History essay HW

3 5 6 R E F o R M A N D R E V O L U T I o N

of a few rulers and aristocrats and had nothing to do with the happiness of the

great masses. How can this be shown? In the teachings of Confucius, the most

important elements in social ethics and social life are the rules of decorum,

,rrJ th. most serious thing in government is punishment. [n chapter I of the

Record of Rites, it is said, "The rules of decorum do not go down to the common

people and the penal statutes do not go up to great officers" lt'35]. Is this not

solid proof of the ftrue] spirit of the Way of Confucius and the spirit of the

feudal age?

lFrom Chen, "Kongzi zhi dao yu xiandai shenghuo," PP' l-5 -!\lTC]

T H E L I T E R A R Y R E V O L U T I O N

Paralleling the attack on Confucianism was the attack on the classical literary

language - the language of Confucian tradition and of the old-style scholar-

official, With the abandonment of the "eight-legged essay" examinations for the

civil service in r9o!, the discarding also of the official language, so far removed

from ordinary speech, might have seemed inevitable. This was a time of rising

nationalism, which in the West had been linked to the rise of vernacular liter-

atures; an era of expanding education, which would be greatly facilitated by a

written language simpler and easier to learn; a period of strong Westernization

in thought and scholarship, which would require a more flexible instrument

for the expression ofnew concepts. No doubt each ofthese factors contributed

to the rapid spread of the literary Ievolution after its launching by Hu Shi, with

the support of Chen Duxiu in r9r7. And yet it is a sign of the strong hold that

the classical language had on educated men, and of its great prestige as a mark

of learning, that until Hu appeared on the scene with his novel ideas, even the

manifestos of reformers and revolutionaries hacl kept to the classical style of

writing as if there could be no other.

Hu Shi (r8gr*1962) had studied agriculture at Cornell on a Boxer Indemnity

grant and philosophy at Columbia under John Dewey, of whorn he became

the leading Chinese disciple. Even before his return home he had begrrn ad-

vocating a new written language for China, along with a complete reexami-

nation and reevaluation of the classical tradition in thought and literature. Chen

Duxiu's position as head of the department of literature at Beiiing National

University, and his new political organ, The l,Jew Youth, represented strong

backing for Hu's revolutronary program - a program all the more commanding

of atiention because its aim was not mereiy destructive of traditional usage but'

ambitiously enough, directed to the stimulation of a new literature and ner.r'

ideas. Instead of dwelling solely upon the deficiencies of the past, Hu's writings

were full of concrete and constructive suggestions for the future. There was

hope here, as well as indignation.

Hr-r's program thus looked beyond ihe immediate literary revolution, stress-

ing the as the Ii lated lit< genres tl output'"r to which further tr particula tation of novels. I great disr historianr times.

H

Many per unletterer matter an and the c Therefore them sepe reform.

I belier items: (r) '

grammar. allusions. ular exprer

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3 5 8 R E F O R M A N D R E V o L U T I O N

resort to substance. And what is substance? Nothing but feeling and thought'

z. Do not imitate the ancients. Literature changes with time' Each period

from Zhou and Qin to Song, Yuan, and Ming has its own literature' This is

not my private opinion but ihe universal law of the advancement of civiliza-

tior. Tnk" prose, for example. There is the prose of the c/assic of History,the

fror" of ttt" ancient philosophers, the prose of [the historians] Sima Qian and'8r.,

Gu, the prose of th" lTtttg and Song masters] Han Yu' Liu Zongyuan'

ouyang Xiu, and Su Xun, the piose of the Recorded conyersations of the Neo-

ConfuJirr,r, and the prose of Shi N'i"tt and Cao Xueqin ld' ca' ry65' author

of The Draam of Red Mansions)' This is the development of prose' ' ' ' Each

period has changed in accordance with its situation and circumstance, each

, ri,t i,, own cha-racteristic merits' From the point of view of historical evolu-

i tiorr, t" cannot say that the writings of the ancients are

all superior to those

of modern writers. The prose otzio Qiuming [sixth century n.c.,ruthor of

| h e Z u o z h u a r r ] a n d S i m a Q i a n i s w o n d e r f u l , b u t c o m p a r e d t o t h e Z u o z h u a n and Racords of the Historiarz, wherein is Shi Naian's water

Margin (shuihu

z h u a n ) i n f e r i o r ? . , .

I have always held that colloquial stories alone in modern chinese literature

can proudly be compared with the first-class literature of the world. Because

they do .,ot i-it"t. tlre past but only describe the society of the day, they have

become genuine literature' ' ' '

S.Emphasize grammar.Many writers of prose and poetry today neglectgram-

matical construction. Examples are too numerous to mention, especially in

parallel prose and the fourJine and eightJine verses'

4. Reiect melancholy.This is not an easy task' Nowadays young writers often

show passion. They choose such names as "cold Ash," "No Birth"'and "Dead

Ash" as pen names' and in their prose and poetry they think'of declining years

when they face the setting ""', ""d

of destitution when they meet the autumn

wind. . . . I am ,,ot unawaie of the fact that our country is facing many troubles'

But can salvation be achieved through tears? I hope all witers become Fichtes

and Mazzinis and not like |ia Yi [zor-169 B.c.], Wang Can 1ry7-zt7-1, QuYuan

ll+l-rll r.c.], Xie Gaoyu ln4g-rz9sl, and so on fwho moaned and com-

plainedl. . . .

5 ' E l i m i n a t e o l d c l i c h * s , B y t h i s l m e r e l y m e a n t h a t w r i t e r s s h o u l d d e s c r i b e in their own words what they personally experience' So

long as they achieve

t h e g o a l o f d e s c r i b i n g t h i n g s a n d e x p r e s s i n g t h e m o o d w i t h o u t s a c r i f i c i n g r e . alisri, that is literary achievement' Those who employ

old clich6s are lazy

people who refuse to coin their own terms of description'

6 . D o t are of fivt universal i (d) quotinl (e) quoiatii

But I dl allusionsl portray thd muddle ald inapplicabl

7 . D o t r & , of human ! Confucius, consists of{ are fairlyr{ especially ! rones, or fl who had nd the develofr It is not thd final anallnil the free e4p| the long r{ establish dre tials of subdl rhymes. E@ Iiterary stuut

There are erature, witfr rgro]20 all r{ verse are rea{ hear this.

8. Do not I .Buddhist scrip could not expl

rg. Mencius 6l zo. Author of

Decades).

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3 6 0 R E F O R M A N D R E v o L U T I o N

Their style already approached the colloquial. Later, many Buddhist lectures

and dialogues were in the colloquial style, thus giving rise to the "conversation"

style. When the Neo-Confucians of the Song dynasty used the colloquial in

their Recorded Conversations, this style became the orthodox style of scholarly

discussion. (This was followed by scholars of the Ming.) By that time, colloquial

expressions had already penetrated rhymed prose, as can be seen in the collo'

quial poems of Tang and Song poets. From the third century to the end of the

Yuan, North China had been under foreign races and popular literature devel-

oped. In prose there were such novels as Water Margin (Shuihu zhuan) and

lourney to the West (Kyou ii).ln drama the products were innumerable. From

the modern point of view, the Yuan period should be considered as a high point

of literary development; unquestionably it produced the greatest number of

immortal works. At that time writing and colloquial speech were the closest to

each other, and the latter almost became the language of literature. Had the

tendency not been checked, living literature would have emerged in China,

and the great work of Dante and Luther [who inaugurated the substitution of

a living language for dead Latin] would have taken place in China. Unfortu-

nately, the tendency was checked in the Ming when the government selected

officials on the basis of the rigid "eight-legged" prose siyle and at the same time

literary men like the "seven scholars" including Li fMengyan 9, t472*L5zg] corr

sidered "returning to the past" as highbrow. Thus the once-in-a-millennium

chance of uniting writing and speech was killed prematurely, midway in the

process. But from the modern viewpoint of historical evolution, we can deF

nitely say that the colloquial literature is the main line of Chinese literature

and that it should be the medium employed in the literature of the future. (This

is my own opinion; not many will agree with me today.) For this reason, I hold

that we should use popular expressions and words in prose and poetry. Rather

than using dead expressions of three thousand years ago, it is better to employ

living expressions of the twentieth century, and rather than using the language

of the Qin, Han, and the Six Dynasties, which cannot reach many people and

cannot be universally understood, it is better to use the language of the Water

Margin (Shuihu zhuan) andlourney to theWest (Xiou ii), which is understood

in every household.

[Hu, "Wenxue gailiang chuyi," in Hu Shi wencun, co]lection t, ch. t, PP. 5-16; original version inXin qingnian 2, no.5 $anuary r9r7): r-rr -lVTCl

CHEN DUXIU: ..ON

LITEMRY REVOLUTION''

The movement of literary revolution has been in the making for some time.

My friend Hu Shi is the one who started the revolution of which he is the

vanguard. I do not mind being an enemy of all old-fashioned scholars in the

country and raising to great heights the banner of "the Army of Literary Revo-

hrtion" t damenhl erafure, r

simple, e classical (r) Dou and popl

At*fi forest litr three kin bellishrnr of indepl word afu and reall and is clt The forn flesh but use. Wid aristocra! The unir are comr causes arl flagrant d regeneral not open spirit of I confine (

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t 6 z R E F o R M A N D R E V o L U T I o N

r. Speak only when you have something to say. (A different version of the

first of the eight points.)

z. Speak what you want to say and say it in the way you want to say it'

(Different version of points "z-6.) 3. Speak what is your own and not that of someone

else. (Different version

of point 7.)

4. Speak in the language of the time in which you live. (Different verston

of point B.)

The literary revolution we are promoting aims merely at the creation of a

Chinese literature of national speech. Only when there is such a literature can

there be a national speech of literary quality. And only when there is a national

speech ofliterary quality can our national speech be considered a real national

, ,p"."h. A national speech withor-rt literary quality will be devoid of life and

value and can be neither established nor developed. This is the main point of

t h i s e s s a y . . . . Why is it that a dead language cannot produce a living literature? It is be-

cause of the nature of literature. The function of language and literature lies

in expressing ideas and showing feelings. When these are well done, we have

literaiure. Those who use a dead classical style will translate their own ideas

into allusions ofseveral thousand years ago and convert their own feelings into

literar;, expressions of centuries past. . . . If China wants to have a living liter-

ature, we must use the plain speech that is the natural speech, and we must

devote ourselves to a literature of national speech, . . .

Someone says, "lf we wantto use the national speech in iiterature, we musf

first have a national speech. At present we do not have a standard national

speech. How can we have a literature of national speech?" I will say, this sounds

plausible but is really not true. A national language is not to be created by a

iew linguistic experts or a few texts and dictionaries of national speech. . . . The

truly effective and powerful text of national speech is'the literature of national

speech-novels, prose, poems, and plays written in the national speech. The

time when these works prevail is the day when the Chinese national speech

will have been established. Let us ask why we are now able simply to pick up

the brush and write essays in the plain-speech style and use several hrrndred

colloquial terms. Did we learn this from some textbook of plain speech? Was

it not that we learned from such novels as theWater Margin (Shuihu zhuan),

loumey to the west (Kyou ii), Dream of Red Mansions (Hongloumeng) and

IJnofficial History of the Scholars (Rulin waishi)? This type of plain-speech

literature is several hundred times as powerful as textbooks and dictionaries.

. . . If we want to establish anew a standard national speech, we must first of all

produce numerous works like these novels in the national speech style. . . .

A literature of national speech and a national speech of literary quality are

our basic programs. Let us now discuss what should be done to carry them out.

I believe that the procedure in creating a new literature consists of three

steps: (r)

wvo are Pr

t The literature

There are ( a ) R e r

as models the Song I of the Yu times. Tht selected tr

(b) In

z. Met

recently e Gener ( a ) T h

men the r the area f namely, c ent novel poor man in the inl condition

now that r catastropl present er actual obr ination tc

( b ) r r namel.y, t to do, lay

( c ) T h

3. Cra preparatir creation r China tor create a r techniqur

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