of the rise of modern literature in Asia. modern writers who are overly-concerned about the political fate of China while the het 245 - eroglossia of literary themes of late Qing fiction can help us imagine an alternative literary modernity different from the one depicted by May Fourth writers (21). David Der-wei Wang’s path-breaking work on late Qing fiction has proven to be an indispensable source to the study of modern Chinese literature. Although both Wang and Doleželová-Velingerová’s approaches to late Qing fiction are useful in exploring the richness of late Qing’s literary world, the question of what constitutes “the national” (guo) in the excessive amounts of discourses on fiction in the late Qing period is relatively under-explored . In fact, many late Qing writers had been using the 246 term “guo” in different contexts to refer to different objects such as family clan, ancient king- dom, nation, dynasty, and even the boundary of literature. The concept of “the national” in the late Qing period is therefore ambiguous and vague since this concept is often infused and con- fused with the dynastic worldview of ancient Chinese empires. To what extent is this term guo used to refer to a cultural identity that does not necessarily involve a national boundary, and to what extent is the term deployed to denote a clearly-defined nation-state characterized by an in- herent and limited sovereignty ? These questions are yet to be fully investigated in our inquiry 247 into late Qing literary production. To fully carry out this project, one will need to conduct a de- of 165 222 C.T. Xia summarizes May Fourth writers’ mentality as “obsession with China” in his “Obsession with China: 245 The Moral Burden of Modern Chinese Literature,” an article published in 1967. See Xia, 1999: 538. David Der- wei Wang argues that many contemporary interpreters of modern Chinese literature have shown an obsession with the “May Fourth spirit” even greater than the May Fourth writers themselves. See Wang, 1995: 34. In fact, whether we consider late Qing fiction to be the forerunner or the true representative of modern Chinese 246 literature, the expression of “modern Chinese literature” has already indicated a “national” framework in under- standing late Qing literary practices. In this chapter, I want to subject this framework to examination and investi- gate the conceptualization of the national in late Qing literary production. Benedict Anderson argues in his Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism 247 that a nation is always imagined as limited and sovereign. A modern nation-state is thus an embodiment of an in- herent yet limited sovereignty that characterizes a nation as a political community which is different from a divine- ly-ordained dynastic realm (Anderson: 2006: 5-7). tailed textual analysis of an excessive amount of literary works produced throughout the late Qing period. In this chapter, I only aim to examine a couple of writers whose writings have changed and reshaped the direction of Chinese fiction’s development. ! The dawn of national consciousness: from John Fryer’s “contemporary new fiction” to Liang Qichao’s “new fiction” ! While Kang Youwei and Liang Qichao are often considered the primary Chinese intellec- tuals who tried to articulate the social function of fiction, the call for a new form of fiction that aims at exposing social problems had emerged in China as early as the mid 1890s. On May 25 th 1895, John Fryer (1839-1928), a former British missionary who worked as a translator in the Jiangnan Machine Manufacturing General Bureau (jiangnan jiqi zhizao zongju) , announced in 248 Shen Bao a call for submission of fiction that aims at reflecting current social problems in 249 China. In this announcement, “Qiuzhu shixin xiaoshuo qi” (Call for submission of contemporary new fiction), Fryer writes: ! The three most serious social problems that the Chinese nation (zhonghua) faces nowa- days are opium, the examination essay, and foot-binding. If we do not solve these prob- lems, there is no prospect for this nation’s ever attaining wealth and power. I invite all of 166 222 The Jiangnan Machine Manufacturing General Bureau is one of the first modern arsenals established by the Qing 248 court during the mid-nineteenth century. It was founded by a high-ranked Chinese official, Zeng Guofang, and was later run by another high-profile official, Li Hongzhang. Both Zeng and Li are among of the first group of Chinese literati who openly advocated for the modernization of China. Better known in English as Shanghai News, Shen Bao is a British-run Chinese newspaper published in Shanghai 249 between 1872 and 1949. Chinese writers who aspire to strengthen our country (benguo) to write contemporary and interesting fiction (xinchu xiaoshuo) that expose these social problems and provide solu- tions. (Chen, 2009: 24) 250 ! Anyone who is familiar with Liang Qichao’s far-reaching article in 1902 (“On the relation be- tween fiction and mass management”) in which he argues for the concept of “new fiction” that is primarily defined by its political function, will immediately notice the similarity between Liang’s neologism and Fryer’s “contemporary new fiction.” Both authors stress on the potential of fic- tion in reflecting as well as changing social reality, and both authors seem to emphasize the nov- elty of this form of fiction . Although the idea that fiction should deal with the real and has the 251 potential to sway people’s emotions already existed in the early seventeenth century , Patrick 252 Hanan argues that Fryer did tease out a new quality of fiction that was never discussed before —“Fryer was asking the novel to perform a function it had rarely had in China—to treat and solve intractable problems of national concern. It was a conception of fiction that he must have known from the nineteenth-century English and American novel, but one that was scarcely famil- iar to his Chinese audience” (Hanan, 2003: 134). Although there is no direct proof that Liang drew his idea of “new fiction” from Fryer, it seems certain that Liang’s claim of the political of of 167 222 This translation is modified according to Patrick Hanan’s translation. See Hanan, 2003: 131. 250 In “The New Novel before the New Novel: John Fryer’s Fiction Contest,” Patrick Hanan also suggests the possi 251 - ble connection between John Fryer’s announcement in 1895 and Liang Qichao’s proposal of “new fiction” in 1902. Hanan argues: “What he [Fryer] was seeking was fiction with a social purpose; it had to attack, as well as suggest remedies for, what he saw as the three great afflictions of Chinese society: opium, the examination essay, and foot-binding.” See Zeitlin and Liu, 2003: 125. As early as 1621, Feng Menglong had argued in Yushi Mingyan (Illustrious Words to Instruct the World) that 252 fiction has greater power than the Confucian classics to influence common people. In 1629, Ling Mengchu also emphasized in the preface to his Chuke Paian jingqi (First Cutting of Strikingly Strange Wondrous Stories) that fiction is not just the pure imagination of the author but the representation of social reality. See Hanan, 134. fiction is not entirely a new one. In fact, before Liang became a well-known critic after he fled to Japan in 1899, his understanding of fiction is not really different from Fryer’s (Chen, 2009: 25). For example, in “Bianfa tongyi” (On reform), an article Liang published in Shiwu Bao (con- temporary news) in 1897, he also emphasized fiction’s function of exposing contemporary social problems: ! Fiction…can illuminate the teaching of sages and represent social reality. Reading fiction helps the readers develop a sense of national humiliation (guochi) and bring to their atten- tion other social issues such as corruption of government, the strangling system of imper- ial examination, the addictive opium, and the cruelty of foot-binding. Fiction is capable of exposing all social anomalies and revitalizing the deteriorating society.” (Chen, 1997: 12-3) ! It is interesting to see that, like Fryer, Liang also considers fiction as a form of writing efficient in not only exposing but also bringing to the public’s attention some of the most serious social problems in China such as the system of imperial examination, opium and foot-binding. We cannot but suspect that what Liang later popularized as “new fiction” may have its root in Fryer’s earlier enlightening notion of “contemporary new fiction.” However, what makes these two critics think that they need to distinguish a new form of fiction from an old one? Is it simply because they discover a potential in fiction to describe and thereby expose social injustices and problems? It is my argument that the quality of new fiction is not really distinguished by its alleged function of exposing social problems, but the ways in of 168 222 which a vague concept of “the national” is implied and built into the discussion of fiction. It is interesting to see that as early as 1895 Fryer had tried to elaborate the social function of fiction under a national framework. He uses terms such as “zhonghua” (which can be vaguely translat- ed as Chinese nation, Chinese culture, or China) and “benguo” (our country) in his elaboration of fiction and appeals to his readers by relating fiction with the fate of a nation. Fryer also empha- sizes that there is no prospect for a nation’s future if the existing social problems are not solved. That is to say, whatever social problems that Fryer has in mind are by nature “national problems” that generate greater consequences. Likewise, Liang Qichao also establishes a connection be- tween fiction and a nation in his article in 1897. He argues that fiction can help the readers de- velop “a sense of national humiliation” and bring to the public’s attention China’s existing social problems. What matters in Liang’s argument is therefore not what these social problems are but that these problems ought to be recognized as national indignity and felt as a collective shame. The narrative of fiction’s social function described by these two authors conjures up an image of a collective community that presupposes the existence of a national framework. ! Ten thousand nations vs. international relations: the concept of sovereignty in Wanguo gongfa ! Although fiction was already discussed in a national framework, it does not mean that the modern concept of a nation-state, defined by its inherent and limited sovereignty, was already established in the late Qing period. Scholars such as Lydia Liu and Peter Zarrow have pointed out that the concept of sovereignty was first introduced to China through treaty-making, especial- ly after the second Opium War that took place between 1856 and 1860. After the Qing govern- of 169 222 ment was defeated during the Opium War, the Qing court was forced to found a foreign affair office (Zongli yamen) in 1961 to handle diplomatic issues with the British Empire. Although the establishment of this office can be viewed as the first Chinese institution that has the function of a sovereign state, the concept of sovereignty as a legal framework understood in a global system was yet to be established at the time. It was not until the publication of Wanguo gongfa (Public laws of ten thousand nations)—the Chinese translation of Henry Wheaton’s Elements of In- ternational Law—in 1864 that the concept of sovereignty was more clearly introduced to the Chinese officials. W.A.P. Martin (also known as Ding Weiliang), an American Presbyterian mis- sionary from Indiana who was sent by the Foreign Mission Board to China in 1849, played a huge role in translating this work. During Martin’s stay in China, he and his Chinese colleagues translated several works of Western political economy into Chinese. Among all the works trans- lated, Wanguo gongfa is the most important one since it is the first book published in China that introduces the concept of sovereignty within an international framework The importance of 253 this book can also be observed from the fact that it was published under the auspice of the for- eign affairs office and serves as a practical guide to Chinese diplomats (Zarrow, 2009: 239). Al- though Wanguo gongfa is understood as an important work that challenges and changes the Qing court’s political imagination of the world, the initial reception of this work is quiet mixed and reserved. Lydia Liu, for example, has noted that when Martin’s translation was first presented to of 170 222 Many Presbyterian missionaries sent to China during the nineteenth century had learned about the Jesuit priests’ 253 strategies in spreading Christianity during the seventeenth century. Matteo Ricci is the most famous figure who sought to spread religious doctrines by introducing secular knowledge to the Chinese elite. W.A.P Martin is one of the missionaries inspired by Ricci’s stories in China. Martin’s translation of Elements of International Law can also be viewed as an effort in creating the Chinese elites’ interest in Western world by translating secular knowl- edge from the West to China. See Cheung, 2002. Lydia Liu also points out that Martin’s choice of Elements of International Law is influenced by the American policies to circulate this work around the world to ensure the national interest of the United States. See Liu, 2004: 116-7. Prince Gong, the head of the foreign affairs office, he complained, “Examining this book, I found it generally deals with alliances, laws of war, and other things. Particularly it has laws on the outbreak of war and the check and balance between states. Its words and sentences are confused; we cannot clearly understand it unless it is explained in person” (Liu, 2004: 125). Liu argues that Prince Gong’s criticism cannot be simply taken as a commentary on literary style but “a re- action to the relative absence of evidence for the hypothetical equivalence between English and Chinese” (Ibid). It is obvious that Prince Gong found value in this work, but the lack of a corre- sponding concept of a sovereign state in Chinese makes the translation of this work rather unin- telligible . Like Liu, Peter Zarrow also focuses on the concept of sovereignty and emphasizes 254 the importance of this work in introducing Western political economy to China. Zarrow careful- ly follows Wheaton’s logic in conceptualizing a state from a legal perspective. He spends a lengthy paragraph discussing Wheaton’s definition of a state and extends his discussion to John Fryer’ translation of another book, William and Robert Chambers’s Political Economy for Use in Schools and for Private Instruction in 1885, to elaborate Fryer’s contribution to political mod- ernization in China . 255 Although scholars such as Liu and Zarrow basically agree that the modern concept of the state was introduced to China through Western missionaries’ translation of political economy as early as the 1880s, what remains unclear is how this concept of a sovereign state was actually understood by Chinese intellectuals. I argue that the Chinese’ understanding of “a sovereign of 171 222 As Peter Zarrow argues, “Late Qing intellectuals could not simply deduce the state from observation. The state 254 requires acts of imagination” (Zarrow, 2009: 235). Zarrow emphasizes that both Wheaton and the Chambers brothers have treated the state as a natural product of 255 cultural evolution and also a secular construction different from any transcendental cosmological order (Ibid, 241). state” was still ambiguous during the nineteenth century and the conceptual equivalence between the English word “state” and the Chinese term “guo” was yet to be established. If one reads through Wanguo gongfa, one will find that W.A.P. Martin is already using the Chinese term “guo” to articulate the Western concept of the “state” which is carefully defined by Henry Wheaton as a legal system that is different from any civil association, criminal organization, no- madic tribe, or nation. However, when this translated work was introduced by the Chinese offi- cials, it is obvious that this new use of “guo” was still understood through the traditional dynastic worldview of Chinese empires. In the first preface to Wanguo gongfa, Dong Xun, a Qing court’s official, writes: ! Emperor Yu’s meeting at Tushan where thousands of tribal kings carried jade objects and silk fabrics to honor the emperor (Tushan zhihui, zhi yumian zhe wanguo) once hap 256 - pened somewhere on this land. The details of this story are no longer accessible nowa- days and this is not an exaggerated warning from a historian. If one reaches out to the world outside the Nine Provinces (jiuzhou), one will find numerous states (guo). A state is not a state without the binding of laws. This is why Ding Weiliang (W.A.P Martin) translated Wanguo gongfa. ! Although Dong Xun recognizes the significance of Wanguo gongfa in providing a new and legal definition of a state (“guo”) and perceives the emergence of a new global order in which China is of 172 222 Emperor Yu’s meeting at Tushan is the founding event of the Xia dynasty and the exchange of jade objects and 256 silk fabrics (yumian) between the emperor and the tribal kings is a symbolic ritual performed to honor the power of the emperor. This image of exchanging jades and silks later became a literary expression for peace and harmo- ny. no longer the center of the world, it remains unclear that if Dong considers the Qing government a “state” among many others or still a dynastic realm within which other “states” are situated. In short, we are left unsure that if the expression of “ten thousand states” (wanguo) was already un- derstood by late Qing Chinese intellectuals as the modern translation of “international relations.” Zhang Qing argues that the classical Chinese expression of wanguo was reintroduced by Western missionaries during the seventeenth century to integrate “China” into Western cartography. For example, Matteo Ricci has invoked the Chinese term, wanguo, in his Kunyu Wanguo Quantu (A map of ten thousand states of the world) in 1602 to introduce Western geography to the Chinese emperor. Sabatino de Ursis, another Italian missionary who traveled to China in the seventeenth century, also mentiones a few works that contain the expression of “wanguo” in his letters to a Chinese official. Giulio Alenio, an Italian missionary who was active in China during the seven- teenth century, published Wanguo Quantu (A complete map of ten thousand countries) in 1623 based on Matteo Ricci’s Kunyu Wanguo Quantu. Although the expression of “wanguo” was 257 used by Western missionaries to articulate scientific disciplines such as geography and cartogra- phy, the ultimate aim of these missionaries is to sustain and spread the Christian value of univer- sal truth, which is incongruous with the Confucian cosmological worldview. When the expres- sion of “wanguo” is actually received by Chinese intellectuals, Zhang Qing argues, it ultimately refers to a hierarchical order of a Chinese empire (Zhang, 2006: 57) . 258 of 173 222 See Zhang, 2006: 55-57. 257 This understanding continues through the nineteenth century. Although Wanguo gongfa provides a different un 258 - derstanding of “guo” from being a geographical and cartographical concept to a political and economical notion, the Chinese court was still unable to conceptualize itself as a sovereign state since the concept of sovereignty was still absent in the minds of most Chinese intellectuals. In the second preface to Wanguo gongfa, Zhang Sigui, another Qing government official, writes: ! I have observed the trend of the world (xianxia) in which China (zhonghua) is the model for all regions (shoushan zhiqu). Thousands of states (wanguo) have come to honor our emperor from all directions and the number of these states is beyond calculation. In addi- tion, these states such as England, France, Russia and America resemble the assorted states (lieguo) during the Spring and Autumn Period. ! As one of Qing court’s early diplomats, Zhang’s understanding of the term wanguo might give us another clue of how the framework of international relation was actually understood by the Qing government. Zhang not only compares Western countries with the assorted states in ancient Chi- na (770 BC-476 BC), but also considers China to be the most civilized and refined “region” in the world. As this classical expression—“shoushan zhiqu” (the model region)—indicates, China was still understood as the center of the world and the cradle of civilization. It is obvious that the concept of China as a state independent from and equal to other states was still yet to be estab- lished at the time . 259 ! ! of 174 222 Due to the lack of a sufficient understanding of sovereignty, Chinese officials at that time can only rely on an 259 - cient expressions such as the “nine provinces” (jiuzhou), “central nation” (zhonghua), and “all under heaven” (tianxia) to refer to the Qing dynasty Negotiating “the dynastic” with “the national”: Kang Youwei’s petition letter and the missing national framework of “Chinese fiction” ! The confusion between “guo” and “dynasty” persists through the last decade of the nine- teenth century. Some of the most reform-minded intellectuals at the time even use this term guo to refer to the Qing dynasty. One interesting example is Kang Youwei’s petition letter to the Qing emperor in 1895. After the Qing Empire was defeated by Japan and forced to sign the Treaty of Shimonoseki, Kang Youwei rallied a group of like-minded scholars to sign a petition letter to the Guangxu Emperor, demanding a national reform that changes the fate of the nation. In this letter, Kang reiterates terms such as “national fate” (guoming), “national 260 issue” (guoshi), “national crisis” (guohuan), and “national people” (guoren); however, his under- standing of “the national” was nevertheless influenced by the dynastic worldview of ancient Chinese empires. For example, Kang writes in “Shang qingdi dier shu” (The second petition let- ter to the Qing emperor): ! Why will the ceding of Taiwan [to Japan] lead to the fall the world (tianxia)? The people in the world will think that if their beloved imperial court (chaoting) can give away Tai- wan easily, the court might as well abandon them someday. The great Qing nation (da qingguo) will not be saved if we keep ceding our lands to other countries…We did not resist against Japan nor castigate it for taking Taiwan. Other barbarian nations (zhuyi) of 175 222 The main points of this reform include: modernizing the Qing Empire’s imperial army, cancelling the Treaty of 260 Shimonoseki, refusing to have a peace talk with Japan, and moving the capital to Xi’an. Although this petition was unsuccessful, it did bring the issue of reform to the public’s attention. Other intellectuals such as Tan Sitong, Yan Fu, Huang Zunxian and Liang Qichao all voiced their support to Kang’s proposal of reform. will think China (zhongguo) weak and submissive. The French will take Yunnan and Guizhou and the British Tibet and Canton. The Russian will take Xinjiang. The German, Australian, Italian, Japanese, Portuguese, Dutch will soon follow and prey on us (Kang, 2007: 32). ! It is interesting to note that Kang Youwei deploys a variety of expression to refer to the Qing dy- nasty. Phrases such as “world” (tianxia), “imperial court” (chaoting), “great Qing nation” (da qingguo), and “China” (zhongguo) are all deployed to denote the dynastic realm of the Manchurian empire. Moreover, the expression of “barbarian nations” (zhuyi), an ancient Chinese term for all non-Han-Chinese tribal kingdoms in tribunal relations with ancient Chinese empires, reveals the dynastic worldview that Kang still held on to at the time. It is clear that there is no fundamental difference between the dynastic and the national in Kang’s writing. The Qing dy- nasty is on the one hand understood as a country comparable to others such as Germany, Italy, Japan and Netherland, but it is on the other considered a dynastic realm whose territory is in- finitely expansive . 261 Such a dynastic worldview is reflected in the epistemology of fiction in the late Qing pe- riod. Although Chinese writers in the 1890s had already started to discuss the social function of fiction, no one had yet to conceptualize “Chinese fiction” (zhongguo xiaoshuo) as a literary form indicative of a national literary framework. As a matter of fact, these two Chinese terms —“zhongguo” and “xiaoshuo”—were never paired together in the discussion of fiction through- of 176 222 Kang also designed an ambiguous expression of “national dynastic law” (guochao fadu) to refer to the legal sys 261 - tem of ancient China in his second letter to the Qing emperor (Shang qingdi dier shu). out the nineteenth century . Before 1900, Chinese writers, if not deploying the rhetoric of the 262 “new” or “contemporary” to describe the social function of fiction, had deployed a variety of ex- pression to specify the tradition of fiction in the Chinese context. For example, in “Benguan fuyin shuobu yuanqi” (Announcing our policy to print a supplementary fiction section), an article published in 1897, Yan Fu and Xia Zengyou use “fiction of minor history” (baishi xiaoshuo) to refer to traditional Chinese fiction . In an article published in 1897, Qiu Weixuan uses “our 263 dynasty’s fiction” (wochao xiaoshuo) to refer to Chinese fiction in general (Chen, 1997: 14). In a catalogue of Japanese books compiled by Kang Youwei in 1898, Kang also uses “our dynasty’s fiction” to compare the Chinese and Western literary tradition . In the same year, Liang Qichao 264 also published “Yiyin zhengzhi xiaoshuo xu” (preface to the translation and printing of political fiction) in which he mentions “central kingdom fiction” (zhongtu xiaoshuo) to conceptualize the tradition of Chinese narratives. From these examples we can see that the concept of “Chinese fiction” as a literary form indicative of a national literary framework was yet to be established largely because the dynastic worldview was yet to be replaced by the modern conception of a nation-state. Late Qing intellectuals’ imagination of the national was still channeled through and haunted by the dynastic heritage of ancient Chinese empires. ! of 177 222 It was not until 1904 that Su Manshu mentions “zhongguo xiaoshuo” for the first time in an article, “Xiaoshuo 262 conghua” (miscellaneous notes on fiction), in which he writes: “There are few works of Chinese fiction (zhong- guo xiaoshuo) that were persistently and carefully written.” (Chen, 1997: 69) “Baishi” (minor or unofficial history) is an ancient Chinese term associated with the term xiaoshuo during the 263 Han dynasty. In this work, “wochao xiaoshuo” (our dynasty’s fiction) is used several times along with “riben xiaoshuo,” (Ja 264 - panese fiction) “ouzhou xiaoshuo” (European fiction) and “chaoxian xiaoshuo” (Korean fiction) to create an im- age of a global literary system. State and constitutionalism: Liang Qichao’s conception of the Chinese term guo ! After the failure of the Hundred Days' Reform, the reform’s two primary advocates, Kang Youwei and Liang Qichao, fled to Canada and Japan respectively. While Kang remained loyal to the Qing emperor and established the “Protect the Emperor Society” (Baohuanghui) in Canada, Liang had a chance to meet with Dr. Sun Yat-sen, whose ultimate goal was to overthrow the Qing dynasty and establish a new republic. Although Liang was not fully converted to Dr. Sun Yat- sen’s revolutionary party, his view on the future of China as a modern nation-state, instead of a dynasty, began to be reflected in his writings. In “Lun jingshi guomin jingzheng zhi dashi ji zhongguo qiantu” (On the recent trend of national competition and the future of China), an arti- cle published on October 15 th 1899, Liang began to separate the concept of “citizen” (guomin) from “country” (guojia) . He argues that the concept of a country as a private property has 265 long existed in the China, but the concept of “citizen” as a collective identity was never known to Chinese. It should be noted that the term, guojia, which is now understood as the modern Chinese term for the state, had a more abstract and ambiguous meaning in ancient China. The term was used to refer to a variety of powers such as “kingdom,” “assorted state,” “family clan” and “dy- nastic realm.” It was not until the early twentieth century that this term was fully conceptualized as the Chinese equivalent to the Western notion of the state. Liang emphasizes that ancient coun- tries are merely private properties of family clans (yijia sichan) while the people in majority have of 178 222 Both guo and guojia are modern Chinese terms for state or country. The two terms were used interchangeably in 265 Liang Qichao’s writings and difficult to differentiate from each other. The meanings of these two terms still over- lap nowadays and are often used to refer to the same concept. no real control over a country’s fate . He then explains the distinction between the ancient and 266 modern country by the difference between “personal warfare” (yiren zhizhan) and “national wa- fare” (yiguo zhizhan). He argues that the former is waged by ancient emperors such as Qin Shi Huang, Genghis Khan, and Alexandra the Great to satisfy personal goals while the later is waged for the purpose of a nation’s survival. Liang then points out that the current warfare among Western countries is the result of national competition and therefore is to be understood as na- tional warfare . We can see that as Liang distinguishes the personal from the national, he also 267 separates a dynasty from a nation-state by indicating that the latter is only possible when it is recognized by its people. Liang’s conceptual distinction between country and citizen thus signals an important step that moves away from a dynastic worldview to a modern framework of in- ternational relations. It is from this perspective that the cultivation of “national people” is crucial to the future of China. Liang deplores in his article, “Alas, our China does not recognizes its people. Since the people are not recognized in this country, the current national competition is wrongly conceived [by the Qing government] as a family business” (Liang: 1997: 73). Liang may be criticizing the lack of national consciousness among the Chinese people, but his empha- sis on the recognition of the people as the base of a country signals an important change of the Chinese conception of the state. The term guojia is no longer understood as “family-state,” which is a private property over which people have no real control, but “nation-state” in which the nation as a collective whole strives for its own end. of 179 222 Although Liang distinguishes the ancient country from the modern one, he argues that the modern country 266 evolves from and is a result of the enlargement of the ancient country. Liang’s differentiation of an ancient coun- try from a modern one suggests that he is already delineating a contour of a Chinese state, whose history is imag- ined as unbroken and linear, expanding from the present all the way back to an ancient origin (Liang, 1997: 69). Liang even resortes to Social Darwinism’s doctrine—“survival of the fittest”—to explain the international com 267 - petition. In 1900, Liang published another article, “Shaonian zhongugo shuo” (The young China), in which he provides a clearer definition of the state: ! What is a state (guo)? A state consists of territory and people. It means that the people can govern matters within the territory in which they live. The people make the laws and observe them. A state has sovereignty and everyone adheres to it. Everyone in the state is the bearer of sovereignty as well as the follower of it (77). ! It is interesting to note that in the previous article Liang is still struggling to clarify the difference between the ancient and the modern form of a state. In this article, Liang is already confident in defining a state as a political community and particularly, a legal entity as he also emphasizes on the power of sovereignty in legitimizing the status of a state and its people. This conceptualiza- tion of a state from a legal perspective is important since it allows Liang to further separates China as a “modern-nation-state-to-be” from China as a “dynastic empire.” In the next two years, Liang published a series of articles explaining the importance of establishing a legal sys- tem. For example, in “Lixian fayi” (On constitution), an article published on June 7 th 1901, Liang writes: ! What is a constitution (xianfa)? It is a legal document established to last a thousand years. Every member in a country—the monarch, the official, and the citizen—must abide by the constitution since it is the foundation of all laws. Any enactment or amend- ment of a policy in the future will need to be based on this constitution. In the original of 180 222 Western language, the term is THE CONSTITUTION (sic) which can be translated as the constitutive force (yuanqi) since a constitution is that which constitutes a state. (100) ! By introducing the concept of constitution to the Chinese society, Liang is already imagining a modern China whose authority is no longer centered on the emperor but the constitution. As Liang quotes in English, it is the “THE CONSTITUTION” that lays the foundation of a country and legitimizes the status of every member in its society. Liang then suggests that the govern- ment should send envoys to Japan and Western countries to learn from these countries experi- ences in establishing constitutionalism. It is clear by this time Liang has already defined a state within a legal framework in which a constitution plays an important role . To further explain 268 the importance of a constitutional system in establishing a modern state, Liang also published “Lun lifachuan” (On legislation) on February 22 nd 1902 in which he explains the theory of the separation of government’s powers. He comments, “The separation of legislative, administra- tive, and judicial powers has long been implemented in Western countries and Japan. However, such kind of political theory was never invented in the thousands years of history in China” (245). Liang also draws on the political theory of Montesquieu to explain the importance of legislation in this article. On March 10 th 1902, Liang published “Lun zhengfu yu renmin zhi chuanxian” (On the rights and limits of the government and people) in which he introduces Bertrand Russell’s discussion on the formation of a government and John Start Mills’s On Liber- ty to explain the mutual relation between the government and people . On September 2 nd and 269 of 181 222 Liang suggests that a Bureau of Translation should be established to translate the Western knowledge of politics. 268 For more discussion on late Qing intellectuals’ reception of John Mill’s On Liberty, see Huang Ko-wu, 1995. 269 Octorber 16 th in the same year, Liang also published “Zhengzhixue xueli zhiyan” (On the theory of political studies), in which he discusses the possibility of a Chinese constitutionalism that can accommodate the existence of an emperor. It is obvious that Liang’s understanding of a national framework is already closely tied up with a mature and well-established constitutional system. ! Imagining a new Chinese state: Liang Qichao’s The Future of New China ! It is under these circumstances and the desire to reconstruct national consciousness in China that Liang invents the concept of “new fiction” in 1902. On November 14 th 1902, Liang launched a literary magazine in Yokohama, Japan—Xin xiaoshuo (New fiction) , in which he 270 advocates a highly-politicized form of fiction that aims at fostering the national spirit and civiliz- ing the people . He argues in “Lun xiaoshuo yu qunzhi zhi guanxi” (On the relationship be 271 - tween fiction and mass management), an article published in the first issue of the magazine: ! If one intends to renovate the people of a nation, one must first renovate its fiction. Therefore, to renovate morality, one must renovate fiction; to renovate religion, one must renovate fiction; to renovate politics, one must renovate fiction; to renovate social cus- toms, one must renovate fiction; to renovate learning and arts, one must renovate fiction; of 182 222 Although Liang Qichao’s New Fiction is arguably the first Chinese literary magazine that publishes new styles of 270 fiction, Chen Qingru argues that Han Bangqing’s Haishang Qishu (Book of Shanghai Wonders), published be- tween 1892 and 1893, is the first literary magazine that publishes serialized fiction in China. The only difference between Liang Qichao’s New Fiction and Han Bangqing’s Book of Shanghai Wonders is that the former mostly publishes vernacular Chinese works while the latter mostly publishes classical Chinese works (Chen, 2009: 171-2.) See “Xin xiaoshuo diyi hou” (On the first issue of New Fiction). 271 and to renovate even the human mind and remold its character, one must renovate fiction. Why is this so? This is because fiction has a profound power over the way of man (Den- ton, 1996: 74). ! If we compare Liang’s argument in this article with John Fryer’s earlier announcement on Shen Bao in which Fryer calls for a new form of fiction that aims to describe the “national problem” of China, we will find that Liang’s idea of “new fiction” is also closely connected with a country’s fate except that this new form of fiction is now envisioned to fundamentally transform a naiton in its every aspect. In particular, the potential of fiction to carry and disseminate political ideolo- gies leads Liang to believe that fiction is the most effective tool in civilizing and transforming a nation. Indeed, many scholars have correctly pointed out that Liang’s conceptualization of new fiction is mainly a result of his political agenda, and that the so-called new fiction is exemplified by the genre of “political fiction” (zhengzhi xiaoshuo) that Liang introduces from Japan to China. Kwan Sze Pui Uganda, for example, argues that Liang’s idea of new fiction was developed after he went to Japan where he witnessed the success of Japanese political fiction in propagating po- litical ideas during the Freedom and People’s Right Movement (Kwan, 2006: 364). Chen Pingyuan even argues that political discourses can be found in almost all genres of new fiction (Chen, 2005: 11). In this part of my paper, I want to further explore the political nature of new fiction by examining how the concept of the national is described and radicalized in Liang’s writ- ings. In “Zhongguo weiyi zhi wenxue bao—xin xiaoshuo” (The sole literary journal in China: New Fiction), an article that Liang published in Xinmin congbao (New citizen newspaper) in of 183 222 1902, Liang explains: “The goal of New Fiction is to foster political consciousness and patrio- tism through the works of novelists. Any obscene language that begets moral decadence should be abandoned…All published works are carefully written to maintain the reputation of Chinese literature” (Chen, 1997: 41). The expression of “Chinese literature” is interesting here because it is mentioned in Liang’s writings for the first time after he published a series of political essays in the late 1890s. Judging by the way Liang advertises New Fiction as “the sole literary journal in China,” we cannot but suspect that what he describes as “Chinese literature” is not exactly the kind of Chinese literature that is mediated through May Fourth writers’ construction of “literary histories” in the 1920s and 1930s . 272 Although Liang may already be imagining a national framework specific to Chinese liter- ature at the time, the actual content of this framework remains rather vague and ambiguous. The discrepancy between the Chinese tradition of fiction and the imagination of a new form of litera- ture is obviously larger than what Liang has anticipated. He writes in “Xin xiaoshuo diyihao” (On the first issue of New Fiction), another article published in New citizen newspaper: “the form of traditional fiction does not fit with the conception of new fiction.” The difficulty 273 of negotiating the old and the new form of fiction is expressed not only in the way fiction is writ- of 184 222 The construction of literary history became an important issue during the New Literature Movement. At that 272 time, May Fourth writers were thinking about the possibility of a new form of Chinese literature written in vernac- ular Chinese rather than classical Chinese. This effort to define a new form of Chinese literature led some of the most important writers at the time to reconstruct a Chinese literary history that favors the use of vernacular Chi- nese. For example, Zhou Zuoren published “Zhongguo xin wenxue de yuanliu” (The origins of new Chinese litera- ture) in 1932 and argues that China has a rather long history of vernacular literature and that the New Literature Movement in the 1920s is only a continuation of the literary production during the Ming dynasty. The reconstruc- tion of literary histories during the 1920s and 1930s is another important topic that deserves to be further investi- gated. See “Xin xiaoshuo diyihao” (On the first issue of New Fiction). In this article, Liang reiterates the political sig 273 - nificance and mission of new fiction. He argues that fiction has been considered the primary form of literature in the Western world but not in China. ten, but also in the way it is categorized. While authors in the past spend their whole lives com- pleting and perfecting one single work, authors in the late Qing period are often required to pro- duce works on a monthly basis. The changing condition of production of fiction influences the way new fiction is structured and written. For example, if an episode of a single work is to be published monthly, a coherent narrative must be presented in each episode in which a climax is to be reached to sustain the readers’ enthusiasm in reading the next issue of the magazine. Be- sides the changing pattern of narration due to the requirement of modern publication industry , 274 the rather inventive categories of new fiction proposed by Liang also suggest that what he refers to as “Chinese literature” at the time is a tentative and experimental concept. In “The sole liter- ary journal in China: New Fiction,” Liang proposes fifteen categories of new fiction: “tuhua” (illustration), “lunshuo” (theoretical discourses), “lishi xiaoshuo” (historical fiction), “zhengzhi xiaoshuo” (political fiction), “zheli kexue xiaoshuo” (philosophical and scientific fic- tion), “junshi xiaoshuo” (military fiction), “maoxian xiaoshuo” (adventure fiction),” “zhengtan xiaoshuo” (detective fiction), “xieqing xiaoshuo” (romantic fiction), “yuguai xiaoshuo” (tales of the strange), “zhajiti xiaoshuo” (fiction of the miscellanies),” “chuanqiti xiaoshuo” (marvelous tales), “shijie mingren yishi” (biographies of famous people around the world), “xin yuefu” (new folk songs), and “yueou ji Guangdong xiben” (Cantonese folk songs and drama). This themati- cally-diverse and generically-hybrid list of categories proposed by Liang thus gives us an idea of how “new fiction” was actually conceptualized at the time. Liang mixes fiction with a variety of literary and artistic genres that range from illustration, folk song, drama, to traditional Chinese of 185 222 Chen Pingyuan’s work on the transformation of the narrative pattern in Chinese fiction will give us a more de 274 - tailed discussion on the changing nature of late Qing fiction. See Chen, 2003, 2005. literary genres such as strange and marvelous tales. It is obvious that fiction is understood as an umbrella term to include various artistic forms, and thus the categorization of the content of “new fiction” remains a question that is difficult to answer. For example, although Liang is de- termined to construct a new form of fiction, he is still unable to elaborate the details of each cat- egory. In the category of military fiction, romantic fiction, and marvelous tale, he adds an ad- dendum at the end of the introduction to each category—“details to be determined” (ti wei ding). This uncertainty further reveals the ambiguity of the generic status of new fiction. More impor- tantly, Liang also specifies that this list is by no means limited to the fifteen categories proposed in his article . He writes at the end of the list of categories, “other categories will be added [to 275 this list] timely in the future” (Chen, 1997: 46). Liang’s classification of new fiction is thus an open-ended project that lends itself to an infinite possibility of including and negotiating with other literary and artistic forms. Although Liang’s classification of new fiction is diverse, he obviously emphasizes on the category of “historical fiction” and “political fiction.” In fact, more than half of the article in which Liang categorizes new fiction is devoted to the discussion of these two particular genres. In the section of historical fiction, Liang lists a few works that represent the history of certain Western nations that struggle to become independent nation-states. For example, Ziyou zhong (Liberty bell) tells a story about how American people strived to establish an independent state. Hongshui huo (The disastrous flood) depicts a story of French Revolution and introduces the philosophies of Rousseau and Montesquieu. Dongou nu haojie (Heroines of Eastern Europe) of 186 222 According to Ming-de Lin’s research, throughout all the published issues of New Fiction, Liang comes up with 275 twenty-four categories of new fiction in total. See Lin, 1995: 14-15. tells the story of Sophia Perovskaya, a Russian revolutionary, and her resistance against the Russian empire. Of particular interesting is the way Liang introduces these works with a patriot- ic tone and how he relates the stories with the purpose of generating Chinese nationalism. It is as if the purpose of building an independent state is the raison d'etre of the emergence of new fic- tion, and the classification of new fiction is only to explore and reveal different aspects and ways of generating patriotism. As we have discussed earlier, Liang’s conception of a state is already established and grounded in the framework of constitutionalism by 1900. The pursuit of an independent state based on constitutionalism is reflected in some of the works published in New Fiction. The most noted example is Liang’s own work, Xin zhongguo weilai ji (The Future of New China), a “polit- ical fiction” which Liang claims to have been thinking about writing for five years before it is finally published on New Fiction. He categorizes this work as a political novel and spends a lengthy paragraph summarizing this tentative work. In “The sole literary journal in China: New Fiction,” Liang writes: ! Structurally speaking, this story begins with the independence of a southern province. With the support of social elites of the entire country, a republic government of constitu- tionalism was established and a treaty of equality was signed between the government and foreign countries. A few years later, other provinces also rose to independence and formed several constitutional states. With the help of other social elites, these indepen- dent states established a federation. Later, three other provinces in eastern China also of 187 222 formed a monarchical constitutional state and soon joined the federation (Chen: 1997: 44). ! In this passage, Liang describes several kinds of constitutionalism (the republic, the monarchical, and the federational) in the formation of new China. It is obvious that a constitutional system is the main criterion for Liang’s imagination of a new Chinese state. Although in this passage, the rise of new China is characterized by a series of (fictional) historical events, these events are only briefly mentioned in the actual work of The Future of New China. Instead of artistically describing the rise of new China, this book consists of straightforward political discourses advo- cating for a constitutional state and rather detailed explanations of how a political party is orga- nized. Oftentimes an entire protocol of a political organization is quoted in a dialogue without any paraphrasing. The lack of artistic embellishment in The Future of New China makes this work less like a novel that we are familiar today but a guidebook to modern political practices. The first chapter of The Future of New China begins with a description of an International Peace Conference held in Nanjing sixty years after 1902, the year Liang Qichao published this work. The conference is depicted as an internationally-known and successful event in which the presidents and high-profile officials from countries around the world came to congratulate the Chinese government’s achievement in reform. To celebrate the reform’s success, the Chinese government also organizes a world’s fair in Shanghai in which specialist and experts from every field gather to present the latest development of technology and scholarship. Of particular im- portance is a group Chinese historians from the Imperial Beijing University who come up with a series of lectures on Chinese culture and history at the center of the conference auditorium. The of 188 222 aim of these lectures is to introduce China’s cultural essence to the world. The first chapter ends with the appearance of the master historian, Kong juemin , who is described as the descendent 276 of Confucius and the director of the National Education Association in China. The rest of the novel is nothing but a detailed transcription of Kong’s lecture. The whole work is thus like a complete and verbatim record of an elongated presentation. Although the first chapter is rela- tively short compared to the following ones, the imagination of China as an independent sov- ereign state and an important member in the international community is already vividly de- scribed and fervently anticipated. The second chapter consists of Kong’s lecture on the history of a political party named “Lixian qicheng tongmeng dang” (United League for Constitutionalism), or simply known as “Xianzheng dang” (Constitutional Party), which in Kong’s opinion plays an important role in es- tablishing this new Chinese state. After a brief explanation of the periodization of China, Kong turns to elaborate the importance of constitutionalism. Kong asks his audience, ! Do you know what historical event that contributes the most to the foundation of our new China? There are certainly many historical occurrences that contribute to this. But in my view, the establishment of the United League for Constitutionalism sixty years ago is the most decisive historical event. The reason why this political party is named as such is because its founding members aim to establish constitutionalism in China. ! of 189 222 Juemin literally means “awaking the people.” Liang obviously designes this name to fit the purpose of this nov 276 - el. The names of many other characters in this work are also designed to impersonate certain political ideals. For example, the names of the two characters, Huang keqiang and Lee chubing, who have a lengthy debate in the third chapter, separately mean “enabling strength” and “dispelling illness.” It is obvious that for Liang the implantation of a constitutional system is crucial to the founding of a new state. Liang then spends the rest part of the chapter discussing the significance of this organization as well as the way it contributes to the political development of a new Chinese state. For example, through the character of Kong juemin, Liang mentions that there are three major political parties active in China after the reform—the state sovereignty party, the patriotic party, and the liberal party. However, according to Kong, the leaders of these three parties are the for- mer founding members of the United League for Constitutionalism, and therefore all these par- ties recognize the importance of a constitutional system . Liang’s insistence on constitutional 277 - ism leads him to cite huge chunks of passages from a manual of this political party. He writes, ! Since the founding of this constitutional party is such an important event, I cannot help but recite some of the most important sections in this party’s guidelines. Please pay atten- tion to what I say (Listen, listen)… Section three: our party aims to protect the equal rights of all citizens and estab- lish a constitution for the entire country. Whether monarchical, democratic, or federa- tional, this constitution must be based on the opinions of the people and generated through public discussion. It is by this standard that the party recognizes the complete authority of a constitution. (Commentary note: this section contains no redundant sen- tences and should be read carefully.)… of 190 222 Liang even indicates in a commentary note (meipi), “It is unavoidable that these three parties are all needed for 277 the future of China, just like the two major political parties—one advocates a strong central government and the other favors the separation of powers—are both needed for the United Sates.” The repeated use of traditional Chinese literary notes in this story becomes the only rhetorical device that reminds the readers that The Future of New China is only a work of fiction. Section seven: every Chinese citizen who identifies with our political party’s guideline is eligible to join this party. Section eight: all party members, regardless of one’s gender, class and occupation, enjoy equal rights and have equal obligation. ! By elucidating the importance of a constitutional system through the description of a political party’s guideline, Liang fulfills the designated purpose of “new fiction” as a highly-politicized form of literature that carries the mission of generating national consciousness and patriotism. Moreover, since the goal of creating a Chinese national consciousness cannot be simply realized by introducing the histories of some Western countries, it is equally important to introduce the vocabulary, concepts, and rules of a political organization that are prerequisite to a mature consti- tutional system. Liang’s The Future of New China thus provides the Chinese readers an oppor- tunity to learn and become familiar with modern political rhetoric. By presenting the history of an imaginary constitutional party and describing in details this party’s code of conduct manual, Liang hails the readers to the subject position of a citizen (guomin)—a concept which he believes to be missing in the Chinese society. From this perspective, Liang’s The Future of New China is not only a reaction to his previous political concern, but an agenda itself that works to create a national identity in the late Qing Chinese society. Liang’s determination to introduce the modern political language is further reflected in his quotation of an entire manual of this constitutional party. Liang spends the next four pages providing another complete and verbatim quotation of a guideline of this constitutional party to explicate this party’s political agenda. Eight sections are listed to explain this much desired na- of 191 222 tional reform’s different aspects that range from education, commerce, industries, demography, and geography to the establishment of a constitution. Liang emphasizes that the establishment a mature legal system is one of the most important and urgent issues for the Chinese government. This emphasis on the establishment of a legal system thus reminds us of Dong Xun’s insightful understanding of Wanguo gongfa, published in 1864, in which he claims: “A state is not a state without the binding of laws.” This early enlightening definition of a state that is based on a legal system—a definition that was not really understood by the Chinese intellectuals during the nine- teenth century—was finally picked up and further elaborated by Liang Qichao at the turn of the century. By prioritizing the pursuit of constitutionalism in a novel featured in a literary magazine seeking to transform the national character of China, the development of “new fiction” has at its beginning incorporated an element essential to the construction of “China” as a sovereign state. Liang’s literary—and indeed political—practice of designing a new framework for the writing of fiction has created a space in which the concept of a state can be further imagined, discussed and developed. I would like to conclude by getting back to the debate I mentions at the beginning of this chapter that whether we can consider late Qing fiction part of modern Chinese literature. I be- lieve the answer will ultimate depend on how we evaluate and understand the changing concept of “the national” in the late Qing period. In fact, whether we consider late Qing fiction the fore- runner or the true embodiment of modern Chinese literature, we have already assumed a “nation- al” framework in understanding late Qing literary practice. I argue that our evaluation of late Qing fiction will not be complete if we do not investigate this national framework that has been changing and evolving in the last decades of the Qing dynasty. If we consider Benedict Ander- of 192 222 son’s insights into the cultural invention of modern nation-states, we cannot take this framework of the national for granted in evaluating the historical significance of late Qing fiction that is produced in a context marked by various contradictory social and political forces. ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! of 193 222 Glossary of Chinese characters An le jia 安樂家 babai xifu guo ⼋八百媳婦國 baguwen ⼋八股⽂文 baihua ⽩白話 baiguan 稗官 Bainian yijiao 百年⼀一覺 Bali chahuanu yishi 巴黎茶花女遺事 benguo 本國 bianding 辯訂 Bianfa tongyi 變法通義 Bieshi 別⼠士 Bu jiangcong baiyuan zhuan 補江總⽩白猿傳 caipan xiaoshuo 裁判⼩小說 Cai Fen 蔡奮 chaoting 朝廷 chaoxian xiaoshuo 朝鮮⼩小說 Chen Duxiu 陳獨秀 cheng e yang shan 懲惡揚善 chensi 沈思 of 194 222 chuanqi 傳奇 chuanqiti xiaoshuo 傳奇體⼩小說 Chuke paian jingqi 初刻拍案驚奇 congtan 叢談 da qingguo ⼤大清國 Dongou nu haojie 東歐女豪傑 Feng Jingru 馮鏡如 gailiang xiaoshuo 改良⼩小說 Guangdong bao 廣東報 Guan Daru 管達如 guo 國 guochi 國恥 guochao fadu 國朝法度 guohuan 國患 guojia 國家 guoming 國命 guomin 國民 guoren 國⼈人 guoshi 國事 of 195 222 guwen 古⽂文 guya 古雅 Haishang Qishu 海上奇書 Hanshu 漢書 hanzao 瀚藻 hanguan weiyi 漢官威儀 haogong guwen 好攻古⽂文 Hong lou meng 紅樓夢 Hongshui huo 洪⽔水禍 hongzhuang 宏壯 Hong lou meng pinglun 紅樓夢評論 Huang Gongdu (Huang Zunxian) ⿈黃公度 ( ⿈黃遵憲 ) Hu Shi 胡適 Huan Tan 桓譚 Huang Ren ⿈黃⼈人 Hu Yinglin 胡應麟 Huang Zunxian ⿈黃遵憲 huawen xiaoshuo 華⽂文⼩小說 Jiangnan jiqi zhizao zongju 江南機器製造總局 of 196 222 jiaoyu xiaoshuo 教育⼩小說 jinwen 今⽂文 jiu xiaoshuo 舊⼩小說 Jiuzhou 九州 junshi xiaoshuo 軍事⼩小說 kouyu ⼜⼝口語 li 理 Lin Shu 林紓 Lishao Jushi 蠡勺居⼠士 Liu Bannong 劉半農 Liu Yi 六逸 Lixian qicheng tongmeng dang ⽴立憲期成同盟黨 lishi xiaoshuo ⽴立憲⼩小說 Lun jinnian zhi xueshujie 論近年之學術界 Lun lifachuan 論⽴立法權 Lun xiaoshuo yu qunzhi zhi guanxi 論⼩小說與群治之關係 Lun xinyu zhi shuru 論新語之輸入 Lun zhengfu yu renmin zhi chuanxian 論政府與⼈人民之權限 Lun zhexuejia yu meishujia zhi tianzhi 論哲學家與美術家之天職 Lun xiaoshuo yu qunzhi zhi guanxi 論⼩小說與群治之關係 of 197 222 Lunbu bianfa zhihai 論不變法之害 lunshuo 論說 Luo Jialun 羅家倫 maoxian xiaoshuo 冒險⼩小說 meng 蒙 meigan 美感 meipi 眉批 meixue 美學 ouluoba zhuguo shang wenxue 歐羅巴諸國尚⽂文學 Ouyang He 歐陽紇 ouzhou xiaoshuo huang qiangwei 歐洲⼩小說⿈黃薔薇 Pangu 盤古 pianwen 駢⽂文 pinghua 平話 Putong baike xin dacidian 普通百科新⼤大辭典 qi 氣 qianze xiaoshuo 譴責⼩小說 Qing yi bao 清議報 Qiu Weixuan 邱煒萲 Qu Shiying 瞿世英 of 198 222 rendao zhuyi ⼈人道主義 renjian ⼈人間 renshen 壬申 rensheng ⼈人⽣生 renqing xiaoshuo ⼈人情⼩小說 Riben shumu zhi ⽇日本書⺫⽬目志 riji tili ⽇日記體例 Ruan Yuntai 阮芸台 shangye xiaoshuo 商業⼩小說 Shaonian zhongugo shuo 少年中國說 Shen bao 申報 Shen Yanbing (Mao Dun) 沈雁冰 ( 茅盾) shenghuo ⽣生活 shi yan zhi 詩⾔言志 shishi xiaoshuo 時事⼩小說 shidai 時代 shijie mingren yishi 世界名⼈人軼事 shixin xiaoshuo 時新⼩小說 Shiwu Bao 時務報 shoushan zhiqu ⾸首善之區 of 199 222 shuobu 說部 Shuo xiaoshuo 說⼩小說 suoji 瑣記 Tanying xiaolu 談瀛⼩小錄 tianxia 天下 Tian yan lun 天演論 tiedao xiaoshuo 鐵道⼩小說 ti wei ding 題未定 tuhua 圖畫 tujue 突厥 tushan zhihui 塗山之會 tushixue 圖史學 tuyuan xiaoshuo 兔園⼩小說 Wanguo gongbao 萬國公報 Wanguo gongfa 萬國公法 Wang Guowei 王國維 wen ⽂文 wenmo ⽂文墨 Wenti ⽂文體 Wenxin diaolong ⽂文⼼心雕⻯⿓龍 of 200 222 wenxue ⽂文學 Wenxue geming lun ⽂文學⾰革命論 Wenxue gailiang chuyi ⽂文學改良芻議 Wenxue sanlun ⽂文學散論 wenxue zhi wen ⽂文學之⽂文 wenyan ⽂文⾔言 wen yi zai dao ⽂文以載道 wenyi ⽂文藝 wenzi ⽂文字 wenzhang ⽂文章 Wo zhi wenxue gailiang guan 我之⽂文學改良觀 Xia Zengyou 夏曾佑 xianfa 憲法 xianzheng dang 憲政黨 xiaoshuo ⼩小說 Xiaoshuo shigao ⼩小說史稿 xiaoshuo yu minzhi guanxi ⼩小說與⺠民智關係 xiaoshuo wei wenxue zhi zui shangcheng ⼩小說為⽂文學之最上乘 xiaoshuo zhi shili ⼩小說之勢⼒力 xieqing xiaoshuo 寫情⼩小說 of 201 222 xinchu xiaoshuo 新趣⼩小說 Xin qingnian 新青年 Xin rensheng guan 新⼈人⽣生觀 Xin xiaoshuo diyi hao 新⼩小說第⼀一號 xinan xiaoshuo 新案⼩小說 Xinxi xiantan 昕⼣夕閒談 xin yuefu 新樂府 xin xiaoshuo 新⼩小說 xueyi xiaoshuo 學藝⼩小說 Yan Fu 嚴復 Yan Huiqing 顏惠慶 yijia sichan ⼀一家私產 Yinghua Da Cidian 英華⼤大辭典 Yinghuan suoji 瀛寰瑣記 yingguo xiaozi zhi zhuan 英國孝⼦子之傳 yingyong zhi wen 應⽤用之⽂文 Yishi yuya 意拾喻⾔言 yishu 藝術 Yishui qishi nian ⼀一睡七⼗十年 yiyi xiaoshuo er jiangtong zhi 宜譯⼩小說⽽而講通之 of 202 222 Yiyin zhengzhi xiaoshuo xu 譯印政治⼩小說序 yiwenzhi 藝⽂文志 youmei 優美 youxue xiaoshuo 幼學⼩小說 yu xinming bizi xin xiaoshuo shi 欲新⺠民必⾃自新⼩小說使 yuanqi 原⼒力 yueou ji Guangdong xiben 粵謳及廣東戲本 Yuchu 虞初 Yuchu zhoushuo 虞初周說 yuguai xiaoshuo 語怪⼩小說 Yushi Mingyan 諭世明⾔言 yuxin yiguo zhiming, buke buxin yiguo zhi xiaoshuo 欲新⺠民,不可不新⼀一國之⼩小說 yuyan 語⾔言 zalu 雜錄 zashuo 雜說 Zeng Jize 曾紀擇 zhajiti xiaoshuo 劄記體⼩小說 Zhang Taiyan 章太炎 zheli kexue xiaoshuo 哲理科學⼩小說 zhengzhi xiaoshuo 政治⼩小說 of 203 222 Zhengzhixue xueli zhiyan 政治學學理摭⾔言 zhentan xiaoshuo 偵探⼩小說 zhengui 箴規 zhi yumian zhe wanguo 執⽟玉帛者萬國 Zhifang waiji 職⽅方外紀 zhiguai 志怪 Zhongguo wenxue shi 中國⽂文學史 Zhongguo weiyi zhi wenxue bao—xin xiaoshuo 中國唯⼀一之⽂文學報 —新⼩小說 zhonghua 中華 zhongguo xiaoshuo shilue 中國⼩小說史略 zhongtu 中⼟土 zhuyi 諸夷 Ziyou zhong ⾃自由鐘 Zongli yamen 總理衙⾨門 ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! of 204 222 Bibliography ! 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Lin, Yu-Kai
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Conditions of literary modernities: a conceptual history of Chinese literature, 1860-1925
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College of Letters, Arts and Sciences
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Doctor of Philosophy
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Comparative Literature
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07/30/2015
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carlos.yukai.lin@gmail.com,yukailin@usc.edu
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xiaoshuo