Organizer and Chair: Hyong Gyu Rhew, Reed College
Discussant: Theodore Huters, University of California, Los Angeles
The purpose of this panel is twofold. It tries to give due scholarly attention to Ming-Ch'ing literary theory and criticism which have been obscured by long and brilliant literary heritage that preceded the period. More importantly, the panel proposes a variety of different contexts in which literary critical discourse can be examined.
The fact that literary criticism in the Ming-Ch'ing period has been relatively neglected was, at least in part, due to the perception that the achievement in shih-poetry in the period was comparable neither to that of shih-poetry in the previous periods nor to that of other genres, such as fiction and drama, of the same period. Poetry criticism seemed to be detached from contemporary poetic practice because it continued to find topics of discussion in poetry of bygone periods. Literary criticism in other genres looked so distant from poetry criticism that it appeared unrelated to the critical discourse that was familiar to literary circles. The proposed panel will evaluate these negative views of Ming-Ch'ing literary criticism and show how much and in what ways literary critical discourse was reflective of many directly relevant issues of the time.
Kai-wing Chow's paper traces an important shift of interest in poetics in the late Ming period which reflected a new awareness of the significance of the experiences of the common people. He will show the implications of such a change to the imperial state and the society at large. Zong-qi Cai takes up one of the oldest questions of Chinese literary criticism-the question of emotion-and illustrates that this old question could still provide fresh theoretical possibilities in the late Ch'ing period. He will consider formulating a new critical system by examining private and public, literary-aesthetic and social-political dimensions of emotion. Hyong Rhew argues that the theory and practice of Ch'ing poetry are to be understood in the context of a unique intellectual environment that produced interesting notions of "learning." He further examines the two models of combining intellectual and literary modes of poetic practice presented by late Ch'ing critics. These panelists hope to demonstrate that literary critical discourse of the Ming-Ch'ing period was not only a product of the time but also remains a rich theoretical resource for the present time.
Authenticity and the Common People: Literary Criticism and the Imperial State in
Late Ming China
Kai-wing Chow, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
Chinese poetics of the late Ming period manifested major shifts both in its themes and methods. In many ways literary critics in the late Ming moved away from the conventional themes revolving around the political center. This alienation of the literati from the political center contributed to the rise of new poetics that challenged literary views promoted by scholar-officials who continued to find ancient literary works essential in cultivating aesthetic sensibilities. The emulation theory of the Former and Latter Seven Masters came under attack by literary critics who questioned the value of copying and regurgitating antiquarian models. Two trends-vernaculism and populism-emerged to define this new poetics that was shared by critics in different genres. In great contrast to conventional literary criticism, exponents of this new poetics defined great literature in terms of using vernacular language and seeking authenticity in the life experience of the common people.
This new poetics, however, was particularly advanced by critics of fiction and drama. That this new poetics was championed by critics of these new genres of literature that used to command little respect from the literati was indicative of change in the social conditions under which literary discourse was produced and consumed in the late Ming. This new poetics justified making the living experience of the common people the major source of literary inspiration and creation. In order to produce this type of literature, the writers were required to partake the social world of the common people or to seek to know in earnest popular experiences. On the other end of the process was the consumption of this literature which presumed an audience and reading public who were interested in and appreciative of the daily experience of the common people. The audience was no longer the emperor, princes, or officials who occupied the political center, but people of the street.
If traditional literature flashed glimpses of the experience of the common people, they were incidental trappings in the background inserted to magnify the glory, the virtues, and the characters of the political elites. In vernacular fictions and drama of the late Ming period, the daily life of the common people had come to occupy the front stage, and the political arena with its emperor and officials were relegated to either the backdrop or were the object of critique and ridicule. The common people, rather than the political elites, personified the authentic traditional virtues. By privileging the common people, these vernacular literary writings also legitimized criticism of the imperial government.
The rise of this new poetics in the late Ming can be regarded as an articulation of the growing dissatisfaction with the imperial system based on a strict control over its primarily agricultural population. The producers and consumers of this new literature of fictions and drama inhabited a world driven by forces of commercialization and urbanization. The people's pursuit of commercial wealth and urban comfort were constantly thwarted by the rapacious imperial court and its underlings. Through redefining the appropriate language of literary expression as vernacular and the object of literary creations the common folks, this new poetics called for a displacement of the political center with a social center occupied by common people. My paper will examine the literary theories of several late Ming fiction writers such as Ling Mengchu and Jin Shengtan to see how this new poetics was articulated.
The Rethinking of Emotion: The Transformation of Traditional Chinese Poetics in
the Late Ch'ing Era
Zong-qi Cai, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
The centrality of emotion (ch'ing) in traditional Chinese literary criticism is reflected in these two key critical concepts: "Poetry expresses intent" (shih yen chih ) and "Poetry traces emotion" (shih yüan ch'ing). Taken in the abstract, these two concepts seem almost identical and interchangeable. If seen in the context of the historical development of Chinese literary criticism, however, they represent the fundamental tenets of two opposite camps of critical schools. The former concept is foregrounded by critics who preoccupy themselves with social-ethical dimensions of emotion and expounded the nature and functions of literature along the Confucian line of thought. The latter concept is espoused by critics who concern themselves with literary-aesthetic dimensions of emotion and formulate different methods of literary appreciation and judgment modeled on the Taoist and Buddhist discourses of suprasensible experience.
Like their predecessors, the late Ch'ing critics continue to place the emotions at the center of their writings. However, they formulate their views of emotion in a radically different cultural context. The milieu of the late Ch'ing culture is marked by successive military defeats by and territorial concessions to Western powers, by the onslaught of Western ideas, values, beliefs as well as Western science and technologies, and by the social-political paralysis stemming from the Ch'ing court's inability to absorb the scientific and social advances of the Western civilization and embark on a meaningful program of modernization. At this moment of the greatest cultural crisis ever faced by China, many late Ch'ing scholars look to literature as a means of reinvigorating a wearied, stagnated culture on the brink of total collapse and rekindling the spirit of patriotic heroism of its populace weighed down by centuries of non-Han oppression and decades of Western domination. The reason these scholars attach so much importance to literature is that they consider emotion, viewed as the very essence of literature from time immemorial, to be an extremely important factor for the success of any social, political, or military program aiming at saving the Chinese nation and culture. These scholars believe that only by appealing to the emotion of the masses can they awaken their social-political consciousness, mobilize them effectively to various tasks of reforming, modernizing, and revitalizing China, and thus ensure the survival of the Chinese nation and culture.
If this rethinking of the role of emotion is the common denominator of the majority of critical writings in the late Ch'ing, the way a late Ch'ing scholar relates emotion to certain program(s) of reform, modernization and national salvation marks his writings from those of others. Depending on which of such social-political programs they embrace, late Ch'ing scholars tend to stress certain aspects of emotion and redefine the nature and functions of literature accordingly. Those who see the emancipation of individuals as the key to China's future often set store by the literary-aesthetic dimensions of emotion. For them, a free, unrestrained rendering of one's emotions amounts to a defiant act of delivering one's individual self from the shackles of literary traditions and the feudal ideologies associated with them. The aesthetics of these scholars is usually interwoven with strains of the native Wei-Chin individualism and Western individualism and liberalism. Those who regard the education of the populace as the solution to China's problems often emphasize the pedagogical and didactic values of emotion. They hold that the best way to teach the populace modern scientific concepts and political ideas of liberty, justice and democracy is to translate them into emotive experience through popular literary forms like drama and fiction. Given the unrivaled efficacy of these literary forms in educating the masses, these scholars make concerted efforts to elevate spoken vernacular over literary language, drama and fiction over poetry, folk traditions over literati ones. Also concerned with the social-ethical dimensions of emotion are those who consider the revival of militaristic spirit crucial to the survival of the Chinese nation. For them, there are no better calls to arms in the defense of motherland than the evocation of intense emotions of love for the country and hatred for foreign oppressors through literary works. Considering their advocacy of militaristic spirit, it is only too natural that they would seek not only to glorify novels like Shui-hu chuan and San-kuo yen-i as the classic of classics for education of all, but also to censor works like Hsi-hsiang chi and Hung-lou meng which they think corrupt the morale for fighting foreign oppressors and lead people astray to the pursuit of sensual pleasure and the vain fame of literary scholarship.
All the rethinking of emotion in the late Ch'ing marks a radical departure from the traditional views of emotion on two accounts. First, the literary-aesthetic implications of emotion are now examined not in terms of its potential sublimation into a state of suprasensible experience, an experience comparable to the Taoist self-forgetfulness or Ch'an enlightenment in which one achieves ultimate harmony with all things. Second, the social-ethical significance of emotion is now discussed not in terms of its usefulness in moderating one's volitional impulses and maintaining the all-important harmony across different strata of a Confucian hierarchical society. Rather, it is discussed and evaluated in light of its capacity of working up the fervor of the masses for resolute actions to shatter the old feudal social orders and to drive out foreign conquerors, both the Manchus and Western colonialists. Given these radical reconceptualizations of emotion, the late Ch'ing literary criticism may be seen to have completed a thorough transformation of traditional Chinese poetics and laid the groundwork for the emergence of a new critical system.
Anti-traditional and revolutionary as they are, the late Ch'ing critics fail to form into a new critical system of their own. This is because they continue to uphold the banners of shih yen chih and shih yüan ch'ing-the two tenets in which is grounded the traditional critical system they seek to challenge and overthrow. So, theirs is a typical case of putting new wine in an old bottle. Not until the old bottle, that is, the two tenets of traditional criticism, is jettisoned, can a truly new critical system emerge. This task of building a new critical system is left to early Republican critics. In their critical writings, some early Republican period critics make bold attempts to question or even denounce the two tenets as a noose that straggles all those who wish to give a free rein to his own emotions and thoughts and to demolish oppressive social orders. Moreover, they strive to do away with the Confucian and Taoist concepts of harmony that underlie the two tenets. Having displaced these two tenets, they adopt the Western Romantic theory of the poet as a hero as the foundation of their new critical system. This theory of the poet, developed by Byron, Carlyle, and other revolutionary-minded Romantics, not only gives fullest sanction to the emotions of individual poets, but also celebrates these private emotions as the prophesies, causes, and fountains of strength for social-political revolutions. As this theory brings together the considerations, both private and public, literary-aesthetic and social-political dimensions of emotion, it serves very well as a broad conceptual framework for accommodating the two thrusts of the late Ch'ing rethinking of emotion and integrating them into a new critical system.
This paper will examine the writings of about a dozen of late Ch'ing and early Republican scholars, including Kung Tzu-chen (1792-1841), Huang Tsun-hsien (1848-1905), Yen Fu (1853-1921), Liang Ch'i-ch'ao (1873-1929), Chang Ping-lin (1869-1936), Lu Hsün (1881-1936) and others.
Poet's Poetry and Scholar's Poetry: An Aesthetic Question in Late Ch'ing Poetics
Hyong Gyu Rhew, Reed College
One of the only few private instructions that Confucius' son, Po-yü, received from his father was about the importance of studying poetry. Confucius reportedly told him that knowledge in poetry was the basic preparation for communication. (Analects , XVI:13) The interpretation of this short, six-syllable sentence, "pu hsüeh shih wu yi yen," has not been a matter of any serious dispute. However, I have always thought that it would be nice if the sentence could be taken out of context and be intentionally misread by putting a comma after the second, not the third, syllable. Hsüeh, then, would no longer be a simple transitive verb. It will regain very rich meanings that it has elsewhere m Confucius' words. It would mean an earnest process of learning and cultivation that includes "mitigating one's anger within oneself" and "not repeating the same mistakes." (Analects, VI:2) Furthermore, such a reading makes an intense process of learning a necessary condition for poetry.
I do not intend to argue that such is a viable reading of the passage in the Analects. Rather, I will demonstrate that such a notion of poetry would be a perfect label for poetry and poetics of the Ch'ing period. The existing histories of Chinese literary criticism, by presenting poetics of the Ch'ing dynasty largely in terms of a successive appearance of the shen yün ,ko tiao, hsing ling, and chi li schools, have failed to take into account the role of "learning" in poetic practice throughout the period. This paper proposes to examine the discourse of learning in poetry and poetics in the Ch'ing period. I propose to do that by examining the assertion made by Ch'en Yen (1856-1937) that certain poets in the Tao-kuang (1821-1850) and Hsien-feng (1852-1861) eras and in the late Ch'ing period had successfully combined "poet's poetry" (shih jen chih yen) and "scholar's poetry" (hsüeh jen chih yen).
The term "scholar's poetry" points to a variety of aspects of the relationship between poetry and "learning," and the complete picture of it can be seen when the term is examined in a number of critical contexts in which it appears. Generally speaking, the role of "learning" in poetry can be identified in the following three areas. First, "learning" is the means of cultivation of character and virtue. Because poetry is believed to be an extension or manifestation of the inner quality of the poet, it is impossible to achieve any significant success without the cultivated heart, and "learning" plays an important part in the course of this cultivation. This particular area involves the intellectual, moral, and artistic contemplations in the practice of poetry. In fact, it is an intricately interwoven process in which the virtue cultivated through learning emerges in poetry, and that, again, is a part of an ongoing process of cultivation. The second area is where poetry is viewed as a connection to literary heritage and to the society at large. "Learning" in this context is the necessary link because it is the source of poetic thought, expression, diction, and the subject matter. It includes extensive reading, travel, and other experiences that will enrich the process of writing poetry. Extensive knowledge, bookish or otherwise, will provide the ideas and events to write about, appropriate words and allusions, literary strategies, and the artistic standards as frames of reference. The third area sees poetry as a space for scholarly discourse. There were some examples of discursive poems before the High T'ang period, but this particular function of poetry became a regular feature from the Middle T'ang period. For instance, heptasyllabic quatrains (ch'i yen chüeh chü) became an important means of discussing poetic theory and the history of literature since the time when Tu Fu wrote six poems of that kind, and Sung poetry is known for refuting common interpretations of the events of the past and the present. This tradition of discursive poetry reached the climax, for better or for worse, in the Ch'ing dynasty when complex academic issues were frequently discussed through poetry. A significant number of critics were reluctant to embrace this particular marriage between poetry and "learning," because they did not see why scholarly discourse should force itself to hurdle over the obstacles of prosodic requirements, and more importantly because poetry put to this application has nothing to do with the heart that should be at the center of poetic practice.
In order to understand the meaning of "scholar's poetry" in the context of late Ch'ing poetry circles, it will be imperative to consider the intellectual trends in the Ch'ing dynasty and the continuation of Tu Fu's belief by the followers of the Sung poetry movement that "books" are the important source of poetic inspiration.
There are three distinctive stages in the intellectual history of the Ch'ing dynasty, according to Wang Kuo-wei's (1877-1927) observation. The first stage is approximately the eighty-year period of the Shun-chih (1644-1661) and the K'ang-hsi (1662-1722) reigns. It was a period in search of political stability right after the establishment of a new imperial order, and consequently the intellectual activities emphasized the practical rather than the philosophical, especially in relation to statecraft. This was in many ways a result of painful soul-searching reflections on the reasons for the debacle of the Ming dynasty, to which many of those scholars in the early Ch'ing were still loyal. It was during this period that a solid foundation was laid for the so-called shih hsüeh, or "practical learning."
The second stage was about one hundred years that included the Yung-cheng (1723-1735), the Ch'ien-lung (1736-1795), and the Chia-ch'ing (1796-1820) reigns. The fundamental principles of the empire were by then well established, and the emphasis on statecraft gave way to specialized inquiries on the classics and histories. The scholars in this periods demonstrated a remarkable sophistication in the control of materials as well as methodologies. The principle mode of scholarship in this period is called k'ao cheng hsüeh ,or "evidenced learning."
The period since the Tao-kuang (1821-1850) reign was the third stage in the intellectual history of the Ch'ing dynasty. The expansion of the objects of inquiry is the most obvious characteristic of the intellectual trends in this period. Scholars of the classics turned their attention to the "new text," or chin wen; in the field of history, they focused on the history of the dynasties established by the peoples in the north, such as Liao (907-1125), Chin (1115-1234), and Yüan (1206-1368); there was also a growing interest in the geography of the periphery of China, which was once considered the place of the "barbarians." Intellectuals in this period strove to study the subjects that had not been studied. On the basis of this observation, Wang Kuo-wei concluded that the learning of the first stage was grand (ta );that of the second, sophisticated (ching); and that of the third, new (hsin).
These changing phases of scholarship were closely related to the understanding of the function or definition of literature in each stage. For instance, poetry during the first stage demonstrated a keen interest in its correlation with reality in terms of its impact on reality as well as whether or not it realistically reflected the society. The moral quality of the poet was another very important consideration in the literature of this period, and that was not unrelated to the political turbulence of the dynastic transition that remained in the minds of many poets. The sudden proliferation of discourse on combining the emotion (ch'ing) and the scene (ching), and of the idea that poetry fed on the hardship of the poet and the nation was also a noticeable change in the early Ch'ing period.
Poetry during the second stage showed a consistent pursuit of elegance which must have had much to do with the security engendered in society under the consolidated imperial order. The theories by Wang Shih-chen and Shen Te-ch'ien (1673-1769) were the products of this time of relative peace and prosperity. At the same time, the sophistication of methodology and the firm grasp of classics, histories, and other texts in intellectual circles in this period were manifested in poetry in the form of very careful study of formalistic features of poetry and the inseparable relationship between the bookish knowledge and the practice of poetry.
Poetic practice during the third stage of intellectual transformation had an interesting relationship with that of the second stage. On the one hand, the emphasis on the bookish knowledge and the interest in evidenced learning were handed down to the third stage in an amplified form. On the other hand, the elegance that interested the poets of the second stage was now considered not only unsuitable for the society which was about to undergo an immense suffering and distress, but also as lacking substance to satisfy the taste influenced by the scholarship. One of the consequences was that the k'ao cheng scholarship found a way into poetry both in terms of its logic and reasoning and of its substance as the subject matter of poetry. That is to say, the mode of scholarship that valued evidence and the logical presentation of it became a legitimate part of poetic thinking, and poetry was often a space for scholarly discourse.
These shifts of emphasis in intellectual circles and their impact on poetry are important factors that need to be taken into consideration in determining what Ch'en Yen meant by "scholar" (hsüeh jen). The poets to whom he explicitly applied this title, such as Chu Yi-tsun (1629-1709), Ch'eng En-tse (1785-1837), Ho Shao-chi (1799-1873), Cheng Chen (1806-1864), and Mo Yu-chih (1811-1871), were actually the leading figures in intellectual circles who could compare well with any of their contemporary scholars in the standards of scholarship in their own times. It is obvious that the status of "scholar" was allowed to those who were accomplished in the scholarship that reflected the modes of inquiry in different phases of intellectual trends. Therefore, the classics, especially with emphasis on philological and textual studies which were often referred to as "basic learning" (hsiao hsüeh or p'u hsüeh ),and study of history and geography in the mode of "evidenced learning" (k'ao cheng hsueh) were the fields of scholarship where the title of "scholar" could be conferred.
With these contexts in mind, this paper will examine the definitions and the implications of "scholar's poetry" and "poet's poetry," and two models of combining the two proposed respectively by Ch'en Yen and Shen Tseng-chih (1850-1922).