On the side of the fictional

Author: Ouyang Jianghe
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2001-07-01
Features: Standing on the Side of Fiction is a recent collection of poetics by Ouyang Jianghe, where we see the poet's reflections on the nature of writing, the poet's existence, and the historical possibilities of poetics. In both speculative and experiential aspects, it is satisfying. Standing on the Side of Fiction demonstrates the poet's discernment of writing. It is not arrogant but rather a humble assertion. Can writing, especially modern poetry writing, lead to a timeless, history-transcending "absolute essence" or transcendental truth? In Ouyang Jianghe's view, this is questionable. Modern poetry does not have ahistorical eternal models; principally, it gradually invents an autonomous and personalized rhetorical foundation during the writing process. The legitimacy of modern poetry writing does not require servilely identifying with some meta-narrative or meta-expression as support; what ultimately maintains the effectiveness of writing is the negotiation and interplay between words. The poet is not loyal to existing metaphysical systems or poetic classics, nor is he passively the apparent equivalence between writing and "life." Instead, he defends the existence of survival in the form of questions, "drowning in the obsession with the unknown," and enjoys the vitality, passion, and joy brought by writing. Chen Chao's article in China Reading News points out that Ouyang Jianghe's poetics can be termed a "professionalized liberalism in a specific historical context." He is concerned with the discourse act itself rather than the events it refers to. Because the events referred to by discourse are not objectively existing; in fact, they are constrained by the discourse act itself. The same event will take on different forms depending on how it is expressed. For true writing, "reality" is not predetermined but is "invented" through writing. If Stevens regarded modern poetry as a "highly fictional notebook," then Ouyang Jianghe would rather remove the word "highly" from it and express it modestly as comforting, interesting, and respectful of differences. This kind of "fiction" is related to the personal state in a specific historical context and lacks any superpersonal authority to compel or admonish. This collection is always infused with aesthetic freedom, equal dialogue and communication, and filled with witty and joyful insights.