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BULLETIN OF THE DEPARTMENT OF CHINESE LITERATURE NATIONAL CHENGCHI UNIVERSITY NO.26
Publication date： 2016-12
Special Article On Personified Nature in Poems of Su Shi and Yang Wan-Li
Personified natural scenery can be seen in Chinese poetry as early as in Shijing; it later becomes a distinct characteristic in Song poetry. This paper aims to examine the personified landscape in poems by Su Shi in the Northern Song and by Yang Wan-Li in the Southern Song in terms of “poetic eye” and “poetic debt” so as to showcase their outlook on nature and poetic aesthetics.
Extending the tradition of classical-style poems, which are inscribed on or written about paintings of the self in the modern era, this paper delves into the newly formed relationship between the Chinese lyrical tradition and modern photography. It explores the moral implications of this new poetic genre, “poems on photographs of the self” (ziti xiaozhao), and issues of temporality and alterity involved in the confrontation with a self-image. In addition, it examines the photographs of female writers and their understanding of gendered visual selves as well as “costume photographs,” which exhibit multiple ways of imagining the self. Utilizing a significant amount of previously unexamined materials, this paper enriches our understanding of the self/image and text/image dynamic, shedding light on the cultural and affective articulations of the self in the technological era.
Theme Thesis River Engineering, Rays of Light and Visual Limitations: On Scenic Descriptions in The Travels of Lao Can
Prior to The Travels of Lao Can, a novel by Liu E, Chinese vernacular novels did not pay much attention on descriptions of natural scenery or landscape. Instead, they used set phrases and rhymed verses borrowed from prior literary works. Differing from previous vernacular novels, The Travels of Lao Can depicts scenery in vernacular prose, a significant change symbolized in the form of language used to describe landscape. The techniques Liu E uses to describe the natural scenery are shaped by his knowledge of river engineering, optics, astronomy, and Buddhism. In this essay, I attempt to re-examine the beginning of scenery description in in the form of vernacular prose in the backdrop where global knowledge convergence took place and where Chinese intellectuals learned to reflect on the convergence and put it into practice. In The Travels of Lao Can, Liu E discards the prior techniques used by chaptered novels, which are to use quotes and poems from previous works to describe the natural scenery. His use of vernacular prose to describe landscapes is not only a breakthrough, a departure from past convention, but also marks a new way of observing nature. Most importantly, such change in the techniques used in describing landscape elucidates the role of Confucianism in the new matrix of knowledge where Liu E were being exposed to in the late Qing period.
Theme Thesis Image and Texture: On the Debate over Clarity/Obscurity in Modern Chinese Poetry in the 1930s
In the 1930s, poets and critics engaged in a debate over the “clarity” and “obscurity” of images in modern Chinese poetry. This debate signaled a transition from an exclusive emphasis on realism and direct representation of ideas, towards an increasing interest in representation of interiority and the subconscious, and relationship between cognition and written expression. This paper examines how writers in the 1930s, influenced by the transition, experimented with word order to create new combinations of images, explored the structure of imagination to develop a new poetic language, and discussed modern forms of poetry in terms of corporeal patterns and textures. These literary experiments offered writers a way to unsettle the conventions in Chinese language, both challenging the ongoing formalization of modern Chinese grammatical rules, as well as rewriting the relationship between the classical literary tradition and the modern poetical writing.
Theme Thesis Leftist Poetics and the Sensory World: Re-Reading Poems of the “Missing Poet” Ouwai Ou of the 1930s and 1940s
Ouwai Ou, or Outer Out (1911 1995), who lived and wrote his poetry mainly in Hong Kong and Guangzhou in the 1930s and 1940s, was a revolutionary and avant-garde poet of great significance. His works went missing in the history of modern literature for a long time. In the 1980s he revisited Hong Kong and reconnected with the local literary circle, and many Hong Kong critics began to marvel at his progressiveness. This article re-reads Ouwai’s early works, placing a focus on the uniqueness and untimeliness of his poems. Compared with the “modern school” of that period like Dai Wangshu, Ouwai’s style was more down to earth. He suggested more engagement with the social reality and was against subtlety and stylishness in poetry writing. On the other hand, observing the reality often through sensory experience, his way of expression was bold and novel, departing greatly from the “mass oriented nature” of social realism at that time. His works were thus coldly received by critics. This article argues that Ouwai and his works deserve closer attention from literary historians, precisely because they have a different orientation compared with mainstream poetics.
The past research of scholars have come to the conclusion that the teachings of Xunzi are the fundamental basis for learning the classics in the Han dynasty. However, after talking a deeper look into history and exploring the related documents, the discussions on Xunzi being the leading scholar of the classics is most prevalent in the Qing dynasty(清朝), and almost non-existent before it. Thus, this paper aims to bring light upon how scholars from the Qing dynasty aimed to reconstruct and transform the teachings of Xunzi, thus making him the source of the fundamental values for disseminating the classics. In understanding a source material we must not use the concepts of the present time to analyze that of the past. That being said, we cannot use the concept of later eras to examine the contribution of Xunzi and his teachings of the classics because during the time of Xunzi there were no classic studies, not to mention a concept of the “five(six) classics” . It must also be noted that there is a stark difference between the thought in the Pre-Qin(先秦) and Han dynasty. That is to say, as Xunzi being a scholar in the “period of scholars”, and teaching comprehensive knowledge and wisdom differs greatly from just teaching Confucianism and its classics, which is more common in the Han dynasty. Thus it must be pointed out that the “classics” and the way Xunzi discussed and interpreted them is not synonymous with the “five(six) Classics” and how they are taught in later dynasties. It can be seen that this paradigm shift in the Qing dynasty was a reaction against the thought of Neo-Confucian scholars. Thus in direct contrast to the Neo-Confucian emphasis on Meng zi, the Qing scholars made Xunzi the leading figure in classic studies and the primary successor to Confucius.
Ever since its rise in the Song Dynasty, Neo-Confucianism has continued to face challenges posed by social and political changes. Neo-Confucianism adjusts and transforms to keep its vitality and meet the demands of the time, seeing its renaissance in the period of Dao-Xian. Even though often seen as lack of innovation model, Neo-Confucianism during this period still plays a positive role and exerts influence in the society. This paper aims to examine how Fan Zong-cheng, continuing the thought of Fang Tung-shu, constructs new patterns of Neo-Confucian discourse in the face of social changes and unrest in the late Qing Dynasty. This article includes three parts. First, I will discuss how he emphasizes the practical over the abstract. Second, the focus will be on his fashioning of the saint image— saints convert the ideas of virtue into action. The third part would be the comparison between Fang Zhong-cheng and Fang Tung-shu. Fang Zong-cheng turns to a more practical point, unlike Fang Tung-shu, who is critical of Hang Learning and Xin Learning in order to defend Cheng-Zhu in the main stream Chien-Jia study. To sum up, Fang Xong-cheng transforms Confucianism into a discourse emphasizing more on the moral practice in the period of Dao-Xian.
Zheng Yongxi (1788-1858) was the first Taiwanese Jing Shi, who promoted horticulture literature in Bei-guo Garden at his old age. Works about Zheng Yongxi’s poetry almost draw the same conclusion that it is the Song poetry style, and the Song Scholars’ Ji Rang faction. The assumption comes from the influence of “Bei-guo Garden Literature,” which was the only published edition available before 2008. Having thought to be the original work of Zheng Yongxi, this edition was in effect revised by Fu Jen poet Yang Jun. New materials were not found until 1997 by Professor Huang Meier. Despite the new edition “Bei-guo Garden manuscript” finally published in 2008, “Bei-guo Garden’s Literature” still has much influence on the Zheng Yongxi poetry studies. This paper aims to examine the two editions, re-reading the poetry and style of Zheng Yongxi.
The “Nine Leaves School” refers to nine prominent poets who published their works in the Shanghai-based journal Zhongguo xinshi during the 1940s, which marked the zenith of the art of Chinese new poetry at the time. They were advocates of modernism, reacting against the main current of realism. Because of political reasons, these poets vanished from the literary scene of Mainland China from the 1950s to 1970s. But because of the 1981 publication of Jiuye ji, an anthology of their poems, they were “rediscovered” by the academia. Among them, Yuan Kejia was the most clairvoyant critic, who had learnt from Anglo-American literary theory as well as the poetic practices of Western and Chinese modernists. His critical discourse rivaled the best of contemporary Leftist critics, while being meticulous in terms of textual explication. Countering the highly politicized current of “mass literature,” Yuan emphasized the autonomy of literature, promoted a subtle and indirect way of representing the complex experiences of modern life in poetry, and hastened the fusion of reason and feeling in what he called the “revolution of sensibility.” Divided into three sections, this paper offers a comprehensive analysis of Yuan’s poetic theory. The first part examines the nature of new poetry in his theory, explaining how, inspired by Western modernist ideas, he developed a democratic thought which stresses complexity, reconciliation of differences, and tolerance. The second part details his concept of a poetic tradition synthesizing “symbolism, metaphysics and reality.” The last part tackles the core of his theory, focusing on his understanding of dramatization and dialectics, which is in correspondence with his liberal humanist ideal of democracy.
