Tamia Liu and Mai Xiao.
Tamia Liu: Hello, Professor He. I'm glad to have the opportunity to talk to you. Your research on modern literary societies and magazines in China is very famous in China, and domestic scholars often quote or mention you. Professor Wang Dewei has said in class since last year that Professor He Maixiao from London University will be invited to take a modern literature class next semester. His scholarship is very distinctive and he is good at literary sociology.
As far as I know, your research field is mainly focused on the study of China's new poetry and China's societies and magazines, and your main research method is literary sociology. Shall we start with your doctoral thesis?
He Maixiao: OK. Let's speak Chinese, lest you go back to translate.
Tamia Liu: Great. Your doctoral thesis is about Xuechao, right? Why are you interested in China's new poems?
He Maixiao: Right. Snow Dynasty was published in 1922, and included eight China poets, including Zhu Ziqing and Zhou Zuoren. When I was studying at Leiden University in the Netherlands, my teacher was Han. He studied China's modern poems and wrote some books about Bian. Teacher Han himself is a poet, and I am interested in poetry, mainly influenced by him. At that time, in Leiden University, besides me, there were Collet, who also studied poetry, and Professor Ived, who is now in the East Asian Department of Harvard University. Professor Avid studies the ancient literature of China, but he is also interested in poetry. We are all from that era. At Leiden University, we are the poetry research center.
I have always been interested in China's May 4th literature. I emphasize the research methods of literary sociology. From this perspective, we can see many interesting phenomena and problems. The May 4th literature has a strong experimental side, but it is also rich and complicated. I study China's new poems from the perspective of poetics, trying to understand the thoughts of those poets, what are their theories and practices, and what are the differences between them. The focus of my thesis at that time was to study those eight writers.
Tamia Liu: As for your poetry research, I have read your article about Wang Jingzhi. When you study Wang Jingzhi and others, do you want to take this opportunity to discuss the modernity of China?
He Maixiao: Yes. I did some similar research, but later I actually gave up the idea. What I am more interested in now is the connection between new literature and tradition. Judging from the poetry text, it may be different from the previous tradition and has less connection. However, from the context of community and readers' demands and responses to poetry, new poetry is inextricably linked with traditional poetry. Literary societies are related to the former literati societies. I wrote an article to discuss whether China's new poems are popular. From new poetry to obscure poetry, there has always been a debate about whether it is right or wrong. In the west, things are different. In the later period of modernism, there will be no more critics discussing the issues of passing and failing or understanding and not understanding. Read more if you don't understand, and keep reading. Around the practice of new poetry, the demands of readers and the debate about whether it is vulgar or not, we can see that it reflects the requirements of traditional poetics and aesthetics.
Tamia Liu: Yes, there is a connection. You just emphasized the connection between context and tradition. In my opinion, the text is also closely linked with tradition. For example, He Qifang's Painting Dreams, the artistic conception created by the young He Qifang is very similar to that of many words in the Song Dynasty.
He Maixiao: Yes. Words are also closely linked.
Tamia Liu: Are you still continuing your research in this field?
He Maixiao: When I study online literature in the future, I will also talk about communication and non-communication. I will emphasize the sociality of literature and literature as a social method. Literati like singing, answering, associating and so on. Network literature is actually similar to this.
Tamia Liu: Yes. After reading your article, I feel that you not only emphasized some problems of poetics itself, such as diction, intonation, syntax and so on, but also emphasized the reactions of readers and critics at that time. Why emphasize this aspect?
He Maixiao: To understand why those people wrote poems like this at that time, we should not only look at the poems themselves, but also understand the reactions of readers and critics at that time. At that time, I was greatly influenced by reception aesthetics, so I paid attention to understanding and understanding poetry from the reader's point of view. In my opinion, it is not enough for a foreigner to understand China literature and a modern person to understand past literature. We need other help and assistance.
Tamia Liu: Your article provides a lot of details. My feeling is that your article put the Huizhou style into the historical context and literary field at that time. Understanding Wang Jingzhi in this way seems to be more comprehensive and more in line with the historical context at that time. As far as my personal reading experience is concerned, I just read Wind of Hui, and I didn't pay attention to the reaction of critics and readers at that time. So my understanding of Wang Jingzhi is what I understand today, which will be very different from readers and critics at that time.
He Maixiao: Right. I firmly believe that this is what literary researchers should do, and this is also the starting point for me to write this article. I won't decide in advance which novel or poem I like. I want to see what people thought of this work at that time and what was the purpose of the author's writing this work. I try to control my likes and dislikes in my research so as not to be biased. So I try not to be a critic, but a literary researcher.
Tamia Liu: You put great emphasis on going back to the historical background at that time. Is this research method targeted or out of other considerations?
He Maixiao: When I was writing my doctoral thesis, I was not very clear about the significance of these issues and research. Many people in our generation don't study the literature of the May 4th period, contemporary literature or late Qing literature at all, and they have some negative impressions and comments on the May 4th movement. I always feel something is wrong. Of course, it is not advisable to regard the May 4th Movement as the mainstream, but it is also wrong to belittle it. When I look at the literature in the 1920s and 1930s, I feel that this era is actually full of diversity and diversification, with different attitudes, styles and styles. If we need to understand the literature of that era, we must go back to the historical context of that era. The significance and value of doing this, I gradually realized later.
It is wrong for us to praise or criticize the May 4th Movement. New literature is not the mainstream in the 1920s, but a form of modern literature. There is a great debate in the west about the value of China's modern literature. Even the professor said to the extreme that modern literature in China is almost useless. In the west, there were many such debates in the 1980s. I remember William Jenner once wrote an article "Is Modern Literature Possible in China? In addition, Michall Duke also holds a similar view. They say that modern literature in China is almost meaningless to ordinary readers of western literature. I object to their views. But the way I object is: I want to know why readers in China liked reading those literatures at that time. So I want to go back to the historical context of China at that time to read and understand those literary works.
Tamia Liu: You know, the May 4th Movement is of great significance to China's modern literature. When teacher Chen Sihe reflected on the May 4th Movement, there was a metaphor. He said that the May 4th Movement was almost a beacon for the study of modern literature, where it shone was bright and where it didn't shine was dark.
Things have changed over the years. Scholars at home and abroad have a great debate on the significance of the May Fourth Movement, and there are more and more voices deconstructing or opposing it. Professor Wang Dewei's The Oppressed Modernity once caused great controversy in China.
He Maixiao: That's right. I also talked about the May 4th Movement in my monograph Stylistic Problems. If we really go back to the historical situation at that time, no one knows who is the mainstream. At that time, there were many magazines and societies with diverse styles, forms and rich contents. There are many scholars engaged in new literature, but there are also many people engaged in other types of literature. If we really want to escape from the May 4th thinking, we must first get out of the May 4th central theory. You should not blindly worship it or attack it, just regard it as a part of the literary world. In 1996, Wang Xiaoming and I had an argument, which involved this issue. Wang Xiaoming wrote an article "A Magazine and a Community-Re-evaluating the May 4th Literary Tradition", and I responded to his article. A few years ago, I gave a speech at Peking University and discussed the significance of the May 4th Movement on this topic. My conclusion is that the May 4th Movement itself is not a problem, but a definition of the May 4th literature. For example, many western scholars refer to China literature in the 1920s and 1930s as May 4th literature. So, of course, there will be a lot of opposition. New literature is not China's modern literature, but a part of modern literature and a part of many styles. If we understand it this way, there will be no extreme situation of mixed opinions.
Tamia Liu: Is your monograph "Stylistic Problems" discussed by studying literary societies and literary magazines?
He Maixiao: Right. This book mainly discusses two issues. The first is to re-understand the 1920s by studying the activities and magazines of mass organizations. New literature is only a genre of modern literature, not all. Readers and critics at that time knew how to distinguish new literature from other literature. They can distinguish between old and new literature not only by words, but also by magazine covers, writers' styles and bearing. I wrote an article about Liu Bannong. He arrived in Beijing from Shanghai, and both Lu Xun and Zhou Zuoren wrote articles to scold him, saying that he was wrong and wrong. Two weeks, not only the articles written by Liu Bannong, but also his behavior and style. Therefore, the concept of style is not only the style of the text, but also has other rich connotations. Secondly, I want to discuss more specifically what is literary style, as well as the internal operation of literary societies, how to influence writers and so on. Yesterday we mentioned Bourdieu's concept of "symbolic power", and my book also discussed this issue. In what ways and words do societies and magazines create the symbolic value of literature?
Tamia Liu: The main methodology of your book is sociology of literature, right?
He Maixiao: Right. But it is also a research work on the history of literature, involving a large number of historical materials and discussing the "literary field" at that time. I try to observe all the literary works, societies and magazines objectively and see the positions they represent, with special emphasis on those magazines and societies with "power" and those avant-garde without "power". In this way, I found that the new literature is actually only the avant-garde, without "power" and powerful "symbolic capital", so the talents of the new literature will curse so desperately. Now, in our opinion, people in new literature are so fierce that they must be fierce. Actually, it's just the opposite. We also feel that the "Mandarin Duck and Butterfly School" is really pitiful, but we can see how many magazines there were in the1920s, but the only magazine that is really good in new literature is Novel Monthly.
Tamia Liu: Why did you start with literary magazines and literary societies?
He Maixiao: This is going back to my doctoral thesis. Through my understanding of poetry, I became interested in the phenomenon of literary societies. I really wanted to study literary societies at that time, but I didn't know how to start. At that time, Professor Avid gave me great help. He introduced me to many Dutch sociologists and gave me great inspiration. On the one hand, literary societies definitely represent an ideology or literary theory; In addition, it is also an institution with its own rules and regulations and operation mode; In addition, the association also involves individuals. I find that most scholars who study literary societies pay more attention to ideology or a few main figures than to the institutions themselves. For example, when I started studying the Literature Research Association, I found that there were so many members. Besides the main characters, who are the others, why and how to participate, how to contact the literature research society and so on. Few people have studied such problems.
I used a particularly stupid method when I started learning clubs. I first read all the magazines and supplements related to literary studies in the 1920s. I want to see when they began to use the name "literary research society" and when this institution was established. Later, it was discovered that after 1925, there was no such thing as a literary research society. After 1925, although people still exist and series of books still exist, literary research as a literary institution has disappeared from the literary world. At that time, many scholars thought that my idea was extreme, because we generally thought that the Literature Research Association still existed at 1932, because the monthly novel was closed at 1932. In fact, Novel Monthly has never been recognized as a publication of the Literature Research Association. After such "clumsy" reading, many different views will be presented immediately.
When I read magazines and supplements, I not only read those novels, but also read other materials in magazines and even advertisements. We read modern literature now, mostly from anthologies or complete works, which is very different from reading works directly in magazines. If you read a magazine from beginning to end, it is also a text, not just a literature issue. Magazines can take us back to the literary world at that time.
Tamia Liu: Yes. I feel the same way myself. Reading an article in the original magazine is completely different from reading the same article in the collected works or complete works. Just now I talked a lot about your research on modern literature in China. Now, let's talk about your research on China's contemporary literature. In February, you gave a report on China's contemporary online poetry "Inside the firewall: China's online literature practice" at the Fei Zhengqing Center. I found that lecture particularly interesting. Why do you now turn to China's contemporary poetry research and online literature research?
He Maixiao: There are many reasons. First, I was very concerned about the relationship between literature and media at the beginning of my research. In the 1920s and 1930s, the publication of literature depended on magazines. Now the internet is very popular, so I began to pay attention to the new carrier of literary publishing-the network. The internet is a more complicated way of publishing, because you may not know who the author is or where the article starts and ends. Second, I can't just study modern literature. The situation in Britain and China is very different. Because there are many researchers, some scholars can only study modern literature all their lives without paying attention to contemporary literature or modern literature. Not abroad, because there are not so many researchers and teachers, so we have to cross many fields and often learn both modern literature and modern literature. Thirdly, China's online literature was very active at that time, so it came into my field of vision, so I made up my mind to study this issue. Fourthly, it is my personal factor, because my child has just been born and I have to stay at home. I can study online literature as long as I sit in front of the computer, without going to the library or reference room.
Tamia Liu: Hehe. Now China's online literature is full of mud and sand, both good and bad. It's a large number and it's coming. It is really a difficult problem to study China's online literature. How are you going to carry out this research?
He Maixiao: Right. Too many, too complicated. Now I have only published two articles about online literature. I find that most of the time it is still description and seldom analysis. Because I have to explain some basic problems to western readers and describe the current situation and some common phenomena of China's online literature. For example, I even have to explain what a forum is and so on. I think I will eventually return to the previous research methods and discuss the "symbolic capital" of online literature, its operating mechanism, who is the "gatekeeper" and so on. In addition, my research on online literature will still focus on poetry. China's poetry creation is very rich now. Many poets regard the Internet as a publishing platform, a communication platform, an evaluation platform and so on. I will study how to publish, circulate, evaluate and admire online poetry. I will continue to write articles about online literature and eventually integrate them into a book. My research may focus on description, because this type of book is also needed.
Tamia Liu: Of course, I think it is very valuable. I have a strong feeling after listening to your report last time. You used the word "Great Wall Firewall" in the title, which may be related to the metaphor of "Great Wall". In the eyes of westerners, China is always associated with the Great Wall. In the Qing dynasty, it was closed to the outside world. In New China, because of the Cold War and other reasons, the West didn't know much about China. Now, because of the Internet, it is called the "Great Fire Wall". Because of the Great Wall, many people in the west don't know China, but they just imagine it. Coupled with many works, they are more confident in their imagination. They don't know what this nation within the Great Wall is doing or thinking. Your report, in my opinion, is to tell the audience what happened inside the Great Wall. In this sense, I think your description is very important. In fact, the Great Wall is not in China or the United States, but in our hearts. Description is a very good way to eliminate the "Great Wall" in our hearts. Show the truth, barriers and prejudices will naturally disappear.
He Maixiao: Yes. This is a very interesting question. My personal experience is that most western scholars who are interested in the Internet in China are interested in the control and censorship mechanism, that is, they are most interested in what they can't see, so they will strengthen this perspective. In fact, there are many things we can see online, many of which are very valuable. Every time I give a report on China's online literature somewhere, someone always asks, "Will the network be controlled and regulated?" . In fact, I think the literary environment in China is more free and relaxed than ever before. As a researcher of China literature, I have the responsibility to eliminate this misunderstanding and prejudice. Maybe description is a good strategy.
Tamia Liu: In your discussion of online literature, why do you pay attention to Chencun and his "ethnic vegetable garden"?
He Maixiao: In 2000, there was a big discussion about online literature in China, and Chen Cun was also the main figure in the discussion. In fact, I began to pay attention to this writer about ten years ago. I only talked about part of Chencun in that lecture. I pay attention to Chen Cun's works and main activities from the late 1970s to the present. Chencun also belongs to the avant-garde in the 1980s. But many avant-garde writers in the 1980s, after becoming famous in the 1990s, put aside all avant-garde features. Chen Cun has been looking for, looking for new writing methods, new media and so on. He later discovered the internet.
In addition, many literary themes and thoughts of Chen Cun are closely related to my understanding of the avant-garde, so I will pay attention to him.
Tamia Liu: What is your overall evaluation of Chencun?
He Maixiao: So far, I think Chencun is a relatively pure avant-garde. He's been looking for it and wondering. He likes to move in small circles. As early as 2000, Chencun saw that online literature was becoming more and more economical, so he turned to quit this circle and just ran his own "niche vegetable garden".
Tamia Liu: In our previous conversation, the method of literary sociology has always been regarded as a potentially important content. I want to discuss with you the research methods of literary sociology, can I?
He Maixiao: Right. We can discuss the sociology of literature itself.
Tamia Liu: Before that, I had little contact with sociology. Bourdier has also been popular in China for a long time. I just glanced at it. Since you taught us this semester, I have intensively read some articles on pure sociology. I have a feeling that literary sociology pays too much attention to the external study of literature. For example, Keith Farris and Jeroen van de Weijer vermont's article An Analysis of the Event History of Writer's Fame: On the Influence of Critics on the Career of Novice Writers, which we discussed in class yesterday. In the model provided by the author, the author's reputation is related to agents, publishers, bookstores, book clubs, libraries, media criticism, academic criticism and readers' reactions. This model can really solve some problems, because the reputation of writers is really related to this, but I think these two authors overemphasize the outside of literature. This model does not discuss the writer's own literacy. In my opinion, this is the most important factor for a writer to gain fame. Literary sociologists can't miss this question, but self-cultivation is intangible, impossible to quantify and impossible to be a model. Therefore, when discussing Kebiao Zhang's "Climbing the Dragon in the Literary World", I only said half-jokingly, "The most important thing to be famous is to live a long life, like Kebiao Zhang, to be over 100 years old". "Long life" is a popular proverb. Zhuangzi described "long life" as a "master of health preservation". Health care is not only self-cultivation, but also self-cultivation, so the "master of health care" takes "pointing to poverty as a salary and spreading fire". I don't know how to do it. "Confucius, Zhuangzi, Socrates and others can live forever. Their health care is to keep this immortal thing, so as to live the longest. I think "living long" is the most fundamental problem. Although many people can be very popular through external hype and packaging, they will definitely disappear in a few years or decades. There are countless examples in the literary world. I think the main problem of this article is to focus on the outside, so what the author said is really related to the problem, but it is not the fundamental thing.
He Maixiao: What you said is very interesting. My research direction is "external research" or "contextual research". However, what I want to question is: what is external and what is internal. I don't think literature is so strictly divided into inside and outside. I even joked that the only thing inherent in literature is pen and ink, and everything else is external. Metaphor, irony and other rhetorical methods are also external. From an ironic point of view, I think Shanghai Baby is the best satirical novel. I know this is not Wei Hui's intention, but judging from the text, this novel challenges all male critics.
If a writer writes a novel and just puts it in a drawer, can it be regarded as literature? I think he should at least publish it in a magazine or online, and at least have a critic's comment. Therefore, I want to emphasize something other than literature. In fact, there is no strict distinction between internal and external concepts, contexts and texts; they are dynamic.
Tamia Liu: Many people may have asked you this question just now. They will treat your research as an external study of literature on the premise of distinguishing between external research and internal research. This has something to do with the popular new criticism in America, right? The external and internal studies of literature were put forward by Wellek and others.
He Maixiao: Right. The influence of new criticism is still great in American universities, and the cultivation of college students is mainly intensive reading. Only when students get a master's degree do they know that there are other research methods besides literary text research. There are not many scholars who do my research. I can't say that such research is not important, but it is very marginal. There is little research on literary sociology in China, less in the United States and some in Britain, such as Raymond? Williams, etc.
Tamia Liu: Raymond? Williams was also popular in China for a while. What do you think of the methods of intensive reading and internal research?
He Maixiao: As a teaching method, text intensive reading is effective and will be of great help to students. I also emphasize close reading in my own research and teaching, and I have no opinion on this method. I think if people who study literature are like me, it will be monotonous. I have good friendship and cooperation with many internal scholars who do literary research. Everyone will recognize each other and the value and significance of each other's research. The problem is that many people who do internal research simply don't realize the significance of external research. Once they see a lot of statistics, charts and figures, they will resent it and think it is completely wrong. This completely obliterates the significance and value of external research. I wouldn't be so extreme.
In fact, my research is more focused on the study of literary history, and I am not very proficient in real sociological research. I have no formal training in sociology or related mathematics. In order to study the history of literature, I used some sociological methods and concepts.
Tamia Liu: I noticed that in our conversation just now, you paid more attention to distinguishing two concepts: critic and literary history researcher. Can you talk about your views in this regard?
He Maixiao: I think critics mainly give a value judgment to literary works. I don't think the value judgment of works is the whole of literature, it is only a part of literary research. The study of literary history emphasizes the role of works in the historical background. Literary criticism can ignore the historical background, or only pay attention to the history of a style, but the study of literary history must consider the historical background.
Tamia Liu: Can we make such a distinction: critics pay attention to the text, while the study of literary history pays attention to the context?
He Maixiao: You can't make such a simple distinction. For literary history researchers, the history and related materials at that time were texts. Of course, we can mainly look at literary texts without emphasizing others, but this will be biased.
Tamia Liu: That's right. Therefore, it may be a big problem for new criticism to absolutely distinguish text from context. In this sense, the sociology of literature is to save disadvantages and make up for bias. All right. Thank you, Professor He. It was a great pleasure talking to you today. Thank you very much.
Ph.D., Leiden University, Netherlands, and now Professor of China Literature, School of Asian and African Studies, University of London. His research direction is modern language and literature in China, his main research fields are modern poetics in China and modern literature in China, and he is good at literary sociology. His representative works include Snow Dynasty: Eight China Poets Walking on the Road of Modernity and Stylistic Problems: Modern Literary Societies and Literary Magazines in China191-1937.
Original: West Lake, No.6, 2009