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POLITICS AND THE NOVEL; A STUDY OF LIANG CH'I-CITAO'S THE FUTURE

OF NEW CHINA AND HIS VIEWS ON FICTION

DISSERTATION

Presented In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for

the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate

School of The Ohio State University

By

Chun-chi Chen, B.A., M.A.

*****

The Ohio State University

1995

Approved by Dissertation Committee:

Hao Chang Advisor

Yan-shuan Lao

Timothy C. Wong Co-Advisor 7 Department of East Asian ' Languages and Literatures UMI Number: 9612159

Copyright 1995 by Chen, Chun-chi All rights reserved.

UMI Microform 9612159 Copyright 1996, by OMX Company. All rights reserved.

This microform edition is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code.

UMI 300 North Zeeb Road Ann Arbor, MX 48103 Copyright by Chun-chi Chen 1995 To My Wife and to the memory of my late brother (1950-1995)

11 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

In the years before and during the writing of this dissertation I have become indebted to many teachers and friends. Among them, I must first of all express my gratitude to

Professor Timothy C. Wong who has given me guidance, encouragement, and support in every step of writing and revising the manuscript, especially at the final stage of writing while he was busy moving and picking up new administrative responsibilities at another institution.

I am deeply grateful to Professor Yan-Shuan Lao, who has shown me what a caring teacher really is, and whose unfailing Sinological erudition as well as valuable suggestions have made this dissertation much more thorough than it was. Special thanks also go to Professor Hao

Chang, whose rewarding lectures have always been for me the most enjoyable time at the

Ohio State University. The insights of Professor Chang can be discerned throughout this dissertation.

I also want to thank Professor Frank Hsueh and Mrs. Daphne Hsueh for their kindness, caring and moral support, which had lifted some of the pressure in writing this dissertation. Several friends have offered intellectual, emotional support and advice, especially after they themselves have gone through the same experience in the final stage of writing dissertation. I especially want to mention Wen-chia You, who read portions of the

Introduction in its earliest form and gave me some constructive suggestions.

iii To Mr. Tai Lien, of Harvard-Yenching Library, Harvard University, and Mr. Wan

Wei-ying, of the library of the University of Michigan, I owe special thanks for assisting me in finding materials, and for all the convenience and hospitality given me in the two libraries during my visit to Cambridge and Ann Arbor. To Professor Mabel Lee of the School of Asian

Studies, University of Sydney, Australia, I am grateful to her for sending me her valuable papers regarding Liang Ch'i-ch'ao and late-Ch'ing fiction.

Finally, to my wife, Yeh-uh, who has stayed in Connecticut most of the time by herself taking care of my parents and two young children and supporting our family while I was alway at school, I owe much gratitude for helping me go through the long years in graduate school. This dissertation is dedicated to her and my beloved brother who passed away one month before the completion of this dissertation.

IV VITA

December 10, 1957 ...... Bom — Changhwa, Taiwan, R.O.C.

1981 ...... B.A., Department of Foreign Languages and Literature, National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan

1983-198 4 ...... Editor & Translator, Highlight Publishing Company, Taipei

1984-198 5 ...... Supervisor, Publishing Department, Highlight Publishing Company, Taipei

1987 ...... M.A., English Department, State University of New York at Binghamton, Binghamton, New York

1992...... M.A., Department of East Asian Languages and Literatures, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio

FIELDS OF STUDY

Major Field: East Asian Languages and Litertures

Traditional Chinese fiction Chinese Bibliography Intellectual History Traditional Chinese Poetry Modem Chinese Fiction TABLE OF CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT...... iii

VITA...... V

TABLE OF CONTENTS...... vi

ABBREVIATION...... vii

CHAPTER PAGE

INTRODUCTION...... 1

I. Liang Ch'i-ch'ao: The Man and His Literary Thought ...... 41 n. Liang Ch'i-ch'ao's Views on Fiction ...... 77 m . The Future o f New China ...... 123

TV. Ideology and Genre ...... 169

CONCLUSION...... 199

Glossary...... 212

Bibliography ...... 224

VI ABBREVIATION

LCCNP Wu T'ien-jen, Min-kuo Liang Jen-kung hsien-sheng Ch'i-ch'ao nien- p'u

LNCC Ting Wen-chiang, Liang Jen-kung hsien-sheng nien-p'u ch'ang-pien ch'u-kao

YPSCC Liang Ch'i-ch'ao, Yin-ping-shih chuan-chi

YPSWC Liang Ch'i-ch'ao, Yin-ping-shih wen-chi

Yen-chiu chuan A Ying (ed.), Wan-Ch'ing wen-hsiieh ts'ung-ch'ao, hsiao-shuo hsi-ch'u yen-chiu chuan

VII INTRODUCTION

"Politics" and "the Novel" in the title explicitly reveal the objective of this dissertation.

This is a study about the relationship between politics and the novel. The subtitle modifies and narrows down the focus to that of the late Ch'ing period. It is therefore a study of the relationship between politics and the novel in the late Ch'ing period through the novel of

Liang Ch'i-ch'ao (1873-1929) and his views on fiction. 1 have chosen Liang Ch'i-ch'ao as the subject of my study for several obvious reasons. To begin with, Liang is the inevitable figure in any study of the intellectual current of the late Ch'ing period. His influence was omnipresent not only on his contemporaries but also on the later generations, especially such immediate later-comers as Hu Shih, Ch'en Tu-hsiu, Kuo Mo-jo and Mao Tse-tung. No understanding of the late Ch'ing period can skirt over him; and in many aspects, he can serve as the ideal point of departure. Second, Liang's interest and presence was so extensive that he touched upon almost every aspect of late Ch'ing intellectual sphere, including that of fiction, our main concern here. His appropriation of literary works as part and parcel of his package of reform agenda is representative among late Ch'ing intellectuals. To understand late-Ch'ing literature, especially late-Ch'ing fiction, and what people think about fiction at that time, as well as the relationship between a literary genre and its sociopolitical milieu, Liang again is the ideal one to start with. Third, in terms of the development of fiction in Chinese literary history, Liang's

1 2

ideas are pivotal. Even though Chinese fiction, entertaining in its nature, has been tinted with

moral concerns in the hands of intellectual elite in its long history, its status as respected genre

remained dubious. It was in the last decades of the Ch'ing dynasty, thanks to Liang and his

contemporary writers and critics who followed his calling to renovate fiction, that it first

attained literary legitimacy in China, where it finally be put on the same footing with poetry

and classical prose. It was again in this transitional period that Chinese fiction came to form

one of the main trends of modem Chinese literary streams that has "the [moralistic] obsession

with China" as its unshakable characteristic.* In the process of establishing a sub-tradition,

Liang's presence and contribution is again critical.

I. Perspective and Methodology

In history there always occurs in literature certain changes which seem to affect its

products and radically change their temper. A change in the temper of literature is usually

associated with a change in the temper of society or some significant part of society, and this

social change in turn has consequences directly impinging upon the writers—bringing in new

sources of knowledge, new audience, new methods of production, new intellectual stimuli,

or simply new ideas with which to see the world. Literature is an aspect of society. It unifies,

structures and illuminates many of society's profound meanings. It is also an institution of

society, a means of social communication and involvement, and a manifestation of cultural

heritage and value. As one literary form, fiction seems to be associated more with the

' See C. T. Hsia, "Obsession with China; The Moral Burden of Modem Chinese Literature," Appendix to his A History ofM odem Fiction, 2nd ed. (New Haven: Y ale University Press, 1971). 3

representation of social and historical reality than any other forms. The British critic Graham

Hough notes that "It is precisely its relation to reality that constitutes the specialty of the

novel. Georg Lukacs argues that the novel is the genre where the problematic hero's ideal

always comes into contradiction with the social reality, thus unfolding the struggle between

individual and society. Mikhail Bakhtin pushes the novel further to characterize it as "the

epitome of modem culture and the most pronounced form of 'dialogized' language use in general."^ No matter what perspective these critics hold, the novel's relation to reality is

always present and undeniable.

Nonetheless, the mimetic concept that the novel as a text reflecting the reality and as

a source to our understanding of that reality ignores an important but oflen-neglected aspect o f the dynamics of text, that is, as LaCapra observes, "texts interact with one another and with contexts in complex ways, and the specific question for interpretation is precisely how a text comes to terms with putative contexts" (LaCapra, p. 128). In other words, when we look into the relationship between a novel and the society it depicts, we tend to emphasize the referential function of the novel and ignore the subtlety and complexity of the relationship between texts and contexts. Texts are not only parts of the context, they are indeed the organic and indispensable force that have come to shape the contexts. It therefore is not a

^ Graham Hough, An Essay on Criticism (New York: Norton, 1969), p. 111.

’ Dominick LaCapra, History and Criticism (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1985), pp. 115-116. "Dialogism" is one of M. M. Bakhtin's important critical concepts. Bakhtin in his Problems o f Dostoevsky's Poetics (1929) argued that unlike Tolstoy's novels in which character's voices are subordinated to the single perspective of the author, Dostoevsky's novels engage in dialogism or a polyphonic interplay of various characters' voices. See Mikhail Bakhtin, Dialogic Imagination: Four Essays, trans. Caiyl Emerson and Michael Holquist (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1981) and Problems o f Dostoevsky's Poetics, ed. and trans. Caryl Emerson (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1984). 4 question of part and whole, but the dialectic way of how the part and the whole come to interact with each other.

It is based on this understanding of the intricate relationship between text and context that I have come to look at late Ch'ing fiction and its relation to its socio-political historical reality. I see literary texts not as works of art embodying enduring themes in complex forms, or simply reflect the socio-political reality, but as an attempt to redefine, to shape the social order. Novels should be studied not because they manage to escape the limitations of their particular time and place, as modem critics tend to emphasize, but because they offer examples of the way a culture thinks about itself, articulating and proposing solutions for the problems that shape a particular historical moment. In other words, I am more concerned with what Jonathan Arac defines as "the shaping of social motion" than the aesthetic merits that modem criticism of the novel are usually associated with the novel. According to Arac, such great nineteenth century Anglo-American novelists and historians as Dickens, Carlyle,

Melville, Hawthome, in general shared with one another a sense of "imaginative mission to reveal and transform through their powers of knowledge and vision the bmte circumstances of the changing world in which they and their readers lived."* As a matter of fact, Hayden

White has noted in another context the similar mode of intellectual conviction in the early nineteenth century Europe: "the early nineteenth century was a time when art, science, philosophy, and history were united in a common effort to comprehend the experiences of the

'• For "the shaping of social motion," see Jonathan Arac, Commissioned Spirits: The Shaping o f Social Motion in Dickens, Carlyle, Melville, and Hawthorne (New York: Columbia University Press, 1989), pp. x; xvii. 5

French Revolution."^

If we turn to the history of China, can we argue for a case that also displays such kind of concern and conviction on the part of the writers? The answer is positive. As a matter of fact, intellectuals uniting together and trying "in a common effort to comprehend the experience" of the reality they are in is a common phenomenon we find everywhere in both

Western and Chinese history. In my own opinion. Late Ch'ing period is a perfect example.

It was in the Late Ch'ing period (1895-1911)® that China came to experience the upheavals and turmoils that Li Hung-chang, one of the major political leader of the time, characterized as the "unprecedented changes in the past three thousand years." Whether it was in politics, economics, society, as well as the traditional worldview and value system that had sustained and dominated Chinese society for thousand years, every aspect of the late Ch'ing society experienced unparalleled impact. As Professor Hao Chang points out, there are two prevailing issues that concerned the late Ch'ing intellectuals: the theme of saving China from extinction

(chiu-wang t'u-ts'uri) and the theme of a transcendent "universalistic perspective" to aspire to a utopian ideal world (ch'ao-yueh yi-shih)J These two modes of thinking presented a great challenge to the late Ch'ing intellectuals to consider what and how they can do to deal with

' Hayiien White, "The Burden of History" in his Tropics o f Discourse: Essays in Cultural Criticism (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1978), p. 42.

‘ There are disputes over the time period of late Ch'ing. I basically take the years from 1895, the year that Shimonoseki Treaty was signed after the defeat of China by Japan the previous year, as the starting point, for it seems to me this event signals a pivotal turning point in most intellectuals' worldview.

’’ Hao Chang, "Wan-Ch'ing ssu-hsiang fa-chan shih-lun—chi-ko chi-pen lun-tien ti t'i-ch'u yu chien-t'ao" [On the Development of Late Ch'ing Thought: A Consideration of Several Prevalent Views], Chung-yangyen- chiu-yuan chin-tai-shih yen-chiu-so chi-kan 1 (1978): 475-484. See also Hao Chang, Chinese Intellectuals in Crisis: Search fo r Order and Meaning, I890-19I1 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987), pp. 181- 191. 6 the crisis of the orientational order and how they can save China from extinction.

Examining the creative works of fiction and fiction criticisms of the late Ch'ing period, one will be struck by the near unanimity of the social mission the intellectuals assigned to fiction. In other words, late-Ch'ing writers shared the same social conviction as their fellow intellectuals did, though in different degrees on each individual case, depending on where they saw themselves stand. In general, most writers devoted themselves to the cause of educating the common people and disseminating new ideas, so that a "new citizen" could be produced and the whole nation could be saved. In a few cases, a utopian concern was also discernable, but compared with the prevailing concern to save China, it was a far and weak voice. This social mission as represented in late-Ch'ing fiction and fiction criticisms will be the main concern of this dissertation.

To understand late-Ch'ing writers' immediate concerns, and how this shared social mission took shape, we have to see how the writers at that time came to grasp their historical and existential situations. Thus, instead of asking how their works concern us now—questions about language, structure and so on-we should try to see these texts as the writers saw them and understand the context as they understood it. Furthermore, we should see the works of these writers in relation to the intellectual climate, social practice, and economic and political circumstances that produced them; and conversely, how these works contributed to the construction of the context—not just a commentator of the reality but also a participant in the interpretation of events, a creator of events. In order to understand the texts, to see them insofar as possible, as they were seen in the moment of their emergence, providing men and women with a means of ordering the world they inhibited, one has to have a grasp of the 7 cultural realities that made these texts meaningful. A novel never simply mirrors reality. It is its own artificially framed world, an organized structure with its own rules and interpretations.

At the same time it is part of a larger structure and is determined by these economic, institutional, and ideological forces that govern its composition, its publication, its circulation, its reading, and the end to which it is read. History is invoked here not as a backdrop against which one can admire the artist's skill in transforming the raw materials of reality into art, but as one way of accounting for the enormous impact of works whose force escapes the modem reader, unless he makes the effort to recapture the world view they sprang from and which they helped to shape.

The approach I have taken in this study can therefore be characterized as in the middle ground between literary study on the one hand, intellectual history and sociology on the other—or simply a sociocultural approach. After learning so much from New Criticism concerning such intrinsic values of literary works as unity, irony, tension, ambiguity, organic whole, the autonomy of text, explication de texte^ and so on, no student of literature today can afford to ignore all these important literary concepts and their implications. This intrinsic approach forces one to place one's attention on the text itself and understand the text as it is.

This is the basic training that any serious literary student should start with, and is what the

New Criticism has contributed to our understanding of literary study. The intrinsic approach, which sees the text as an isolated "artifact," also has its own limitations, however; the extrinsic approach, whether using the biographical data as reference for studying text, investigating the origin of an author's literary expression, or applying psychoanalysis to analyze the transference, transformation of authorial intention and expression, is indeed in 8

no conflict with the intrinsic approach and can help one to discover something that mere

positivist explication of text cannot exhaust. Consideration of context inevitably broadens our

understanding of the significance of the text. The concept of Weltanschauung surely helps us

to understand the thought, worldview of an author and its relation to the outer socio-political

milieu. And again, using the concept o f Zeitgeist to examine literary expression, or conversely

using literary text to map out the spirit of the age, not only contributes to the understanding

of the cultural, political, or economic background but also help to establish the prominent

literary characteristics of a period. Intrinsic and extrinsic approaches should in this sense

complement each other—indeed they should be seen as different aspects of the total critical

process.* Their difference should lie in the different emphasis they each stress and in which

approach is more appropriate in helping us understand the text more thoroughly, not an

either/or choice to employ one to the exclusion of the others. In short, Sheldon Grestein's

characterization of the proposition of the sociocultural critics "That literature interacts with

the larger life around it; that its medium, language, is a social construct; that its creator is a

man affected by the economics, morality, and politics of his time and place; that it can on

occasion produce social change or be itself produced by such change"® aptly summarizes the

perspective I am adopting in this study.

® Although Wellek and Warren have postulated in their Theories o f Literature the almost too familiar distinction between "intrinsic" and "extrinsic" studies of literature, modem scholarship has made it clear that there is no clear cut between the aesthetic and other "extrinsic" concerns. See Janet Wolffs two books. The Social Production o f Art (London: Macmillan, 1981) and Aesthetics and the Sociology o f Art (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1983).

’ Sheldon Norman Grestein, ed. Perspectives in Contemporary Criticism: A Collection o f Recent Essays by American, English and European Literaty Critics (New York: Harper & Row, 1968), p. 169. 9

IL Issues of Reading and Interpretation

One important issue one faces in the discussion of Liang Ch'i-ch'ao's views on fiction is of course the issue of reading and interpretation of literature far from us either in time or in space. For most modem readers, especially those who are more or less in line with modernist or post-structuralist critical stance, to read fiction of the late Ch'ing period might prove to be disconcerting. Like most of its predecessors, late Ch'ing fiction always assumed an appearance of didacticism, its focal attention being more of the moral or socio-political significance than that of aesthetic ones. Even the theoretical discussions of fiction at that time was dovetailed with "extra-literary" implications. How are we going to explain this phenomenon? What kind of perspective we should assume when dealing with this extra- literary orientation of literature?

The study of late-Ch'ing fiction has been a relatively new subject in the study of

Chinese fiction. The pioneering critical work on late-Ch'ing fiction is certainly the chapters on the late Ch'ing novels in Lu Hsun's Chung-kuo hsiao-shuo shih-lueh (A Brief History of

Chinese Fiction).Following the steps of Lu Hsun, A Ying published his important book,

Wan-Ch'ing hsiao-shuo shih (A History of Late-Ch'ing Fiction, 1937)." Broadly, these two important histories, in the wake of the indigenous traditional Chinese scholarship, treat late-

Ch'ing fiction from a historical perspective, either seeing it in the large context of the development of traditional Chinese fiction, as in the case of Lu Hsun, or investigating in detail

Lu Hsun, Chung-kuo hsiao-shuo shih-lueh (1924; Rpt. Hong Kong: T'ai-p'ing-yang t'u shu, 1973), pp. 298-312. See also the English version: Lu Hsun, A BriefHistory o f Chinese Fiction, trans. Gladys and Hsien- yi Yang (Peking: Foreign Languages Press, 1964), pp. 372-388.

" A Ying (Ch'ien Hsing-ts'un), Wan-Ch'ing hsiao-shuo shih (orig. 1937, rpt. Hong Kong: T'ai-p'ing shu- chu, 1966). 10 its sociological significance in terms of its historical context, as A Ying did. Lu Hsun, according to Leo Ou-fan Lee, engaged in four kinds of interrelated endeavors in his H istory : to clarify texts and editions; to delineate textual transformations of well-known stories; to ascertain the literary merits of each text; and to seek out the social milieu and dominant values which the literary texts mirrored.'^ Lu Hsun's monumental work can be described as one adopting an "historical" or "cultural" approach, in the sense that fictional works at the turn of the century are put in the context of the development of Chinese fiction as a whole. A

Ying, on the other hand, took into consideration several other factors such as the statistics of fiction production in the late Ch'ing, and reasons for the huge popularity of fiction during the period. He regarded late-Ch'ing fiction as a sub-genre, and described its characteristics, its forms and contents, the thought reflected in late-Ch'ing fiction, and the discussion of the critical articles on fiction written by late-Ch'ing writers. We can thus say that A Ying's approach is more sociological than historical.

In 1980, under the guidance and editorship of Ivlilena Dole^elova-Velingerova, the

University of Toronto Press published The Chinese Novel at the Turn o f the Century, the first work in English wholly devoted to the study of late-Ch'ing fiction.'^ The publication of this book signals a new direction in the study of Chinese fiction. Simply by examining the table of contents, the reader will get a clear idea of the main thrust of this book: except for the first article, "The Rise of New Fiction" by Tsau Shu-ying, all articles in this book are concerned

See Leo Ou-fan Lee, Voices from the Iron House: A Study o f Lu Xun (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1987), p. 30. See also, John C. Y. Wang, "Lu Xun as a Scholar of Traditional Literature," in Lu Xun and His Legacy, ed. Leo Ou-fan Lee (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985).

Milena Dolezelova-Velingerova, ed. The Chinese Novel at the Turn o f the Centuiy (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1980). 11 with such elements as "typology," "plot," "structure," "narrative mode," "time," "setting,"

"allegory," and "characterization." The main emphasis of this book reveals a re-orientation of the study of late-Ch'ing fiction. Rather than a traditional historical or sociological approach, this work takes a "structuralist" stance. In other words, in spite of its editor's obvious concern with historical context in her introduction, it is an "intrinsic" study in contrast to the

"extrinsic" works which preceded it.

As valuable as it may be, this re-orientation creates certain problems for the reading and interpretation of late-Ch'ing fiction, as well as for all of traditional Chinese fiction; that is, by emphasizing the intrinsic (and hence universal) literary elements in the study of late

Ch'ing fiction, can we do justice to what late-Ch'ing fiction really is? The intrinsic approach inevitably shuns aside the temporal distance existing between each period; cultural contexts that came to shape the ideologies and the literary texts are de-emphasized; and the main issues and concerns of the people, or writers specifically, of the time are mostly ignored or distorted.

If we are to understand late Ch'ing fiction, how are we, the modem reader, in a different cultural setting, to understand the texts written under a set of cultural and rhetorical assumptions different from ours?

Even though consideration of intrinsic aesthetic elements help us further understand and appreciate the beauty of a literary work, such consideration does not help us Judge its meaning and significance. Interestingly enough, the study of fiction in the past decades reveals that scholars of fiction in the West, where modernist tradition has reigned for almost a century, have come to question some of the presuppositions that modem scholars hold in their approach to English fiction of the pre-modem periods. The study of the novels of the 12 eighteenth-century England by J. Paul Hunter might suggest some possible rethinking of what we can do in the study of traditional Chinese fiction.

Hunter argues that in the study of the eighteenth-century English fiction, most scholars tend to impose upon past texts a conceptual fi'amework that has been developed only since Romantic period. By applying the aesthetic-oriented approach to the study of such novelists of the eighteenth century as Daniel Defoe, Henry Fielding, Samuel Richardson, modem scholars are apt to "uncover" some of the qualities in them that were not really the main concerns of these writers. Moreover, the real concerns of these novelists more often than not fall on other domains than modem readers are expected to suppose.*'*

Didacticism, for instance, a term carrying enormously pejorative connotations in

Anglo-American critical thought for a long time, was a term and concept integral to the eighteenth-century British thought. Just because the pejorative aspect of this term is assumed and taken for granted in the present-day West does not necessarily mean that it was not important to writers such as Alexander Pope, Samuel Richardson, Henry Fielding and others.

Indeed, as Hunter convincingly shows in his study, didacticism played such an indispensable part in the thought and writings of these writers that its fiinction in the mapping out of the contour of the novel has to be accounted for. This is not to totally and uncategorically deny the "intrinsic" elements of these fictional texts. Rather, Hunter puts it as one of the important undertakings to understand how and why eighteenth-century novelists

spurred as much by their greedy booksellers as by their own perceptions and

See J. Paul Hunter, "Fielding and the Modem Reader: The Problem of Temporal Translation," in J. Paul Hunter and Martin Battestin, Henry Fielding in His Time and Ours (Los Angeles: William Andrew Clark Memorial Library, University of California, Los Angeles, 1987). 13

commitments, spend inordinate amounts of space mediating between themselves and their text, using dedications, prologues, prefaces, addresses to the reader, introductions, recommendatory epistles, epigraphs, footnotes, and a dozen other devices of intertextuality as ways of meeting varieties of readers and trying to command, or cajole, their attention."'^

In other words, what Hunter argues for is a close reading situated in the right contexts so as

to obtain a more rewarding and more significant understanding of the text without losing the

appropriate perspective.

In fact, what Hunter is arguing for is nothing new, and he is not alone. As early as the

1950s, in a review of Ian Watt's The Rise o f the Novel, Irving Howe already had something

to say about critical approaches toward pre-modernist texts. Because these novels discussed

by Watt in his book were all composed before the modernist era"^, Howe contends that they

are not easy for the modem critic to handle. Except in occasional passages their work resists the techniques of close textual analysis, and even when such analysis proves locally useful it can easily divert one from apprehending thematic and structural wholes.

He goes on to say that "the usual study of character in terms of psychological shadings and

motivations is of limited value, yielding very little in Defoe and only a bit more in Fielding."

Considering the intensity of emotion that we modems praise so much, he states, "The

practice, inherited from romanticism, of judging a work of literature by the intensity of

emotion it arouses in the reader rather than by the decorum with which it meets the

J. Paul Hunter. "Fielding and the Modem Reader." p. 9.

Irving Howe notes that "where the contemporary refers to time, the modem refers to sensibility and style, and where the contemporary is a term of neutral reference, the modem is a term of critical placement and judgment" and that "Modemism need never come to an end. or at least we do not really know, as yet. how it can or will reach its end." See Irving Howe. "Introduction" in The Idea o f the Modern: Literature & the Arts, ed. Irving Howe (New York: Horizon Press. 1967). p. 12-13. The periodization of "modemism" is therefore difficult to map out; however.we can roughly say it spans the period from around the tum of the centuiy to the present time. 14 requirements of traditional genres or the intelligence with which it satisfies a traditional moral standard, is usually a poor preparation for reading any eighteenth century English novelist except, at times, Richardson." In a concluding tone, Howe strongly asserts that "The eighteenth century novel, emerging as the voice of a subculture, is frequently given to the accumulation of moments of experience. The hunger for typical incident, the sheer delight in massed representation is something that the modem critic, trained according to the recipes of the 'art novel,' finds difficult to appreciate."'^

Likewise, in the study of late-Ch'ing fiction, we will need to find out the real issues for contemporary wiiters and readers, and figure out the importance and significance of these issues so as to obtain a perspective. We do not want to judge Chinese fiction solely from the perspective of "universal standards," as we often see, for instance, in Professor C. T. Hsia's provocative, insightful, yet often one-sided viewpoints.*® Most of the literary practices at present suggest unequivocally that there is no so-called universal standards befitting all ages and all cultures, and that reading our preferences into the work of our predecessors will more

Irving Howe, "Criticism at Its Best," XXV: 1 (winter 1958), 145-150.

See his "Introduction," The Classical Chinese Novel: A Critical Introduction (New York: Columbia University Press, 1968), pp. 1-33 and his reply to Prusek's book review, "A Reply to Professor Prusek," in Jaroslav Prulek, The Lyrical and the Epic: Studies o f Modern Chinese Literature, ed. Leo Ou-fan Lee (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1980), pp. 231-266. However, we will have to acknowledge here that even though Professor Hsia's conviction that enduring literary value is important in evaluation of literary works, in his practice, he is also the one who shows great mastery of such extrinsic approaches as textual histoiy, biographical data as well as historical milieu. In addition. Professor Hsia has changed his position since, writing recently that "those who study Chinese novels in the States should start to pay attention to the interrelationships between literary works, human life, society, politics and thought." See his "Chung-kuo hsiao- shuo-chia, Mei-kuo p'ing-lun-chia: yu-kuan chieh-kou, ch'uan-t'ung ho feng-tz'u hsiao-shuo ti lien-hsiang ["Chinese Novels, American Critics: Reflections on Structure, Tradition, and Satire"], trans. Liu Shao-ming Qoseph.Laa),Ming-paoyueh-kan, 1983.8, pp. 41-46; 1983.9, pp. 85-90. 15 often than not miss the main points of a work at hand.’® Hunter has remarked that "because the ground rules of expectation [of the eighteenth century novelists] were so carefully set, they often adopted strategies that we, from a different perspective, ignore."^® Thus, in studying late Ch'ing fiction, searching for the carefully set "ground rules of expectation" as well as the "strategies" of the writers and the reader at that time may prove more profitable and sound than other approaches.

To understand the "ground rules" held by people in history, however, does not mean that we give up our own perspective. Whenever we look at any text, we are seeing it from our own perspective, and inevitably bringing a difierent perspective to the text. How to avoid the presentism, yet at the same time try to understand the text we are studying without misunderstanding or abusing it then becomes one of the major issues that philosophers and literary critics have to deal with. Benjamin I. Schwartz, in a seminal essay, "The Intellectual

History of China: Preliminary Reflections," provides some insightful reflections for us to ponder.^’ In the first place, Schwartz makes it clear that no investigator is without assumptions when he is dealing with his subject, for "So long as one is convinced that one has no assumptions or that one's own assumptions are simply 'science' pure and simple, this task

It is interesting to note that it is not only universal standards that are falling out of favor but also the aesthetic criticism that emphasizes the internal aesthetic elements of a literary text. Sociological criticism, Neo- Marxism, New Historicism, among others, are claiming that literature is anything but autonomous entity, so much so that they tend to argue for the contextual relationship between literary discourse and other discourses, emphasizing especially the power struggle among them. In the study of fiction, we find, take one example among many others, Wayne Booth talking about "an ethics of fiction." See Wayne Booth, The Company We Keep: An Ethics o f Fiction (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988).

Hunter, "Fielding and the Modem Reader," pp. 16-17.

Benjamin I. Schwartz, "The Intellectual History of China: Preliminary Reflections," in Chinese Thought and Institutions, ed. John K. Fairbank (Chicago: The Chicago University Press), pp, 15-30. 16 will, of course, never be performed." He then goes on to propose his assumptions concerning his views of intellectual history. The focus of intellectual history, as Schwartz understands and performs it, is defined as "men's conscious response to the situations in which they find themselves" (Schwartz, p. 16). The "situations" could be the perennial features of men's situations in all times and places or to the specific social and cultural situations of given times and places. Whatever it is, men are responding to their situations and making responses.

"Conscious response" in this regard is therefore important in Schwartz's schema, for it involves not only intellect but also "emotional attitudes," "pathos," "propensities of feeling," and so on.

The ideal goal, then, of the intellectual historian as here conceived is to achieve as thorough an understanding as possible of the conscious responses of the individuals or groups with which he is in dealing. In the first instance, this means to attempt to see their situations as they see them, to attempt to understand their ideas as they understand them (Schwartz, p. 19).

This, as Schwartz unequivocally points out, is an ideal, "yet the striving toward this ideal is the main raison d'etre of the intellectual historian" (Schwartz, p. 20). Insofar as every investigator has his own assumptions (that is, his own perspective, or his "prejudices") and at the same time tries to see the individuals' or groups' "situations as they see them," a doubt about the possibility of achieving the ideal goal is always present. However, it is the faith of the intellectual historian that, however involved he is in the issue he is considering, he might

"suspend" his own views "long enough to attempt to achieve an understanding of the preoccupations and lines of reasoning involved in the thoughts of others." In other words, "A certain possibility of self-transcendence is here assumed" (Schwartz, p. 23). Accordingly,

while it is true that the ideal of the intellectual historians is to understand and not to 17

judge, yet if he is honest with himself, he will be aware o f the fact that he is not free o f commitments on various issues which he encounters in the course of his studies. While these commitments are bound to color his understanding to some extent, he can make an effort to distinguish in his own mind between his commitments and his attempt to understand the conscious responses o f others (Schwartz, p. 24).

Schwartz's conceptual scheme does not solve the important issue o f interpretation: by what ways can we overcome the temporal, geographical, and cultural gaps and reach at a valid understanding o f the text and the subject.^" As a matter of fact, by offering a modestly practical and workable schema, he is suggesting the fact that there is no approach that can guarantee the valid objectivity o f his research, and that one should be aware o f the limitations one has before and during his studies, so as to stay away from the misleading o f preconceptions and arrive at a relatively "valid" understanding. This kind o f self-awareness involves a highly conscientious retrospectivity and an always on-going prejudice removal.

What Schwartz suggests here is in many ways similar to Hunter's "ground rules" and very helpful in our study.

One prevailing "ground rule" o f the late-Ch'ing writers is certainly their socio-political concern, especially apparent in Liang Ch'i-ch'ao’s articles. Since the socio-political concern has been predominant from a very early age and interestingly intertwined with many other

“ The issue of "interpretation" has been a heated debate lately. "Hermeneutics," a philosophical concern about how to interpret, has a long history which can be traced back to the biblical interpretation in earlier times. See Richard E. Palmer, Hermeneutics: Interpretation Theory in Schleiermacher, Dilthey, Heidegger, and Gadamer (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1969). Recently, the so-called "interpretive turn" in philosophy and literary criticism has rekindled discussions, see David R. Hiley, James F. Bohman & Richard Shusteiman, ed. The Interpretive Turn: Philosophy, Science, Culture (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1991). See also Paul Rabinow and William M. Sullivan, "Introduction: The Interpretive Turn: Emergence of an Approach" in Rabinow and Sullivan, ed. Interpretive Social Science: A Reader (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1979), pp. 1-21. Even though I deal witli the issue of interpretation here. I, however, see more benefit in introducing Schwartz's practical treatment of subject and text than such purely theoretical discussions as Gadamer's "fusion of horizons," or Hans Robert Jauss's "expectations of horizons," though they are themselves important and interesting to pur sue. 18 concepts, such as yven-i tsai-tao (writing as vehicle for the Way) dsoAyen-chih (expressing one's intent), it merits some elaboration. The socio-political concern in effect can be subsumed under what James Liu, borrowing from M. H. Abrams, calls "pragmatic theory": "Pragmatic theories, which are primarily concerned with phase 4 of the artistic process and are based on the concept of literature as a means to achieve political, social, moral, or educational purposes, have been the most influential ones in traditional Chinese criticism, because they were sanctioned by Confucianism."^ The predominance of pragmatic concern, however, does not have to be attributed solely to the sanction of Confucianism. As M. H. Abrams defines it, "Pragmatic criticism views the work as something which is constructed in order to achieve certain effects on the audience (effect such as aesthetic pleasure, instruction, or kinds of emotion), and it tends to judge the value of the work according to its success in achieving that aim." The scope of this approach is thus wider than Liu's in that it also includes aesthetic concerns which, in turn, explains the predominance of didacticism in Chinese literature, as in the case of Chinese "literate" fiction, where moral philosophical teachings were as important as the entertaining factors. Abrams adds that "This approach, which dominated literary discussion from the versified Art o f Poetry by the Roman Horace (first century B.C.) through the eighteenth century, has been revived in recent rhetoric criticism, which emphasizes the artistic strategies by which an author engages and influences the responses of readers to the matters represented in a literary work, as well as by structuralists such as Roland Barthes, who analyze a literary work as a systematic play of codes which effect the interpretative

“ James Liu, Chinese Theories o f Literature (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1975), p. 106. 19 responses of the reader.

If we take this broad definition of pragmatic theory, the socio-political concern of course belongs to the domain of pragmatic criticism. The advantage of taking this broad definition can also be seen when we try to deal with other closely related concerns such as didacticism, expressive theory, or even entertainment and aesthetic theories. Let us take the

"Grreat Preface" as example. James Liu explicitly states that "Among writings of the Han period, the Major Preface to the Book of Poetry is the fullest exposition of a theory of poetry, but it also presents the most glaring non sequiturs" (p. 119). After giving a full translation of a whole paragraph, Liu goes on to comment that in this paragraph the author introduces the aesthetic elements, then invokes the deterministic concept and again switches to the pragmatic function of poetry (pp. 119-121). Judging from this example, though as Liu claims this

"Preface" is very illogical in its reasoning and in presenting the author's idea of what poetry is (according to Liu's understanding of it), it is precisely the perfect example to illustrate that, to the Chinese, poetry is not something that can be separated from other human domains and that any discussion of poetry cannot be done from only one single perspective. For the sake of a critical analysis, Liu can discuss six "Chinese theories of literature" in a schema that helps us understand the different orientations and emphases of Chinese literature. This, however, cannot replace the fact that Chinese did not treat literature in such a metacritical language.

Abrams's comments on Plato, which Liu also quotes, is the best explication of the Chinese concept of literature: "The Socratic dialogues, then, contain no aesthetic proper, for neither

M.H. Abrams. A Glossary o f Literaiy Terms, 5th ed. (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, Inc., 1988), pp. 39-40. 2 0 the structure of Plato's cosmos nor the pattern of his dialectic permits us to consider poetry as poetry—as a special kind of product having its own criteria and reason for being. In the dialogues there is only one direction possible, and one issue, that is, the perfecting of the social state and the state of man; so that the question of art can never be separated from questions of truth, justice, and virtue.

In short, it is my contention that Chinese way of looking at literature was pragmatic, and this pragmatic essence of literature might reveal itself in didacticism, in socio-political concern or even in works that used an entertainment, or rhetorical, format to convey the moral teaching. Literature, to the traditional Chinese, was never literature per se. Literature must have some pragmatic purposes. The late-Ch'ing concept of literature, in this regard, did not show any substantial difference from the traditional concept of literature we depicted above. It seems to me that in late-Ch'ing fiction, there are two apparent trends mingling with each other and came to form the shape of fiction as it was, that is, the didacticism (or strictly speaking, moralism) and the sociopolitical concern.

III. Didacticism

Didacticism, according to our understanding of the pragmatic theory, is one major area of pragmatic concern. Since didactic concern has by far been the most powerful view in

Chinese literature, and this didactic mode of thinking continued into the late-Ch'ing period, we need to examine this mode historically. But what does "didacticism" mean? From a

“ M. H. Abrams, The Mhror and the Lamp: Romantic Theory and the Critical Tradition (New York: Oxford UP, p. 1953), p. 9. 2 1 sociological perspective, writing itself is a social activity. When we write, we always intend to communicate; if we only indulge in personal contemplation, why bother to write?

Therefore, we usually intend to communicate to someone (even ourselves), some members of a group, or address all human kind in general. When literature is viewed from this communicative perspective, it becomes a social act—an activity of communication involving the addresser, the addressee and the message being communicated. Broadly, all literature aims to communicating something. It could stress content such as with moral messages, social norms, writer's personal opinions about life, art and the world; or it could stress form, as with much of belletristic writings. Even though, up to now, we have yet to define the term

"literature," this communicative function remains basically unchanged.^® From the early stage of human civilization, messages in communication as found in literature have tended to fall mainly on the domain of moral and social functions. Therefore, Plato, as we have seen, had to ask the right function and use of literature and Confucius had a lot more to say about how literature should be used for than what it is.^’ No matter whether it is in the West or in the

See Paul Hemadi, ed. What is Literature (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1978) for various discussions on what literature is. For the communication function of literature, see Roman Jakobson, "Closing Statement; Linguistics and Poetics," in Style in Language, ed. Thomas Sebeok (Cambridge: M.I.T. Press, 1960), pp. 350-77.

Literatures on Plato's "moralism" are too numerous to mention; for a concise and excellent comparison of Plato's and Aristotle's view on poetry, see Gerald F. Else, Plato and Aristotle on Poetiy, ed. with introduction by Peter Burian (Chapel Hill, NC: The University of North Carolina Press, 1986.) As for Confucius's view on literature, see Y. W. Ma, "Confiicius as a Literary Critic: A Comparison with the Early Greeks," in Essays in Chinese Studies Dedicated to Jao Tsung-i (Hong Kong, 1970), pp. 13-45; Shih Yu-chung, "Lun Yu ti wen i (Literary views in ihs Analects)," Chung-kuo ku-tien wen-hsueh lun-ts'un (Essays on classical Chinese literature), vol. 2 (Taipei: Chung-wai wen-hsueh, 1976), pp. 1-31; Donald Holzman, "Confucius and Ancient Chinese Literary Criticism," in Adele Rickett, ed. Chinese Approaches to Literature from Confucius to Liang Ch'i-ch'ao (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1978), pp. 21-41 ; and Hsing Kuang-tsu, "Mei ti hsien chih: K'lmg-tzu (Confucius as a prophet of beauty)" and "Hsing, kuan, ch'un, yuan: K'ung Tzu ti shih hsueh ('Hsing, kuan, ch'un, yuan': Confucius's poetics)" in Hsing Kuang-tsu wen i lun chi (Essays on literature by Hsing Kuang-tsu)(Taipei: Ta-han, 1979), pp. 1-41; 43-86. It is obvious tliat what literature is carmot be separated from what it does. Moreover, Confucius clearly did not have the concept of "pure literature" that some hold 2 2

East, this moral-social concern has been established as the primary force in literature.^*

To teach, in its broadest sense, becomes, then, an urgent and immediate concern for most writers and critics of literature. What immediately follows is the question of how to teach. It is here that another element comes to the fore—entertainment. Writers and critics have long recognized the function of the entertainment factor in making their moral message acceptable or palatable. The Roman critic Horace gives us a very appealing approach; to teach through entertainment.^ Lucrtius in hisZ)e rerum nature graphically describes how this can be done:

Even as healers, when they essay to give loathsome wormwood to children, first touch the rim all round the cup with the sweet golden moisture of honey, so that the unwitting age of children may be beguiled as far as the lips, and meanwhile may drink the bitter draught of wormwood, and though charmed may not be harmed, but rather by such means may be restored and come to health; so now, since this philosophy full often seems too bitter to those who have not tasted it, and the multitude shrinks back away from it, I have desired to set forth to you my reasoning in the sweet-tongued song of the muses, as though to touch it with the pleasant honey of poetry, if perchance I might avail by such means to keep your mind set upon my verses, while you take in the whole nature of things, and their usefulness.*®

Ever since Horace, the opposing polarities of "to teach" and "to entertain" seem to have had their own supporters from each opposing camp. But what most of them fail to see is the complexity and intricacy the situation might present when these two mingle or merge

today.

“ M. H. Abrams remarks that "the pragmatic view, broadly conceived, has been the principal aesthetic attitude of the Western world," see his The Mirror and the Lamp, p. 21. It is also true in the Chinese case.

Horace, Art o f Poetry, in Criticism: The Major Texts,.ed. Walter Jackson Bate (New York, 1972), pp. 50-58.

Lucretius, De rerum natura, book 1, 925f; bk IV, 1-25, quoted in the entry "didacticism" in Dictionaiy o f World Literature, ed. Joseph T. Shipley (Totoqa, NJ: Littlefield, Adams & Co., 1964), p. 102. 23 together. As a matter of fact, the distinction between the didactic and the entertaining does not lie in the fact that they are two separable entities existing independently from each other, but in the way each could be assumed and utilized according to the purpose and intent of the writer.

Even so, the didactic concern, as we have said, have dominated most of the periods before our century either in the West or in the East. What, after all, is "didacticism"? What are its features? It is surprising to find that up until now there is no full-length study of this concept, either in Chinese or in Western scholarship.^* M. H. Abrams has discussed "didactic literature" mA Glossary o f Literary Terms. The term "didactic" is usually referred to a work

"that is designed to expound, systematically, a branch of theoretical, moral, or practical knowledge, but also to literary works which embody, in a persuasive imaginative or fictional form, a moral, religious, or philosophical theme or doctrine." He goes on to distinguish between didactic literature and imaginative literature, the main difference being that the former aims at "presenting or enforcing knowledge or doctrine" while the latter tries to

"maximize their human interest and their capacity to move and give artistic pleasure to their audience." However, the differences are not absolute because didactic literature "may also take on the aspect and attributes of imaginative works, by embodying the doctrine in a

Smith Palmer Bovie, at the end of his entry on "didactic poetry" in Princeton Encyclopedia o f Poetty and Poetics, enlarged ed. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1974), has to admit that "There is no comprehensive book on the subject of didactic poetry" (p. 192). In the 1993 The New Princeton Encyclopedia o f Poetry and Poetics (Princeton: Princeton UP, 1993), the contributor to the entry of "didactic poetry" still cannot find any comprehensive book on this subject. He concludes that "the didactic niode is veiy much alive in modem literature; and that many of the traditional didactic genres have undergone complex transformations and modulations." "Critical theory, however, has tended either to skirt the issues or to convert the didactic mode into related categories." (p. 295) Didacticism has been such an integral part of Chinese literary thought that no one apparently has thought to study it as a separate feature. 24 narrative or dramatic form in order to add a dimension of aesthetic pleasure and to enhance its interest and force. Simply put, didacticism in its broadest sense is pragmatic as it looks upon a work of art as "a means to an end, an instrument for getting something done, and tend to judge its value according to its success in achieving that aim."^^

Even though didactic theory since Modernist period has fallen out of favor, it has not been totally out of the picture. For instance, the Marxist critics and religious writers, to a great extent still have strong inclination toward the didactic, even dogmatic, teachings.

Besides the Marxist camp, the moral, ethical, or didactic concerns have re-emerged in critical works lately. Wayne C. Booth in his study of ethical criticism of fiction admits that in order to make his project manageable, he has to confine his focus on the "serious," "artistic" fiction; when dealing with ethical criticism, however, all the distinction between "'serious' narratives that were 'genuine art' and 'lighter' works that compromised art by turning to 'propaganda,' or 'rhetoric,' or 'didactic intent'" falls apart.^'* Furthermore, he goes on to argue that Samuel

T. Coleridge's "willing suspension of disbelief cannot be wholeheartedly taken as a best catchphrase characterizing the artistic experience, for no one can legitimately claim after he finishes reading a stoiy that he can then go back to "real world" and forget everything he has read. Artistic merits are not something that is so abstract and otherworldly that it can be separated from other worldly concerns. Thus Booth tells us that "distinction between genuine literature (or 'poetry') and 'rhetoric' or 'didactic' literature is entirely misleading if it suggests

M. H. Abrams, A Glossary o f Literaiy Terns, pp. 42-43.

“ M.H. Abrams, The M hror and the Lamp, p. 15.

Wayne C. Booth, The Company We keep, p. 13. 25

that some stories, those that we seem to readjust for enjoyment, are purged of all teaching.

Indeed, the fact remains that "all works do teach or at least try to, and that no reading can be

considered responsible that ignores the challenge of a work's fixed norms." In sum. Booth

forcefully makes the case that "all narratives are 'didactic'."^®

By the same token, Patricia Spacks also argues for an "ethical paradigm" in the novel.

Echoing J. Hillis Miller's view that ethical theory depends upon story, Spacks wants to reverse the phrasing and ask: "can you have narrative without ethics?" Based on the assertion that

novel deals essentially with human relations, especially that of individual life in relation with

social life, and that "novels have the power to engage us morally," giving us "choices—not

merely acceptance versus non-acceptance but acceptance versus refusal," Spacks argues that

"if we construct and perceive stories around characters, we also inevitably construct judgment. If we function as ethical agents in the world, we bring ethical categories to bear on the imagined actions of imagined people as they do on human facts they encounter. In other words, it is the author who presents his human concerns and various alternatives of choice in the novel and it is the reader who in his reading process brings into the novel his own moral

or ethical concerns into contact with those of the author's. On the one hand, an ethical concern is involved; on the other hand, an ethical judgment is being formulated by the reader

in reading. An ethical, moral, political, or didactic concern is always involved and present in

novel-reading.

ibid,, pp. 151-52.

ibid, p. 152.

Patricia Spacks, "The Novel as Ethical Paradigm," in Mark Spilka and Caroline McCracken-Flesher, eds. Why the Novel Matters: A Postmodern Perplex (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1990), pp. 199-206. 26

From a perspective that is more specific and more context-bound than that of Booth's general discussion, J. Paul Hunter in his book, Before Novel: The Cultural Contexts of

Eighteenth Century English Fiction, studies the importance of didacticism in the development of fiction in the eighteenth-century England, and comes up with several features that characterize the nature of didacticism in fiction: 1) Didactic writings always possess a powerful sense of good and evil, leading to plain, binary, and dogmatic distinctions and choices. 2) There is a directness and faith of didacticism in language to affect the behavior of readers in rational and predictive ways. 3) There is a heightened tone and urgent sense of intensity. 4) There is a tendency to address readers directly and personally, almost as if a printed text could be a private communication between friends. 5) The didacticists always have basic assumptions about what writing is for-life as a struggle rather than celebration and writing as a means rather than an end in itself. And 6) the tone of authority and the air of certainty in didactic writings are apparent. Judging by these standards. Hunter can forcefully argue that didacticism was the main feature in the eighteen-century novels and urge more attention to the didactic factor in them.^®

The above summary of the new development in the study of English fiction tells us how modern scholars have come to realize the undeniable, but often ignored or de­ emphasized, place that didactic concern has played in literature. However, even though the sources I cited above forcefully present their views of what didacticism should be, in this study I am basically following J. Paul Hunter's broad definition (even though the six criteria of didacticism he characterizes can be readily applied to Late-Ch'ing fiction):

’ (New York: W. W. Norton, 1990), pp. 225-247. 27

I should prefer personally to consider the word didactic appropriate for any work that has a palpable design upon us, whatever the design, however deployed, and in whatever voice.... I surrender to present usage, however, simply insisting that there are designs and designs. But there is an object—the reader—in them all, and that reader's responses and commitments, as well as his or her attention, usually represent some ultimate aim, some intention that may include form but also transcends it.^®

This broad sense of didacticism, in great measure, opens for us new grounds for a more comprehensive and more manageable discussion of Chinese literature without restricting to a narrow explanation of its significance. The presentist prejudices of modernist or/and post­ modernist stance with regard to the pejorative implications of didacticism, therefore, if not totally useless, have to be used carefully with qualifications.

IV. Chinese Didactic Tradition

In a lecture delivered in Fu-jen University in 1932, Chou Tso-jen posited chih

("speaking one's mind," or expressiveness) and tsai too ("containing the moral Way," or pragmatic didacticism) as an antithetic pair. It is Chou's contention that the development of

Chinese literature in the past was dovetailed with the political climate. Whenever the times were bad, the poets would always voice people's emotions and feelings in their work.

Conversely, during politically stable periods, the writers concentrated on pushing their work toward aesthetic perfection or to use their work to further ideological or political causes. The pre-Ch'in period, for example, was one in which expressive elements of literature dominated, whereas the Han dynasty, especially under the reigns of Emperors Wen and Wu, was a time

' J Paul Hunter, "Fielding and the Modem Reader," p. 7. 28 of great development for literary pragmatics.'*® David Pollard, in his study of Chou Tso-jen, has critiqued Chou's distinction on three main points: 1) In the history of Chinese literature, personal attitudes probably were more important than that of periods; 2) Chou largely ignores the internal dynamism of literary development in favor of imposing a periodizational scheme; and 3) Chou, while quoting Yuan Hung-tao as his authority to represent the yen chih tradition, ignores Yuan's postulation of swing/counter-swing view of literary development.'*'

Simply put, Pollard objects to Chou's mechanical periodization.

Even though Pollard's critique is fairly made, yet, from our historical hindsight, the observations of Chou Tso-jen are, to a great degree, not too far away from fact. Broadly speaking, literature always reflects the historical reality and the spirit of an age. Literary works that articulated practical purposes are more often than not found in politically stable times and that pragmatic elements of Chinese literature has been so overwhelmingly strong that the Yuan brothers and such literary figures as Chou Tso-jen, Lin Yu-t'ang and other Yu

Ssu colleagues'*^, who advocated an aesthetic orientation, felt the need to attack the didactic literature, that had put practical purposes as its main concern. This dominance of didacticism can again be attested to by Pollard's account of the trend of "wen i tsai tao." Pollard traces the development of tsai tao concept from as early as Confucius' Analects, through Mencius,

Chou Tso-jen, Chung-kuo hsin-wen-hsueh tiyuan-liu (The origin of modem Chinese literature) (Hong Kong: Hui-wen fang, 1972, orig. 1932), 33-42.

■" David E. Pollard, A Chinese Look at Literature: The Literary Values o f Chou Tso-jen in Relation to the Tradition (London: C. Hurst & Company, 1973), p. 3.

Yu Ssu, a literary weekly founded in Peking in 1924 by Sun Fu-yuan, Lin yu-fung, Chou Tso-jen and Lu Hsun, is one of the important literary periodical advocating individualism. See Lu Hsun," Wo ho Yu Ssu ti shih-tsung" (My Relationship with Yu Ssu), Lu Hsun ch'uan-chi, vol. 4. 29

Cheng Hsuan, Yang Hsiung, Li E, Liu Mien, Han Yu, Liu Tsung-yuan, Chou Tun-i, Ch'eng

I and down to Chu Hsi. All these figures are important literary or intellectual leaders in their own times/^

Even though the customary antithesis of tsai-tao snàyen-chih is very convenient in describing the feature of Chinese literature, it is, nonetheless, if not inaccurate, misleading.

We mentioned that the Chinese concept of literature does not really postulate an understanding of literature as an independent aesthetic category. So, the so-called yen chih tradition, if examined carefully, did carry with it a very strong pragmatic inclination. In the

"Great Preface" where the idea ofyen-chih first received attention, the "intent" {chih) is not pure personal disinterested emotion or feeling that can stand alone by itself. It is, on the other hand, loaded with heavy socio-political and moral implications.'*'* According to common understanding that a long history of Chinese literature over three thousand years can be subsumed under two categories: yew chih and tsai tao. Some scholars, like Yeh Ch'ing-ping, add the category of wei-mei ("for beauty" or aesthetics).'*^ As we discussed earlier, the

Chinese concept of literature is extremely pragmatic and all the above categories were more interlacing than discrete to traditional Chinese. Yeh's categorizations here should be looked at heuristically; the division can simply be regarded as "pragmatic" and "aesthetic." The fact

David E. Pollard, A Chinese Look at Literature, pp. 13-29.

For a historical and perceptive study of the implication of "shih yen-chih," see Chu Chih-ch'ing, Shih yen- chih pien (On the concept of "poetiy expresses one's intent"), collected in Chu Chih-ch'ing ku-tien wen-hsueh lun-wen chi (Essays on classical Chinese literature) (Shanghai: Shang-hai ku-chi ch'u-pan-she, 1981), pp. 183- 355.

See Yeh Ch'ing-ping, "Wen-chang ho wei-shih erh-chu, ko-shih ho wei-shih erh-tso" (Writings are written in response to the times, while poetry for specific purposes), in Chung-kuo ku-tien wen-hsueh lun- ts'ung: wen-hsueh p'i-p'ingyu hsi-chu chi pu (Taipei; Chung-wai wen hsueh, 1976): pp. 53-60. 30 remains, however, that the didactic, or pragmatic tradition has been the most dominant. Its prevalence and dominance in traditional Chinese literature and literary criticism can be verified by looking into the critical discourse in the past. It can even be testified to by the attacks and denigrations of modem scholars, such as Chou Tso-jen, for us to understand how deeply it had been rooted in the mind of traditional Chinese writers. James Y. Liu, who in his Chinese

Theories o f Literature attempts to further elaborate on the Chinese concept of literature and to highlight the metaphysical theories because they present the most interesting points for comparison with Western theories, has to admit nonetheless that didactic theories have been

"the most influential ones in traditional Chinese criticism," the reason being that "they were sanctioned by Confucianism.""'®

III. Didacticism in Chinese Fiction

As we already mentioned, and also discerned in the remarks of Chou Tso-jen, and

James Liu (to a lesser degree), didacticism at present does carry a lot of pejorative connotations. Yet, if we examine closely the Chinese fiction tradition, we will be amazed at the extent the role that didacticism has played in the history of Chinese fiction. It is with this didacticism that modem readers have always had trouble. Modem readers always complain that there is too much didacticism in Chinese fiction, thus obstructing the appreciation and

James Liu, p. 106. To be sure, the issue here is not that simple as can be summarized only by "the sanction of ConAicianism." To understand why Chinese literature has been dominated by pragmatic concerns needs a monograph study to elaborate on. However, this observation on the whole is not too far away from the truth. 31 enjoyment of fictional work.**’ This view implies that didacticism is something that stands in the way of a true understanding and enjoyment of the work, and it also implies that didacticism is something outside the realm of aesthetics. This is apparently a presentist prejudice. In the first place, according to our understanding of Chinese literature and literary criticism, didacticism has long been the prevailing dominant force, as can be attested by the statements of Chou Tso-jen and James Liu (and of course the large bulk of literary works and criticism). Accordingly, we cannot afford to ignore the grip it must have had on literary works and the ideologies of their authors. Fiction, moreover, is closer to a reflection of the cultural reality than other literary genres; the didacticism in it therefore should be an important phenomenon for us to ponder. Second, from our examination of fictional texts themselves as well as the prefaces, postscripts and other documents discussing Chinese fiction, didacticism is omnipresent. Even if we can doubt the validity and sincerity of these statements, we still need to explain why their authors felt the need to make such statements. Moreover, if didacticism occupied so prominent a place in Chinese literary discourse, then this phenomenon itself already indicates an existing fact that deserves our attention. In imposing our presentist conception of didacticism-as-pejorative-element on past texts, we are undoubtedly abusing them and trying to make them something other than what they are.

Didacticism in traditional Chinese fiction as manifested in many prefaces reflects the close relationship between the novel and the prevailing pragmatic thought of the times. In

Hu Shih, for instance, not unaware of the historical milieu in which P'u Sung-ling was writing, in his discussion oîHsing shih yin yuan chuan (Marriage that awakens the world) still feels that if the author can devote less to didacticism (i.e. karma, in this case) and appeal more to realistic cause-and-efifect, this novel could be a much better one. See Hu Shih, "Hsing-shih yin-yuan chuan k'ao-cheng" (A textual study of Marriage that Awakens the World), in Hu Shih wen-ts'un (Taipei: Yuan-tung tu-shu, 1968), vol. 4, pp. 374- 378. 32

general, these prefaces always postulate that fiction should serve the function of educating

people and lead them toward the good and away from the bad. For instance, Yung-yu-tzu

(Chiang Ta-ch'i) in his preface to the San-kuo-chih t'ung-su yen-yi (Romance of the Three

Kingdoms) emphasized the importance of thought and their significance to common people.

He commented that the historical novel should disseminate knowledge and improve the

historical literacy so that when the reader "opens the book, all the events happening in the past hundred years immediately present themselves before him in a clear way." In addition to gaining knowledge, the moral imperative in a novel is even more important. The function of fiction here is to "advise people to follow good and scare them away from bad by example"

{ch'ien-ch'eng ching-chu), so that their behavior could be "in accord with the natural ways

and befitting the appropriate human relationships."'’®

Let us look another famous preface to see how the didactic and the affective concerns

are mingled together—a very typical pragmatic case. Lu-tien-kuan chu-jen (The Master of the

Azure Sky Studio) in his preface to Ku-chin hsiao-shuo (Stories Old and New) first

delineated the history of fiction up to the Ming dynasty, and then he writes: "To such a high

stage of advancement have the arts been carried under the aegis of our imperial Ming, that there is no school but has flourished, and in popular literature the writing has often reached

a standard far above that of Sung. Those who reject the style of such work as unfit for

comparison with the writings of the T'ang period are making a mistake. The eater of peaches

Yung-yu tzu, "San-kuo-chih t'ung-su yen-yi hsu," in Huang Lin and Han T'ung-wen, ed. & annotated, Chung-kuo li-tai hsiao-shuo lun-chu hsuan (Selected Writings on Fiction in Traditional China) (Nan-ch'ang: Chiang-hsi jen-min, 1990), pp. 104-105. 33 need not reject the apricot. "‘*® Fiction (the apricot) does not have to be put in comparison with the orthodox literature (the peach); it has its own tradition, its own merits. He goes on to explain:

Consider the descriptive skills of today's storytellers on stage. They can bring on gladness or astonishment; grief or tears; singing or dancing. [Their listeners] frequently feel the urge to risk their necks or part with their wealth. The timid become brave, the lecherous chaste, the mean-spirited kind, and the unfeeling break out with sweat. Even the casual reading of the Classic o f Filial Piety [Hsiao Ching\ and the Analects [Lun-yu\ would not move people so swiftly and so deeply. Ah! Can anything but popularized writings do all this?^“

Here we can again see the interesting case where the didactic, aesthetic and affective elements are merged together. To attract the attention of the reader, the novel has to utilize various devices to make his reader feel the story can bring gladness and astonishment, grief and tears to him so that he feels the urge to sing or dance. These techniques are what we today term

"rhetoric" devices. But what are these rhetoric devices for? They are used to make "the timid become brave, the lecherous chaste, the mean-spirited kind, and the unfeeling break out with sweat." Fiction, in this preface, is shown to be more effective in moving the reader than the

Classic o f Filial Piety and the Analects precisely because it is entertaining and popular. The pragmatic (or more precise, didactic) overtone is more than apparent! Here is another good example to gain a sense of what Chinese concept of literature really is.

Seen in this perspective, the provocative theory of entertainment postulated by

Professor Timothy Wong in his treatment of hua-pen fiction does not have to be seen as in

Huang Lin and Han T'ung-wen, p. 224. The translation here is Eugene Eoyang's in "A Taste for Apricot; Approaches to Chinese Fiction," in Chinese Narrative: Critical and Theoretical Essays, ed. Andrew Flaks (Princeton: Princeton UP, 1977), p. 55.

ibid. The translation is Timothy Wong's in "Morality as Entertainment: Altruistic Friendship in the Ku­ chin hsiao-shuo" TainkangReview XIII: 1 (Fall, 1982): 66. 34 opposition to didacticism.^* The stories that Professor Wong analyzes might be entertaining owing to the manipulation of the plot and structure by the author, but this, nonetheless, does not have to exclude the didactic intent that the author might have or imply. Even so, entertainment theory is indeed one important and indispensable key to our appreciation of

Chinese fiction, or even fiction in general, for one challenging job for any fictional writer is to catch the attention of the reader, and all the devices, including rhetorical, thematic as well as structural, to the extent that they can fulfill their job of riveting the reader's attention, are in a sense "entertaining." And it is in this regard that Professor Wong's thesis appears to be provocative and illuminating. It is indeed the human nature that asks for satisfaction in learning more about things around human beings, be it something new, fantastic, or whatever.

In this sense we have to submit that the entertaining factors are indispensable and important in our understanding of Chinese fiction, especially when we take into consideration the fact that fiction was originally "small talk" enjoyed by common people (and intellectuals as well).

Nevertheless, since Chinese culture and literature has been so saturated with pragmatic concerns, we will then have to see how the Chinese have incorporated entertaining factors into their immediate concerns, especially when it comes to the discussion of late Ch'ing fiction.

In fact, in the age-old debate of what literature is and what its functions are, critics tend to polarize the function of literature into either pragmatic or aesthetic. But, literary works that teach do not necessarily preclude their aesthetic merits and those that are more

See Timothy C. Wong, "Entertainment as Art: An Approach to the Ku-chin hsiao-shuo," CLEAR 3 (July 1980): 235-250. 35 concerned with aesthetic elements can also be used to teach. Therefore, the whole discussion boils down to how the literary works are treated and used at a given time.“ This in great measure explains why the cultural context of Chinese pragmatic concern in Chinese fiction has occupied such important role in this study. If we find that most of the late Ch'ing Chinese treated fiction as didactic, then even though we recognize some other elements that prove to be meritorious to us, we still have to put them back into that context and see how they would fit in that framework and how they would make sense. If they make sense to their reader in that context, then we will have to acknowledge their validity, or else it will just be a presentist prejudice imposed by us onto a historical past.

V. Sociopolitical Concerns of Chinese Literature

Seeing from the broad sense that didactic literature is usually imposing a palpable design on its reader, late-Ch'ing fiction is surely a didactic literature and is pragmatic. We also mentioned that the ground rule of late-Ch'ing period is the socio-political concern—which also has a long tradition in Chinese literature. Although we do not have a unified, systematic concept about the sociopolitical orientation in traditional Chinese literature, we still have enough material to substantiate the postulation that there was a predominant sociopolitical concern in Chinese critical writings.

“ For a general discussion of the function of literature, see René Wellek & Austin Warren, Theory o f Literature, 3rd ed. (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1977), pp. 29-37. For a helpfiil analysis of the debate between the aesthetic and the functional of literature, see John M. Ellis, The Theory o f Literary Criticism: A Logical Analysis (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1974), pp. 234-247. 36

In the Analects, we have Confucius explicitly pointing out the social function of

literature: "Young men, why do you not study Poetryl It can be used to inspire, to observe, to make you fit for company, to express grievances: near at hand, [it will teach you how] to

serve your father, and [looking] further, [how] to serve your sovereign; it also enables you to learn the names of many birds, beasts, plants, and trees. On another occasion Confucius

also advises his own son that "If you do not study the Songs [Poetry], you will find yourself

at a loss in conversation. This pragmatic educational function of poetry also shows up in the "Great Preface": "By it [poetry] the former kings managed the relations between husbands

and wives, perfected the respect due to parents and superiors, gave depth to human relations, beautifully taught and transformed the people, and changed local customs. The relation between music and politics is expressed by the author of "Record of Music" in the Book o f

Rites (Li Chi): "The affections (ch'ing) are moved from within and take on form in sound.

When these sounds have patterning (wen), they are called 'tones.' The tones of a well- managed age are at rest and happy: its government is balanced (ho). 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. The way of sounds and tones

(sheng-yin) communicates (t'ung) with [the quality of] governance."^® Again, the author of

Analects, 17: 8. James Liu's translation in his Chinese Theories o f Literature, p. 109.

Analects, 16: 13. Arthur Waley's translation, in The Analects o f Confucius, trans. Arthur Waley (New York: The Modem Library. 1938), p. 208.

Translated by Stephen Owen in his Readings in Chinese Literary Thought (Cambridge: Harvard University Press. 1992), p. 45.

“ ibid,pp. 51-52. 37 the "Great Preface" directly incorporated all these viewpoints and concluded the relation between poetry and politics and the social function of poetry: "Thus to correct [the presentation of] achievement and failures, to move Heaven and Earth, to stir the gods and spirits, there is nothing more apposite than poetry.

The above quotations from ancient documents show some ideas that belong to the realm of literaiy sociology. They not only explain the special function of poetry and music in their affecting, educating, and changing social customs, but also expound the relationship between poetry and its historical times, the interaction between literature and society: poetry will have its different expressions under different historical, social backgrounds; and conversely, politics, rites, customs will also exert their direct or indirect influence on the creation of literature.

The relationship between literature and society can be said to have received a special attention in Chinese critical tradition. For instance, Liu Hsieh in The Literary Mind and the

Carving of Dragon {Wen-hsin tiao-hmg), pointed out the relationship between literature and society. Bom in an age when the formal aesthetic elements preoccupied most of the literary concerns, Liu alone contended on the one hand that substance and form should both receive equal attention and on the other that extra-literary elements have an extreme influence on literature. In the chapter "Literary Development and Time (shih-hsu),'' he talked about the influence that politics, religion, intellectual climate, and customs have on literature: "It illustrates for us how deeply literary development is influenced by the course of worldly events, and how directly the rise and fall of political powers bear on the trends of literature.

ibid, p. 45. 38

If we adopt the method of determining a given outcome by establishing the source from which it developed, it is not difficult to tell what the development will be even in the distant future, one hundred generations hence." In the chapter "The Physical World Liu even discussed how the phenomena of natural environments such as climate, seasons, and sceneries could have exerted a power on a writer's motive, personality or style: "Mountains, forests, plateaus, and plains are certdnly the ultimate source of literary thought. [But they are difficult to command.]...However, the reason why Ch'u P'ing [Ch'u Yuan] was able to capture the spirit of feng and sao in the expression of feeling is that he was amply helped by his experience of the rivers and mountains. The critics before Liu such as Ts'ao P'i, Lu Chi, championed the view that personal individual talents and independent activities of human mentality is the sole source of creation; Liu Hsieh's theory transcended it and enlarged the critical horizon by including the natural, social, political elements in his theory.

Likewise, the "Ancient-Style Prose Movement" (Kii-wen ytm-tung) in the T'ang dynasty has shifted the emphasis from the idea that literature is used to "know or illuminate the Way" (ming-tao) to that literature is "the vehicle to carry the Way" (tsai-tao), and thus further stressed the pragmatic function of literature and its relation to the society. Po Chu-i's well-known aphorism, "Literaiy compositions should be written to serve one's generation, and poems and songs to influence public affairs," is a very highly sociopolitically-conscious statement. The contention of Sung literati that literature should have "getting to the Way"

(ming-tao) and "putting to uses" (chih-yung) as the sole purpose of literature once again

The Literary Mind and the Carving o f Dragons, trans. Vincent Shih (Taipei: Chung-hua, 1975), pp.342, 3 5 2 . 39 attests to the predominantly sociopolitical orientation. From another angle, in the vernacular short stories, coming from popular culture and reflecting in a graphic way the social reality and daily life of the time, the sociopolitical signiflcance is certainly present and important.

This sociopolitical concerns continued into Ch'ing dynasty.

Didacticism and sociopolitical concerns, as we clarified above, had been two important and dominant trends in Chinese literaiy history. Their predominance was still strongly felt in the Ch'ing period. However, when changes began to impinge upon the worldview of late-Ch'ing intellectuals, they had to face a new challenge: a "new set of problems, concerns, and ideals were forged out of the intellectual interaction between two cultures, and these ideals and concerns became part of the national cultural transformation which continued well into the 1900's."^® In response to this new sociopolitical challenge, they had to rethink what they could do and how they could best do it to keep their country survive.

As we said earlier, literature could be characterized as the epitome of a culture, the concerns of the intellectuals were evidently transcribed into and showcased in late-Ch'ing fiction and fiction criticisms.

Didacticism, using the literature to contain the moral Way, had continued to exert influence on writers and readers. Chinese concept of literature in the late-Ch'ing period was by and large the same as that of the "Great Preface": literature might serve as the vehicle for expressing the intent, it might contain aesthetic elements in it, it might have something to teach or to entertain—yet, most important of all, it has to have purposes and uses. To teach.

Hao Chang, Liang Ch'i-ch'ao and Intellectual Transition in China, 1890-1907 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1971), p. 6. 40 especially to educate the common people, had been an imperative on the part of the writer when they wrote fiction or talked about fiction. To comply with the demands from a new age, however, the content of teaching had to change somehow. Traditional morality, which used to be the most urgent concern in fiction theory, though not disappeared totally, had to give its primacy to the dissemination of new concepts of morality, religion, politics, customs, and so on. And this shifting of emphasis was inaugurated in response to the new sociopolitical concern in this society which was undergoing an unprecedented change. This change in turn brought in new set of problems and new concerns in literature. In effect, the trends of didacticism and sociopolitical orientation, in my opinion, were merged together to form a special late-Ch'ing literary consciousness. In response to the urgent problems and concerns, late-Ch'ing fiction partake this social mission of "national cultural transformation" and revealed in literary form what writers could do through their writings. Hence Liang Ch'i-ch'ao could talk about the relationship between fiction and social order, about invigorating the spirit of the people, widening the knowledge of the people, and other issues that in the past could not find a way into the fictional texts. What we want to concentrate on in the study of late

Ch'ing fiction, then, is the main issues and concerns or "ground rules" of the participants at that time as they saw them. If we cannot fully understand the importance of the socio-political pragmatic concerns of the late Ch'ing literary figures, there will be no valid understanding of late Ch'ing fiction.

Now, after briefly stating the issues of reading and interpretation, and the critical perspective, methodology and the approach adopted in this study, let us turn to the protagonist of our study, Liang Ch'i-ch'ao. CHAPTER I

LIANG CHT-CH’AO: THE MAN AND HIS LITERARY THOUGHT

I The Man

Liang Ch'i-ch'ao (1873-1929) is one of the most important intellectual figures in modem Cliinese history. He was bom into a rural gentry family and received a typical training in Chinese learning. He leamed the Chinese classics from his grandfather and father.* At the age of 12, he already displayed his precocious prodigy in passing the local examination to become a sheng-yuan (subsidized student in Confucian school at prefectural and lower levels of territorial administration). In 1887, he enrolled at the Hsueh-hai-t'ang, an academy founded by Juan Yuan,' where he studied philology and textual criticism of the classics and their commentaries. The route that Liang took before 1890, therefore, was that of a very typical

Chinese scholar. In that year, when he was eighteen sui^ he went to Peking to participate in the metropolitan examinations. Liang did not pass, but on his way back home, he took the

‘ The biographical data that 1 use in this chapter aie taken from Liang Ch'i-ch'ao's "San-sliih tzu-shu" (Autobiogi'aphy at tliirty), in YPSWC, tse 4, 11: 15-19; Ting Wen-chiang, Liang Jen-kung hsien-sheng nien- p'u ch'ang-pien ch'u-kao, 2 vols. (Taipei: Shih-chieh shu-chu, 1988); Wu T 'i e n - j e n , Liang Jen-kimg hsien-sheng ch'i-ch'ao nien-p'u, 4 vols. (Taipei: Shang-vvu yin-shu kuan, 1988); and K[ting]. C[h'uan]. Hsiao, "Liang Ch’i-ch’ao," in Biographical Dictionary o f Republican China, ed. Howard Boonnan (New York: Columbia University Press, 1968), vol. II, pp. 346-351.

- Juan Yuan (1764-1849), a famous scholai- and official, noted for the compilation ofhis dictionary to the Classics, Ching-chi tsuan-kn. See Arthur W. Hummel, ed. Eminent Chinese o f the Ch'ing period (Washington D. C.: The Library' of Congress, 1943).

41 42 opportunity to stop by Shanghai and to purchase many books on Western learning. One of them was Hsu Chi-yu's Ym-hiian chih-lueh (A brief description of land overseas) and Liang was excited that "for the first time in my life, I learned of the five continents of the world."

This trip opened his eyes to a brave new world he never even imagined before.

In the same year, Liang became acquainted with Ch'en T'ung-fu, a classmate at Hsueh- hai-t'ang, and went with him to visit K'ang Yu-wei. Liang and Ch'en were awed by K'ang's learning, and Liang's confidence in what he had already achieved in philology and textual criticism of the classics in Hsueh-hai-t'ang was totally swept away. He immediately became

K'ang's pupil. K'ang suggested that he study the philosophies of Lu Chiu-yuan (1139-1193) and Wang Yang-ming (1472-1529), as well as historiography and western learning. In becoming K'ang's pupil Liang felt that it was "first time ever in my life that I encountered authentic learning." This was the second time Liang underwent the process of initiation into a larger world.

Liang's stay in Wan-mu ts'ao-t'ung, the school founded by K'ang Yu-wei at Canton, according to him, laid the foundation for all his learning. Through K'ang's lectures, he gained access to the developments of Chinese learning, the evolution of history and politics—all through comparison with western learning. K'ang also interested him in Mahayana Buddhism.

He and Ch'en T'ung-fu also assisted K'ang in writing and completing several of K'ang's famous books: Hsin-hsueh wei-ching kao (An inquiry into the classics forged during the Hsin period),

K'ung-tzu kai-chih kao (A study of Confucius as reformer) and Ta-t'iing shu (The Book of 43 the one world) among others/ He stayed in Wan-mu ts'ao-t'ang for three years.

In 1894, Liang again went to Peking with K'ang to participate in the metropolitan examinations. While there, the humiliating news of the defeat of China by Japan arrived and he conscientiously immersed himself in the reading of translated books of western learning.

The following year, he fWled the examinations but assisted K'ang in organizing an opposition rally among Cantonese candidates in response to the Treaty of Shimonoseki.** Liang began his long career of political activity and journalism from that moment. He served as secretary to the Ch'iang-hsueh hiii (The self-strengthening study society) and edited the society's newsletter and the Chung-wai hmg-pao (International gazette). This society was immediately banned by the court; still, Liang obtdned access to many books that he had never before seen.

It was at this time that he became acquainted with T'an Ssu-t'ung,^ a famous martyr in the

Hundred Days' Reform.

In 1896, Liang left for Shanghai and agreed to assume the editorship of a new newspaper, Shih-wiipao {Current affairs). Liang's articles and editorials regularly appeared in this newspaper from 1896 to 1897 and made him a most famous and influential writer at the time. It was in this newspaper that he expressed his reformist ideas of education,

' For a perceptive study of K'ang Yu-wei, see Kung-ch'uan Hsiao, A Modem China and a New World, K'ang Yu-wei, Reformer and Utopian (Seattle, University of Washington Press, 1975). See also Jung-pang Lo, K'ang Yu-wei, A Biography and a Symposium (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1967).

■' After the Sino-Japanese war, a treaty was signed in 1895 at Shimonoseki, Japan, by Li Hung-chang and Ito Hirobumi. The terms of peace in tliis treaty include: the independence of Korea; the cession of the Liaotung Peninsula, Formosa, and the Pescadores; an indemnity of 300,000,000 Kuping taels; the opening of seven new ports to trade, and os on.

' T'an Ssu-t'ung (1864-1898),one of tire six reformists who died in the Hundred Days' Reform. See T'ang Chih-chun, Wu-hsu pien-fa Jen-wu chuan-kao (Biography of figures in the Hundred Days Reform), enlai ged ed. (Peking: Chung-hua shu-chu, 1982); Artliur Hummel, Eminent Chinese o f the Ch'ing Period. 44 government reforms, westernization, and so on. The most famous of them was of course the

"Pien-fa t'ung-i" (General discussion on reform) and Hsi-hsueh shu-mu piao (Bibliography of western learning). In his writings he advocated such ideas as the abolition of the civil examination system, the establishing of new schools, popular sovereignty, and women rights.

Because ofhis patriotism and the emotional outpouring in his writings, Shih-wu pao became one of the most popular newspapers at the time. The juxtaposition of the names of both K'ang and Liang together also started from this period. According to Liang, this newspaper reached a circulation of 10,000 copies for each press run, almost three times that of the influential

Waii-kuo kimg-pao (The globe magazine).® Such important high-ranking officials as Wu

T'ing-fang (1842-1922) and Chang Chih-tung (1837-1909) all tried to enlist Liang as a counselor under their patronage but without success. According to K.C. Hsiao, even though

Liang was basically echoing K'ang's views, Liang's writings in this Shih-wu pao period showed influences from T'an Ssu-t'ung, Timothy Richard, Huang Tsun-hsien (1848-1905),

Ma Chien-chung (1844-1900), and Yen Fu (1853-1921).’

In 1897, Liang founded the Pu-ch'an-tsu hui (Anti-footbinding society) and women's school in Shanghai. At that time, a conflict between Liang and the manager of the paper,

Wang K'ang-nien (1860-1911) and between Liang and Chang Chih-tung, forced him to consider resigning from the newspaper. Wang was upset by Liang's ever-increasing influence

® Liang Ch'i-ch'ao, "Ch'ing-i-pao i-pai-ts'e chu-tz'u ping Inn pao-kuan chih tse-jen chi pen-kuan chih ching- li" (Congratulatoi-y speech on the 100th volume of Ch'ing-i pao and on the responsibility of newspaper along with the history of Ch'ing-i pao), YPSWC. tse 3,6: 52. Wan-kito kting-pao (Chinese globe magazine) was first founded and edited by Young J. Allen in 1868, emphasizing essentially on the religious causes. After several alterations in its policy and editorship, it was closed finally in 1904.

’ K. C. Hsiao, "Liang Ch'i-ch'ao," in Biographical Dictionary o f Republican China, pp. 346-351. 45

in the newspaper, while Chang Chih-tung, one of the chief financial sponsor of Shih-wu pao,

dissatisfied with Liang's speeches on such issue as popular sovereignty, tried to intervene in

what Liang was writing. That same year, at the invitation of Ch'en Pao-chen ( 1831 -1900), the

Governor of Hunan province, Liang went to Hunan to assume the position of the chief

lecturer at Shih-wu hsueh-t'ang (Current affairs academy). According to Hao Chang, Liang

went to Hunan in a radical mood. Along with the fellow disciples of K'ang, Liang was "said

to have favored the radical approach," while K'ang "did not show overt disapproval of these

disciples."* He therefore summoned around himself several friends and students with strong

revolutionary inclination, among them Ts'ai O’, T'ang Ts'ai-ch'ang (1867-1900) and T'an Ssu-

t'ung, and the texts they used included such banned books as Huang Tsung-hsi's A//ng-/ tai- fang lu (A Plan for the Prince) and Wang Hsiu-ch'u's Yang-chou shih-jih chi (Ten Days'

Sacking of Yangchow). However, because of their radical stance, the conservative camps in

Hunan rallied to have them displaced from the academy and Hunan province. Because of

serious illness, Liang finally terminated his radical activities there.

In 1898, Liang hurried to the capital to join K'ang Yu-wei in uniting candidates for

metropolitan examinations to present a memorial for "resisting Russians invasion] and

enacting reforms." In March, he assisted K'ang in founding the Pao-kuo hui (Society for

saving the nation). In April, Emperor Kuang-hsu, in response to the ever-worsening political,

diplomatic situations, asked proposals fi"om the officials, in the hope of correcting the wrongs.

® Hao Chang, Liang Ch'i-ch'ao and Intellectual Transition in China, 1890-1907 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1971), p. 125. See also Chang P'eng-yuan, Liang Ch'i-ch'aoyu Ch'ing-chi ko-tning, pp. 44- 80.

® (1882-1916), a military leader, best known for his campaign against yuan Shih-k'ai's plot to become an emperor. 46

K'ang and Liang were given an audience from the emperor. As a matter of course, K'ang

came to gain the complete confidence of the emperor, through the influence of imperial tutor

Weng T'ung-ho.*“ The young emperor, however, fearing that his reliance on K'ang would

bring the intervention of the Dowager Empress, placed instead four of K'ang's adherents—T'an

Ssu-t'ung, Lin Hsu (1875-1898), Yang Jui (1857-1898), Liu Kuang-ti (1859-1898)-in

positions similar to cabinet ministers. A new deal was inaugurated. The emperor welcomed

the opinions from the reform-minded officials and brought into effect such new policies as

setting up the counselling system, getting rid of superfluous staff, making changes in the civil

examinations, and establishing new schools. The opposition from the powerful Dowager

Empress and the conservative forces made a debacle of the Reform: Emperor Kuang-hsu was

placed under house arrest, four major ministers—along with K'ang Kuang-jen (1862-1898),

K'ang Yu-wei's younger brother, and Yang Shen-hsiu (1849-1898)—were executed. These

six have been referred to as the "six gentlemen in the Hundred Days Reform" (wu-hsu liu

chun-tzu). K'ang Yu-wei and Liang, through the assistance of the Japanese and British

governments, escaped narrowly from arrest and took refuge in Japan. It was thus that the so-

called "Hundred Days Reform" came to an end.

The exile years in Japan were probably the most important years in Liang's life in

terms ofhis intellectual development. As he wrote ofhis new experience: "Ever since I came

to Japan, I have collected all kinds of books for my reading....my mind has changed

accordingly and my thinking and words have so changed that they seem to be coming from

Weng T'ung-ho (1830-1904), the emperor's tutor credited with interesting him in reformist ideas. See Eminent Chinese o f the Ch'ing Period, see also Kung-ch'uan Hsiao, "Weng T'ung-ho and the Reform Movement of 1898," Tsing Hua Journal o f Chinese Studies, n..s. no.2 (April 1957); 111 -245. 47 a diflFerent person."" This of course was due to the new perspectives and horizons that Liang attained in learning Japanese translations of western works. In an article he encouraged his reader to study Japanese books because "Japan, ever since her Meiji restoration, has tried with might and main to obtain knowledge from all over the world. The books that Japanese write or translate—all useful ones—are no fewer than several thousands and are especially good in the field of political sciences, economics, philosophy and sociology—the fields that are the most urgent for enlightening people's minds and strengthening the nation's foundations." As for Liang himself, "since I have been living in Japan for several months, I have been learning Japanese, reading Japanese books, and it appears that things I had never seen before are coming before me vividly, certain knowledge that I had never gotten the chance to study is now lingering in my mind. The experience of all this is similar to someone seeing sunlight after being confined in a dark room for a long time, or someone who has been craving for some wine finally gets to drink to his heart's content."*^ In October, 1898, Liang

Ch'i-ch'ao founded the Ch’ing-i pao (Upright discussion) in Yokohama, immediately after his arrival in Japan: "At that time the frontal attack on the Chinese government was the most vehement, and the responding hatred from the Ch'ing government was also immediate."*^

" LNCC, p. 93.

"LNCC.pp. 86-87.

"Liang Ch'i-ch'ao, "Pi-jen tui-yu yen-lun-chieh chih kuo-ch'u chi chiang-lai" (My humble opinion about the present and future of the business of public opinion). YPSWC, 29:2. 48

In the year 1899, Liang was known for getting very close to Sun Yat-sen (1866-

1925), the leader of the revolutionary camp and later the founding father of the Republic of

China,*'' and engaged in an ally between reformists and revolutionists. Strong objection from

K'ang Yu-wei prevented this cooperation from getting any further. Furthermore, Liang's fund- raising in Hawaii brought on suspicion from the revolutionary camp, whether or not Liang and his comrades in the Pao-huang hui (Society to protect the emperor) were sincere in wanting to cooperate. From that time forth, the animosity between these two camps grew in intensity and debates about each camp's individual causes and platforms began in the newspapers serving one or the other side. The following year, Liang was busy with fund­ raising and the planning of a Hankow uprising after the Boxer Rebellion. Before he could join the force of T'ang Ts'ai-ch'ang, he was saddened to learn that the uprising was crushed and

T'ang and most ofhis followers were executed.*^ Liang had to leave Shanghai to join K'ang on an Australia fund-raising tour.

1902 was an important year in Liang's life. After he returned to Japan from Australia, he continued to work on his newspaper, and his speeches were becoming radical. Hsin-min ts'tmg-pao (New Citizen Journal) was founded in this year after a fire closed the Ch'ing-i pao in the previous year. In this new paper, Liang launched his program of enlightening the common people through the journalistic medium, and "this newspaper's warm reception from

" For studies of Dr. Sun Yat-sen, see C. Martin Wilbur, Sun Yat-sen: Fmstrated Patriot (New York: Columbia University Press, 1976). See also Lyon Sharman, Sun Yat-sen: His Life and Its Meaning, A Critical Biography (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1934) and Marius B. Jansen, The Japanese nd Sun Yat-sen (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1954).

" For Liang's role in this uprising, see Chang P'eng-yuan, Liang Ch'i-ch'ao yu Ch'ing-chi ko-ming, pp. 142-157. See also LNCC, pp. 99-138; LCCNP, pp. 366-416. 49 the reader was unexpected. At that time, immediately after the Boxer Uprising, the Ch'ing court was back to its old tack and what we saw and heard was an indignant and resentful voice. It was due to this that the speeches of this newspaper was so vehement in its tone."*®

The significance of Hsin-min ts'ung-pao lies not only in its radical tone but also in Liang's shifting his concerns from political participation to the enlightenment and education of common people. The seminal work o f Liang, Hsin-min shuo (New Citizen) was serialized at this time in Hsin-min ts'ung-pao. In October the same year, Liang again founded another fiction magazine, Hsin hsiao-shuo (New fiction), where he declared that, "I promoted the revolutionary cause and my emotion reached a highest point at that time."” In his unfinished novel. The Friture o f New China (Hsin-Chiing-kiio wei-lai chi), the intensity of emotion is very graphically presented through the thought of two protagonists, Huang K'o-ch'iang and

Li Ch'u-ping. As a matter of fact, Liang's catchphrase at the time was "revolution, anti-

Manchu, and destruction."**

After Liang made a North American tour in 1903, the tone ofhis speeches and writing abruptly turned from radical to moderate, mainly due to his new experiences in the U.S.*®

After learning more about the American political system and its operations, Liang acknowledged that he "did not want to implant the idea o f destruction on our young people's

Liang, "Pi-jen tui-yu yen-lun-cliieh chih kuo-ch'u chi chiang-lai," p. 2.

” ibid, p. 3.

See Chang P'eng-yuan, pp. 81-118.

Liang was also greatly influenced by Huang Tsun-hsien's ideas during this period, see LNCC, pp. 159-173; Wang Te-ch'ao, "Huang Tsun-hsien yu Liang Ch'i-ch'ao," in Chang Hao, et al.Chin-tai Chimg-kuo ssu-hsiang jen-wu lun: Wan-Ch'ing ssu-hsaing (Taipei: Shih-pao wen-hua, 1980), pp. 629-668. 50 brain," because he saw "the evil effects of the theories of unlimited freedom and equality and because he believed that "our people had not reached the stage to accept this kind of

[radical] ideas." In addition, he said, China had been in a state of depravation in these years.

"I was afraid that if the present order was broken, there would be no way of recovering it, and

China could even fall to the worst state of extinction if she was to fall into the hands of perverse politicians." Accordingly, after 1903, Hsin-min ts’ung-pao "only talked about political revolution, not racial revolution. In short, we insisted on maintaining the present polity, but putting an ideal one before us to work toward."^” According to Chang P'eng-yuan, the writings advocating or related to revolution and democratic ideas by Liang occupied most of the pages in the first year of the Hsin-min ts'ung-pao. Because Liang was in North America the following year, only few ofhis writings appeared. From the third year on and especially the fourth year (1905), his stance seemed to be less than revolutionary.^*

The Ch'ing court in 1906 announced preparations for the establishment of a constitutional monarchy and Liang then engaged himself in the constitution movement. With

Chiang Kuan-yun he founded the Cheng-wen she (Political information society) in Tokyo to push the cause of establishing a parliament and cabinet. He again founded several political magazines to spread his cause of constitutionalism.^" Nonetheless, the Ch'ing court had no real intention of enacting a constitution, and Liang's society and magazines again were banned. But Liang's devotion to the cause of constitutionalism did ont diminish—even after

Liang, "Pi-jen tui-yu yen-lun-cliieh chih kuo-ch'u chi chiang-lai," p. 3.

Chang P'eng-yuan, pp. 290-91.

~ For instance, Cheng-lun (Political forum) (October 1907-July 1908) ondKuo-feng pao (National opinion) (January 1910-.Tune 1911). See Chang P'eng-yuan, pp. 311-319. 51 the Revolution in 1911 he still did not believe in the republican system and insisted on the superiority of constitutional monarchy over other kinds of government for China.

After the establishment of the Chinese republic in 1911, however, Liang immediately changed his position to support the new government. He returned to China in 1912, after fourteen years of eale. He had ended his alliance vrith K’ang Yu-wei by then and participated in various political activities. For a time he was the Minister of Justice under Hsiung Hsi-ling

(1870-1940) and the head of the Monetary Bureau under Yuan Shih-k'ai (1859-1916). He was also a member of the council of state (ts'an-cheng yuan), an advisory body created by

Yuan to replace the National Assembly. However, when Yuan revealed his ambition to restore the monarchy, Liang immediately distanced himself and denounced him. He then went south to join his student Ts'ai O in planning a military campaign against Yuan and the

Monarchists. Yuan’s plot to become emperor himself failed and he died soon after. In 1917, in the Manchu restoration planned by K’ang Yu-wei and Chang Hsun (1854-1923), Liang was again the first and the most important figure to stand against the idea, joining with premier

Tuan Ch'i-jui (1865-1936) to crush this plot. Feeling that the political devotion he had paid in the past several years did not bring any expected substantial reward, Liang finally resigned his position as Minister of Finance under Tuan and left the political arena forever.

Leaving the political battlefield led Liang to another endeavor that he felt more comfortable vrith-academic research, teaching, and social participations. He was the founder of Kung-hsueh she (Society for study together), Chung-kiw kung-hsueh and after 1922 he lectured widely at such schools as Nan-k'ai University, Tsinghua University, Tung-nan

University, among others. He also began annotation and réévaluation of Chinese classical 52

works and his contribution in this field has been received with acclaim. His major works

include Ym-ping-shih ho-chi (Collected works and essays from the Ice-drinker's Studio), M o-

izu hsueh-an (Studies on Mo-tzu), M o-chmg chiao-shih (A collation and annotation of the

Mo Tzu), Ch'ing-tai hsueh-shu k'ai-lm (Intellectual trends in the Ch'ing dynasty), Chung-kuo

chin-san-pai-nien hsueh-shu shih (An intellectual history of China during the last three

hundred years), Hsien-Ch'in cheng-chih ssu-hsiang shih (History of Political Thought in the

Pre-Ch'in periods), Chung-kuo li-shih yen-chiu fa (Approaches to the study of Chinese

history). According to his friend Hsu Fo-su's calculation, the writings of Liang Ch'i-ch'ao

altogether amount to about fourteen million Chinese characters, a volume unsurpassed by any

writer ofhis time.^

Liang Ch'i-ch'ao died in the hospital of Peking Union Medical College in 1929, at the

age of 55. At the time he was at work on the Hsin Chia-hsuan hsien-sheng nien-p'u (A

chronological biography of Hsin Ch'i-chi [a Sung military general and famous tz'u poet]).

II. Liang Ch'i-ch'ao's Literary Thought

As the brief recounting of Liang's life above makes clear, his thought is closely related

to his times. Since his intellectual development and contribution to the modernization of China

has been the subject of several important works in intellectual histoiy—including, notably,

Joseph R. Levenson'sZ/o77g Ch'i-ch'ao and the Mind o fModern China (1953), Hao Chang's

Liang Ch'i-ch'ao and Intellectual Transition in China, I890-I907 (1971), Philip C. Huang's

Liang Ch'i-ch'ao and Modem Chinese Liberalism (1972)—I will refrain from repeating what

“ LNCC,p. 782. 53 these eminent scholars have said in this regard. Nonetheless, for my purposes here in this

study, a succinct description of Liang's thought as related to literature is required for our understanding of Liang's fiction and his views on ficiton. What I plan to do here is to highlight

some of the important aspects of Liang's literary concerns.

(1) Liang and "wen-chieh ko-ming" (the revolution of prose)

The term "wen-chieh ko-ming" first appeared in Liang's Hsia-wei-i yu-chi (Hawaii

Travelogue) when he talked about the prose style of Tokutomi Soho: "His writing is grandiose and outstanding; he was good at incorporating western thoughts and style (wen- ssu) into his writing, and can therefore open new horizons for prose writing. I like his writings very much, and always hope that if there will one day be a revolution in prose-writing, we should at least start with something like what Tokutomi has done."^'* It is evident that Liang stressed the importation of western thought and style into Chinese writing as the point of departure for a literary revolution of prose. However, although Liang never elaborated on any theory of prose writing, his practice from early Shih-wu pao period to later Hsin-min ts'ung- pao already brought out the effect of what he had expected. His own third-person evaluation of what his writings had done fully attests to this:

Liang Ch'i-ch'ao had never been comfortable with the prose style of T'ung-ch'eng schooF. Ever since he started school, he had modeled himself on the writings of Late Han and Wei-Tsin periods, and boasted of the self-discipline and self-control in his

" Liang, Hsia-wei-iyn-chi, in YPSCC, vol. 7, appendix to Hsin ta-lu yu-chi, pp. 153-55. Hereafter Hawaii Travelogue.

” A school of classical prose centered around such essayists as Fang Pao ( 1668-1749), Yao Nai (1732- 1815) and Liu Ta-k'uei (1698-1780), all ft om T'ung-ch'eng (Anlnvei province), emphasizing the so-called "i- fa" in wriintg. 54

writing. In the years of exile in Japan, his writings became liberated to reach the state of fluency and facility, occasionally mixed with colloquial, rhymed, and foreign words, or adopting foreign syntax. It flowed without any restraint and thus became the kind of writing that was much imitated. It came to be called the"New Style" writing. The old generation of scholars always hated it and accused it of being unorthodox. However, Liang's writing was well-reasoned and always contained a certain emotional feeling so that it appealed to its reader as if it had a magically captivating power.’®

Liang's reform in prose was closely related to his refromist activity and journalism. Even before Liang and K'ang Yu-wei, earlier intellectuals with reformist bent such as Wang T'ao,^’

Cheng Kuan-yingr* already talked about the newspaper as "the useful instrument of the nation

{kuo-chih li-ch'i)." Ever since Liang devoted himself to the cause of refrom, he realized thé importance of journalism. In a letter to Hsia Tseng-yu in 1895, he pointed out that "having

a newspaper is a must, for the writings in a newspaper can easily enter into the reader's mind

and thus the creation of a social spirit will not be far away."^’ Having seen the newspaper as the ideal instrument for disseminating reformist ideas and activating the masses, Liang

engaged himself in the writing and editing periodicals and his new style writing was thus

created. In order to reach a wider readership , a plain, easily grasped prose with emotional power was needed. Liang's writing shows that he has the sensibility to discern the pulse of the

Liang Ch'i-ch'ao, Ch'ing-tai hsueh-shu kai-lun (Intellectual Trend of the Ch'ing Period) (Taipei: Chung- hua shu-chu, 1980), p. 62. The translation is mine. Hereafter Kai-hm.

Wang T'ao ( 1828-1897), a poineer in intr oducing western learning, foimded a newspaper, Hsun-huan jih-pao, in Hong Kong as early as 1873, to advocate his refoim causes. See Eminent Chinese o f the Ch'ing Period. See also Paul A. Cohen, Between Tradition and Modernity: Wang T'ao and Reform in Late Ch'ing China (Cambridge: Har\'ard University Press, 1974).

“ Cheng Kuan-ying (1841-1921), a famous comprador in Shanghai, advocated refoim and his famous work Sheng-shih wei-yen (Warnings to a prosperous age) was veiy influential. See Yen-p'ing Hao, The Comprador in Nineteenth-Centiny China: Bridge between East and West (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1970).

“ Wu T'ien-jen, LCCNP, p. 85. 55 time and fully understands the power of writing to influence and motivate people. Hu Shih's memory of how he was influenced by Liang is representative: "[As compared with Yen Fu's profound and elegant classical prose,] Mr. Liang's writing is very well-written and easy to read, with the touch of strong emotion, so that the reader cannot but follow his way of thinking."^®

Liang's liberated "new style" writing of course implied a revolt against the establishment prose style at the time, as his remarks in Kai-hm clearly show. The first one he wanted to get rid of was the "eight-legged" essay (pa-kii wg/?—a type of classical-prose prescribed for the civil service examinations during the Ming and Ch'ing periods). From the historical perspective of the prose development in Chinese history, Liang in "Pien-fa t'ung-i" criticized the eight-legged writing. According to Liang, in the eight-legged essay one has to think and write in the position of the sages; the format is highly restrictive and the topic usually obtuse. The reason for making it so is to ensure that the strict format imprison one's thinking; one has to fulfill the minimum requirement of three hundred Chinese characters even when one has nothing more to say; and the maximum of seven hundred characters even when one's reasoning has not finished yet. Even worse, in Liang's opinion, is the underlying assumption that the extensive reading of books, either ancient or contemporary, will cause intellectuals to stray from the "filling-in" format and open their eyes to the real world.^' Partly because the effort of the reformists, and partly because eight-legged essays have long been the target of criticism from concientious intellectuals, this six-hundred year old tradition was

Hu Shih, Ssu-shih tzu-shu [Autobiogi'aphy at 40](Taipei: Yuan-tung t'u-shu, 1985), p. 57.

YPSWC, 1:48. 56 removed as a requirement for civil examinations during the Hundred Days' Reform.

Compared vvith eight-legged essays, ku-wen (classical prose) Avas popular and influential among intellectuals. Even those who were inclined toward reformism, such as Yen

Fu and Lin Shu, were the adherents of the T'ung-ch'eng School, which Liang challenged.

Liang's dissatisfaction with the T'ung-ch'eng school prose was unequivocal. Besides the

statement \n Kai-lun, he had much else to say in regard to this school. Basically, Liang thinks that "in the early period of Ch'ing dynasty the prose of those masters of classics (ching-shih) was direct and well-reasoned, without any literary showmanship; with the T'ung-ch'eng school, however, writing became something [with rules as rigid as those of] 'legal document.'"

"However, the writings of this school, judged by the standard of literature, were highly conventional and unnatural, without substantial content; judged by the standard of learning, the writings overprized impractical aesthetics and discouraged original creative ideas. They therefore were of no benefit to society.

To Liang Ch'i-ch'ao, art or poetry is essentially a momentary aesthetic experience. It can be characterized as a feeling or a state of mind. The creative activity is to capture this feeling or state of mind and represent it in words, and to pass it to others.^^ Writing therefore is a process that begins with feeling that the writer then tries to put down in appropriate words. The so-called "wen" (writing), "tao" (the Way), "i" (content), "fa" (method; structure) to him are simply strict norms imposed on writing, norms which therefore are unnatural. He

Kai-hm, pp. 75,50.

“ Liang Ch'i-ch'ao, Chung-kuoyun-wen li-t'ou so piao-hsien ti kan-ch'ing (Feelings as expressed in Chinese verse), in YPSCC, vol. 5, pp. 1-2. Hereafter Yun-wen. 57 once used the concept of inspiration to discuss classical prose:

Pedantic scholars always set up a standard according to their own formulation to criticize classical prose, as if such great writers as Han Yu and Liu Tsung-yuan all followed manuals in writing their prose. They talked so much about the "double- eged" (shuang-kuan fa), the "single-thread" (tan-t'ifa), the "up-and-down, pause-and- break" {i-yang hm-ts'uo fa), the "variations-and-mingling" (po-lan chin-tsung fa) rules, which men of insight only dismissed as ridiculous. Was it ever the case that when the ancients picked up their pens to write, they always had all these rules in mind? In effect, when they wrote, a certain ch'i [vitality, force] was present and became palpable, seen moving in between the words and the whole composition— without the slightest notice from the author. It is called "inspiration.

Seen from this perspective, it is no wonder that Liang was so much against the style of the

T'ung-ch'eng school, for such virtues as "i-fa" (right method, or rightness and method) so prized by T'ung-ch'eng adherents were to Liang but the imposed shackles like legal documents that restricted the originality and creativity of the writer. In this regard, Liang was not alone.

Feng Kui-fen^^ before him had expressed a similar attitude in a much more elaborate way:

I myself do not believe in the theory of i-fa. I think that all the writings are vehicles for carrying the tao. However, the tao does not have to be confined to so-called "t'ien- ming" (heavenly mandate) or "shuai-hsing" (abiding by the principle of nature); all human institutions and natural phenomena are where the tao resides, and therefore can be put down in writing....If a writing is good, its unpretentiousness or intensiveness, its length or quality , account for its being good. If it has natural rhythm, cogent reasoning, a good manipulation of the materials presented, if the writing says what the mind wants to express, there is no need for i-fa, when the writing is done, the fa is already there. The question of whether we need the i-fa or not is meaningless.^®

That Liang was more concerned with content than technique is obvious. Feng treated

Liang Ch'i-ch'ao, Tzu-yu shu (Book of Freedom) in YPSCC, vol. 3, p. 72.

For Feng Kuei-fen (1809-1847) and his political thought, see Lu Shih-ch'iang, "Feng Kuei-fen ti cheng- chih ssu-hsiang" (The political thought of Feng Kuei-fen), Chung-hua wen-hua fu-hsingyueh-k'an 4.2: 1 -2 (February 1971).

Feng Kui-fen, "Fu Chuang Wei-sheng shu" (A Letter in reply to Mr. Chuang), in Chung-kuo chin-tai wen-hsueh lun-chu ching-hsuan, ed. Chou Shao-liang, et al. (Taipei; Hua-cheng, 1982), p. 14. 58 everything as the the representation of the tao, thus broadening the scope of what prose could include as its legitimate materials for presentation. Liang, on the other hand, saw the so-called tao as understood by T'ung-ch'eng scholars as baseless and unrealistic. In an article on western learning, he accused most of the pedantic scholars of misunderstanding the meaning of tao. To Liang, the tao as understood by those scholars can be divided into three. The lowest group of scholars who see eight-legged essay writing, civil examination articles, and examination verse as the represenatation of the Way. The second group of scholars includes textual annotators, commentators—following the examples of Ma Jung (79-166) and Cheng

Hsuan (127-200)—and imitators of widely respected literary masters Han Yu (768-824), Su

Shih (1037-1101), Li Po (701-762), Tu Fu (712-770), claiming themselves as practioners of the Way. The third group consists of scholars who cultivate themselves, following the sacred teachings of the sages and holding on tightly to the idea of "respecting the king and expelling the barbarians (tsun-wang jang-i).” Liang's conclusion was that the so-called tao in the traditional sense as seen in the above three groups of scholars was not the true Way and thus could not meet people's need in the current situation. The Way had to be dynamic, adjusting and accomodating to new phenomenon so as to survive. Western learning to Liang should also be included in the so-called tao^^ Accordingly, we can say that Liang was not really revolting against the basic principle of i-fa as advocated by the T'ung-ch'eng school but that he was really opposing the narrow-mindedness of those scholars and their lack of concern for current affairs, especially for the thought and writings from the West. The reform in content becomes one important aspect of Liang's prose revolution.

' Liang Ch'i-ch'ao, "Hsi-hsuen shu-mu piao hou-hsu," YPSWC, 1 ; 127. 59

Liang did not discuss much on the technique of the New Style prose. In an article written in 1897 Liang thus distinguished between the so-called "ch'uan-shih chih wen

(writings that can be passed onto later generations)" and "chueh-shih chih wen (writings that aim to enlighten and awaken the whole nation)":

Six. Learning to write. The Tso Oman says: "If a person does not use language, who will know what is on his mind? If the language lacks patterning \weri\, it will not go far." Those who regard awakening the whole world as their mission should not ignore literary compositions. Those writings that aim to be passed down to later generations might be as leamed and elegant as the ancients, or might be firm, self- possessed or beautiful and rich, or they might be extraordinary and profound—either of these will do. For those writings that aim at awakening the world, "words communicate, that is all!" This latter kind of writing should set a standard of sound- reasoning and communication, without regard to literary craftsmanship. Ou-yang Hsiu once said, "Insofar as one styles oneself as a man of letters, nothing else is worth mentioning." If learning is not substantially advanced, it is shameful to compose.^*

Liang's composition evidently belongs to the "chueh-chih" category. Even though he set up the requirements for this kind of writings-sound-reasoning and communication—he himself admitted that his own writing, as emotionally-charged and captivating as it might be, was lacking in aesthetic qualities. In a letter to Yen Fu, he criticized his own new-style writing as follows. (I) Owing to the usually-urgent deadline for newspaper, his writing was occasioanlly hasty; and (2) because he saw himself simply as a pioneer in disseminating new ideas, he would leave the holy mission of writing masterpieces to others.^® Liang's statement in the preface to his Ying-ping-shih wen-chi best sums up this conviction: "Are the writings of people like me really aiming at storing up our works in a mountain retreat waiting for later

Liang Ch'i-ch'ao, "Hu-nan shih-wu hsueh-t'ang hsueh-yueh (Study guide for the Academy of Current Affairs in H unan)Y PSW C , 2: 27.

” Liang Ch'i-ch'ao, "Yu Yen Yu-ling hsien-sheng shu (Letter to Mr. Yen Fu)," YPSWC, 1: 107. 60 generarions to read them? They are indeed writing out of one's heart in response to the current external events."'”’

Language was one important issue in Liang's ideas of revolution of literary compositions. As we said earlier, Liang already observed in the "Pien-fa t'ung-i" the importance of using daily language in enlightening the common people. In Ch’ing-tai hsueh- shu kai-lun, Liang mentioned that his style was interspersed with colloquial language, rhymed words, and new foreign terms and syntax. This emphasis on colloquial language was probably influeced by Huang Tsun-hsien. Huang, in his "Tsa-kan shih (Miscellanous Poem)," gave expression to the idea: "My hand writes what my mouth says; how can the ancients come to restrict me?'"" Again in \âs Jih-pen kuo-chih (History of Japan), he says that "when [spoken] language and writing are separated, people have difficulty learning the writing; when they are one, people become literate easily."'*^ Liang's views on the use of vernacular language was most explicit in the Hsiao-shuo ts'ung-hua (Notes on Fiction): "There is a key turning point in the evolution of literature, namely, the development from literature of the ancient language to literature of the vernacular language. The development of all literary histories of the world follows this route.... If we want to make ideas popular, then the vernacular should be used not only by fiction but by all kinds of writing as well."'*^ Ti Pao-hsien quoted Liang as saying:

The Master of the Ice-drinker's Studio [Liang] once told me that the popularity of

" "Preface," YPSWC.

■" Chou Shao-liang, et al, ed. Chung-kuo chin-tai wen-hsueh lun-chu ching-hsuan, p. 172.

Huang Tsun-hsien, "Jih-pen kuo-chih hsueh-shu-chih" (History of Japan: On Learning), in Kuo Shao-yu, ed. Chung-kuo li-tai wen-lun hsuan (Shanghai: Shang-hai ku-chi,1980), vol. 4, p. 117.

A Ying, Yen-chiu chuan, p. 308. 61

vernacular language is one seminal turning point of literary progress. It is true with the whole world, and it should be true for China as well....As in the example of Japan, almost all the writngs put the oneness of speeches and writings as the their primary concern....'*'*

Liang did not go so far as advocating pai-hua (vernacular language) as the one and only language for literary composition, as Hu Shih did later, but his emphasis on the use of vernacular and colloquial language in writing paved the way for the New Cultural movement."*^

In short, Liang's ideas of prose-writing reform was centered around the content of writing. He wanted the prose to express one's own true feeling about what was going on within and around him. The so-called i-fa was therefore restrictive and unnatural in this regard, hence needed to be discarded. However, all writings have to have purposes. In his own case, he would rather write something to help enlighten and educate people than to write some pedantic and elegant ancient-style prose. In other words, his writing aimed first to enlighten and awake the whole nation ("chueh-shih"), and not concerned about being passed on to later genreations ("ch'uan-shih"). This enterprise of enlightening and awakening the whole nation required that the language used be plain and easily grasped. This is precisely where Liang's writing fits in and where his contribution lies. It is appropriate to conclude this section by quoting Hu Shih's comments on Liang's New Style writing.

Liang Ch'i-ch'ao was the one who made best use of different kinds of words, tones and syntax in his expository writings. He did not avoid the use of parallel structure and long comparisons; he did not refi-ain fi-om employing Buddhist terms, poetic allusions.

"Lun wen-hsueh shang hsiao-shuo chih wei-chih" (On the position of fiction in literature), in A Ying, Yen-chiu Chuan. p. 30.

For the cultural movement, see Chou Tse-tsung. The May Fourth Movement: Intellectual Revolution in Modern China (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1960), pp. 19-83. 62

and newly imported Japanese terms. His writings, therefore, were the least like the "content-and-technique" o f classicl prose (ku-wen i-fa), yet his writing is also the most captivating...The reason for this magical power can be summarized as (1) a liberation of the prose genre, breaking the restriction of the i-fa and chia-fa, and collapsing the boundaries o f classical prose, examination essays, casual essays and parallel prose. (2) Sound-reasoning and structures—all of Liang's long articles were well reasoned out and very easy to read. (3) The use of simple and plain diction and syntax makes understanding and imitation easy. (4) His writings are very stimulating—"with a touch of strong emotion.

Liang's ideas of literary composition reform and his practice in formulating a new style of prose writing thus signaled the beginning of a new chapter in the development of Chinese prose.

(2) Liang and the shih-chieh ko-ming (revolution in poetry)

This term shih-chieh ko-ming also came from Liang's Hawaii Travelogue (1899-

1900). To be sure, a conscious awareness that Chinese poetry needed a change could already be seen in ealier writings, such as Huang Tsun-hsien's "my hand writes what my mouth says" or in Hsia Tseng-yu, T'an Ssu-t'ung and Liang's poetic compositions which championed the introduction of new terms from the West. But it was in Liang's Hawaii Travelogue that he explicitly formulated what his ideas of a revolution in poetry should be:

Even though not good at poetic composition, I always like to dicuss it. It is my understanding that the domain of poetry had been occupied by those "parrot" scholars (my teasing term for those celebrated poets-though I feel it a little acrimonious). They might occasionally produce some quotable sentences or paragraphs, but when one reads them they turn out to be similar to some familiar texts seen in certain collections. This is the most despicable thing in reading poetry. It is fine if we do not compose poetry, but if we do engage in writing it, we should try to be the poineeers like Columbus and Magellan....To be the Columbus and Magellan of poetry, the poets

Hu Shih, "Wu-shih-nien lai Chung-kuo chih wen-hsueh (Chinese literature in the past fifly years)" in Hu Shih -wen-ts'un (Taipei: Yuan-tung t'u-shu, 1968), vol. 2, pp. 205-07. 63

need to have three requirements in writing poetry. First, a new vision {hsin i-ching)-, second, new expressions {hsin yu-chti)\ and third, mingling these two with a traditional poetic style (or versification) to compose a poem (/ chiu-feng-ko han hsin i-ching). Only those who can include these three elements in their poetry can be called kings of poetry of the twentieth-century China.

Liang then went on to detail what he and his friends like T'an Ssu-t'ung, Hsia Tseng-yu had done in this revolution enterprise. He singles out Huang Tsun-hsien's poems as incorporating some European ideas, even though their new expressions are insufficient. This is because of the fact that the new expressions are always in conflict with traditional style and therefore not easy to reconcile them. On the other hand, Hsia Tseng-yu and T'an Ssu-t'ung are good at using new expressions, such as those from the Buddhist Scriptures, rare and unfamiliar expressions or allusions from Chinese Classics and histories as well as European terms, but their poems cannot be properly called poetry, since they cannot conform properly to the traditional format. Liang here seems to recognize the difficulty in combining the new words and ideas and traditional poetic style together to form a new poetry. But he takes it as his own responsibility to introduce more European ideas, not just the new terms and expressions, into

China so that a fermentation might take place in the future. He feels that "the fate of Chinese poetry will reach its end" if a revolution were not launched. This realization of the poetic development and the sense of mission place Liang on the side of those who advocate revolution in poetry.

This announcement was not simply a manifesto for a poetry revolution but also indicated the guiding principles that Liang believed could lead to a new way of composing poetry. However, Hawaii Traveloqiie did not elaborate on the details; it is in his Yin-ping-

Hasvaii Traveloque,^. 153. 64 shih shih-hua (Poetry-talk from the Ice-Drinker's Studio, 1902-07) that he further elucidated the theory of revolution through the examination of the poetry ofhis contemporaries.

The first noteworthy of point is Liang's idea that Chinese poetry had reached a stage where refom was inevitable and imminent. Like his understanding of the classical prose of

T'ung-ch'eng school, he came to the conclusion that Chinese poetry had become ridden with cliches both in content and form. Therefore "a revolution in poetry is needed, or else it will be the fate of Chinese poetry to reach extinction."'*® Fortunately, to Liang, the so-called "three masters of poetry"—Huang Tsun-hsien, Hsia Tseng-yu and Chiang Kuan-yun-created a certain "new poetry" and anticipated the coming of a new poetic age. Liang firmly believed that each age should have its own poetry which was not necessarily inferior to what came before. "It is customary for Chinese men of letters to overprize the ancients and devalue the moderns. Whether it be in learning, in writing or in personal achievement, it is taken for granted that the ancients had reached a state unattainable to us. This is what I hate most to hear. In my humble opinion, the progress we have witnessed in the past had surpassed that of the ancients, and the achievements of our contemporaries are never worse than what the ancients had done.'"*® These convictions might have something to do with ideas of Darwinian evolution prevalent in the late Ch'ing period.®" But what were the things in the new poetry that Liang considers superior to that of the ancients? These have to be found in the elements

■•“ibid.

Liang Ch'i-ch'ao, Yin-ping-shih shih-hua (Peking: Jen-min wen-hsueh chu-pan-she, 1982), p. 4. Hereafter Shih-hua.

For the ideas of Darwinian evolution in China, see James Reeve Pusey, China and Charles Danvin (Cambridge: Council on East Asian Studies, Harvard University, 1983). 65 that he postulated for the "shih-chieh ko-ming."

The three seminal elements that Liang associated with revolution in poetry illustrated for him not only what the contemporaries achieved and also the direction that "new poetry" should strive for. The first one, hsitj i-chmg{n&N poetic vision or world) was never explicitly and clearly explained by Liang. His mentioning that this "hsin i-ching" had to be pursued in the new European social thoughts, philosophies, natural sciences and other new branches of knowledge that in Liang's opinion had made the West much more advanced than China. To

Liang, the exemplary new poetry was written by Huang Tsun-hsien and could therefore demonstrate what hsin i-ching should be. He praises highly Huang Tsun-hsien's "Chin pieh-li

(Farewell)" because the European scene forms the background of this poem, which describes certain European phenomena that were seldom seen in China. In this way the poem surpasses the efforts of all ancients as well as modern poets. In another poem Huang incorporated

Buddhist ideas and the botanical, chemical and biological theories of the West, thus was

"world-shaking," and "could achieve something for new poetry."" Again another of Huang's military poems is praised for its "heroic, energetic spirit, potent, undifferentiated style, ample, deep and far-flung tone."^^ So, the so-called "hsin i-ching" basically includes the thought, content of a poem, the object of description, or the intended poetic effects. We can call it new vision, new poetic world, new thought, or even new imagery.

Though Liang finds that Huang Tsun-hsien did to a great extent achieve hsin i-ching in his poems, he was not totally satisfied with that. He pointed out that all the poems he

" Liang, Shih-hua, pp. 30-31.

” ibid., pp. 42-43. 6 6 praised highly still remained in the stage of "trivial details in material sense [describing real objects seen in Europe]" and had not obtained "the real spirit and thought of Europe."^^ That is why Liang took it as his own responsibility to introduce more foreign thought and ideas into China.

As for "new expressions," Liang basically was talking about using new words and new phrases of the time to express the poet's thought. In this regard, Liang showed his strong sense of the new age, which needs new words to express new concepts. In an article discussing the translation of Buddhist texts he remarked: "Language is used to express concepts. Adding 35,000 phrases into our language means adding 35,000 concepts into our knowledge."^'* He therefore encouraged using "European words," such as "Caste" (ko-ssu- teh), "Parliament" (pa-li-men), "iron and blood" (t'ieh-hsieh),"modemity" (wen-ming) and allusions to foreign texts such as New Testament. But the use of new expression had to be subjected to the "old style," or else it was only the accumulation of words and phrases. In tliis regard, Liang also criticized his colleagues for hunting for new words simply to show off their superiority over others in terms of western learning.

The new vision and new expression, as we explained here, belong more to the aspect of content than that of form or technique. But these two elements, according to Liang, have to be subjected to the old traditional style. What is this traditional style? Lin Ming-teh, who goes over the Shih-hua and lists all those entries that mention "old style" or "traditional style,"

Hawaii Traveloque, p. 152.

’■' Liang, "Fan-i wen-hsueh yu fo-tien (Translating literature and Buddhist scriptures)" in Fo-hsueh yen-chiu shih-pa-pien, YPSCC, vol. 7, p. 27. 67 concludes that what Liang meant by thus term is no more than the traditional Chinese ideal for composing poetry that we find in L i Sao, Shih Ching (Book of Poetry), yueh-fu poetry: fang- hsin fei-tse (fragrance and sorrow) and wen-Jou tun-hou (gentleness and genuineness)/^ In a word, Lin treats the old style as a content-oriented state of poetic world or ideal. However,

Hsia Hsiao-hung adds that this style has to do with the versification of traditional Chinese poetry, in addition to the flavor or ideal that Lin mentions. What she means is that in order to write poems conforming to the traditional style, the poet has to use traditional forms such as chiteh-chu (quatrain) or lu-shih (regulated verse) or iz'u (lyric meters); these forms, as we know, demand strict formal and rhyming requirements. Whether content- or form-bound, the so-called chiu feng-ko (old poetic style) or kit feng-ko (ancient poetic style) that Liang insists upon, is nothing more than the old poetic tradition. This demonstrates Liang's conscious effort to reconcile a new subject matter with the old literary forms. Hsia traces the development in Liang's poetic compositions and comes to the conclusion that Liang was gradually going back to the realm of traditional poetry, whether in his understanding of poetry or in his poetic compositions.^® In fact, as an intellectual deeply rooted in the Chinese tradition, Liang was not likely to get away from his tradition in any great measure.

Furthermore, the very fact that he chose the traditional format of (poetry-talk) to critique Chinese poetry is a clear indication that he had no intention of deviating from the old tradition. We can accordingly argue that Liang basically could not, and would not, get away

“ Lin Ming-teh, "Liang Ch'i-ch'ao yu Wan-Ch'ing wen-hsueh yun-tung," Ph. D. Dissertation (Taipei: Cheng-chih ta-hsueh, 1988), pp. 49-54.

See Hsia Hsiao-hung, Chueh-shihyu ch'uan-shih, pp. 77-108. 6 8 from the Chinese poetic tradition, even though he wanted to add something new into it—a new awareness, a new perspective and a new horizon. Liang said in Shih-hua that

In the period of transition, revolution is inevitable. But revolution should emphasize the change o fspirit, instead o f form. My friends and I recently enjoyed talking about the revolution of poetry. If we simply treat the cramping of new terms on paper as a revolution, then it is no different from the kind of revolution that Ch'ing court advocates. Only when we can use old style to include new ideas and the new poetic world can we talk about the essence of revolution. If we can do that, even if we mix in some new terms, that would be fine. If not, it only shows our unworthiness.

Hu Shih has said that the success of the Cultural Movement lies in the fact that people began to consciously write pai-hua literature. This might explain why Liang's concepts of revolution in poetry did not receive much acclaim from later generations. Unlike his prose, which was plain and easy to read and imitate and at the same time full of strong emotion,

Liang's poems and views on the revolution in poetry remained at the level of intellectual contemplation and practices. The new words and expressions, new thought, new imagery and new poetic world—all the new things that Liang advocated at large—were basically confined to the circle of intellectuals and therefore far away from the populace. This probably is the main reason why his ideas on poetry never attained the attention given to his ideas on prose.

Nonetheless, if we judge his "revolution" by what he had postulated and what he had accomplished, we will have to admit that to a great extent Liang was successful in the

"revolution" of the content of poetry. He evidently added some new ideas into an old literary genre: reminding people that poetry itself should go along with change, advocating the introduction of new ideas and new expressions, and trying to reconcile old style and form with new ideas and expressions. It appears that Liang never aimed to change the form and style

' Liang, Shih-hua, p. 51. Emphasis added. 69 of traditional poetry. From a historical perspective, the change he had brought into traditional poetry does not have much impact. As a result, what Liang does is more of a "reform" than of "revolution." A new kind of poetry has to wait until the May Fourth generation like Hu

Shih and Ch'en Tu-hsiu to accomplish.

We should note that, to my best knowledge, Liang never in his writings showed any opposition to pai-hua poetry, though his attitude is cautious and reserved. Earlier in Notes on Fiction he once noted that "there is a pivotal point in the evolution of literature, that is, evolving from classical language to vernacular language."^* But there he is discussing the development in the context of prose literature such as prose and fiction, and poetry is not involved. In 1927, eight years after May Fourth Movement, he wrote a preface to a selection of poems by Huang Tsun-hsien and Chin Ho (1819-1885), in which he added something important about his ideas of poetry.^® According to his own experience in composing traditional poetry and writing/7o/-/?tfa articles, he reminded the reader that one can write good poetry whether using classical language or vernacular language, as long as good material and a good poetic effect or state is obtained. The difference between pai-hua and classical poetry lay in the technicality, not in language medium. He reiterated the idea that poetry is the expression of one's own sincere feeling and concerns in writing, where the spirit or content is more important than the versification. But good poetry still has to be a special combination of content (thought, ideal, and so on) and form (techniques, form, versification, etc.). In

Hsiao-shuo ts'ung-hua, in Yen-chiu chuan, p. 308.

Liang Ch'i-ch'ao, "Wan-Ch'ing liang-ta-chia shih-ch'ai t'i-tz'u" (Inscription to the Selected Poems of Huang Tsun-hsien and Chin Ho), YPSWC, 43:69-80. 70

general, Liang was very optimistic about the development of the new pai-hua poetry; but he

was also cautious about its shortcomings. For instance, he pointed out that vernacular poetiy

is not succinct enough in syntax; it is not refined in ways of expression; it does not have as

rich a vocabulary as its classical counterpart; and its musicality is still lacking, and so on. This

is another indication that Liang was so deeply rooted in traditional Chinese literature that even

after a new literature was launched by the May Fourth generation Liang could still see values

in traditional Chinese poetry. The "totalistic antitraditionalisni" that Lin Yu-sheng finds in

such May Fourth intellectuals as Ch'en Tu-hsiu, Hu Shih and Lu Hsun is apparently not

present in Liang's thought.®® Liang may not have had direct impact on the emergence of a new pai-hua poetry, but his calling for a change in poetry to adapt to the demands of a new age

might no^theless contribute to paving the way for the May Fourth intellectuals two decades

later.

(3) Liang's General Ideas of Literature

In his study of the influence of foreign ideas on Chinese literary criticism, Mariân

Gâlik, after briefly describing Liang's ideas of fiction, asks: "Where is the origin of this theory

which so energetically rejects the old Chinese tradition?" Galik feels that Liang and his

followers revolted against the literary thought of the T'ung-ch'eng and Wen-hsuan schools®'

“ See Lin Yu-sheng, The Crisis o f Chinese Consciousness: Radical Antitraditionalism in the May Fourth Era (Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press, 1979), pp. 10-55.

A school of prose writing in the late Ch'ing period, the Wen-hsuan School champions the Wen-hsuan (Anthology of literature)—a work compiled by Hsiao T'ung (501 -531 ) of the Liang dynasty—as the model for writing prose. The parallel structure commonly used in the Wen-hsuan thus becomes a standard form in writing. Huang K'an and Liu Shih-pei are the two prominent figures. 71

and "tried to some extent to follow foreign literary criticism."®^ From the analysis above, it

is clear that Liang neither rejected the Chinese tradition nor embraced foreign influences

wholesale— at least not in his understanding and practice of poetry and prose.

Basically, as I tried to show, Liang was one deeply immersed in the Chinese tradition.

If he ever had any so-called revolts against the tradition, it was always because he stood in

opposition to the current establishment which to him was too unyielding either in content or

in technique. The T'ung-ch'eng School was one such, but not the whole Chinese tradition. In

fact, Liang's ties with traditional Chinese literature is closer than we can imagine. Let us

examine some of his general ideas of literature to see this connection.

We mentioned earlier that the Chinese theory of literature is usually divided into two

categories: yen-chih and tsai-tao. I also tried to show that if we take into account the

pragmatic nature of the Chinese concept of literature, the distinction between j/g/z-cA/A and

tsai-tao modes of thinking can be deconstructed. The chih ("intent") \n yen-chih (to express

one's intent) is always mingled with a functional concept of literature: what literature can and

should do.®^ This pragmatic functional concern can certainly subsume the tsai-tao, for tao,

simply put, is nothing more than what people should value and follow. Therefore, Chinese yen-chih tradition is never like what we find in English Romantic expressive theory such as

Wordsworth's "spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings"—a pure, disinterested feeling that

“ Mariân Gâlik, "On the Influence of Foreign Ideas on Chinese Literary Criticism (1898-1904)," Asian and African Studies (Bratislava) II (1966): 41.

“ Or, if we put it in a modem way, Chinese concept of literature is an epistemological rather than an ontological one. Probably because of this, a concept of pure literature {belles lettres) close to the sense we use today did not come into being until very late in the Six Dynasties (222-589). Even so, the nature of literature has never been a subject of interest for Chinese. See also James Liu, Chinese Theories o f Literature, pp. 7-9. 72

is at once personal and aesthetic. This kind of aesthetic treatment of feeling in the Chinese

case is more likely to belong to what we usually call "the school of spirit and tone {shen-yun p a i)"^ —though again the shen-yun tradition still cannot be easily separated from the

pragmatic consideration. Anyway, if we treat yen-chih tradition in a broad sense, then Liang

Ch'i-ch'ao is one who very well represents the tradition of yen-chih.

Liang Ch'i-ch'ao in his introduction to Chting-kuo chih mei-wen chi ch'i li-shih

(Chinese belles-lettres writing and its history) first defines what a verse is: "poetry or ballad

is composed by those who can express in an extreme simple and natural syllables the feelings

of the moment."®^ In another book, Chung-kuo yun-wen li-i'ou so piao-hsien ti ch'ing-kan

(Feelings as Expressed in Chinese Verse), he describes that "Feeling is the most sacred thing

in the universe." He then went on to discuss this feeling: "The nature of feeling is instinctual,

but its power can lead one to a beyond-instictual state. The nature of feeling is transient, but

its power can lead one to a transcendent state....If we want to merge our life with the

universe, it is not possible except through the gate of feeling. This sounds very much like

what we see in the "Great Preface": "The affections {ch'ing) are stirred within and take on

form {hsing) in words {yen).” We can call it expressive or metaphysical, depending on what

perspective we choose. Nonetheless, Liang goes on to qualify this statement:

“ A school founded by Wang Shih-chen (1634-1711). champions the achievement of an intuitive apprehension of reality, intuitive artistry, and personal tone. See James Liu, Chinese Theories o f Literature, pp. 43-45; Richard John Lynn, "Orthodoxy and Enlightenment: Wang Shih-chen's Theory of Poetry and Its Antecedents," in William De Bary, ed. The Unfolding o f Neo-Confucianism (New York: Columbia University Press, 1975), pp. 217-269.

“ Collected in YPSCC, vol. 5, p. 1. All the works collecetd here in this volume do not share a consecutive pagination. 1 will hereafter refer to this work e& Mei-wen.

“ Yun-wen, p. 1. 73

Though the function of feeling is sacred in its nature, we cannot say this nature is definitely good and beautiful. It can also be bad and ugly, blind and rampant. When it is good, it turns out to be so lovely; when it is bad, so fearsome. Therefore, ever since ancient times, great men in religion and education have stressed the cultivation of feeling. As a matter of fact, the education of feeling takes the first priority. The purpose of the cultivation of feeling is nothing more than to develop the good part of feeling and suppress the bad part of it. The more this kind of stress is done the more progress human beings will make.

Therefore, the social responsibility of an artist is of the paramount importance:

The authority of art is that it can grasp the feeling of the moment and represent it again. It also embodies in the fact that the artist has injected the feeling with his personal imprint into someone else's feeling valve and come to occupy the feeling of this person. Because of such tremendous power that art has, the artist has to assume utmost responsibility—whether he will be beneficial or detrimental is of a subtle nature.®’

This is definitely a pragmatic view of literature, subjecting all other concerns to that of literary functionalism.

This kind of mingling aesthetic feeling with sociopolitical concern can also be seen when Liang discusses the poet T'ao Yuan-ming (365-427). In that book he first explains that

"there are two approaches to discussing literature: one is the Zeitgeist (shih-tai hsin-li), the other is author's character."®® He goes on: "It is my contention that to look into an author's character, we have to seek the following two features: first, his particularity. What is this

'particularity'? By that I mean his work has to be original and free of cliches;... secondly, his sincerity. What is this 'sincerity'? By that I mean that he has to present his naked feelings totally, without any affectation."®® After thus explaining his perspective, Liang goes on to

Yun-wen, pp. 1-2.

“ YPSCC. vol. 8, T'ao Yuan-ming, p. 1.

Tao Yuan-ming, p. 2. 74

discuss T'ao's biography, his time, his homeland and the spirit of the age.

So Liang Ch'i-ch'ao does not deny the existence of aesthetic elements—his understanding of feeling demonstrates this well. Art or poetry is essentially a transitory

aesthetic experience. It can be characterized as a feeling or a state of mind. The creative

activity is to capture this feeling or state of mind and represent it in words, and thus to pass

it on to others. But to Liang, it does not end there; it also has to "inject" the feeling into

someone else's emotional receptacle and come to rest within this person as "seeds."

The consciousnesses which perfume and the consciousnesses which is perfumed live and perish together; on this is established the concept of "perfuming. In this way the seeds that lie within what is perfumed (i.e., within the alaya consciousness [one of the eight consciousnesses that means, literally, 'storehouse consciousness']) are engendered and caused to grow, just as the hemp plant is perfumed (by its flower). Hence the term perfuming. As soon as the seeds are engendered, the consciousness which perfume act in their turn as causes to perfume and mature the seeds. These three elements (the seed which is first bom, the consciousness which then perfume, and the seeds which are either engendered or caused to grow by this perfuming) revolve in a cycle, simultaneously acting as cause and effect, just as a wick engenders flame and the flame engenders the incandescence of the work.™

This is not only an aesthetic concern but an affective consideration. But this feeling is tinged with the imprint of the author, who has been interacting with his historical reality, so much

so that the feeling {chih) here is not merely a momentary feeling but a loaded one

representative of the personality of the author and the immediate concerns of his times. The

writer/artist, therefore, is first of all concerned about his momentary feeling and setting it

down in words. Then he has to be cautious about its effects because once his ideas are

Fung Yu-lan, A History o f Chinese Philosophy, trans. Derk Bodde (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1953), vol. II, p. 307. Liang Ch'i-ch'ao has employed this "perfuming" theory later in his discussion of the first of his "four powers" of fiction in his "On the Relationship Between Fiction and social order." I will come back to discuss this theory in the context of Liang's ideas of fiction next chapter. 75 communicated to his reader, influences will take effect. This functional, affective view of literature is best demonstrated in Liang's views of fiction, which we will come back to in next chapter. We will have to note here that this affective theory of Liang is basically seeing literature from the perspective of the author. But we know that the reader cannot be totally passive, with no notion of what he wants to accept. The authority of art, as we understand it today, might not as powerful as Liang expects it to be.

My discussion so far is based on a general picture of what Liang's literary thought is; however, his literary thought also has dififerent emphases at different stages in response to the needs of the times. Hsia Hsiao-hung in her book divides Liang's literary thought into two stages, that is, the stage of "literature for the saving of nation" and that of "feeling as the center of literature," and claims that there is a developing, transforming process discernable in each stage.’* According to Hsia,

in the early stage, Liang, as a reformist politician, saw literature from a political angle. His literary activities centered around his political activities and carried with it a strong touch of propagandist inclination; his literary thought was thus saturated with political intents. He had never aflSrmed the independent artistic value of literature, had always consciously used literature as an instrument for saving his country... In the latter stage, Liang, as a scholar engaged in the study of culture of the past, was not in pursuit of the practical function of literature, but paid attention to its lasting values. The result was that poetry came to take over the primacy of fiction.”

I basically agree with her that at different stages Liang's literary thought might show different emphases, but in general I believe Liang is consistent in his concept of literature and what literature can and should do. In other words, it seems to me that there is no transformation

Hsia Hsiao-hung, Chueh-shihyu ch'uan-shih: Liang Ch'i-ch'ao ti wen-hsueh tao-lu, p. 37.

" Chueh-shihyu ch'uan-shih, pp. 37, 38. Emphasis mine. 76 in the nature of Liang's concept of literature as Hsia Hsiao-hung characterizes it. For different ^ purposes at dififerent times, Liang might adjust, or even twist, his literary thought to achieve certain aims, but his essential idea of literature as the expression of human feeling with pragmatic concerns remains the same. As Professor Kung-ch'uan Hsiao remarks in his study of Liang Ch'i-ch'ao's social and political thought, "If we read carefully all of Liang's works, it appears there is a consistent line of thinking within the seemingly unsystematic thought."’^

I think this goes for Liang's literary thought as well.

Hsiao Kung-ch'uan, Chung-kuo cheng-chih ssu-hsiang shih (A history of Chinese political thought) (Taipei: Lien-ching ch'u-pan shih-yeh, 1982), p. 821. CHAPTER n

LIANG CH'I-CH'AO’S VIEWS ON FICTION

Liang Ch'i-ch'ao was one of the most influential intellectual figure in the late-Ch'ing period. Because he was so well read and was always searching for solutions to save China from her predicament, he touched upon almost all domains that concerned Chinese intellectuals during those turbulent times. His influence was therefore not confined to the socio-political sphere. For example, his study of the intellectual history of Ch'ing dynasty.

Buddhism, Chinese historiography, and Chinese culture in general, among other things, were all highly regarded, not to mention his later works on Chinese literature. The unique, simplified-classical writing style he developed to disseminate his political ideas also became most influential on young writers. His views on fiction were no exception. As all of Liang's work in the late Ch'ing period (in contrast to that of the Republican period) can be roughly subsumed under one major rubric—how to save China {chiu wang t'u ts'im), his several articles on fiction also showed strongly this major concern. This concern, we must note, did not prevent Liang from looking into other aspects of fiction literature, e.g. the reader's psychology and aesthetic factors, as will be discussed below.

As important as his ideas were to writers of his time, Liang Ch'i-ch'ao in fact did not write much concerning fiction. We have only four articles on the subject, some remarks

77 78

included in treatises on other subjects, some passages in Hsiao-shuo ts'ung-hua (Notes on

fiction), and two short declarative articles. These four articles are (1) "I-yin cheng-chih hsiao-

shuo hsu" (Preface to translations of political novels, 1898); (2) "Lun hsiao-shuo yu ch'un-

chih chih kuan-hsi" (On the relationship between fiction and social order, 1902); (3) Hsin

Chung-kuo wei-lai chi hsu-yen (Preface to The Future o f New China, 1902); (4) "Kao hsiao-

shuo chia" (To fiction writers, 1915). Those treatises are (1) "Lun yu-hsueh" (On elementary

education) in "Pien-ta t'ung-i" (General discussion on reform, 1896); (2) "Ch'uan-po wen- ming san li-ch'i" (Three seminal instruments for disseminating the ideas of modernity) in Tzu- yiishu (Book on freedom, 1899). The two declarative articles include "Hsin hsiao-shuo ti-i- hao (First issue of New Fiction, 1902)," the announcement of the forthcoming literary magazine, Hsin hsiao-shuo (New Fiction) in the newspaper Hsin-min ts'ung-pao (1902) and

"Chung-kuo wei-i chih wen-hsueh-pao: Hsin hsiao-shuo (China's only literary magazine: New

Fiction, 1902)."^

Among these writings, the earliest that touch upon the subject of fiction are his remarks in "On Elementary Education," included in the long seminal article "General

Discussion on Reform." After delving into the reasons why China could not catch up to the

West, Liang offers several propositions on reforming the educational system, one of which is the development of fiction. He first discusses why fiction was traditionally welcomed by

‘ All of Liang's writings on fiction can be found in A Ying's Yen-chiu chuan except the following: "On Elementary Education" of "Pien-fa t'ung-i" is in YPSWC, 1: 44-60; "Preface" to Hsin Chung-kito wei-lai chi is from Wan-Ch'ing wen-hsueh ts'ung-ch'ao: hsiao-shuo chuan, ed. A Ying, vol. 1; Tzu-yu shu is collected in YPSCC, vol. 3; and the advertisement for Hsin hsiao-shuo can be found in Hsin-min ts'ung-pao 20 (1902): 99-100. Ch'en P'ing-yuan and Hsia Hsiao-hung, ed. Erh-shih shih-chi Chung-kuo hsiao-shuo li-lun tzu-liao (Sources of Fictional Theory in the twentieth-century China), vol. I (1897-1916) (Peking: Pei-Ching ta-hsueh ch'u-pan-she, 1989) includes all these in their anthology. 79 most common people: it was written in a language that most people could easily understand.

But since fiction was also traditionally looked down upon by intellectuals, this vehicle for educating common people accordingly fell into the hands of lesser individuals who turned fiction into an instrument of disseminating brigandage and lechery Qtui-tao hui-yin). In order to reform education, Liang therefore urges the appropriation of this misused medium, to make all that would be politically educative for the benefit of the common masses, and ultimately of the state.

Now we should exclusively use the colloquial language to produce numerous books for the benefit of the populace. Their higher function is to propagate the teachings of the sages, and their lower is to narrate historical events in a miscellaneous fashion. Their immediate concern is to awaken a sense of national shame and their lesser urgent business is to depict the conditions of the people. The shameful ways of bureaucracy, the ludicrous stupidities at the examination halls, the inveterate habit of opium-smoking, the cruel torture of foot-binding—these could all be described with utter realism so as to lift us above the manners and customs of a degenerate age. Aren't the benefits to be reaped from this kind of fiction indeed measureless?^

Several important issues are touched upon here by Liang. In the first place, he points out the issue of the language used in fiction. He suggests that in order to teach the common masses, a language easily intelligible to the reader was not only desirable but necessary. The idea of using colloquial language in literary forms other than fiction has been an important part of

Liang's thought, as I made clear in the previous chapter.^

The second important point here is the various functions of fiction that Liang postulates. It seems to Liang that the functions of fiction are: (1) instruction, (2) information.

^ YPSWC, 1:54. The translation is C. T. Hsia's in "Yen Fu and Liang Ch'i-ch'ao," p. 256.

^ See my discussion in the previous chapter. For Huang's ideas of using colloquial language in literary creation see J. D. Schmidt, Huang Tsun-hsien (Boston: Twayne, 1982) and Chang Yung-fang, Wan-Ch'ing shih-chieh ko-ming lun (Kuei-lin: Li-chiang ch'u-pan-she, 1991). 80

(3) exposure. Liang probably is the first one to posit these functions together in one article and discussed them. We should note that of these functions, while the function of instruction has traditionally been attributed to fiction, the information function is extremely context- bound and thus broadening the scope of traditional fiction. Liang here mentions that fiction can help people understand contemporary political situations of their country as well as foreign affairs. (As a matter of fact, Liang later, in his Future of New China, did delineate the historical context in Manchuria by copying down passages verbatim from newspapers.)

Moreover, even thou^ the exposure theme had been frequently treated as social criticism in late-Ch'ing fiction by Lu Hsun, Liang might again be the first one to highlight it. As mentioned earlier, the pragmatic concept of literature had long been dominant in China and Liang's literary thought was essentially pragmatic. Here Liang shows how a literary genre can be endowed with various uses and purposes and put in service of his reform agenda. He, however, did not elaborate on the ways how fiction could reach these goals. What Liang wanted fiction to do was basically to teach the social reality that the common people needed to know. And he believed this enlightenment might be able to involve common people in the saving of their countiy. No matter what the functions of fiction may be, it is apparent that in

Liang's eyes these functions are all being treated from the perspective of an author or a critic, or even an educator who are standing high above and discussing what "they"—the common people—should learn or what and how fiction could do for "them"*'. Liang puts this clearly in

■' Hu Shih's discussion of the ideology of traditional Conlucian literati in treating vemaculai' is appropriate here; "[For those people who advocated vernacular language] their biggest problem is to separate the society into sides: on the one side is the 'they'; on the other side is the 'we.' By the former side is the 'they' who should use vernacular, and by the latter side is the 'we' who should compose writings and poems in classical language. It is all right for the 'we' to eat meat, but the 'tliey' in lower social .status is not qualified to eat meat. So 'we' can throw them a left-over bone for them to taste." See Hu Shih. "Wu-shih-nien lai Chung-kuo chih wen-hsueh," in 81 his "Preface to Translations of Political Novels":

Therefore, since the Six Classics cannot be used to teach them [common people who do not read classical Chinese], they should be taught by means of fiction; what the official histories fail to convey should be conveyed in fiction; what the recorded sayings are unable to elucidate should be elucidated through fiction; and what the laws fail to govern should be governed by fiction. There are few who are well-versed in literature but many who can barely read. Although the Six Classics are elegant, if there is no one who can thoroughly understand their meaning and no one who knows how to read them, then they are like bright pearls thrown into the darkness, or like the swordsman who can only grasp his sword in anger (but is unable to draw it).®

Liang's elitist views expressed here are no different from those of his literati predecessors and are typical among his contemporaries, who assumed the role of Confucian elite in carrying out the mission and responsibility of educating and enlightening the common people (chiao-hua).

But what makes him different fi'om his predecessors was the stressful time in which he lived, a time during which Chinese culture itself was being re-evaluated. The loss of faith in the state, the debunking of such customs as footbinding, opium smoking, for example, were the common concerns of late Ch'ing literati, as we see so often in the so-called "castigatory fiction" (ch'ien-tse hsiao-shuo) of Li Po-yuan, Wu Wo-yao and others. What Liang wanted to do was not only to tell the people that there existed in society many corrupt and inhuman customs, but also the political urgency that had befallen China. By showing the masses what the actual situation of the society and the state was, he hoped to influence and involve the people in his social mission of saving China.

Hu Shih wen-ts'un (Taipei; Yuan-tung t'u-shu, 1971), vol. 2, p. 246. This ideology is in general shared by most literati at late -Ch'ing and early Republican periods, including Liang and even Hu Shih himself, see Yu Ying- shih. Chung-kuo chin-tai ssu-hsiang-shih shang ti Hu Shih (Taipei: Lien-ching. 1984). pp. 29-34.

' "Preface to Translations of Political Novels." 82

In 1898, Liang published his "Preface to Translations of Political Novels," in the

newspaper Ch'ing-i pao. This article was later used as a preface to Liang's translation of

Shiba Shiro's Kajin no kigu {Chia-jen ch'i-yu chi). 1898 was the year the Hundred Days'

Reform failed and Liang barely survived through the diplomatic intervention of the Japanese

government. According to one source, Liang translated this novel during his escape to Japan,

when the captain of the battleship Oshima maru gave him a copy in the original Japanese.®

The translation was later serialized in Ch'ing-i pacP, founded the same year by Liang Ch'i-

ch'ao, with the financial assistance from the overseas Chinese in Japan.

Since this is not only an article, but also a preface to a so-called "political novel," our

discussion will benefit from some brief background information on this kind of novel and

Liang's relationship to it. A more comprehensive discussion of the possible foreign influences

on Liang will be considered in a later chapter. From available data, we are not too sure about

Liang's mastery of foreign languages. Latin (which he learned from the linguist and

grammarian Ma Chien-chung [1844-1900] in Shanghai) and Japanese seemed to be the only

languages that he had basic knowledge of at this time. Assisted by the Chinese characters used

in the Japanese language, Liang seemed to have little trouble reading some of the Japanese

works in the ronbim style. Our interest here, however, is the question how much Liang's

understanding of the so-called "political novel" helped shape his general views on fiction.

®SeeLNCC,pp. 80-81.

’ It was serialized in vols. 1-3,5-22,24-29,31-35, spanning the period from December 23,1898 to February 10,1900. The preface appeared in the first issue. 83

What did Liang mean by "political novel"? He does not provide a definition, yet traces o f what political novel he had in mind can be discerned in the article in question here.

"Formerly, at the start of reform or revolution in European countries, their leading scholars and men of great learning, their men o f compassion and patriots, would frequently record their personal experiences and their cherished views and ideas concerning politics in the form o f fiction," so that most people could know and discuss them and "a whole nation would change its views on current affairs. So, to him, political novels are the means through which men o f letters express their ideas and experiences regarding their immediate political concerns, with the purpose o f spreading knowledge and thus educating the common people.

However, should the writings be dull and doctrinaire they would not be effective. "[A]ll human beings are fond o f interesting things and afraid o f solemn topics"; moreover, "those who know how to teach will teach according to natural human needs."® In fact, this is one major theme throughout most o f Liang's articles concerning fiction: loving fiction is natural to people, and if intellectuals are clever enough to make the best use o f this love, they can turn fiction into a most effective educative instrument. We can see from the explanation

Liang's concept o f what a political novel is-even though he was not able to read political novels in English. There is no doubt Liang's ideas of political novels came from Japan (the

Chinese term, cheng-chih hsiao-shuo, is directly borrowed from Japaneseseiji shosetsu) and the political novel as he understood it fits perfectly his goals o f utilizing this popular literary genre to educate people to join his political cause.

® A Ying, Yen-chiu chuan, p. 14. C. T. Hsia's translation, "Yen Fu and Liang Ch'i-ch'ao," p. 232.

® Yen-chiu chuan, p. 13. 84

In this regard, we can say that the so-called political novel is not really much different from the general novel Liang mentioned earlier, in terms of its educative function. Both can be used to teach common people because of their easy accessibility. Three things, though, were added into Liang's discussion. First, he came up with a theory of human need of reader liking something that is accessible and appealing. Second, in "On Elementary Education"

Liang had mentioned that fiction can be used to instruct, to inform, and to debunk. He did not touch upon the power of fiction and its effects on common people. Here, however, he did discuss how experience, thought and political arguments could influence people. This new realization eventually leads him to a human psychology of reading fiction, to such terms as

"hsun (to perfume)," "chin (to soak)," "tz'u (to incite)," "t'i (to elevate)." In other words, the embryo of the affective theory of fiction he was to espouse can be discerned here. Third, he has opened up the political dimension of fiction. What he emphasized in this article was the social and political thought and ideas in the novel that could help turn the country around.

This aspect is something that his earlier writing, or the works of his predecessors, had not touched upon, and is one of the most important aspects of Liang's "revolution" in fiction. In other words, fiction, unlike in the past when it was treated as "trivial" or "unworthy," now is the medium to convey such serious matters as the fate of the nation, the political and social thought that can help the improvement of China.

In 1899, Liang launched a series of short essays in the Ch'ing-i pao, under the title of

Tzii-yu shn (Book on freedom), each devoted to a topic that had come to his attention. "Three

Seminal Instruments for Disseminating the Ideas of Modernity" was one of them. In this article, he introduces ideas from Inugai Tsuyoshi that school, newspaper and public lecturing 85 were the three important vehicles for spreading modernity (wen-ming)}^ To these three factors, Liang adds "fiction." Here he does not deal with fiction with regard to its nature or function, but simply points out the effect fiction has had in helping familiarize Japanese with such ideas as fi'eedom, democracy, and so on. The Japanese translations of European novels that he lists, for example, include Oda Jun'ichiro's Karyu Shunwa ("A Spring Tale of Flowers and Willows," a translation of Bulwer Lytton's Earnest Maltravers) and those writers inspired by the translations, such as Shiba Shiro, Yano Ryukei, Suehiro Tetcho and others." Liang adds that all these writers of political novels were political polemicists using the novel to express their opinions, and therefore their work can not be treated simply as novels. In other words, the thought and intention behind the novel has to be considered seriously as well. The motivation that inspired Liang's advocacy of the political novel and his writing of The Future o f New China can be detected here.

At any rate, putting Liang's statements up to this point in context, we should note that fiction to Liang was not an independent aesthetic entity in itself (as described in the previous chapter), but a kind of writing in which writers express their ideas in an attempt to affect their readers—for the good of their society and country. He was continuing his initial position of advocating the socio-educational functions of fiction without going into detail on how fiction could come to fulfill these functions.

That wen-ming was used by Liang to mean "modernity" instead of "civilization," see Philip Huang, Liang Ch'i-ch'ao and Modem Chinese Liberalism (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1972), pp. 53-56.

" See a succinct discussion of the western influence on Japanese novels in the early Meiji period see G.B. Sansom, The Western World and Japan (London: The Cresset Press, 1950), pp. 413-433. 86

By 1902, however, it appears that Liang had gained more knowledge of the fiction genre and broadened his perspective, as we can detect both from his famous article, "On the

Relationship Between Fiction and Social Order," and from an advertisement, entitled "First

Issue of New Fiction," in the Hsin-min ts'ung-pao, previewing the content of the first issue of the newly-founded literary magazine, Hsin hsiao-shuo F In this advertisement, several points can be summarized. First, following his argument in the 1898 article ["Preface"], Liang recapitulates his idea that the "new-fashion" fiction (of course he meant the novel with "new ideas") should be set apart from the kind of popular fiction of the past that incites lechery or brigandage. Second, he here acknowledges one important phenomenon of Chinese fiction, namely, its consistent ability to appeal to human emotions, and thinks that this ability could serve as an important standard forjudging a particular work. He also touches upon several technical problems that writers of serialized fiction might encounter; for example, how to keep the reader in suspense; how to create climax in each serialized section, how serialization allows no chance for revisions, and so on. He even suggests ways of leading the reader into the plot as quickly as possible so that the reader would not become impatient and discard the story.

On the whole, we will have to admit that Liang was someone who knew about the

Chinese narrative tradition and fiction writing. He knew that fiction has to appeal to the feeling, imagination and intellect of the reader. He knew that in order to appeal to the reader.

The advertisement was carried in thsHsin-min ts'ung-pao 20 (1902), 99-100. No author's name was signed. However, we know the fact that Liang was solely responsible for almost all of the writing and editing of this bi-monthly. SesLNCC, p. 149 and Chang P'eng-yuan, Liang Ch'i-ch'ao yu Ch'ing-chi ko-ming, p. 290. Apart from that, the writing style and key tone of the advertisement is similar to Liang's, not to mention that Liang was again the chief writer and editor of Hsin hsiao-shuo. It will, therefore, not be too unreasonable to assume Liang's authorship for this announcement. 87 technical devices, such as building climax, suspense, rhetoric devices, and so on, are needed in writing fiction so as to captivate the attention of the reader. He could also tell the differences (and, to be sure, some continuities) between the format of traditional novel and that of the serialized novel—a new form that never appeared in China before:

A novel [in traditional form] always contains scores of chapters, and therefore the author has to make sure that the unity and coherence in plot and structure has been taken care of. These authors of traditional novels accordingly are able to revise several times before their work can be satisfactory. Nowadays, in accordance with the nature of newspaper and magazine, only one chapter can be published each month. Authors have no way of revising their work anytime they wish, and a well-structured novel, therefore, is no longer easy to compose.

Liang evidently knew very well the popular appeal of fiction, the technicality of writing fiction, and the affective forces of fiction. Why then does he claim for fiction a "supreme" position (wen-hsueh chih tsui shcmg-ch'eng) on the one hand and denounce traditional fiction as "inciting lechery and brigandage" on the other? The answer has to be found in the immediate and pragmatic concerns that Liang had at the time in response to his situation. In other words, as Liang clearly states, the purpose for advocating fiction was "to revitalize the spirit of our fellow countrymen and enlighten them (chen kuo-min ching-shen, k’ai kuo-min chih-shih)," and "to push forward the modernity and progress of China (k'ai-tao Chung-kuo wen-ming chin-pu)." Accordingly, while denouncing "bad" contents of most traditional

Chinese novels, Liang is turning the special features of easy accessibility and popular appeal displayed in fiction to serve his sublime reformist cause. As he notes later, fiction, like "air and food" for human body, can be an important power in affecting human thought and behavior, and this power comes precisely fi'om its easy accessibility and popularity. If fiction teaches

"First Issue of yew Fiction" Hsin-min ts'ung-pao 20 (1902). 88

something good, "then it can benefit all populace"; if bad, "leaving bad effects for years to

come."*'* This is something that the "high-brow" literature cannot achieve. Under the highest

requirement that "to renovate our country, we must renovate our citizens first (yu wei-hsin

wo-kuo, tang hsien wei-hsin wo-min),"'^ easy accessibility and popularity are therefore

indispensable to his cause, and fiction, possessing these two important features, is naturally

elevated to the "supreme" position.

One month later (November, 1902), with the publication of the article, "On the

Relationship Between Fiction and Social Order," in Hsin hsiao-shuo, Liang was able to show

a more serious and detailed view of fiction, one which in my own opinion treats fiction from

a more literary perspective. Beginning in his usual pompous and exaggerated tone, Liang

claimed that fiction could be used as the instrument to renovate people of a country, morality,

religion, politics, custom, learning, human mind, and personal character. But he was not only

talking about what fiction could and should do, he also saw fiction from a literary and a

psychological angle, speculating on why readers could enjoy the captivating forces that fiction

had imposed upon them. First: "Fiction guides us into other worlds and changes the

atmosphere of our usual sensory and emotional experience." Second, one is so used to his

environment that his emotional feeling becomes dull and is, therefore, unable to experience

or express one's feeling or perception. It is quite apparent and worth keeping in mind that

even when Liang here discussed the power of fiction in terms of the psychology of reader

while reading a novel, he was discussing fiction within the framework of a pragmatic

"On the Relationship Between Fiction and Social Order."

"Pen-pao kao-pai (Announcing the policy of our newspaper)," Hsin-min ts'ung-pao no. 1 (1902). 89 conviction. The way he presents his arguments and the way he subjects all things to the all- encompassing socio-political concerns shows precisely how strong a socio-politically oriented aesthetic has been in him.*®

As we have pointed out, the first paragraph of this article is colored with the same pragmatic orientation that we always encounter in Liang's writings on fiction. Nevertheless, in order to support his own thesis he goes on to explain how fiction can be used to fulfill its moral/political mission. First of all, he had to deal with the reasons why people like to read fiction. The prevalent point of view had been (1) fiction is written in a language that is easily understood by common people, and (2) the process of reading fiction is enjoyable, so that readers become mesmerized. Liang refuted these commonly held views. He argues that educated intellectuals were also avid readers of fiction and their love for reading fiction was evidently never the issue of language. On the part of the intellectuals, even Confucian canonical texts would prove easy reading in terms of language. If this was so, why were they not more eager to read those texts than fiction? He concludes that much of fiction employs an easy-to-read language was obviously not the only reason why people love fiction. As for the view that fiction always contains pleasant things, Liang rightly refutes it by stating that the presentation of human feelings in fiction could evoke not only pleasant feeling but also

Chu Kuang-ch'ien once excellently characterized this socio-politically oriented aesthetics in Chinese literature: "On the whole, behind all Chinese literature lies the tendency of Chinese to stress the practical and moral aspect...it was this tendency that bind literature and human life closely together....In Chinese literature, the seriousness of morality and seriousness of arts cannot be separated, and this merit cannot be explained away with such phrase as 'literature as the vehicle of the Way.'" See Chu Kuang-ch'ien, Wen-/ hsin-li-hsueh (Taipei: K'ai-ming, 1958), p. 101. 90

thrills, surprises, sadness, and so on.^^ If these two commonly held opinions about fiction were

not valid, what then were the reasons that could justify the popularity of fiction? Liang's

answer to this "big" question is unprecedented and therefore worth our close attention.

To explain the power of fiction, Liang came up with his first important idea on the

subject, that is: fiction is able to transfer people from their actual world into another world,

be it a real or an imaginary one, and therefore they could taste a fresh new air: "Fiction guides

us into other worlds and changes the atmosphere of our usual sensory and emotional

experience."** This assertion, though only in one sentence, nevertheless strikes an important

note in our study of Liang's view. He later in the same article characterized this kind of fiction

as "idealistic fiction" (li-hsiangp’ai hsiao-shud). This term, idealistic fiction, might be used

by Liang to mean one sub-genre of fiction that we today call "utopian fiction." It is possible that Liang could very well have this implication in mind, as he was familiar with a few

Western works in the genre, such as Edward Bellamy's Looking Backward, 2000-1887, and

other Japanese idealistic political novels, such as Suehiro Tetcho's SetchUbai (Plum Blossoms

in the Snow). Liang's novel. The Future o f New China, is also an idealistic political novel

based on the design of these novels.*® (In fact, his New China cannot be properly called a utopian novel in the western sense that we employ today, as I will argue in next chapter.)

C.T. Hsia's explanation that the reader's response to fiction as Liang characterized them here is "primarily visceral" seems to me to ignore much of the complexity of reader's reading process, which I will return in the ensuing pages. See his "Yen Fu and Liang Ch'i-ch'ao as Advocates of New Fiction," p. 236.

Yen-chm chuan, p. 15.

C.T. Hsia probably is right in saying that Bellamy's novel could have inspired Liang, for Looking Backward, 2000-1887 was translated into Chinese by Timothy Richard in 1884, and Liang served as Richard's secretary from 1895-96. See Hsia, "Yen Fu and Liang Ch'i-ch'ao," note. 44. For the relation between Liang and Timothy Richard, see also Chang P'eng-yuan, Liang Ch'i-ch'aoyu Ch'ing chi ko ining, pp. 35-36. 91

However, from the context of Liang's article, it is safe to say that this term simply meant nothing more than what we today call "transference" or "displacement" in psychology and

"empathy" in aesthetics.^® In other words, what fiction can do is to lead the reader out of his own world into another realm where he can either explore something totally new or distract himself from his mundane existence. This view of fiction has touched upon part of the essence that scholars nowadays have accorded to fiction, especially that of the popular fiction.^* We, however, have to point out that the escapist tendency that we find in many modem popular fiction, especially the romances, does not occupy significant place in Liang's postulation. His preoccupation is on the positive side of fiction to engage the reader and make him a better person. To be sure, Liang was not sophisticated enough at his time to elaborate this view to such a complicated degree that we now have. But here is an insightful observation made and presented in a relatively modem way.

The second feature Liang points out is that the fiction writer can reveal to the reader some insightful observations about something with which most people may be familiar but

“ In Freud's theory, "transference" primarily refers to the phenomenon in psychoanalytic procedure that the patient has the tendency to see in his analyst the return of some important figures out of his childhood or past and transfer onto him the feelings and reactions that applied to this model. See Sigmund Freud, The Dynamics o f Transference, in The Standard Edition o f the Complete Psychological Works o f Sigmund Freud, vol. xll. Ed. and trans. James Strachey. (London: The Hogarth Press, 1958). However, the "transference" we have here is closer to the "thought-transference" that Freud also discussed; the psychological processes, ideas, states of excitement, volitions, which occur in the mind of one person, can be transferred through space to another, without the usual means of communication. See Freud, New Introductoty Lectures on Psychoanalysis, ch. 2. Or in an even more literary manner, it is the "process whereby the analyst of a text becomes inextricably involved in the object of his or her analysis, such that distinguishing between what is 'in' the text and what has been put there by the analyst in the process of analysis, is impossible to determine." See Jeremy Hawthorn, A Glossary o f Contemporary Literaiy Theory (London: Edward Arnold, 1992), pp. 262-3.

In a sense all Chinese fiction can be seen as "popular fiction" and transference is always present. Even the artistically highly acclaimed novel as Dream o f the R.ed Chamber enjoyed great popularity. For a study of popular fiction and the general psychological disposition of its reader, see Janice A. Radway, Reading the Romance: Women, Patriarchy, and Popular Literature (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1984), especially chapter 3, "The Act of Reading the Romance: Escape and Instruction." 92 could not see it or express it in such a marvelous way. This concept is nothing new; what is new is the fact that Liang introduces the term, hsieh-shih-p'ai hsiao-shuo (realistic school of fiction), to explain this phenomenon and thus started the fashion of categorizing fiction in the late Ch'ing period.^^ This term, however, can be easily confused with the term hsieh-shih hsiao-shuo that is at present usually translated as "realistic novel. We have no evidence as to whether or not Liang was adopting the term (shajitsu shugi) that had already appeared in

Tsubouchi Shoyo's Shosetsu shinzui, published in 1885.^'* What Liang describes in his article is nothing more than the exceptional capability on the part of the good fiction writer to see and express something common people are unable to see or depict.

Frequently he knows that this is so but does not know why this is so. Even if he wants to recreate a scene, neither his mind nor his mouth nor his pen is able to convey or depict it. But if someone lays bare the whole scene and thoroughly explore it, then he

“ C. T. Hsia observes that Liang's article is "directly responsible for the late-Ch'ing fashion of labeling different kinds of novel." The commonly seen labels include "historical novel (Ji-shih hsiao-shuo)," "political novel {cheng-chih hsiao-shuo)," "philosophical novel (che-li hsiao-shuo)," "adventure novel Qnao-hsien hsiao-shuo)," "romance novel {hsieh-ch'ing hsiao-shuo)," "detective fiction (chen-t'an hsiao-shuo)," "science fiction (k'o-hsueh hsiao-shuo)," and so on. See Hsia, "Yen Fu and Liang Ch'i-ch'ao," p. 243.

“ "Realism" is an elusive and difficult term inviting disputes. According to Raymond Williams, it generally "describes a method or an attitude in art and literature — at first an exceptional accuracy of representation, later a commitment to describing real events and showing things as they actually exist" (Keywords: A Vocabulaiy o f Culture and Society [New York: Oxford University Press, 1976], p. 217). As a method to describe things as real as they seem—that is, realistic description—some Chinese works can be shown to have this element. However, as an attitude, as Levine puts it, realism "reflects both inherited conventions and a way of looking at the world, a metaphysic, as it were. It implies certain assumptions about the nature of the real world, assumptions which need not be made explicit in any realist text but which certainly constitute a ground of meaning" (George Levine, "Realism Reconsidered" in The Theory o f the Novel: New Essays, ed. John Helperin [New York: Oxford University Press, 1974], p. 236). "Realistic fiction" in the West has always been used to refer to the kind of novel that has this attitude, which traditional Chinese novels obviously do not possess.

Hsia, "Yen Fu and Liang Ch'i-ch'ao," note 22. Hsia points out one important fact that Tsubouchi Shoyo has endorsed the aesthetic conviction that fiction should be an aesthetic undertaking devoid of any moral, didactic concerns whereas Liang has tended to treat fiction as an instrument for political use. However, the possibility that Liang might have borrowed this term fi'om Tsubouchi does not necessarily lead to the conclusion that he had to adopt at the same time all the original intended meaning. Further, this fact, if true, reveals to us something about Liang's position in adopting (or distorting) foreign ideas to fit his own pragmatic needs. 93

will slap the table and cry in astonishment, 'How true, how true! This is so, this is indeed sol'"^*

So, this "realistic fiction" is in fact used to characterize certain aspects of fiction, or to point out the "taken-for-granted" attitude of most readers in their reading of novels^®, without having anything to do with any literary doctrine, movement, or conviction, as C.T. Hsia suggests in his study of Liang's ideas of fiction.^^ So, when Liang uses the two terms—realistic fiction and idealistic fiction— to describe the phenomenon of fiction as he understood it, he obviously does not imply the heavily-loaded connotations that are attached to these terms today.

Apart fi'om the two terms we just discussed, Liang also introduced several elements of fiction that he believed could ensure the mental attention and involvement of fiction readers. Those are the four powers of "hsun (to perfiime)," "chin (to soak)," "tz'u (to incite)," and "t'i (to elevate)." "Hsun" literally means the release of smoke or incense on an object.

Therefore, applying to the discussion of fiction, it is the power of fiction that absorbs the reader, involving him in the narrative and, to a certain extent, also influencing the reader's

“ This translation is Hsia's, in his "Yen Fu and Liang Ch'i-ch'ao." p. 240.

See Mary F. Rogers, Novels, Novelists, and Readers: Toward a Phenomenological Sociology o f Literature (Albany, NY; State University of New York Press, 1991), p. 53: "taken for grantedness means prereflectively applying the linguistic types provided by one's culture as if those types represented necessities, not conventions." Taken for grantedness, as defined by Rogers, means the strategy that people use to cope with the world; once the sense of "taken for grantedness" is disrupted, as when in reading novels the reality is debunked or a new world is constructed, they will be in a state of awe. See also Mary F. Rogers, "Taken for Grantedness," Current Perspectives in Social Theory: A Research Annual 2 (1981); 133-151.

Hsia maintains; "Liang Ch'i-ch'ao was most certainly the first Chinese to refer to the 'realistic school of fiction,' a school destined to dominate the Chinese literaiy scene down to the present day." See Hsia, "Yen Fu and Liang Ch'i-ch'ao," p. 251. It is quite right that Liang was the "first Chinese" to use this term, but that does not necessarily lead to the conclusion that the "realistic school of fiction" that Liang mentioned here would become the school that adopted the western concept of "realism" and later came to "dominate the Chinese literary scene." 94 senses and power of judgment. The captivating power of fiction is described graphically by

Lu-f ien-kuan chu-jen ("Master of the Azure Sky Studio") in the preface to the Yu-shih ming- yen (or Ku-chin hsiao-shuo)'.

Considering the descriptive skills of today's storytellers on stage. They can bring on gladness or astonishment, grief or tears, singing or dancing. [Their listeners] frequently feel the urge to risk their necks or part with their wealth. The timid become brave, the lecherous chaste, the mean-spirited kind, and the insensitive breaking out with sweat. Even the casual reading of the Classic o f Filial Piety {Hsiao Ching\ and the Analects [Lun Yu) would not move people to swiftly and so deeply.^*

Liang in his article, however, employed the Buddhist term "hsun" to explain this power. He says:

The power of hsun is like entering a cloud of smoke and getting perfumed by it, or like touching ink or vermillion and being tinted by it. This is the power that the Lankâvatâra Sutra says can turn the consciousness resulted from deluded knowledge {mi-chih) into the enlightened consciousness. When reading a novel, one's perception, understanding, and feeling are unconsciously being altered. Day by day, moment by moment, and on and oflj the world of this novel will come to occupy the mind and rest there, hence becoming a seed of special kind. Because of the existence of this seed, later contacts are able to perfume the seed and make it grow. This perfumed and grown seed, in turn, is able to affect [the seeds] of others and therefore the seed becomes omnipresent in the entire world. It is by this relation of cause and effect that the entire world of creatures and objects forms and functions. Fiction is precisely the one that possesses this majestic power to control the entire world.

Liang's concept of "hsun" comes from Yogâcâra sect (Wei-shih tsung) of Buddhism and is closely related to the concept of "seeds" and "perfuming" (vasana, or hsun-hsi in Chinese).

According to the Ch'eng Wei-shih Lun or Completion o f the Doctrine o f Mere Ideation by

Hsuan Tsang:

The primary evolving consciousness is, in the Mahayana and Hinayana teachings alike,

“ See my "Introduction," note 47.

“ "On the Relationship Between Fiction and social order," Yen-chiu chuan, p. 16. 95

termed that oîâlaya. (The name of) this consciousness has in it the idea of storing: it is both able to store and to be stored....This (a/qya consciousness), because it is able to induce the varyingly matured fruition of the good or evil acts committed in the course of transmigration through the various realms of existence, is therefore called the maturing (consciousness)....But because it is able to hold firmly all the "seeds" of things, without allowing them to be lost, it is therefore called the seed (consciousness).^®

We can see that Liang is basically following Hsuan Tsang in the concept of seeds. But when it comes to the matter of "perfuming," there are different interpretations. In Hsuan Tsang,

The consciousnesses which perfume and the consciousnesses which is perfumed live and perish together; on this is established the concept of perfuming. In this way the seeds that lie within what is perfumed (i.e., within the alaya consciousness) are engendered and caused to grow, just as the hemp plant is perfumed (by its flower). Hence the term perfuming. As soon as the seeds are engendered, the consciousnesses which perfume act in their turn as causes to perfume and mature the seeds. These three elements (the seed which is first born, the consciousnesses which then perfume, and the seeds which are either engendered or caused to grow by this perfuming) revolve in a cycle, simultaneously acting as cause and effect, just as a wick engenders flame and the flame engenders the incandescence of the wick.^'

Hsuan Tsang further elaborates that the seeds could be "tainted" and "untainted," "the tainted seeds produce tainted dham as [elements of existence], which in turn perfume tainted seeds, and the untainted seeds produce untainted dharmas, which in turn perfume untainted seeds.

According to D. T. Suzuki, "vâsanâ" means "to dwell," "to stay,""to perfume," and is usually used in the sense of "a perfuming energy that leaves its essence permanently behind in the things it has perfumed." Suzuki compares it to the modem psychological term, memory, in its widest sense. However, to Suzuki, "Vâsanâ is morally evil and logically erroneous

Fung Yu-lan, A History o f Chinese Philosophy, Vol. II. p. 305.1 have benefitted immensely from the discussion with Professor Yan-shuan Lao of the concept of "seeds" and "perfiuning" in Hsuan Tsang's Ch'eng wei-shih lun.

Fung Yu-lan. Vol. II. p. 307.

''ibid. 96 inasmuch as it creates an external world and causes us to cling to it as real and final.

It is apparent here that in Hsuan Tsang, because the seeds may be tainted or untainted, the perfuming power might be either good or evil, while in Suzuki's interpretation, this perfuming impression is always evil or erroneous. Interestingly enough, Liang here in this article, attributes no negative connotation to the seeds. He furthermore sees the perfuming power as beneficial so as to re-emphasize the importance of the power of fiction. We should also note here that the seeds in both the Ch'eng Wei-shih lun text and Liang's article are inherent, acting as the force of cause and effect underlying the operation of the world. By equating the power of fiction with this crucial Buddhist concept, Liang has, to a great extent, elevated the position of fiction to an extremely high level of importance.

"Chin" (literally "soaking") in fact can not be totally distinguished from the power of

"hsun," in the sense that both are describing the state of absorbing the reader in the narrative situations so that the various emotions and feelings overwhelm him. The distinction that Liang makes between these two is that "hsun" is measured by its spatial dimension and "chin" its temporal dimension. According to what we just discussed in the foregoing paragraphs, "hsun" in the Yogâcâra philosophy does involve the seeds being perfumed and the further perfuming of others' seeds, it can undoubtedly treated as spatial. "Chin," on the other hand, only involves a person himself, not others. However, "hsun" and "chin" both depict something which, in time becomes unavoidably aflFective and influential. As a matter of fact, we can treat them as two different metaphors describing the same phenomenon, for both characterize a process that invades the reader as water does to a sponge; the more and the longer it is so exposed.

” Studies in the Lankâvatâra Sutra (London: George Routledge & Sons, Ltd., ] 930), pp. 178-179. 97 the more and more it is overwhelmed. Here, Liang's pragmatic bent is very obvious. His interest is not in what the author actually says, but in how effective it is on the reader.

The third power Liang ascribed to fiction is "tz'u," the power to incite, prod, provoke, or stimulate. In contrast to that of "hsun" and "chin," whose operation is gradual, this power of fiction to provoke, Liang claimed, is of a different nature. The power to incite can push the reader quickly to a very intense feeling, which is usually beyond the control of his rational ability. One example he gives is: when one reads in the Dream o f Red Chamber the death scene of Tai-yu or the scene where the maid Ch'ing-wen is driven out of the Ta-kuan yuan

(Grandview Garden), one cannot but burst into tears for them. The focus of emphasis here is the nature of the sudden arousal of feeling on the part of the reader. The intensity of this arousal depends also upon his sensibility: if he is intellectually sharp and emotionally sensitive, his reaction to the incident will be more intense and stronger, and also more rapid.

Strictly speaking, the so-called "power of incitement" cannot be what Liang has interpreted as the stimulus coming from external or contextual sources like a Ch'an [Zen]

Buddhist master using the sudden blow to force his disciples into enlightenment. He makes it clear that the above tliree powers "are coming from outside to force their way into the human mind." As a matter of fact, it is far more complicated than he imagines. If we may use modem aesthetics to help us understand this phenomenon, it is more appropriate to say that the power to arouse intense feeling is based more on the ability of the author to build up the emotional or situational climax in the text to involve the reader, rather than anything coming from external sources. I wall have occasion to come back to this discussion. 98

The fourth power that Liang believed to be inherent in fiction is the "power to

elevate." Liang believes that the above three powers comes from the outside, from where they

force their way into the readefs mind, but the fourth element is a result of the inner reflection

and response to them. This inner enlightenment, to Liang, is the highest ideal and virtue of

human nature, precisely like Buddhist dharma—di self-consciousness, internalized self­

enlightenment. How does a reader arrive at this state of mind? Liang's answer is simple: to

become a protagonist of the fiction he is reading. He gives several examples: a reader

comparing himself to the heroes Chia Pao-yu, Li K'uei, Lu Chih-shen.^'* Liang even claims that

when a reader reads about Confucius, Washington, Napoleon and so on, he will inevitably and

eventually turn into these great figures. By becoming them (figuratively speaking), Liang

seems to assume that the reader can elevate himself to the status of these heroes, whether

morally, ethically or on other grounds.

If our explication here is not too far from what Liang had in mind, what he tries to

make explicit is that elevation of the moral qualities is the highest ideal for fiction as for any

other kind of literature. To reach this state, a process of empathy is required. The reader, in the first place, is naturally drawn into the narrative and puts himself in the heros' shoes,

momentarily thinking and acting (in most cases, in his imagination) as the heroes think and

act. In so doing, he wll be influenced and, after his reading, becomes a better moral being in

real life. Of course, Liang here was presenting his opinion of the idealistic bent and simplifying

a complex situation.

Chia Pao-yu is the hero of Ts'ao Hsueh-ch'in's Hung Lou-meng (The Dream of the Red Chamber). Li K'uei and Lu Chih-shen are two characters from Shih Nai-an's Shui-hu Chuan (The Water Margin). 99

The identification with the hero in reading is an extremely complex process in our receptive experience and psychology. That a reader will always identify with the hero of a story is only one over-generalized statement of this experience. The psychoanalytic critic

Norman Holland in The Dynamics o f Literary Response admits that "The plain fact of the matter is that identification, in or out of literature, is a very complicated affair that even psychologists know little about. Holland has surveyed the literary criticism since neo­ classic to modem period on literary character and comes up with the conclusion that "Literary characters, after all, exist in the contrived, shaped world of everyday reality."^® But how can critics talk about this imaginary construction as if he is real, not to mention the identification with this non-existent? From a psychoanalytic critical point of view, Holland tells us that "the so-called 'identification' with a literary character is actually a complicated mixture of projection and introjection, of taking in from the character certain drives and defenses that are really 'out there' and of putting into him feelings that are really our own, 'in here.'"^^ We do not have to accept totally the psychoanalytic perspective and temis like "drives" or

"defenses" that Holland uses in his book, but here Holland does delineate a general yet complex psychological overview of the identification process. Moreover, Simon O. Lesser, in Fiction and the Unconscious, cites a complex clinical case that can fiirther help us understand the scope, variety and complexity that identification with literary character might display:

“ Norman Holland, The Dynamics o f Literary Response (New York: W.W. Norton, 1968; 1975), p. 262.

Holland, p. 266.

” Holland, p. 278. 100

Edith Buxbaum's analysis of a twelve-year-old addict of detective stories... shows that the boy identified not only, as we would expect, with the invincible and invulnerable heroes of the stories, but, as well, with the unsympathetically presented villains, and even with the victims in their terror, suffering and death. The boy secures the full measure of gratification, open or covert, which each of these roles afforded. Besides binding the anxiety the stories themselves aroused, the identification with the detectives served to make him more secure in the face of the terror his real-life situation inspired and to protect him against some of his own impulses. The identification with the villains satisfied his repressed but powerful hostile feelings toward his uncle, his mother and others; that vrith the victims, an even more deeply repressed wish to be overcome by the uncle and be the passive victim of love-making conceived as a sadistic assault.^*

Whether seen fi'om a psychoanalytic or a literary perspective, the issue of identification with the literary hero is in many aspects much more subtle and complex than what Liang presented or would like to believe.

In general, when the reader reads, he sometimes identify with the heroes and sometimes rejects them. In fact, between wholehearted acceptance and total rejection of the heroes there exists a spectrum. From another angle, even when a reader arrives at the state of accepting the hero, the process itself probably is not as simple and clear-cut as Liang makes it out to be. Hans Robert Jauss has already shown us that, "in the course of reception, the spectator or reader passes through a sequence of attitudes. Astonishment, admiration, being shaken or touched, sympathetic tears and laughter, or estrangement constitute the scale of such primary levels of aesthetic experience which the performance or the reading of a text brings with it."^® To investigate the complexity and subtlety of the aesthetic experience, Jauss

Simon O. Lesser, Fiction and the Unconscious (Boston: Beacon Press. 1957), pp. 201-202.

Hans Robert Jauss, "Interaction Patterns of Identification with the Hero," in his Aesthetic Experience and Literary Hermeneutics (Minneapolis: The University of Minnesota Press, 1982), p. 153. 101 is able to distinguish five different levels or patterns: (1) associative identification: "an aesthetic behavior that realizes itself most clearly in assuming a role in the closed, imaginary world of a play action"; (2) admiring identification: "the aesthetic attitude that defines itself in terms of the perfection of a model and still remains on the far side of the separation into tragic or comic effect"; (3) sympathetic identification: "the aesthetic affect of projecting oneself into the alien self, a process which eliminates the admiring distance and can inspire feelings in the spectator or reader that will lead him to a solidarization with the suffering hero"; (4) cathartic identification: "the aesthetic attitude...that frees the spectator from the real interest and affective entanglement of his world, and puts him into the position of the suffering and beset hero so that his mind and heart may find liberation through tragic emotion or comic relief; and (5) ironic identification: "a level of aesthetic reception where an expectable identification is held out to the spectator or reader only to be subsequently refused or ironized."

Undoubtedly, Jauss's presuppositions have a strong Aristotelian overtone and the literary culture where he draws his examples to work out his theory is different from that of

China. But his postulation shows us how a seemingly simple process could have such a complex and subtle nature. If we try to see especially the last two of Liang's four powers of fiction in terms of Jauss's patterns, we will be able to better understand the experience of reading novels and Liang's thinking of the powers of fiction. We already mentioned that the power of "tz'u" (to incite) is in fact not the power that comes suddenly from outside. Rather,

For an elaboration of the conception and function of these patterns and examples, see Jauss, ibid., pp. 164-188. 102 it is the plotting of the author that leads the reader to an emotional or situational climax, and the response of the reader to what the author has offered him in the text. Liang's examples aptly characterize the reading process of the reader: "I was composed and relaxed, but when it comes to the reading of Ch'ing-wen's banishment from the Ta-kuan yuan or the scene of

Tai-yu's death, why do I burst into tears?" In terms of Jauss's model, this is precisely sympathetic identification, through which the reader, full of compassion, comes to sympathize with the imperfect, average heroes'*'. When a reader is engaging in this interaction, he is filled with moral interest (i.e. ready to act, to stand by them, to help the hero in whatever ways he can) and in most cases not able to keep tranquil; he is in fact projecting himself "into the alien self and is led by the author "to a solidarization with the suffering hero." This might partially explain why most people like to read sad stories. The emotional arousal is indeed coming from the identification process (and in this case the sympathetic pattern).

The fourth power, "t'i" (to elevate), if seen from the patterns of identification, also sheds light on the affective process. To Liang Ch'i-ch'ao, this power is exactly the power of identifying with the hero and eventually becoming equal to the exemplary hero. His major concern here is of course the elevation of the moral qualities of the reader. No wonder, then, that Liang uses such exemplary real life models as Confucius, Washington and Sakyamuni as his examples. Again, Jauss can help us understand how this identification attitude comes into being. This is evidently the pattern of admiring identification. As he puts it.

Here Jauss is basically following Northrop Frye's typology of the heroes, which is according to the degrees of the hero's "power of action" constitutive of five scales, including: divine being, half-god of romance, hero as leader, hero as one of us, and the ironic hero. For the difference between Frye's and Jauss's formulation and respective emphasis of hero see Jauss, "Interaction Pattern," pp. 154-155. In this sense, idealized heroes like Pao-yu in Dream o f the Red Chamber can only be seen as average heroes. 103

admiration demands that through its perfection, the aesthetic object transcend expectation in the direction of the ideal and therefore prompt an astonishment which 'does not cease when the novelty wears off.' It follows that it is not the mere marveling at the extraordinary or the perfect but only the distancing act in which consciousness measures itself against the object of its astonishment that make admiration an aesthetic affect that disposes the individual toward acknowledging and adopting models and patterns.'’^

Because of this distancing that is produced as the result of the measuring against the hero, admiration could therefore make a distinction between unfree imitation and free emulation.

Unfree imitation is an activity which copies the pattern through precise observation without a discrimination of the true virtue of the object it copies; emulation, on the other hand, is a striving of the soul which is moved to admiration by what appears beautiful and virtuous to it.«

In Liang's eyes, the power of "t'i" apparently was meant to be "a striving of the soul" which is moved by something that can arouse its admiration. That is why he wanted to invoke transcendent heroes-Confiicius, Washington, Sakyamuni—who are unquestionable exemplars for the reader. Because of the extraordinaiy moral, ethical, political, or social qualities of these ideal heroes, the reader can emulate the heroes and elevate themselves to a higher level of awareness and social behavior.

Elevating oneself to the level of the exemplary heroes and becoming them can thus tie in with the new ideas that Liang hopes to advocate in fiction. As noted earlier, a renovated

China is the ultimate goal of Liang's endeavor. To achieve this goal, Liang believes, fiction— because of its easy accessibility and popularity-is the best medium. As a channel for

Jauss., p. 168.

Jauss, p. 168. 104 spreading reform ideas, fiction, in the first place, has to have ideas of reform as its content.

This new dimension of content is exactly what traditional fiction lacks. It is, therefore, the most important platform in the "revolution for fiction" to emphasize the new content or thought. What are these "new ideas"? It is of course the ideas concerning reform or

"renovating the citizens Qtsin-min)." To be more specific, they are: "things concerning China's current political situations";'*^ "political ideas"; "philosophy and social sciences"; "combative spirit"; "adventurous spirit to explore the unknown world";"*® "spirit of freedom";

"patriotism";'*® "description of the current society"; "*’ "studies concerning current social problems","*® and so on. In sum, what fiction should have as its own contents are precisely these thoughts on social, political reforms. These new ideas are what I call the political dimension of fiction that traditional fiction does not have and something new that Liang has brought to fiction to influence the readers. Exemplary figures are characters to look up to and emulate; new ideas are things to know, to be familiar and concern with. Both can show people what kind of character and virtues they should possess and what kind of persons they should look up to and aspire themselves to emulate. Fiction, to Liang, is really "supreme" in its function as a blueprint to guide and showcase all these positive qualities. Seen in this

"Preface to Translations of Political Novels," Yen-chiu chuan, p. 14.

" "China's Only Literary Magazine: New Fiction," in Ch'en P'ing-yuan, pp. 41-47.

"First Issue of New Fiction", in Hsin-min ts'ung-pao 17.

"Hsin-hsiao-shuo-she cheng-wen ch'i (Requesting Submission of Articles to the New Fiction Magazine)," mHsin-min ts'ung-pao 18.

"Hsin hsiao-shuo ti-erh-hao chih nei-jung (The Content of the 2nd Issue of the New Fiction)," Hsin-min ts'ung-pao 20. 105 perspective, we will have to acknowledge that fiction is no longer a "small tao" or "small talk" but, instead, is endowed with such serious matters as improving society and saving the nation.

It becomes a "large tao."

Liang's discussion of the power of "t'i," however, might seem to be the least critically sound. But this deficiency should only remind us of the limitations, both historical and ideological, that we might also have. In terms of the breath and depth of certain domains of human activity, such as the psychology of reading process, the understanding of human nature and needs, and so on, we might be better-equipped to see things in a more complicated way than our predecessors. We may contend that Liang's argument is illogical, as C. T. Hsia suggests,'*’ or we can fi’own on the overly heavy socio-political orientation of his statements.

However, to fairly judge Liang's views of fiction, we have to see his goals and the path he took to reach them, as well as the tradition in which he worked. I will come back to this when

I attempt a general evaluation of Liang's view of fiction later.

"Hsun," "chin," "tz'u," "t'i," are the four powers that Liang found in fiction, which are the powers that can move the reader and be used to efficiently educate him. But, as Liang goes on to assert, they are to some extent two-edged swords; if they are used properly they can yield benefits; otherwise, they can cause more damage. Here, again, Liang's pragmatic concern to see fiction as an instrument of part of the whole mechanism of social operation is obvious. But, to Liang, it is quite unfortunate that fiction in Chinese society had never been used positively. Instead, it was often regarded as something which spread misconceptions and

Hsia, in "Yen Fu and Liang Ch'i-ch'ao," after quoting Liang's article regarding fiction as the origin of Chinese superstition and stereotyped ideas, comments: "Subsequent critics, even those writing for/fs/w hsiao- shuo, would question Liang's logic here" (p. 238). 106 superstitions and even came to dominate the ideology of common people:

Whence comes the Chinese habit of overprizing the successful scholar and prime minister? It comes from fiction. Whence the Chinese vice of fancying oneself as a talented beauty or gifted young scholar? It comes from fiction. Whence the Chinese admiration for brigands and thieves of the rivers and lakes? It comes from fiction. Whence the Chinese fascination with demons, shamans, fox spirits, and ghosts? It again comes from fiction.^”

All the teachings the ancient sages had established for centuries was denigrated so easily by the abuse of fiction medium, so much so that, according to Liang, fiction indeed should bear the responsibility for the degeneration and weakening of the state: if fiction includes right stuff as its content, it will yield food results; if wrong materials, it will cause serious damage that had come to endanger the traditional Chinese society. Fiction therefore becomes a two-edged sword: while it does exert negative impact {hui-tao hti-yin) on society, it can also reinforce such traditional values as loyalty, filial piety, integrity and righteousness {chung hsiao chieh

I). On top of this, Liang was asking the intellectuals to engage in the enterprise of educating and enlightening common people by making use of the four powerful yet neutral forces inherent in fiction. In this regard, Liang was standing along with his predecessors in a traditional Confucian position in emphasizing the transformation of mind of common people through the participation of the morally superior intellectuals. However, the significance of this calling for the participation of the elite class to engage in the popular literaiy genre, again, has to be seen in the larger context, especially when fiction was assigned the task of keeping

"social order" (ch'tm-chih), or to use the term coined by Li Tse-hou, "to save China and

Yen-chiu chuan, p. 28. Hsia's translation, "Yen Fu and Liang Ch'i-ch'ao," pp. 237-38. 107 survive" (chiu-wang t'u-ts'un),^^ instead of "the moral effect on the individual reader.

After this important article elaborating on the relation between fiction and the future of society and nation, Liang continued to consider the socio-political issues and explore the possibility of presenting them in the creative practice of writing fiction, that is, the writing of

'Fhe Future o f New China (1902). Since this unfinished novel (only five chapters of which were eventually written) is a concretization in fiction of Liang's socio-political thought rather than a real theoretical discussion of a literary genre, the significance of this novel will be discussed in next chapter, when I will also deal with important traces of Liang's ideas on what fiction should be.

Now, let us consider Liang's final article regarding fiction. It has to be noted that quite a span of time had elapsed between Liang's last article (1902) and this one, published in 1915.

With such a long period of time having gone by was there any change in Liang's views? We know that in those years China underwent several cataclysmic changes. The civil service examinations, for instance, were abolished in 1905; and, most importantly, the Manchu dynasty was overthrown and the Republic of China established in 1911. Liang produced no writing on fiction during this long span of time. But the 1915 article, as it turns out, still reveals a lot of socio-political concern. At the very beginning, Liang reiterates the paradox of the low social status of fiction and its prevalent dominance on people. Then, he goes on

" Li Tse-hou, Chung-kuo chin-tai ssu-hsiang sliih-lun (Pei-ching: Tung-fang ch'u-pan she, 1987), pp. 25- 4 1 .

Hsia, "Yen Fu and Liang Ch'i-ch'ao," p. 242. 108 to discuss the reasons behind this peculiar phenomenon and comes up with the same reasoning: fiction possesses the various powers over the reader. The morally-degenerate dominance of fiction was, luckily, changed by conscientious intellectuals, and fiction has become elevated to the same high-station as such traditionally prestigious genres as poetry and classical prose. Even so, it seems to Liang that fiction's change of status and its even wider popularity and influence did not essentially justify its existence. The "new fiction," advocated by Liang and reform-minded intellectuals in the past decade, which made the education and enlightenment of the citizenry its primary concern, was gradually losing its stronghold to the popular fiction like Mandrin Ducks and Butterflies (Yuan-yang hu-tieh pai hsiao-shuo).’^ The fiction that Liang found in the bookstores was, in his eyes, even more degenerate than the traditional fiction that he had tried to change a decade ago. That is why

Liang now calls for help from his fellow fiction writers, to try to do something about the undesirable situation.

This article, precisely because of its timing and its severe and pugnacious tone, is unusually significant for us to ponder. Broadly, Liang's view of fiction has evidently not changed much. He still talks about the traditional low hierarchical order of fiction in literary history; he considers the several powers that fiction possesses which he thinks are double- edged; and he calls at the same time for the transformation of social climate and human minds through the guidance of intellectuals. It is evident that the political situation has changed from

” "Mandrin Ducks and Butterflies School" and "Saturday School" were most popular in the 1910s. The autliors of most of the prefaces and announcements in 1914 collected in Ch'en P'ing-yuan's anthology, for instance, are associated with these two schools, such as Hsu Chen-ya, Wu Shuang-je, Hsu T'ien-hsiao, Ch'en Mei-hsi, etc. Hsu Chen-ya's Yu-li hurt (The Spirit of the Jade Pear) was published in 1912 and Saturday Magazine was founded in 1913. 109 that of 1902, but the effects of the new fiction on the society does not match up with his expectation. In 1915, even though the situation of using fiction to serve the holy mission of saving China from the incursions of foreign powers did not exist any longer, the disunity of the nation, the corrupt government, the still unenlightened people and so on now forced Liang to take issue with fiction again and reiterate the social function of fiction. The wide-spread fiction that Liang attacked in the 1910s, according to Perry Link, can be roughly grouped under several types: (1) love stories, (2) righteous-hero adventures, (3) scandal, or

"muckraking" stories, and (4) detective stories. And all of these types of early twentieth- century popular fiction can trace their history back to such earlier works of fiction as Dream o f the Red Chamber, The Water Margin and many others.^ This trend, to use Link's phrasing, of shifting "from nation-building to time-killing to profit,"’^ undoubtedly ignored the moral/political task Liang assigned to fiction a decade ago. The larger context of this article has changed, the whole problematics it deals with have also changed accordingly (for example, the theme of "saving the nation" was not the main concern at this time); moral concerns, however, still stood out more prominently in Liang's case.

By going over Liang's writings concerning fiction, the whole picture of Liang's views on fiction unfolds itself before us. Because the nature of Liang's views on fiction is closely tied up with his intellectual development and with the prevalent socio-political reality, the ensuing

Perry Link, Mandarin Duck and Butterflies: Popular Fiction in Early Twentieth-Centwy Chinese Cities (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1981), p. 9.

" This is the title of the fourth chapter of Perry's book. For the change from Liang's idea that fiction should serve as the instrument to save the nation to that of purely entertainment, see the same chapter, pp. 125-155. 110 discussion will be conducted in a framework in which we will see how literary events interacting with historical change. To be more specific, I will attempt an elaboration of how

Liang's general intellectual orientation is impinged upon by specific historical conditions and shaped into what Jonathan Arac, referring to nineteenth century Anglo-American literature, calls "a social motion."^®

After a careful examination of the writings of such prominent nineteenth century writers as Dickens, Carlyle, Melville, and Hawthorne, Arac characterizes these writers as

"commissioned spirits," sharing "an imagnative mission to reveal and transform through their powers of knowledge and vision the bmte circumstances of the changing world in which they and their readers lived."” Unlike the Marxist deterministic doctrine of treating any literary work as the inevitable product of its historical milieu, and unlike the mimetic view which holds that a literary work is nothing but a faithful representation of reality, Arac argues for a more complicated view, which regards the relationship between a literary product and its milieu as a negotiative process in which both are at once the acting force and the recipient of that force. In other words, writers are inevitably caught up in their cultural background and are influenced by the historical forces, whether spiritual or material. But, at the same time, as

Arac tries to show in his book, the imaginative power and the shared conviction of writers can always exert an immense, unfathomable power on the development of historical forces.

Texts are the products of the context but context also consists of texts and hence altered by the attributes of each individual text. The relationship is never pre-set and will never remain

“ Jonathan Arac, Commissioned Spirits, p. xv.

Arac, p. xvii. Ill unaltered. This is the process Arac calls "social motion."^*

If we keep in mind this complexity and continuous variation of the relationships between literary work and its context, and try to see Liang's writings on fiction in terms of his intellectual inclinations and concerns, their significance will stand out.

Indeed, Liang's views on fiction are not separable from his socio-political concerns.

To understand the significance of Liang's views on fiction, we must take his intellectual background and developments into account. Since 1898, the year in which Liang went into exile in Japan after the failure of the "Hundred Days Reform," was the most important year in his political as well as intellectual life, we might use it as a dividing line. The overthrow of the Manchu dynasty in 1911 was another apparent dividing line. In thus dividing Liang's views on fiction into three periods, we can go on to see the significance of the articles we discussed above.

We must, however, keep in mind in our discussion and understanding of Liang's pragmatic views of literature: that the artist is first of all concerned about his momentary feeling and setting down that feeling in words, and then he has to be cautious about its efiects because he has to communicate to others after all. This functional, affective and pragmatic view of literature has come to mingle with the urgent concern of the sociopolitical situation: everything was subjected to the goal of saving China, spreading knowledge, re-educating the

Chinese people. In fact, aside from the works we cited above, Liang's later works of the

1920s can also support our observation here. For example, as I already discussed in the previous chapter, his discussions of T'ao Yuan-ming, of feelings in traditional Chinese verse,

“ Arac, p. x-xi. 112 and so on, all focused on the issue of feeling and its expression but, in the end, this feeling and its expression still have to be subjected to social responsibility. Liang's main concern still falls within the Confucian tradition to incorporate everything into the pragmatic umbrella. Like all committed Confucians, he wanted to emphasize the socio-political aspects of literature, even though he was in no way ignorant of its aesthetic aspects.

Before 1898, Liang wrote only one piece regarding fiction, and this one treated fiction in a relatively peripheral manner—as only a small portion of an educational plan in Liang's large-scale reform agenda. The main concern was essentially reform. This thought of reform, as Hao Chang has pointed out, was predicated on the late Ch'ing ching-shih (practical statesmanship) tradition. However, Liang's ching-shih idea was partly inherited from the prevalent intellectual climate and partly fi-om his own thinking; "For Liang the ideal of ching- shih did not mean simply a commitment to political activism or a broad sense of social responsibility; it also implied more specifically an acceptance of institutional reform as indispensable to the realization of the ideal of practical statesmanship. It was this commitment to institutional reform that inspired Liang to write the essay, "General Discussion on Reform." One important agenda in this "Discussion" was the reform of the civil examinations and, along with that, the reform of the educational system. It is in the latter that we find the first thoughts Liang set down regarding fiction. With regard to political reform, there were two channels that Liang recommended: institutional reform above and the

” For a more elaborate inteipretation of the concept of ching-shih, see Hao Chang, "Sung-ming i-lai ju-chia ching-shih ssu-hsiang shih-shihin Chin-shih Chung-kuo ching-shih ssu-hsiangyen-t'ao-hui lun-wen-chi (Taipei; Chimg-yang yen-chiu-yuan, 1984), pp. 3-19.

“ Hao Chang, Liang Ch'i-ch'ao, p . 7 3 . 113 education of the people below. It is apparent that, at this time, Liang emphasized the former.®'

Chang has also pointed out, however, that "the ideal of popular education had always been important in Confucianism, as reflected in the familiar ideal of chiao-hua (education and transformation)" and that "while in Liang's view the ultimate goal of study was certainly practical statesmanship, the cultivation of statesmanship had to have its basis in, and hence begin with, the development of character."®^ So, it was indeed under this Confucian ideal of

"inner-worldly activism"®^ that Liang wrote the "Discussion"; and it was within this framework of the Confucian ideal of chiao-hua that Liang discussed the possible and beneficial use of fiction in educational reform. A very strong Confucian moral elitism that advocates the not only necessary but desirable responsibility of Confucian scholars to educate and enlighten the people can be unmistakably discerned here. Seen in this perspective, we see no big difference between Liang and the earlier writers and critics of fiction. What makes

Liang distinct from his predecessors is, however, the socio-political situation which demanded a total and large scale reformation not only in moral but also in social, political, ethical and other dimensions. And to Liang, as he came to realize gradually, fiction, in addition to his

"New Style" journalistic writing, could join together and greatly help his cause. And it is in this sense that Liang was also one of the "commissioned spirits" to believe in "an imaginative mission to reveal and transform through their powers of knowledge and vision the brute

Hao Chang, Liang Ch'i-ch'ao, pp. 77-80.

Hao Chang, Liang Ch'i-ch'ao, p. 80; p. 81.

“ This term was coined by Professor Chang in his class lecture to mean the interdependent relation between nei-sheng (inner self-cultivation) and wai-wang (outer practical statesmanship). 114 circumstances of the changing world in which they and their readers lived.

When the next article, "Preface to the Translations of Political Novels," was written in 1898, the situation and context apparently changed. Now Liang was a political exile living in Japan. Politically he was stranded, for the political arena was now far away from him; intellectually, he benefitted much from Japanese literature and Japanese translations of

Western works. His reformist thought had been, as we mentioned, based on two channels—to change from above through institutional reform and from below through the education of the people. Now, since the channel of institutional reform was blocked, Liang felt all the more the importance and significance of the second channel.®’ The intellectual climate of Japan, coupled with the development of his own thinking through the years, found expression in the writings he wrote in Japan. To see the significance of the articles regarding fiction that Liang wrote in Japan we need to discuss them against the backdrop of his intellectual development during his exile.

One important development we found in Liang's thought before he went to Japan is of course the concept of "ch'un" (or grouping).®® During that period Liang "was concerned with the problem of how to group or integrate the Chinese people into a cohesive and well-

“ Arac, p. XV.

“ Out of the seven important newspapers or magazines that Liang founded or edited, five were published in Japan. They are: C/i'/ng-Zpao (Nov. 1898 - Nov. 1901), Hsin-min ts’ung-pao (Jan. 1902 - Oct. 1907), /is/m hsiao-shuo (Oct. 1902 - Sep. 1905), Cheng-lun (Oct. 1907 - Jun. 1908), and Kuo-fengpao (Jan. 1910 - Jim. 1911). See Chang P'eng-yuan, p. 330.

“ According to the study of Professor Hao Chang, the concept of "ch'un" should not be seen as "derived fi'om the traditional ideal of organic harmony and moral solidarity. It is rather a new concept inspired primarily by the Western example of capacity for associational organization and political cohesion." Liang's essential concerns about ch 'un include: ( 1 ) integration of people; (2) the organization of the community's political system; and (3) the scope of new commimity. Underlying all these is the overall concern about the polity that China should need. See Hao Chang, Liang Ch'i-ch'ao, pp. 95-96. 115

knit political community."®’ And this concept "was found to lie at the heart of his moral

thinking as indicated in his definition of grouping as the central function of any moral system,"

because it is "the essence of morality to strengthen group cohesion and to promote group

interest."®* The concept of "ch'un" in turn should then be seen along with the concept of hsin- min ("moral renovation of people" or "new citizen")®’, for it was another significant

development in Liang's thought, one that found expression in his articles on fiction in this

period.

Like the concept of "ch'un," the "new citizen" germinated as a result of Liang's

constant search for an adequate and efficient way to cope with the increasing Western threat

to China. After several attempts by his predecessors and himself, such as "Self-strengthening

Movement" and the "Hundred Days Reform," Liang came to the realization that institutional

reform was not enough to cope with the situation. It was not only institutional reform that was needed, even the Confucian ideal of education proved to be lacking in vigor. The

opportunity to be in Japan and to get in contact with all kinds of ideas forced Liang to

reconsider the value of traditional Chinese virtues that had been Confucian at the core. The

study of the works of Kato Hiroyuki (1836-1916), Fukuzawa Yukichi (1835-1901) and

Nakamura Masanao (1832-1891) gave Liang a new perspective to ponder questions he

Hao Chang, Liang Ch'i-ch'ao, p. 96. For a more detailed discussion of the concept of "ch'un," see Hao Chang, pp. 95-100. Liang first launched his discussion of "ch'un" in "Shuo ch'un hsu" in 1896, YPSIVC, tse 2; 2: 3-6.

" Hao Chang, Liang Ch 'i-ch 'ao,p. 151.

® The concept of "hsin-min" is a central moral and social ideal in the Confucian classic. The Great Learning {Ta Hsueh), originally ch. 42 of the Li Chi, later rearranged by Ch'eng I and Ch'eng Hao and again re­ arranged by Chu Hsi with "chapters of commentary." 116 needed to resolve.™ Following Kato, Liang argued in social Darwinian terms that China was in danger, and if the Chinese people did not act, China would not survive in a highly competitive world. Then it was based on Nakamura's central theme that "the secret to

Western power lay above all in Western morality"^* that Liang came to relate morality with the fate of China. To keep China competitive with other nations presupposes the

"independence and self-respect" (dokuritsu jison) of the people that Fukuzawa's moral program centered around, for "to elevate the moral standards of men and women of my land to make them truly worthy of a civilized nation" was Fukuzawa's ideal.™ In short, Liang, coupled his concept of "grouping" with the teachings of these three Meiji figures, came to the conclusion that, in order to compete with other nations, a new kind of Chinese individual, one with new virtues, must be developed. This individual was Liang's "new citizen."

This new type of ideal personality has its traditional side. Liang combined Confucian virtues with Western civic virtues he learned through Japanese sources. However, this is not the place for us to consider the comprehensive significance of all kinds of virtues in the ideal citizenry.™ What is more significant for us here is how the building of ideal personality is related to the fate of the whole nation and the possibility of fulfilling it through fiction. This

™ For the inspiration that Liang drew from these three Japanese intellectuals, see Hao Chang. Liang Ch'i- ch'ao, p. 144 and Philip Huang, "Liang Ch'i-ch'ao: The Idea of the New Citizen and the Influence of Meiji Japan," in Transition and Permanence: Chinese History and Culture: A Festschrift in Honor o f Dr. Hsiao Kung-ch'uan, ed. David C. Buxbaum & Frederick W. Mote (Hong Kong: Cathay Press, Ltd., 1972), pp. 87-93.

’‘ Huang,p. 91.

” Huang, p. 92.

" See the detailed discussion in Hao Chang, Lia?ig Ch'i-ch'ao, pp. 149-219. 117 is precisely where Liang's intent to advocate the political novel lies. This is also the underlying idea behind the 1899 and 1902 articles.

In the "Preface to the Translations of Political Novels," Liang contended that

Formerly, at the start of reform or revolution in European countries, their leading scholars and men of great learning, their men of compassion and patriots, would frequently record their personal experiences and their cherished views and ideas concerning politics in the form of fiction. Thus, among the population, teachers would read these works in their spare time, and even soldiers, businessmen, farmers, artisans, cabmen and groom, and schoolchildren would all read them. It often happened that upon the appearance of a book a whole nation would change its views on current affairs. The political novel has been most instrumental in making the governments of America, England, Germany, France, Austria, Italy, and Japan daily more progressive or enlightened.

This article turns out to be highly significant if we see it within the framework of Liang's ideas of "moral education and transformation" (or chiao-hud), "grouping" (or ch'un) and New

Citizen (or hsin-min). To be sure, if considered from a literary perspective, Liang seems to be turning a literary genre into a political instrument to advocate political ideas and ideals.

Nevertheless, we should always bear in mind, no matter how well Liang might know the

Chinese fictional tradition, his main concern during this period was never purely literaiy.

Literature has also to join force to contribute to the great cause of saving China. Liang's article also shows how "social motion" functions. Seeing that China was under the unprecedented predicament, Liang can be said to be one who tried to make the best use of literary as well as other means to reveal the circumstance and map out the future picture of the ideal citizen and ideal nation.

" The translation is C. T. Hsia's, in his "Yen Fu and Liang Ch'i-ch'ao," p. 232. 118

In the article, "On the Relationship Between Fiction and Social Order," this mission was even more explicitly expressed in the first paragraph. Liang explains there that fiction and the renovation of the morality of each individual are inseparable and that fiction possesses the supreme power of transforming the brute circumstances.

To renovate the people of a nation, the fictional literature of that nation must first be renovated. Thus to renovate morality, we must first renovate fiction; to renovate religon, we must first renovate fiction; to renovate manners, we must first renovate fiction; to renovate learning and the arts, we must first renovate fiction; and even to renew the people's hearts and remold their character, we must first renovate fiction. Why? It is because fiction exercises a power of incalculable magnitude over mankind.’*

What is new in this article is of course the elaboration of how fiction is able to perform its supreme power of affecting the people. But, the large picture and the ultimate concern of the article is still confined to the social conviction of educating and transforming the people so as to reach the ultimate goal of building new citizens and modernizing China. The 1902 advertisement, which is essentially a recapitulation of the main theme of the article, should also be understood in the same context.

In the 1915 article, already discussed, we can see that context had changed, and with it Liang's focus of emphasis, but the general outlook of Liang's socio-political concerns remained. By 1915 the survival of China had become less of an immediate concern. Therefore, the urgency to save China is no longer present, or at least in a different vein. Liang's ideal of changing the nature of the people to meet the challenges of a modem nation, on the other hand, is still extant and strong. This anxiety over the futility of transforming national character througli all the years forces Liang again to stand up and blame the abnormality manifested in

” Hsia's translation, in "Yen Fu and Liang Ch'i-ch'ao," p. 222. 119 the old-style popular fiction that Liang once tried so hard to change.’®

Traditional Chinese fiction had long been popular among both the intellectuals and the common people. Its popularity comes fi-om its generic captivating power, its ability to appeal to human feelings and needs. In the late Ch'ing period, the unusual socio-political situation brought about tremendous and radical change among China's intellectuals and their thinking about fiction. While still recognizing the entertaining and the educational function of fiction, these intellectuals, of whom Liang was the most vocal, tried to change fiction and utilize this popular genre for a more serious purpose of China's salvation. This high-minded undertaking, along with the traditional concept that literature should always serve some higher concerns, inevitably changed the direction of Chinese fiction. This is where the tradition that C. T. Hsia terms "obsession with China" fits in. To be sure, the other trends without this sense of mission that were popular, entertaining and despised by many, were still prevalent. However, a strong current of fiction writing reflecting social problems and urging social actions has arisen. Liang was essentially the one who paved the way for this trend.

Liang's pragmatic view of literature and fiction has its inheritors. We can take Mao

Tse-tung as an example. From available documents, we know Mao was greatly influenced by

Liang. Mao mentioned that he could memorize entire articles of Liang's carried in Hsin-min ts'ung-pao. In his later life he reminisced that he worshiped K'ang Yu-wei and Liang Ch'i- ch'ao and had wanted to learn fi-om them the way to save China. In the Hsiang-chiangp'ing- lun, the journal that Mao edited, the style and tone ofMao evidently imitated Liang's writings.

Here Lu Hsun's discussion of national character (Jcuo-min hsing) can be seen as representing the same anxiety as Liang's. 120

Liang's prose style can also be discerned in Mao's later writings in Selected Writings (Mao

Tse-tung hsuan-chi). Mao used Tzu Jen as his pen name, modelling on Liang's hao, Jen-kung.

And in his marginal comments on Lun-li hsueh yuan-li (Principles of Ethics), the textbook he used in First Hunan Normal College, he in numerous places noted, "See and compare

Liang Ch'i-ch'ao['s ideas]."’’

We can further look at Mao's views on literature and see how much he was influenced by Liang. First, the pragmatic concern of literature that Liang inherited from Chinese literary tradition was also adopted by Mao. In "Talks at the Yen-an Conference," Mao in several places reiterated this pragmatic bend, for instance: "Literature and art become a component part of the whole revolutionary machinery, so they can act as a powerful weapon in uniting and educating the people while attacking and annihilating the enemy, and help the people achieve solidarity in their struggle against the enemy."’® Or, "We do not by any means refuse to use the old forms [of literature and art] of the feudal class and the bourgeoisie, but in our hands these old forms are reconstructed and filled with new content, so that they also become revolutionary and serve the people."’® Comparing these with Liang's using fiction as the tool for keeping the social order, for disseminating new thought and ideas, and finally to serve the purpose of saving China, we really cannot find too much diflference between their functionalist

See, for instance, Li Jui.M jo Tse-tung tsao-nien tu-shu sheng-huo (The Schooling Life of Mao Tse-tung at His Early Age) (Shen-yang: Liao-ning Ch'u-pan-she, 1982), pp. 54-62.

Mao Tse-tung, "Tsai Yen-an wen-i tso-t'an-hui shang ti chiang-hua"(Talks at the Yen-an conference on literature and art) in Mao Tse-tung tun wen-i (Mao Tse-tung on Literature) (Peking: Jen-min ch'u-pan-she, 1992), p. 35. The translation is from Bonnie S. McDougall,Mjo Tse-tung's "Talks at the Yan'an Conference on Literature and Art": A Translation o f the 1943 Text with Commentary (Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Center for Chinese Studies, 1980), p. 58.

™ ibid. p. 43; McDougall, p. 65. 121 view of literature.

Second, Liang's elitist viewpoint that the intellectual should help to enlighten and educate the common masses is also explicit in Mao;

we should understand that in serving cadres we are still wholly concerned with serving the masses, since we rely on cadres to educate and guide the masses. If we violate tliis aim and give cadres material that can't help them educate and guide the masses, there would be no point in our trying to raise standards, and we would be departing from our fundamental principle of serving the popular masses."*®

Third, Liang's using popular literary genre fiction to serve his purpose of educating and enlightening popular masses can be compared to Mao's "reaching a wide audience {p'u- chi)" and Liang's fourth power of fiction, "elevating" or t ’i, can also be seen in Mao's "raising standards (J'i-kao) in "Yen-an Talks." Mao's later slogan to set up Lei Feng and Wang Chieh as the exemplary figures for the common masses to look up to and emulate also revealingly reminds us of Liang's exemplary figures.

In fact, examples of such parallelism between Liang's ideas and Mao's abound in "Yen- an Talks." As I have discussed earlier, Liang was deeply rooted in Chinese traditional literature, especially in the yen-chih and isai-iao tradition, and here we see another example

(who was tremendously influenced by Liang) showing how Chinese tradition, after an ostensible "debacle" in the May Fourth antitraditional attack, can still linger and exert its influence.**

' ibid. p. 51; McDougall, p. 72.

For Mao Tse-tung's and his relation with Chinese tradition, see Li Jui, Mao Tse-tung tsao-nien tu-shu sheng-huo (The schooling life of Mao Tse-tung at his early age); Ch'en Chin, Mao Tse-tungyu wen-i ch'uan-t'ung (Mao Tse-tung and Chinese literary tradition) (Peking: Chung-yang wen-hsien ch'u-pan-she, 1992), pp. 1 -46,47-68; Li Huai & Ting Chen-hai, Mao Tse-tung wen-i ssu-hsiang hsin-lun (Studies in Mao Tse-tung's literary thought) (Peking: Wen-hua i-shu ch'u-pan-she, 1983), pp. 1-54. 122

We have traced Liang's views of fiction and tried to see their significance within the framework of his intellectual development and socio-political concerns. The next chapter will discuss his unfinished novel. The Future o f New China, to see how much Liang has embodied his views in his fictional practice. This will show us another dimension of Liang's opinion about the nature of fiction. We will also see where Liang's novel stands in the tradition of

Chinese fiction. CHAPTER in

THE FUTURE OF NEW CHINA

In the previous chapter we have discussed Liang Ch'i-ch'ao's views on fiction and tried to see their significance in the larger context of their contemporary intellectual and socio­ political concerns. In order to cope with the ever-increasing pressure of Western military and political incursions as well as the impact of Western learning, Liang believed that the best approach was to enlighten and educate the common people to shape them into "New

Citizens". His views on fiction were principally directed toward this aim. In his views of fiction, therefore, we discern his strong social mission, to use imaginative power as represented in literature and other discourses to enact social change.

In this chapter, we will turn to Liang's creative writing—the unfinished novel, Hsin

Chmg-kuo wei-lai chi {The Future o fNew China)— to see how his theoretical convictions were put into practice, how he used the fiction as a channel to define his political ideals and propose solutions for problems at the historical moment. In other words, the cultural, political realities fi-om which this novel arose and derived meaning and significance have to be carefully reconstructed for our understanding and re-evaluation of it.

Liang arrived in Japan on October 16, 1898, after a narrow escape from arrest in the aftermath of the so-called "Hundred Days Reform." From that year on, Liang underwent a

123 124 drastic change in his life in general, and in his political thought in particular. In his Hawaii

Travelogue, he recalled his own metamorphosis: "Ever since I came to Japan, I have collected all kinds of books for my reading... my mind has changed accordingly and my thinking and words have so changed that they seem to be coming from a different person."' What concerns us here is Liang's articles on fiction, his founding of the first Chinese fiction magazine, Hsin hsiao-shuo and his writing the first Chinese political novel. The Future o f New China {New

China hereafter). To be sure, Japanese Meiji thought must have played a very important role in reformulating his thinking on fiction. However, it is surprisingly interesting that even though Liang talked about the Meiji political novel, and quoted a lot of contemporary

Japanese men of letters to support or reinforce his own political or cultural arguments, in his writings we find basically strong indigenous Chinese elements working. This is especially true with his New China?

Even though, since its publication in 1902, New China has enjoyed a warm welcome and continued popularity from Liang's contemporaries,^ it has not received favorable criticism from most modem critics. Nearly all critics are more concerned with the content, either

' LNCC, p. 93. The importance of Japanese experience of Liang was discussed in chapter I above.

^ I do not mean to suggest that Japanese literature does not find its way into Liang's writing; instead, what I do mean to suggest is that even though the presence is discernable, it is far from prominent and the final effects is very "Clihiese". See Hao Chang's view of the Japanese influence on Liang: "while Japanese influence did help determine many of Liang Ch'i-ch'ao's practical concerns, it is, however, far from clear that it was as significant in determining his basic values and ideas. At the very least, on this level, the Japanese factor cannot compare with indigenous Chinese tradition and Western learning as an independent intellectual source." (Liang Ch'i-ch'ao,Tp. 148).

’ For the influence of New China, just go over the books of this period which bear similar titles, among which, e.g., Li Po-yuan's Chung-kuo hsien-tsai chi (China Now, 1904) is notable. Most of what A Ying terms "li-hsien hsiao-shuo (constitutional fiction)" are echoes of Liang's New China. See A Ying, Wan-Ch'ing hsiao- shuo shih. See also the rejoinder artieles that responded to Liang's opinions collected in A Ying's Yen-chiu chuan. 125 praising or denouncing the constitutional reform that Liang airs in the novel'*. As for the technique, except for the debate between Huang K'o-ch'iang and Li Ch'u-ping over the political system China should adopt, critics are almost unanimous in concluding that this novel is a failure as literary art. A Ying's opinion is the most representative one. He categorizes this novel as an "idealistic constitutional novel," praising its political debates and criticizing its lack of artistic touch. ^ Chinese Marxist critics basically agree with A Ying, but strong ideological overtones stand out prominently.®

Also content-oriented but seeing it from a generic perspective are the opinions of Hsia

Hsiao-hung and C. T. Hsia. While acknowledging that this novel is full of debates, political platforms, as well as political opinions, they try to see it as a political novel, a new genre that

‘'F o r example, Hsieh Hua denounces Liang's ideas of constitutional monarchy while Lin Ming-teh praises it. See Hsieh Hua, "Liang Ch'i-ch'ao ti hsiao-shuo li-Iun yu Hsin Chung-kuo wei-lai-chi (Liang Ch'i-ch'ao's Theory of Fiction and Future of New China)," in Chung-kuo chin-tai wen-hsueh p'ing-lin, I (1984), 242 and Lin Ming-teh, "Lun wan-Ch'ing ti li-hsien hsiao-shuo (On Late-Ch'ing Constitutional Fiction)," in Wan-Ch'ing hsiao-shuo yen-chiu (Studies on Late-Ch'ing Fiction) (Taipei: Lien-ching, 1988), p. 127.

’ A Ying only recognizes the fourth chapter as a part of "novel" and rejects the rest of the novel as only political announcements and debates. See A Ying, hsiao-shuo shih, p. 76. In "Lun Wan-Ch'ing ti li-hsien hsiao-shuo," Lin Min-teh, following A Ying, treats New China as a "constitutional novel" and denounces its artistic values as a "novel", but adds that from a historical point of view "this political novel has its unignorable significance," without specifying what this significance is. See Lin Min-teh, in Wan-Ch'ing hsiao-shuo yen- chiu,pp. 121-154.

® Hsien Hua points out that Liang exposes the situation of the imperialistic invasion and attacks the corrupt Manchu government in the novel. Realistic descriptions abound; colloquial language is employed; but the sharp "image" of character is lacking. See his "Liang Ch'i-ch'ao ti hsiao-shuo li-lun yu Hsin Chung-kuo wei-lai chi (Liang Ch'i-ch'ao's theory of fiction and his New China)" in Chung-kuo chin-tai wen-hsueh p'ing-lun. I, 1984.11, pp. 232-248. Lien Yen-t'ang remarks that Liang "tries to delineate the rising capitalist class as high and perfect" but the "image" of characters is not appropriately established. See Lien Yen-t'ang, Liang Ch'i- ch'ao yu wait-Ch'ing wen-hsueh ko-ming (Kui-lin: Li-chiang ch'u-pan-she, 1991), p. 242. The meaning of the so-called character "image" in both Hsieh and Lien is far from clear. It probably refers to the stereotyped "positive hero" that socialist realism acclaims so much. See the discussion in Rufus W. Mathewson, Jr. The Positive Hero in Russian Literature, 2nd ed. (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1975), pp. 13-24. Chinese Marxist critics, though not totally agreeing with Western Marxist critics in their ideological outlook, put great importance on the close relationship between politics and literature. See Terry Eagleton, Marxism and Literary Criticism (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1976). 126

Liang adopts from the foreign sources (particularly Japanese). C. T. Hsia follows Liang Ch'i- ch'ao in calling the novel "a political novel with the idealistic variety," but he considers the contents "shapeless."’ In Hsia's opinion, chapters two and tliree are innovative in technique, while chapter four shows a totally different atmosphere which sets it apart from the rest of the novel. He even asserts that when it comes to chapter four, Liang is rumiing out of inspiration, i.e. giving up the lecturer/narrator pose for that of storyteller.® Even though he recognizes the importance and significance of this novel in shaping and influencing Liang's contemporaries, Hsia prefers novels which "are firmly grounded in contemporary political and social reality" such as the"satirical and castigatory novel" than those that try to delineates an ideal future state like New C hinai

Hsia Hsiao-hung, while recognizing Liang as the first in China to consciously write a political novel, goes one step further to note Liang's attempt in using the political novel form to broaden the scope of traditional Chinese fiction. She therefore discusses this novel in terms of how Liang follows the traditional narrative form while incorporating new ideas.

Liang did on several occasions talk about "using old forms to incorporate new ideas" (i chiu- feng-ko ban hsin-i-ching).‘® The examples of traditional fiction devices that Hsia Hsiao-hung lists include the chapter-format, the parallel couplets chapter titles Qmi-mu), the introductory

’ Hsia, "Yen Fu and Liang Ch'i-ch'ao," pp. 251 ; 252.

* Hsia, "Yen Fu and Liang Ch'i-ch'ao," pp. 252, 254.

® Hsia, "Yen Fu and Liang Ch'i-ch'ao," pp. 255,256.

Liang talked about this attitude in his discussion of the revolution in poetic writing. See my discussion in Chapter I. 127 chapter Qtsieh-izü) and the so-called "historian's touch" (shih-pi)}^ As for the innovation, she, along with others, mentions the device of Dr. K'ung's narrative flashbacks. Even so, Hsia

Hsiao-hung has to admit that Liang's novel, written in a transitional period from traditional to modem, lacks maturity.

In general, though modem critics recognize the transitional significance of Liang's

New China in the development of a new fiction, they dislike the too heavily-loaded political opinions that it puts forth. Only C.T. Hsia and Hsia Hsiao-hung pay attention to tliis novel as a genre of "political novel"; their treatment, however, if not inadequate, is far from detailed. Since Liang intended to write a political novel and designated it as such, its strengths and weaknesses should be evaluated by the criteria of the genre. Or at least it should be judged as a novel with a strong political intention. Much of the criticism of New China has been the result of ignoring of this fact. Furthermore, as we mentioned earlier, that New China was a very welcomed and influential work among Chinese intellectuals of the time should be taken into consideration too. To see this novel as it is and evaluate its influence, we should try to see how Liang used a narrative device to subsume and incorporate special material- current political affairs of China—into a traditional fictional genre, how this product aims to embrace cultural realities and how this work shape them.

I. The Future o f New China

" See Hsia Hsiao-hung, pp. 58,59-60. The so-called "historian's touch" here is employed by Hsia to mean the authenticity of facts that Liang recorded in his novel (such as the real events and incidents Üiat Liang copied from newspapers), as well as the structure of Dr. K'ung's narrative (that is, the chronological, sequential narration of the founding of the new ideal state). 128

The Future o f New China was first serialized in the New Fiction from November 1902 to January 1903 (issues 1-3). There are, including the "prologue," five chapters altogether.*^

In the preface, Liang writes that "I had wanted to write this book for five years, yet had not been able to set down one single word."*^ The intent of composing a political novel had, in other words, started in 1898, the year he first arrived in Japan. I have said that Liang Ch'i- ch'ao was basically using the popular novel and drama as an educational tool to teach and enlighten the common people. The purpose of writing New China, according to Liang's preface, is to "express one's political opinion and discuss important national issues," and to do so in narrative form.*'* Through the form of a public speech, the narrator. Dr. K'ung Hung- tao, relates the story of the founding of New China and the founding figures, Huang K'o- ch'iang and Li Ch'u-ping. The plot of this novel, according to one advertisement in Hsin-min

Ts'ung-pao (No. 14,1902), was extremely ambitious. One province in South China declares independence and several other provinces follow suit. The whole nation is finally united together and becomes powerful. Afterwards, because of issues of invasion of Tibet and

Mongolia, some uneasiness and conflicts develop between Russia and China. Thanks to the help of Ajnerica, England and Japan, the tension is finally eased. Later, the racial

For this study I have used the reprinted version oîHsin Chung-kuo v.-ei-lai chi in A Ying (comp.), Wan- Ch'ing wen-hsueh ts'ung-ch'ao, hsiao-shuo chuan, \olA, part 1 (Peking: Chung-hua, 1960).

New China, "preface," p. 1.

" ibid. There are many definitions of narrative. Basically, it involves the recounting of a series of facts or events and the connections between them. It could be real or fictitious and always involves a story. For some of the definitions, see Roger Fowler, ed. A Dictionary o f Modem Critical Terms, rev. & enlarged ed. (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd., 1987), p. 156; Jeremy Hawthorn, A Glossary o f Contemporary Literary Theory (London: Edward Arnold, 1992), p. 161; J. Hillis Miller, "Narrative," in Frank Lentrichia & Thomas McLaughlin, ed. Critical Terttts fo r Literary Study (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1990), pp. 66- 79. 129 discrimination of the Western nations brings China again into conflict with them. A confrontation between Eastern and Western nations thus erupts. At last, with Hungry serving as the mediator, the confrontation is resolved and a peace treaty is signed. The whole book will end here. This summary is what Liang originally had in mind; however, he never finished the novel as planned. Since it is fragmentary, it is extremely difficult for us to judge what its value as a completed work might have been. We are, however, more interested in how Liang embodied his theoretical views on fiction in his practice. So let us examine the five extant chapters and see to what extent Liang fulfilled his goal.

II. Political Novel

Even though many critics blame Liang for using the novel form to express his own political opinions, the novel as a literary genre, in the West as well as in China, has tended to defy generic boundaries. The modem theorist M. M. Bakhtin, according to Michael Holquist, argues that the novel is a genre so inclusive that it "can include, ingest, devour other genres and still retain its status as a novel, but other genres cannot include novelistic elements without impairing their own identity as epics, odes or any other fixed genre."*’ In the development of the Chinese novel, this kind of inclusiveness of the novel was not uncommon.

Patrick Hanan, for example, in his excellent study of the sources of the Ming dynasty novel.

Chin P'ingMei, illustrates quite well how the novel had incorporated a plethora of literary or nonliterary forms —including another novel, the vernacular short story, the crime-case

" M. M. Bakhtin, The Dialogic Imagination: Four Essays (Austin, TX: University of Texas Press, 1981), p. xxxii. 130 story, the erotic short story in literary Chinese, histories of the Sung period, the drama, popular songs, chantefable literature to form a novel as it was.*®

The novel is not only transgeneric in incorporating different literary or nonliterary genres in its form and structure but also flexible in adopting all kinds of materials into its content. It could delineate a realistic picture of its contemporary society; it could also depict a nonexistent world. It could include a dramatic presentation of human life, presented this in a discursive discourse. It therefore seems inadequate to evaluate a novelistic work just on the basis of what a particular critic thinks a novel should be; instead, we should see it as it is.

This is especially true, as I suggested earlier, when we want to see New China as a cultural product and understand how it helps to shape cultural reality. The next question immediately follows: what is a political novel? and in what sense can we call New China a political novel?

Like so many literary terms, political novel is one wthout clear definition. It is usually treated as a sub-genre of the novel but somewhat stands alone for its heavily-loaded political ideas and opinions. The political novel includes political ideas, such as law-making or a theory of public conduct; it usually describes, interprets or analyzes political phenomena.*’ In addition, these political ideas or political milieu usually have come to occupy a dominant role in the novel ultimately determining its form.*® These definitions apparently focus on its content; however, critics also come to notice other aspects of this literary form. Some

" Patrick Hanan. "Sources of the Chin P'ingMei," Asia Major (n.s.), 10:1, pp. 23-67.

See Morris Edmund Speare, The Political Novel: Its Development in England and in America (New York; Oxford University Press, 1924), p. ix, and Joseph L. Blotner, The Political Novel (Garden City, NJ: Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1955), p. 2.

Irving Howe, Politics and the Novel (New York: Meridian Books, 1957), p. 17. 131 characteristics of the political novel have been noted: (1) it has to be "political" and "novel" simultaneously;*® (2) it is usually written to educate;^ and (3) it tells not so much about politics but "how it might fit into the larger vision of human condition."^* In summary, the political novel is the kind of writing that employs a novelistic form to deal with political ideas, situations, visions, ideologies as well as political institutions, the main purpose being to disseminate these ideas and to influence people. These in general include the common elements among most of the political novels. One thing that is not in total agreement among critics is surely the extent to which political stuff" should occupy the content of the novel. This is where most of the debates and controversies arises. C. T. Hsia and Hsia Hsiao-hung, therefore, are quite right in treating Afew China as a political novel. Since the novel possesses such an inclusive capacity to have the political thought as one of its subject matters, and since

Liang sees and writes New China as a political novel, it is undoubtedly valid and legitimate to call it such. In the discussion here, accordingly, I will endorse the opinions of the two Hsias in treating AW China as a political novel, the benefit of which is apparent. E. D. Hirsch has shown us that the reader's understanding of meaning is dependent on his accurate perception of the genre that the author intended as he wrote the work, that "an interpreter's notion of the type of meaning he confronts will powerfully influence his understanding of details. This phenomenon will recur at every level of sophistication and is the primary reason for

See Speare, p. 24 ; Orville Prescott, In My Opinion: An Inquiry into the Contemporary Novel (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill Co., Inc., 1942), p. 23; Howe, p. 20.

“ See Speare. p. 26; Howe, p. 22; Dominick LaCapra, History, Politics, and the Novel (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1987), p. 3; Lennard J. Davis, Resisting Novels: Ideology and Fiction (New York: Menthuen, 1987), pp. 229,230.

S e e R o b e r t A lte r, Motives fo r Fiction (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1984), p. 43. 132 disagreements among qualified interpreters."^^ As Paul Hemadi, in his study of genre, remarks: "The study of genres must not become an end in itself but rather serve as a means toward the fuller understanding of individual works and of literature as a whole. Our understanding of the "conventions" of the political novel will definitely be of help in our evaluation of Liang's New China.

As far as we know, Liang Ch'i-ch'ao never read Western political novels prevalent in

England; he never attained the English proficiency to do so.^'* Almost all of his concept of political novel came from Japanese sources. According to the classic study of the English political novel by Morris Speare, a political novel

is a work of prose fiction which leans rather to "ideas" than to "emotions"; which deals rather with the machinery of law-making or with a theory about public conduct than with the merits of any given piece of legislature; and where the main purpose of the writer is party propaganda, public reform, or exposition of the lives of the personages who maintain government, or of the forces which constitute government.^

The picture of the English political novel that Speare draws here is exactly the one that

Japanese writers translated and transplanted into Japan at the latter part of nineteenth-century.

Even though the rise of political novel in Japan is a complex phenomenon, it is commonly agreed that it was closely related to the so-called "Liberty and People's Rights"

E. D. Hirsch, The Validity/ o f Interpretation (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1967), p. 75.

“ See Paul Hemadi, Beyond Genre (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1972), pp. 7-9.

We know that Liang has learned Latin from Ma Chien-chung in Shanghai in 1896. See Liang Ch'i-hstm's Man-shu-shih pi-chi (Notes from the Studio of Man-shu), quoted in LNCC, vol. 1, p. 31. Another record shows that Liang tried to learn English while he was in Australia in 1901. See LCCNP, vol. 1, p. 456.

“ Speare, p. ix. 133

(jiyu minken) movement.^® After the Japanese emperor commanded a preparation of a constitution in 1875, a constitutional government seemed to be around the comer. But the

Satsuma Rebellion of 1877 hindered the development of liberal thought. The suppression of free speech forced politically-conscious writers to voice their thought in political novels modeled on the English counterparts.^’ The Japanese political novel, therefore, was used "to advocate democracy, to propagate people's right, to criticize social problems."^* Accordingly,

as Horace Feldman points out, coinciding with Japan's aspiration for a new legislature, the

new political novel elevates political consciousness and establishes fiction as a legitimate

literary form.^ Even more broadly, the political novel also introduces to the new generation

of Japanese to a new awareness of the world as well as a new way of life.^“ Most of the young writers, as well as some of the established writers, were attracted to this new genre. These

“ Okazaki Yoshie lists four principal factors for the rise and spread of political novel in the Meiji period: (1) movement for people's democratic rights; (2) stimulus provided by the introduction of foreign literature, mostly of English origin; (3) the renovation of literary ideas; and (4) the employment of the popular gesaku style in the political novel. See Japanese Literature in the Meiji Era. Trans. & adapted, V. H. Viglielmo. (n.p.i Obunsha, 1955), p. 132.

See Donald Keene, Donvn to the West: Japanese Literature in the Modern Era, Fiction (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1984), pp. 76-77.

“ "Jih-pen cheng-chih hsiao-shuo yu Chung-kuo ch'ien-tse hsiao-shuo" (Japanese political novels and Chinese castigatory novels)," in Chao Le-sheng, ed. Chung-Jih wen-hsueh pi-chiao yen-chiu {Comparative Studies o f Chinese and Japanese Literature) (Ch'ang-ch'un: Chi-lin ch'u-pan-she, 1990), p. 207. Translation mine.

“ "Not only did the reading of works by men like Disraeli help bring political consciousness to a new high, but it showed a supplementary value in the political novel, a value more closely confined to Japan, that is extremely significant fi-om the standpoint of literary history—the acceptance of the novel in Japan as a legitimate form of literary expression." See Horace Z. Feldman, "The Meiji Political Novel: A Brief Survey," Far Eastern Quarterly, ix (May 1950), p. 246.

"...that they [political novels] gave a most direct expression to the 'vitality' of a society, and particularly to its youth, which had been roused fi-om the old ways of the age of feudalism by the unprecedented upheavals of the Meiji Restoration and which was just becoming aware of new ideas and new ways of life." See Nakamura Mitsuo, Modem Japanese Fiction 1868-1926 (Tokyo: Kokusai Bunka Shinkokai [Japan Cultural Society], 1968), p. 26. 134 writers include Toda Kindô, Ueda Shusei, Sakurada Momoe, Miyazaki Muryu, Yano Ryükei,

Sudo Nansui, Tsubouchi Shoyo, Shiba Shiro, Suehiro Tetcho, and many others.^* According to critics, the most notable examples of Meiji political novels aie Keikoku Bidan (Inspiring

Instances of Statesmanship, 1883) by Yano Ryükei (1850-1931), Kajin no Kigu (Chance

Encounters with Beauties, 1885) by Shiba Shiro (1852-1922), and Setchïlbai (Plum Blossoms in the Snow, 1886) and Kakcm'o (The Nightingale among the Flowers, 1887) by Suehiro

Tetcho (1849-1896).

No matter how similar the political subject matters might seem to those familiar with the English political novel, the Japanese political novel developed its own peculiar style.

Although the Japanese political novels are full of political thought and messages, their close relation to the previous gesaAw (playful ) writing is apparent.^^ Most Japanese political novels were in fact conceived with the love-story framework, written in the gesaku style, but full of political implications. Another special feature of the Meiji political novel is its broad world vision, taking into consideration the concerns with the fate of other peoples, such as China,

Ireland, Hungary and so forth, who were also struggling for liberty and people's right.^^

" See Okazaki Yoshie, comp. & ed. Japanese Literature in the Meiji Era. pp. 131-142.

For example, Donald Keene criticizes Toda Kindo's short fiction, "Jokai Haran" as follows: "It is ironic that the pioneering work of a serious literary movement, Toda's 'Storms in the Sea of Passions' should have been so trivial. The political philosophy, essentially that of Liberty and People's Right, is almost impenetrably concealed tmder the frivolitj’ of the typical gesaku style." See Keene, Down to the West, p. 77. For a discussion of gesaku writing, see Nakamura Mitsuo, "Gesaku Writing of the Early Meiji Period," in his Modem Japanese Fiction 1868-1926 (Tokyo; Kikusai Bunka Shinkokai, 1968), pp. 9-17. P. F. Komicki's "The Survival of Tokugawa Fiction in the Meiji Period," HJAS, 41: 2 (1981): 461-482, also delineates the relationship between the Tokugawa and the Meiji fiction.

“ Keene, Dawn to the West, p. 86.: "these novels possess a breadth of vision that has often been said to be lacking in Japanese writers." 135

Liang Ch'i-ch'ao came too late to Japan to personally eyewitness the high tide of the

Meiji political novel, which fell roughly in the decade of 1880s. However, we know he became fairly familiar with the Japanese literary world, especially the development of the Meiji political novel. For example, even before his arrival in Japan, Liang already learned something concerning the fiction in Japan through the work of K'ang Yu-wei.^"* Then, as we mentioned earlier, he translated Chcmce Encounters vÀth Beauties while he was escaping from China on a Japanese warship in 1898. In "Three Tools for Disseminating the Ideas of Modernity" Liang announces that fiction, in addition to schools, newspapers and speeches, also contributed much to the spread of modem ideas. In this article he mentions some translations and translators of Westem political novels such as Oda Junichiro's A Spring Tale o f Flowers and

Willows,^^ Seki Naohiko's Seito yodan: Shun’oten (The Chirping of Spring Warblers),^®

Asahina Chisen's Keishi-dan (The Story of K.C.).^’ He also listed some important Japanese writers of the genre and their works: Shiba Shiro's Chance Encounters with Beauties, Suehiro

Tetcho's Plum Blossoms in the Snow, Fujita Meikaku's Bummei Tozenshi (The History of

Ci\dlization Spreading Eastward), and Yano RyOkei's Inspiring Instcmces o f Statesmanship.

Hsia Hsiao-hung has argued in her study that Liang Ch'i-ch'ao's remarks here were in fact

In Jih-pen shu-mu chih, K'ang Yu-wei included "fiction" as one of 15 subjects that he believed helped Japan to become an advanced nation. Among the "political novels" included are such books as Karyu Shunwa (A Spring Tale of Flowers and Willows), Kajin no kigu (Chance Encounter with the Beauties), Keikoku bidan (Inspiring Instances of Statesmanship), Setclmbai (Plum Blossoms in the Snow) and Kakan'o (The Nightingale among the Flowers). We can not be sure whether Liang Ch'i-ch'ao read them or not, but he wrote a "Jn Jih-pen shu-mu chih shu hou" (On Reading the Bibliography of Japanese Books) in 1897. See YPSWC, Vol. 2, pp. 51-55.

A translation of Bulwer-Lytton's Earnest Maltravers (1837).

A translation of Benjamin Disraeli's Comingsby (1844).

” A translation of Bulwer-Lytton's Keneim Chillingly ( 1873). 136 copying almost verbatim from a book entitled Jih-pen wei-hsin san-shih-nien shih (A Histoiy of 30 years of Japanese Restoration), translated from Japanese by his friend and private

Japanese tutor, Luo Pu.^* No matter, this still indicates that Liang was very well read and very much concerned about the on-going events in Japanese literary circles/^

Liang especially singles out two political novels as the representatives which can be used to enlighten and enhance the Chinese people's political awareness and vision; Yano

Ryukei's Inspiring Instances o f Statesmanship and Shiba Shiro's Chance Encounters with

B e a u tie s . The influence of these two works is evidently discernable in New China.

III. Japanese Political Novels and New China

Now, after briefly discussing what a political novel is, and Liang's familiarity and understanding of Japanese political novel, we can go on a step further by suggesting some of the concerns (if not influence) in New China that Liang shared with his Japanese fellow

Hsia compares the texts of Luo Pu's translation and Liang's version in "Three Tools for Seminating the Ideas of Modernity" and concludes that Liang is literally copying from Luo's text. See Hsia Hsiao-hung, pp. 208-209. But, Hsia immediately adds that Liang's categorizing Keikoku bidan as political novel (which, in Jih- pen wei-hsin san-shih-nien shih, is grouped as "romance novel") indicates that Liang was very well aware of what a political novel is.

Keiko Kockum has argued interestingly that if "any Japanese centre of learning exerted an influence over Liang, it must be the Tokyo Senmon Gakko," the school founded by Tsubouchi ShSyô. See Keiko Kockum, Japanese Achievement, Chinese Aspiration: A Study o f the Japanese Influence on the modernization o f the Late Qing Novel (Stockholm: Stocldiolm universitet, 1990), pp. 64-67. C.T. Hsia also points out that in Shosetsu shinzui (The Essence of Fiction) Tsubouchi also divided fictional heroes into Genjitsuha (hsien-shih pal) and risoha Qi-hsiang pal), two terms that Liang later used in his article (see C. T. Hsia, "Yen Fu and Liang Ch'i-ch'ao," note 22). However, no direct evidence can substantiate the relationship between Liang and Tsubouchi or any other famous Japanese literary figure, and, to my best knowledge, no research has so far been done in this regard.

Liang noted that among Japanese political novels "most effective in affecting one's thought are Inspiring Instances o f Statesmanship and Chance Encounters with Beauties." See Liang, "Ch'uan-po wen-ming san li- ch'i" in Tzu-yu shu. 137 political novelists.

Hsia Hsiao-hung has carefully traced the gradualist political thought of Yano Ryukei aired in Inspiring Instances o f Statesmanship and compares it with Liang's in New China.

According to her, Yano belongs to the Progressive party (Kaishito), and the intention of writing this novel is simply to reflect the political stmggle in reality between the stances of the gradualism of the Progressive party and the radicalness of the Liberal party.'** The platform of the Progressive party can be summarized as follows:

The improvement and progressiveness of politics is what the [Progressive] party highly cherishes; on the other hand, the radicalness and destructiveness are not appreciated. It is so because if an order of things is not honored and destructive procedure is instead adopted to achieve reform, society will fall into disarray, which will turn out to be the obstacle for the improvement of our politics.*^

In AW China, the platforms of the Constitutional Alliance Party (Li-hsien ch'i-ch'eng t'ung- meng tang) are spelled out in a similar tone:

(3)This Party has it as the ultimate goal that all the people in this nation enjoy their rights as citizens and that a constitution guaranteeing a complete national peace is obtained. (4) With this ultimate goal in mind, this Party will move forward without flinching, will never stop until this goal has been achieved. However, this goal will have been achieved without any radical or violent means, unless no other alternative is possible.'*^

And the attitude of Huang K'o-ch'iang, Liang's main voice in the novel, is moderate and gradualist, as is explicitly presented in the debate between Huang and Li Ch'u-ping in Chapter

■" For a succinct account of Yano's political thought and career, see Donald Keene, Dawn to the West (Fiction volume), pp. 78-81.

Chen Ch'ao, trans. Ming-chih chen-tang hsiao-shih (Short Flistory of Meiji Political Parties), Ch'ing-i Pao, vols. 98,100 (1901). Quoted in Hsia, p. 225. English translation is mine.

New China, p. 8. 138

Three. We do not have to emphasize Yano's influence on Liang; however, Yano's political stance as presented in Instances o f Statesmanship can be said to reinforce Liang's personal political conviction, not to mention that Yano was once the Japanese envoy to China and was personally acquainted with Liang.

Another important technique that Liang used in New China, to relate a story by way of public speech, probably was also borrowed from Japanese political novels. In Instances of

Statesmanship, the whole story starts in a lecture. Through the mouth of the teacher, the whole story of ancient Theban political life is thus unfolded. It is not uncommon that a story is unfolded through a certain kind of story-telling; however, the technique of telling a story through a public lecture or speech is something we do not see in the Chinese narrative tradition. Liang's singling out the two Japanese political novels of Yano and Shibo ShirS as the most representative ones cannot but make us think that he was impressed and inspired by the techniques employed in them.

Moreover, the inspiration Liang derived from Suehiro Tetcho's Plum Blossoms in the

Snow was most apparent. The novel opens with an introductory chapter in which the time is set at about 2040 and two men are commenting on their good fortune in living in a period of great national peace and prosperity. A celebration of 150th anniversary of the proclamation of the Japanese constitution is being held. And the year 2040 is the 173rd year in the reign of

Emperor Meiji.'*'* By the time, Tokyo, highly industrialized and technologized, has become the most prosperous city in the world.

This is the narrative time setting in the future in the novel. The historical Emperor Meiji reigned from 1868-1912. 139

There is nowhere in the world, no matter where one may go, that the Rising Sun Flag does not wave. Education has spread throughout the country, and the flourishing state of literature is without compare elsewhere in the world. When we examine the state of the government, we find above an Imperial Household of supreme dignity and authority, and below a Diet rich in wisdom and experience. The cabinet changes smoothly as a result of elections contested between the two parties. Progressive and Conservative. The Constitution is firmly established and the laws well regulated. There is fi-eedom of speech and assembly. The lack of abuses is surely without parallel in all of history, ancient or modern.**^

Liang’s opening description in New China is very much similar to this scene:

It is the first day of the first month of 2062, 2513 years after the birth of Confucius, and is the year jen-yin in the Chinese calendar, and the people of China are celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of Reform. By that time, the peace treaty has just been signed by the delegations of participating countries in the International Peace Conference in Nanking....Ever since the Reform of China has been enacted, all the domains in learning in China have advanced so rapidly that all European countries as well as America have sent students to study in China...(pp. 3-4)

Moreover, Plum Blossoms continues with an uncovering of a stele buried in the earth, which had been erected in honor of a man whose political career was described as well in The

Nightingale Among the Flowers, a sequel to Plum Blossoms in the Snow. An examination of the two works preserved in the Ueno Library would show the reader Kunino Motoi, whose name means "the foundation of the nation," and the political life in Japan before the Diet was first convened in 1890.“*® Comparing the two opening scenes, we will have to admit that

Liang's narrative is quite similar to that of Tetcho's. We can even find in the often-admired debate between Huang K'o-ch'iang and Li Ch'u-ping in New China a counterpart in the discussion of political afiairs between Kunino, a progressive, and his radical friend, Takeda.“’

" Quoted and translated in Keene, Dawn to the West, p. 90.

See Keene, Down to the West, pp. 90-91.

" f W p . 9 2 . 140

In fact, the tendency of Japanese novelists to present their ideal state or to present their political arguments in a future time frame was extremely popular in the decade of 1880s.

On the one hand they might be able to express their political vision of political ideal; on the other hand, the fictionalization helped avoid political intervention and censorship. There were many works which carried the word "future" in their title, or used the future as their setting.

Examples are abundant: Nijusannen Miraiki (An Account of 23 Years in the Future, 1886) by Suehiro Tetcho; Shin-Nippon (New Japan, 1886) by Ozaki Yukio; Naichi Zakkyo: M irai no Yume (Looking in the Future from a Crowded Country, 1886) by Tsubouchi Shôyô, among others.

IV. Political Discourse in New China

Even though Liang Ch'i-ch'ao was much inspired by Japanese political novelists, what made his AW China special was essentially the "new ideas"--that is, the political ideas. The first thing we need to pay attention to is therefore the unprecedented inclusion of political discourse in a Chinese novel. C. T. Hsia has perceptively remarked that "while earlier critics and commentators defend or deprecate fiction for its moral effect on the individual reader, they [Yen Fu and Liang Ch'i-ch'ao] are mainly concerned about the impact of fiction on the possible reformation or degeneration of the nation as a whole.'"*® Helmut Martin also points out that if we look at Liang's didacticism—that is, to use novel as an instrument of reform the people—he "departs no inch from the position of the orthodox Confucian hsiao-shua critics. "‘*®

Hsia, "Yen Fu and Liang Ch'i-ch'ao," p. 242.

"A Transitional Concept of Chinese Literature 1897-1917," p. 189. 141

Liang's bringing in the political dimension to traditional Chinese fiction can be viewed in terms of Liang's self-conscious pursuit of a literary revolution in frction/" Liang never explicitly explained what he meant by "revolution in fiction." However, judged by his proposition of three required elements for revolution in poetry— new perspective (or ideas), new expression and a merging of these into the traditional style"—it is evident that Liang was trying to incorporate something new into the traditional form of fiction. Liang mentioned that "men of distinction in the West always put their life experience as well as their committed political opinions into fiction,"" so as to "invigorate the people's spirit and enlighten them" (chen kuo- min ching-shen, k'ai kuo-min chih-shih).®^ It is apparent that Liang was consciously introducing a political dimension into traditional Chinese fiction. Since doing so would go against the conventions of traditional fiction, Liang could not help but justify what he was trying to do in the Preface to New China:

Now even after writing only two or three chapters of this work [New Chind\, I cannot help but laughing when I re-read them again, for they are like fiction but not really fiction; like an unofficial history but not really one; like treatise but again not really a treatise—I do not know what genre it should belong to. Even so, since I am intent on expressing my own political opinions and engaging in a discussion o f the national affairs, the form I take should certainly differ from what used to be found in traditionalfiction. Therefore, the reader is expected to find that in this work a large space is given to such boring matters as legal details, political platforms, speeches and treatises. I realize fully that these matters might not be able to satisfy the expectation of the reader, and therefore wish the other sections in this magazine might serve their purposes instead. Those readers who are not interested in politics can of course throw

Liang first mentioned "revolution in fiction" (hsiao-shuo chieh ko-ming) in "On the Relationship Between Fiction and Social Order" (1902).

See YPSWC, vol 16,45a: 41.1 have discussed this in Chapter I.

” "Preface to Translations of Political Novels."

“ "First Issue oîNew China," Hsin-min ts'ung-pao 20 (1902). 142

this book away. (Italics added)

The next question is, of course, what are the political issues that Liang has tried to make explicit by using the form of fiction.

In the Opium War (1840-1841), China first came into contact with the Western nations and was surprised by their military might. Ever since then, an effort to emulate and catch up with the superior military power of the Western nations was made. This effort included the so-called "Self-strengthening Movement" (tzu-ch'iang yun-tung). The proponents of this movement championed the idea that the superiority of Western military power mainly rests on the development of advanced technology and materialistic culture, so much so that what China needs to do is simply to build up the machinery and weaponry industry, without ever worrying about the other aspects of the Western culture.’"* This partial understanding of the West ignored the complexity of Western culture and resulted in China's disastrous defeat in the Sino-Japanese War of 1894. The impact of the defeat of China by the small, "barbarian"

Japan was so tremendous that the intellectuals were forced to ponder again all the futile efforts they had attempted in the past decades. The demand for a more thorough, comprehensive reform which not only included technology but also the social, political, economic aspects of Western culture became imminent and inevitable. This defeatist stance, coupled with the ever-worsening imperialistic incursion of the Western powers brought on a pervasive awareness that if China did not come up with something to face the new

For reforms in nineteenth-centuiy China, see Paul A. Cohen and John E. Sohrecker, ed. Reform in Nineteenth-Century China (Cambridge: East Asian Research Center, Harvard University, 1976); for "Self- Strengthening Movement" see Thomas A. Kennedy, "Self-Strengthening: An Analysis Based on Some Recent ’Wnûag" Ch'ing-shih wen-t'i 3: 1 (November 1974), 3-35. 143 challenge, she would be carved up like a melon ("kua-fen") among Western powers/^ This acute awareness of the need for survival (chiu-wang t'u-ts'un) immediately permeated the intellectual circles and, as a result, various new issues were brought up and discussed.

One of the many issues that concerned the late-Ch'ing intellectuals is that of nation­ state (kuo-chia) as opposed to a general world harmony (shih-chien ta-t'ung).^® K'ang Yu-wei was considered the developer of the ancient ideal of ta-t'ung by adopting the three different stages of chiu-luan shih (the Age of Disorder), sheng-p'ing shih (the Age of Relative or

Increasing Peace), and t'ai-p'ing shih (the Age of Complete or Great Peace) as expounded in the Ktmg-yang commentary of the Spring and Autumn Annals The ultimate goal of ta- t'ung is to eliminate all racial boundaries to arrive at a Great Harmony. Before his exile in

1898, Liang basically followed the teachings of K'ang; however, after studying the Japanese and Western works on political theory, he came to a new understanding of this issue. Without giving up the ta-t'ung concept as an ultimate goal, he now place more emphasis on nationalism. According to him, nationalism develops in three stages: the nascent nationalism of the past, which subsumes chronologically familialism, tribalism and imperialism; the nationalism and the imperialistic nationalism of the present; and the cosmopolitan ta-t'ung

See Liang, "Kua-fiin wei-yen" YPSWC. 4; 19-43.

Although survival issue was the most prominent issue concerned the late-Ch'ing intellectuals, there also existed, as Professor Hao Chang points out, another trend of idealistic universalism to look beyond the present status quo to aim at a future ideal world. This kind of complexity cannot afford to be ignored by us, even though for the convenience of discussion we can only single out several polarities that are related to New China. See Hao Chang's "Wan-Ch'ing ssu-hsiang fa-chan shih lun-chi-ko chi-pen lun-tien ti t'i-ch'u yu chien-t'ao," in Hao Chang, et al. Wan-Ch'ing Ssu-hsiang (J&vçtsv. Shih-pao, 1980), pp. 31-33. See also the succinct yet important discussion of these issues in Hao Chang, Chinese Intellectuals in Crisis: Search fo r Order and Meaning, (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987), pp. 1-20.

Spring and Autumn Annals (Ch'un Ch'iu), historical annals said to be Confucius's compilation. It has three commentaries respectively by Tso Ch'iu-ming, Kung-yang Kao and Ku-liang Ch'ih. 144 in the future.^* What China faced at the time was the imperialistic nationalism, which used its domineering power to expand and invade weaker countries. China could not therefore afford to pursue the ta-t'ung concept at this time, but must try to catch up with other imperialistic countries through competition. It is apparent, however, that Liang, though more concerned with the second stage of nationalism, did not give up the ta-t'img concept.

Still, in "Hsin-min shuo (New Citizen, 1903)," Liang moved a step farther away from the ta-t'ung concept, to engage in the discussion of the concept of nation that he learned from

Western sources. To begin with, according to Liang, a nation arises from people's needs to survive, hence a tool to serve the interests of people. Second, a nation is an organic entity which needs an agent to perform and function; however, any confusion of this entity and its agent is wrong and should be corrected accordingly (hence Louis XIV's remark "L'etat c'est moi," and loyalty to the court instead of the nation are both wrong). Third, this organic entity has specific features which set it apart from other nations; for this reason people serve their own country rather than the country of others. Fourth, the ultimate state of great harmony will eliminate the concept of nation; however, owing to the Darwinian laws of competition, a cyclical recurrence will after all happen and a return to the primitive state will be imminent.^®

Here traces of social Darwinism are evidently discernable. This shows unmistakably in New

China. In the opening scene of this novel we are presented with an ideal state modeled on the

"Great Harmony"—China has attained her independence and political reform; a peace

"Kuo-chia ssu-hsiang pien-ch'ien yi-t'ung lun," YPSWC, 6:18.

See Hsiao Kung-ch'uan, Chung-kuo cheng-chih ssu-hsiang shih (A Political History of China) (Taipei: Lien-ching, 1982), pp. 785-87. See also Hao Chang, Liang Ch'i-ch'ao and Intellectual Transition in China, 1890-1907,pp. 154-167. 145

conference is convened and treaty signed. However, as we mentioned earlier that Liang's plan

for the whole novel somehow indicates that even at this peaceful stage, there will still have

conflicts between China and other countries. Although this struggle between the nations will

eventually be resolved, according to Liang's concept of social Darwinism, it is doubtful that

this peace will last for long.

Furthermore, a new notion of world order is also present in Liang's writing. Liang

divided the human race into five races of different colors, that is, the black, the red, the brown, the yellow, and the white. In the development of human history, along the line of

Darwinian concept of evolution, all these races will live together but will still engage in a

struggle for racial survival. This new realization of world order is in Liang's plan for New

China, and furthermore, the racial issue seems to underlie the conflicts among the nations in

Liang's outline of the novel:

[As a result China has become the most powerful nation in the whole world.] But the dispute over the sovereignty of Tibet and Mongolia forces China into confrontation with Russia. Allied with Great Britain, United States and Japan in diplomatic maneuver, China eventually defeats Russian army....Finally, because of the maltreatment of yellow race in the colonies of America, Holland, Great Britain, a racial war is at the brink of breaking. The European countries and America form a rally trying to take advantage of the yellow race. In response to this threatening, China, along with Japan, Philippine, also rally against them. The crisis of war is eventually resolved through the intervention of Hungiy. The members of the two parties get together in Nanking and a peace conference is convened, with the premier of China serving as the president. The treaty makes it explicit that the races of white and yellow should have equal rights and retain a friendly relationship with one another.®”

In any case, in order to catch up with the other nations and guard against Western

imperialistic expansion, Chinese nationalism was needed. However, this anti-imperialistic

"China's Only Literary Magazine: New Fiction," Hsin-min ts'ung-pao 25 (1902). 146

orientation drifted gradually toward anti-Manchuism. To build a new nation-state, to Liang,

requires the citizens to have an awareness of what a nation is and how it functions. Since the

government is an entrusted agent of the nation, charged with carrying out the will of the

people, and providing the best benefits for them, it cannot go above the people. "Therefore

those who have the idea of what a nation really is always love the court, but those who love

the court do not necessarily love the country. If a court is established legitimately, it serves

as the legtimate representative of the country; to love this court is to love the country. If the

court is illegitimate, it becomes the enemy of the country; to overthrow it is also to love the

country."®* Such traces of implied anti-Manchuism abound in Liang's writing during the years

between 1902-1905. However, we should not take it for granted that Liang had turned to the

camp of revolutionary anti-Manchuism. His attitude is more ambivalent, as it is presented by

the confrontation and conflict of the two characters, Huang K'o-ch'iang and Li Ch'u-ping in

New China.

Liang's concern with the issue of reform versus revolution is representative among

late-Ch'ing intellectuals. In his first two years of exile in Japan, he worked both with the

reformists and revolutionaries. As Professor Hao Chang points out, this ambivalence can be

explained "by the fact that the reform movement with which Liang was originally associated

was not ideologically homogenous but included a spectrum in which both the idea of reform

from above and the idea of antidynastic revolution were represented."®^ When Liang was

invited to Hunan in 1897 to participate in the reform enterprise by the then governor Ch'en

''Hsin-min shuo," section six.

“ Hao Chang, Liang Ch'i-ch’ao, p . 2 2 1 . 147

Pao-chen, he had tended toward revolution and even tried to persuade Ch'en to declare

Hunan as an independent political entity. This urging to declare Hunan province as an independent state reminds us the independent province in the synopsis of New China: "The plot of the novel starts with the independence of one province in South China. Many talented and able men come to the help of establishing a constitutional republic government."®^ After the debacle of Han-k'ou uprising in 1900, Liang stopped working with revolutionaries. It was in 1902 that he again engaged in ideas related to the overthrow of the Manchu court. In a famous letter to K'ang Yu-wei, after refuting the concept of ta-t'ung as presently inadequate for China, Liang suggested that nationalism was not only necessary but desirable.

Now is the age of nationalism and without the spirit of nationalism, a nation cannot be properly founded. ..The best way to inspire the spirit of nationalism is through attacking the Manchu government. The Manchu court is now beyond hope. How can we expect the court to return the right and sovereignty to the emperor? Even if it does, the court is still full of enemies and everything there is corrupted. Even the emperor's recalling us will turn out to be of no avail.

Though he continued to support the emperor, this kind of anti-Manchu sentiment was wide­ spread in Liang's writings and reached its peak during this period, as he later recalled in 1912:

In the winter of 1901, [the newspaper] Hsin-min ts'ung-pao was established to disseminate new knowledge. Its warm welcome by the public was unexpected. At that time, after the disastrous event of the Boxer Uprising, the government was not totally recovered from the humiliation. However, its stubborn corruption still lingered and aroused the anger of many. In consequence the writing in Hsin-min ts'ung-pao became gradually radical. In the autumn of 1902, a new journal, Hsin hsiao-shuo was again founded to advocate the cause of revolution. My personal feeling [for radical

“ "China's only literary magazine: New Fiction." Hsin-min ts'ung-pao 25 (1902). See also LNCC, pp. 42- 4 6 .

'«LNCC, p. 157. 148

revolution] reached the highest point at that time."®’

JnNew China, we see in detail how Liang's attitude was expressed in a narrative discourse.

Indeed, the impression we get from reading the debate of Huang K'o-ch'iang and Li Ch'u-ping mNew China shows that even though Huang's argument seems to gain the upperhand most of the time, Li's argument is, on the other hand, never overcomed or even subdued. The 44 interchanges of their respective viewpoints do tell the reader something about the ambivalence of Liang's thought at the time. However radical or revolutionary the above statement might seem, Liang did not at all resolve his ambivalence, as New China shows. According to most historians, Liang after 1903 had decided to take the gradulist political approach toward building a new China and returning to the camp of K'ang Yu-wei®®-which of course happened after the writing of New China. Although this later development in Liang's thought is interesting in itself and very important in modem Chinese history, for our purpose here in this dissertation, we will have to leave it for another occasion.®’

A discussion of New China will never be complete without an understanding of one pivotal idea in Liang's political thought, that is, constitutional monarchy. Liang was fascinated

“ Liang, "Pi-jen tui-yu yen-lun-ohieh chih kua-ch'u chi chiang-Iai (Some humble opinions to my fellow colleagues)," YPSWC, ts'e 11,29: 3. See also "Ching-kao wo t'ung-yeh chu-chun (To my fellow newspaper colleagues)," TPSITC, ts'e 4,11: 39 and Liang's C/i'/ng to/ hsueh-shu kai-lun (Taipei: Chung-hua, 1980), p. 63.

“ According to Chang P'eng-yuan, Liang, after a period of frustration and bewilderment, finally adopted Huang Tsun-hsien's advice to take the stance of "engaging the revolutionary activities without even mentioning the word'revolution.'" See Chang P'eng-yuan, pp. 177-201. See also Hao Chang, L/ang C//'/-c/i'ao, p. 224; Philip C. Huang, Liang Ch'i-ch'ao and Modem Chinese Liberalism, pp.84-112.

” For a detailed discussion of the issue between reform and revolution in Liang's thought and how it developed, see Chang P'eng-yuan, pp. 81-161. See also Hao Chang, Z,/o/jgC/i7-c/i'ao, pp. 220-237; Philip C. Huang, Liang Ch'i-ch'ao and Modem Chinese Liberalism, pp. 84-112. Huang's chapter basically follows the line of Liang's liberal thought and the political development of the time; Chang's chapter touches also upon Liang's attitude toward Chinese traditional culture. 149 by Western constitutionalism from a very early time.** For him, constitutionalism was the solution for despotism. According to Professor Hao Chang, two essential ingredients constitute a limited constitutional government: "a promulgation of a written constitution and the primacy of the legislative organ in the constitutional government."*® This constitution clearly defines the right of the monarchy, the administrative right, as well as the right of the people; however, Liang insisted, if there is no right of the people, this constitution would be nothing more than blank paper.™ For Liang, the monarchy would not conflict with the constitution, so long as the rights were clearly defined, as the examples of England and Japan apparently demonstrated. He added a proviso, however: a constitution can never be set up until the people were enlightened, educated, and understood what it meant for them. Japan's constitution, for example, was not set up until 20 years after the Meiji Restoration. Here, although Liang shows his well-informed knowledge of constitutionalism and his careful consideration of the practicality of setting up a constitution, his gradualist attitude can also be discerned. For example, in New China, though Huang K'o-ch'iang agrees to Li Ch'u-ping's contention that the Chinese people never determined their own destiny, he immediately adds that it would be fortunate for the people if they can obtain what they want without changing the present system. If people can get what they want, says Huang, they will never care who the emperor is. Huang even comes to the conclusion that the Ch'ing emperor is in effect a

“ Liang's "Ko-kuo hsien-fa yi-t'ung lun" (On the Similarities and Differences of Constitution among Various Countries) was published in 1899; "Li hsien-fa i" (On constitutionalism) was published in 1900. See respectively, YPSWC, ts'e 4,4:71-79 and ts'e 4,5:1-7

“ Hao Chang, Liang Ch'i-ch'ao, p. 201.

™ "Li hsien-fa i," YPSWC, ts'e 2,5:2. 150 good one— reflecting Liang's loyalty to Emperor Kuang Hsu.’* After 1905, Liang deserted the idea of a constitutional monarchy and switched to liberal despotism, as his long article

"Lun k'ai-ming chuan-chih" (On liberal despotism, 1905) clearly shows. Again, this new development is beyond the scope of our discussion here.

We have spent pages elaborating on the historical and political, as well as Liang's intellectual background. This, however, only means to suggest that to understand a certain piece of literary work, the so-called "extrinsic elements" cannot be clearly cut away from the work itself, especially in the case of Liang who has consciously using the narrative form to

"express his humble opinions about politics." Since Liang consciously used a traditional

Chinese novelistic genre to express his political ideas and ideals, and since his novel received a lot of attention from his contemporaries, the understanding of the cultural reality is not only necessary but desirable. It is precisely because Liang has brought into his novel such current contingent concerns of his contemporaries as we delineated above, that it enjoyed a great popularity not fully understandable to later critics. Whether China is a "good" novel is certainly a matter for debate. But this kind of "thick description," to use Clifford Geertz's phrase, emphasizing the need, not just to describe the "meaning particular social actions have for the actors whose actions they are," but for "stating, as explicitly as we can manage, what the knowledge thus attained demonstrates about the society in which it is found and, beyond that, about social life as such" is an important critical perspective we need in understanding a work like New China?^

” New China, pp. 24-26.

” Clifford Geertz, The Interpretation o f Culture (New York: Basic Books, 1973), p. 27. 151

IV. Narrative Structure and Techniques

The setting oîNew China is in Shanghai, in the year 2062. To celebrate China's 50th anniversary of reformation,” a peace conference and a celebration is in session. Dr. K'ung's speech there is one of the most significant, among others. He is lecturing on the "History of the Past Sixty Years," through which the whole story of Huang K'o-ch'iang and Li Ch'u-ping is related. Hsia Hsiao-hung calls this narrative method a "flashback," and claims that Liang was the first Chinese to "consciously" use this literary technique. In my opinion, it should be considered a frame narrative, instead of a "flashback."” A frame narrative contains within itself at least one other narrative. The frame device in Western literature has a long tradition starting from Arabian Nights and later Boccaccio's Decameron. The best-known modem examples are Henry James's The Turn o f the Screw and Joseph Conrad's Heart o fDarkness.

In Conrad's novella, Marlow, the narrator in the inner narrative, relates his experience, particularly his confrontation with Kurtz, in the Belgium Congo, but in turn, Marlow's story is reported by a frame narrator (or outer narrator). In New China, the traditional outer narrator serves many functions. To begin with, he provides the necessary background information, explaining the when, and where of the narrative. He introduces the main narrator.

Dr. K'ung. He intrudes into the narrative occasionally to provide further explanations to

" As critics have already pointed out, Liang here made a chronological miscalculation. The year should be 1962. Or maybe Liang meant the 150th anniversary. See, for instance, Hsia Hsiao-hung, p. 43.

" See Hsia Hsiao-hung, p. 67. "Flashback" generally refers to "interpolated narratives or scenes (often justified as a memory, a revery, or a confession by one of tire characters) which represent events that happened before the time at whieh the work opened" (Abrams, Glossaiy, p. 141). What Dr. Kung does, strictly speaking, is telling the story of Huang and Li that he reads from Huang's writing. In this strict sense he is not doing the ftashback. 152

questions that the reader might be asking. For instance, this outer narrator puts forth the

rhetorical question, pretended to be asked by the reader, of how Dr. K'ung could know every

word uttered by Huang and Li. He then explains that it is because in the lecture. Dr. K'ung

has brought with him a book written by Huang and he is precisely paraphrases it from the

book.’® This frame narrator again appears at the end of Chapter Three to function as a

transitional device toward Chapter Four. He occasionally provides comments and casual

remarks to help to set up the tone of the narrative. The presence of this outer narrator is

particularly apparent in the first two chapters. However, from the third chapter on, when the

narrative delves into the story of Huang K'o-ch'iang and Li Ch'u-ping, the inner narrator Dr.

K'ung all but gives way to the outer narrator. When introducing Huang K'o-ch'iang's father,

for example, this narrator jumps in to explain the native province where the Huang family

came from by directly addressing the reader:

My dear reader, you know that Ch'iung-chou is a small island in the very south of China and traditionally has been isolated from the mainland culture. How is it that in the past fifty or sixty years there appeared so many important figures who have come to influence the whole political situation? It all started with the Neo-Confiicianism of Master Ch'iung-shan [Huang Ch'un, Huang K'o-ch'iang's father].’®

Dr. K'ung disappears totally at this point. Another such occasion occurs in Chapter Five when the narrator again comes in to comment that since Huang just suffered the deepest sorrow

of losing his father, and Li, his dearest teacher, they surely will not be able to enjoy the bizarre

gathering of the Shanghai pseudo-literati.”

" New China, p. 43.

New China, 16.

New China, p. 78. 153

To be sure, Liang Ch'i-ch'ao was not someone familiar with the interplay of points of

view in narrative. Basically he was following the techniques of storytelling from the traditional

Chinese novel. The innovation he made is probably setting up the frame to have his story told.

Again, we have to point out that the frame device is not something totally new to Chinese

narrative. Ai Na Chu Shih, for instance, uses a frame to incorporate each episode by different

narrators in Tou-p'eng hsien-hua (Idle talks under the bean trellis, 1781). But, in the opinion

of Andrew Plaks, "frame" in Chinese narrative generally only serves as "a decorative border

and not a structurally significant enclosure."^* Only a few traditional Chinese novels, such as

Ju-lin wai-shih and Hung-lou meng, in a sense can be authentically treated as frame narrative

since the episodes in the former are all encompassed under the umbrella of a unifying theme,

and the rubric of the latter novel is embedded in the story of the stone.’® New China,

therefore, is also a frame narrative in that is possesses a significant structuring of the outer

and inner narrative.

Except for using political discourse as his new subject matter and "new perspective,"

Liang in his novel shows he was deeply rooted in the Chinese narrative tradition. The

narrative form he adopted for Afetv China is authentically a traditional Chinese chapter format

{chang-hui t'i). For each chapter Liang provides a parallel couplet to summarize the contents.

He also concludes each chapter with the traditional address to the reader: "if you want to

know what is coming next, please see the following chapter." Once, he does give a variation

See "Toward a Critical Theory of Chinese Narrative." in Chinese Narrative: Critical and Theoretical Essays, ed. Andrew H. Plaks (Princeton: Princeton University Press. 1977). p. 331.

” Lin Shun-fu. for example, discuss the Ju-lin wai-shih, in terms of frame-story. see his "Ritual and Narrative Structure in Jw-Zi» wai-shih," in Chinese Nairative, p. 259. 154 to the same formula by changing it into "it's a long story and it's getting late. Let's continue the story tomorrow."*® As we mentioned earlier, occasionally the narrator will intrude to explain or comment, which is also the device we often find in the traditional Chinese novel.

Hsia Hsiao-hung adds one more feature that she thinks is also taken from traditional

Chinese fiction, that is, the "historian's touch" {shih-pi). The term,"historian's touch," appeared in "Chung-kuo wei-i chih wen-hsueh pao (China's Only Literary Magazine)" when

Liang described the outline of New China:

This book begins with the Boxer Uprising and ends fifty years after that event. The method used is by way of imagining and reflecting; the narration, however, relies totally on a historian's touch, as if it really happens to real people, so that the reader is plunged into it without ever realizing that it is only an allegory.*^

The close interrelation between fiction and history in Chinese narrative has long been recognized.*^ Liang in writing this novel also had the disposition to claim authenticity for his

"imaginative" writing. Dr. K'ung, for instance, before starting the main part of his narrative, has to justify his presenting a "national history" in the form of fiction (pp. 6-7). Moreover, in relating what the Russians have done to the poor Chinese people under their control in

Chapter Four, Liang, in his true identity as the writer, has to add (though in parenthesis) that everything he relates is taken from Japanese newspapers and assures the reader of their factuality (pp. 53, 55, 56, 58). This kind of appeal to historical authenticity has long been a device in traditional Chinese fiction.

^ New China,-p. 15.

Hsin-min ts'ung-pao, 25 (1902).

“ See Andrew Plaks, "Toward a Critical Theory," in Chinese Narrative, pp. 316-320; Sheldon Hsiao-peng Lu, From Historicity to Fictionality: The Chinese Poetics o f Narrative (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1994), pp. 37-52. 155

In considering the narrative devices Liang uses in Nev.' China, we might be surprised at the lack of foreign influences in his fiction-writing. New China on the whole is a very authentic traditional Chinese novel. As we mentioned earlier, the only thing that can be regarded as innovative is the fact that political consciousness and discourse were brought into the novel, something we never see in other traditional Chinese novels. In this regard, we have to admit Liang is successful in his version of "revolution in fiction," for he has incorporated new ideas (the political discourse) into the old form of fiction. We will also have to admit that in terms of using literature in service to practical concerns, as Helmut Martin has argued,

Liang is no different fi-om his previous fiction critics.*^ After all, this utilitarianism of literature is one of the most important and characteristics of traditional Chinese literature.

Nevertheless, it is precisely this new political dimension in Chinese fiction that marks the tremendous change in the tradition. To understand what C. T. Hsia calls "the obsession with China in modem Cliinese literature," Liang's contribution as we delineated here is unprecedented and crucial.

V. The Utopian Novel and New China

Besides the inspiration of the Japanese political novels, one possible inspiration on

Liang's New China deserves our attention. Professor C.T. Hsia has pointed out that "Edward

Bellamy's utopian novel. Looking Backward, 2000-1887, which appeared too late to influence

Suehiro Tetcho, could also have inspired Liang to write The Future o f New China."^* Hsia

“ "A Transitional Concept of Chinese Literature 1897-1917," p. 189.

^ Hsia, "Yen Fu and Liang," p. 252, note 44. 156 did not pursue this topic any further; we are therefore left unsure of the validity of this remark. Hsia Hsiao-hung also puts forth the argument that Liang's writing of The Future o f

New China was not only "inspired," as C.T, Hsia carefully puts it, but also influenced by

Bellamy's Looking Backward}^ Hsia Hsiao-hung does not mention that New China is a utopian novel. But she contends that K'ang Yu-wei was interested in works that are set in the future and that Liang was very familiar with such utopian novels as Thomas More's Utopia}^

Are their arguments justified, given the fact that influence study has always been an elusive and therefore a controversial domain in comparative study?

Edward BeWmiy's Looking Backward 2000-1887 was published in 1888. This book was translated into Chinese with the title Pai-nien i-chueh (A Dream that lasts for one hundred years) by Timothy Richard in 1894, one of the famous missionaries who had exerted great influence on the Reformists.®’ Timothy Richard's translation was not complete, but on the whole it abstracted the essence of the original.®* This translation was obviously very popular at the time, at least for the Reformists, for on several occasions they all mentioned it. Liang Ch'i-ch'ao in his "Hsi-hsueh shu-mu piao" (Bibliography on western learning, 1896)

“ Hsia Hsiao-hung, pp. 53-57.

“ Hsia Hsiao-hung, pp. 233-234. Liang mentioned Plato, More, Saint-Simon, in a letter to K'ang Yu-wei on K'ang's idea of "Ta-t'ung" in comparison to Western social thinkers, see LNCC, p. 157.

^ Liang gave it the title of "pai-nien i-meng," while T'an Ssu-t'ung and the Society for the Difiusion of Christian and General Knowledge among the Chinese (S.D.K.) referred to it as "pai-nien i-chueh." Timothy Richard mentioned that the original title should be Hui-t'ou k'an (Looking backward). For the relationship between Richard and the Reformers, see Chen Chi-yun, "Liang Ch'i-ch'ao's 'Missionary Education': A Case Study of Missionary Influence on the Reformers," Prrpers on China 16 (Cambridge, 1962), pp. 62-125.

™ Timothy Richard in his preface to his translation admitted that his translation was only a synopsis of the original novel. See Richard's preface to Pai-nien i-chueh (Peking: Kuang-hsueh hui, 1894), quoted in Hsia Hsiao-himg, p. 54. 157

remarked that "this [Bellamy's Looking Backward\ is also a western novel, talking about

happenings a hundred years later." T'an Ssu-t'ung, in his famous work Jen-hsueh (The Study

of Jen), compared Looking Backward with the idea of "ta-t'ung" (great harmony) in the

chapter of the Book of Rites.*® K'ang Yu-wei also mentioned this novel when he was

lecturing in Wan-mu ts'ao-t'ang, saying that "the book, Pai-nien i-chueh, written by an

American author, is a vision of utopia."®® It is very likely, as Martin Bernal argues, that "many

people, possibly K'ang himself, saw an equivalence between the two schemes [of Looking

Backward and K'ang Yu-wei's famous book, Ta-i’ung shu\'' However, Bernal also points out that K'ang had been working on his utopian ideas of Ta-t’ung shu five or six years before the

publication of Bellamy's work.®' Liang, we might note, served as Timothy Richard's secretary for a time, so that it is likely that he not only read the book but also had the chance of

discussing it with Richard.®^ At any rate, indications are that such important reformers as

K'ang Yu-wei, Liang Ch'i-ch'ao and T'an Ssu-t'ung all read or were familiar with Looking

Backward and were impressed by its utopian scheme, usually compared to K'ang Yu-wei's utopian thought in Ta-t'ung shuHYàs, is not enough for us to be certain that Liang's novel was indeed influenced by Richard's translation: what it tells us is simply that Liang had access to

See T'an Ssu-t'ung, Jen-hsueh (Shanghai, 1958), p. 76.

” K'ang Yu-wei, Nan-hai K'ang hsien-sheng k'ou-shuo (Kuang-tung: Chung-shan ta hsueh, 1985), cited in Hsia Hsiao-hung, p. 52.

” Martin Bernal, Chinese Socialism to 1907 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1976), p. 25.

Liang was Richard's secretary from 1895-1896. See Chang P'eng-yuan, Liang Ch'i-ch'ao yu Ch'ing-chi ko-ming, pp. 35-36. For a more detailed study of Liang Ch'i-ch'ao and the possible influence from the missionaries,see Chen Chi-yun, "Liang Ch'i-ch'ao's 'Missionary Education,"' especially pp. 75-88. The translation of Bellamy's novel appears to be one of the two Western novels that Liang had read at that time, for in Hsi-hsueh shu-mu piao, besides Looking Backward, Liang only mentioned Hsin-hsi hsien-t'an (translated by Li-shao chu-shih and serialized in Ying-huan so-chi from 1872). 158 this novel through translation and that he probably was impressed by the ideas in the novel.

To go farther, we need to consider the characteristics of Bellamy's novel.

The plot of Bellamy's novel is quite simple. Julian West, a Bostonian, after a trance- sleep, awakes to find that he is in the year 2000, having slept for 113 years. Like Rip Van

Winkle, he finds out that the whole society is a different one from his own. Boston and the whole nation have been socialized and he has to re-orient to everything he encounters now.

However, his awareness of the sharp contrast between the year 2000 and his former nineteenth-century life convinces him of the superiority of twentieth-century life. This contrast, along with Julian's willingness to remain in this society-he in effect simply has no way of returning to his former state—and become one member of it (he becomes a lecturer in history), shows that the twentieth-century socialist society, whose system Bellamy describes as "Nationalism," is something that Bellamy and his nineteenth-centuiy reader opted for. As contrast, Bellamy also arranges a nightmare at the end of the novel that brings back to Julian the horrible vision of his former life. This reminds the reader that realities of the nineteenth- century were something unbearable—orphanages, destitution, crime, insanity, suicide, economic recession, violent strikes, and corruption in business and government, all associated with an industrial capitalist society-and to a great measure needs criticism and reform. From a post-industrial perspective, Bellamy's novel is not only a utopian novel, but also a reform novel—using the vision of a future society to criticize his present society.®^ In fact, all the

“ See the argument in The Columbia History o f the American Novel, ed. Emory Elliott et al. (New York: Columbia University Press, 1991), pp. 228-229. In Krishan Kumar's Utopia & Anti-Utopia in Modem Times (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1987), by putting Bellamy's ideas against the socialist tendencies in America and in the Continent, he points out the unmistakable features of socialist and utopian leanings in Looking Backward. See pp. 132-167. 159 utopian novels can be treated as reformist novels, in the sense that they all criticize their present society by dint of another society in the far away place or in the future times. As

Krishan Kumar remarks that

So from its very inception with More utopia embodies two impulses, tending often in opposite directions. It is more than a social or political tract aiming at reform, however comprehensive. It always goes beyond the immediately practicable, and it may go so far beyond as to be in most realistic senses wholly impracticable. But it is never simple dreaming. It always has one foot in reality.®'*

Nevertheless, reformist inclination, though a dynamic part in most utopian novels, is only one part of utopian work. For instance, several elements come to characterize Bellamy's utopian novel: a utopian disposition to yearn for a better society, a set of socialist theory as concrete blueprint for this new world, besides the reformist implications to use the future world as a corrective for present society.®®

In contrast, if we look at Liang's New China, we will have to admit that Liang's novel does not belong to the category of utopian novel. In the first place, we will have to wonder whether we can designate the whole story of New China as falling in the domain of future or as beyond the present society of Liang's time. In other words, even though this novel carries

"future" in its title, and Liang's intent was to write something happening in the future, what we have, as far as the extant five chapters go, is a delineation of the "present China." To elaborate on his political vision, he has adopted the form of telling the story from a "future"

Krishan Kumar, Utopianism (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1991), p. 2.

For some definitions of "utopia" see M. H. Abrams, A Glossary o f Literaiy Tenus, 5th ed. (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, Inc., 1988), p. 195. In fact, Frank E. Manuel and Fritzie P. Manuel in their definitive study of utopia, Utopian Thought in the Western l-ForW (Cambridge: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1979), do not even venture a definition of "utopia" at all. Abrams's is the most general definition. See also Chris Baldick, The Concise Oxford Dictionary o f Literaiy Terms (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991), p. 235. 160 perspective—this, to a certain extent, is innovative, for through the speech of Dr. K'ung the story and political thought of Huang and Li gains a certain credibility (as something which already "happened" and is seemingly "true"). However, Liang was obviously not aiming to present a blueprint of a future society in China. Judging from Liang's way of presenting his material and the picture he gives us in New China, we will have to concede that building a future society and the way people live in that society seems not to be Liang's concern at all: even in a "future" story, Liang was in fact only talking about his present world and airing his own political thought.

Second, we will have to look at Liang's platforms of the Constitutional party (Hsien- cheng tang) and see whether they can stand the test as social programs for a future society.

As mentioned earlier, the political organization and all the political platforms as well as the political ideal of the Constitutional Party are presented as something introduced in 1902.

Apart from this, all such ideas were pretty much a consensus of most of the intellectuals of

Liang's times around 1902. For example, the enactment of constitution was for a while an extremely urgent issue pursued by most intellectuals, and in 1905, even the Ch'ing court had to send a delegation to Europe to learn how to install a constitution. As for the platforms, if looked at carefully, we will find that Liang or his contemporaries had already articulated everything in them. The platforms concerning education (p. 10), for instance, were already much discussed in Liang's writings. Other issues might not have been so well-known, but, as in the case of developing industry and commerce and conducting a national survey of natural, human, and other kinds of resources (p. 11), they were matter of great and immediate concern and were discussed by Liang on other occasions. In short, what Liang presented in his novel 161 is not any social theory or programs that a future society will hold and practice; it was much more a restatement of the prevalent concerns of most intellectuals of the time. Moreover, nowhere in New China are we shown how people think and act in their daily life in a future society. As we know, "utopia" has been used to "signify the class of fiction which represents an ideal, non-existent political state and way of life"’® It can also be distinguished from

"literary representations of imaginary places which, either because they are greatly superior to the ideal world or manifest exaggerated versions of some of its unsavory aspects, are used primarily as vehicles for satire on human life and society." Utopias are usually the result of social stress and tension; they are the inventions of human imagination; and they are merely relative, that is, closely related to the status quo of the author's milieu.®^ M.I. Finley best describes the feature of utopia; "All utopian thinking has an element of fantasy, of dreaming, or at least of yearning for a better life and a better world. And all men dream in this way, about themselves and their families if not about society in general or the world at large."’* In this regard. New China, though not without some utopian tendency to display Liang's political ideals, does not present a picture of future society that can be adequately called utopia. It is in this sense that New China cannot be described as a utopian work.

What, then, are the differences between utopia and social theory? According to

Kumar, utopia, in the first place, has to be "a fiction of a journey to a new world, with the

Abrams, p. 195.

^ See the discussion of the characteristics of utopias in Joyce Oramel Hertzler, The Histoiy o f Utopian Thought (New York: Cooper Square Publishers, Inc., 1965), pp. 257-267.

M.I. Finley, "Utopianism Ancient and Modem," in K. H. Wolff and Barrington Moore, ed. The Critical Spirit: Essays in Honor o f Herbert Marcuse. Boston: Beacon Press, 1967, p. 3. 162 detailed description of the daily life of its inhabitants." In other words, it has to be a work of imaginative nature; and there is also a basic narrative pattern—a visitor from another place or time encounters a superior civilization—in utopian novels. Secondly, "in the abstract schemes of conventional social and political theory, we are told that the good society will follow from the application of relevant general principles; in utopia we are shown the good society in operation, supposedly as a result of certain general principles of social organization."” Seen in this perspective, Liang's A'éw China again does not gives us a detailed picture of the "good society in operation." Accordingly, Liang's ideas as presented in New China can be characterized as a kind of social theory he endorsed and postulated, but never the kind that is directed toward a future and different society.

By these standards, Liang's novel is anything but a utopian novel. Although the setting of his novel is put in the future, the year 2062, this society has nothing "new," "superior" or

"ideal" that can separate itself from the actual society which Liang and his reader lived: we cannot see anything significant in the novel that can arouse any feeling of "fantasy,"

"dreaming," or "yearning" for a better life or world. In other words, there exist no contrastive elements between the made-up world of Liang's novel and the historical environment in which he was writing. It appears evident that Liang Ch'i-ch'ao was not concerned about constructing any utopian society, or about any general mankind, not to mention conceiving a picture of future socialist society. In this sense, the title of Liang's novel is misleading, for all the extant chapters basically deal with past experience—"present," to his reader—and not at all with the future. The purpose of Liang's putting the setting in the future is apparent: he can thus use a

” K u m a r, Utopianism, p . 31. 163 narrator to relate the story of the deeds and ideas of the reformers, Huang and Li—in fact, the embodiment of the ambivalent and conflicting polarities of his own political thought. Put it another way, this is simply a presentist story embedded in the framework of future time. The essence of the story remains in the present and has nothing to do with the future. Simply put, this is a pseudo-utopian novel.

By the above definitions of the utopia. The Future o f the New China, does not fit the mold of a Western utopian novel. But what about the reformist elements we always find in utopian novels, especially in Bellamy's work? When Julian wakes up, what he faces is a totally different world. By making Julian ask all kinds of questions to Dr. Leete about the new world,

Bellamy was able to give an overall picture of the problems that Julian and, in fact, the nineteenth-century reader, were all well aware. All the problems covered in Looking

Backward were basically centered around post-industrial-revolution issues: economic recession, strikes, corruptions and the like.^“ Such disastrous events aroused concerns in such writers as Walt Whitman, Mark Twain, William Dean Howells, and certainly Bellamy. The social, political, and economic predicament, however, seemed to fall beyond the control of the writers, who voiced their concerns in their work. But according to one estimate, in the second half of the nineteenth-century America, there were as many as 500 social gospel and utopian novels being published.'®* Putting Bellamy's novel in this context, it is no wonder that

Jean Pfaelzer in her study of Bellamy's novel elaborates on the social and historical background of Looking Backward in The Utopian Novel in America, 1886-1896: The Politics o f Form (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh, 1984), pp. 27-28.

The Columbia History o f the American Novel, p. 228. 164

Looking Backward can unabashedly be put within the category of the protest and reform.

From this perspective, Finley's observations that "utopia transcends the given social reality;

it is not transcendental in a metaphysical sense" and that "every significant utopia is conceived

as a goal toward which one may legitimately and hopefully strive, a goal not in some shadowy

state of perfection but with specific institutional criticisms and proposals" hold true for

Bellamy.'” So, when Dr. Leete talks about the equality of man and women (chpt. 25), the

distribution of benefits (chpt.7), the nationalization of enterprise (chpts. 5-7), social welfare

system (chpt. 18), and the like, he is in fact addressing the problems that the nineteenth-

century people were unable to solve and offers some possible solution.

Liang, by contrast, does not address such social or economic issues in the Future o f

New China. What he presents to the reader is a picture of the present political situation,

without a future mirror to reflect upon for possible solutions. The only "future" part in New

China is described at the very beginning. At that time China has relieved herself from all the

unequal treatments from foreign forces and a peace conference has just convened to settle the

China issues. We get no impression that this is really a "future" society except in one place:

"after the enactment of the Reform, all academic fields in China have been pushed toward

such an advanced level that Western nations are sending many students to study here" (p. 4).

This is an extremely vague picture of the future, but the only one we can get hold of in the

whole novel. Liang does not address any "institutional criticisms and proposals" that might

"Fiction and Reform" is the chapter heading where Bellamy's novel is discussed in The Columbia History o f American Novel.

Finley, p. 6. 165 give us any clue as to the crucial social or political issues existing in either old society or future one. In other words, Liang apparently is not practically concerned about anything that the so-called utopian or reformist novels might deal with. Even such emergent issues as national character, political awareness, "new citizen," among others, did not find access to his novel. No protest is directed toward anything and there is no reform blueprint. Instead, what we have is simply the relating of "past history"—the case history of the two reformists and their political thought— not the whole society and its various social issues and problems. It is apparent that by any standard, New China cannot be categorized as a reform novel either, at least not in the particular or actual sense.

So, '■£'QeXi3xve/s Looking Backward shows the elements of utopianism, socialist society in the future, and reformist tendency toward his own society, we have no basis to claim the same for Liang's New China. Maybe C.T. Hsia is right in saying that Bellamy's novel "could have inspired" Liang to write something that is put in the future time frame. As for the

"influence" of Bellamy's work on the writing of New China, however, I believe the existing evidence is not sufficient enough to support the case.

If we want to assert anything in common in both Bellamy's and Liang's novels, the only thing we can point out is that in both novels, the dialogues and arguments going between the main characters are quite striking. The discussions of the contrast of the new and old societies, between Julian and Dr. Leete, seems to go on and on without stop. But again, this is something quite often seen and therefore inevitable in most of the utopian novels, for

"ideas" have come to play a tremendous part in the genre. In Liang's novel, as so many scholars have pointed out, arguments about revolution or anti-revolution stance between 166

Huang K'o-ch'iang and Li Ch'u-ping have occupied most of the chapters/"'* Whether this way of presenting arguments through the mouths of the characters was learned from Bellamy, as

Hsia Hsiao-hung maintains, we are not too sure.'"^ But the possibility is there, for as we mentioned earlier, up to 1898, when Liang first planned to write New China, his Chinese or

Western models were few. Looking Backward was one possible candidate.’®" But it is highly possible that the Japanese model might turn out to be more significant. Since we do not have definitive evidence at this moment, I think the question remains open.

In summary, while New China might not be a "good" novel in literary terms, I would venture to suggest that it succeeded in what it attempted. Liang's intent on "expressing his own humble political opinions" is mostly fulfilled, as the above discussion shows. The

Japanese influence, as we found, is present but only shows on the general outlook of Liang's political thought, not on the novelistic technique he adr-' Bellamy's influence, if any, shows up only in the future setting. Liang was never concerned about composing a utopian novel.

Instead of looking into the future, he was standing firmly on his own society and caring more about the down-to-earth, contingent concern of the political issues. Whatever he did, we should acknowledge that Liang is successful in fulfilling his promise of "expressing his political opinions" in his novel. New China, in essence, is a very traditional Chinese novel. The best part, and the only innovative part of this novel, lies in Liang's bringing into the novelistic

For example, this discussion of revolution versus anti-revolution runs up to 27 pages (pp. 17-43), about one-thirds of the extant novel.

Hsia Hsiao-hung, pp. 55-56.

From "Hsi-hsueh shu-mu piao"(Bibliography of Western Books), we know that Liang at that time only knew two Western novels in translation: Lu-shao chu-shih's Hsin-hsi hsien-t'an and Bellamy's Looking Backward. 167 discourse the political dimension. Professor C. T. Hsia perceptively singles out the political debate between Huang and Li as an innovative act. However, I do not agree totally with his further comment that the latter part of the novel shows Liang running out of inspiration.

Liang might be running out of inspiration, or he might feel the difficulty in carrying on this argumentative mode, but the fact remains that Liang was simply going back to the traditional fictional mode and seems to be more at home with the traditional narrative mode.

From our discussion, we can agree that New China is a political novel—as Liang himself explains that "political novel is the literary genre where an author expresses his own political thought"*®’—and is the first Chinese political novel. It might possess certain utopian leaning, but on the whole this tendency, if any, only presents itself in an almost inconspicuous manner. In a broad sense, we can say that New China has its "reformist" aspect; however, as our discussion in the foregoing pages shows, it nonetheless cannot be properly termed a reform novel in its strict sense. But if we couple the concept of "political novel" with Liang's definition of "idealistic novel" which "guides us into other worlds and changes the atmosphere of our usual sensory and emotional experience," then I believe we can call New China an

"idealistic political novel." Seeing New China in this way gives us some advantage in discussing the development of Chinese fiction at the turn of the century. For one thing, it acknowledges the need for traditional Chinese fiction to adapt itself to the call of the contingent situations of the society. It can also take into account the possible, if only meager, utopian outlook in the work. Even though New China might be "immature," "full of

"China's First Literary Magazine: New Fiction," Hsin-min ts'ung-pao 25 (1902). This is the place where Liang explains the category, "political novel," under which New China is listed 168 contradiction between old and new," as Hsia Hsiao-hung remarks, it nevertheless opens a new horizon for Chinese fiction. This new political dimension, closely related to the urgent call to save the nation, furthermore decides the road that modem Chinese fiction was to take.

"Obsess ion with China" has ever since then become a major trend of Chinese fiction.*®*

Of course, the prevalence of the popular fiction should not be ignored by anyone interested in the development of Chinese fiction. It is, however, beyond the scope of this study, and Perry Link's excellent study. Mandarin Ducks and Butterflies: Popular Fiction in Early Twentieth-Century Chinese Cities (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1981), has already offered us a good survey in this regard. CHAPTER IV

IDEOLOGY AND GENRE

In previous chapters I focused on the intellectual issues at Liang's time and tried to see their relevancy to Liang's views on fiction and his practice in novel writing. In this chapter, my focus is on the politics of genre and on the ideological position that the Chinese novel as a genre was perceived to take in the late Ch'ing period; how the new form of fiction survived in a society that, on the highest levels, was intensely hostile to it, the causes of that pervasive cultural censure; the consequences, and the changes that occurred during the period.

When Liang Ch'i-ch'ao hoisted the flag of "revolution of fiction" and claimed that

"fiction is the supreme genre among literary forms," he declared the coming age as the age of fiction in the history of Chinese literature. Fiction in the late Ch'ing period did proliferate in an unprecedented pace and became the most discussed and practiced genre.’ Liang Ch'i- ch'ao in 1915 wrote of the book market in the past ten years that "when one browses the publications in bookstores, one finds alongside the textbooks that nine out of ten are novels.

Pick up a copy of newspaper, and one finds, in addition to trivial anecdotal articles, fiction

‘ For the phenomena of the proliferation of fiction and the factors that might have caused it, see A Ying, Wan-Ch'ing hsiao-shuo sliih, pp. 1-7; Shu-Ying Tsau, "The Rise of'New Fiction,'" in Milena Dolezelovâ- Velingerovâ, ed. Chinese Novel at the Turn o f the Century, pp. 18-37.

169 170 and entertainment writings occupying almost all the pages. A Ying's estimation that during the period from 1875 to 1911 at least one thousand novels were published, including both original and translated works, substantiate and supplement Liang's observation.^ With regard to the criticism of fiction, aside from prefaces, postscripts and commentary to novels— traditional devices containing the author's or the commentator's opinions— critical articles in the form of essay or random notes also appeared, wholly devoted to different issues concerning the nature, function, and aspects of narration of fiction. Nonetheless, these critical writings give us a feeling of ambivalence concerning the late Ch'ing critics. On the one hand they were proclaiming the supremacy of fiction; on the other, they seemed to lash out at all the ill effects fiction might have brought on its readers. What, after all, were people's opinions of fiction at the turn of the century? Are there prominent features that distinguish them from their predecessors? And to what extent do they influence the later generation? These are the questions we want to ask.

Fiction has traditionally been treated as something that could not be included in the orthodox Chinese literature. The dominance of Confucian canons and the respect people pay to the orthodox historiography had been absolute, and valorized since the second century B.

C. The so-called "Four Categories" (ssn-pu) —Ching (Confucian canons), shih (histories), tzu

(philosophers), and chi (other collections)-had long topped the hierarchy of Chinese cultural

^ Liang Ch'i-ch'ao, "Kao hsiao-shuo chia," in Yen-chiu chuan, p. 20.

^ A Ying, Wan-Ch'ing hsiao-shuo shih, p. 1 ; Wan-Ch'ing hsi-ch'u hsiao-shuo mu (Shanghai: Shanghai wen-i, 1954), p. 1. 171 works. Ever since the earliest extant records, fiction had never been admitted into the hierarchical structure of cultural discourses. In the opinion of most literati, "fiction" is something opposed to "history," is "small indecent matters" as opposed to "large decent matters." Because it deals not with the historical facts, fiction therefore is "talk without basis,"

"trivial talk," or "hearsay." From Pan Ku's "I-wen chih (Treatises on literature)" in the first century to Chi Yun's (1724-1805) Ssu-k'u ch'uan-shu tsung-mu t'i-yao (An Annotated Full

List of the Complete Library of Four Branches of Books) in the eighteenth, we find no substantial difference in the literati's concept of fiction. In Chi Yun's understanding, fiction is the kind of writing that "relates miscellaneous things (hsu-shu tsa-shih)," "records extraordinary things (chi-lu i-wen)," and "collects hearsay (chui-chi siio-yu)"— essentially the representative viewpoint of the literati toward fiction.

But, fi"om early incipient form of chih-kuai (recording extraordinary things), chih-Jen

(recording extraordinary people) in the Six Dynasties to ch'uan-ch'i in the T'ang dynasty to the rise of long chapter-format vernacular novel in the late Mng dynasty, fiction evidently had developed. Even though fiction itself had undergone developments in different stages, the concept of fiction as held by orthodox literati, on the other hand, had remained the same.

Therefore, such popular vemacular novels as &?z-AMo-c/r/A_yen-7, Shui-hu Chuan, ChinP'ing

Mei, and Hsi-yit chi were not even mentioned in Chi's T'i-yao. However, because fiction had been seen as "small too," Chi Yun still had to admit its function of "providing admonition {yu ch'ien-chieh), enlarging knowledge (kuang chien-wen), and offering verification (tzu k'ao- cheng)."* Essentially, this line of thinking tends to emphasize the aspect of factuality and

' Chi Yun, Ssu-k'u ch'uan-shu tsung-mu t'i-yao (Taipei: I-wenying-shu-kuan, 1979), p. 2733. 172 ignores the fictionality of fiction. The practical concerns of the literati with regard to the subversive power that fiction might have have led them to carefully push fiction to the margins of the cultural hierarchy. The literary genres that could represent "the true spirit of

Chinese culture" were those o f shih poetry, historiography, classical ku-wen prose and others, but never fiction (especially the vernacular fiction). Yet, it is unfair to say that fiction had no position in the development of Chinese literature, for even though the orthodox historians and literati on the surface despised fiction and looked down upon it (yet in daily life they still enjoyed reading it!), it has always been an important part in common people's life. Fiction became an interesting literary genre that everybody enjoyed, but for practical political and social concerns it had always been denounced by the literati. In this regard, fiction was more like a sub-cultural discourse: "They [the sub-cultural discourses] institutionalize their particularity in style, in appearance, in attitudes, in other aspects, making themselves a necessary complementary element for the dominant culture to effectively cover the whole range of social strata."® This complementariness of course sometimes would prove to be subversive, but in general, as long as it is best within certain limits, it is bearable and sometimes even helpful for the controlling sector.®

When change did occur in the case of fiction and made it a popular literary form, those literati who were assuming the leadership within a society and continued to hold power and status had to decide what position they wanted to take. Fiction apparently was something that

' Yiheng Zhao, "The Uneasy Narrator, Fiction and Culture in Early Twentieth Century China," Ph. D. Dissertation (Berkeley, 1988), p. 277.

‘ This subversive power Yiheng Zhao in his dissertation relegates to "counter-cultural discourse." In fact, though it is helpful to differentiate between sub-cultural and counter-cultural as explanatory categories, the distinction between them is sometimes blurred. 173 people enjoyed so much, perhaps out of the nature of human curiosity and vicariousness; this fact nobody seemed to be able to deny. However, late-Ch'ing critics have come to a new realization of this traditional literary genre and tried to explain its nature from a new perspective. For instance. Yen Fu and Hsia Tseng-yu, in "Pen-kuan fu-yin shuo-pu yuan-ch'i

(Announcing Our Policy to Print a Supplementary Fiction Section)," first came to recognize that fiction is a kind of literary form that could express the people's concerns with common human affairs, namely, hero-worship and the male-female relationship.^ Liang Ch'i-ch'ao went one step fiirther in his famous "On the Relationship Between Fiction and Social Order," emphasizing the two trends of fiction: realistic and idealistic novels. The former depict common traits of the human world and people's daily lives, which common people do not have the acute perception to be aware of or the ability to write about; the latter set off one's imagination, allowing it to explore something that is not present in current world.® T'ui An

(Mai Meng-hua) in Hsaio-shuo ts'ung-hua (Notes on Fiction) thus wrote of the captivating effect of fiction as "taking the common happenings in a society, which everyone knows, and putting it in such graphic detail that the reader can be drawn into the described world, be immersed in it, and thereby changed by it."® Again, Man Shu*® (Liang Ch'i-hsun) stressed the representation of the society as a crucial fiinction of fiction: "To understand the customs of

^ Yen-chiu chuan, pp. 2-10

® Yen-chiu chuan. pp. 15-16.

’ Yen-chiu chuan, p. 310.

"Man Shu" was used by three Late-Ch'ing intellectuals: Su Man-shu, Mai Chung-hua, Liang Ch'i-ch'ao's former classmate and later colleague at Hsin-min ts 'ung-pao, and Liang Ch'i-hsun, Liang's younger brother. See Chung-kuo li-tai hsiao-shuo lun-chu hsuan, ed. Huang Lin and Han T'ung-wen, vol. II. p. 76, note 39. "Man Shu" is very likely Liang Ch'i-hsun for the reason that he wrote a book entitled "Man-shu-shih pi-chi (Random notes from the studio of Man Shu) and his close relationship with Liang Ch'i-ch'ao. 174 one country, its people's level of culture, its general atmosphere, and where it is heading, nothing is better than fiction. For it is fiction that represents the most precise and fair picture of a country."" Fiction therefore serves as a breakaway out of the boundary of "taken-for- grantedness" in our daily life.Fiction, in short, "shows the relativity institutionalized in every world; it illuminates the world-making force of the human will served by language and conditioned by the past; it suspends some of the familiarity informing everyday life; it looks beneath official facades, commonplaces ideologies, and stubborn stereotypes.""

Late Ch'ing critics in general realized the realistic power of fiction that can faithfully delineate and represent a society. In rare cases, some critics even touched upon something close to what we today characterize as "realism." For example, Man Shu came to defend the licentious book. Chin P'ing Mei, on the grounds that "its merits lie not in how it graphically describes sexual activities. This novel is indeed a book describing the society of the common women. Just look at the characters in this book: when they utter something, immediately we recognize it as speeches from vulgar common women; when they make any movement, the behavior of those common women. Even though they try to emulate the gestures and behaviors of women of a higher level in society, their vulgarity and commonality remain the same; even though they enjoy a life style imitating that of higher reaches in society, their

" Hsiao-shuo ts'ung-hua, in Yen-chiu chuan, p. 333.

Maiy Rogers, "Takcn-for-grantcdness,'' Cuirent Perspectives iti Social Theory: A Research Annual 2 (1981): 133-151.

Mary Rogers, Novels, Novelists, and Readers: Toward a Phenomenological Sociology o f Literature (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1985), pp. 55-56. 175 vulgarity and commonality remain the same."''* Nonetheless, such "realism" represents rare case in late Ch'ing fiction and cannot be used to postulate any significant hypothesis of a concept of "realism" at that time.

The idealistic novel that Liang postulated is another aspect that late-Ch'ing critics came to understand fiction. By "idealistic fiction" Liang means fiction that leads one into another world, away fi"om the "real" world. Liang did not elaborate on the idealistic traits, but he called his own novel New China an "idealistic political novel," meaning something coming out of imagination, quite apart fi"om reality. Yu-hsieh Sheng, in Hsiao-shuo ts'ung-hua, added a dimension to Liang's definition by remarking that "It is true that fiction can lead people to another world, but I believe that to lead people to another world, the author has to imagine himself into it first. On the part of the author, he himself has to have enough imagination to constmct a new world for his reader to get into; whereas on the part of the reader, it is the vicariousness that gives the reader his enjoyment and confidence in his conclusions. As Hsia

Jen noted, "Fiction is written to show the reader characters and events this society does not have but urgently needs, so that people, who always aspire to reaching that level but never have faith in themselves, can thus obtain their self-confidence."'® That is, by vicariously seeing someone participating in the invented events, the reader can somehow undergo a certain experience and this experience in turn gives him the courage and confidence in carrying out certain actions in his own world.

Hsiao-shuo ts'ung-hua in Yen-chiu chuan, p. 318.

Yen-chiu chuan, p. 319.

Yen-chiu chuan, p. 331. 176

How does fiction reach these goals? Late-Ch'ing critics pointed out one very important feature in fiction writing and reading, that is, arousing the reader's interest (hsing- wei or hsing-ch'u). Liang Ch'i-ch'ao explained that the reason why fiction could serve as the instrument to help the guidance of people and keep social order is because "fiction possesses the unbelievable power over human affairs."*’ Hsia Jen wrote, "I think fiction possesses the overwhelming power, namely, the power to captivate a reader's attention. This power absorbs one in the novel, allowing one to share with the characters their happiness and sadness."*® To put it another way, the indispensable factor of fiction is its power to capture a reader's interest, as Lu-t'ien-kuan chu-jen's preface to Kn-chi hsiao-shuo has stated hundred years ago.

Late-Ch'ing critics emphasize this point, and their arguments are usually made by contrasting standard history with the historical novel. For instance, Ku An discusses the difficulty in writing a historical novel:

The historical novel is the most difficult genre, for if it is too factual, it is little less than dynastic history. That is why when reading the Tung-Chou lieh-kuo chih (Chronicles of the states in Eastern Chou), one feels so bored. That's because the whole book is structured on the principle of mechanical, chronological ordering of events and that no original ingenuity is discerned, to the extent that it has no grip on the reader. As for the San-kuo yen-yi, the author has mastered each and every one of the narrative segments and their interrelationship, yet everything presented is skillfiilly manipulated and is not aberrant fi-om the historical facts. No wonder this novel could have been popular for so many centuries."*’

This kind of mastery and manipulation of narrative elements is a necessity in bringing out the reader's interest. Adds one critic in the Hsiao-shuo hsiao-hua (Small talks on fiction):

"On the Relationship Between Fiction and Social Order," in Yen-chiu chuan, p. 14.

Hsiao-shuo ts'ung-hua, in Yen-chiu chuan, p. 329.

" Ku An man-pi (Random notes of Ku An), Yen-chiu chuan, p. 437. 177

For the parts that history books omit, fiction should be more detailed; for the parts that history books exhaust, fiction should gloss over—this is what fiction should do and is the only way to arouse a reader's interest.

Sometimes, the captivating or intoxicating power of fiction is equated with "the extraordinary" (ch'i). The extraordinary can mean two things on different levels. First, it means extraordinary happenings or people as presented in the story. Second, it refers to the ingenuity on the part of the author in presenting his material. "Therefore," Man Shu said, "if the story is extraordinary [either in story itself or in the way it is told], it is good novel; if not, just an average novel.

Wu Chieh-jen, one of the most talented and prolific writers in the late Ch'ing period, has also emphasized the importance of "interest" in novel writing and reading, especially with regard to historical novel. He listed six reasons why history books had not been popular reading: complicatedness; archaic language; bulkiness; time-consumption; poor instruction in school; diflBculty in catching up after turning adult. In contrast to the study of history, Wu noted, the language of fiction is "full of interest and can always attract people. On another occasion, commenting on such historical novels as Tung-Hsi Han yen-yi, Wu again elaborated on the concept of "interest" as a crucial factor in novel writing and reading:

Fictionality and distortion are unavoidable in fiction. If it still turns out to be too sketchy and boring, who would care for fiction and who would want to read it? Not to mention that their [novels'jchapter-dividing is not adequate and their narrative segments are not self-contained—such ignoring of fictional conventions puzzles me.... I have always championed the idea of presenting extraordinary events, for I believe

“ Yen-chiu chuan, p. 355; italics added.

Hsiao-shuo ts'ung-hua, Yen-chiu chuan, p. 334.

"Li-shih hsiao-shuo tsung-hsu (General introduction to the historical novels)" in Yen-chiu chuan, pp. 182- 183. 178

that direct moralizing is no better than admonition by hints, that stately speeches are not as effective as interesting accounts in influencing people....Our serializing historical novels [in Yueh-yueh hsiao-shuo (Monthly fiction)] is nothing but to instruct through entertainment, so that the reader while enjoying his reading can still benefit from it. And that which can achieve this prime goal are the historical novels.^

We can see that "interest" has come to be recognized as the crucial factor of fiction. This stress on interest, however, is indeed the long-existing abiding principle of popular fiction. It is therefore extremely telling to observe the fact that late-Ch'ing critics, who were in general inclined toward using fiction for social, political use, still held on to one of the most essential features of fiction—entertaining and captivating power— and wanted to make best use of it for their purposes.

In addition to the concern with interest, the language of popular fiction was also one focal point for late-Ch'ing critics. Yen Fu and Hsia Tseng-yu in their article came up with six points concerning the difierences between fiction and canonical texts: fiction uses a language that its readers understand; the language of fiction is closer to the vernacular language; it is more elaborated; fiction is concerned with immediate daily occurrences; fictional writing is more captivating.^'* Liang Ch'i-ch'ao in 1896 already stated the affective power of the vernacular language in fiction: "People nowadays use vernacular in speech whereas in writing they go back to classical language. This is why women, children, and farmers treat study [of

Confucian texts] as most difficult, yet the readers of San-kuo and Shui-hu are much greater in number than those of the six Confucian Classics. Then, in Hsiao-shuo ts'ung-hua, Liang

“ "Liang-Chin yen-i-hsu (Preface to Romance of the North and South Chins)," Yen-chiu chuan, p. 184.

Yen-chiu chuan, pp. 10-12.

“ "General Discussion on Reform," YPSWC, te'e 1,1: 54. 179 again remarked that "good fiction cannot be written in the classical language.... If we want to disseminate ideas, vernacular language should be used in all writings, not just in popular fiction.

While the vernacular language helped to popularize fiction, it also posed problems.

Since the common people had no difficulty understanding the vernacular novel (no interpretation was needed, unlike the case of Confucian texts), it thus became something that elite sectors in society could not control. In this regard, fiction turned out to be a subversive force and a threat to the social and political order. As we know, even though Liang in his article wanted readers to emulate the exemplary characters in fiction, there is the inherent danger that the reader might follow the less than savory characters instead. Some novels, to be sure, may have the moral tendency to instruct their readers, who will be affected and

"elevated." In reality, however, this is wishful. As late-Ch'ing critics were evidently aware, many characters in popular novels serve as bad examples for emulation. Such labels as "hui- yin hui-tao'Q.ndAe lechery and brigandage) were attached to fiction not without reason.

Considering the subversive power of fiction, which often transgressed the prescribed limits, the literati who led the society could not but renounce it. Underlying the censure of fiction is the notion that the reader was not well prepared against the "vices" contained in a piece of fiction. In the important data collected by Wang Li-Ch'i, in Ytian-Mmg-Ch'ing san tai chin- hui hsiao-shuo hsi-ch'u shih-liao (Historical Data on the prohibited fiction and plays in the

Yuan, Ming and Ch'ing dynasties), we see clearly this pervasive denunciation.^^ It is ironic in

Yen-chiu chuan, p. 309.

" (Shanghai: Shang-hai ku-chi, 1981), pp. 204-368. 180 this regard that the only readers who can withstand the appeal of vices are the readers with enough experience; yet the effort of political authorities was to prevent the reader from contacting these experience, and we know that in the case of common people one of the many channels that could give them the power to distinguish between good and bad, virtue and vice came more often than not from reading fiction or hearing oral storytelling.

In sum, the censure of fiction was in fact initiated in terms of social utility and here the controlling ideology persists and stands out prominently. As Anthony Giddens has observed, ideology represents "the capacity of dominant groups or classes to make their own sectional interests appear to others as universal. More clearly defined than Marx's original formulation that "the ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas," Giddens makes a distinction between the ruling ideas and the perception that some ideas are ruling and dominant.^® This distinction is helpful in our understanding of the intricate relation between popular vernacular fiction and late-Ch'ing critics' view of fiction. Interestingly, the censure of the early novels parallelled the novel's growing popularity, and that incongruity took a variety of forms. Until the late-Ch'ing period, virtually every work of vernacular fiction-in its preface, postscript, marginal commentary, or even within its plot, defended itself against the fact that it was a novel, either by claiming difference (founded on "factual truth") or by redefining the genre as something it was not supposed to be—moral, truthful, educational, and so on. The phenomenon that while in the preface to a novel one defensively proclaims the

“ Anthony Giddens, Central Problems in Social Theory: Action, Structure and Contradiction in Social Analysis (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1979), p. 6.

“ Giddens, ibid., p. 193. 181 genre's moral advantages-even as the story itself abounds in amoral thought or descriptions— was not uncommon. The question, then, boils down to how the "ruling ideas" or "ruling ideology" come to understand and consider the deleterious effects of the novel.

The pervasive censure of fiction eloquently attests to the ideology fiction itself was perceived to have as an ideology. Had the novel not been deemed a potent proponent of certain socially subversive changes, there would have been little reason to attack it. Had the novel not been seen as a threat to the existing social order, there would have been no need to defend it so rigorously nor to persuade avid readers of the harm that they could do themselves when they indulge their appetite.

To a modem reader, these concerns might seem trivial, but it is important to remember that the early attackers of fiction were defending a vision of society which they viewed as well- ordered and worthy of defending. Or, in some extreme cases, the brutal ruling ideology would run high when the detrimental forces of fiction might cause severe damages to the ruling regime. In the data concerning prohibited fiction and plays prohibited collected by Wang Li-ch'i, we see how-fiom the central court down to local governments—fiction had long been the target for attack and censure. One severe punishment for mentioning events from vernacular fiction is indicated by the case of Lang K'un in 1728. Lang mentioned an incident from San-kuo chih yen-yi in his memorandum presented to the court, and was removed from office and put in shackles for three months.^® This kind of severe attitude toward fiction and plays was unilateral. As Wang Li-ch'i makes explicit in his introduction.

' W ang Li-ch'i, p. 36. 182 fiction and plays were important entertainment in the imperial quarters/' The dominant ruling class not just prohibited fiction; in some cases they even attained their purpose of imposing censure through translations and adaptations, so that the detrimental and subversive incidents might be altered to fit their purposes, as in the case of translating San-kuo-chih yen-i into

Manchurian/^ The compilation of Ssu-k'u ch'uan-shu by the Ch'ien-lung Emperor of the

Ch'ing was essentially one of several devices in enforcing social and especially political censure on books/^

But in most cases, the elite's stand in trying to maintain a social order reified the stance of a superior dismayed by another's reading habits but willing to warn the other of the grave consequences of his or her unfortunate literary tastes. Unwary readers might still be saved from the undesirable through the generous intermediation of the critic. On the other hand, denouncing the novel, they would have argued, was ancillary to or coexistent with or even integral to the civic, religious, or educational duties of right-minded men. Raymond Williams once argued that culture was not defined as separate fi'om the large fabric of Anglo-American society until the nineteenth century.This observation is on the whole true for traditional

Chinese culture too. No matter that fiction belonged to the category of "sub-culture" or

"counter-culture," it was part of the culture and part of the society. And for the social

Wang Li-ch'i, ibid., pp. 3-16. In one record, even Emperor himself acted in a play, see pp. 12-13.

Wang Li-ch'i, pp. 17-22.

For the compilation of Ssu-k'u ch'uan-shu, see Kuo Po-kung, Ssu-k'u ch'uan-shu tsuan-hsiu k'ao (A study of the compilation of Ssu-k'u ch'uan-shu) (Taipei: Shang-wu, 1957) and Luther Carrington Goodrich, The Literary Inquisition o f Ch'ien-lung (New York, 1966).

’'* Raym ond W illiams, The Long Revolution (New York: Columbia University Press, 1961), pp. 41-43. 183 spokesmen of traditional Chinese society, an aberrant form of literary culture meant an aberration in the very fabric of a society. As some late-Ch'ing critics feared, a reader who indulged in reading fiction would come to believe in and acted out what he found therein.^^

Bad novels will drive out good books, for novels are in their nature designed to amuse, not to instruct, and this entertaining business has long been an eyesore to the elite. But the most fearful aspect of fiction is that it threatened not only to co-exist with elite literature, but to replace it in some cases. Social and political leaders certainly saw this challenging and threatening potential power of fiction. When such Confucian virtues as loyalty, faithfulness, righteousness were championed by the novelists as the utmost virtues in novels such as Sui-hu chuan, the Confucian literati were alerted, for these virtues were turned to become the ideological underpinning of the so-called anti-government brigands to challenge the ruling ideology. When a sub-culture strove to replace the primacy of mainstream culture, the social spokesmen of culture had to stand up to the challenge, not to mention that this challenge might itself rally a resistance against the regime. Therefore, the crucial matter was not so much a question of how common citizens invested their leisure time allowed for reading but a question of where the society vested the voice (or voices) of authority.

For the elite, the power of fiction to be popular and preoccupy the reader was a double threat. On the public level, would not novels keep the poor from being good workers and women from being good wives? On the private level, was not the engrossed reading of the wrong text become a kind of seduction or even of possession? T'ao Yu-tseng (1886-1927)

“ Sung Ts'eng, "Lun hsieh-ch'ing hsiao-shuo yu hsin she-hui chih kuan-hsi (On the relationship between romance and new society)" Yen-chiu chuan, p. 33. 184 in 1907 remarked:

Let's try to see the Chinese people's concept of fiction. Now those adult people whose intellect is still undeveloped love fiction the most. Because they are naive in worldly experience, they easily indulge in fiction deeply. Even though fiction is prohibited by the government, denounced by the elders, or downgraded by pedant-scholars, perhaps because when the pressure is enormous the resistance is greater, like when people in love are unstoppable, these immature people try with all their might to obtain copies of fiction. If they are unsuccessful they fall into a sullen mood and could not even sleep well; if they succeed, they immediately get into the world of fiction and explore it whenever and wherever they are able to do so. As for the quality of the book, the price of the book, they care nothing about.

The possessed reader, in this elitist view, apparently posed a danger to the state and society.

As T'ao immediately adds, echoing Liang Ch'i-ch'ao's hyperbolic pronouncement:

To renovate China's corruption, we have to open the curtain of fiction; to expand political and legal business, to expand fiction; to improve education, to advocate fiction; to uplift business, to renovate fiction; to strengthen military organization, to organize fiction; to change customs, to improve fiction.^®

Shih Ming^\ in his "Preface to Monthly Fiction," thus wrote of the relation between fiction and morality: "Since fiction possesses the powers of supplementing memory and broaden one's knowledge, when it comes to writing or translating fiction, can we in any case be careless? Especially when the society we have now is so degenerate, 1 believe the best way to rectify wrongs should start with the fiction." He went on to elaborate: "The so-called good education has to have balanced development in both intellect and sense of morality. Besides the historical novel, such genres as the social novel, the family novel, the scientific or adventure novel, whether in a direct or indirect way, should all fall within the confines of

"Lun hsiao-shuo chih shih-li chi ch'i ying-hsiang (On the power and influence of fiction)," Yen-chiu chuan, p. 41.

His real name is still unidentified. 185 morality—even romance fiction should also be included in this right path—so that the captivating power of fiction can be used for moral purposes."^* This moralistic tendency was prevalent among almost all late-Ch'ing critics.

It is also significant that most of late-Ch'ing critics of fiction, who were often well bom and well educated, voiced a particular concern for a different class of readers whom they perceived as being barely capable of reading fiction but eager to do so and, no doubt, highly susceptible to its charms. Pie Shih (Hsia Tseng-yu) noted in an article, "Hsiao-shuo yuan-li"

(Principles of fiction), that there have been two trends of thought in the Chinese cultural tradition: one of the literati, the other of the common people (mainly that of women and vulgar illiterate men). Chinese fiction, in his view, should accordingly

be divided into two kinds, one for scholar-officials, the other for women and vulgar common people. The underlying principle is the same but the way of presentation should be different. While at this time, when western learning is pouring in, scholar- officials are too busy to be bothered with fiction reading, in the case of women and vulgar people, because they have no appropriate books to read, the best way to teach them some culture is through fiction.

The ideological stance as presented in the censure of fiction can also be discerned especially in the attitude elite held toward women and children. P'ing Tzu (Ti Fao-hsien, 1873-?) echoed such opinion: "Good wonderful novels are not something that women and common people can appreciate.... It is more than difficult at present time to provide good novels for people outside the scholar-official class in this society.'"*®

Yen-chiu chuan, pp. 153-154.

Yen-chiu chuan, p. 27.

Hsiao-shuo ts'ung-hua, Yen-chiu chuan, p. 309. 186

Hu Shih's discussion of the literati's attitude with regard to vernacular language is

enlightening and relevant in our understanding of the ideology of the Confucian literati,

especially in the late Ch'ing period:

[For those people who advocate using the vernacular language] their biggest problem is to separate the society into two camps: on one side is the 'they'; on the other side is the 'we.' On the former side is the 'they' who should use vernacular, and on the latter side is the 'we' who could still compose writings and poems in the classical language. It is all right for the 'we' to eat meat, but the 'they' in the lower social stratum is not entitled to eat meat. So 'we' can throw them a left-over bone for them to taste.'**

We know very well that the distinction of the so-called "high culture" and "low culture" is not

sharply cut; in fact, according to Herbert J. Gans, it is exaggerated, and similarities between them are always ignored in favor of the conflict.'*^ It might seem, however, that the literati were assuming a condescending attitude toward common people. This, I believe, should not be explained away by the so-called Marxist "class-conflict" but instead should be attributed to a social situation where the elite literati (which includes the late-Ch'ing critics) were more

concerned about the upholding of the social and political order and the guiding of the

common people as part of their overall concern for the survival of the nation.

And this immediate concern has turned the attitude toward fiction upside down.

Fiction, used to be treated as a useless genre, one which contributes nothing to society—even

if it does not become the agent that "incites lechery and brigandage"— was now becoming the

supreme form among all literary genres. This change of status was so tremendous that it

Hu Shih, "wu-shih-nien lai Chung-kuo chih wen-hsueh" (Chinese literature in the past fifty years), mHu Shih wen-ts'un (Taipei: Yuan-tung t'u-shu, 1971), vol. 2, p. 246. See also Yu Ying-shih, Chung-kuo chih-tai ssu-hsiang-shih shang ti Hu Shih (Taipei: Lien-ching, 1984), pp. 29-34.

Herbert J. Gans, Popular Culture and High Culture: An Analysis and Evaluation o f Taste (New York: Basics Books, Inc., 1974), p. x and chapter 2. 187 demands more explanation.

This brings us to the overwhelmingly political-charged views on the function of fiction in the late Ch'ing period. Surveying the critical writings of late-Ch'ing critics, moral concerns abound and are everywhere. In this regard, it is no difference from the concerns of the earlier critic before the period. For instance, Helmut Martin, as we previously quoted, contends that

Liang's "new didacticism" actually "departs no inch from the position of the orthodox

Confucian hsiao-shuo critics who likes to see it as an instrument to reform the people, he even talks back into the same terminology." It is also true, as Martin points out, that fiction serving the political causes had traditionally been a Chinese literary phenomenon: "The political concept actually encourages a literature of political propaganda. The formula of social usefulness proves to be a direct heritage of the Confucian didactic moralism prevalent in traditional literary theory. An affinity of Liang's demands with the Yenan thesis that literature has to serve politics is obvious.""'^ However, when this moral concern was intermingled with the current social and political situation in the late Ch'ing period, we will have to see it as a new concept of fiction emerging in response to a current need in society.

And this new concept of fiction occurred simultaneously with other transformations within

Chinese society.

The rise of the "new fiction" (as well as the negative reaction to the novel) occurred simultaneously with other transformations within a society. By no means an isolated phenomenon, the emergence of the novel was part of a movement in the late-Ch'ing period toward a reassessment of the role of the "new citizen" and a concomitant questioning of

Helmut Martin, "A Transitional Concept of Chinese Literature 1899-1917," pp. 189,207. 188 political, societal, and even cultural authorities of the transitional period. Nonetheless, this kind of awareness arose not from the "common people," nor from the establishment elite, but ironically from conscious intellectuals like Liang Ch'i-ch'ao, who were more or less marginalized from the mainstream power elite but somehow manage to control the public opinion.'”

Undergoing the crisis of what Li Hung-chang described as "an upheaval unprecedented in China of the past three thousand years," these intellectuals began to realize that a new social motion was "unsettling from its old place all that had existed and bringing into being ever fresh novelties."'*^ But these "fresh novelties" belonged to "the world, which seems /To lie before us like a land of dreams, /So various, so beautiful, so new, /Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light, /Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain.""'® By 1895, after the defeat of China by Japan, Chinese intellectuals had experienced what Professor Hao

Chang has called "a crisis of orientational order"” —the old seemed to have gone and the new was yet to be bom, hence a readjustment was needed. Depending on where they stood—either in support of reform or revolution, or otherwise—these intellectuals "understood their task as

Even though Liang passed the second rank of civil examination and can therefore be treated as belonging to scholar-official class, he was away from the political arena after 1898 and thereafter marginalized from the mainstream elite. His influence came mainly from the newspapers and magazines that he founded or edited. See also Wang Jung-tsu's discussion of "marginal men" in his "Lun Wan-Ch'ing pien-fa ssu-hsiang chih yuan-yuan yu fa-chan (On the origin and development of Late-Ch'ing Reform ideas)" in his Wan-Ch'ing pien-fa ssu- hsiang lun-ts'ung (Essays on Late-Ch'ing Reform Ideas) (Taipei: Lien-ching, 1983), pp. 83-84.

Jonathan Arac, Commissioned Spirits, p. 3.

Matthew Arnold, "Dover Beach," in Poems. 2nd ed., ed. by Kenneth and Mariam Allott (London: Longman, 1979).

^’ Hao Chang, Chinese Intellectuals in Crisis: Search fo r Order and Meaning, 1890-19I I (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987), p. 8. 189 a process of shaping, of giving a direction to this motion, a form to this force, to create a vision from which action might follow."''® Or in Theodore Huters's words.

Literature became, above all, an arena of tension between utopianism and the hopes for real departure from old concerns projected onto it and the enduring influence of traditional patterns of thought that resided in the intellectual environment out of which the new category had grown. In other words, wenxue [literature] offered everyone who cared to think about it a realm of potential in which traditional preoccupations could be resituated and, or at least such was the hope, transfigured, more, or less, depending upon the individual viewpoint.''®

Fiction in this context, I would argue, became one of the vehicles for searching for a new order, a new vision, and was therefore appropriate for airing the political agenda, so as to shape, to give direction, to give form, to create a vision of what society should be. Again,

Huters's discussion of literature in general can be applied to the realm of fiction:

The practical demands made on the new idea of literature were a response to the need to use wenxue to fill a variety of need: It needed a theory powerful enough both to unify and to privilege the theretofore disparate genres of writing, old ideas concerning the utility of writing needed to be taken account of, and above all, literature needed to be given the authority it required to provide cultural significance in very difficult times.

In order to fulfill this Job, a new awareness, a new critical consciousness had to be present.

A consequent discomfort and impatience with the forms of representation available to them marked these writers [with commissioned spirit]. Even as they try to find more effective techniques of getting the world into their books, they must criticize past techniques that have channeled and shaped the world into mock-realities and must recognize their own enterprises as tentative."®'

Arac, p. 4.

" Theodore Huters, "A New Way of Writing: The Possibilities for Literature in Late Qing China. 1895- \9Q%"Modem China 14: 3 (July 1988): 246.

Huters. p. 247.

" Arac. p. 4. 190

Liang Ch'i-ch'ao and other conscientious intellectuals apparently displayed such a new critical consciousness. They talked about poetry revolution, advocating a new kind of poetry that can adopt new terms, new ideas, new horizon, and new world into the traditional style.

They also advocated revolution in fiction, as we have seen in previous discussion. Even in the realm of prose writing, Liang was a major voice in redirecting it. Liang's third-person description of his own prose style and its tremendous influence in Ch'ing-tai hsueh-shu kai- hm, which I have already discussed in Chapter Two, is basically fair.

Whether in the field of poetry, fiction, prose, or in the importation of foreign ideas,

Liang was consciously searching for a new way of expressing the pulse of the age and establishing a new order to the chaotic times.

K'ang Yu-wei, Liang Ch'i-ch'ao and T'an Ssu-t'ung were bom at a time when the 'thirst for learning' was at its peak. Having been bom in this age forced them to ponder consciously how to form a school of thought that could be neither Chinese nor Westem but also at the same time both Chinese and Westem (pu-Chung pu-Hsi, chi- Chung chi-Hsi).”

We can see here what a remarkable searching mind that Liang has. In terms of the acute perception of what the times needed and where it should be heading, Liang was undeniably one of the most important figures in late Ch'ing period, a man who not only searched for meaning but was, in Arac's terms, consciously tiying to "create a vision fi-om which action might follow."

Liang Ch'i-ch'ao remarked that "in Europe scholars and gentlemen always put their life experience and political opinions into fiction" and "make the opinions of the whole nation changed accordingly." TWs is the reason why he "selected those works by the famous foreign

“ Liang Ch'i-ch'ao, Ch'ing-tai hsueh-shu kai-lun (Taipei: Chung-hua, 1980), p. 71. The translation is mine. 191 writers that are related to Chinese political situations" and translated them/^ It is on the same ground that Liang's hyperbolic proclamation of fiction's effects stands: "To renovate the people, we have to renovate the fiction; to improve morality, we have to improve fiction; to regenerate religion, we have to regenerate religion, to revigorate politics, to revigorate fiction...." Liang's conclusion was "to improve the social order today, we have to start with the renovation of fiction; to renovate the citizens, we have to start with renovating fiction."^"*

Fiction for Liang was not only the part and parcel of the whole package of saving China but also a means of reassessing traditional culture and then of shaping and reformulating a new vision for the nation.

T'ien-lu Sheng (Wang Chung-ch'i, 1880-1913) shared most of Liang's vision. "1 believe if we really want to save our country, we cannot but start with fiction, with the reform of fiction," because "to save the countiy and survive caimot depend on several people only but on the condition that most of the people have patriotic awareness. Is there another better way to have patriotism disseminated than by fiction?"^’ T'ao Yu-tseng expressed the same enthusiasm: "Ever since the appearance of the term, it is this fiction that has come to direct the trends that had shocked both Eastern and Westem worlds, that had come to decide the distinction between old and new, between good and bad. It is also this fiction that had come to influence the trend of the world, that had come to show the direction for the nationalist movement. Fiction! Fiction! It is indeed the supreme literary form!" At the end of this article

” "Preface to Translations of Political Novels," Yen-chiu chuan, p. 14.

"On the Relationship Between Fiction and Social Order," Yen-chiu chuan, p. 15.

” "Lun hsiao-shuo yu kai-liang she-hui chih kuan-hsi (On the relationship between fiction and social reform," Yen-chiu chuan, pp. 38,39. 192

T'ao echoed Liang's argument that to put everything in the right path, fiction is the sole and best way.^®

Even for Chueh Wo (Hsu Nien-tz'u, 1875-1908), one of very few aesthetically- conscious critics in the period, using fiction for carrying out a social vision was inevitable. He offered some suggestions as to what should have been done for the improvement of fiction in the future. His suggestions was somehow programmatic: for the student community, fiction should be able to arouse their interest, enlarge their knowledge, and cultivate their virtues; for the military community, fiction should, in addition to what the students need, emphasize the sense of honor, dedication and courage; for the business community, fiction should be able to provide businessmen an overview of world business, encourage honesty in transaction, and so on; for women, fiction should teach the principles of homemaking, of dealing with people, even matters as public as political affairs, as private as how to serve their elders and so on, should also be included.”

Another prominent example was that of Lin Shu (1852-1924). According to one estimation, he translated 184 foreign novels into Chinese, the most famous among them. La

Dame aux Camélias and Uncle Tom's Cabin Bom at a time of upheaval and turmoil, Lin was, like most intellectuals, concerned about the fate of China.” In his prefaces to the

"On the power and influence of fiction," Yen-chiu chuan, pp. 39,41.

"Yu chih hsiao-shuo-kuan (My opinion of fiction)," Yen-chiu chuan, pp. 47-49.

Huang Lin, Chin-tai wen-hsueh p'i-p'ing shih (A History of Modem Chinese Literary Criticism) (Shanghai: Shang-hai ku-chi, 1993), p. 626.

Leo Ou-fan Lee, "Lin Shu and His Translations: Westem Fiction in Chinese Perspective," Papers on China 19 (Dec. 1965): 161-162. 193 translated novels, he displayed the reformist tendency. For instance, he said that his translated work "should contribute to today's society," "to arouse our fellow countrymen's ambition and courage."®® In his preface to Hei-nuyii-t'ien-lu (Uncle Tom’s Cabin), he explained that he wanted to translate the book mainly because of the maltreatment of Chinese laborers in

America.®' On another occasion Lin also mentioned using fiction as a vehicle for implementing reform.®" Lin, as Huters has pointed out, even as a conservative, still saw and appreciated the possibilities that fiction offered.®^

Some of Arac's observations on the social motion of Anglo-American fiction is applicable in our investigation of late Ch'ing literary phenomena.

To many readers—whether eagerly or hostilely—the age's powerful new forms of journalistic, periodical, and fictional publication were associated with the revolutionary power that had changed so much of the world already and threatened to leave nothing in the economy, polity, or society as it had been. Even the way writers managed their prose could seem part of a new movement that was disrupting the established regularities and conventions of an older way of writing and living.®^

This probably is the common phenomenon that we would find in any transitional period. But

Liang in his "Essay on the Transitional Period," singled out three virtues that transitional figures should have, and one of them was the virtue of choice—knowing what was right for the nation.®® Seen in this perspective, fiction undoubtedly was intentionally accorded the

“ Yen-chiu chuan, pp. 271,245.

Yen-chiu chuan, p. 196.

“ Yen-chiu chuan, p. 261.

“ Huters, p. 261.

“ Arac, p. 7.

“ YPSWC,te'e3,6:31-32. 194 utmost importance by such late-Ch'ing intellectuals as Liang Ch'i-ch'ao. By making fiction a vehicle for influencing public opinions, late-Ch'ing critics brought fiction into the public sphere. Fiction joined with the new reforms in poetry and prose, as well as intellectual and cultural re-evaluations to shape late-Ch'ing culture. It became part and parcel of the forum in which various discourses were participating to map out the blueprint of a new China. Seen in this perspective, we will then be able to understand why late-Ch'ing intellectuals emphasized much on the supremacy of fiction.

Nonetheless, "how much truth can a blade of grass carry?"“ When fiction became burdened with so much heavy, lofty, or even sublime "missions," how would the readers respond? To save China from her desperate situation and survive was undoubtedly the key concern of the late Ch'ing period, prevalent among all intellectuals. That was the main reason that they wanted to use the fictional medium to awaken those "ignorant" common people. We should not forget that in 1915 Liang was warning his readers about the proliferation of fictional works in the book markets, which in his eyes were detrimental to society and the nation. He further adds:

So, that fiction writers have the dominant control of the whole society's lifeline today is apparent. Yet, just look at the writings of the so-called fiction and see what they really are. Alas! How could I bear to mention it? How could I bear to mention it? Nine out of ten of them are those that incite lechery and robbery, or those playful writings that are ruthless and valueless. So much so that they come to teach our youth crookedness and cruelty, and to commit crimes, based on scenes from detective stories; or to lead those youth who have weaker minds into romantic ecstasy, comparing themselves to heroes of romantic love stories. Accordingly, their thought becomes narrow and dirty, their behavior crooked and dissolute, their speech crafty and merciless. In the past decade, social mores have fallen to such a tremendous degree; isn't it all because of the so-called new fiction? If this kind of counter current

“ Y aH sieh, "Pa li (Paris)," in S/jew Yuan (Abyss) (Taipei: Ch'en-chung, 1971), p. 105. 195

keeps on flowing, it is only a matter of several years that the whole land of China will be sinking in no time.®^

From Liang's intellectual perspective, that fiction was returning to arousing lechery and brigandage was a setback in its development. From the angle of those "common," "vulgar" readers, whom the intellectual elite had hoped to convert into "new citizens," however, it was another story. For my purposes here, I had essentially focused on the so-called "new fiction" fi'om the perspective of Liang and other conscientious intellectuals, to see how they tried to make use of a popular literary form to fulfill their social vision and mission. However, there were a lot of more popular novels being read by these common people. As Perry Link has succinctly explained, "Despite the idealistic calls of the reformers, the undertow of traditional conceptions of fiction wrought a gradual but inexorable influence on the 'new fiction' and led, after a decade, to the phenomenon of Butterfly fiction." And because the attention that most people pay to the reformist enterprises, including their undertaking in fiction reform, we tend to "overlook the fact that the general efflorescence included entertainment as much as politics."®* Link also points out the usually ignored phenomenon that in the last decade of nineteenth-century and early decade of this century, serious fiction—those advocated by Liang and his followers— and the extremely popular entertainment fiction were usually "very closely intertwined in publications." For instance, it was the Shih-wu Pao (Current affairs), whose editorship Liang once assumed, that first introduced Sherlock Holmes. Even the revolutionary

"Kao hsiao-shuo chia," Yen-chiu chuan, pp. 19-20.

Perry Link, Mandarin Ducks and Butterflies: Popular Fiction in Early Twentieth-Century Chinese Cities, p. 141. 196

Su Pao, "ran a column on its back page for the amusement of idle talents."®

Another case in point is the interesting figure, Wu Wo-yao (1866-1910). Also from

Canton, Wu began his writing career by publishing in Liang Ch'i-ch'ao's New Fiction his two most famous novels: Strange Cases Eyewitnesses in the Past Two Decades (Er-shih-nien mu- t'u chih kuai hsien-chuang) and The Murder of Nine Lives (Chiu-ming ch'i-yuan). In Wu's critical writings and prefaces to his novels, the reformist stance is unmistakable. The magazine that he edited, Monthly Fiction (Yueh-yueh hsiao-shuo) also belonged to the reformist organ.

Wu's novels, as are well-known, cover a variety of topics and subject matter: he wrote on the constitution, the commerce in Shanghai, anti-superstition, women's rights, detective stories, historical novels, and also romantic love stories. The wide range of subject matters in his novels makes categorizing him as belonging to a particular camp extremely difficult. This fact coupled with Wu's apparent support for Reformist enterprises really made his role of a fiction writer in using fiction to support reformism dubious. His emphasis on the captivating, intoxicating power of fiction ("interest" or "hsing-wei," "ch'u-wei”) again shows that Wu was deeply rooted in the tradition of popular vernacular fiction. And according to A Ying, Wu's sentimental novels are "the immediate progenitors of Butterfly love stories."™

As a writer who advocated the reform enterprise, as we can see from Wu's statements in his prefaces to his novels and the magazines that he edited, he evidently supported Liang's

"revolution in fiction," emphasizing that fiction should be able to carry the important mission of educating and enlightening the common people and save China. In his practice, however,

‘’ Link, pp. 142-143.

’“Link, p. 148. 197 as we just mentioned, he was offering his readers the kinds of fiction that Liang had denounced as "inciting lechery and brigandage." Wu Wo-yao's case revealingly shows us how intricate and complicated a literary phenomenon could have been.

At any rate, Link singles out three factors that explain how late-Ch'ing fiction went

"from nation building to profit." First, the introduction of detective stories by Liang Ch'i- ch'ao's Shih-wu pao helped to popularize a popular genre in the name of seemingly serious new fiction. Second, the important role played by Wu Wo-yao, as I just recounted. And third, a balanced fare of serious and entertaining elements initiated by Shih Pao, which attracted the reform generation of young people to swallow eagerly serious reform-related writings while at the same time enjoying the entertainment writings in the same newspaper. As Link puts it.

Again we face the irony that the three elements here singled out as causing the drift toward amusement fiction originated from the most progressive of quarters. Detective stories, love stories, and amusement columns derived, respectively, from an experiment of Liang Ch'i-ch'ao, the cosmopolitan interests of Wu Wo-yao, and the progressive bent of Shih pao. In a period of transitions as creative and uncertain as the last Ch'ing decade, innovation could hardly foresee its own consequences. But, literary influences alone are inadequate to explain Shanghai fiction's drift towards entertainment.^'

This case of a literary form drifting from "serious" toward "popular" and the causes operating behind it somehow reminds us of the subtlety and complexity of a literary phenomenon. We still have to question after all what the power of literature really is and what fiction can do for us.

Even though Liang's wishful using of fiction in support of his socio-political vision turned out to be disappointing, as his harsh tone in his 1915 articles apparently reveals, we

"Link, pp. 148-149. 198 still have to admit that its influence on a later generation was significant. As May Fourth writers' "kan-shih yu-kuo" ("obsession with China") complex and Mao Tse-tung's "Yenan

Talks" attest, the long tradition of using literature in support of social or political ends has never disappeared, or even diminished.^ In other words, what Huters calls the Chinese "moral aesthetics"—"a tendency to conflate utility and aesthetics"—have been deeply rooted in the minds of most intellectuals. And this intriguing interplay of popular entertainment elements and the morally-sociopolitically charged elements of fiction, continues to be present even after the late Ch'ing period—especially apparent in the Taiwan fiction in the 1950s when anti-

Communist novels had to contend with the popular escapist counterparts like martial-art novels and romances. This, however, is a topic for future study.

For "kan-shih yu-kuo," see C. T. Hsia, "Obsession with China: The Moral Burden of Modem Chinese Literature." Appendix to C. T. Hsia'Si4 o f Modem Chinese Fiction, 2nd ed. (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1971). For Mao’s "Talks," see Bonnie S. McDougall, "Mao Zedong's'Talks at the Yan'an Conference on Literature and Art': A Translation of the 1943 Text with Commentary" (Michigan: Center for Chinese Studies, 1980), pp. 1-54. Also T. A. Hsia, "Twenty Years after the Yenan Forum," in The Gate o f Darkness: Studies on the Leftist Literary Movement in China (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1968), pp. 234-262. CONCLUSION

In late nineteenth-century China, as Liang Ch'i-ch'ao and other self-conscious intellectuals advocated a "new fiction," popular fiction was still looked down upon as a low literary genre. As we have seen, from Pan Ku in the second century to Chi Yun in the eighteenth, fiction as a popular literary form had never really been treated seriously in the mind of power elite and on several occasions was even used by the political and cultural authorities to impose ideological control over the common people. Accordingly, Chi Yun in his Ssu-k'u ch'uan-shu tsung-mu i’i-yao, mostly possibly for political reason, but also representing the prevailing intellectual attitude, did not even mention any of the so-called ssu- ta ch'i-shii (the four great masterpieces of Ming novels)— Romance o f Three Kingdoms,

Water M argin, Journey to the West, and Chin P'ingMei—not to mention the works of his contemporaries Wu Ching-tzu (1701-1754) or Ts'ao Huseh-ch'in (17167-1763?).* Fiction clearly did not belong to the cultural canon at that time. But we also know that Chi Yun was someone who liked to read novels and collect as well as write (in classical style) stories of the supernatural to entertain his colleagues and friends. His ambivalent attitude therefore can be

' Cf. Tai-loi Ma, "Novels Prohibited in the Literary Inquisition of Emperor Ch'ien-lung, 1722-1788," in Critical Essays on Chinese Fiction, ed. Winston L.Y. Yang & Curtis Adkins (Hong Kong; The Chinese University Press, 1980), pp. 201-212.

199 2 0 0

seen as an index to where fiction stood in the intellectual tradition?

Nonetheless, the intricate relation of fiction to the general intellectual tradition is

something we cannot overlook. As Mikhail Bakhtin characterizes, "at the heart of existence,

a ceaseless battle between centrifugal forces that seek to keep things apart, and centripetal forces that strive to make things cohere."^ In other v/ords, hsiao-shuo or fiction as a discourse has always been in contest with other cultural discourses, particularly the predominant

Confucian official historiography (cheng-shih). The tension between a de-centered, marginal

discourse that represents a centrifugal force and the centering, totalizing discourse that

represents a centripetal force is constant and comes to form the dynamism of literary system.

To Bakhtin, the centrifugal forces are more powerful and ubiquitous, for in his mind the

novel, which best embodies the centrifugal forces, is the supreme and the most inclusive

literary form that not only possesses a subversive power but also forms a counterforce to

resist the totalizing and cohesive "orthodox" discourse. Of course, in the case of traditional

Chinese culture, the centripetal forces had always seemed much stronger than their

counterpart. But these two forces do not have to exclude each other; as a matter of fact, they

are two co-existent forces and their dialectic relationship proves more important than their

antithesis.

' There are five collections of stories in classical language produced by Chi: Luan-yang hsiao-hsia lu (Spending a Summer on the North Shore of River Luan, 1789); Ju-shih wo-wen (As The Way I Hear Them, 1791); Huai-hsi tsa-chih (Miscellanies of the Huai-hsi Studio, 1792); Ku-wan t'ing-chih (Just Listen to Them, 1793) and Luan-yang hsu-lu (Again on the North Shore of River Luan, 1798). These five collections together are called Yueh-wei ts'ao-t'ang pi-chi (Jottings from the Thatched Abode of Close Observations). For Chi Yun and his fictional work see Lu Hsim, Chung-kuo hsiao-shuo shih-lueh, pp. 223-229; Lai Fang-ling, "Yueh-wei ts'ao-t'ang pi-chi chung ti kuan-nien shih-chieh [The world of concept in Chi Yun's Yueh-wei ts'ao-t'ang pi- chi]," Wen-hsuehp'ing-lun, 3 (1976): 197-258.

’ See Holquist's "introduction" to M. M. Bakhtin, The Dialogic Imagination: Four Essays, pp. xviii-xix. 2 0 1

In general, fiction as a popular literary genre coming fi'om and prevalent in the lower social strata can undoubtedly be seen as belonging to the category of "little tradition" whereas the attitude of most of the intellectual elite, in their role as guardians of the cultural heritage essentially represents the great tradition. The interactive relationship between these two traditions is complicated. ClifiFord Geertz has observed that

There is a cultural elite, whose ultimate basis of power is their control over the central symbolic resources of the society (religion, philosophy, art, science, and, most crucially in the more complex civilization, writing); and there is a subordinated practical hard-working peasantry, whose ultimate basis of power is their control over the central material resources of the society, its food supply. The two become symbiotically dependent upon one another, their two variant traditions reflecting back and forth within one another, as in two etched mirrors, each catching dimly the other's reflection. One cannot have a peasantry without a gentry or a gentry without a peasantry. hi such a situation whether one calls the peasants tradition a vulgarization of the gentry, or the gentry tradition a refinement of the peasant, is not very important. What is actually the case is that there is a persistent cultural dialogue between gentry and peasantry, a constant interchange of cultural material in which fading urban forms "coarser" and "sink"into the peasant mass and elaborated rural forms "etherealize" and "rise" into the urban elite."*

While the object of Geertz's investigation is the Java gentry and peasantry tradition, the distinction of the two traditions and their intricate interrelationship is helpful in our understanding of Chinese culture as well.

As Professor Yu Ying-shih observes, the same distinction between great tradition and little tradition can also be discerned in traditional Chinese society. For example, the so-called li (rituals or ceremony) sm iyueh (music) from the Axial age^ had long been the embodiment

■' Clifford Geertz, The Religion o f Java (Illinois: The Free Press of Glencoe, 1960), pp. 227-28.

’ Karl Jasper in his book. The Origin and End o f History, uses the term "axial age" to refer to the many high civilizations of ancient world-ancient Near East, Greece, India and China-over the period of "first millennium B.C., during which time a reflective, critical or "transcendental" consciousness was emerged. See Benjamin Schwartz, The World o f Thought in Ancient China (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1985), pp. 2-3. 2 0 2 of the refined great tradition. But the calling that "when li is lost, we can pursue it in the uncivilized (li-shih ch’iu-chu-yeh)'' shows how the great tradition penetrates into the little tradition and gets preserved there. On the other hand, the so-called ts’ai-shih (poetry collecting) as an important avenue to the understanding of popular tradition can be dated as early as the Han dynasty, displaying the self-conscious will of the authorities to learn from the common popular culture.® It is therefore evident that "there is a persistent cultural dialogue between gentry and peasantry, a constant interchange of cultural material" between the two traditions. Furthermore, Professor Yu Ying-shih also points out that the Chinese intellectual elite had always consciously wanted to impose upon the common people the ideas of the great tradition so as to change them; thus the so-called li-yueh chiao-hua (educate by ceremonies and music) and i-feng i-su (change the social customs and trends). The influence of the great tradition upon little tradition can be seen in the content of the popular literary genres. After the Han dynasty, the great tradition already included in its rubric the teachings of

Confucianism, Taoism and Buddhism; similarly we also find in such popular literary forms as fiction, drama, pien-wen, shan-shu, pao-chuan the mingling of the Three Teachings.’ So,

Professor Yu contends, the little tradition is essentially a variation of the great tradition.®

* "Hsien-shih (presenting poems to the court) and "ts'ai-shih (poetry collecting)" were said to be the important devices in carrying out the purpose of the Book of Songs in imderstanding people's life and reorienting the policy of the government accordingly. See Ku I-sheng and Chiang Fan, Hsien-Ch'in Liang-Han wen-hsueh p'i-p'ing-shih (A History of Literary Criticism in the Pre-Ch'in Periods and Han Dynasty) (Shanghai: Shang-hai ku-chi, 1990), pp. 26-32.

’ Pien-wen (transformation text), is texts of Buddhist narrations of the T'ang dynasty; shan-shu (morality books), a popularized version of moral teachings; pao-chuan (precious scroll), sectarian scriptures that spread popular religious beliefs.

® My discussion here on the great and little traditions in China is based on Professor Yu's insightful opinion iahisShih-hsuehyu ch'uan-t'ung [Historiography and Tradition] (Taipei: Shih-pao wen-hua, 1982), pp. 11- 17. 203

This interdependence and interpenetration can be readily seen in the late-Ming period, as in the case of Liu Hsien-t'ing (1648-1695) who compares the popular literary genres to the

Confiician canons:

I have observed that common people all like to sing songs and watch plays—this is [the Books of] Poetry and Music in human nature. They all like to read fiction and listen to stoiy-telling—this is [the Book of] Document and the Annals o f Spring and Autum n. They all believe in divination and gods and ghosts—the / Ching and [the Books of] Rites. The teachings of sages as presented in the Six Canons are all based on common human nature. Nonetheless, the later intellectuals could not lead the common people by making best use of this fact; they on the contrary tried to curb it by all means, so as to obstruct people's mind. Is this not like blocking the river and stopping its flowing? It is no wonder that it fails.®

Another important figure is of course Chin Sheng-t'an (16107-1661), whom Liu Hsien-t'ing praised highly. Chin's unconventional raising of such popular literary works as Wang Shih-fu's dramatic work Hsi-hsiang chi (the West Chamber Story) and Shih Nai-an's novel Shui-hu chuan to the same plane as the philosophical treatises in the Chuang Tzu, Ch'u Yuan's long narrative poem L i Sac (Encountering Sorrow), Ssu-ma Ch'ien's history Shih Chi (The

Records of Grand Historian) and Tu Fu's lyrical poetry might seem unorthodox or even rebellious. But Chin's statement, read along with that of Liu, is in fact not as outrageous as it might seem, since Liu goes much radical in comparing fiction and other popular literary genres and beliefs to the six Confucian Canons.'®

® Liu Hsien-t'ing, Kuang-yang tsa-chi, vol. 2, quoted in Yu Ying-shih, Shih-hsuehyti ch'uan-t'ung, p. 14.

For Chin Sheng-t'an and his commentary on fiction, see John Wang, Chin Sheng-t'an (New York: Twayne Publishers, Inc., 1972). 204

Even so, the attitude of the Chinese intellectual elite toward fiction was somehow ambivalent and ambiguous. Popular fiction itself did evolve and develop in an amazing way.

By and large, traditional Chinese fiction was a genre coming from a popular origin, and either in its content or in its form it was directed toward captivating and entertaining its reader. In several cases, we know that such talented intellectuals as Feng Meng-lung (1574-1646), or

Wu Ch'eng-en (ca. 1500-1582) directed their energies to edit, compile or even compose popular fiction. The "appropriation" of the popular genre by highly-educated scholar- intellectuals in the Ming and Ch'ing periods also indicates that the concept of fiction had broadened and the boundary between popular and canonical genres was blurred. With regard to the literati novels and their close relation with the popular novel, C. T. Hsia observes that

"Despite their classical education and ostensible moral intent, it would seem best to regard the ordinary literary novelists as providers of narrative entertainment, though this description does not mean that they could not reach heights of artistic excellence if they are gifted narrators. The scholar-novelists would appear far less content with plain storytelling in their fuller exercise of their role as scholars and literary men."” This intricate relationship between fiction and other literary genres as well as intellectuals's changing attitude toward fiction has therefore opened up the scope and possibility of fiction.

Accordingly, in the eighteenth-century, there appeared two important works, Wu

Ching-tzu's Ju-lin wai-shih, or The Scholars and Ts'ao Hsueh-ch'in's Hung-lou meng, or

Dream o f the Red Chamber. As several critics have illustrated, Wu Ching-tzu and Ts'ao

" See C. T. Hsia. "The Scholar-Novelist and Chinese Culture: A Reappraisal of Ching-huayuan," in Chinese Nairative: Critical and Theoretical Essays, pp. 270-71. 205

Hsueh-ch'in pushed the fictional genre to a refined and artistic level. Wu Ching-tzu can be said to have brought Chinese fiction "from folksy gossip to a refined and serious art, essentially identical to the art of the learned and the leisured," whereas the encyclopedic comprehensiveness of Dream o f the Red Chamber has embodied a "broad amalgamation of all facets of China's literary and philosophical culture." "Together, they mark the eighteenth century as the time when the Chinese novel became truly refined and self-conscious, the time when the co-optation of a genre of folk art by the intellectual aristocracy was completed."^^

The Dream o f the Red Chamber, according to Professor Wong, because "the high standards it set were never approached" by its imitators and followers, a subtradition was never established. The subtradition "that began with the Ju-lin wai-shih, however, has flourished and proliferated ever since, first with the highly didactic 'late Ch'ing' novels of the nineteenth century, then with the socially conscious 'modem' fiction of the 1920s and 1930s."

Wong, however, distinguished between the didacticism of Wu Ching-tzu and that of the late

Ch'ing authors, for "Wu Ching-tzu wrote didactic fiction because his own nature and upbringing inclined him that way; his values are understandably conservative. More recent authors became didactic because the stresses of the times made them take up the pen as a weapon against social and political ills; their values are accordingly revolutionary."*^

From this study of Liang Ch'i-ch'ao's views on fiction and his novelistic writing, we in general agree with Professor Wong's observation that Liang's didacticism might have

Timothy C. Wong, Wu Ching-tzu (Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1978), pp. 120-121.

" Wong, Wu Ching-tzu, p. 121. 206 originated from a conscious response to his historical situation. Several points could be added, however.

First, Liang inherited the long tradition of Chinese literary thought, which emphasized the pragmatic or functionalist view of literature. While personal feeling is something inherently human that Liang recognizes and respects that as an authentic subject matter of literature, literature in essence has its social and political responsibility and mission and this cannot be slighted. Whether it is in the domain of prose, poetry, or fiction, Liang's views show that he is very firmly rooted in this tradition. This may explain why on the one hand Liu

Hsien-t'ing's ideas of the function of popular literary genres is not different essentially from

Liang's, even though almost two hundred years spanned between them. On the other hand,

Liang also lashed out at the effect of hui-yin hid-tao that fiction might cause. In this regard, we can also argue that the moral and socio-political concerns are present in both Wu Ching- tzu and Liang Ch'i-ch'ao. While Wu upheld the eremitic ideal and attacked a society gone mad in pursuit of "career, fame, wealth, rank {kung-mingfii-knei)," Liang also talked about using fiction to "debunk the ugliness in civil examinations and services, the wickedness of using opium and footbinding," and attacked other social ills that were both seen in and shared by early-Ch'ing and late-Ch'ing society. Liang's values here clearly have their conservative side.

This is what I like to call his moralistic bent. However, Liang's views of fiction was also occasioned by his historical situation, which has indeed added revolutionary elements to his thinking, and this brings us the second point.

Spurred by the unprecedented social and political turmoil and upheavals resulting from the encroachment of foreign powers, the moralistic, socio-political concerns in the late Ch'ing 207 period have escalated to the level of national survival. "To save China and survive" becomes the main theme of Liang and his contemporaries. Liang begins to talk about the "political novel," the relationship between fiction and the social order, and even ventures into the realm of how and why fiction comes to captivate the reader's attention and accordingly come to influence him—all done with the ultimate goal of "renovating the spirit of our fellow

countrymen and enlighten them" and of "pushing forward the modernity and progress of

China." Here, Liang has shown a very strong sense of "social mission" possessed by the so-

called "commissioned spirits"—"writers with an imaginative mission to reveal and transform through their powers of knowledge and vision the brute circumstances of the changing world

in which they and their readers lived." As a matter of fact, this "social mission," as we have

seen, is very strong in the Chinese tradition. But when this sense of social mission is combined with the acute consciousness of crisis, it stands out prominently and becomes all the more

complicated. The social mission, understood in this perspective, is something generated by

particular historical circumstances, circumstances which distinguishes Liang from his

predecessors in both fictional writing and criticism. To understand Liang's views on fiction

and late-Ch'ing fiction, the grasping of the context is therefore indispensable. Actually, it is the continuation of this new awareness of the escalated socio-political contingency that has

developed into what C. T. Hsia calls the "obsession with China (kan-shih yn-kno)" in the

1920s and 1930s.

The awareness of the socio-political contingency that came to open up the political

dimension of Chinese fiction is the third feature of Liang that we want to highlight. Because

of the socio-political crisis resulting from the historical situation, Liang was ready to accept 208 anything within his reach to attain his goal of saving China. He concluded that educating and enlightening the common people and shaping them into "new citizens" was the most urgent task for him. To reach this goal, he believed fiction to be the best and the most efficient tool.

As he quotes his teacher K'ang Yu-wei, fiction can teach those things that Six Classics, official histories, lecture records, and laws cannot. More importantly, in addition to the traditional moralistic elements, what he wanted to convey was the political opinions that he believed were most urgently needed at the time. This turned out to be what he discerned in

Westem political novels, where the politicians and scholars expressed their personal experience and their political opinions.’'* Not surprisingly, in his New China, we find included the political platforms, tenets, arguments, and debates, to the extent that Liang even has to admit in the Preface that his novel is in-between novel and non-novel, and he himself cannot decide what category it belongs to. Here, we can see clearly that Liang's concern is surely not simply the moral effect on the individual reader, as usually found in the traditional Chinese fiction. Instead, he tries to bring into the novel the political discourse that he hopes will help the cause of saving China and national survival." This opens up the political dimension of fiction and broadens its scope. The "obsession with China," particularly found in the writers of 1930s, can therefore be said to have started from Liang. The concern about China's fate was for these writers a heavy moral burden. They wanted to use literature to expose the dark, ugly sides of society, to attack corruption and injustice, and to change people's minds. This strong sense of moral burden is evidently a continuation of the concerns of Liang and his generation. The sense of social mission is in fact an intellectual legacy handed down from the

"Preface to Translations ofPolitieal novels," Yen-chiu chuan, pp. 13-14. 209 long Chinese tradition, as always seen in such phrases as "the intellectual takes the whole world as his own responsibility (; t'ien-hsia wei chi-jen)" or "intellectuals should become concerned ahead of the whole world (hsien t'ien-hsia chih-yu erh-yu)."

When fiction, a literary genre which had traditionally been treated as the "small tao,"

"hearsay,""street talk" and the agent that could "incite lechery and brigandage," is endowed with the mission of educating common people and shaping the "new citizens," importing foreign knowledge and civilization, and saving China, it is in fact been elevated to the level of carrying the decent tao of "running the nation and managing the whole world" (ching-kuo chi-shih). The great Way, as we all know, had traditionally been the holy mission that only the canonical texts were privileged to perform. Now, thanks to the efforts of Liang Ch'i-ch'ao and other intellectuals, fiction becomes a genre that contains no longer small talk or trivial matter but the all-important decent matters such as the imported social and political thought, the combative and adventurous spirit, the patriotic spirit and others that concern the fate of

China. This is one of the most important aspects that we need to pay attention in our study of late-Ch'ing fiction and the development of Chinese fiction.

The importance and role of political discourse in the novels of the late-Ch'ing period and 1930s reached a point that is never before seen in the past. This historically motivated awareness of the intellectual's socio-political mission, to be sure, was embodied in the fiction written at that time. Nonetheless, such a strong political obsession also has its negative side: too much emphasis on the socio-political sphere tends to limit an author's imagination and vision, hence ignoring or even downplaying the personal, private sphere that is another level for potential exploration in fiction. Moreover, in extreme cases, as in the case of Mao Tse- 2 1 0 tung's "Talks at Yenan" and Marxist literary criticism in mainland China, the obsession could easily become doctrinaire dogma or ideological propaganda.

In this study, we have tried to see the relationship between texts and contexts, to look into how an author's views, imagination, and vision are partly brought on by the historical milieu, and how in turn he can use his intellectual faculties to exert an influence on society and transform it. By understanding Liang Ch'i-ch'ao and what he has contributed to Chinese fiction, we are a step further in understanding the Chinese fiction tradition from dynastic period to modem times. While Liang's linguistic style was extremely influential in his own time and his views on fiction were adopted by many authors, his novel. New China, however, does not seem to have received the same acceptance as his other endeavors from later critics and readers. Even so, in composing it, Liang did fulfill his goal of expressing his own political opinions. But he also seems to have realized that simply inserting such opinions does not guarantee its success as a novel. This might be why he switched from the earlier lecture mode to a narrative mode in the last chapter. Since New China is left unfinished, however, we can only speculate.

In final analysis, Liang Ch'i-ch'ao's writings on fiction and his unfinished novel cannot be treated in any sense a systematic formulation of fiction, but their repercussions and influences clearly show the urgent demand for a new literary medium to voice immediate concerns in a transitional age. As an intellectual deeply rooted in Chinese culture, Liang does not in any substantial way break away from the old narrative tradition. However, he has brought new elements into an old form and hence opened up new possibilities for fiction and uplift the status of fiction. His "new fiction" is still the traditional fiction with new political 2 1 1 content, much like his "new poetry" which incorporated new terms into an age-old style. A new "modem" fiction has to wait for the May Fourth writers who employed a new language medium and new form to delineate their new awareness and new concerns of their world.

Still, Liang, as in other areas, was instrumental in bridging the gap between the old and the new. In Ch'ing-tai hsueh-shu kai-lun he characterizes himself as a Ch'en She—the military leader who first initiated the rebellion against the Ch'in emperor—in the intellectual circle, emphasizing his own role as a pioneer introducing new things and initiating new thought but not the one to sum up or to push things to a well-developed sta te .H e also once quoted

Kung Tzu-chen's (1792-1841)*® poetic line, "Only to initiate a new trend but not to serve as a master (tan-k'ai feng-ch'ipu wei-shih)" and expressed his identification with this state of mind. These two examples are most appropriate in characterizing and summing up Liang Ch'i- ch'ao's contribution to Chinese fiction: he first advocated the political novel; he started the serious discussion of fiction; he was the first one to write a political novel; and he was a most important figure in elevating fiction to a higher social status. What he did may not be completely successful, but he did reveal many possibilities for later-comers to explore, to develop and to accomplish.

" Ch'ing-tai hsueh-shu kai-lun, p. 65.

Famous Mid-Ch'ing poet, who Liang said is most influential on late-Ch'ing Reformists. GLOSSARY

A Ying Ai-na chu-shih

Bummei tozenshi

Chang Chih-tung Chang Hsun MM chang-hui t'i Chang P'eng-yuan ch'ao-yueh i-shih @ # # # che-li hsiao-shuo "chen kuo-min ching-shen, k'ai kuo-min chih-shih" chen-t'an hsiao-shuo Ch'en M e i-h s i# # # Ch'en Pao-chen Ch'en She (Sheng) g # # [ # ] Ch'en Tu-hsiu Ch'en T'ung-fu cheng-chih hsiao-shuo Cheng Hsuan Cheng Kuan-ying Cheng L vn i^^ Cheng-shih l E ^ Cheng-wen she C h ' e n g i a Ch'eng Wei-shih Itm chi # chi-lu i-wen Chi Yun chia-fa Chia-jen ch'i-yu chi fÉ A ^ M IS

2 1 2 213 Chia Pao-yu Chiang Kuan-yun # # # ch’i ^ Ch'iang-hsueh hui § # # # " chiao-hua ch'ien-ch'eng ching-chu # # # | # ch'ien-tse hsiao-shuo chihig chih-jen lë A chih-kuai 1^ # Ch'ien-lung chih-yun chin # Chin Ho "Chinpieh-Ii"4-B# Chin Sheng-t'an Chin P 'ingM ei # # # ching M ching-kuo chi-shih # ! # # # ching-shih # # ching-shih # # ch'ing 1 # Ch'ing-ipao Ch'ing-wen Chou Tso-jen JUfPA chiu feng-ko chiu-wang t'u-ts'un Chou Tun-i MWiM. ChuHsi A # chu-luan shih WMM Ch'u Yuan (P'ing) JgJE C ^ 1 chui-chi tso-yu "Ch'uan-po wen-ming san li-ch'i" ch'uan-shih chih-wen ch'uan-ch'i Chuang Tzu chueh-chu chueh-shih chih-wen Chueh Wo (Hsu Nien-tz'u) # # C 1 214 ch'un # ch'un-chih tp chung hsiao chieh i I S # # # Chung-kuo chin san-pai-nien hsueh-shu shih Chung-kuo hsiao-shuo shih-lueh Chung-kuo hsien-tsai chi Chung-kuo kung-hsueh Chung-kuo li-shih yen-chiu fa Chung-wai kung-pao ch'uan-ch'i # #

Dokuritsu jison ^ i L ê #

Erh-shih-nien mu-iu chih kuai-hsien-chuang faîÈ fang-hsin fei-ts'e Fang Pao feng JE Feng Kui-fen Feng Meng-lung M W ’M Fujita Meikaku Fukuzawa Yukichi gesaku

Han Yu # # hao 5 ^ He-nuyu-t'ien lu {Uncle Tom's Cabin) ho % Hsi-hsiang chi "Hsi-hsueh shu-mu-piao hou-hsu" H si-yu chi ® ^ |H Hsia Jen i^A Hsia Tseng-yu X # # Hsia-wei-i yu-chi Hsiang-chiangp'ing-lun Hsiao Ching # # Hsiao-shuo hsiao-hua 215 Hsiao-shuo ts'ung-hua "Hsiao-shuQ yuan-li" hsieh-ch'ing hsiao-shuo hsieh-shih hsiao-shuo hsieh-shih-p'ai hsiao-shuo hsieh-tzu Hsien-cheng tang Hsien-Ch'in cheng-chih ssu-hsiang shih hsien t'ien-hsia chih-yu erh-yu Hsin Chia-hsuan hsien-sheng nien-p'u Hsin Chung-kuo wei-lai chi Hsin-hsi hsien-t'an Hsin hsiao-shuo Hsin-hsueh wei-ching k'ao hsin i-ching hsin-min fjfS Hsin-min shuo Hsin-min ts'ung-pao Hsin ta-luyu-chi hsin yu-chu iffs§ ^ hsing # hsing-ch'u Hsing Kuang-tsu Hsing-shih yin-yuan chuan # # # # # # hsing-wei #1% Hsiung Hsi-ling # # # # Hsu Chen-ya Hsu Chi-yu # # # Hsu Fo-su # # # Hsu Nien-tz'u hsu-shu tsa-shih Hsu T'ien-hsiao Hsuan Tsang Hsueh-hai fang hsun ^ hsun-hsi {vasatia\ Huai-hsi tsa-chih Huang K'an Huang K'o-ch'iang 216 Huang Tsun-hsien # # # Huang Tsung-hsi Hu Shih aam Hu-shih wen-ts'un hua-pen hui-mu HI g Hui-t'ou k'an hui-yin hui-tao i Hung-lou meng i-ching m # i-fa "I-wen chih" @^27^ i-yang tun-ts'o fa "i-yin cheng-chih hsiao-shuo hsu" ÜÉPjKtp/J^ISiÿ Inugai Tsuyoshi i-feng i-su i t'ien-hsia wei chi-jen

Jen Hsuen Jih-pen kuo-chih jiyu minken g Ju-lin wai-shih Ju-shi wo-wen Juan Yuan M j t kaishinto Kajin no kigu (chia-jen ch'i-yu chi) {ÉAWSilB "k'ai-tao Chung-kuo wen-ming chi-pu" Kakan'o kan-shih yu-kuo K'ang Kuang-jen K'ang Yu-wei # # # "Kao hsiao-shuo chia" Kato Hiroyuki Keikoku bidan k'o-hsueh hsiao-shuo k'o-ssu-teh 1^ # ^ # (caste) 217 Ku A n M # Ku An man-pi Ku-chin hsiao-shuo ku feng-ko 'È'Mfê- Ku-wang t'ing-shih ku-wen ku-wen i-fa Ku-wen yun-tung "SifcSllj kua-fen kuang chien-wen 1 Kuang Hsu Kuang-yang isa -ch i , Kunino Totoi H i f S Kung-hsuen she # # ü îi: kung-ming fu-kuei Kung Tzu-chen Kung-yang K'ung-tzu kai-chih k'ao kuo-chia kuo-chih li-ch'i Kuo Mo-juo # # # Kuo-fengpao

LangK'unMP#

L iC h im & Li Ch'u-ping Li E li-hsiang-p'ai hsiao-shuo Li-hsien ch'i-ch’eng t'ung-meng tang li-hsien hsiao-shuo li-shih ch'iu-chu yeh Li Hung-chang Li K'uei L iP o # a Li Po-yuan L i Sao # # Li-shao chu-shih li-shih hsiao-shuo 218 "Li-shih hsiao-shuo tsung-hsu" Li Tse-hou li-yueh chiao-hua Liang Ch'i-hsun "Liang-Chin yen-i hsu" Lin Hsu Lin Ming-teh # # # Lin Shu Lin Yu-t'ang Liu Hsieh # # Liu Hsien-t'ing Liu Kuang-ti Liu Mien Liu Shih-p'ei Liu Ta-k'uei Liu Tsung-yuan Lu Chi I # # Lu Chih-shen # # # Lu Chiu-yuan Lu Hsun lu-shih Lu-t'ien-kuan chu-jen (Feng Meng-lung) Luan-yang hsiao-hsia I Luan-yang hsu-lu # | # # # "Lun hsiao-shuo chih shih-li chi ch'i ying-hsiang" "Lun hsiao-shuo yu ch'un-chih chih kuan-hsi" "Lun k'ai-ming chuan-chih" | "Lun yu-hsueh" # # # Lun Yu # g §

Ma Chien-chung Ma Jung M B' Ma Liang Mai Chung-hua # # # Mai Meng-hua # # # Man Shu mao-hsien hsiao-shuo Mao Tse-tung mi-chih 219 M ing-i tai-fang lu ming-tao Miyazaki Muryu M o-ching chiao-shih # # # # Mo Tzu hsueh-an

Nakamura Masanao Nan-k'ai ta-hsueh Nijusannen miraiki

Oda Jun'ichiro —IP Oshima maru Ou-yang Hsiu pa-ku wen pai-hua È IS pa-li-men (parliment) Pai-nien i-chieh {meng) —% C W' ] Pan Ku BIËI pao-chuan # # Pao-huang hui Pao-kuo hui "Pen-kuan fu-yin shu-pu yuan-ch'i" RÎéPISr PI^SB "Pi-jen tui-yu yen-lun-chieh chih kuo-ch'u chi chiang-lai" Pieh Shih ^!J± "Pien-fa t'ung-i" pien-wen P'ing Tzu Po Chu-i 6 ## p'o-lan chin-tsung fa # # # # ) & Pu-ch'an-tsu hui p'u-chih "pu-Chung pu-hsi, chi-Chung chi-hsi" ^ 4 ^ ^ © > IP4"IP© P's Sung-ling # # # ?

Sakurada Momoe San-kuo-chih yen-i sao # Seki Naohiko MW.M 2 2 0 Setchubai shajitsu shugi shan-shu # # shen-yun # # sheng-p'ing shih sheng-yin # # sheng-yuan 4=.# Shiba Shim shih ^ Shih Chi Shih-chieh ko-ming shih-chieh ta-t'ung Shih Ching # # # "shih-hsu" Shih Ming Shih Nai-an M P a o B ffg shih-pi shih-tai hsin-li Shih-wu hsueh-t'ang I Shih-wu pao Shin Nippon Shoseisu shizui /Jn| shuai-hsing shuang-kuan fa MUSîÊ Shui-hu Chuan Ssu-k'u ch'uan-shu 123]$^#

Ssu-k'u ch'uan-shu tsung-mu t'i-yao § # 3 Ssu-ma Ch'ien ssu-pu |Z3ê|5 ssu-ta ch'i-shu Su Man-shu Su S h ih # K Sudo Nansui Suehiro Techo Sun Fu-yuan M tk M Sun Yat-sen

Ta-kuan yuan 221 ta-t'ung :Â:|^ T a-t'm gshu Tai-yu # 3 t'ai-p'ing shih "tan-k'ai feng-ch'i pu-wei-shih" tan-t'i fa T'an Ssu-t'ung T'ang Ts'ai-ch'ang T'ao Yu-tseng T'ao Yuan-ming TiPao-hsien^lc^S t'i# t'i-kao M m t'ieh-hsieh T'ien-lu sheng (Wang Chung-ch'i) 1 t'ien-ming Toda Kinds Tokutomi SohS ^ # # 1# Tou-p'eng hsien-hua "Tsa-kan shih" # # # tsai-tao # # Ts'ai O # # ts'ai-shih 7 R # ts'an-cheng yuan Ts'ao Hsueh-ch'in W S j^ Ts'ao P'i W S Tso Chuan Tsinghua ta-hsueh tsu k'ao-cheng # # # Tsubouchi Shôyô tsun-wang jang-i # 2 . # ^ TuFu% # T'ui An Tuan Ch'i-jui Tung-Chou lieh-kuo chih Tung-hsi Han yen-i Tung-nan ta-hsueh t'ung # T'ung-ch'eng # # 2 2 2 tzu f tzu-ch'iang yun-tung B S S S tti Tzu Jen C ] Tzu-yu shu § È # tz'u # tz'u i f

Wan-ch'ing hsiao-shuo shih Wan-kuo kung-pao Wan-mu ts'ao-t'ang Wang Hsiu-ch'u 3 . # # Wang K'ang-nien Wang Li-ch'i 3 E » Wang Shih-fu Wang T'ao Wang Yang-ming wei-mei # # wei-shih tsung wen ÿC wen-chieh ko-ming Wen-hsin tiao-lung wen-hsueh chih tsui-shang-ch'eng h # Wen Hsuan wen-i tsai-tao wen-jou tun-hou wen-ming wen-ssu Weng T'ung-ho # |% # Wu Ch'eng-en Wu Ching-tzu Wu-hsu liu-chun-tzu

Wu Shuang-je Wu T'ing-fang Wu Wo-yao

Yang-chou shih-Jih chi Yang Jui # # Yang Hsiung WM 223 Yang Shen-hsiu : Yano RyOkei Yeh Ch'ing-ping # # # yen-chih Yen Fu # # "yi chiu-feng-ko ban hsin i-ching" Yin-ping-shih shih hua Ying-huan chih-lueh Ying-huan so-chi yu ch'ien-chieh "Yu chih hsiao-shuo kuan" Yu-hsieh Sheng y^fûl4=. Yu-li hurt 2 # # ^ Yu-shih ming-yen {Ku-chin hsiao-shuo) C 3 Yu Ssu yu wei-hsin wo-kuo, hsien wei-hsin wo-min ^ülffîiclî "Yu Yen Yu-ling hsien-sheng shu" Yuan Hung-tao Yuan Shih-k'ai # # # , yuan-yang hu-tieh p'ai hsiao-shuo yueh ^ yueh-fu # # Yueh-wei ts'ao-t'angpi-chi Yueh-yueh hsiao-shuo H ^ Yung-yu tzu (Chiang Ta-ch'i) j BIBLIOGRAPHY:

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