Sources of Chinese Tradition, Volume 2
Page 54
Western women make their own living in various professions such as that of lawyer, physician, and store employee. But in the Confucian Way, “In giving or receiving anything, a man or woman should not touch the other’s hand,“10 “A man does not talk about affairs inside [the household] and a woman does not talk about affairs outside [the household],” and “They do not exchange cups except in sacrificial rites and funerals.“11 “A married woman is to obey” and the husband is the mainstay of the wife.12 Thus the wife is naturally supported by the husband and needs no independent livelihood.
A married woman is at first a stranger to her parents-in-law. She has only affection but no obligation toward them. In the West, parents and children usually do not live together, and daughters-in-law, particularly, have no obligation to serve parents-in-law. But in the way of Confucius, a woman is to “revere and respect them and never to disobey day or night,“13 “A woman obeys, that is, obeys her parents-in-law,“14 “A woman serves her parents-in-law as she serves her own parents,“15 she “never should disobey or be lazy in carrying out the orders of parents and parents-in-law.” “If a man is very fond of his wife, but his parents do not like her, she should be divorced.“16 (In ancient times there were many such cases, like that of Lu Yu [1125–1210].) “Unless told to retire to her own apartment, a woman does not do so, and if she has an errand to do, she must get permission from her parents-in-law.“17 This is the reason why cruelty to daughters-in-law has never ceased in Chinese society.
According to Western customs, fathers do not discipline grown-up sons but leave them to the law of the country and the control of society. But in the Way of Confucius, “When one’s parents are angry and not pleased and beat him until he bleeds, he does not complain but instead arouses in himself the feelings of reverence and filial piety.“18 This is the reason why in China there is the saying, “One has to die if his father wants him to, and the minister has to perish if his ruler wants him to.” . . .
Confucius lived in a feudal age. The ethics he promoted is the ethics of the feudal age. The social mores he taught and even his own mode of living were teachings and modes of a feudal age. The objectives, ethics, social norms, mode of living, and political institutions did not go beyond the privilege and prestige of a few rulers and aristocrats and had nothing to do with the happiness of the great masses. How can this be shown? In the teachings of Confucius, the most important elements in social ethics and social life are the rules of decorum, and the most serious thing in government is punishment. In chapter 1 of the Record of Rites, it is said, “The rules of decorum do not go down to the common people and the penal statutes do not go up to great officers” [1: 35]. Is this not solid proof of the [true] spirit of the Way of Confucius and the spirit of the feudal age?
[From Chen, “Kongzi zhi dao yu xiandai shenghuo,” pp. 3–5—WTC]
THE LITERARY REVOLUTION
Paralleling the attack on Confucianism was the attack on the classical literary language—the language of Confucian tradition and of the old-style scholar-official. With the abandonment of the “eight-legged essay” examinations for the civil service in 1905, the discarding also of the official language, so far removed from ordinary speech, might have seemed inevitable. This was a time of rising nationalism, which in the West had been linked to the rise of vernacular literatures; an era of expanding education, which would be greatly facilitated by a written language simpler and easier to learn; a period of strong Westernization in thought and scholarship, which would require a more flexible instrument for the expression of new concepts. No doubt each of these factors contributed to the rapid spread of the literary revolution after its launching by Hu Shi, with the support of Chen Duxiu in 1917. And yet it is a sign of the strong hold that the classical language had on educated men, and of its great prestige as a mark of learning, that until Hu appeared on the scene with his novel ideas, even the manifestos of reformers and revolutionaries had kept to the classical style of writing as if there could be no other.
Hu Shi (1891–1962) had studied agriculture at Cornell on a Boxer Indemnity grant and philosophy at Columbia under John Dewey, of whom he became the leading Chinese disciple. Even before his return home he had begun advocating a new written language for China, along with a complete reexamination and reevaluation of the classical tradition in thought and literature. Chen Duxiu’s position as head of the department of literature at Beijing National University, and his new political organ, The New Youth, represented strong backing for Hu’s revolutionary program—a program all the more commanding of attention because its aim was not merely destructive of traditional usage but, ambitiously enough, directed to the stimulation of a new literature and new ideas. Instead of dwelling solely upon the deficiencies of the past, Hu’s writings were full of concrete and constructive suggestions for the future. There was hope here, as well as indignation.
Hu’s program thus looked beyond the immediate literary revolution, stressing the vernacular as a means of communication, to what came to be known as the literary renaissance. There can be no doubt that this movement stimulated literary activity along new lines, especially in the adoption of forms and genres then popular in the West. Yet there is real doubt whether this new literary output was able to fulfill all of Hu’s expectations, given the political constraints to which it was later subjected. It excelled in social criticism and so contributed further to the processes of social and political disintegration. Also—and this is particularly true of Hu’s own work—it rendered great service in the rehabilitation of popular literature from earlier centuries, above all, the great Chinese novels. But whether it produced in its own right a contemporary literature of great distinction and creative imagination is a question that must be left to historians and critics of the future with a better perspective on these troubled times.
HU SHI: “A PRELIMINARY DISCUSSION OF LITERARY REFORM”
Many people have been discussing literary reform. Who am I, unlearned and unlettered, to offer an opinion? Nevertheless, for some years I have studied the matter and thought it over many times, helped by my deliberations with friends; and the conclusions I have come to are perhaps not unworthy of discussion. Therefore I shall summarize my views under eight points and elaborate on them separately to invite the study and comments of those interested in literary reform.
I believe that literary reform at the present time must begin with these eight items: (1) Write with substance. (2) Do not imitate the ancients. (3) Emphasize grammar. (4) Reject melancholy. (5) Eliminate old clichés. (6) Do not use allusions. (7) Do not use couplets and parallelisms. And (8) Do not avoid popular expressions or popular forms of characters.
1. Write with substance. By substance I mean: (a) Feeling. . . . Feeling is the soul of literature. Literature without feeling is like a man without a soul. . . . (b) Thought. By thought I mean insight, knowledge, and ideals. Thought does not necessarily depend on literature for transmission, but literature becomes more valuable if it contains thought, and thought is more valuable if it possesses literary value. This is the reason why the essays of Zhuangzi, the poems of Tao Qian [365–427], Li Bo [689–762], and Du Fu [717–770], the ci of Xin Jiaxuan [1140–1207], and the novel of Shi Naian [that is, the Shuihu zhuan or Water Margin] are matchless for all times. . . . In recent years literary men have satisfied themselves with tones, rhythm, words, and phrases and have had neither lofty thoughts nor genuine feeling. This is the chief cause of the deterioration of literature. This is the bad effect of superficiality over substantiality, that is to say, writing without substance. To remedy this bad situation, we must resort to substance. And what is substance? Nothing but feeling and thought.
2. Do not imitate the ancients. Literature changes with time. Each period from Zhou and Qin to Song, Yuan, and Ming has its own literature. This is not my private opinion but the universal law of the advancement of civilization. Take prose, for example. There is the prose of the Classic of History, the prose of the ancient philosophers, the prose of [th
e historians] Sima Qian and Ban Gu, the prose of the [Tang and Song masters] Han Yu, Liu Zongyuan, Ouyang Xiu, and Su Xun, the prose of the Recorded Conversations of the Neo-Confucians, and the prose of Shi Naian and Cao Xueqin [d. ca. 1765, author of The Dream of Red Mansions]. This is the development of prose. . . . Each period has changed in accordance with its situation and circumstance, each with its own characteristic merits. From the point of view of historical evolution, we cannot say that the writings of the ancients are all superior to those of modern writers. The prose of Zuo Qiuming [sixth century B.C., author of the Zuozhuan] and Sima Qian is wonderful, but compared to the Zuozhuan and Records of the Historian, wherein is Shi Naian’s Water Margin (Shuihu zhuan) inferior? . . .
I have always held that colloquial stories alone in modern Chinese literature can proudly be compared with the first-class literature of the world. Because they do not imitate the past but only describe the society of the day, they have become genuine literature. . . .
3. Emphasize grammar. Many writers of prose and poetry today neglect grammatical construction. Examples are too numerous to mention, especially in parallel prose and the four-line and eight-line verses.
4. Reject melancholy. This is not an easy task. Nowadays young writers often show passion. They choose such names as “Cold Ash,” “No Birth,” and “Dead Ash” as pen names, and in their prose and poetry they think of declining years when they face the setting sun, and of destitution when they meet the autumn wind. . . . I am not unaware of the fact that our country is facing many troubles. But can salvation be achieved through tears? I hope all writers become Fichtes and Mazzinis and not like Jia Yi [201–169 B.C.], Wang Can [177–217], Qu Yuan [343–277 B.C.], Xie Gaoyu [1249–1295], and so on [who moaned and complained]. . . .
5. Eliminate old clichés. By this I merely mean that writers should describe in their own words what they personally experience. So long as they achieve the goal of describing things and expressing the mood without sacrificing realism, that is literary achievement. Those who employ old cliches are lazy people who refuse to coin their own terms of description.
6. Do not use allusions. I do not mean allusion in the broad sense. These are of five kinds: (a) analogies employed by ancient writers, which have a universal meaning . . . ; (b) idioms; (c) references to historical events . . . ; (d) quoting from or referring to people in the past for comparison . . . ; and (e) quotations. . . . Allusions such as these may or may not be used.
But I do not approve of the use of allusions in the narrow sense. By using allusions I mean that writers are incapable of creating their own expressions to portray the scene before them or the concepts in their minds, and instead muddle along by borrowing old stories or expressions that are partly or wholly inapplicable. . . .
7. Do not use couplets and parallelisms. Parallelism is a special characteristic of human language. This is why in ancient writings such as those of Laozi and Confucius, there are occasionally couplets. The first chapter of the Daodejing consists of three couplets. Analects 1: 14, 1: 15, and 3: 17 are all couplets. But these are fairly natural expressions and have no indication of being forced or artificial, especially because there is no rigid requirement about the number of words, tones, or parts of speech. Writers in the age of literary decadence, however, who had nothing to say, emphasized superficiality, the extreme of which led to the development of the parallel prose, regulated ci, and the long regulated verse. It is not that there are no good products in these forms, but they are, in the final analysis, few. Why? Is it not because they restrict to the highest degree the free expression of man? (Not a single good piece can be mentioned among the long regulated verse.) To talk about literary reform today, we must “first establish the fundamental“19 and not waste our useful energy in the nonessentials of subtlety and delicacy. This is why I advocate giving up couplets and rhymes. Even if they cannot be abolished, they should be regarded as merely literary stunts and nothing to be pursued seriously.
There are still people today who deprecate colloquial novels as trifling literature, without realizing that Shi Naian, Cao Xueqin, and Wu Jianren [1867–1910]20 all represent the main line of literature while parallel and regulated verse are really trifling matters. I know some will keep clear of me when they hear this.
8. Do not avoid popular expressions or popular forms of characters. When Buddhist scriptures were introduced into China, because classical expressions could not express their meanings, translators used clear and simple expressions. Their style already approached the colloquial. Later, many Buddhist lectures and dialogues were in the colloquial style, thus giving rise to the “conversation” style. When the Neo-Confucians of the Song dynasty used the colloquial in their Recorded Conversations, this style became the orthodox style of scholarly discussion. (This was followed by scholars of the Ming.) By that time, colloquial expressions had already penetrated rhymed prose, as can be seen in the colloquial poems of Tang and Song poets. From the third century to the end of the Yuan, North China had been under foreign races and popular literature developed. In prose there were such novels as Water Margin (Shuihu zhuan) and Journey to the West (Xiyou ji). In drama the products were innumerable. From the modern point of view, the Yuan period should be considered as a high point of literary development; unquestionably it produced the greatest number of immortal works. At that time writing and colloquial speech were the closest to each other, and the latter almost became the language of literature. Had the tendency not been checked, living literature would have emerged in China, and the great work of Dante and Luther [who inaugurated the substitution of a living language for dead Latin] would have taken place in China. Unfortunately, the tendency was checked in the Ming when the government selected officials on the basis of the rigid “eight-legged” prose style and at the same time literary men like the “seven scholars” including Li [Mengyang, 1472–1529] considered “returning to the past” as highbrow. Thus the once-in-a-millennium chance of uniting writing and speech was killed prematurely, midway in the process. But from the modern viewpoint of historical evolution, we can definitely say that the colloquial literature is the main line of Chinese literature and that it should be the medium employed in the literature of the future. (This is my own opinion; not many will agree with me today.) For this reason, I hold that we should use popular expressions and words in prose and poetry. Rather than using dead expressions of three thousand years ago, it is better to employ living expressions of the twentieth century, and rather than using the language of the Qin, Han, and the Six Dynasties, which cannot reach many people and cannot be universally understood, it is better to use the language of the Water Margin (Shuihu zhuan) and Journey to the West (Xiyou ji), which is understood in every household.
[Hu, “Wenxue gailiang chuyi,” in Hu Shi wencun, collection 1, ch. 1, pp. 5–16; original version in Xin qingnian 2, no. 5 (January 1917): 1–11—WTC]
CHEN DUXIU: “ON LITERARY REVOLUTION”
The movement of literary revolution has been in the making for some time. My friend Hu Shi is the one who started the revolution of which he is the vanguard. I do not mind being an enemy of all old-fashioned scholars in the country and raising to great heights the banner of “the Army of Literary Revolution” to support my friend. On this banner shall be written these three fundamental principles of our revolutionary army: (1) Destroy the aristocratic literature, which is nothing but literary chiseling and flattery, and construct a simple, expressive literature of the people. (2) Destroy the outmoded, showy, classical literature and construct a fresh and sincere literature of realism. (3) Destroy the obscure and abstruse “forest” literature21 and construct a clear and popular literature of society. . . .
At this time of literary reform, aristocratic literature, classical literature, and forest literature should all be rejected. What are the reasons for attacking these three kinds of literature? The answer is that aristocratic literature employs embellishments and depends on previous writers and therefore has lost the qualities of in
dependence and self-respect, that classical literature exaggerates and piles word after word and has lost the fundamental objective of expressing emotions and realistic descriptions; and that “forest” literature is difficult and obscure and is claimed to be lofty writing but is actually of no benefit to the masses. The form of such literatures is continuous repetition of previous models. It has flesh but no bones, body but no spirit. It is an ornament and is of no actual use. With respect to their contents, their horizon does not go beyond kings and aristocrats, spiritual beings and ghosts and personal fortunes and misfortunes. The universe, life, and society are all beyond their conception. These defects are common to all three forms of literature. These types of literature are both causes and effects of our national character of flattery, boasting, insincerity, and flagrant disregard of truth and facts. Now that we want political reform, we must regenerate the literature of those who are entrenched in political life. If we do not open our eyes and see the literary tendencies of the world society and the spirit of the time but instead bury our heads in old books day and night and confine our attention to kings and aristocrats, spiritual beings and ghosts and immortals, and personal fortunes and misfortunes, and in so doing hope to reform literature and politics, it is like binding our four limbs to fight Meng Ben [an ancient strong man].