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The Literary Field of Twentieth-Century China Chinese Worlds The Literary Field of Twentieth-Century China Chinese Worlds Chinese Worlds publishes high-quality scholarship, research monographs, and source collections on Chinese history and society from 1900 into the next century. "Worlds" signals the ethnic, cultural, and political multiformity and regional diversity of China, the cycles of unity and division through which China's modern history has passed, and recent research trends toward regional studies and local issues. It also signals that Chineseness is not contained within territorial borders - overseas Chinese communities in all countries and regions are also "Chinese worlds". The editors see them as part of a political, economic, social, and cultural continuum that spans the Chinese mainland, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macau, South-East Asia, and the world. The focus of Chinese Worlds is on modern politics and society and history. It includes both history in its broader sweep and specialist monographs on Chinese politics, anthropology, political economy, sociology, education, and the social-science aspects of culture and religions. The Literary Field of New Fourth Army Twentieth-Century China Communist Resistance along the Edited by Michel Hockx Yangtze and the Huai, 1938-1941 Gregor Benton Chinese Business in Malaysia Accumulation, Ascendance, A Road is Made Accommodation Communism in Shanghai 1920-1927 Edmund Terence Gomez Steve Smith Internal and International Migration The Bolsheviks and the Chinese Chinese Perspectives Revolution 1919-1927 Edited by Frank N. Pieke and Hein Mallee Alexander Pantsov Village Inc. Chinatown, Europe Chinese Rural Society in the 1990s Identity of the European Chinese Edited by Flemming Christiansen and Towards the Beginning of the Zhang Junzuo Twenty-First Century Flemming Christiansen Chen Duxiu's Last Articles and Letters, 1937-1942 Birth Control in China Edited and translated by Gregor Benton 1949-1999 Population Policy and Demographic Encyclopedia ofthe Chinese Overseas Development Edited by Lynn Pan Thomas Scharping The Literary Field of Twentieth-Century China Edited by Michel Hockx UNIVERSITY OF HAWAIII PRESS HONOLULU Editorial matter © 1999 Michel Hockx All rights reserved Published in North America by University of Hawai'i Press 2840 Kolowalu Street Honolulu, Hawai'i 96822 First Published in the United Kingdom by Curzon Press 15 The Quadrant, Richmond Surrey, TW9 IBP England Printed in Great Britain Library of Congress Cataloguing-in-Publication Data The literary field of twentieth-century China / edited by Michel Hockx. p. cm. - (Chinese worlds) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-8248-2201-3 (alk. paper). - ISBN 0-8248-2202-1 (pbk.) 1. Chinese literature-20th century-History and criticism. 2. Literature and society-China. I. Hockx, Michel. II. Title: Literary field of 20th century China. III. Series. PL2303.L546 1999 99-22714 895.1'09005-dc21 CIP Contents Acknowledgements Vll Introduction Michel Hockx An Act of Violence 21 Translation of Western fiction in the late Qing and early Republican period Wang-chi WOng 2 More Than Butterflies 40 Some observations on the early years of the journal Xiaoshuo yuebao Denise Gimpel 3 Playing the Field 61 Aspects of Chinese literary life in the 1920s Michel Hockx 4 From Literature to Love 79 Glory and decline of the love-letter genre Raoul David Findeisen 5 Literature High and Low 113 'Popular Fiction' in twentieth-century China Chen Pingyuan 6 Stories and Legends 134 China's largest contemporary popular literature journals Marja Kaikkonen v Contents 7 No Past to Long For? 161 A sociology of Chinese writers in exile Oliver Kramer 8 Displacing the Political 178 Zhang Yimou's To Live and the field of film l%ndy Larson 9 Here, There, Anywhere 198 Networking by young Chinese writers today Claire Huot Bibliography 216 Glossary 232 Contributqrs 247 Index 248 VI Acl\nowledgements The chapters of this book are based on papers presented at a workshop held in Leiden, The Netherlands in January 1996, when I was a post-doctoral fellow at the International Institute for Asian Studies (lIAS). The lIAS provided all the facilities and most of the funding for the workshop. Without the organisational and personal support I received from the institute and its staff members, neither the workshop nor this book would ever have materialised. Further financial support for the workshop was granted by the Leiden University Fund. On behalf of all contributors to this volume, I would like to thank those scholars who acted as discussants during the workshop and those whose papers, for various reasons, were not included. They are, in alphabetical order: Zong-qi Cai, Chen Xiaoming, Eva Shan Chou, Maghiel van Crevel, Douwe Fokkema, Theodore Huters, Leo au-fan Lee, Perry Link, Bonnie McDougall, Wang Xiaoming, Anne Wedell­ Wedellsborg, Catherine Yeh, Michelle Yeh, Henry Zhao. During the early stages of the editing process, I received much helpful advice from Wilt Idema. The Introduction was much improved by insightful comments from Susan Daruvala and Denise Gimpel. Many remaining queries were answered by Bernhard Fuhrer. Yu Hong provided indispensable support in countless areas, ranging from ego boosting to hardware improvement. vii Introduction Michel Hockx Although the word wenxue, as an equivalent for 'literature', does not appear in the Chinese language until the mid-nineteenth centuryl, the history of Chinese literature nevertheless spans many centuries. In traditional China, the reading and writing of symbolically highly valued texts was part and parcel ofthe daily practice of the bearers of political and cultural power - the wenren or 'literati'. Text composition was a central component of the civil service examina­ tions and there was a broad consensus about the idea that administering order and structure to texts was relevant to adminis­ tering order and structure to society at large. The function of writing within the 'central tradition' is aptly summarised by Wilt Idema and Lloyd Haft: The literature oftraditional China can be described as a sort of mathematics of society. Every situation permits but one moral evaluation. With regard to any matter whatsoever, the writer's standpoint and the feelings he experiences are supposed to be entirely appropriate to the situation. The formulation ofhis own judgment then coincides exactly with the description of the situation; and his formulation, being the correct interpretation, shall be utterly convincing. The writer's activity can be compared to that of a scientist: the scientist applies to a given process a specific mathematical formula which is both an adequate description of the process and a demonstration of the scientist's understanding of that process. Once the scientist has come up with the proper formula, it is entirely reasonable that 1 Michel Hockx _ he should rely on it for practical applications, and the elegant concision of the formula, recognizable as correct by others having the necessary expertise, wins confidence in its reliability. (Idema and Haft 1997: 42) Using the terminology of Pierre Bourdieu, which will be introduced in more detail below, one could argue that, in traditional China, proficiency in text composition constituted an especially useful form of cultural capital, the value of which was recognised throughout society, both by those in possession of it and by those deprived of it. Guided by the overall consensus regarding the truthfulness and usefulness ofwriting, members ofthe literati class produced an entire spectrum of literary views, which helped promote distinction amongst themselves. In his authoritative study of traditional Chinese conceptions of literature, James lY. Liu describes these views in the form of a circular process. Referring to the four categories considered by M.H. Abrams (1953: 6) to be the constitutive elements of every conceivable view of literature (artist, work, audience and universe), Liu claims that, in the Chinese tradition, the four are inseparable: 'reality' moves the 'poet', who produces a 'text', which affects the 'audience' that is thus moved to approach 'reality' in a different manner than before (Liu 1975:10). The six Chinese 'theories' of literature distinguished by Liu correlate to different phases within the entire process, rather than to individual elements. The lack ofconflict or contradiction in Liu's representation oftraditional Chinese literary conceptions all the more emphasises the strength of the consensus underlying them. Although literati throughout the pre-modern period practised and consumed other, more culturally marginal, forms of writing (especially drama and fiction), it was not until the sixteenth century, when both the Chinese population and the economy were booming, that the values (entertainment, financial profit) and institutions (printers, publishers, bookshops) associated with these genres - and with economic capital - began to affect and merge with the central tradition - and with cultural capital - resulting in such splendid hybrids of 'high' and 'low' culture as Hong lou meng (Red Chamber Dream). During the nineteenth century, especially, profound changes occurred in the structure of what most contributors to the present volume will call the literary field: the 'interest community' of writers, publishers, book sellers, critics and educators (cf. Van Rees and Dorleijn 1993:16; Van Rees and Vermunt 1996: 319). 2 _______________________ Introduction These changes, though not retraceable to a specific 'starting point', seem related to developments in Chinese society after
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