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Cao Runxin 曹润鑫

Harvard Lecture

On the 20th Century Chinese Essay

Modern Chinese Literature

And the Essay Genre:

A New Perspective

In this paper, I will not recount the contents and propose interpretations of any essays, nor will I outline the main topics or styles of essaywriting in China, but I would like to take the opportunity to reflect a little bit on the phenomenon of the genre itself and discuss some conclusions and hypotheses with the attentive and critical audience which can be found at only a few places on earth, EALC at Harvard definitely being one of them. On the handout, you will find an overview of the structure of my argument.

1. The unknown genre

The literary-historical narrative told by anthologies and collections of the 20th century has drawn an incomplete picture of Chinese literature: The genre of the essay was lacking.

Chang Huiyue 常慧月

In my paper I will ask, if the picture of literature can remain unchanged, if we take into consideration also the essay. The genre has been neglected for a long time as a genre of merit (Margouliès 1949, Schmidt-Glintzer 1990) or overlooked (McNaughton 1974, Leiden 1988-90, McDougall 1998); whereas its elder brother, fiction, has been prized ever since the valuing of fictional literature and the vernacularisation of writing in early Republican China, which followed from the master narrative established by the May 4th movement. Modern anthologies would have the reader believe that a triumvirate of poetry, fiction and drama forms the backbone of modern Chinese literary output. Excursion: Defining the essay as a non-fictional subjective representation in a free form

Chen Han 陈涵

Similar to international literature, the basic subdivision of literature in China in general is one in three types: epic (with xiaoshuo (fiction), sanwen (non-fictional prose)), lyrics (shige) and drama (xiqu). Though there is no pure epic form, fiction and prose are often jointly addressed with the Chinese term "wu yunwen" which corresponds to the term "epic" in the West. The types may be distinguished roughly by their nature in the following way: In the epic, bygone events are retold, a broad, filled story dominates the foreground. In the lyrics, the reader is encouraged to feel the current sensations and often confessionlike feelings of the poet. The drama recalls a self-contained action directly in monologue or dialogue and in this way unburdens the re-creative imagination of the readers/spectators through it. The essay as a genre of the epic is a detached non-fictional subjective representation in a free form.

Chen Hui 陈惠

„Essay“, Chinese mostly sanwen 散文1[ The choice of the term “sanwen” instead of “suibi” (familiar essay) or “xiaopinwen” (short literary piece) is of course arbitrary, but it corresponds to the present usage. In about 200 essay collections and histories between 1949 and 1996 known to the author, sanwen turned out to be the common expression, xiaopin was used only in one out of 25 essay titles of the PR China, in one out of 14 Taiwanese, and one out of ten Hong Kong publications.], is a genre term for shorter, self-contained non-fictional prose texts, in which the author tries to mediate individual experiences on an object or a question out of subjective I-perspective. This it tries associatively and from different sides, not as a text for daily use, but with artistic or educationally demanding means of language, nevertheless in an accessible form. The resource is mastered by the essayist sovereignly and the topic is seen in a larger context and can even be presented humorously. Freedom in form and content is essential for the essay. 1The choice of the term “sanwen” instead of “suibi” (familiar essay) or “xiaopinwen” (short literary piece) is of course arbitrary, but it corresponds to the present usage. In about 200 essay collections and histories between 1949 and 1996 known to the author, sanwen turned out to be the common expression, xiaopin was used only in one out of 25 essay titles of the PR China, in one out of 14 Taiwanese, and one out of ten Hong Kong publications.

Chen Jiangning 陈江宁

Different perspectives range in the international genre of the essay: Genres are primarily divisions of literature through the scholarship of literature for specialized contemplation and in order to be able to compare similar texts more easily. On the other hand, a subcategorization in numerous small entities, like Zheng Mingli does with the essay, questions the sense of such subdivisioning in reference to hermeneutic findings. One must also stay aware of the changing nature of literature itself and the relativity of the scientific perspective, which is still a timely one, even if its accepted internationally. Regional deviations seem less important for the essay than for established genres like short stories, novels etc., and far less important than for poems.

Chen Jiaxin 陈佳欣

All these other genres are seen as international genres. My hypothesis, that the Chinese and the Western essay also belong to the same international genre maybe proved by the crosscultural mutualities both in form and content. In the 21st century, the world is growing together and culture is mainly determined by the grade of modernization. The Chinese essay, as we find it in newspapers today, has taken on the form and content of the Western essay and is aimed at a target group comparable to that of the Western essay. This is a second hint that the modern Chinese essay belongs to the international genre of the essay. Even though the translation of duanpian xiaoshuo 短篇小說 with short stories is commonly accepted, both are less closely related than the Western essay and its Chinese counterpart.

Chen Jingjing 陈静静

The definition, which I developed out of a sample of more than 5000 modern Chinese essays, fits also the special international understanding of the essay (following Bolz 1992 13:269-272 on the development of the western essay; Butrym 1989 on the theory of the western essay). Besides the trend towards a globalized society, first expressed in Zhou Zuoren's call to adopt the English essay style, there are special local characteristics of the Chinese essay. How is the Chinese essay to determine culturally, what makes it "Chinese"? In the occidental essay the form seems to be a more important criterion of differentiation than in its Chinese counterpart. In China even those texts are included, which have only a similar content, but cross the borders of the formal generical framework.

Chen Sha 陈莎

This can be shown with Zheng Mingli, who subcategorises the "unfinished diary" or the "unfinished letter". Those texts belong - within the Western context - to texts of personal use and therefor to the non-fictional prose works. Only after they have been altered into essays (Zheng Mingli: "essay in diary form" and "essay in letter form"), they are accepted as essays.

The Chinese understanding of the genre is tendencially broader

This tendencial broader understanding of the essay in China can be traced back directly to the connotation, that the term sanwen possesses in Chinese: wú yùnwén 無韻文 "non-rhythmic prose", which originally meant all non-fictional prose. In this broader meaning, also texts for personal or everyday use are included. However I deal only with sanwen in the narrower meaning "short literary essay pieces".

Chen Sunfu 谌孙福

Further differences are that Chinese essays often have ideological contents and show stylistic characteristics like repetitions and the usage of sayings.

The Chinese essay is booming again in the 1980s and 1990s

Analysis reveals a general increase in essay publication after 1979 with two peaks immediately after the 'Cultural Revolution'. The publications apparently reaching a new height in 1990. The first increase came about in the 1920s and 1930s, after which the essay's role was eclipsed by the genre of the report (baogao wenxue 報告文學)2.[ Klaschka 1998.] The flourishing of essay publication in the 1920/30s and 1980/90s was helped in part by the appearance of new magazines that existed chiefly as vehicles for contemporary essayists, and numerous sanwen congshu 散文叢書 (essay bookseries). 2Klaschka 1998.

Chen Yongxiang 陈永相

The increase in essay production  right after the clear-cutting of the ‘Cultural Revolution’ has been the backlog of demand, which is reflected in 1 million copies of essay collections being printed between 1980 and 1982 - only counting the collections contained in a sampling of 130 ‘representative’ books I was able to collect for a survey.

Thanks to the work of some major Chinese editors, the whole essay culture was compiled from magazines and newspapers and was published in a flood of anthologies since the 1970s. This boom is comparable to the cultural fever of undigging xiangtu 鄉土 literature, which rose in Taiwan in front of the background of the movement of self-identification and independance.

Cheng Yusi 成于思

Why is the essay as abundant as fiction?

Let me name a few reasons, why the essay in fact is as abundant as its prose brother, fiction, and its lyrical sister, poetry, and why it must be valued as highly: - The essay had a direct impact on Chinese society throughout history (the reform ideas from the end of the Qing dynasty through the May Fourth period with the literary theorethical pieces and the daily political zawen 雜文 of Lu Xun, until today are mostly presented in essay form). The impact on literary reflection and theory is shown in the collection "Modern Chinese Literary Thought" 1996.

Deng Jinxia 邓锦霞

The effect of the essay genre with its direct language, its connection to life (e.g. its role in the coming to terms with the cultural revolution), and its direct access to the individual reader through newspapers. This impact is larger than the indirect one of fiction or poetry. The poem is the genre of retreat from social life, from political issues and time references. Hu Shi argues, that poetry is most important in the process of modernity, since poetry rises emotions. But it relies also on images and on linguistic rhythm. Liang Qichao stresses the role of novel and opera in the changing society. But sanwen is able to name things, it reflects life, caleidoscopic. Modern subjectivity is constructed with the tool of sanwen.

Ding Daifeng 丁代凤

- The essay also reflects trends in the society better than poetry and fiction: Individualism is expressed in the essay more directly than in the poem with its limitation in content and form. Ephemerality is reflected in the short form of the essay, which may be read in the subway on the way to work, where poems may not be so spontaneously enjoyed. - The essay reaches a larger part of the population than poetry, the amount of time spended on reading novels goes back, too. The essay itself a genre of high actuality, if not simply the genre of today.

Fang Jieling 方洁玲

- The essay tells us more about an author and his time than fiction or poetry, because in this genre, we encounter the author himself without metrical restrictions. We look trough authentic eyes on his contemporary society. Many authors turned to essay writing in the later periods of their lifes, like Lu Xun, Ba Jin, and Wang Meng. - The volume of essay production exceeds the volume of xiaoshuo 小說 production: Chinese newspapers since the 1870s on3[ Shenbao, Shibao etc. Liang Qichao sees the role of the newspaper both as liberal and authoritative: He understands the press as an institution to control the government, on the other hand he favors censorship.] and as a mass media from the early 20th century presented only one or two fictional stories in a serialized form, but invented essay columns like zagan 雜感 (from which Lu Xun developed his zawen), suibi 隨筆 or suixiang 隨想 (from which famous collections like Ba Jin's Suixiang lu 隨想錄 derived). 3Shenbao, Shibao etc. Liang Qichao sees the role of the newspaper both as liberal and authoritative: He understands the press as an institution to control the government, on the other hand he favors censorship.

Gan Fengyu 甘奉玉

Let us assign the essay its proper place

The consequence which must be driven from the above presented contrast between value and valuing of the essay is: Let us assign the essay its proper place! I will describe the beginnings of the discovery of the essay. Despite the increase in essay writing from 1979 on, it took a decade for the first theoretical reflections on this phenomenon to appear. It took another decade before the international scholarship of Chinese Studies became aware of the phenomenon of the essay. In the 1980s, Chinese scholarship made a first major approach to reflect on essay literature by writing essay histories and collecting papers, which concentrated first on the essayistic work of single authors like Lu Xun.

Gao Mingzhu 高明珠

Also two essay conferences in the 1990s showed no move towards international scholarship. Not before 1995 did international scholarship started to use common philological methods to explore single essayists (on Gaylord Leung [Liang Xihua] 梁錫華 Kubin 1995, on Wang Meng 王蒙 Woesler 1995, on Liu Zaifu 劉再復 Mansberg 1995 [unpublished]) or essays of groups (on xīnyučpài 新月派 Wagner 1996). Not before the second half of the 1990s, did a history of the Chinese essay using the means of Western philology appear (Woesler 1998) and for the first time, the essay was included in Western anthologies of literature as a genre equal to fiction and poetry (The Columbia Anthology of Modern Chinese Literature 1995, Modern Chinese Literary Thought 1996).

Gong Yumian 龚钰冕

Regarding the valuing of essays in China, Taiwan and the West, there are regional differences: In the States, essays are often chosen according to Western taste and totally unknown authors are given as much space as established ones. In Taiwan, Lu Xun has been banned for a long time, but today, in my survey, which Chinese essayists are printed the most in the 1990s, he ranks 16th. If one only take modern authors into account, he even ranks 12th. Hong Kong literature on Yu Guangzhong has been censored by Huang Weiliang in favor for the first (see Lin Yaode 1989:50), and Wang Meng has been overestimated in the People’s Republic of China due to his political post.

Gu Dongfang 顾东方

Still it remains a desideratum to get the most important Chinese essays in Western translation. Currently at least three essay collections in English translation are in the reviewing process (Tam King-Fai, Woesler) or already published (Pollard 1999). Pollard's selection is a highly subjective and eclective choice of essays, covering even the premodern essay. This year, scholars will meet on a first international conference on the essay (Achern, Germany August 25-26). In the years to come, a new Bonn History of Chinese Literature will grant the essay its proper place with two to three volumes only dedicated to the biji, youji and other essays.

Guan Qinqing 管钦清

Taking into consideration the essay will rewrite the history of Chinese literature

I will give a few hints, what the essay can contribute to the picture of Chinese Literature, which so far is overshadowed by fiction through the narrative of C.T. Hsia, Prusek and Anderson. We are used to established narratives, like the emergence and success of the May-Fourth literature. But this view neglects the role, that for example the yuanyang hudie pai played in the choir of different voices in the awoken intellectual debate in the beginning of this century. The May-Fourth group at that time was one voice among many and only succeeded because of its agitation and polemic in the public sphere, so we have to use new means to assign the Chinese essay its proper place.

Gui Yizhi 桂一枝

We learn from simplifiying narratives, that it is absolutely necessary to differentiate, and to reconstruct the complex time background. Having understood Chinese literature as determined by the development of fiction and poetry only, a broader understanding will change the whole appearance of Chinese literature. A scholarly endeavour is the use of modern literary theories in the approach to this genre. In the following, I will name three aspects (chronologically sorted by past, modern and contemporary time) to hold the argument, that the taking into consideration of the essay will rewrite the history of Chinese literature and change our current understanding of it.

Guo Lu 郭露

The classical and premodern essay documents Chinese philosophy, early subjectivity and still, a native Chinese tradition is questioned

How is the Chinese essay to be positioned historically, how did it emerge, what is its generic background? Generically, the ancestors of the essay are both in China and the West notes written on the margins of books, they are letters and travel notes. These notes differed from the canonized literature through its informal style, its expression of individuality und subjectivity, a much earlier document for subjectivity than the first autobiographical Chinese novel, The Dream of the Red Chamber.

Han Haiyang 韩海洋

From the very beginning, the essay was valued lower than poetry: the oldest reference[ This is older than the ones referred to in the Large Chinese Dictionary of Morohashi (Morohashi undated) and in the Encyclopaedic Dictionary of the Chinese Language 1966.] this far for the term sanwen that I found is Luo Dajing's statement from 1240: "詩騷妙天下，而散文頗覺瑣碎局促 Shī sāo miào tiānxià, ér sǎnwén pōjué suǒsuì júcù" (Poetry is moving mankind in a wonderful way, prose inquires into incoherent bagatels, is limited.) (Helin yulu). Another reproach Luo Dajing mentions, is a formal one: In comparison to the highly artistic and century-long tradition of poetic writing, the direct and often vernacular langage of the essay in his eyes had less value.

Han Wanzhen 韩宛真

In the West, a real 'art of the essaywriting' came up in the late 16th century as a medium for the newly reorganized knowledge. The reorganization originated from the observations of Kopernikus, which destroyed the whole conception of the world of the Middle Age. In China, particularly the debates on Buddhism in the 4th and 5th century A.D. saw the origination of a tradition of letters. The Chinese tradition of the sanwen 散文 (essay) however, in the understanding of sǎn 散 as (to dispel, leisure, loose, relaxed, irregular, independant style, free prose, can be seen not before the detachment from the dialogue - or aphorism, which is still visible in the philosophical Lunyu. Xunzi delivered the prototype of the later essay with his philosophical treatises.

He Changqi 何长琦

They are an early form of philosophical didactical essays, in which general theorems are derived not only from quotations of the canonized classical works, but for the first time also from his own individual experience. The individuality is still a main characteristic of the essay today. During the dynasties the essay manifested itself further in certain subcategories: From reading-notes written at the paper margins originated the biji 筆記 (occasional notes), flourishing in the Ming Dynasty. The marginalism is a link between Western and Chinese tradition of early essays. Occasional notes could contain private historical notes, anecdotes, communications and contemplations. However, the consciousness of the essay as a genre of its own originated in China not before the Qing 清 dynastie, when numerous essay anthologies were compiled.

Hu Baihui 胡百辉

Taking into consideration the social-historical background draws a different picture of the old society than short stories and novels: Essays are much closer to real life, since they express individual problems and experiences. Until now, the Chinese pre-Hongloumeng individual literature spoke only through the indirect language of poems to us. Rediscovering the essays, we have a splendid source of opinions, social-historical pictures etc. Premodern essay literature consists of much more than its most well-known example, the formally restrictive baguwen. Lu Xun himself wrote some of his essays in baguwen style, but on the other hand took it as a synonym for the ancient society. Zhou Zuoren saw the rhythm of the language of the "Eight legged essay" as as appealing and intoxicating as the "pleasure of doing opium. (Zhou 1932:148).

Hu Huifang 胡慧芳

But he considered it also as a prevalent genre implicit in the modern writings as yang bagu (westernized bagu) and dang bagu (party-line bagu) (borrowing from Wu Zhihui, Zhou Yuanliu:71). Neo-Confucianism stressed wen (prose) as the most important tool to transmit the dao (way): Wenyi zai dao (Literature as the carrier of the way). If we reinterprete this diction in the perspective of genre, we can say, that the essay then has been regarded as an important tool to express truth, subjectivity and Self. Liang Qichao developed a xīn wéntǐ 新文體 (new prose style), which was influenced by Western languages, but the essay became popular not before the newspapers became mass media, and the language changed into baihua.

Hu Jin 胡瑾

The essay as the medium of modernity, the questioning of the genuiness of the Chinese essay

To solve first of all the dispute on whether the Chinese essay grew out of a native tradition or was influenced by Western translations, one finds both traditions relevant: The occidental essay was introduced to the writers of the literature reform movement from 1907 on by translations in Chinese (Lin Shu: Irving 1907, Addison 1911). The current form of the genre is mostly based on the influence of Western essay translations. First developed a Chinese essay tradition, which consciously leaned upon the Western model in language, form and terminology, its own proponents succumbed soon to the temptation to derive a tradition of the Chinese essay from Chinese history only.

Ji Tiantian 纪甜甜

A seemingly unbroken Chinese tradition of the native Chinese wenyan sanwen is presented in Chinese textbooks (Yu Zaichun 1978-82, Li Xishang 1985). Still, the value of the native tradition of essay writing and the role of the Western influence upon it is discussed controversially among the scholars. Some admit that Western impact played a key role in what we understand as Chinese essays nowadays: Wang Bin 1992, Fan Peisong 1993; for Western impact in general see Průšek 1964, Gálik 1966, McDougall 1971. Other scholars think that Western influence is overestimated - Denton 1996 showed that the theoretical background was missing for understanding Western theories of literature in China, - and recommended that we understand the essay first by its national tradition.

Jiang Fengyi 蒋凤仪

How far personal opinion may influence the narrative of historical facts can be seen by the example of the legendary authors of the May Fourth movement. All of them considered the English essay as the father of the Chinese essay: Zhou Zuoren 1921, Lu Xun 1933, the anarchist and later member of the Guomindang Wu Zhihui [1934]. Later, some of these authors changed their minds to support their own theories on the essay by looking for proof of a native Chinese essay tradition: for example, Lu Xun with his theory "“Zhǎnkāi” shuō yǔ “méngyá” lùn “展開”說與“萌芽”論" (Theory of "Starting" and "Blossoming") came to see the fighting and critical character of the essay of the Jin dynasty (265 - 420) as the 'father' of the Chinese essay, and Zhou Zuoren first the English essay (1921) and later the biji (occasional notes) of the Ming, although he still tried to integrate the English essay in his "公安派與英國小品“合成”論 Gōng'ānpài yǔ Yīngguó xiǎopǐn “héchéng” lùn" (Theory of the Synthesis of the Gongan School and the English Essay).

Jiang Hao 姜好

Wang Zengqi regrets that the national Chinese tradition of the essay at the time of the 'May Fourth Movement' has not been taken up again and has not continued in contemporary essays (Wang Zengqi 1993). The Chinese essay is an accommodating object of study, because one may look to it to prove any theory of the essay. One can find examples for each topic in almost every period, simply because the essay has a wide range of subjects. When Zhou Zuoren showed that only seven months after the incident at Marco Polo bridge it was again possible to write about a candy seller[ Siehe Zhou Zuoren: "Mai tang 賣糖" (Über Bonbonverkauf), in: Yao wei ji 藥味集 (Sammlung bitterer Geschmack), Peking 北京: Beijing xinmin yinshuju 北京新民印書局 (Pekinger Buchladen Neues Volk) 1942.3.20, Nachdruck: Hongkong 香港: Shiyong shuju 使用書局 (Praxisverlag) 1973.6, S. 126 - 131, englische Übersetzung u.d.T. "Candy selling" von Wolff: Chou Tso-jen 1971, S. 92 - 95 [Datiert auf 25.2.1938 mit einem Nachspann vom 28.]] (1924), he was critizised as "paralyzing" (Lu Xun 1934, Zhu Zhaoluo 1943).[ Vgl. Lu Xun: "Die Krise des freien Essays" 1934 und Zhu Zhaoluo: "Tan xiaopinwen 談小品文" (Über den freien Essay), in: Yiwen zazhi Bd 1 (1943.8, Heft 2).]

Jiang Qiwei 蒋淇玮

When he wrote a piece on the "Fly", he was reproached with dealing with subjects of minor importance. Reproaches like this lie in the very nature of the genre, since marginalism is substantial to the essay. The mentioned formal reproach of Luo Dajing can be found again in the 1990s, Hong Kong students critisized the literary style as it appears in Ba Jins "Thoughts" (Suixiang lu) as too direct and too less artful. But this perspective does not recognize the very nature of the essay, which is a very individual expression of an author's thoughts and not bound to tradition, and therefore much more free also in content.

Kang Haoyu 康浩宇

The essay - from its very nature free and independant - almost disappeared in the time of the Cultural Revolution and - except for the ideologically influenced essays - had a hard struggle between Yan'an and the loss of moral legitimacy by the leadership in 1989. The essay was the genre of the modernizing society of the early 20th century. Many writers had to define and often redefine their position and self-understanding in reaction to war and warlordism and later in the modernizing society, often burying their own ideals, in the larger perspective for the seeming "needs" of society, which also claimed the author to be one of its products. But from its very nature, the essay set new boundaries in form and content, and therefore not only survived the ideological restrictions, but also established its own critical subculture within.

Kang Lingfeng 康灵凤

The essay was not only a medium of discussion and a documentation of the social-political background for us today, but also a documentation of the personal struggle of the writers finding a position in a changing environment, since the essay is "a genre of self-reflection". Some essays even deconstructed master narratives like the one of leftist ideology, often simply by confronting it with subjective experience, reality or art.[ I want to mention another position on literature, which stresses the impact of literature on life, especially on the eve of revolutions - following this view, all literature is political (Jameson).]

Kong Xianghui 孔祥慧

Not only the understanding of literature as a whole changes if we take into consideration the essay, also the view of single authors shifts, if we see not only their novels or poems, but also their essays. I mention only Zhou Zuoren. His ideas connected him[ Like for example Zhu Ziqing and Ba Jin.] spiritually to his contemporary collegues in Europe, Japan and America, but these where ideas for which China turned out to be not yet ready. At that time, China had taken a road which led away from progress, wealth, freedom and spiritual enlightenment. The consequences have yet to be overcome.

Kong Yanan 孔亚楠

In 1927, Chinese literature has taken the form of 'engaged literature'.[ The 'mainstream' writers took an affirmative approach in their writing, whereas the other writers formed a minority. The individual authors did not necessarily belong to either one of these groups throughout their life, but may have moved between them. Since the essay is a medium which enables the individual to express thoughts directly, the writers chosen for this paper can be classified according to their position.] The topical development of political essays sees a shift from the enlightenment-educational essay, which emerged in 1907, to the daily-political essays in the 1920-30s, further to anti-Japanese propaganda in the 1940s and ideological propaganda in the 1950s and 1960s.

Lei Fangyuan 雷方圆

In the 1980/90s, the discussion of politics of daily interest form a smaller part than in the 1920/30s. In the 1980s all genres including poems and essays were used for the critic against the master narrative of Communism or the Maoist understanding of art as serving ideology. Whilst the 1980s saw a revival of political issues in terms of discussion on the best system of society, (also in literature in general and in film) to a mere unpolitical and again more philosophical-moral theme spectrum in the 1990s, where essayists define their role, first of all to counterpart the consume-orientation of the masses.[Yu Guangzhong's essay "The wolves are coming" shows that the ideological perspective did not only harm mainland essaywriting.] The essay seems to be the only genre in China which has kept its educational claim with the exception of essays which claim to be "art pourt l'art".

Lei Kuangxi 雷旷溪

The topical development of the unpolitical essay starts with the everyday-topics of Zhu Ziqing ("Shuo meng 說夢" On dreams in: Zhu Ziqing 1928) and Zhou Zuoren from 1917 (My own garden 9.1923, "The Fly" 1924, "Reading on the Toilet" 1936), with a caesura 1927, when the political essays became the main stream, until the late 1930s, when the unpolitical essay was eliminated totally by the anti-Japanese movement. It didn't recover until the 1970s, when life turned back to normality and normal things became topics of interest because of their long absence. Again in the 1990s, the unpolitical essay boomed also due to less interest in political issues and the need for a new orientation in the new found world of mass consumerism.

Li Haiquan 李海泉

I mentioned the lack of translations in Western languages. One of the reasons might be the impression of some scholars that many of the Chinese essays were just propaganda. This might be true for the 1940s and even the 1950s, but nowadays this has changed, as the overwhelming majority of publications prove. This demands a closer look: Since 1949, politically affirmative literature has been encouraged by the government, resulting in a statistical paradox: not the affirmative authors and their texts form the majority of the essayists read in the 1990s, but the critical essayists, whose texts oppose the order to serve politics through their apolitical, sometimes even defiant character. In the 1990s, the texts of 1920s/1930s Republican China are still as often reprinted as their contemporary counterparts.

Li Lili 李丽丽

Obviously we can conclude that the politically affirmative essay of the 1950s only survived in special political essay collections and is no longer written by famous contemporary authors nor read by the Chinese audience in the beginning of the 21st century.

Taking into account of a genre shifts the whole perspective on literature, taking into account the essayistic works of an author shifts also the view of the author. I will name only one author as an example for a modern essayist:ZHOU ZUOREN.

I mentioned already his theoretical contribution to the Chinese essayism, but still, his essays have been neglected until the 1980s. The reason does not lie in literary quality, but in political valuing. The master narrative of the offical literary history of the People's Republic on Zhou Zuoren is, that the theoretical May Fourth genius "degenerated" and later became a "traitor".

Li Lingyue 李凌月

Publishing in the Japanese sponsored magazines Reminiscences, and Chinese Literature, he was blamed together with Zhu Pu and Yuan Xi of collaboration. An unanswered question is, why another author, who published there, Zhang Ailing, was never reproached with collaboratorship. The difference between all of them is that Zhang Ailing tried to avoid political committments, whereas Zhou felt guilty, Zhu justified it and Yuan simply accepted it. In his small literary pieces, Zhou tried to aesthetizise the little things of the everyday life out of the subjective experience of his private space. The major contribution of Zhou Zuoren is, that he set the turning point in Chinese essay writing with his call for writing short literary pieces (Meiwen 1921).

Li Liqin 李丽琴

In foreign literature there is the so-called lunwen 論文 (treatise), which is roughly divided into two groups: the reflecting ones, piping 批评 (critical), are scientific articles. The others are jishu 記述 (descriptive) and yishuxing 藝術性 (artistic), they are also called meiwen 美文 (aesthetic essay). Within these texts, one can distinguish between xushi 敘事 (narrative) and shuqing 抒情 (lyric). But there are also mixed texts. [...] I hope that the aesthetical essay is encouraged to come back, and will open up a new field for the New Literature. Wouldn’t that be wonderful?

With these words from the essay "The aesthetic essay" this new vernacular form was defined. This starting point founded a whole new tradition of essay writing in China. Contemporary wri¬ters called this piece the "king of essays".

Li Luyi 李璐伊

In order to bring this new form to his compatriots, he tried to find similiarities with the xiaopinwen of the Ming dynasty. He further discussed these thoughts in his essay theory. In his own essays, he profited a lot from ancient suibi. Later he further developed his literary theory towards an up and down of two trends. In the modernizing society, he advocated the liberation of women and asked to "treat children as full subjects with their own external and internal lives" and to "make children the essence of children's literature" (Zhou 1923). He promoted the baguwen and the independance of literature from politics and effected the literary scene and the development towards a modern Chinese society especially between 1917 and 1938.

Li Meng 李梦

With this theoretical foundation and his own vo'luÉmi¬nous essayistic work, Zhou Zuoren through the example of his own form of short literary pieces within this genre, fought at that stage of the development of his literary theory like Benjamin Henri Constant de Rebecque 130 years ago in France for the idea "l'art pour l'art", for individuality and independance of the writer, for disinterested literature. The jugdment, that Zhou was an apolitical author cannot be proved with his essays. Instead, he wanted his abstinence of political statement to be understood as a political statement by itself.