20201214 trans

Cao Runxin 曹润鑫

In fact, reportage research and composition along with organizing and performing in roving theatrical troupes became one of the principal modes of ”internship” for young writers in the socialist educational system as it emerged in Yan’an.

Yang Shuo, Liu Baiyu, and Qin Mu were all in their twenties at this time, so they had limited literary experience before the 1940s. Thus for Liu and Yang, the Yan’an years helped define for them what literature is supposed to be from process to product. Qin Mu, however, never went to Yan’an; he spent the entire war in Guangdong, Guangxi and Guizhou. Thus though he had experience with some of these procedures of production in progressive circles in those areas, Qin Mu was not saturated in this kind of cultural environment.

Chang Huiyue 常慧月

Once socialism or communism took the position of power (as in Yan’an during the war against Japan and then throughout the PRC after 1949) critical prose writing (whether essays or reportage) as it had been practiced during wartime became much more dubious from the point of view of cultural officials, and nonfiction needed to become a vehicle of literary celebration of public, historical achievements.[ See for example Yang Shuo, ”Qian jin, gangtie de dajun” (March Forth, Great Army of Steel, 1949), Zhonghua sanwen zhencang ben, Yang Shuo juan (Beijing: Renmin wenxue chubanshe, 1998) 25-33; ”Pingchang de ren” (An ordinary man, 1951) 25-33; ”Pingchang de ren” (An ordinary man, 1951), Yang Shuo juan 13-17, ”Gebi tan shang de chuntian” (Springtime on the Gobi, 1953), Yang Shuo juan 29-33. ] This is precisely the familiar dilemma of Ding Ling, coming into Yan’an society well trained as a keen critic of her environment. It was an awkward transition, except for those who came into the socialist educational cultural system while still relatively young. To them the business of literature was that of constructing an unprecedented new vision.

Chen Han 陈涵

Writers’ changing roles changed literary prose

Each of the three authors I am discussing here was born between 1913 and 1919, only a few short years after the fall of the Qing dynasty and the establishment of the Republic of China. They were all in their late teens and early twenties at the outbreak of the war against Japan. Being roughly the same age, they shared the same historical and cultural atmosphere, but being in different locations, engaged in the war in different capacities, their transition into the aesthetics of incongruous lyricism took different paths and thus embodied different tensions.

Chen Hui 陈惠

Yang Shuo[ 1913-1968, orig. Yang Shujin(?), of Penglai County in Shandong.] is probably the most ”standard” of the three from the point of view of the Communist Party in that he went to Yan’an early (winter 1937) and worked under the direction of the party’s cultural apparatus for the duration of the war there, in the northwest, and in Guangzhou. Like the reportage writer Huang Gang, he was of the right age for this Yan’an-based period to be his principal formative and educational experience, deeply conditioning his approach and attitude toward writing in the 1950s and 1960s. That being said, Yang Shuo was more concerned with issues of literary quality and symbolic meaning than others writing under the direction of the CP, and this concern colored even his most famous works with puzzling tones of ambivalence and reservation.

Chen Jiangning 陈江宁

Liu Baiyu[ 1916-?, orig. Liu Yuzan, of Beijing. See Niu Yunqing, Liu Baiyu pingzhuan (Chongqing: Chongqing chubanshe, 1995).] arrived in Yan’an relatively early too, and was quickly immersed in its literary activism. Only weeks after his arrival, and though Liu was only 22 at the time, Mao Zedong personally assigned him to lead a five-person escort for the American marine observer Evans Carson to visit the guerilla areas in Northern China (one of a variety of types of ”cultural worker” assignments in the communist base areas). Despite this promising start and occasional contact with Mao, Liu published works that incurred the wrath of some critics and officials, became a target in the Yan’an zhengfeng campaign after Mao’s Talks, and underwent a process of mutual and self-criticism at the Central Party School.

Chen Jiaxin 陈佳欣

Though the result of this painful process was apparently ”successful” (Liu went on to hold important cultural administrative positions in the PRC), it also alienated him from certain elements in the literary community and led him to take an aggressively authoritarian role as the Party secretary of the Writers’ Assocation during the Anti-Rightist Campaign in 1957 and 58. This alienation is occasionally revealed in his sanwen works from that point on.

Qin Mu[ 1919-199?, orig. Lin Juefu, b. Singapore, of Chenghai County in Guangdong. See Huang Zhuocai, Weng Guangyu and Ai Zhiping, Qin Mu pingzhuan (Guangzhou: Huacheng chubanshe, 1989).] is one more step removed because he did not share the Yan’an experience with Yang and Liu. Though he was active in the literary resistance during the war against Japan, and though his biographers insist that he originally planned to go to Yan’an as early as 1938, he never went there (Huang, Weng and Ai, 1989, 26-27).

Chen Jingjing 陈静静

Because he did belong to the age cohort and had the same basic inclinations, he did come into contact with the same organizations (the Communist Party, Wenxie) that the others did, and indeed could even have met Yang Shuo in Canton when Yang was sent there on assignment in 1938. He also engaged in similar types of literary intervention, organizing and performing traveling anti-Japanese theater in the countryside, accompanying troops in the field as a writer, and publishing anti-Japanese and anti-KMT/US zawen in Rear or KMT area newspapers. But his experience during the war was not a community experience: Qin at first alone and later with his wife underwent the trials and tribulations of a writer at wartime as an individual, making his own decisions and contacting organizations only when the opportunity presented itself and he wished to do so.

Chen Sha 陈莎

Thus there is an especially independent streak about him that made relations between him and the Writer’s Association after 1949 somewhat strained. He was attacked in the 1957 zhengfeng movement, and it was not until 1962 that he joined the Communist Party.

Thus each of these writers exhibited different tensions as they approached writing after 1949, and particularly during and after the Hundred Flowers Campaign. All of them, however, adopted sanwen as a vehicle to express themselves, and while these essays at time seem on the surface to be pat or fulsome propaganda, they continue to be colored by these at times very personal tensions that often make the essays more compelling reading in spite of themselves.

Chen Sunfu 谌孙福

Procedures and interests of socialist essays

The sanwen of the late 1950s and early 1960s, because of a variety of different such personal and larger cultural tensions, manifest various kinds of ”incongruous lyricism.” All three of these writers had their essays included in textbooks for junior high school and high school during the 1960s and 70s. But these canonic texts represented only the completion of a gradual process of adjustment and must be viewed alongside earlier, less well-known efforts by these authors as well as their works in other genres, particularly fiction.

社会散文的发展阶段和关注点

由于不同的个人冲突和更严重的文化冲突，20世纪50年代末至60年代初的散文呈现出各种各样“不和谐的抒情性”。这三位作家的散文均已收录进20世纪六七十年代的中学教材中。这些经典文本仅代表着调整工作的逐渐完成。同时，我们得结合这些作家早期不太出名时的作品以及其他体裁的作品（尤其是小说）来看待那些经典文本。--Chen Sunfu (talk) 07:41, 9 December 2020 (UTC)

由于各种各样的个人冲突乃至文化冲突，20世纪50年代末至60年代初的散文呈现出多样的“不和谐的抒情性”。在20世纪六七十年代的中学和高中教材中，这三位作家的散文均编撰进了课本。然而这些经典文本仅代表着调整工作的逐渐完成。同时，我们得结合这些作家早期不太出名时的作品以及其他体裁的作品（尤其是小说）来分析那些经典文本。--Mo Ling (talk) 12:44, 9 December 2020 (UTC)Mo Ling

Chen Yongxiang 陈永相

Friction with leftist aesthetics

In the late 1950s and early 1960s the term sanwen was more frequently associated with ”lyricism” (shuqing) and opposed to ”expository” (shuoli) prose essays. In practice, this is indicated by long descriptive passages, the frequent use of direct address to the reader in the second person as well as rhetorically loaded interrogative, imperative and expressive particles. At particularly rhapsodic moments, socialist sanwen texts take on a fu-like rhetoric, syntactic parallelism and a piling up of listed concrete objects and rich varieties of adverbs and adjectives. One is attempted to associate this attempt at of verbal profusion with certain Republican period stylists like Zhu Ziqing and Yu Pingbo, but the socialist version is much more extravagant both in verbiage and emotional exhibitionism.

Cheng Yusi 成于思

On the level of imagery, a general fascination with images of light, fire and torches left over from the war period[ Particularly evident in Liu Baiyu’s reportage works from the late 1940s.] remains but in part gives way to a new interest in flower imagery in the 1950s.[ Qin Mu’s essays and some of Yang Shuo’s are filled with varieties of flowers and plants, enjoyed in themselves and as symbols of other things. ] Finally a strategy common to all three writers is to conceive of a vista or an experience as a living landscape painting, emphasizing a magnitude of vision and the accompanying emotional exhilaration. In some cases, these highly visual essays are accompanied with illustrations uncannily consistent with the texts’ visualization of the landscape.

Deng Jinxia 邓锦霞

Yang Shuo

Yang Shuo’s 1959 essay ”The Highest Peak of Taishan”[ Taishan jiding, wr. 1959, from Haishi. Yang, 125-129.] features this kind of overt reference to landscape painting. The text simply narrates the author’s ascent of the famous Shandong mountain, but the narrative structure of the climb is interwoven with a figurative structure consisting of three elements. The first is the traditional landscape painting motif: ”All the way from the foothills, looking closely at the mountain landscape, I felt like what was before me was not the lord of the Five Famous Mountains, but more like a green and blue landscape painting of astounding size,” (Yang, 125) an idea he develops as a conceit with figurative descriptive language. Second, Yang writes ”after a while, I began to feel that I was not only looking at a landscape painting, but randomly flipping through a historical manuscript.” (Yang, 126)

Ding Daifeng 丁代凤

This in reference to the calligraphy of famous visitors to the mountain carved into its sides and the legends and stories about them. The third and last layer of figuration is the sense that the author is not climbing a mountain, but climbing into the sky.

The touristy desire to see the sunrise from Taishan’s peak introduced at the essay’s outset and which teases the reader occasionally throughout the text is deftly frustrated in the rhetorical pursuit of what to the author is a higher aim: the recontainment of a Taishan travelogue into the extolling of the historical achievements of socialism. Once he has passed through the Southern Gate of Heaven, the author sees the Shandong landscape spread out at his feet, but what he notices are the grand commune wheat fields (amber waves of grain) as opposed to patchwork agricultural quilt of yore, and smoky plumes in the distance are not scattered homes but factories.

Fang Jieling 方洁玲

Though the weather had been clear at night near the peak when the party went to bed early in order to get up in time for the sunrise, fog and rain overnight linger to create an overcast sky at dawn. But author’s socialist/communist landscape epiphany of the previous evening eclipses the banal tourist wish for a beautiful sunrise – he has seen ”another kind of” (metaphysical) sunrise, that of the Chinese people/nation on the horizon.

In his essay about Kunming’s camellias,[ ”Chahua fu” (Ode to the Camellia) written 1961, from Dongfeng di yi zhi. Yang 134-37.] Yang Shuo opens with a discussion with an artist friend about what kind of painting would show the face of the ”motherland” (zuguo). He then turns to his trip to Kunming after returning from travels abroad.

Gan Fengyu 甘奉玉

Especially as a ”northerner” he is struck by the beauty of the red camellia flowers around the city and in Huating Temple, where he is escorted by Jin Zhiwen, the landscaper. His attention is drawn to one variety called ”Child’s Face” tongmian. As is almost invariably the case in Yang Shuo essays, the subject he has chosen becomes an opportunity for the author to contemplate the symbolic resonances of its characteristics – in this case the camellia’s sensitivity to proper care, environment and natural enemies, but also the fact that great trees centuries old have been carefully cultivated with hundreds and even thousands of blossoms. A detailed description of the gardener himself provides the author with the key to the signified:

Gao Mingzhu 高明珠

I fervently gazed at his hands, hands covered with mud-stained calluses. Then I looked at his face, the wrinkles at the corners of his eyes were cut deep, and it was not necessary to ask about his background: I could guess that he was a middle aged man who had been through a lot. If he waled away from you and into the crowd, he would vanish immediately and it would be very hard to find him again – he was just that kind of very ordinary laborer. But it is just this kind of person, month after month, year after year, exerting mind and body, cultivating flowers and plants with all his effort, beautifying our lives. This is how beauty is created. (Yang, 136)

Gong Yumian 龚钰冕

When author observes a group of schoolchildren who have come to see the camellias, the bond is cemented and the ”paint the face of the nation” riddle is solved – paint the Child Face Camelia.

What is incongruous in Yang Shuo’s lyricism, in many other examples in addition to these, is that no matter how transparent the symbolism and fervent the message of his essay, there is almost always slight ambivalence introduced by negative elements at the fringes: why does the glorification of socialist progress in ”Taishan’s Highest Peak” have to come at the expense of the famous sunrise? What has Jin Zhiren ”been through” that has deepened his wrinkles, and why should that pain be related to the creation of beauty?

Gu Dongfang 顾东方

Liu Baiyu

Liu Baiyu’s transition toward sanwen in the PRC came from the direction of reportage literature. Liu had established some reputation as a novelist on the literary scene through key connections he had made with Ba Jin, Zhang Tianyi, Ye Yiqun and other major figures in the 1930s. But by 1949 it was his reportage collections, including Around the Northeast, The Light Shines Down on Shenyang, Cutting across the Central Plains, and The Torches Glow Red in the Yangtse River that were some of the best known works by a communist writer during the civil war in the late 1940s.

Guan Qinqing 管钦清

The late 1950s text ”Lamplight” revisits the experience of the battlefield in a much more peaceful China. ”Lamplight” has a forceful, shrill rhetoric in its development of the image of glowing light through a number of different contexts, from war to socialist economic construction without losing the sense of militant struggle that informed the image of light for Liu from the beginning. [ ”Denghuo” (Lamplight), Liu Baiyu, Hong manao ji (Red agate) (Beijing: Wenhua yishu chubanshe, 1983) 5-11. ] Evidently Liu, though he holds influential positions in the literary establishment of the time, feels alienated by certain elements on the literary scene, particularly in regard to the stigmatization of the experience of the battlefield:

Gui Yizhi 桂一枝

. . . nowadays some people treat the subject of war, regardless of right or wrong, regardless of green red black or white always make it look bloody, dark and horrible! They call this ”through the soldier’s eyes,” ”foxhole realism” Hai! This makes those of us who have strapped puttees on our calves and have had the smell of gunpowder about the shoulders want to laugh our heads off. What can you do? There are brave soldiers who fight for what’s right; there are counter-revolutionary murderers; and there are cowardly traitors. Since there are different kinds of soldiers, there have to be different soldier points of view, and there must be different kinds of ”foxhole reality.” Perhaps there are those who would criticize me: how did I get from lamplight to this argument about war, aren’t I getting way off track? Actually, no. The lamplight I am talking about may be a small matter, but it really is a reality of life at war. Getting back to the subject, on the chill wilderness of the Songhua river, trudging through winter snows, wading through summer rapids, from lamplight I was able to understand a certain kind of warmth. (Liu, 7-8)

Guo Lu 郭露

"The Brilliance of Spring,"[”Qingchun de shanguang,” written 1959, in Hong manao ji, 23-33.] a lengthy, fu-like essay extolling ten years of socialism in China, manifests many of the distinguishing characteristics of Liu’s post-1949 sanwen. Though written in the wake of the Anti-Rightist Campaign, it casts no shadow on the essay and though there is flower imagery, significantly, it does not emphasize diversity (as in ”hundred flowers”). At about 6,000 characters, it is also much longer than most of Yang Shuo’s essays, which are usually about half that long, particularly those most revered and anthologized. ”The Brilliance of Spring” does not start out with a clearly-defined topic; the occasion or motivation of its composition did not become obvious to me until near the end.

"春光灿烂"（又名《青春的闪光》，写于1959年，载自《红玛瑙集》，23-33页。）这是一篇颂扬中国十年来社会主义发展的长篇巨作，表现了1949年后其散文的显著特点。即使写于反右运动之后，但其并未受其影响，虽然辞藻华丽，但并未没有强调多样性（如 "百花齐放"）。文章字数在6000字左右，也比杨朔的大多数散文要长得多，一般来说，杨朔的散文都在3000字左右，尤其是那些最受推崇的散文和文集。 "春光灿烂 "一开始并没有明确的主题，制造结尾我才明白它的创作场合和动机。--Guo Lu (talk) 08:01, 9 December 2020 (UTC)

"春天的辉煌"，[《庆春德山岗》，写于1959年，载《红玛瑙集》，23-33页。]这是一篇颂扬中国社会主义十年的长篇文章，表现了刘勰1949年后散文的许多显著特点。 虽然写于反右运动之后，但没有给文章蒙上阴影，虽然有花的意象，但显著的是，它没有强调多样性（如 "百花"）。 它的字数在6000字左右，也比杨朔的大多数散文要长得多，一般来说，杨朔的散文都在一半左右，尤其是那些最受推崇的散文和文集。 "春光灿烂 "一开始并没有明确的主题，它的创作场合或动机直到接近尾声时我才明白。--Liu Yi (talk) 09:23, 9 December 2020 (UTC)

Han Haiyang 韩海洋

The visualization with which the text begins juxtaposes a dawn construction scene complete with a handsome, rugged construction worker in Tian’anmen square with author’s memories of other occasions when he was ”right here, in this spot!” including most significantly, a vision of a Japanese tank rolling up from Qianmen, its treads gouging scars in the ground. Liu also includes memories of the entry of the People’s Liberation Army into Beijing, and the ceremony at which Mao Zedong officially established the People’s Republic, but the author moves from one impression-layer to the next vaguely and ambiguously, punctuated with the refrain ”Here! It was right here!”

Han Wanzhen 韩宛真

Liu makes a conspicuous gesture away from the scene of Tian’anmen to other significant spaces including oilfields in the Western deserts, a poignant scene of a mother sending her son off to the Korean war, Anshan the ”city of steel,” a humble Party meeting among lumberjacks taking place in a shack deep in the forest far from Beijing, and other sites of significant material and spiritual progress in the PRC. As the essay progresses, a new motif is picked up from the contemporary Tian’anmen scene and repeated with increasing frequency: the ”radiant red face and brilliant eyes” of the young socialist citizens whose verbal pictures Liu paints. There is much hyperbole and the extraordinary breadth of subject matter, convering ten years of socialist achievement packaged in spatial-visual tableaux, like a memorial display case or monument, which was the usual strategy of essays and reportage about the Korean War.

He Changqi 何长琦

Despite the desire to come into close contact with the masses through genuine experiences, it was more common for writers to come into contact with workers, peasants and soldiers through the organizational activities and connections of the Communist Party. In Liu Baiyu’s essays from the 1950s and 60s, you can feel the author incongruously straining to make the most of his experience (straining to maximize its feeling of authenticity) and the characters he describes.[ ”Xie zai taiyang chu sheng de shihou” (Written as the Sun Begins to Rise), Hong manao ji 34-52 [written 1959?]. ] On the level of subject matter, since the (model) workers etc. he writes about are models and leaders, already part of the (embodiments of the) local Communist Party administrative apparatus, they too are straining to give the correct impression, put the right spin on their experiences and ideas, to behave in the way expected of them.

Hu Baihui 胡百辉

Qin Mu

Qin Mu’s case might be distinguishable from the others by virtue of the fact that he established himself as a satirical (zawen) columnist during the civil war, and of course satire in general had to go after 1949.[ Interestingly, Qin Mu continued to write zawen in the 1950s and beyond, publishing a very popular collection in 1960 entitled Yihai shibei (Gathering Shells by the Sea of Art). By then Qin’s zawen were not combative, but expository in nature, reflections on principles of artistic creation, so in a way Qin had redefined the zawen genre for himself. The sanwen collection Hua cheng was published at roughly the same time as Yihai shibei and was distinguished by the author himself as ”more lyrical” than the ”expository” pieces in Yihai shibei. Comparing the essays therein with those of Hua cheng, one is struck by formal differences (the Yihai shibei pieces are much shorter than those in Hua cheng) and by the almost complete lack of figurative or descriptive language in Yihai shibei. However difficult it might be for us to define the differences between zawen and sanwen now, it seems clear that Qin Mu had a clear idea in his own literary practice.] Fortunately he had been accustomed to making fun of Americans and the Guomindang which continued to be safe and politically correct targets in the 1950s, but he had to find positive things to write about as well, and considering his background and the ambiguity of his relationship with the Communist Party, this must have been a difficult transition for him, more difficult than it was for those who were already linked up with the party for years in Yan’an and other base areas.

Hu Huifang 胡慧芳

In his 1960 essay ”Earth,” (Tudi), Qin Mu makes a figurative connection between earth how handfuls of earth can serve as symbols of wealth, power, sovereignty, political positions. Part of the visualization involves (like Liu Baiyu) aerial views. As war with its arial reconnaisance and bombing transformed the concept of China’s space into a contiguous whole rather than a network of locales, the wider availability of air travel in the 1950s added a visual dimension to this contiguity that reinforces the connection between earth, China’s physical expance, the map of China, and the concept of nation:

秦牧在他1960年发表的论文《地球》（土地）中，将地球上的少数几个人如何象征着财富，权力，主权，政治地位作为形象的联系。 可视化的一部分涉及（如刘白玉）鸟瞰图。 随着战争的轰炸和轰炸将中国空间的概念转变为一个连续的整体，而不是一个地点网络，1950年代更广泛的航空旅行为这种连续性增加了视觉上的意义，从而加强了地球与中国物质扩张、中国地图和国家概念之间的联系 。 --Hu Huifang (talk) 03:57, 9 December 2020 (UTC)

在他1960年的文章《土地》中，秦牧把土地比喻成财富、权力、主权和政治地位的象征。部分可视化包括(如刘白玉)空中视图。随着战争的勘察和轰炸，中国的太空的概念转变成一个连续的整体,而不是一个地区的网络,航空旅行的更广泛的可用性在1950年代增加了一个视觉维度，强化了地球之间的联系,中国物质扩张,中国的地图,和国家的概念:--Zhou Siqing (talk) 04:11, 9 December 2020 (UTC)

秦牧在1960年的文章《地球》（Tudi）中，将地球如何撮合成财富、权力、主权、政治立场的象征做了形象化的联系。 部分视觉化涉及（像刘白羽一样）鸟瞰图。 由于战争的侦察和轰炸将中国的空间概念转化为一个连续的整体，而不是一个地点网络，20世纪50年代更广泛的航空旅行为这种连续性增加了一个视觉维度，加强了地球、中国的物理扩张、中国地图和国家概念之间的联系。--WuQiong (talk) 14:47, 9 December 2020 (UTC)

Hu Jin 胡瑾

Once I gazed out an airplane window straight down upon the Pearl River delta; the heavens were crystal clear and I looked down and couldn’t help but cheer out loud because the Pearl River delta looked so magnificent that words couldn’t even describe it. The network of rivers and lakes shimmered in the sunlight while the earth looked like a piece of dark green velvet. The roads seemed as straight as if they had been sliced with a knife while the fields looked as neat as a chessboard. Wow! A hundred thousand years ago people looked to the skies for gods and miracles, but today the real miracle is taking place on the earth below.[ Qin Mu, Hua cheng (Guangzhou: Zuojia chubanshe, 1961) 17-18.]

Ji Tiantian 纪甜甜

Many of Qin Mu’s essays in the collection Hua cheng (City of Flowers) imaginatively recreate an (occasionally ancient) historical scene, in a specific place the essay focuses on that the author is observing today (or at least gives that impression) like Liu Baiyu’s ”right here on this spot” refrain. In his 1956 essay ”Lyric on the Altar of the God of Grain,” the earthen, square altar referred to in the title is in Zhongshan park in Beijing, and was where aristocrats were traditionally enfoeffed by the emperor.[ Qin, 21-31.] In many ways, this is a continuation of the previous essay (”Earth”), extending reflections on the material symbolism of earth and the glorious wisdom of the ancients.

Jiang Fengyi 蒋凤仪

This essay distinguishes itself by its relentless return to the altar itself, its self-conscious admiration of the brilliance of the ancients (with overtones of ethnic and cultural pride and reconciliation with the premodern culture of China) as well as a shrilly specific emphasis on unity as territorial sovereignty (”Once we liberate Taiwan and a few coastal islands, [our territorial] unity’s scope will be even more unprecedented.” 30)

Qin Mu is at his most characteristic, though, in writing educational essays (zhishi xiaopin). Also known as scientific xiaopin, the character of such writings would seem to be defined by their subject matter. [ Another writer of the post-Hundred Flowers period that writes a lot in this vein is Ma Nancun (Deng Tuo), whose popular Yanshan yehua column in Beijing Wanbao lasted for years and was published in four volumes in book form.] But I would like to suggest that the transmission of modern scientific knowledge in these texts is not an end in itself, but rather one answer to the question of ”what to write about?” in socialist sanwen. And it conveys (in addition to the knowledge or information), a certain scientistic, post-industrial atmosphere of enthusiasm that is a style as much as content.

Jiang Hao 姜好

Qin Mu’s ”Xing xia” (Under the Stars, 1958)[ Qin, 49-60.] begins as a sweeping exploration of stars, moving from the universal experience of gazing at the skies and wondering about the questions of existence to the cultural perspectives of the beliefs and lore of the ancients and finally to the scientific perspective of the astronomical knowledge gathered in recent centuries, decades and years that confirm the author’s faith in science and industrial modernity. The scientific knowledge in fact becomes a context or background against which to look back with some disdain at the superstitious quality of premodern beliefs, not only about the structure of the cosmos, but the extensions of such speculation into areas of human destiny and supernatural beliefs.

Jiang Qiwei 蒋淇玮

Reading this essay one can see that one of the keys to Qin Mu’s popularity lay not in his conspicuously Marxist-Leninist politics, but in his sweeping, timeless, universal and seemingly all-inclusive scope of vision and contemplation. Many or most of his essays give an exhilarating sense of vastness.

But this essay does not reach its completion without being recontained, as are Yang Shuo’s landscape meditations, in a political context. Written in the early years of Soviet space exploration, it seems obvious to Qin Mu that Soviet success in this area and the US’s failure is a clear sign of the direction of history. He argues with almost excessive rhetorical force that the failure of space exploration and science in general under capitalism signifies the inability of the capitalist world view to free itself from outmoded beliefs, while socialism is easily and innocently aligned with scientific achievement and progress.

Kang Haoyu 康浩宇

Qin Mu’s often shrill diatribes on historical materialism and Marxism-Leninism in educational essays (zhishi xiaopin) like this one, or about the history of overseas Chinese or the cosmic theories of warring states philosophers is an incongruous, inverted reflection of Qin’s perennial status as an outsider to the PRC socialist literary orthodoxy, being victimized by literary officials like Liu Baiyu in the anti-rightist campaign and only being admitted to the Communist Party in 1962. It is in his attempts to contain an ambitious gaze that can encompass human and natural history and the furthest reaches of space in a historicized polemic about the supremacy of Marxism-Leninism in the post war years that the incongruity of Qin Mu’s lyricism manifests itself.

Kang Lingfeng 康灵凤

Conclusion

The question of whether the ”real” world corresponds to the world these authors describe and narrate is moot; through the act of seeing or imagining the world as they do, they helped create the socialist world. These authors did not slavishly obey orders, writing from formulae they were provided by superiors and other writers; they willingly engaged in the procedures of research and composition that were part and parcel of communist education and literary practice; what they wrote followed from their training, it was the logical and organic extension of that training. They helped write the socialist world into existence.

Kong Xianghui 孔祥慧

Slavoj Zizek’s interpretation of Pascal that belief can actually emerge from deliberately going through the motions of ritual and imitating the faithful, and Zizek’s further point that ”reality” in any society is produced by ideological fantasies peculiar to it, suggest a similar interpretation of socialist sanwen.[ Slavoj Zizek, The Sublime Object of Ideology (London: Verso, 1989) 38-43.] Going through the ritual motions of faith, the individual already believes without realizing it, he argues, and then it is only a matter of time before that belief gradually takes control of the conscious mind. But within that ideological fantasy that is the representation of social reality, there are at the fringes and in the shadows suggestions of the impossibility of the vision. What I have referred to as the ”incongruous” in Yang Shuo, Liu Baiyu and Qin Mu are those almost unconscious suggestions tainting the pristine vision.

Kong Yanan 孔亚楠

Reading literature from the first seventeen years of the People’s Republic of China requires as much attention to practices within the socialist orthodoxy as to dissidents and victims. Against the prevalent view that socialist literary culture in China was a self-contained system introduced from the Soviet Union as if into a vacuum, socialist sanwen speaks to the mutability of that literary culture and the voice of individual writers in its development, however much sanwen may have been used for propaganda and indoctrination, it retained an ambiguity and reserve inherent in the genre since before the War gainst Japan. Above all, I think this speaks to the enormous importance of various forms of sanwen in modern Chinese literary culture in general, and any general apprach to the modernn Chinese essay must further explore the legacy of socialist sanwen, particularly as today’s sanwen writers for the most part read the works of Yang Shuo, Liu Baiyu and Qin Mu in their middle school textbooks.

Lei Fangyuan 雷方圆

Tradition as Construct and the Search for a Modern Identity: A Reading of Traditional Gestures in Modern Chinese Essays of Place [ This article is an extended version of the paper “The Self in the Landscape: Chinese Essays of Place in the Republican Era (1912-1949)” delivered at the conference The Modern Chinese Literary Essay: Defining the Self in the 20th Century, held in Achern, Germany, August 25-27, 2000.]

Alexandra R. Wagner

Abstract Zhu Ziqing’s “The Qinhuai River Amidst the Sound of Oars and Shadows of Lamps” (Jiangsheng dengyingli de qinhuaihe, 1923), Yu Dafu’s “Spring Day on Diaotai” (Diaotai de chunzhou, 1932), and Fang Lingru’s “Travel Notes from the Langya Mountain” (Langyashan youji, 1936) are three modern Chinese essays in which place and memory serve as the main textual and conceptual elements through which the writers’ negotiation of identity and search for meaning unfolds. Examining these “essays of place” with a focus on the dynamics between place, on the one hand, and personal as well as cultural memory, on the other, challenges the prevailing views of modern travel or landscape essays as either lyrical evocations of scenery, backdrops for personal experiences and thoughts, or sources for information on locations.

Lei Kuangxi 雷旷溪

The aggregation of cultural and personal memory in these essays foregrounds the skepticism and uncertainty that characterize the mindset of Chinese writers situated in a transitional period moving from tradition to modernity. By questioning apparent meaning and literary convention, the essays are ultimately texts on writing as a continuous and open-ended exploration.

Examining the “traditional gestures” central to the essays by Zhu, Yu, and Fang most prominently demonstrates this questioning of apparent meaning. Activities closely tied to places, such as climbing mountains, traversing lakes and rivers, and contemplating past history during visits to ruins and other sites are highly reminiscent of poetic onventions that have informed the long pre-modern literary history of travel and landscape writings.

这些文章中文化和个人记忆的聚合，凸显了处于传统向现代过渡时期的中国作家心态的怀疑和不确定性。通过对表面意义和文学传统的质疑，这些文章归根结底是关于写作的文本，是一种持续而开放的探索。

审视朱、余、方三家文章中的 "传统姿态"，最突出地体现了这种对表层意义的质疑。与地方密切相关的活动，如爬山、穿越湖泊、河流，以及在参观遗迹等过程中对过去历史的思考等，都让人高度联想到在漫长的前现代文学史上的游记和山水文章的诗学传统。--Lei kuangxi (talk) 05:41, 9 December 2020 (UTC)Lei Kuangxi

这些文章中文化记忆和个人记忆的聚集，突出了处于从传统向现代过渡时期的中国作家的怀疑和不确定性特征。通过对表面意义和文学传统的质疑，这些文章最终成为关于写作的文本，是一种持续的、开放式的探索。

对朱先生、于先生和方先生所著文章的核心“传统手势”的研究，最突出地证明了对表面意义的质疑。与地方紧密相连的活动，如爬山、穿越湖泊和河流，以及在参观遗迹和其他遗址时思考过去的历史，都让人联想到在漫长的前现代文学史的的游记和山水文章的诗学传统。--Yuan SHiqi (talk) 07:19, 9 December 2020 (UTC)

Li Haiquan 李海泉

As manifestations of cultural memory, such activities are more than simply concrete actions; they are gestures, i.e. “acts made as a sign of attitude.” These traditional gestures suggest an affinity between pre-modern and modern texts, yet at the same time, the essays consistently question the significance and consequence of this apparent affinity. This questioning is achieved, first, by the authors’ encounters with people inhabiting the landscape, second, by introducing elements of imperfection and incompletion throughout the essays, and, third, by the self-referential aspects of the essays.

Li Lili 李丽丽

Adopting traditional gestures of contemplating place and past can be seen as an attempt to place the author in a privileged and thus assured position, offering him a way to authoritatively define himself within, yet separate from, his surroundings. However, encounters with people inhabiting the places make the author “interact” with these places. Rather than being objects of perception and contemplation only, places become parts of the perceiving and contemplating subject. The idea of place as distinct from the observer, providing a setting against which he can define himself as well as measure the changing times is deceptive.

Li Lingyue 李凌月

In addition, elements of imperfection and incompletion disrupt the narrative in these essays and thus similarly question the reliability of traditional gestures in the search for stable definitions of selves. Self-referential aspects of the texts also draw attention to the essays’ constructedness, thus questioning the idea that the texts have a single, accurate (and thus authoritative) interpretation and significance.

In sum, an “ironic” reading of the traditional gestures in these essays of place foregrounds the concept of tradition as a vital part and construct needed to engage in a discourse on tradition and modernity from which modern texts ultimately evolve.

Li Liqin 李丽琴

Zhu Ziqing’s “The Qinhuai River Amidst Sounds of Oars and Shadows of Lamps” (Qinhuaihe), Yu Dafu’s “Spring Day on Diaotai” (Diaotai), and Fang Lingru’s “Travel Notes from Langya Mountain” (Langyashan), are three notable essays of place in which place and memory serve as the main conceptual elements through which the writers’ negotiation of identity and meaning unfolds. By questioning apparent meaning and literary convention, the texts become ultimately texts on writing as a continuous endeavor and exploration and thus texts on the open-ended nature of essays.

In the essays, the authors engage in activities such as climbing mountains, traversing rivers, and contemplating history and historical figures while visiting ruins and other sites.

Zhu Ziqing’s Jiangsheng dengyingli de Qinhuaihe, written in 1923, was first published in the January 25, 1924 issue of Dongfang zazhi (Eastern Miscellany, founded in 1904). （文献无需翻译）

Yu Dafu’s Diaotai de chunzhou, written in August 1932, first appeared in the inaugural issue of the journal Lunyu (Analects), on September 16, 1932.

Fang Lingru’s Langyashan youji was written in April 1936 in Nanjing. Reprints in contemporary essay anthologies are taken from Fang’s essay collection Xin (Letters) published in 1945.（文献无需翻译）

In this paper, the terms “writer” and “author” are used interchangeably.（文献无需翻译）

朱自清的《浆声灯影里的秦淮河》（《秦淮河》）、郁达夫的《钓鱼台的春昼》（《钓鱼台》）和方令孺的《琅琊山游记》（ 《琅琊山》）是三篇有关地点的著名散文。在这几篇文章中，地点和回忆是主要的概念性元素，作者通过这些元素来具体展开关于身份认同以及具体含义的阐述。通过质疑明显的含义和文学习俗，这些文本最终象征着作者的不懈努力与探索，因此成为了文本的开放性文本。

在这几篇散文中，作者在参观历史遗址时都参加了诸如爬山、过河、对历史以及历史人物进行深思的活动。

Zhu Ziqing’s Jiangsheng dengyingli de Qinhuaihe, written in 1923, was first published in the January 25, 1924 issue of Dongfang zazhi (Eastern Miscellany, founded in 1904). （文献无需翻译）

Yu Dafu’s Diaotai de chunzhou, written in August 1932, first appeared in the inaugural issue of the journal Lunyu (Analects), on September 16, 1932.

Fang Lingru’s Langyashan youji was written in April 1936 in Nanjing. Reprints in contemporary essay anthologies are taken from Fang’s essay collection Xin (Letters) published in 1945.（文献无需翻译）

In this paper, the terms “writer” and “author” are used interchangeably.（文献无需翻译）--Li Liqin (talk) 11:26, 8 December 2020 (UTC)

朱自清的《桨声灯影里的秦淮河》（秦淮河）、郁达夫的《钓鱼台上的春昼》（钓鱼台）、方灵如的《琅琊山游记》（琅琊山），这是三篇著名的关于地点的散文，其中地点和记忆是主要的概念要素，通过这些要素对作家的本体和意义的商讨逐步展开。通过对表面意义和文学惯例提出质疑，这些文本最终成为关于写作的文本，作为作者不断的努力和探索的一种象征，这些文本成为了关于散文开放性的文本。

在这些散文中，作者在参观遗址和其他地方时，还参与了登山、穿越河流、思考历史和历史人物等活动。 --Xiao yining (talk) 04:52, 9 December 2020 (UTC)Xiao Yining

Li Luyi 李璐伊

For example, all three essays contain elements reminiscent of the poetic convention of contemplating the past (huaigu), often conveying regret over gone times and places. Images exposing the transience of human life in an enduring landscape suggest the writer’s uncertainty about the present and future, implying his desire to find a more lasting place within his existing surroundings.

In their apparent affinity to poetic conventions, traditional gestures seem to promise the writer a degree of authority and certainty in observing and interpreting surroundings and thus in determining his position and role in them. An ironic understanding and reading of such gestures in Zhu, Yu, and Fang's essays however, exposes the concept of tradition as construct indispensable for a discourse on modernity.

Evoking and sharing the cultural memory of place writing, Zhu, Yu, and Fang’s essays not only contain, but also constitute traditional gestures.（文献无需翻译）

FFor a concise explication of this poetic convention, see Hans H. Frankel, The Flowering Plum and the Palace Lady: Interpretations of Chinese Poetry (New Haven and London, 1976), chapter 9 “Contemplation of the Past.”（文献无需翻译）

Li Meng 李梦

Modern texts evolve from a questioning and reassessment of well-established meaning and value, rather than from a mere rejection of what are perceived to be traditional notions, customs, and ideals. Once tradition is divested of its absolute claim and subject to interpretation and reconstruction, modernity can emerge.

Generally, the term “gesture” describes an activity as “something done to convey one’s intentions or attitude.” The traveler’s activities are more than actions that have an obvious purpose, such as getting to a location or viewing a certain site. Roland Barthes’ notion of gestures in writing and writing as gesture suggests the multiplicity of meaning within essays of place and ultimately bears out the idea of essays of place as texts on writing. In The Responsibility of Forms, Roland Barthes describes “gesture” in art as

“Gesture.” Def.2. Oxford American Dictionary. New York: Avon Books, 1980. （文献无需翻译）

The Oxford English Dictionary defines “gesture” as “a move or course of action undertaken as an expression of feeling or as a formality; especially a demonstration of friendly feeling, usually with the purpose of eliciting a favorable response from another.” Def.4.b. The Oxford English Dictionary. 2nd Ed. (Clarendon Press: Oxford, 1989).（文献无需翻译）

Li Yongshan 李泳珊

[s]omething like the surplus of an action. The action is transitive, it seeks only to provoke an object, a result; the gesture is the indeterminate and inexhaustible total of reasons, pulsions, indolences which surround the action with an atmosphere [. . .]. Hence, let us distinguish the message, which seeks to produce information, and the sign, which seeks to produce an intellection, from the gesture, which produces all the rest (the “surplus”) without necessarily seeking to produce anything.

Traversing mountains and lakes are activities with a concrete objective. As “gestures” or “surplus action,” those activities are signs of attitudes that in Zhu, Yu, and Fang’s essays ultimately serve to constantly question and change meaning by providing possibility instead of demarcation of meaning and signification.

Barthes, Roland. “[Readings: Gesture] Cy Twombly: Works on Paper.” The Responsibility of Forms. By Barthes. Trans. Richard Howard, (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1985) 160.（文献无需翻译）

According to Roland Barthes, every text is ultimately a product of gestures Discussing the work of American painter Cy Twombly (b. 1928), Roland Barthes furthermore says about the workings of gestures:（文献无需翻译）

[t]he artist [ . . . ] is by status an “operator” of gestures: he seeks to produce an effect and at the same time seeks no such thing; the effects he produces he has not obligatorily sought out; they are reversed, inadvertent effects which turn back upon him and thereupon provoke certain modifications, deviations, mitigations of the line, of the stroke. Thus in gesture is abolished the distinction between cause and effect, motivation and goal, expression and persuasion (Barthes 160).（文献无需翻译）

Li Yu 李玉

Zhu Ziqing’s Qinhuaihe describes a pleasure excursion on the Qinhuai River he and his friend Yu Pingbo embark on one summer evening. Singsong girls and their musicians, offering their services to passengers in the roaming boats, provide popular entertainment on the river. Zhu and Yu try to enjoy the atmosphere produced by a combination of natural scenery, history, lantern lights, and sound of oars and of music. Despite mingling with other boats whose passengers happily solicit the singsong girls’ services, they remain passive observers. Zhu's narrative culminates in his and Yu’s direct encounter with the singsong girls, who approach them to solicit business. This encounter mortifies and confounds Zhu, turning the trip into a disconcerting experience. Both Zhu and Yu reject the singsong girls’ solicitations, and soon after the encounter, they head back to the pier.

Lin Min 林敏

Yu Dafu’s Diaotai describes his travels in the countryside after having hurriedly left Shanghai to avoid being rounded up by Nationalist forces in the spring of 1931. Watching boats taking locals to their ancestral graves, Yu decides to visit his hometown in time for the Qingming festival. After only a few days with relatives and friends however, he becomes restless and leaves for a trip to Diaotai (Fishing Terrace) on Fuchun Mountain. He stops over at Tonglu for the night and despite the late hour climbs Tongjun Mountain located across the river. The next day, Yu visits the memorial hall on Fuchun Mountain dedicated to the Eastern Han recluse Yan Ziling and then climbs the famous Diaotai.

Lin Xin 林鑫

Fang Lingru and a group of friends visit various historic sites scattered in the mountains they traverse during a spring outing. The most famous site is the pavilion named by Ouyang Xiu and celebrated in his famous An Account of the Pavilion of the Drunken Old Man (Zuiweng ting ji). The group decides to stay overnight at the Temple of Cultivation (Kaihua si), located deeper in the mountains, and spends the rest of the day touring the mountains and their cultural imprints guided by a monk. In the evening, the friends enjoy the nocturnal atmosphere and quietude of temple and mountains. The next day, the day of the Qingming festival, the group tours two more mountains before returning to Nanjing in the evening.

Ling Zijin 凌子瑾

All three essays contain attempts to adopt gestures of contemplating times and places while traversing varied landscapes. Yet, three elements in the essays destabilize significance and consequence of those gestures, undermining their power to confirm identities and signaling the questioning nature of the texts. These three elements are first the authors’ encounters with people inhabiting the landscape, second, elements of incompletion and ambiguity that unsettle the traditional gestures, and, third, as supplementary elements, the essays’ self-referential strategies. The following readings of Zhu, Yu, and Fang’s essays explain and illustrate one of each of these elements respectively.

Liu Bo 刘博

Encounters with People in Zhu Ziqing’s Qinhuaihe

Encounters with people populating the landscape have two effects. First, these encounters force the author to interact with the landscape. It becomes impossible for him to demarcate his position and identity by contemplating places from an autonomous vantage point. Zhu and Yu’s encounter with the singsong girls is the central human encounter in Zhu’s Qinhuaihe. Initially, the singsong girls’ presence on the river does not appear to displease or disconcert Zhu. However, he maintains this sanguine perception by keeping a distance to the singers’ boats. The distance allows him to assume the traditional gesture of traversing a river to take in and contemplate its scenery and history from an independent viewpoint.

It is important to point out that a clear distinction between traveler and landscape does not mean the travelers’ disassociation from his surroundings. Rather it points to the clear demarcation of positions and roles necessary to form a stable unified whole from two distinct units.(文献无需翻译)

Liu Jinxingqi 刘金惺琦

The encounter with the singsong girls witnessed by other passengers unsettles gesture and atmosphere. By diminishing the safe distance between writer and observed place (which so far included the singers), the encounter forces Zhu to play an active role in his surroundings. The singers step out of the landscape picture, and Zhu becomes part of the place against his will.

Ironically, however, the ensuing interaction nevertheless exposes an unbridgeable gap between author and people inhabiting the landscape. Zhu’s confrontation with the singsong girls reinforces an experience of distance, misapprehension, and alienation rooted in the dilemma of modern intellectuals.

Liu Liu 刘柳

Zhu is both tempted by the offer and ashamed about even entertaining such a sentiment. Being publicly approached by women who sell their services to men and confronting his inner conflicting emotion embarrasses Zhu, who considers himself a moral and modern individual professing to condemn the exploitation of underprivileged social groups.

The text moves from the portrayal of external space and atmosphere to a detailed self-dissection of Zhu's psyche and thoughts, a strikingly modern feature. As Zhu's progressive sensibilities interfere with acting out his desire, this psychological passage further disrupts the cohesion of the text as traditional gesture.

朱自清受到诱惑的同时又为自己的这种情绪感到羞愧。朱自清自认为是高尚现代的人，他公开谴责对于社会弱势群体的剥削，但是面对女人的当众搭讪和内心的矛盾情绪，朱自清却感到尴尬。

文本从对外部空间和氛围的描写，转向对朱自清的心理和思想细致的自我剖析，具有显著的现代特征。由于朱自清的进步情感干扰了他的欲望的表现，这段心路历程进一步破坏了文本作为传统姿态的凝聚力。--Liu Liu (talk) 07:30, 9 December 2020 (UTC)

朱自清在受到诱惑的同时，又为自己的这种情绪感到羞愧。他自认为是高尚的现代人，会公开谴责对于社会弱势群体的剥削，但是面对女人的当众搭讪，他的内心极为矛盾，感觉十分尴尬，

文本通过对外部空间和氛围的描写，以及对朱自清的内心思想的自我剖析，均具有显著的现代特征。由于朱自清的先进情感干扰了他的欲望表现，这段心路历程进一步破坏了文本作为传统姿态的凝聚力。--Guo Lu (talk) 08:05, 9 December 2020 (UTC)

Liu Ou 刘欧

The encounter quickly deflates and undermines Zhu's attempt to adopt traditional gestures, causing confusion and conflict rather than reassurance of positions and identities in the river’s ultimately unpredictable space. Zhu’s experience of place is marked by a tension arising from an attempt to assert his independent position within his surroundings, the futility of the attempt, and the concurrent impossibility to become part of his surroundings.

Significantly, only when Zhu’s inner conflict has abated somewhat, he and Yu are rewarded. On their way back, they pass a boat with a solitary singer coming toward them.

Liu Yangnuo 刘洋诺

The singer is sitting in the bow of the unlit boat, singing only to herself. This unexpected episode has an at least temporarily redeeming quality for Zhu. However, his feeling of contentment lasts only a fleeting instant, and soon he and Yu are back in the bustling amusement district. Importantly, Zhu and Yu do not truly encounter the solitary singer. Possibly, the singer did not even notice them. This brief moment comes closest to successfully adopting a traditional gesture. As long as they maintain a distance, fulfilling the significance of the gesture seems possible. Ultimately however, Zhu, not in control of the gesture, is unable to prolong this moment.

Liu Yi 刘艺

He is left in utter despondency. Threat and intimidation Zhu experiences are signified well by the way he perceives his surroundings immediately after passing the lone singer’s boat. Passing under a tall bridge, it seems to Zhu “as if the darkness was opening its huge mouth, about to swallow [their] boat.” Zhu is left in a no-man’s-land between private desire and modern awareness.

Incompletion and Ambiguity in Yu Dafu’s Diaotai

Elements of incompletion and ambiguity further question the significance of traditional gestures. By unsettling the essay’s narrative, these elements suggest an ironic reading of the texts that undermines the reliability of traditional gestures when searching for stable definitions of selves and surroundings.

他陷入了彻底的绝望。朱棣棣所经历的威胁和恐吓，从他经过独唱者的船后立即感知周围环境的方式就可以看出。经过一座高高的桥下，在朱棣看来，"仿佛黑暗张开了巨口，要把他们的船吞掉"。 朱先生在私欲与现代意识之间陷入了无人区。

郁达夫的钓鱼台的不完整与模糊

不完整和模棱两可的元素进一步质疑传统手势的意义。这些元素使文章的叙事变得不稳定，暗示了对文本的反讽性解读，破坏了传统手势在寻找自我和周围环境的稳定定义时的可靠性。--Liu Yi (talk) 09:20, 9 December 2020 (UTC)

Liu Yiyu 刘怡瑜

Obstacles in Yu Dafu’s path paired with a restlessness he experiences in places destabilize the gestures he tries to adopt. The significance of his trip remains ambiguous.

The evening before reaching Diaotai, Yu sets out to climb Tongjun Mountain to visit a Daoist temple. Upon disembarking from the ferryboat, he immediately falls over a loose rock on the dark and rugged mountain path. The image of a stumbling Yu on his solitary endeavor to climb the mountain at night is almost comical. His idea to climb the mountain at this hour appears unreasonable and undermines any effect the attempt to adopt a traditional gesture might have.

Liu Zhiwei 刘智伟

The ferryman hands Yu a pack of matches to help him find the way. At first, Yu is “groping [his] way up the mountain,” but as he approaches the top, moonlight begins to illuminate his path. A vast sky and a broad vista into the distance and onto the town seem to increase Yu’s chances of adopting the traditional gesture of contemplating place and past. As he approaches the temple however, an apparently locked gate in the low wall surrounding it obstructs Yu’s progress. After pacing up and down for a while not knowing what to do, he finally tries the gate, and surprisingly it opens. Ironically, Yu’s trip is delayed and almost cut short not by a locked gate but by his indecision and hesitation.

Lou Cancan 娄灿灿

Although he finds the temple gates indeed securely shut for the night, Yu is at this point quite content to sit on the wall adjacent to the gate from where he can overlook the river and enjoy the scenery. He gazes at the stars, clouds, and moon above and the lights of the boats below gently wavering in the wind. At last, Yu’s position allows him to contemplate place and past from an elevated and independent vantage point. The unparalleled scenery of Tongjun Mountain inspires Yu to contemplate the lives of the Eastern Han (25-220 A.D.) recluse Yan Ziling and that of the two Dai brothers, Dai Bo and Dai Yong of the Easter Jin (317-420), who made this area their home.

Luo Weijia 罗维嘉

Yu fully appreciates and identifies with their decision to lead a hermit’s life foreshadowing his own life of seclusion soon to begin. The clapper of the night watch in town finally wakes Yu to reality. Startled, he runs back head over heels to the boat. This abrupt ending to Yu’s reverie and his sudden anxiety to get back to the boat sharply contrast with the reflective atmosphere and sentiment of the passage. The traditional gesture is abruptly terminated. Like the clapper startling Yu, this abrupt ending to the nightly scene startles the reader.

Luo Yuqing 罗雨晴

On the boat to Diaotai, Yu, tired from admiring the scenery, falls asleep and dreams of a gathering with some old friends in an inn along the river. The text does not make it explicitly clear that Yu is dreaming. This becomes fully clear only when the boatman wakes Yu as they approach Diaotai.

In his dream, the friends chat and make merry, but after all has been said and done, the atmosphere turns cheerless and awkward. At the center of the dream is a poem Yu composed a few years ago at a similar occasion. It is a political poem written in traditional septa-syllabic regulated verse style, lamenting the chaotic state of the country and expressing the dissatisfaction of intellectuals with the government.

Ma Juan 马娟

One prominent traditional image in the poem is the loyal official who, “feigning madness,” (yang kuang) speaks the truth that goes unheeded. Here, a well-known traditional gesture is embedded in a text within a text. Before the gesture can come to full fruition, however, it is again terminated, this time by the boatman who wakes Yu.

Significantly, Yu's perception of his surrounding has completely changed. Before falling asleep, he saw green mountains encasing the clear river and sandbanks with blossoming flowers; in short, tranquil and picturesque scenery. As the boat approaches Diaotai, however, “river and mountain scenery all around had suddenly changed.” (文献无需翻译)

Zhu Ziqing, “Jiangsheng dengyingli de qinhuaihe,” Zhongguo xiandai youji xuan, eds. Ma Zhonglin, Yang Guozhang, and Wang Zhonghua (Beijing: Zhongguo lüyou chubanshe, 1982) 95.(文献无需翻译)

Yu Dafu, “Diaotai de chunzhou,” Zhongguo xiandai youji xuan, eds. Ma Zhonglin, Yang Guozhang, and Wang Zhonghua (Beijing: Zhongguo lüyou chubanshe, 1982) 204.

Yu Dafu, 206(文献无需翻译)

Ma Shuya 马淑雅

The river has narrowed and the mountains have moved extremely close, “as if ahead was no further way.” The towering mountains create an oppressively lonely atmosphere, in which even the sound of the oars seems disheartened; the echo is audible only after a long while, amplifying the “ancient silence,” the “silence of extinction” enveloping the boat. The sun is gone, and only a soughing wind comes and goes.

The surrounding has turned ominous. Yu’s anticipation turns into apprehension. Compared to his reverie on Tongjun Mountain, Yu now perceives Diaotai as desolate and gloomy, eerily echoing the chaos and tumult evoked in his poem. He describes dilapidated stone structures overgrown with weeds.

Ma Zhixing 马智星

Approaching Yan Ziling’s ancestral hall, now no more than decrepit walls and broken tiles, Yu begins to feel “a little afraid, afraid to encounter the ghost of Master Yan, old and dried-up like strips from a towel gourd.” Yu’s rapidly growing skepticism and discomfort upon approaching the setting further suggest the impossibility to find meaning and identity by adopting traditional gestures in places.

On the Fishing Terrace, Yu is curiously reminded of a postcard depicting the William Tell Memorial Hall and its scenery in Switzerland. The colors of mountains and rivers he sees from Diaotai are strikingly similar to those on the “collotype postcard.”

Meng Ying 孟莹

However, in the scenery he views from Diaotai, “the variations are a little greater, the surrounding in all directions is just a little more jumbled and chaotic, that’s all, but this is actually a plus, enough to represent the East’s desolate beauty of national degeneration.” Ironically, Yu’s comparison between the postcard picture and his view stresses the similarities between the colors of the landscapes only. He views a place that in its very structure carries the marks of present crisis. Associating his description of the scenery with Switzerland generally associated with national stability and social order only intensifies the image of national chaos and debility.

Mo Ling 莫玲

Superficially conforming to the traditional gesture of contemplating (and lamenting) place and past, the comparison here is not one between present and past, but one between two presents. Yu's view evokes scenery on a foreign postcard, which in its modern photographic quality and miniature size cannot evoke the past, challenging the idea of a traditional gesture.

After having had some wine in the hall, Yu walks up to the Buddhist shrine whose derelict walls are covered with poems, most of them of poor quality. In a corner near the ceiling, he finds an inscription by the Qing loyalist and fellow villager Xia Lingfeng (Xia Zhenwu, 1854-1930), whose commitment Yu admires despite objecting to Xia’s political convictions. Yu inscribes the poem from his dream next to Xia’s.

这里的对比并非介于今昔之间，而是两个现在时间的对比，从表面上看，这与传统的伤怀表达方式不谋而合。余想起了外国明信片上的风景，其现代摄影质量和微型尺寸无法唤起过去，因而挑战了传统的表达方式。

在祠堂里喝了点酒后，俞走到佛龛前，佛龛斑驳的墙壁上满是诗词，其中大部分文采平平。在天花板附近的一个角落里，他发现了一首由夏灵凤（夏振武，1854-1930）题的词，夏灵凤是清朝的拥护者，也是本村的村民。尽管余反对夏灵凤的政治信念，但他仍然钦佩他的忠诚。因而余在夏灵凤的词旁边也作了一首诗。--Mo Ling (talk) 12:32, 9 December 2020 (UTC)Mo Ling

Mo Nan 莫南

Initially, Yu's act of inscribing the poem suggests that he sympathizes and identifies with Xia. However, since Yu does object to the substance of Xia’s ideals and motives, the gesture of writing a poem next to Xia’s only stresses the ambiguity of such an act. With the gesture of inscribing his poem along with others of inferior quality and next to that of a Qing loyalist Yu willingly obscures his own political stance and inadvertently questions the relevance of his act. The traditional-style poem placed in an obscure corner on the wall as one among many is ineffective, and the gesture of inscribing it loses its significance. Yu’s position and role in his time and place remains ambiguous and difficult to define. Ironically, while Yu’s essay saves the poem and its context from obscurity, it also exposes the very ambiguity of his act.

Nie Xiaolou 聂晓楼

Self-referential strategy in Fang Lingru’s Langyashan

By foregrounding a texts’ constructedness, self-referential strategies question the idea of a texts’ definite and authoritative meaning. Suggesting the texts’ plurality of meaning further substantiates their significance in negotiating perspectives, positions, and identities.

Concluding the narration of her two-day trip, Fang Lingru writes: “There are still many more scenic spots and ancient sites on Langya Mountain; if it’s meant to be, I’ll come another time to visit again. There is nothing more I can add to this piece (my emphasis).”

Fang Lingru, “Langyashan youji,” Zhongguo xiandai youji xuan, eds. Ma Zhonglin, Yang Guozhang, and Wang Zhonghua (Beijing: Zhongguo lüyou chubanshe, 1982) 148.

Ou Rong 欧蓉

Yet, she goes on to recommend a particular dish and wine the group had at a restaurant in Chuzhou before returning to Nanjing. This rather banal and anticlimactic addendum to her narrative is then followed by two more paragraphs, describing her sentiments upon returning home.

When I got home, it was already ten o’clock at night, and a fine drizzle filled the air. Just before leaving, the old monk Shangkuan had tied three Spring Azalea sprigs to my rickshaw, which I planted immediately upon coming home. Now the twigs have already developed tender sprouts; by this time next year, they will blossom. XX named them “Bodhi Shangkuan.”

Ouyang Jinglan 欧阳静兰

I’ve been feeling extremely tired lately, but thinking back to the trip into the mountains, I can say that it was flawless, and I have no regrets.

It is a cliché to state at the end of a text that nothing can be added. Fang’s appended restaurant and food recommendation suggests her eagerness to relate every detail from the trip. However, extending her narrative by two paragraphs, she effectively contradicts her own assertion that everything worth saying has been said. This contradiction and the contrast between her matter-of-fact-style in which she ostensibly ends the essay and the intimate tone and personal content of the concluding paragraphs highlight the act of writing and constructing the text.

Ouyang Ling 欧阳玲

The final paragraphs further question the effect of adopting traditional gestures to find stable meaning and purpose in and through one’s surroundings. For Fang the gesture of translating visits to sites and ruins into detailed description evoke the past is not sufficient. Her encounter with the monk ultimately renders her experience on Langya Mountain significant. The flowers she received from him signify the possibility of growth, nurturing, and encouragement. By contrast, the significance of the sites themselves remains ambiguous.

Peng Dan 彭丹

The last two paragraphs of Fang’s essay complete the framework of personal reflection that encases the largely dispassionate narration of her trip. Personal memory is the ultimate locus of meaningful experience and the creative force underlying the essay. Exhausting facts and details in representing an experience does not bring a text to its end despite assertions to the contrary. Fang’s last sentence suggests that remembering the trip in close connection with the human encounter constitutes a source of satisfaction for her, rather than the emulation of traditional gestures that seem to promise an authoritative rendition of place and time.

Peng Juan 彭娟

Her memory and text are like the plant, living and changing. The gesture of announcing the end of her text is undermined by that same texts’ continuation. The self-referential strategy in Fang’s essay ultimately affirms possibility and potentiality not completeness and finality.

Conclusion The attempt to adopt established poetic gestures in Zhu, Yu, and Fang’s essays does not dispel the writer’s uncertainty and ambivalence in navigating, redefining, and asserting his (or her) role in a changed and changing environment. In each essay, various elements question reliability and significance of these gestures, highlighting the ambiguity of the writer’s experience and position in the places he visits. Her memory and text are like the plant, living and changing. The gesture of announcing the end of her text is undermined by that same texts’ continuation. The self-referential strategy in Fang’s essay ultimately affirms possibility and potentiality not completeness and finality.

Conclusion

The attempt to adopt established poetic gestures in Zhu, Yu, and Fang’s essays does not dispel the writer’s uncertainty and ambivalence in navigating, redefining, and asserting his (or her) role in a changed and changing environment. In each essay, various elements question reliability and significance of these gestures, highlighting the ambiguity of the writer’s experience and position in the places he visits.

Peng Ruihong 彭锐宏

Traditionally, the poet contemplating place and past was a solitary figure estranged from his times and surroundings, often questioning the present state of affairs. From the perspective of literary history, however, sharing this gesture and its variations with other poets in a long line of succession offered writers a way to secure rather than question their role and identity. Through canon formation and the writing of literary history, acts and themes such as contemplating places and past came to be understood as customary endeavors gaining and increasing their significance from their perceived continuity. Such understanding is part of the construction of traditions to legitimize poetic authority and continuity, or - as during the May Fourth movement - change and eradication.

Relevant to the argument here is the idea of canon formation and the way it works. The argument does by no means suggest that all texts based on or containing certain traditional gestures and conventions are indeed similar and unchanged over the long pre-modern period. Nor does it suggest that in pre-modern travel and landscape writings the writer can indeed successfully confirm his identity and role through following the conventions of his time. （文献无需翻译）

Peng Xiaoling 彭小玲

Instead of confirming the writer’s authority as mediator and interpreter of time and place, traditional gestures in modern essays such as Zhu, Yu, and Fang’s foreground his precarious role and position within his time and place. Attempting to adopt traditional gestures ultimately exposes the gestures as constructs that do not provide an indisputable way of understanding and representing surroundings and one’s position and role in them.

By deconstructing the cultural and literary traditions, May Fourth intellectuals and writers tried to establish a practical dichotomy between conservative past and progressive present and future to confer authority upon the modern text.

Peng Yongliang 彭永亮

As the above readings show however, modern texts inevitably comprise a discourse on what is made out to be tradition and modernity. This discourse inscribes, negotiates, and transforms tradition within the modern text albeit in an ever varying and irrepressible way. The texts’ complexity, subtexts, and plurality of meaning arises from a negotiation between familiar conventions and new and modern perspectives in search of identities, roles, and positions in a changing time and place. Ultimately, the texts are texts on writing as a continuous endeavor and exploration and thus texts on the open-ended nature of essays.

Peng Yuzhi 彭育志

From Historical Narrative to the World of Prose: The Essayistic Mode in Contemporary Chinese Literature

Wang Ban

Abstract

As a genre, the essay in contemporary China can be seen as a symptom of the decline of historical consciousness and narrative. This comes through most sharply when compared with the previously established literary paradigm: the Chinese novel in the realistic mode. For many decades the fiction of revolutionary realism served as ideological apparatus and medium for providing coherent temporal perceptions about past, present, and future.

Qi Kai 漆凯

The realistic novel's central assumption is epic best described by Georg Lukacs, who construes the epic form as a projected ideal that is realizable through narrated social and historical actions. Little thought needs to be taken to see that a revolutionary epic is a strenuous but finally triumphant harmony of ideal and reality. The rise of the essay in the recent decades epitomizes the turn of literary writing from the epic coherence of ideal and life to the dispersed and fragmented sensory or sensual pleasures and sheer appreciation of images or anecdotes.

Qu Miao 瞿淼

The essay retreats from historical consciousness and responds warmly and lightheartedly to the advent of consumer culture. It is designed to satisfy the modest needs of the urban consumer whose sensibility is becoming “essayistic,” prosaic, ahistorical and everyday, preoccupied with the most intimate and quotidian matters. This paper takes a look back at Eileen Chang's thinking on the essay and attempts to trace the linkage between the modern essay and the rise of urban consumer culture. Then through an analysis of Wang Anyi's novella The Story of Our Uncle (Shushu de gushi), I demonstrate how the retreat from historical consciousness to what I would call the essayistic structure of feeling is dramatized by Wang's groping, explorative essay/fiction.

Quan Meixin 全美欣

The main character Uncle's career illustrates the waning of historical consciousness. This paper seeks to point out that the essay's ambivalence lies in its freedom from the straitjacket of the grand narrative and in its contribution to the withering of historical consciousness in the rising consumer culture in China.

The Essay and the Novel

The essay as a cultural form can be grasped in its relation to the novel. In twentieth-century China the novel in the epic, realistic mode had been the dominant form of literature and a pivotal ideological apparatus--probably up to the mid-1980s. The Chinese realistic novel can be construed as epic in the way formulated by Georg Lukács.

Sagara Seydou

Its epic characteristic lies in its historical scope and teleology, its engagement with social and political issues, its intertwining of the individual's fate with collective projects, its aesthetics of the exemplary hero, and its striving for transcendence within everyday immanence. The novel of socialist realism in the Mao era strove to achieve an imaginary unity of transcendent ideals and quotidian reality. It depicts a universe in which the world and the self “never become permanent strangers to one another” (Lukács 29) and the individual's growth is of one piece with communal destiny. In the post-Mao era, often dubbed the New Period, works of fiction appeared to be different but were still imbued with an epic impulse.

Shi Diwen 石迪文

It is true that the 1980s saw the emphatic upsurge of interest in the subjectivity of the autonomous individual, but far from an atomistic ego of appetitive self-interest, fictional characters were still figured as the subject of history. For all its seeming revolt against the previously dominant mode, the image of the newly awakened modern self in the fiction of the New Period went hand in hand with the socio-historical process of socialist modernization, individuals serving as agents of this process. Thus, Fredric Jameson's concept of national allegory--in which the individual's fate tells a larger story of collective destiny – was well received in Chinese criticism and made to apply with equal ease to the realistic novel of the Mao era as well as those advocating reforms.

Critics have noted that in the 1980s thought emancipation movement (sixiang jiefang), the fundamental literary mode and historical consciousness were derived from the Hegelian-Marxist version of the unity of subject and object, the individual and history. So the self that was upheld was not an autonomous self cut off from the collectivity of social processes, but was assimilated and modeled by the requirements of the modernization drive. See Qi Shuyu, 103-104.（文献无需翻译）

Shi Haiyao 石海瑶

If this view of the novel sounds anachronistic to contemporary China, we may justify it by a reference to the striven-for unity of revolutionary ideals and social reality, of theory and practice, a prominent tenet in the utopian legacy of Marxism. As literary counterpart of this projected unity the Chinese realistic novel presents a mythical and epic structure in which dream and history, individual and collective become one. In Lukács the epic is contracted with the novel, because the latter is a form stripped of the former’s immediate and unproblematic unity of ideal and reality (56).

Si Yu 司妤

In other words, the novel in the Western realistic tradition is troubled by the intrusion of time, which causes fractures in the epic, time-defying harmony between self and collectivity, dream and actuality. But Lukács still insists that the novel is a kind of epic, because it strives to close the fissures created by the gap of time, hence potentially able to attain the epic status on a higher level.

The gap between ideal and reality is minimized in the Chinese novel, which appears to be more epic than the realistic novel in the West. The novel of revolutionary realism is closer to poetry, marked with tremendous lyricism, as Charles Laughlin notes with regard to the socialist sanwen in his essay “Incongruous Lyricism” in this volume.

Song Jianru 宋建茹

It would not seem incongruous when lyrical exuberance, equated with revolutionary idealism and utopianism, is maximized in the novel as a way to transcend and close the gap between a historical time marked by imperialist invasions, sufferings, and poverty on the one hand, and the ultimate ideal of communism culminating in the epic harmony of ideal and reality, theory and practice, on the other. The novel in this mode is supposed to be more than a text you read, curled up in your couch in a snowy winter night in solitary comfort. It was ideological, educational, edifying, its grand narrative projecting material praxis. It aimed to instigate you to go out into the streets or impoverished villages and get organized with other fellow humans to make history.

Su Lin 苏琳

The rise of the essay in contemporary China is a sign that the novel in the epic mode has become an endangered species. This is not merely the problem of genre, nor am I suggesting that readers are flocking to essays and abandoning novels. My point is that the novel as a medium of envisioning social life and registering experiences of temporality is giving way to the essay, or more generally to the essayistic structure of sensibility. I play with the idea of essayistic in order to refer to the essay as a canonical textual form as well as those discursive moments in other literary genres embodying an “essayistic” quality and a “prosaic” structure of feeling.

Tan Xingyue 谭星越

One crucial point to made is that this emotional structure accords with the everyday sensibility of a city-dweller and consumer. This is one reason why it is instructive to contract the essayistic with the novel. The essay deals with a prosaic and mundane world. In Hayden White’s recapturing of Hegel’s distinction of poetry and prose, “The world in which prosaic utterance developed must be supposed to have been one in which experience had become atomized and denuded of its ideality and immediately apprehended significance, and voided of its richness and vitality” (87).This prosaic world of fragmented experience is to the Chinese novel as the Lukácsian novel is to the epic: a fall from an original oneness. In contemporary China, neither the novel nor poetry seems to be a means of closing this widened gap. My purpose in the essay is to examine the position of the essayistic in relation to the novel, and the related sensibilities in relation to history.

Tan Xinjie 谭鑫洁

The Hegelian Marxist perspective I sketched earlier is helpful here for understanding the shift from the novel to the essay. For Hegel art is necessary because it strives for a seamless, organic apotheosis of transcendent spirit and mundane reality. This view, though historical, can lead to two contradictory conclusions. In Hegel art is historical because it is a stage of the Spirit's journey to its self-realization. As art evolves as historically transitory forms of the Spirit, the movement of history leads to the abolition of certain forms of art, or the demise of art altogether. On this account the novel would be a casualty of the Spirit’s historical movement and self-realization. For Hegel art becomes problematic and obsolete because the “world of prose” has attained the empirical form erstwhile aspired to by art. In the world of prose, the Spirit has realized itself both in thought and in socio-political praxis, exemplified by the Prussian state.

Tan Yuanyuan 谭媛媛

The polity embodied by the Prussian state is for Hegel is the epitome of theory put into practice, a real image of realized art. As Luckács remarked of Hegel, “Thus art becomes problematic precisely because reality has become non-problematic” (Lukács 17).

Lukács, however, draws a contrary lesson from this historical, or more precisely the “end-of-history,” “end of art” thesis. Taking issue with Hegel's view of art as “aestheticized” body politic, Lukacs argues that the problem of the novel is a mirror image of a world gone out of joint. In modern times the novel is still alive as the impulse of art is still pressing. The novel is aesthetically and epistemologically vital and necessary not because the established reality has achieved what art can only dream. On the contrary, the novel is a desperate attempt to patch up a broken reality and inject little doses of meaning into a world emptied of spontaneous and totalisable significance.

普鲁士国家所体现的政体是黑格尔是付诸实践的理论缩影，是现实艺术的真实形象。 正如拉克奇（Luckács）评论的黑格尔的那样，“正是因为现实变得没有问题，艺术才成为问题所在”（卢卡奇17）。 然而，拉克奇从这一历史，或更确切地说是“历史终结”，“艺术终结”的论点得到了截然不同的教训。 卢卡奇对黑格尔将艺术视为“审美化的”身体政治的观点持怀疑态度，他认为这本小说的问题是一个脱离世界的镜像。 在现代，由于艺术的冲动仍在继续，小说仍然活着。 这部小说在美学和认识论上至关重要，并且不是必需的，因为既定的现实已经实现了艺术只能梦想的东西。 相反，这部小说是拼命的尝试，以修补一个破碎的现实，并向一个空洞的，自发的和可累积的意义中注入很少的意义。--Tan Yuanyuan (talk) 06:46, 9 December 2020 (UTC)

对于黑格尔来说，普鲁士王国代表的政体是理论成为现实的缩影，是现实艺术的真正形象。正如卢卡奇(Luckács)评价黑格尔时所说的：“正是因为现实变得没有问题，艺术就成了问题所在。”（卢卡奇 17） 然而，拉克奇从这一历史，或更确切地说是“历史终结”，“艺术终结”的论点中得到了截然不同的教训。卢卡奇不认同黑格尔“将艺术看作美学政体”的观点，他认为这部小说的问题是一个脱离世界的镜像。艺术的冲击力仍在继续，因此现代小说依然保持着其生命力。这部小说在美学和认识论上至关重要，这是必需的，并不是因为既定的现实已经实现了艺术只能梦想的东西。 相反，这部小说是拼命的尝试，以修补一个破碎的现实，并向一个空洞的，自发的和可累积的意义中注入很少的意义。--Chen Sunfu (talk) 07:59, 9 December 2020 (UTC)

Tang Bei 汤蓓

Therein lies its modern irony, the irony of dreaming the perfection of the world while knowing acutely the impossibility of perfection. Interestingly, Lukács' insight into the ironic, self-reflexive nature of the novel provides a glimpse on the condition of the essay. In the Chinese realistic novel, to be sure, the historical totality of communist utopia emerging out of a mundane reality is the shining symbol of inspiration, bearing a superficial resemblance to the Hegelian realization of Spirit in the state. But the faith in the final triumph of communist utopia and the attainment of a fully emancipated society is presumed by the novelistic discourse as law-like and predetermined, hence realistic and inevitable. Thus the decline of the novel, the novel in the epic mode, can be read as the decline of the grand, Marxist narrative of historical teleology. In contrast, the rise of the essay harbingers a more fragmentary, disjoint, and private form of signifying practice that is springing up in the cracks and gaps of a fallen reality, a world out of joint.

Tang Ming 唐铭

The world out of joint is a compelling image of today's China going commercialized, globalized, and fragmented in all aspects of life. The phrase “out of joint' here is meant to denote both the explosive vitality and disorienting chaos, the drama and trauma of the Chinese scene unfolding in the past decade. To grasp China as a vast market place, a rising consumer society, an emergent culture of mass media and spectacles, I refer the reader to numerous reports by journalists, economists, and a vast number of essays written by writers who have recently turned to the personal essay as a forum. Literature, as a historical vision and ideological apparatus, is hanging in the balance.

Tang Yiran 汤伊然

Like many other spheres of culture, it has become commodified and entered the marketplace, being packaged into one more item in the mass media and entertainment industry. This altered social context is crucial to understanding the essay as a literary form and a cultural medium of expression in contemporary China. But this link between the culture of commodity and the essay, or the essayistic mode of writing and feeling, is not a brand new phenomenon of the last decade.

For a tracing of the historical linkage we may turn to the earlier period in modern literary history. Eileen Chang's essays and her reflection on the essay form are the compelling and successful instance of the marriage between the essay and mass culture. Nicole Huang’s paper in this volume looks at some aspects of this marriage as manifest in Chang’s essay.

Tao Ye 陶冶

This marriage finds its new manifestations in the work of the contemporary writer Wang Anyi, who is writing in a renewed urban context in many ways similar to that of Chiang. An analysis of Eileen Chang's thinking on the essay will help us understand Wang's work. Eileen Chang's views give the essay form a clear shape as it emerged in an urban and consumer culture. Wang Anyi's essays and especially the essayistic moments in her fiction mark the return of this consumer-oriented genre under new historical circumstances.

Eileen Chang and the Essay in the Urban Setting

The story and essay writer Eileen Chang has been seen as one source for Wang Anyi's work. Although Eileen Chang wrote fictions of urban life set in Shanghai and Hong Kong in a mixture of traditional and modernist styles, her writing is a sharp contrast and an antidote to the grand narrative of the May Fourth Enlightenment and revolution in modern Chinese literature.

This view of Hegel's on art is evoked by Lukács in his preface to The Theory of the Novel, 11-23.

Wang Meiling 王美玲

Her stories relish the irrelevancies, minor manias, trivia, and anxieties and depict random episodes of the urbanite's life. The intriguing depiction of the narrow romance and personality of the petty urbanites, xiaoshimin, is her forte and attraction. The prose of life in a cramped and congested urban setting is not only the hallmark of her fiction, but also constitutes the major themes of her essays. While her essays correspond to and illuminate her fiction, her thoughts on essay writing serve to highlight the aesthetic quality of the essayistic in modern Chinese literature.

Eileen Chang's essay collection Floating Words (sometimes translated as ”Written on Walter”) is a compelling example of the essay as it emerged in Chinese urban culture. In the opening essay entitled “The Child Utters his Words without Constraints” (Tongyan wuji) she equates her essays to the chatty, whimsical, and willful airing of pent-up feelings whenever and wherever she can, like an unrestrained child.

Wang Xuan 王轩

Writers like her, she says, have little to do with earth-quaking, epoch-making historical events and should drop the dream of immortality attainable from self-portrayal by writing a popular autobiography. The satisfaction and salvation for a writer are writing “bits and pieces about matters concerning oneself” (7). The matters of self-concern, as Chang continues, include money, dress, eating, important personages and their grotesque undersides, and family relations. Within a few pages of this first essay we have a range of sundry themes expressing interest in consumer habit, survival in the city, personal and social relations in an increasingly compartmentalized urban culture. Running down the table of contents of this essay collection, we have trouble classifying what the essays focus on, except to say that they essay opinion and play around with perceptions just about anything in city life. They touch upon whatever flickers through the mind, passes in view, appeals to the senses, any stereotypical or routine scenes or acts in the urban setting.

Wang Yu 王煜

There are, to give a taste of their randomness and miscellany, pieces about living in an apartment, beating up people, private and intimate words, shallow impressions about art, changing dresses, woman, rains, the umbrellas, even about a routine act of going upstairs.

While it is surely impossible to box these essays into a general category and abstract a unifying principle, Eileen Chang points beyond this charmed collection of essays to the grand historical narrative and thus provides a useful reference point for what the essay refuses to do. If it is not clear what the essay is, Chang shows what it is not. She sees the essay in its withdrawal from and rejection of historical discourse and in its all-consuming absorption in the mundane and fragmented urban scenes. The nature of the essay seems to lie in its irrelevance to history as a literary principle:

Wang Yuan 王源

I have no desire to write history, nor am I qualified to make judgement on the historian's perceptions. But privately I hope they would say more things that are irrelevant. Reality as such is not systematic; it is like seven or eight chatter-boxes sounding simultaneously, creating confusion. But amidst this incomprehensible sound and fury there occur moments of illumination, poignant and bright, enabling us to hear the tune and understand a bit, only to be swallowed up by the thickening darkness. Painters, writers, and composers connect these chancy, fragmented discoveries and create artistic wholes. (41)

As a fiction writer Chang does not believe in artistic perfection. She creates “imperfect” and flawed characters in her fiction, as she repeatedly claims. In her essays she holds it important to write about the irrelevancies, for, as she proclaims, all life' charms are to be found in the irrelevancies. (42)

Wei Honglang 韦洪朗

Eileen Chang's thinking on the essay reflects certain aspects of Chinese modernity that provides a context for understanding the essay form as an increasingly prominent cultural medium. The essay for her is a writing practice opposed to the historically oriented and politically charged literature, to the teleological historical narrative, and to the monumental work of art. Formalistically the essay is random, self-contradictory, expressive, and therapeutic. Eileen Chang's essays are a radical departure from Lu Xun's miscellaneous essay (zawen). Despite its similarly disjoint, personal, and casual form, the zawen à la Lu Xun is polemic, militant, acid, socially and political engaged. It seizes upon the small and transitory but its gaze goes past them to the culturally and historically significant. This engaged character puts the zawen in a close lineage with the didactic tradition of May Fourth literature aimed at raising readers' consciousness or jolting them out of the half-sleep of tradition and convention.

Wei Yafei 魏亚菲

The rise of consumer mentality, urban culture, and the new role of the writer as a professional breadwinner brought to prominence the values of entertainment, charm, taste, performance, charisma, and glamour--values inherent to urban culture with a good appetite for entertainment, images, and spectacles. This emergent socio-historical context was overshadowed and marginalized by the dominant political ideology and historical narrative in the decades after Eileen Chang's short-lived popularity.

Andrew Jones of UC-Berkeley is at work to translate Eileen Chang’s essay collection into English and he uses the phrase “Written on Water.”

In his recent book Shanghai Modern Professor Leo Lee has admirably traced Eileen Chang's writing and the commercial urban culture she was immersed in. See the Chapter “Eileen Chang: Romances in a Fallen City,” 267-303.

Wen Sixing 文偲荇

In the 1990s and in Wang Anyi's work, this historical context re-emerged with sharpness and vengeance. I will argue that the fate of the essay or the aesthetic quality of the essayistic cannot be understood without considering the revival of urban and consumer culture and its increasing detachment from the historical consciousness.

Telling a Story Where There is no Story to Tell

Wang Anyi's work in the 1990s shows how deeply the urban mass culture has penetrated and transformed literature. The novel in the epic mode depends upon some preconceived story pattern which delivers ideological and historical convictions about temporal perceptions of past, present, and future. One symptom of the shift from the novel to the essay is the acute sense of lack of story, the sense that the archetypal stories that writers used to rely on to generate their narratives are no longer convincing.

20世纪90年代，在王安忆的作品中，这一历史语境以尖锐和复仇的笔触重新出现。我认为，如果不考虑城市文化和消费文化的复兴及其与历史意识的日益分离，就无法理解散文的命运或散文的审美品质。 “在没有故事可讲的地方讲故事” 王安忆90年代的作品展现了城市大众文化对文学的渗透和改造。史诗模式下的小说依赖于一些先入为主的故事模式，这种模式提供了意识形态和历史信念，关于对过去、现在和未来的短暂感知。从小说到散文的转变的一个典型是故事的严重缺失，作家过去赖以形成叙事的原型故事不再令人信服。--Wensixing (talk) 04:00, 9 December 2020 (UTC)

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在20世纪90年代，以及在王安忆的作品中，这一历史语境以充满尖锐的笔调和复仇的情感重新出现。我认为，如果不考虑城市文化和消费文化的复兴及其与历史意识的日益分离，就无法理解散文的命运或散文的审美品质。 “在没有故事可讲的地方讲故事” 王安忆20世纪90年代的作品展现了城市大众文化对文学的渗透和改造。史诗模式下的小说依赖于一些先入为主的故事模式，这种模式传达了意识形态观念和历史观念，这些观念与对过去、现在和未来的短暂感知有关。从小说到散文的转变的一个典型表现是严重缺失故事的敏锐感觉，即作家过去赖以形成叙事的原型故事不再令人信服。--Yuan Tianyi (talk) 07:12, 9 December 2020 (UTC)

Wen Xiaoyi 文晓艺

For Wang Anyi this poverty of stories is directly linked to the urban setting. The title of one of her essays on literature “The City Has no Story to Tell” (Chengshi wu gushi) highlights the disappearance of sharable, communicable narratives in the city's amorphous atmosphere and the anonymous urban crowd. This essay makes quite clear the sociological transformations that have given rise to the generic shift from story to non-story, or from narrative fiction to the essayistic mode. In it Wang sets up a contrast between the village community and urban social organization. The tightly knit rural communities, such as villages and small towns, are the nurturing ground for sharable stories. As the social relations are largely those of family, kinship or clan, human contact and communication are more intimate and primarily face to face. Individuals act out their life stories in a pre-given trajectory and within a received social network of work, authority, and hierarchy.

Wu Kai 吴恺

The stories both told and lived, recounted over and again against a backdrop of traditional orientation and self-evident norms. Traditional values and age-old customs shape the stories people tell each other and assure their intelligibility and guarantee cultural continuity. In short, the temporal and spatial perceptions are inherited and sedimented over time and can be repeated in new stories.

This argument about village community brings to mind Benjamin's critique of the modern novel and re-evaluation of the communal storyteller. The village community is embedded in an inexhaustible fund of stories and exemplified by the culturally cohesive role of the storyteller. Benjamin's familiar argument takes on new significance when the contract between village and city is construed as a metaphoric tension between the self-assured story-telling in the epic mode of the Chinese novel and the disappearance of the story in the city.

Wu Qi 吴琪

More importantly, the tension foregrounds the accelerated modernization process that has rendered almost obsolete, in less than a decade, the relatively habitual and time-worn socio-psychic infrastructure. It brings into sharp focus the market oriented, amorphous urban setting where the individual becomes atomic individuals, cut loose from the social moorings of kinship, community, and family, from lineage and history. Thrown into the competitive marketplace and transient impersonal relations, the individual has to rely on his or her own ingenuity and resources.. Since they come from different areas and are isolated from each other in the compartmentalized life spheres and specialized work, urban dwellers only have their own vastly different stories to tell, stories which are narrowly biographical and not readily meaningful to other people. There are more stories to tell, it is true, but the apparent multiplication of stories imply the poverty of a communicable story.

Wu Qiong 吴琼

This is what Wang means by saying there is lack of stories in the city. The endlessly varied confusion and lack of common interest lead to disjoint, fragmentary, anecdotal, performance-driven forms of writing often found in essays written for the consumer's relaxed state of mind, or mindlessness after a nice dinner.

From the Historical to the Essayistic: the Fall of the Intellectual

Wang Anyi's The Story of Our Uncle illustrates the transition from the historically and ideological oriented literature to a form that could be characterized as essayistic. The novella was written in 1990, a time of drastic change for Chinese society and culture as a whole. From a culture dominated by an ideologically oriented and centralized state China was moving quickly into a brave new world of frenzied economic development, investment, consumerism, and pop culture. Something fundamental had drastically shaken the basic fabrics of Chinese society.

这就是王先生所说的城市缺少故事的意思。 无穷无尽的各种困惑和缺乏共同的兴趣，导致了不连贯的、零碎的、轶事的、以表现为目的的写作形式，这些写作形式常常出现在为消费者轻松的心境而写的散文中，或者在一顿丰盛的晚餐后的无心之作中。

从历史主义到文章主义：知识分子的堕落。

王安忆的舅舅的故事说明了从历史性、意识形态性的文学向可称为散文性的形式过渡。这篇小说写于1990年，正是中国社会和整个文化发生剧烈变化的时期。 中国从一个以意识形态为导向、以中央集权为主导的文化，迅速进入一个经济疯狂发展、投资、消费主义和流行文化的勇敢新世界。 一些根本性的东西已经极大地动摇了中国社会的基本结构。--WuQiong (talk) 12:26, 9 December 2020 (UTC)

Wu Xiang 邬香

The Story of Our Uncle registered a very sensitive aspect of the epoch-making changes in China. Rather than interpret this novella as a literary text, I will look at it as a document tracing a shift in literary and social history. Focusing on a novelist's career, the novella delineates the qualitative shift in the value and function of literature in a time when ideology and politics were giving way to the market, economic development, and consumerism--all under the rubric of modernization. From the vicissitudes of a writer we may see how the novel as a cultural form loses its ground and how literary sensibility shifts to the essayistic. This generic shift provides a glimpse onto the fundamental social transformations in the 1990s.

Critics have noticed the presence of essayistic quality in Wang's writing, especially in her fiction.In The Story of Our Uncle, one finds the essayistic prevailing over narrative.

Wu Yilu 吴一露

The text reads more like an essay-- rambling, random, analytical, disjoint, gossipy, chatty--than a straight narration, a fact acknowledged by the author herself. In this narrative-essay a young writer on behalf of his generation attempts make a biographical assessment of an older writer they call our uncle. One would be disappointed to expect an engaging action or dramatic story. Though the text retains the outward, apparent shape of a novella it is a hybrid composed of diverse genres, with literary and art criticisms, gossip, conjecture, history, philosophizing, anecdotes, and stories all rolled into one. The narrator suggests that this novella is an essay in the double sense of textual form and playful, explorative literary exercise. He proclaims in the opening paragraph that this is a story assembled out of a hodgepodge of elements, and there is no way to distinguish truth from falsehood.

Wu Zijia 吴子佳

“Many blanks need to be filled up with imagination and inference,” and the story is filled with “subjective coloring” (181). The subjective, arbitrary, even whimsical character of the text is further associated, as the narrator notes, with the mode of production that writers have adopted as they are geared toward an emergent literary market. Writers, the narrator says, are people who spend their time making up stories. One day “we started circulating his (Uncle's) maxims.” To the laborers like us the maxims are significant, for they are capital in commodity production and can produce surplus value, which can put back to expanded reproduction. The Story of Our Uncle is thus premised on fragmentary axioms, an arbitrary principle of composition, random fantasy, and the form of commodity.

Xiao Shuangling 肖双玲

In a strictly formalistic sense, Wang's text complies with the usual comments and generalizations on the essay as a literary form. In Theodore Adorno's well-known essay entitled “The Essay as Form” we find numerous descriptions well suited to an analysis of the essay in the Chinese context. Adorno pits the essay against the institutional system of philosophy, the discourse of scientific positivism, and its attendant socio-cultural condition of reification. The essay is envisaged as an enfant terrible or a serious playboy seeking the utopia space of the pleasure principle. Thus the essay turns up its nose to the notions of totality, completeness, systematicity, the universal and the eternal. It is marked by fragments, excessive fantasy and interpretation, exploration, and experiments. Its supposed form is actually formlessness. Abandoning the rigid conceptual schemata, it seeks and engages the object in its historical specificity and quotidian trivia.

Xiao Ting 肖婷

While Adorno's comments are apt and in tune with much of Eileen Chang and Wang Anyi's musings on the essay, the philosophical framework in Adorno that the essay rebels against is different: the essay is up against the high-minded conceptual tyranny of Western philosophical tradition. In the Chinese literary convention the essay is not so clearly defined against something so established. Its polemic pole, I have tried to argue throughout this essay, is to be identified as the Enlightenment and Marxist paradigm of teleological history and its literary counterpart: the novel of revolutionary realism.

The essay is a literary exploration trying to break out of the conceptual and discursive straitjacket. Adorno quotes Max Bense and says that the essay “is distinguished from a treatise:

Xiao Xi 肖茜

The person who writes essayistically is the one who composes as he experiments, who turns his object around, questions it, feels it, tests it, reflects on it, who attacks it from different sides and assembles what he sees in his mind's eye and puts into words what the object allows one to see under the condition created in the course of writing. (17)

The dropping of a grand, complete vision and opting for the incomplete, trivial, and the experimental are what makes for the essay. The German word Versuch, attempt or essay, Adorno writes, is the place where “thought's utopian vision of hitting the bullseye is united with the consciousness of its own fallibility and provisional character” (16). This “indicates . . . something about the form, something to be taken all the more seriously in that it takes place not systematically but rather as a characteristic of an intention groping its way” (16).

See Wu Liang and Wang Anyi, “A Conversation on Reality and Fiction,” in Wang Anyi, Reality and Fiction (Jishi yu xugou) 325.

Adorno, 3-23.

Xiao Yining 肖伊宁

An intention groping its way into the mysteries of the Uncle's life aptly describes the essayistic quality of Wang's novella. As a text assembled out of disparate materials-- hearsay, gossips, and guesswork, fantasy, and conjecture, the narrative enacts a wide array of pre-given discourses and narrative patterns to grope at the “real” life of the Uncle. These discourses and narratives are in their own turn commented on as objects of inquiry and critique on a “meta” level and treated as options in an experimental writing. As an intellectual the Uncle is typical of hundreds of thousands others persecuted in the political campaigns whose suffering and re-instatement in the post-Cultural Revolution period is now a cliche. But at the very outset the novella unpacks the myth of the suffering intellectual into forking paths of narrative.

探索叔叔生活之谜的意图恰如其分地描述了王中篇小说的散文主义特质。作为一个由传闻、闲话、猜测、幻想和猜想这样不同的材料组合而成的文本,叙事中出现了大量预先设定的话语和叙事模式，以探索叔叔的“真实”生活。这些话语和叙述在“元”层面上作为探究和评判的对象被评论，并在实验性写作中被视为可选择的事物。作为一名知识分子，叔叔是在政治运动中遭受迫害的数十万人中的典型，他们在后文革时期的痛苦和恢复现在已成陈词滥调。但从一开始，这部中篇小说就把受苦知识分子的故事解构成了分岔的叙事路径。 --Xiao yining (talk) 04:28, 9 December 2020 (UTC)Xiao Yining

一种试图探索叔叔生活奥秘的意图恰当地描述了王的小说的本质特征。作为一篇由不同材料-道听途说，流言，猜测，幻想和猜想-拼凑而成的文本，叙事赋予了大量预先给定的话语和叙事模式，以摸索叔叔的“真实”生活。这些论述和叙述依次被评论为“元”层面上的探究和批判对象，并在实验写作中被视为选项。作为一个知识分子，叔叔是成千上万在政治运动中受到迫害的人中的典型，他们在后文革时期的痛苦和重生现在已经是老生常谈了。但从一开始，中篇小说就将饱受苦难的知识分子的神话展开，开辟了叙事的道路。--YangHui (talk) 12:00, 9 December 2020 (UTC)

Xie Fan 解帆

One can make up a narrative of the Uncle on his way to the place of exile, for instance, by recourse to a tragic-sublime scenario of political victims echoing Dostoevesky. Riding in a beat-up truck drudging through the vast, snowy Siberian landscape in the Northwest plateau, the victim/hero would ponder the significance of life and fate with an elderly wise man. One could also cast the Uncle in a lackluster, comic or even grotesque light, reduced to a mere creature of survival, trapped in a narrow village life. Like thousands of other writers, Uncle was persecuted and exiled because of his writing. But this fabled story of the tragic-heroic writer is again playfully retouched into three different versions by Uncles' own retelling after the fact. In the first telling, his persecution is a political story, indicting the tyranny of the political system. Then it is an existential story, intimating the mysterious and ironical workings of fate.Thirdly, it is a prophetic story, in the fashion of an Aesop fable, full of prescience and bodings of catastrophe.

Xie Ziyi 谢子熠

This intention groping its way into the Uncle's life draws upon various types of narrative patterns and aesthetic resources. This is by no means a literary embellishment for pure rhetorical variety or pleasure. The narration is saddled with the difficulties of understanding and getting the Uncle's life's straight. The difficulty is not the usual generational gap, but reflects different historical experiences and memory that separate the young from the old. This difference not only drives a wedge into the writers as a group, but also gives rise to the divergence of generic practice and the aesthetics informing it. This divergence is the key to understanding the essay and the essayistic.

Xu Jia 徐佳

The older generation, having experienced political persecution and historical traumas at the first hand, is deeply grounded in a historical consciousness and a teleological narrative. The Uncle is intensely committed to writing literature as praxis for social change. His meteoric rise to the leading writer in the aftermath of the Cultural Revolution indicates that the position of what Gramsci called the “organic” intellectual remains strong, even thriving. The popularity of his novels shows that a work of literature can make a tremendous hit and is an effective medium for criticizing the flaws of the system and raising the social, political consciousness of readers. It revives the legacy of the New Literature of May Fourth and is rightly re-baptized as the literature of the New Period (xin shiqi wenxue). It is the voice of the farsighted and the vanguard in China's modernization drive. Despite all his traumas and sufferings, the Uncle's generation, writers in their forties and over in the narrative time, remains firm in their belief in the organic totality of socio-historical process and the people's capacity in steering the course of history. Literature is simply one vehicle that carries this historical mission.

Xu Jing 许晶

The historical consciousness embodied by the Uncle is to find its corresponding form in an epic mode of writing: the realistic novel. The Uncle's general outlook on the world is epic in the Lukácsian sense. The young narrator captures this Weltanschauung very accurately:

The political life of the past few decades has filled up his personal experience and life. This enables Uncle to keep his worldview firmly anchored to reality and politics. The state and government encompass the whole world for him and form the vast backdrop for human activity. Patterns of people's behavior and conduct are but representatives of social life. The concept of culture sounds very abstract and empty to him. For him art should also perform real and political functions. (214-215)

Xu Jing 许静

The young generation, in contrast, is not so firmly grounded. Growing up in a period when the dominant ideology is in decline, they are left floating in the winds of various imported ideologies and newfangled isms. Creatures of the newly emergent market and players of nihilistic intellectual fashions, they produce literature without any commitment to a socio-historical mission. Literature is but a playful, aesthetic game unburdened with any responsibility and weighty purposes. Art has become an artful, artsy activity, floating free of socio-historical grounding. Literary activity to them means, more specifically, attending pen conferences, pursuing hot fashions, innovating fresh forms and tastes, brandishing new theories, making up sensational and marketable stories. All this also leads to the enhancement of a writer's charisma and even sexual appeal. Indeed, to the young generation it is old fashioned to see literature as having historical or social significance; literature becomes more and more sexy and commercial.

Xu Mengdie 徐梦蝶

The story of the Uncle is an allegory of withdrawal from history and the dangers involved, exemplified in his crisis-ridden metamorphosis from a historically grounded writer to a playful artist, from novelist to essay writer. The Uncle's earlier success thrusts him to the status of literary celebrity and stardom: he becomes a prominent figure in the media. As the younger writers pursue fashions and cater to new consumers with playful, entertaining, artsy literary goods, the Uncle feels the need to catch up. His new position as a glamorous writer allows him to become a globetrotter. At the invitation of literary and academic circles and literary institutions around world eager to know a newly opened China, he journeys from country to country giving talks and socializing at literary cocktail parties. Increasingly, sightseeing and superficial impressions of exotic foreign countries become the only materials he can summon: he becomes a tourist and a writer of travelogue.

Xu Pengfei 许鹏飞

Going along with the role of a player in an increasingly cosmopolitan, global, and consumer oriented literary market is a new philosophy of writing, which favors a showy, playful, essayistic quality at the expense of the epic, social and historical. The Uncle is reborn, the younger narrator rightly observes, into a new life, and into an enclosed new realm of pure artistic creativity. He addresses serious social problems playfully in the style of black humor and through anachronistic narrative techniques. He becomes more and more detached from the grave political issues of the day. His new outlook is derived from a purely aesthetic principle.

在日益国际化、全球化和以消费者为导向的文学市场中，一种新的写作理念应运而生，它以牺牲史诗性、社会性和历史性为代价，追求炫耀性、趣味性和散文性。年轻的叙述者正确地观察到，文学叔叔重生了，他进入了一种新的生活，进入了一个封闭的纯艺术创造的新领域。他以黑色幽默的风格和不合时宜的叙述技巧，玩笑般地处理严重的社会问题。他与当今严重的政治问题越来越疏远。他的新观点是由纯粹的美学原则衍生而来。--Xu Pengfei (talk) 05:35, 9 December 2020 (UTC)Xu Pengfei

在日益国际化、全球化和以消费者为导向的文学市场中，一种新的写作理念应运而生，它以牺牲史诗性、社会性和历史性为代价，追求炫耀性、趣味性和散文性。年轻的叙述者恰好观察到，文叔重生了，他进入了一种新的生活，进入了一个封闭的纯艺术创造的新领域。他以黑色幽默的风格和不合时宜的叙述技巧，玩笑般地处理严重的社会问题。他与当今严重的政治问题越来越疏远。他的新观点是由纯粹的美学原则衍生而来。--Tan Yuanyuan (talk) 06:50, 9 December 2020 (UTC)

Yang Chenting 杨晨婷

Emptied of historical substance and filled up with fragmentary and rambling impressions in his global trips, both life and writing of the Uncle thin out into personal, irrelevant, discontinuous fragments. His writing begins to take on the essayistic quality, and borders on sheer images or simulacra, getting closer and closer to those of the younger generation. Real human relations are “only a literary conceit.” (227), he echoes the younger generation. Within the aesthetic shelter the “Uncle can no longer become excited or moved and is immune to suffering.” Tragic suffering is now only a literary category, and “the awareness of this is the hallmark of Uncle's becoming a pure writer” (225). Parallel with this essayistic quality is the Uncle's changed life style. His is more taken with things he would have considered vulgar, low, or quotidian;

Yang Hairong 杨海容

he becomes more listless and yuppish. He has developed a strong interest in women and sexual intrigues and conquests; he indulges in vulgarity and trivial pursuits, exulting in money and showy, exotic collectibles. In short, he metamorphoses from an image of the epic novelist and organic intellectual to a middle class, professional writer, whose favored form is the essay and whose lifestyle takes on the “essayistic” quality of a ramble for self-pleasure.

The transformation in the Uncle reflects the retreat of literature from a historically grounded medium to a form light-hearted, playful entertainment and a theatrical performance. The problem with this change, as the novella's ending suggests, is that it is self-deceptive. Despite the Uncle's willful creation of an aesthetic cocoon, history manages to intrude in the end as return of the repressed, in the person of his murderous son. His son embodies all the painful memory and disgraceful experience of the Uncle's life, unfit for the epic treatment in his novels and repressed in his ethereal, airtight, essayistic experiments.

Yang Hui 阳慧

The son's attempted murder of his father signifies the revenge of a history that the Uncle is trying to shut off from the serene, trouble-free aesthetic realm. Our concern, however, is not with the interpretation of the story per se, but with the way the Uncle's fate indicates the shift in literary form. If the Uncle's story apparently traces the trajectory of a novelist to a writer who not only writes travelogues and essays but also is imbued with essayistic sensibility, then the essay in contemporary China is a release from the epic form of writing and historical discourse. It is a release into the literary market and consumer taste, a response to the pervasive secularization of life and rising consumerism.

儿子企图谋杀他父亲的行为象征着一段历史的复仇，而这段历史是叔叔试图将其与宁静、无烦恼的美学领域隔离开来的。然而，我们关心的不是故事本身的解释，而是叔叔的命运如何预示着文学形式的转变。如果“叔叔”的故事明显地将小说家的轨迹追溯到一个作家，他不仅写游记和散文，而且充满了散文情感，那么当代中国的散文就是从史诗形式的写作和历史话语中解放出来的。这是对文学市场和消费品味的释放，是对生活普遍世俗化和消费主义抬头的回应。--YangHui (talk) 11:59, 9 December 2020 (UTC)

Yang Yi 杨逸

It comes as the image of a loosening up of the previous, ideologically controlled life, which is now becoming more private, more disjoint and fragmented, more removed from the totalistic social and political process. Yet history has not become the simulacrum to play with, as envisioned by the younger narrator or the Uncle himself as he catches up with the fashions. China’s social reality does not square so nicely with the essayistic playfulness one may wish. Thus the essay as a cultural form is caught in a tension between withdrawal from the burden of history and the possible return of the repressed.

Yang Yue 杨悦

Mulish Essays: the Genre of Zawen in Contemporary China

Mary Scoggin

Abstract

Tone in an essay is an ironic figure of speech; how can you channel that which is carried in sound through the ink of print? This paper illustrates the trope of tone through the particularly ,sonorous' work of ShaoYanxiang, an official poet who in retirement is better known for the essays in which he collapses poetry into polemic, his zawen. The distinct and beleaguered social and cultural space for zawen in contemporary China reveals the mechanics, ideology and significance of tone in Chinese writing. Even more than other literary genres, zawen depends upon something within the earthy noise of moody, mulish voices to carry its messages. Like most poetry, but unlike most fiction and drama, zawen is itself a first person voice, not a representation of voices.

Yang Ziling 杨子泠

Yet unlike poetry, which may need to be at least imagined to be read out loud, repeated and savored for full effect, zawen's ideal is to appear for a fleeting moment on the back page of a newspaper, to be received with the accompaniment of an enigmatic laugh, sigh or snort from the reader, and then thrown away quickly, before anyone can find their seat and sit in it, or take offence. While readers love and hate their morally and politically provocative zawen-of-the-moment, writers string zawen across stretches of time and publishing organs to construct heavily intertextualized conversations.

Yao Cheng 姚诚

Eventually they even preserve zawen, long after the dizzying minutia of allusions, jokes and digs are forgotten, often compiling a career's worth of them into small print runs of volumes that they give away to friends and admirers as discursive portraits of themselves. Lu Xun's genre of the ,dagger and spear' is thus not only a sly political weapon, but also a complex sculpture of the self, chiseled by the cantankerous tones of social dialogue.

In contemporary textbooks and manuals of Chinese essay composition, the “miscellaneous essay,” [literally, “mixed essay,” referred to as zawen hereafter] is presented as a particularly “Chinese” essay genre within a global view of universal literary categorization.

Yao Jia 姚佳

Lu Xun, the genre's initial back-handed champion, quipped sardonically that although he searched the standard encyclopedia thoroughly, he was unable to locate the genre of “tsa-wen” in any authoritative foreign classification. Lu Xun's sarcasm includes both defiance and self-conscious uneasiness about a writing practice that Chinese circumstances, he felt, rendered peculiar and unseemly upon a world stage. Compare the comments of a recent critic of zawen:

In Chinese affairs, there is a strange phenomenon that has held true until the present time, and that is; the value of any certain thing has to be established by a foreigner or by some common foreign publication.

Yi Huan 易欢

As for this thing called modern Chinese zawen, because its Chinese characteristics are too strong, Westerners truly have a hard time understanding them, and thus have difficulty in researching this subject... the American writer Pearl Buck said something like: 'this thing called zawen is too peculiar, you really cannot understand it.' That is why only Chinese people themselves can evaluate this phenomenon called zawen. (Yan Xiu in Zhang Hua [all translations by Scoggin unless otherwise noted]) In this passage, Yan Xiu, an eminent writer and critic, articulated Lu Xun's defiance of the foreign authority to categorize essay genre in a relatively explicit way, while also maintaining a typical zawen-esque playfulness of style. He continues his commentary;

Yi Zichu 义子楚

But we do not need to worry about this long period of neglect in which foreigners do not recognize zawen. Even if a foreigner were to burst his/her mind researching Chinese zawen, I am afraid that they would not be able to research anything out of it even if they researched themselves flat broke and starving. But Chinese people all understand them easily. If they were not able to maintain the abiding appreciation and understanding of Chinese readers, this practice would have been lost. The historical reasons and significance for the creation and propagation of zawen in China are worth serious research and theorizing (ibid.).

Bravely dismissing the risk of bankruptcy, I do propose to research and theorize the culture of this funny genre of essay in all of its supposed inscrutability.

You Yuting 游雨婷

One ubiquitous characterization of zawen from textbooks and manuals is built upon the metaphor of the mule. This metaphor suggests a number of qualities, including hybrid vigor and strength, stubborn bad-temper, and resilience in the face of obstacles. Mules kick, spit and bray with distinctive exuberance. Zawen are often considered an awkward combination of “part-poetry, part politics” (Lin). Cross-bred traits extend the qualities of a mule; zawen are bred to toil at the most difficult of human labor, they are strong, hard-working and rather famously unloved creatures, best known for their expressive obstinance.

So how does an essay kick, spit and bray? In Chinese theoretical discussion of zawen the metaphor moves from kinetics to sound; zawen's kick is located in its “tone,” a term taken from music, although the sound here is can be distinctly unlovely.

Yu Ni 余妮

Elsewhere I have examined the function of “tone” through the lens of the published record of debate over tone between literary editors (see Scoggin 2001). I have posited the idea that approaches to writing zawen fall into two interdependent strategies, one overt and one covert, both blending the tactics of politics and poetics in perfect measure. Overt zawen are relatively bold and obvious in their churlish tone, reflecting confidence in a tolerant audience. Covert zawen are sometimes difficult to identify, disguised or hidden within other genre of writing, but still drawing upon the distinctive tones of zawen through intertextuality and other tricks.

Below, I examine the mechanics of zawen tone through contrasting these two style of zawen issuing from a single pen, that of poet and noted zawen writer Shao Yanxiang.

Yuan Shiqi 袁诗琦

The two essays discussed below form opposites sides of a spectrum of variable transparency, and vastly differing publishing circumstances, although they were composed only months apart by the same individual, one before and one after a specific political event in China. I argue here that unifying the two zawen is a particular subset of modal tropes, qualified as the verbal equivalent to a mule's kick, bite or bray. The expression of this unclearly delineated but distinctive subset of modal tropes is the single central mission of zawen as a genre in Chinese literature and society. Chinese theoretical debates over “tone” specifically address the function of this kind of modal trope. While sometimes as bald and direct, as in the overt zawen “Pei pei pei! ”?discussed below, many zawen conceal their weapons, depending upon contextual circumstances of publishing to pack their punch, as does the essay “East Station,” also discussed below.

下面讨论的这两篇文章形成了一系列不同的透明度和迥然不同的出版情况，尽管这两篇文章是由同一个人撰写的，前后仅相隔几个月，分别是在中国某一特定政治事件之前和之后。在这里我认为，统一两个“杂文”是模态修辞的一个特定子集，在言语上相当于“骡子的踢”、“咬”或“叫”。表达这种没有明确划定但独特的模态修辞子集，是“杂文”作为中国文学和社会的一个流派的唯一中心任务。中国关于“调”的理论争论主要针对这类模态修辞的功能。然而有时又很直接，就像在下面讨论的公开的“杂文”“呸呸呸”?中，许多杂文隐藏他们的武器，根据发表的语境环境进行重击，正如文章《东站》，也将在下面讨论。--Yuan SHiqi (talk) 07:09, 9 December 2020 (UTC)

下面讨论的这两篇文章从相反的角度形成了一系列不同的透明度和迥然不同的出版情况，尽管这两篇文章由同一个人撰写，前后仅相隔几个月，分别是在中国某一特定政治事件之前和之后。在这里我认为，统一两个“杂文”是模态修辞的一个特定子集，在言语上相当于“骡子的踢”、“咬”或“叫”。表达这种没有明确划定但独特的模态修辞子集，是“杂文”作为中国文学和社会的一个流派的唯一中心任务。中国关于“调”的理论争论主要针对这类模态修辞的功能。然而有时又很直接，就像在下面讨论的公开的“杂文”“呸呸呸！”?中，许多杂文隐藏起他们的武器，根据发表的语境环境进行重击，正如将在下面讨论的文章《东站》。--Xu Pengfei (talk) 11:34, 9 December 2020 (UTC)Xu Pengfei

Yuan Tianyi 袁天翼

Both types of zawen should be read “ethnographically,” in concrete social and historical circumstances. After covering some of the primary textual elements of zawen, I will demonstrate the significance of more subtle contextual gestures of zawen, which must be read out of the process of submitting and publishing zawen. Through the contrast of these two essays, I will explicate and generalize about the formation and mechanics and of tone in modern Chinese literary history, and offer a thesis upon the reception of Chinese literature in Western scholarship as well.

杂文的两种类型都应该置于具体的社会和历史环境下，以“民族志”的方式解读。在介绍杂文一些基本的文章要素后，我会揭示杂文更细微的语境姿态的意义，而这个只能从提交和出版杂文的过程中解读出来。通过对比这两篇文章，我会我将对中国现代文学史上基调的形成、机制和基调进行阐述和概括，并就西方学术界接纳中国文学这件事发表一篇论文。--Yuan Tianyi (talk) 07:05, 9 December 2020 (UTC)

Yuan Yuchen 袁雨晨

An Demonstrative Sample – “'Pei Pei Pei!'?” A friend from outside literary circles asked me to find him some “pei pei pei!” essays to read, and I had to stare at him blankly with nothing to say. He then explained that he had read in a newspaper that a certain provincial leader had announced at a banquet that there should be no more “pei pei pei – ing” all over the place, and so clearly there must be pei pei pei-ing all over the place. (Shao 1993, 181) So begins an essay entitled “呸呸呸!”? composed in February of 1989. I will return to the circumstances of publication shortly, but first I will demonstrate the trope of tone through this representative sample zawen.

Zeng Fangyuan 曾芳缘

A word like “Pei!” contains what we can call a modal trope, a figure of speech that captures mood and emotion, expressing not only subjunctive or declamatory mood, as adverbial modal tropes such as “could” and “should” may do in English, but also more subtly embedded mood in the semantics of lexical items (the meanings in words) expressing outrage, joy, command, sarcasm, threat, pathos, irony (Friedrich, 30-32). Usually modal tropes work together with other functions of language but in the case of “pei!” the modal trope is more nearly pure, it stands primarily for the emotional tone it communicates. A parallel sample in English might be something like “tut, tut, tut!” although “tut” fails to pack the censorious reproach of the Chinese “pei!”

Zeng Liang 曾良

In the case of this title, modal functions are reinforced by several formal tropes. Note the repetition (three pei's!) and the complex punctuation consisting of an exclamation point and a question mark, separated by quotation marks. In the case of “Pei pei pei!”?, the zawen's own voice is not the primary expression of the tone of disgust. The quotation marks invoke disgust only to distance it, while the question mark further challenges it. The title alone demonstrates modal function with very little distraction; one character, two repetitions and three punctuation marks move this title in several modally intense directions at once with almost no referential content at all.

Zeng Xinyuan 曾心媛

“Pei pei pei!”? performs a transparent metadiscursive comment upon zawen, in this case defending the extracurricular genre favored by declasse intellectuals like Shao Yanxiang, himself, a “retired” poet who had resigned with bitterness from his career at the central Chinese poetry journal Shikan, and devoted his post official career to writing zawen. Upon learning of this unnamed “provincial leader's” complaint about “pei pei pei”-ing, and sensing that he himself bore some responsibility for this reportedly lamentable state of affairs, Shao writes that he discovered that the provincial leader had indeed characterized a kind of caustic, sarcastic disparaging discourse about the party, the nationality and the people, as “pei pei pei-ing all over the place” and that he had further warned that this kind of talk was spreading a mood of despair and hopelessness.

Zeng Yanhu 曾雁湖

In the remainder of this essay Shao ridicules said provincial leader's complaint as circular, admitting no culpability on the part of his own fellow zawen-writing social critics.

The tone of “Pei pei pei!”? is that of pointed irony, expressed recursively upon three levels. The first level is located in the words themselves, including the use of “pei” I have described above. This “first order” irony, as I have described it (Scoggin 1997), is an elementary type of sarcasm, a part of the conventional rhetoric of any language, written or spoken, and not usually misunderstood by a competent interpreter.

Zhang Hu 张虎

Other examples of this level of tone in “Pei pei pei!”? would include the attitude of “stupidity” Shao Yanxiang assumes when he claims that he looks for pei pei pei ing “all over the place” but cannot find any at all, and the repeated use of expressions he lifted from the pointedly unnamed “provincial leader's” talk, including the primary charge of “mockery, sarcasm and scornful dismissal” Shao is refuting, and also the leader's assertion of “discipline and rectification,” which Shao has skillfully turned into a counter charge.

A second level of irony requires contextual knowledge on the part of the reader. This includes assumptions that would be obvious to most readers.

Zhang Hui 张慧

For example, Shao Yanxiang claims that he has never heard of the idea that “literary publications should be of assistance in stabilizing the people's minds, increasing faith, and not demoralizing the people's will.” But just such a position has clearly been long-standing socialist policy for many kinds of public writing, including media news and literature. References to historical events in terms like the cultural revolution tones of “newspaper [published] by all the people” and Han Shaogong's controversial Post-Mao short story “Ba Ba Ba” fall somewhere in between the first and second levels of ironic tone.

A third level, which I have labeled “indexical irony,” makes use of immediately contextual information such as the actual publishing outlet of the essay (in this case, the mainstream Literature Journal essay column “Literature and the People's Lives,” which Shao mentions at the end of the article) and Shao's own writing persona.

例如，邵彦祥声称他从未听说过“文学出版物应在稳定人民思想，增进信仰，不使人民意志消沉方面有所帮助”这一思想。 但是，这种立场显然已经成为包括媒体新闻和文学在内的许多公共写作的长期社会主义政策。 对历史事件的引用，例如“全民[报纸]的文化大革命”和韩少功备受争议的毛泽东短篇小说“八八八”，都介于第一和第二讽刺语调之间。

第三个层次，我称之为 "索引性反讽"，利用文章的实际出版渠道（在这里，邵在文章结尾提到的主流文学报散文专栏 "文学与百姓生活"）和邵自己的写作人设等即时语境信息。--Zhang Hui (talk) 09:13, 9 December 2020 (UTC)

比如，邵燕祥声称，他从来没有听说过 "文艺刊物要对稳定民心、增加信仰、不挫伤民心意志有帮助 "的观点。 但就这样的立场，显然是包括媒体新闻和文学在内的多种公开写作的长期社会主义政策。 像 "全民办报（出版）"的文革调子和韩少功的争议性后毛短篇小说《巴巴》等词语对历史事件的提及，都属于第一和第二层次的反讽调子。

第三层次，我称之为 "索引性反讽"，利用文章的实际出版渠道（在这里，邵逸夫在文章结尾提到的主流文学报散文专栏《文学与人民生活》）和邵逸夫自己的写作人设等即时语境信息。--Zhao Xiaoyan (talk) 09:17, 9 December 2020 (UTC)

Zhang Ling 张玲

Zawen often make extensive use of this third, intimately contextualized level. In this case Shao claims that he can find no “pei pei pei” articles, but many readers would recognize that he himself is well known for writing zawen that would certainly qualify.

In “Pei pei pei!”? Shao Yanxiang has deliberately sought out an accusation that he then counters with withering acerbity. Complaint, combat and disgust are just the beginning of the range of contentious moods that zawen represent. Zawen accuse, retaliate, needle, and snarl; but as I will demonstrate shortly, they can also moan and sigh with considerable subtly. Either way they clothe all this, quite often, in word games of subterfuge and indirectness, which -- beyond the intellectual puzzle of circumlocution also common in other genres of verbal art -- carries the weight of zawen's mission in the singular feature of tone.

Zhang Peiwen 张佩闻

As a zawen writer, the “provincial leader's” complaint is exactly the sort of accusation intellectuals like Shao Yanxiang are accustomed to facing. His defense links the zawen mission to many others we could find in diverse settings; he is also answering, for example, Spiro Agnew's famous condemnation of “nattering nabobs of negativism” in American public discourse, and displaying the cross-cultural breadth of a “Jeremiad,” evident in the travel-worthy allusion of the very term, rooted in biblical texts. In this and other zawen, Shao defends the contemporary Chinese genre of zawen as a genre of protest and complaint. He borrows the insult of a critic to distinguish thoughtless emotional battering from the carefully aimed spar, which is both his own ideal and the standard mission of the genre of zawen.

Zhang Qi 张琪

A Restrained Sample – “East Station”

I have outlined how one essay demonstrates the function of zawen in a particularly transparent way, but some of the best and most effective zawen are covert operations. On the opposite side of spectrum of transparency, we can place a relatively understated and “essay-like” zawen, also by Shao Yanxiang. “East Station” was submitted for a national zawen competition in a southern evening newspaper in 1994. It was judged too “sensitive” to publish by the zawen editor, but nevertheless it was privately noted by the editors as the unofficial winner of the competition. At first glance there is very little to mark it as a zawen at all, not to mention a seditious zawen.

Zhang Weihong 张维虹

It is a rather lyrical survey of historical images centering upon refugees, migrants, political and literary figures on their passages to and from Beijing. It does, however, contain a few of the indications of first level irony that traditionally mark a zawen, such as a “quotation” placed for its jarring effect, as in the opening passage below.

Thirty years ago in Beijing, if you mentioned “East Station,” everybody would know that referred the Beijing East Station that lies to the outer East Side of Front Gate. Today this unremarkable construction, built in a half-westernized architectural style and sandwiched between the tall buildings of this noisy and busy city, supports a little sign that reads “Railway Workers Club.” It is already an “ancient artifact,” long gone are the prosperous and glorious days of old.

此文是以流民，移民，政治和文学人物往返北京为中心的历史形象的抒情研究。然而，它确实包含了一些传统上标记“杂文”的第一层讽刺的暗示，例如为了其刺耳效果而放置的“引语”，如下面的开头段落所示。 三十年前的北京，如果提到“东站”，大家都会知道是指位于正门外东侧的北京东站。如今，这座半西化建筑风格的不起眼的建筑，夹在喧嚣闹市的高楼大厦之间，支撑着一块“铁路工人俱乐部”的小牌子，已是“古文物”，昔日的繁华辉煌早已一去不复返了。

Zhang Xueyi 张雪仪

The somber opening paragraph is in part marked as a zawen by the appearance of snapshot “quote,” in which what might have been a significant icon of Beijing history is reduced to a cheesy “Railway workers club” sign hanging on a architecturally half-breed building not even worthy of preservation. Other ironic comments of this sort include Shao's sarcastic reference to Guo Moruo;

And in March of 1949, when Guo Moruo and his democrats gathered together and arrived in Beijing, they were received with grand ceremonious welcome; the tears they wept were of joy. At the time, he composed a poem “How much of the people's blood was spilled for this honor.

Zhang Yinliu 张银柳

Thinking of it, the tears fall, and happy laughter is unable to articulate in sound.” -- I do not know why, but this poem was not collected in any of his later collections.

In a similar but more deeply contextualized vein would be Shao Yanxiang's allusion to Tu Fu's escape during the An Lu Shan rebellion during the Tang Dynasty contained in the quoted term “fortuitous rescue.” Shao's general structure in this piece is a recurring cyclical allegory that parallels the Japanese, the Nationalists and the Communists in bitter condemnation of the last, as only one more invasive army disturbing the lives of ordinary Chinese people. The People's Traffic Police also take their place in this cycle, a silly reminder that we are still in the realm of zawen.

Zhang Yu 张瑜

Obviously this kind of first and second-level rhetorical sarcasm and historical irony alone is not enough to define an essay as a zawen, but the difficulty of assigning an essay its genre is also no obstacle; ambiguous “mixedness” is part of zawen's identity. This covert zawen depends most fundamentally upon indexical irony, to an extent that surpasses “Pei Pei Pei!”?, above. One crucial feature that makes “East Station” a zawen is the entirely untextual fact that Shao Yanxiang submitted it in a competition specifically designated for zawen in a provincial evening newspaper. The editors did not reject the piece as “non-zawen,” on the contrary, they complained that it contained too much of the requisite zawen pique. In order to understand this, we must again go beyond the actual words of the piece.

这种一级和二级讽喻修辞及仅从历史讽刺角度显然不足以将一篇文章定义为“杂文”，但将一篇文章归类的难题也不是什么障碍；模糊的“混合”是“杂文”的特点之一。杂文的隐蔽性更多地依赖于索引的讽刺，在某种程度上来说，它超越了“呸呸呸！”。把《东站》这篇文章归为“杂文”的一个关键特征是其完全无文本性这一事实，邵燕祥在地方晚报“杂文”特辑上发表这篇文章。编者也不否认这篇文章不是一篇“杂文”，相反地，他们抱怨这篇文章涵盖太多“杂文”必不可少的气息。为了了解这一点，我们必须再次透过文字本身来看这篇文章。--Zhang Yu (talk) 14:49, 9 December 2020 (UTC)

Zhang Yujie 张毓婕

In a late night conversation in which the managing editor and two guests including myself drank beer and discussed the zawen competition to which “East Station” was submitted, the editor mused about the publication that wasn't. She said;

Actually Shao Yanxiang submitted two manuscripts, but I had to return one. (Reaching around to a drawer) Well, I wanted to return it to him, but then I couldn't bear to. The original is still here, I wonder if you will understand? It requires some background...At the time it was the head editor that rejected the manuscript. He also felt badly, but there was no question but that it could not be printed, because it would certainly cause trouble...This happens with your friends, but I really felt uncomfortable about this one.

Zhang Yuxing 张宇星

Because this essay was just written so well. He just wrote about the East Station, but he used Beijing East Station to talk about his view on everything. (Scoggin Fieldnotes)

She continued to discuss the essays that were just too “that way” (neige le) as they came in for the competition. “One day the police came and looked through that box all afternoon!” she added. The managing editor's two guests that evening jumped on her comment, “They what!?” But she retained the appearance of serenely refusing to interpret this police visit as a sinister gesture. It was just manuscripts, why should they look at those? They said they were just reading, there were two of them, I really don't know, I guess they enjoyed reading them too.(ibid)

Zhao Xi 赵茜

When she finally found the manuscript (tucked away where snooping police would not have found it) she decided to give it to me. She said she had called Shao Yanxiang to tell him that they could not print it, and even though he had said he understood, she still hated to bring the matter to his attention again by sending the essay back to him, and now it seemed too late. Since I was also acquainted with him, and clearly admired him, giving the manuscript to me as research material seemed to her to be a fitting conclusion to the whole matter.

In the original manuscript of “East Station” is signed, as is the custom, with the date it was composed at the bottom, “September 13, 1989.” Although it was submitted to the newspaper in 1994, in a private note scrawled to the editors, Shao added; “Please don't cut or change this date.

Zhao Xiaoyan 赵晓燕

The new railway station began operation in 1959, and this fits in parallel with 'more that thirty years ago' at the beginning of the essay.” The emphasis upon these dates forces a new consideration of the essay as a whole. Suddenly the parallel between Nationalist, Japanese and Communist cycles of refuge and expulsion he mentions are rendered a sinister reference to a modern “rebellion” in the spring and summer of 1989. The date heightens the threat of Shao's concluding two sentences; “Today will also become history. And every inch of Beijing earth will provide proof of its history.” The scrawled note links 30 years, 1989, “today,” and the defiant “inches of proof” that mark East Station as a zawen, even beyond the micro structure of submission channels. For all its elusively distant tone, East Station suddenly became a pointed, angry, and, even in 1994, unpublishable zawen.

新火车站于1959年开始运营，这与文章开头的'三十多年前'相吻合"。对这些日期的强调，迫使我们对文章的整体进行新的考虑。突然间，他提到的国民党、日本和共产党的避难和驱逐周期之间的平衡，被恶意渲染成1989年春夏的现代 "叛乱 "。这个日期强调了邵的最后两句话：“今天也将成为历史。而北京大地的每一寸土地都将为其历史提供证明。" 这张潦草的纸条将30年、1989年、"今天 "和不顾一切的 "寸土寸金 "联系在一起，这标志着东站作为一个杂文，甚至超越了提交渠道的微观结构。尽管东站的语气难以捉摸，但它突然变成了一个尖锐的、愤怒的、甚至在1994年还无法出版的杂文。--Zhao Xiaoyan (talk) 09:15, 9 December 2020 (UTC)

新火车站于1959年开始运营，与本文开头的“三十多年前”相适应。” 对这些日期的强调迫使我们对论文作为一个整体进行新的考虑。 他提到，国民党，日本人和共产党人的避难和驱逐循环之间的相似之处突然变成了对1989年春夏的现代“叛乱”的阴险参考。这一日期加剧了邵的结论的威胁。 今天也将成为历史。 北京的每一寸土地都将提供其历史的证明。” 散乱的笔记将1989年的30年（今天）与挑衅的“几分证据”联系起来，这标志着东站成为杂文，甚至超出了提交渠道的微观结构。 尽管遥不可及，但东站突然变得尖锐，愤怒，甚至在1994年，也无法发表“杂文”。--Zhang Hui (talk) 09:18, 9 December 2020 (UTC)

Zheng Huajun 郑华君

A Larger Trend: Revealing Ugly Truth through Troubled Tones

It is almost a matter of definition, then, that discordant, troubling tones are the characteristic, even of the most beautiful zawen. I have not illustrated “ugly” zawen here, but they do exist, and in profusion. Many zawen are suffused in a preachy, pedantic tone that is sometimes quite off-putting to Chinese and non-Chinese readers alike. And yet, like the larger category of essays in Chinese literature, zawen remain a popular staple in the literary supplements of Chinese newspapers, and many prominent writers turn later in their career to writing zawen. In contemporary history the “mule” genre of zawen has also played a significant political role far beyond its humble posture (see Scoggin 1997).

Zhou Luoping 周罗平

What is it about this genre that draws prominent writers, and commands significant attention of the Chinese readership? The answer lies, I think, in assumptions about the mechanics of tone rooted in Chinese literary history. To examine this problem we need to leave particular zawen behind and examine a larger picture that views Chinese literature via the globalized perspective that contemporary Chinese critics take.

Zawen as a category causes problems for Chinese as well as non Chinese classification, but there is a revealing divide between Western and Chinese treatment of zawen. With few exceptions, zawen has been neglected as a subject of the study of Chinese literature from outside of China until recently (the Achern conference on the Modern Chinese Literary Essay being a rare exception, with several papers devoted to zawen.)

Zhou Shiqing 周诗卿

While the problem of the status of zawen is not important in itself, I propose difficulties with this particular genre can reflect larger issues of significance to the study of Chinese literature and culture more generally. Zawen can highlight some special features of Chinese writing that are latent in other, more respectable forms of Chinese literature and culture. My research on zawen showed many instances of zawen being held up as a unique outgrowth of Chinese particularities, such as a fondness for brevity in verbal art, a tendency to take intellectuals more seriously than they are taken in contemporary societies elsewhere, as well as a few “perversions” that are supposedly unique to China, such as political tyranny that is strikingly detail-oriented, or collective aversion to verbal performance that is too straightforward (Scoggin 1997).

Zhou Shuyao 周书尧

Some of these claims for Chinese exceptionalism may be overblown; but I think that the genre, driven by what I argue is its central mission of tone, makes observable certain strains and practices that have acted as stumbling blocks to international research on other aspects of Chinese culture.

Chief among those obstacles to the study of Chinese literature is what I call the “bad literature” complaint.[ For recent affirmations of this complaint, see Huters 1990, McDougall 1997, Link, 2000. Earlier views in American sinology tie "bad literature" directly to the effects of political tyranny. ] Summarizing several quite different lines of argument, the suggestion is that with all the promise of Chinese literature holds as a naturally poetic language, with rich, revered and well-preserved traditions, with the particular visual and grammatical advantages of the Chinese character and linguistic structure, and further with dedicated literary “troops” to use the modern Chinese metaphor for institutions of organized and supported writers, modern Chinese literature has failed to produce truly great literature.

Zhou Siqing 周思庆

Obviously this generalization is subject to objection at many, if not all of its points. I would argue, however, that the consistency with which similar arguments emerge, defensible or not, points to themes of some significance. Complaints frequently accrue over the following literary practices;

1)Indulging in churlish tones, including hectoring, scolding and otherwise “yelling” in print

2)Adhering to one or another “politically correct line”

3)Participating in personal squabbles and vendettas, sometimes involving extraliterary persecution of both writers and targets

4)Exhibiting an “obsession” with China, and an oversized sense of responsibility for its fate

显然，这一概括在许多方面(如果不是全部观点的话)都遭到反对。然而，我要说的是，类似的论点出现的一致性，无论站得住脚与否，都指向了一些有意义的主题。对以下文学行为的抱怨不断增加; 1)肆无忌惮地使用粗鲁的语气，包括威吓、责骂以及在出版物中“大喊大叫” 2)坚持自己的“政治正确路线” 3)参与个人争吵和仇杀，有时还会对作者和被迫害的对象进行文学之外的迫害 4)表现出对中国的“痴迷”，以及对中国命运的过度责任感--Zhou Siqing (talk) 04:00, 9 December 2020 (UTC)

显然，这一概括在许多方面(如果不是全部观点的话)都会遭到反对。然而，我（在此）要说的是，类似的论点出现的一致性，无论站得住脚与否，都指向了一些有意义的主题。对以下文学行为的抱怨不断增加; 1)肆无忌惮地使用粗鲁的语气，包括威吓、责骂以及在出版物中“大喊大叫” 2)坚持自己的“政治正确路线” 3)参与个人争吵和仇杀，有时还会对作者和被迫害的对象进行文学之外的迫害 4)表现出对中国的“痴迷”，以及对中国命运的过度责任感--Wensixing (talk) 04:03, 9 December 2020 (UTC)

Zhou Yiwen 周艺文

Interestingly, these complaints of “bad literature” are usually not strongly refuted by Chinese literary critics. Fair, true or not, this sort of summary criticism of the Jeremiah complex in Chinese literature in general is relevant to my discussion because these very faults that warrant the most notice are deliberately magnified in the genre of zawen, and may be, I believe, essentially outgrowths of an almost unconscious commitment to the type of tone that defines the zawen genre most purely. I argue that what has happened here is that readers and analysts have failed to recognize a literary strategy that reflects deeper ideas about how tone is supposed to operate in verbal practice.

Zhou Yuanqu 周园曲

These “off” tones are not just flaws and mistakes resulting from tyranny or exaggeration, nor are they mere signs of amateur literary expression, the struggles of a culture trying to modernize. Instead they are held to be nearly involuntary markers, not of beauty, but what we will have to call for lack of a better word, “truth,” revealed by critical examination of shortcomings and problems that appear to stem from, again for lack of a better word, “culture.” Culture, in the high modern ideology adopted more or less wholesale in contemporary Chinese theoretical systems is opposed to the neutral modernity of newspaper editorials and literary short stories and the other canonical genres of modern writing practices.

Zhou Yujuan 周玉娟

Culture is not general, it is particular and peculiar, and Chinese culture exerts a powerfully perverse influence upon most genres of literature practiced in China.

Examining tone in the broader context of Chinese culture reveals some of particular ways that social exchange, reference and the other mundane duties that plain (neutral, modern) words are supposed to carry out, must be crosscut with characteristically Chinese tone in order to communicate with the authority of truth, in explicit defiance of social requirements for polite and face-saving locutions held to be necessary in a uniquely Chinese way. Thus, complaint about “bad literature,” from a Chinese perspective may not be a mere reflection of failure but, rather, an expression of protest, a modal trope, mule's kick that works with stubborn tenacity to reveal unpleasant truths.

Zhu Meimei 祝美梅

Zawen provide frequent commentary on precisely this issue. Lan Ling, a major opponent of “New Tone” zawen theory provides a characteristically provocative commentary on writing “the ugly truth” through zawen. In an essay that asks why such a fuss is made when a “upright and esteemed elderly writer” pronounces that he intends now to speak/write “the truth,” (he refers to Ba Jin, see Suiganlu) Lan Ling demonstrates the difficulty of establishing truth through his own experience:

It was several decades ago that they “struggled” me saying I was “reactionary.” I responded, “I am fundamentally not reactionary (fandong), in fact, I am actionary (zhengdong).” They said, “There you go with sophistry, you are lying, who has ever heard of such a thing as 'actionary'?” … But if what I said was false, that of course meant that what they said was true, and thus my political label was accomplished: “reactionary.” After several decades this conclusion was overturned and rectified, so now what I had said became the truth. (Lan, 85).

Zhu Suyao 朱素瑶

The irony and false fatalism of this zawen is characteristic of its style. In this essay he claims to give up distinguishing the truth of his own speech; “No matter how difficult it is, this miserable person [I] still want to speak, and as for whether it is true or not, let someone else go analyze it.” (Lan, 85) Lan Ling reveals that he has created, in the heat of struggle, a misnomer; there is no such word as “actionary.” But, in the end, in its awkward and involuntary way, his retort rings true, what way is there to be, if not reactionary? Displaying all four characteristics of the “bad literature” complaint I have listed above, this piece is still an admired zawen. It is the moody, but honest, kick of the mule.

这种“杂文”中的反讽和错误的宿命论是其风格的特点。在这篇文章中他宣称放弃了甄别言论中的真伪；“不管有多困难，这个可怜的人[我]仍然想说，至于说的真假，就让别人去分析去吧。”（兰，85）兰陵表示，在激烈的斗争中，他出现过用词不当的情况；就比如没有像“actionary”这样的词。”但是最后他的反驳以笨拙和不自觉的方式听起来像是真的，即使不是反动派的话，还能是哪种呢？这篇文章展示了我以上所列举的“不良文学”的全部的四个特点，它仍然是一篇受人敬佩的“杂文”。它令人悲伤，但是真诚又执拗。--Zhu Suyao (talk) 14:25, 9 December 2020 (UTC)

Zhu Xu 朱旭

Tone in Historical Context

As evidence that it is the modal trope that inspired the genre of zawen from its inception, I conclude this essay with a brief look at historical manifestations of tone. It is key, and often part of the Chinese subtext, that the notion of tone (discussed alternately diao, yin, yun) ultimately originates beyond words, in music. Even as a metaphor that must obliterate the acoustic qualities of sound when applied to written Chinese, tone maintains ties to the power of something that is in, or is like, sound, emphasizing physical, oral, informal and emotional qualities that are not part the rational process of exposition, this is the “poetry” of zawen. Tone plays a role in a tremendous range of social events that surround and comprise writing. It occurs in the figure of music as a central metaphor in the most influential theories of literature and poetry.

Zou Xinyu 邹鑫雨

For example, spoiled music can signal a larger or more abstract disturbance; in the classic novel Dream of the Red Chamber a heroine breaks a string on a instrument and sees her impending death; in a well known folk story a high ranking official Yu Boya hits a sour note and knows that a potential assassin is lurking in the woods, listening. Music figures centrally in the Confucian Great Preface to the Book of Odes:

The affections emerge in sounds; when those sounds have patterning they are called “tones” [音] The tones of a well-managed aged are at rest and happy; its government is balanced. The tones of an age of turmoil are bitter and full of anger; its government is perverse. The tones of a ruined state are filled with lament and brooding; its people are in difficulty (Translated in Owen).