Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

How the Postmodern Literary Theories Entered China and Inserted Influences?

Zhu Liyuan

2014, 34 (4): 6-17.

Abstract ( 1053 )

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This article reviews and examines the five stages during which postmodern literary theory currents gradually entered China and exerted influences since the 1980s. With a significant amount of empirical evidence, the paper demonstrates that the influences of the Western postmodernism filtered slowly through the field of Chinese literary theory in the process during which Chinese theoretical circle did not unreservedly embrace the theories but accepted the influences through borrowing and assimilation, refutation and criticism. The paper takes the essentialist way of thinking as an example and expounds the characteristics of the positive and negative impacts which the postmodern literary theories have on Chinese theories.

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The Knowledge Generation of Theory and the Inner Logic of Chinese Literary Theory

Yang Hongqi

2014, 34 (4): 18-26.

Abstract ( 1100 )

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The generation of the knowledge of theory refers to both the theory itself as academic knowledge and the theory as knowledge-generating academic discourse. Theory as knowledge is generated in the process of border crossing between discipline, language and culture, while knowledge-generating theory starts with literature, is established in culture and bears fruits in post-modernity. In this context, the knowledge construction of Chinese literary theory follows the trajectory from theory in Chinese to Chinese theory.

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The Value Re-Establishment of Modern Chinese Literature and the Reconfiguration of Literary History Since the 1980s and Overseas Chinese Studies

Huang Yi

2014, 34 (4): 27-36.

Abstract ( 819 )

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Since 1980s, the influence of overseas Chinese studies has been significant in the value re-establishment of Chinese modern literature and the reconfiguration of the liteary history, which has helped to form an important line for literary history narrative, especially in the transmission of literay values and the remodelling of canons, the explorations into modernities and the promotion of the great literary history, and the re-finding of new literary tradition. Needless to say, the limitations and biases of overseas Chinese studies also showed in this process. The proposition of "the literature of the Republic of China" in recent years is in fact a reflection of and explorations into the development of the literary historical view in the 1980s and 1990s, the relationship between literature and politics, and "boundless modernities", as well as the traditiono f modern literature, which the paper concludes will perhaps bring about new developments to the study of modern Chinese literature.

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The Possibilities and Paths of Art History

Wang Yichuan

2014, 34 (4): 37-45.

Abstract ( 822 )

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Art history has been under question and is now in urgent need for explorations of its possibilities and paths. As the discipline of art history has been established and in continuous operation, the academic domain and possibilities of art history will be gradually opened, and along with these developments, the discipline of Chinese art history is also opening its possibilities and path, given the fact art historians are actively opening up and expanding art history. A multiplanar framework of art history research can be constructed to include the history of a uni-modal art in the universal perspective, the comparative history of various art concepts, the comparative studies between two modes of art, and integration of histories of cross-modal art. Furthermore, different disciplinary features can be formed and maintained in different institutes of arts. From the broad humanistic vision and interdisciplinary vision, the art history discipline in Peking University seeks both case analysis and comprehensive analysis of the phenomena in art history. The four emerging paths show themselves to be the interconnections between field study and profound analysis, between the appreciation of artworks and the thoughts on art conception, and between cultural history and art history, as well as the comparative study of transnational art history.

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The Definition, Potentiality and Paradigm of Art History

Peng Feng

2014, 34 (4): 46-52.

Abstract ( 1002 )

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The mixed use of "art" and "fine arts" causes the current confusion in the establishment of arts theory. This paper argues that the conventional use of the two terms as have established in modern Chinese may help to clarify the confusion. Fine arts refer to plastic art or visual art, while the art as a general term denotes all categories of arts. Thereby, the criticism of fine arts can be differentiated from art criticism, and the philosophy of the fine arts from the philosophy of art. Then, the question comes to how to separate the history of fine arts from art history. In the current disciplinary system, the subject is the history of fine arts instead of art history, or the two are taken for being the same. It is possible and necessary for the establishment of the discipline of art history, this paper claims, that covers all the categories of arts.

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The History of Art Field: An Open and Neutral Art History

Zhang Huizhe

2014, 34 (4): 53-59.

Abstract ( 895 )

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As a tradition, art history focuses on the creation and generation of artworks, but the evolution of art requires the writing of its history to be open, neutral and comprehensive. By referring to the definitions of art from the perspective of analytic aesthetics and relating to Bourdieu’s theorization of art field and analysis of autonomation, this paper tries to conceive a history of arts field through placing the relational elements concerning art and artworks into the inner and outer art field. The paper maintains that the history of art field may open up the genesis and future as well as the category of the art. Meanwhile, the neutral stance in writing art history can break through the dilemma between having to make value judgments from the present context and being unable to objectively restore the history context.

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Wang Yuanhua's Concept of Ideology-Academics as Social Remedy and Its Implications to Intellectual History

Lao Chengwan, Lan Guoqiao

2014, 34 (4): 60-71.

Abstract ( 735 )

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Wan Yuanhua (1920-2008) believed that academic research and ideology should be integrated with each other, and this idea of ideology-academics integration is Wang's preposition to redress the social maladies. Although his idea has not found fervent echoes in the academic circle, the paper claims that his idea could not be ignored during the development of our cultural intellectual history and can be done full justice by scholars who have investigated the origin, trajectory and outcome of his idea. What worried Wan Yuanhua was the spiritual rootlessness shown in the cynicalness toward and mindless challenge of serious academic pursuit. Wang Yuanhua's intellectual reflection is to make seen the hidden force that pushes an unhealthy cultural trend in today's society, often in the form of massive crazy star-chasing, or huge piles of tawdry publications, or any other cultural rubbish. His pioneering efforts have indeed shed great light on our intellectual history.

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History as Re-presentation: with Reference to Nation, History and Narrative of the State

Xu Xinjian

2014, 34 (4): 72-77.

Abstract ( 1239 )

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The paper proposes that history is also literature, and examines the historical representation of China from the perspectives of literature and literary anthropology. The paper argues the following three main prepositions. In terms of literary and oral representation, history belongs to literature in the broad sense. All the representations of Chinese history can be investigated from the perspective of literature. Since China is a multi-nation state, the representations of its history require a vision of pluralist dialogue, and this asks for a deep understanding of sinology while the dialogue should extend to the communication within the studies of the ethnic nationalities such as the Tibetan, the Manchu, the Mongol, the Miao and the Yi.

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The Theoretical Reflection on the Problem of Literary Ontology: A Case Study of Qian Zhongwen's Literary Theory: Explorations and Reflections

Qi Zhixiang

2014, 34 (4): 78-84.

Abstract ( 770 )

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This paper takes Qian Zhongwen's book Literary Theory: Explorations and Reflections as its research subject, and surveys his reflections and debates since the turn of the century on some important issues in literary ontology. The issues include: Dose literature have its own "essence"? Does anti-essentialism mean the cancellation of research on "essence"? If the research on literary "essence" cannot be cancelled, what is the "essence" of literature? How can we evaluate the expansion of the bounders of the literature and literary theory after deconstruction? How to put into the perspective the alarming claims of "the end of literature" and "the death of literary theory" in relation to their position in human spiritual life? As the leading figure in Chinese literary theory, Qian Zhongwen had responded to almost all the issues, and his explorations have significance to the whole circle of Chinese literary studies.

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Literary Folkloristics: the Trend of Interdisciplinary Research in the Recent Thirty Years

Shen Meili, Chen Qinjian

2014, 34 (4): 85-91.

Abstract ( 1168 )

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Since the mid-1980s, literary folkloristics has become one of the new methods in literary study for its focus on the interdisciplinary study of literature and folklore. The theoretical interpretation and research practice have since taken two different academic orientation and theoretical approach. One emphasizes on the instrumentality of folklore theory in study of literary text, analysing the styles in literary works and exploring the folklore materials in them. The other has its theoretical foundations from the concepts such as "the cultural existence of man" and "literary study as the study of man," and it is more concerned with the understanding of the deep relationships within the internal mechanism of folklore from the perspective of literary gestation. the genealogical perspective, and the problems of the possible methods of literary study and so on. This paper takes these two approaches as its objects of examination, emphasizing on the interpretation of the generative agency behind the latter approach of literary folkloristics and the methods, outcomes and limitations of this approach.

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On the Composite-Sign Literary Text and the Layers of Sign in the Text

Shan Xiaoxi

2014, 34 (4): 92-103.

Abstract ( 1062 )

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Literary text of composite sign is composed with different types of signs such as linguistic sign, body sign, image sign, audio sign and so on, among which linguistic sign functions as the keynote, defining the identity of a text as a form of verbal art. Oral literature before written language takes the form of verbal-body composite text or the verbal-body-music composite text. The picture-word literary texts in ancient Chinese, picture story books in Western and Japanese are important forms of word-picture composite texts, while word-image-sound composite text is the major type of digital literature today. Composite sign in literary texts can be divided into seven layers, namely, supporter, sign, segment, image, imago, meaning and aftertaste. Composite-sign literary texts combine the traditional mono-sign verbal literature with audio-pictorial art and extend the space for the development of literature.

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Academic Communication and Its Production Sphere: Popular Media and the Configuration of Chinese Modern Literary Theory

Hu Jiangfeng

2014, 34 (4): 104-115.

Abstract ( 752 )

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Since modern age in China when mass printing media became increasingly popular, theorists and literary critics have increasingly participated in the communications of newspapers, magazines and publishing, which also promoted the dissimilation of academic research and the knowledge theory. The gradual commercialization of knowledge and the establishment of the remuneration system helped to change the production mode of modern literary theory. Mass media not only opened up the production field of modern literary discourse, expanded the reproduction of theory and promoted the professionalization of literary theory studies, but also directly affected the internal form of modern literary theory and intervened the configuration of modern literary theory. The institution of communication both guarantee and condition the construction of literary theory.

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Shih-hsiang Chen's Theory on Chinese Lyrical Tradition and Its Limitation

Xu Cheng

2014, 34 (4): 116-124.

Abstract ( 1999 )

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Shih-hsiang Chen, deeply affected by the revolution of modern Chinese literature, conceived a theory on Chinese lyrical tradition, which took as its standard the ideal of Western Romantic literature and rendered ancient Chinese literature to be monistic. At the present vantage position, the method Shih-hsiang Chen's adopted to study comparative literature was to use Western principles in Chinese literature, which, due to its dominant monistic discourse, concealed the complexity of Chinese literature. While his study might have promoted the academic interest in the West, it was basically an early effort to establish the discipline of comparative literature in China. Therefore, it should be generalized to be a comprehensive system that subjugates the interpretation of all the individual literary phenomena into this interpretative framework. Otherwise, the literary history would lose some sight while seeing, and this has been a trap the Sinological school of Chinese lyrical tradition has fallen into.

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A Synopsis of the 2^nd Youth Forum of the Society of Chinese Literary Theory

He Zhedan

2014, 34 (4): 125-127.

Abstract ( 626 )

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The Transformation of Urban Writing in Modern fictions and Its Significance of Fiction History: With a Focus on Shanghai and Guangzhou

Deng Daqing, Sun Xun

2014, 34 (4): 128-135.

Abstract ( 747 )

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After the forced opening of such cities as Shanghai and Guangzhou for international trade, the traditional modes of culture in these cities were changed. Fiction, as one important literary genre closely associated with urbanity, also underwent transformations in terms of the urban writing in China. In modern Chinese fictions, the space of urban writing was continuously extended, with the descriptive focus shifting from the general coverage of landmark buildings to the detailed exploration of urban life, the protagonists shifting from traditional city dwellers into modern urban citizens, and the narrative form shifting from centering round time to centering round space. These changes in urban writing can be read as the bridge between the ancient to the modern in Chinese urban fictions, and they hold remarkable significance in the transition in the developmental history of Chinese fictions.

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On Cao Xueqin's Idea of Stylistics with Reference to the Stylistic Value of Zhiyanzhai Annotated Dream of Red Mansions

Ren Jingze

2014, 34 (4): 136-145.

Abstract ( 1063 )

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Cao Xueqin's idea of stylistics is systematic and can be understood in four main ways. The first is analyzing and complying with style. This shows in the two ways to differentiate the style of each literary work and each author. The second is appropriate and inappropriate style. This pair of concepts has rich implications and may be considered as a heritance from Cao Pi's theory of stylistics in the pre-Qin period. The third is the breaking and transforming of style, which shows in the stylistic innovation in such texts as "A Eulogy for the Lotus Girl." The fourth is the tradition and constraints of style. Cao Xueqin advocated a new writing norm that would break the traditional style of fictions, and this concept of stylistics had been repeatedly highlighted as unconventional in the Zhiyanzhai annotated version. The many annotations and comments on stylistics in the Zhiyanzhai version complemented and exemplified Cao Xueqin’s idea of stylistics.

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Ye Shi's Distinction Between Discourse and Literariness and His Concept of Literary History

Guo Qingcai

2014, 34 (4): 146-154.

Abstract ( 888 )

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Ye Shi (1150-1223) was erudite in Confucian classics, historiography and literature equally, with an awareness of the fundamental commensurability between them, believing that their division was resulted from the split of "yan (discourse)". Discourse was epitomized in the language use in the Three Dynasties, with the nature of political practice. Literariness flourished after the Han Dynasty, gradually becoming trivial rhetorical strategies. In general, the attentions to "literariness" and to political culture were reciprocally causal. Ye Shi advocated the idea of "pursuing 'The Tao (Logos)' by tracing 'discourse'," that is, reconstructing the Tao governance through re-interpreting the Five Classics. For him, the harmony between inner and outer worlds, and the true meaning of the Tao of the Three Dynasties lay in the unification between nature, governance and words. His admiration for Ouyang Xiu and Su Shi, and for the Tang-Dynasty poetry, however, showed his regressive view of literary evolution and his attitudinal ambivalence from both a Confucian pragmatic and a literary scholastic position.

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The Cultural Significance of the Chain Ci-Poems in the Ming Dynasty

Wang Jingyi, Qian Xisheng

2014, 34 (4): 155-164.

Abstract ( 974 )

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Chain ci-poems through relaying replies took up a relatively high proportion in the Ming-Dynasty ci-poetry which absorbed influences from the Song Dynasties, as well as the Tang and Five Dynasties. Of the 1051 chain poems, 150 poets produced 652 original poems, and 29 out of the 150 poets had been replied with poems for over ten times, while 35 original poems were relied for more than 5 times. An investigation of the most replied poets and poems may provide us with the knowledge on reception of the ci-poets and ci-poetry as well as the insight into the aesthetic appeal of ci-poetry in the Ming Dynasty. As a time specific cultural phenomenon and a text specific literary phenomenon, chain ci-poetry writing had also reflected the gap between writing practice and theory and criticism of poetry in the Ming Dynasty.

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"To Reach the Full Spectrum of Emotions and Human Nature" and the Ontology of "Passion": Literary Concepts in the Comparative Perspective

Lou Xiaokai

2014, 34 (4): 165-171.

Abstract ( 817 )

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The overseas experience of the generation of scholars such as Hu Shi, Liang Shiqiu, Lin Yutang, and Xu Zhimo etc. provided them with the access to and influence from two cultural traditions, but their ideas of literature showed that the idea of "passion" (qing), highly advocated in ancient Chinese poetic criticism and its local and national connotations, was re-invested with modern and worldwide significance. As "passion" formed a paradigm under constant transformation, it constructed a space for expression with more tension. Therefore, a literary concept was formed among them which could be called passion ontological in the three dimensions of literary creation, theory and criticism.

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The Death and the Revival of the Author

Péter Hajdu

2014, 34 (4): 172-181.

Abstract ( 981 )

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The most influential trends in 20^th-century literary criticism and theory of literature can be described as revolting against a both Romantic and positivist approach which focused on the person of the author rather than his or her literary product. Formalism, New Criticism, structuralism and post-structuralism denied any importance of the biographical author, and dealt with texts exclusively. After the Barthesian formulation of the death of the author (applauded by towering figures like Foucault or Derrida) the end of the 20^th and even more the beginning of the 21^st centuries have brought back the importance of the author. For some new trends (especially in post-colonial and gender studies) the personal, or even the bodily experience of the biographical author seems the most important aspect of literature, which is (again) the expression of a personal experience, which is however not of personal, but of social interest. The revival of the author as refusal to look at literature as a self-centered play should not deny the importance of close reading or textual analysis, since the intellectual capital collected by 20^th-century literary criticism is still worth applying.

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Ecolinguistics and the Foundational Construction of Language Theory for Contemporary Ecological Literary and Cultural Studies

Zhao Kuiying

2014, 34 (4): 182-190.

Abstract ( 815 )

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Language research is closely related with eco literature and cultural studies, while a dilema in the study of eco literature and cultural theory is the need for a proper linguistic theory as its foundation. Ecolinguistics emphasizes the two-way interactions both between language and environment and between language and the world, and takes language as the intermedia between nature and culture, and put the environment of language into the complexity of nature, socity and psychological elements. Therefore, ecolinguisitics can transcend the one-way determinism between the world and language on the one hand and the either-or dualism of the naturalness and artbitrariniess of language, and it can then become a eco-dialectical theory with rich "parameters." Ecolinguistics can help us better understand the relationship between the text and the world, nature and culture, natural ecology and socio-spiritual ecology, and therefore it may play an important role in the construction of foudnational linguistic theory for contemporary ecological literature and culture studies.

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A Study on the Multi-Dimensional Space in Frank O'Hara's Urban Poetics

Wang Xiaoling, Zheng Mingyuan

2014, 34 (4): 191-195.

Abstract ( 1099 )

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As a leading poet in the New York School, Frank O'Hara's urban poetics stands out for the multi-dimensional space in his poems. This feature is particularly manifested in the visual space, auditory space, and the psychological space in his poems about city, which embodies the blending of urban poetics and space theory. A study on multi-dimensional space in Frank O’Hara’s poetry helps to explore the natural isomorphism of urban poetics in a metaphoric way.

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Resistance and Its Possibility in the Perspective of Deconstructionism: Spivak's View on Subaltern and its Subjective Consciousness

Li Yingzhi

2014, 34 (4): 196-203.

Abstract ( 846 )

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Deconstructionism is often seen as a radical anti-essentialist theory, but for G. C. Spivak it is a critique toward that which "we have to inhabit in." This means that deconstructionism not only allows but also requests us to strategically use essentialism. It is Spivak's interpretation of Derrida along this trajectory, this paper argues, that frees deconstructionism from the accusation of relativism and nihilism, and merges with Marxist criticism on capitalism, which makes it possible for the subaltern to construct its subjective consciousness and to maintain a ground for resistance.

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The Application of Referent in Western Marxist Critical Theory and Its Significance

Zhang Bi

2014, 34 (4): 204-210.

Abstract ( 900 )

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The application of the semiotic concept of referent in Western Marxist critical theory achieves the purpose of recognizing and analyzing the social reality represented by referents, and it has also made up for the blind areas in the methodology of structuralist semiotics. Furthermore, the application has theoretically bridged the two methodological tradition of Anglo-American and Structuralism semiotics, and it also highlights the referent as an important issue in the study of semiotics, and therefore the application has made significant theoretical contribution to semiotics.

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Fredric Jameson's "National Allegory": A Defense

Wang Qin

2014, 34 (4): 211-216.

Abstract ( 2308 )

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Through a close-reading of American literary critic Fredric Jameson's famous essay on Third-World literature, this essay re-examines his concept of "national allegory" and several criticisms of the concept in the subsequent decades, of which Aijaz Ahmad is exemplary. It attempts to show that most critics misleadingly translated Jameson's concept from the dimension of "form" into the dimension of "content" or "theme." This paper proposes an approach to the concept from the perspective of "form" and claims that in the present context of literature and politics this approach may shed some new light on current discussions of the relation between Third-World literature and multinational capitalism. The author believes that this reading may re-activate the potentialities and refreshes political radicalness of the critical concept "national allegory."

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