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BULLETIN OF THE DEPARTMENT OF CHINESE LITERATURE NATIONAL CHENGCHI UNIVERSITY NO.39
Publication date： 2023-06
Special Article A Close Reading of Du Fu
For a long time, Du Fu has received people’s attention and praise for his true nature under a life full of bitterness. From this perspective, reading was just as a means of understanding Du Fu’s life and personality. However, we should read his work not as a “means” but as an “end.” Through revisiting Du Fu into this viewpoint, it is found that he almost regards himself and his own life as literary material. In other words, it seems that his life exists for the sake of his works. Although Du Fu has been widely recognized as a “realist poet,” he did not simply depict the actual world. Instead, he recaptured and described the side of reality that were often overlooked, and even attempted to delineate parts of reality that were invisible to the naked eye. In the past, animals and plants appeared with their roles fixed in literary conventions, and they became allegorical symbols for people. Nevertheless, in Du Fu’s works, creatures were portrayed in their natural state without any symbolic connotations. In his poetry, humans and other living beings existed equally in the world. This worldview was unique in Chinese literature.
The purpose of this article is to study the Babo yu（霸伯盂）inscriptions unearthed in Dahekou Cemetery（大河口墓地） M1017 from an interactive perspective, and to discuss the nature of the Baguo, its cultural identity, and its relationship with the Zhou Dynasty. Firstly, discuss the features of M1017 and Babo yu. We argue that judging from the other unearthed artifacts and shape features of M1017, the tomb still belongs to the Zhou culture, but retains some characteristics of the Shang culture and local culture. Secondly, several groups of words related to interaction are discussed, including Miao Mao（蔑懋）, Gui（饋）, Zan Bin（贊賓）, Gan Min（敢敏）, Yu Bin（予賓）, etc. We believe that these words indicate that although Babo accepted the Zhou Dynasty’s system of monarchs and ministers, he still retained some political independence. Third, we do not agree that the Hegemony belongs to the “Huai Xing Jiu Zong（懷姓九宗）,” and believe that it should be a small feudal state with different surnames. At the same time, using tomb information and other inscriptions, it is demonstrated that although the Hegemony adopted the Zhou Dynasty system, it still retains different cultural characteristics in terms of burial customs and art. Finally, this research based on the interaction between the Baguo and the Zhou Dynasty to infer the political relationship of state with different surnames with the Zhou Dynasty may belong to confederation.
Among the research results on the format of the Western Zhou Dynasty inscriptions in recent years, there is a type of inscription called “Qizhu yue” 器主曰 that has received attention. For the discussion of this inscription format, some scholars define this inscription format from the theme and format, while others define this inscription format in the form of “Qizhu yue.” There are broad and strict differences in the two aspects. Starting from the concept of Martin Kern’s “traditional public language repository,” this paper analyzes from the perspectives of “structure” and “words,” and distinguishes the inscriptions “Shu Zu” 述祖 in the form of “Qizhu yue.” The content and structure of such inscriptions are often written in the columns of “Virtues of Ancestors,” “Ancestors Helping Kings,” “Virtues of Descendants Follow Ancestors’ Virtues,” “Specific Actions of Descendants,” and “Rewards of Kings,” each of which follows a similar pattern. The term usages are also repeated, highlighting what makes the genre special.
In light of the newly-discovered Anda Shijing Manuscripts, this article proposes a new interpretation of the phrase yuwohu 於我乎 at the beginning of the two chapters of “Quanyu” Poetry in the received Shijing. The wo我 should be read as yi宜, meaning “meat dishes,” so the phrase yuyihu 於我（宜）乎 can be translated as “in terms of meat dishes.” The lines yuyihu xiawu ququ 於我（宜）乎夏屋渠渠 and yuyihu meishi sigui 於我（宜）乎每食四簋 recall the past delight derived from unlimited premium meat dishes that unable to be finished, while the subsequent lines jinye meishi wuyu 今也每食無餘 and jinye meishi bubao 今也每食不飽 describe the current situation where even plain food is not enough to satisfy the hunger. The article also argues that the understanding of the Anda Manuscripts version shiye yuyi 始也於我（宜） should be consistent with the received version, meaning “at the beginning, in terms of meat dishes,” which clarifies the context of the comparison between the past and present in the poetry.
The Lie Xian Zhuan written by Liu Xiang was very popular in the Wei and Jin Dynasties, followed by Ge Hong’s Biography of Immortals, Shen Fen’s The Sequel to Biography of Immortals, Du Guangting’s Yongcheng Qun Xian Lu, and Dongxian Zuan. In the late Ming Dynasty, although Lie Xian Zhuan continued to be published, Guang Lie Xian Zhuan which recorded hundreds of immortals, You Xiang Lie Xian Quan Zhuan with illustrations, and Xian Fo Qi Zong which recorded biographies, illustrations and famous sentences with monks and Immortals came out by the advancement of publishing technology and the diversification of the market. These books were brought to Japan with merchant ships and we can find that the Lie Xian Zhuan written in the Shosekimokuroku during the Edo period is not the one written by Liu Xiang, but the You Xiang Lie Xian Quan Zhuan. The dissemination of Guang Lie Xian Zhuan, the author Zhang Wenjie’s friendship and the relationship of Yifan will be discussed first from the publishing culture perspective in this paper. Second, the Jianyang, Kyoto, and Osaka editions of You Xiang Lie Xian Quan Zhuan, will be studied and the Shingon monk unsho, the Zen monk Daiten Kenjo and the relationship to its publications will be discussed. Finally, the use of You Xiang Lie Xian Quan Zhuan by the court painter Kano Yikei, the court scholar Hayashi Rasan, and the Pure Land Buddhist monk Gesen will be analyzed from the illustrations in You Xiang Lie Xian Quan Zhuan and Xian Fo Qi Zong. Extending from the perspective of book publishing to social culture, we can learn about the communication between people of different social classes and the acceptance of immortal tales in the Edo period.
Jesus’s romantic image as poet or artist has been rare in His modern Chinese reception. Mu Xin (1927-2011), a post-May Fourthian writer emerged in Taiwan in the1980s, was a significant exception, with Jesus being his shaping force to be a true artist and art martyr. The investigation starts with Mu Xin’s self-description as “the Fifth Gospel” of Chinese in his last years, a strong indication of his Jesus-cult, and traces it back to his literary reading of the Old and New Testaments, an essential part of his world literature lectures (1989-1994, New York). Mu Xin’s romantic image of Jesus was outlined as “Jesus is the concentrated artist; Artist is the scattered Jesus.” It goes hand in hand with his Icarian psyche, where the high-flying artists are destined to fall, a tragic fate most fully exhibited by Jesus, whose infinite love for man proved to be in vain. Such an interpretation, deviating from the Christian doctrine of divine love, was held by Mu Xin as his educational motto. Mu Xin’s early formation, life ideal and suffering gave birth to his romantic image of Jesus. Most essentially, his intense experience of the shadow of modernity, from the sins of the Cultural Revolution to the global human decline towards the end of the 20th century, brought about his Icarian-Jesus for self-identification, empowering, redemption, as well as pessimism of history and humanity, and confession of lasting struggle between love and hatred. Revelation of Mu Xin’ s romantic image of Jesus has its significance in three-fold. It enriches the images of Jesus in modern China, provides an angle to re-engage Chinese transculturation of European romanticism, and sheds lights on Mu Xin as a legend so far understudied in the Sinophone world.
Science fiction writing in Chinese has attracted more and more attention in recent years. Lin Jun-yin, always a belletrist, also borrowed sci-fi elements to create his novel Formosa Heat (2017), which expressed his various feelings toward I-island (Taiwan). Future imagination and the lyrical consciousness were dual clues to comprehend Formosa Heat, both of which related to the time factor. This article first discussed the narrative characteristics and meaning of the novel’s future space-time/ tense, and the allegorical nature of the island’s “ownerless” state. Furthermore, this article analyzed the mutual relationships of the fiction. As it depicts the narrator “I” feel “sensitivity to things” and “sadness” caused by the scene of time acting on people/things after waking up. This illustrated how this lyrical subject and its lyrical consciousness interacted with future fancy, in which the island state was changing from “overheating” to “heat death of the universe.” Finally, written words became the last resort. The article takes Formosa Heat as an example, pointing out the role and significance of literary fiction and imagination at the moment when the island’s ideology is full of entanglement and stalemate in reality.
