Pure literature
The history of literature is the history of contradictory movements in which the theory of literary autonomy and the theory of heteronomy are constantly arguing. "Pure literature" and "pure art" and "pure aesthetics" are both It is a commonly used concept in the theory of artistic autonomy. In the history of Chinese literary theory in the 20th century, pure literature is a very popular term. According to the inference of scholars such as Kuang Xinyin, Wang Guowei "was the first to propose the concept of 'pure literature'." [1]
In 1905, Wang Guowei wrote "On the Duties of Philosophers and Artists" "Pure literature" was used for the first time: "...there is no pure philosophy in our country. The most complete ones are moral philosophy and political philosophy. As for the metaphysics between Zhou, Qin and Song Dynasty, it was just an attempt to consolidate the roots of moral philosophy. Of course, he does not have an inherent interest in metaphysics. He is not interested in metaphysics, let alone indifferent issues such as aesthetics, nomenclature, and epistemology! When looking at poetry, he is interested in history, nostalgia, and feelings. The world of poetry is full of topics such as events and gifts, but there are few works of lyrical narrative. The only ones that have artistic value are their descriptions of the beauty of nature. Even pure literature in opera and novels is often regarded as such. The purpose of punishing and admonishing has a purely artistic purpose, but it is not only ignorant of the value, but also derogatory.” [2] This is not only the first time to use purely literary terms, but also the first time to define the basic meaning of the term. The so-called pure literature is different from the Taoist literature of "ancient loyalty to the emperor, patriotism, admonishing good and punishing evil", but literature with the purpose of "pure art" or independent value. Pure literature is not a means or tool for political or moral propaganda and education, but has independent and self-sufficient aesthetic value. As Wang Guowei said, "Literature is the career of games." ("Literary Essays"), "The nature of beauty can be summed up in one sentence: it is cute to play with but cannot be used.", "All beauty is the beauty of form. Ye." ("The Position of Ancient Elegance in Aesthetics") and so on are all definitions of the non-utilitarian and purely aesthetic nature of "pure literature". This non-utilitarian purely literary concept obviously comes from the aesthetic thoughts of Kant, Schiller and Schopenhauer.
Historically, "pure literature" has at least three related but different uses: the first meaning is the modern independent concept of literary disciplines relative to the ancient concept of "literature". In recent times, Yang Yi This definition was also stated when talking about the "great literary view": the ancient Chinese literary view was a "miscellaneous literary view", which mixed literature and history, and incorporated both writing styles; the literary view of the 20th century accepted Western influence, eliminated miscellaneous elements, purified them, and strengthened literature. independent values ??and scientific system, adopting a "pure literary view". This concept of an independent literary discipline has appeared in literary theory at the beginning of the 20th century. With the completion of the establishment of an independent literary discipline, this "pure literature" view has lost the need to exist. However, with the emergence of the trend of cultural studies and contemporary academic interdisciplinary integration, people will re-examine the disciplinary establishment of "pure literature" in the 20th century. Yang Yi’s so-called academic transformation from the ancient concept of miscellaneous literature to the 20th century’s concept of pure literature and then to the “big literature concept” shows that the concept of pure literature in the independent sense of disciplines still has opportunities to be used.
The second meaning of the concept of "pure literature" refers to the autonomous aesthetic literary view that is opposed to the instrumental literary view. In modern literary theory, the term pure literature is not common. People often use the term "art" to express the literary concept of aesthetic self-discipline. Yan Fu said in "Notes on the Meaning of the Law": "Our country has the most lacking of those who should pay attention to it, but still have no time to pay attention to it, and that is the fine arts. Who are the fine arts? Anything that can entertain the ears and eyes of the officials, gods, and the emotions , It doesn’t have to be about the rationale.” [3] The concept of “art” here is broad, and beautiful literature is also a type of art. Wang Guowei also seldom mentioned "pure literature", but more often used the term "pure art". Lu Xun once mentioned "pure literature" and also classified it into "art": "In terms of pure literature, then The essence of all art is to make the viewer feel happy. "[4] The concept of "art" appeared in large numbers in literary theory at the turn of modern times, and is directly related to the introduction of modern Western literary theory with Kant's aesthetics as its core. In the West, the term "art" initially included The concept of "art" as distinct from practical skills was born in the 18th century. Modern aestheticians such as Kant widely used the term "beautiful art" to refer to works of art that have no practical function, so they were influenced by Western Enlightenment aesthetics. It is not surprising that the concept of "art" with autonomous meaning appears frequently in modern and contemporary Chinese literary theory.
"Pure literature" is a kind of "pure art". Huang Yuanyong said in "Preface to the Copying of Texts of Late Zhou, Han and Wei": "Ruofu literature is now a part of art... It is an art that uses words to imagine nature. "However, it is somewhat confusing and inconvenient to call pure literature pure art." The simplest explanation is: "Literature" is a general term for non-academic writings, and is usually limited to beautiful writing. "[5] Therefore, the concept of "pure art" at the beginning of the century was gradually replaced by terms such as "beautiful prose" and "pure poetry" as well as the slogan "art for art's sake" in the 1920s. "The original goal of the beautiful prose movement was the improvement of vernacular prose Purely literary. "[6] Zhou Zuoren began to advocate the beautiful writing of new literature in 1921: "There is a so-called essay in foreign literature, which can be roughly divided into two categories. One criticism is academic.
The second description is artistic and is also called beautiful writing. It can be divided into narrative and lyrical, but there are also many mixtures of the two... Why don't those who promote new literature give it a try? "[7] It seems that Zhou Zuoren and Wang Guowei are the same, both regard lyricism and narrative as the basic elements of pure literature or pure literature. Wang Tongzhao, Zhu Xiang and others call this kind of purely literary artistic prose " "Pure prose/pure essay" (pure prose/pure essay), Zhu Xiang even believed that the Chinese "pure essay" had already appeared in Zhou Zuoren's "My Own Garden". "Meiwen" or "pure prose" does not only refer to non-artistic argumentative essays They also emphasized self-expression and pursued the aestheticism of art for art's sake. Zhou Zuoren was very opposed to moral literature, and advocated "articles for articles' sake" and the theory of the futility of literature. In 1926, "articles for the sake of art" appeared again in modern literary theory. The concept of "pure poetry" based on poetry. Mu Mutian, a poet from the Creation Society, said in a letter to Guo Moruo: "What we demand is pure poetry (The Pure Poetry). What we want to live in is a world of poetry. We demand There is a clear division between poetry and prose, and we require pure poetic inspiration. "[8] Wang Duqing believes that this concept of pure poetry can "cure the shortcomings of weak aesthetics and rough creation in the Chinese literary world." People have also translated and introduced Edgar Allan Poe's "Principles of Poetry", James' "Pure Poetry", and Bush Pure poetry theories such as Radley's "Poetry for Poetry"; Shao Xunmei, Liang Zongdai, Yu Gengyu, and Zhu Guangqian further elaborated on the pure stance of poetry and promoted the pure literary movement of modern poetry.
From the rise of the left-wing literary movement to the establishment of the concept of "literature serving politics", the concept of self-disciplined pure literature was gradually replaced by the instrumental literary concept. It was not until the 1980s that the concept of pure literature reappeared, from politicized literature to human nature. literature, from external research to internal research, from reflection theory to representation theory to self-expression, from what to write to how to write, from rejecting formalism to affirming formal experimentation... Contemporary literary theory has once again confirmed the autonomy of literature , independence and self-sufficiency. Huang Ziping's theory of "returning literary theory to itself" and "self-production ability" and Sun Jin's "what literature and art are not" explain the concept of literature's self-discipline from different levels. The return of the world and literature to itself became a typical expression of the concept of pure literature in the 1980s. Nan Fan accurately summarized the meaning of the concept of "pure literature" in the 1980s: "relative to the narrative conventions of classical realism, and relative to the reproduction of social and historical pictures. tradition, especially compared to the 'war hymns' and 'odes' traditions of the 1950s and 1960s, people have put forward another literary ideal. People imagine that there is another kind of 'pure' literature, which pays more attention to the meaning of language and form itself, and pays more attention to the inner world of the characters - and therefore is more like real 'literature'."[9] Since the 1990s, The concept of "pure literature" also has a third meaning, that is, the view of pure literature in opposition to commercial culture, in the binary opposition of serious literature/popular literature, elite literature/popular literature, or avant-garde literature/popular literature. It highlights the aesthetic and cultural stance of "pure literature". However, the term "pure literature" still rarely appears in the vocabulary system of contemporary literary theory, but it appears frequently in discussions about how literary journals survive in the market economy. Is the taste and stance of pure literature changing its face to adapt to survival? It has become a focus of media attention in recent years.
In 2001, the concept of "pure literature" really entered the eyes of critics. In the "Critics Club" column of "Shanghai Literature", Li Tuo's "Comments on "Pure Literature"" was published, triggering a discussion about "pure literature". Li Tuo believed that "Pure Literature" appeared in the early 1980s. The concept of "pure literature" gained widespread approval in the late 1980s and became a mainstream concept in the 1990s. However, it has had a bad impact on literary writing in the past decade. Now is the time to reflect. Li Tuo clearly expressed his disapproval of pure literature technology Although "pure literature" has played a certain role in resisting the erosion of literature by commercialization, it has not intervened in the ongoing huge social changes. "Writing" further disconnected literature from society, leading to the narrow vision of most writers in the 1990s.
The subsequent discussion of pure literature in "Shanghai Literature" echoed Li Tuo's criticism. The basic points of the discussion are as follows Two: One is the criticism of "pure literature" for its lack of interventionist spirit. Xue Yi's "Opening Our Literary Concepts" believes that "pure literature" gradually leads to a dead end from self-discipline and freedom; Zhang Hong's "The Power and "Interventionality" of Literature. "points out that the concept of "pure literature" has changed from rebellion to conservatism, exposing the spiritual powerlessness of pure literature; Ge Hongbing's "Intervention: As a Pure Literary Belief" believes that May Fourth pure literature is interventional, but in the 1990s, literature no longer intervenes in people's The experiential world has become non-intervention literature; Han Shaogong's "Love "Self" and Know Evil" analyzes the evasive nature of "self" in "pure literature". The second is to dissolve the duality of "pure" and "impure". Opposition. Wu Xuan's "The Traversal Nature of Literature" proposes that literature must transcend the opposition between enlightenment and non-enlightenment, purity and impurity, and advocates replacing the dispute between purity and impurity with the issue of "literary nature" that transcends reality.
Nan Fan regards "pure literature" as an "empty idea". In his view, the emergence of the concept of "pure literature" was beneficial at first, but "it soon lost its vigor and became conservative." , this concept seems to presuppose a certain unchanging fixed nature of literature, so it may lock literature and multiple channels between literature and history. In the context of the flourishing of cultural studies, there is a doubt in the field of literary theory: Where has "literature" itself gone? Does "literature" still exist? Are we still studying "literature"? But this kind of suspicion is essentialism, which may make people's vision narrow and closed. Therefore, it is necessary to liberate literary research from the shackles of the concept of "pure literature" and move towards a more open literary research.
Pure literature writer Can Xue stepped forward to defend "pure literature". She believed: "From beginning to end, they are looking for the unchanging and basic things, like the sky, like food, and like the ocean. The works written by such writers are what we call pure literature...Pure literature is a niche literature, and this niche literature requires a group of people with special talents. Dedicated and energetic critics should guide readers. Because the issues involved in pure literature are big issues related to the soul, indifference to pure literature is a disregard for the soul, and this will inevitably lead to spiritual collapse and destruction." [10] She adheres to her pure literary stance since the 1980s and is willing to march in this small queue forever.