21st Century Chinese Literature Series - 2002 Prose

Author: Chen Sihe
Publisher:
Publication Date: 2003-04-01
Features: In recent years, I have been paying close attention to the theoretical innovations in the history of modern literature. Spanning the two-century literary history of China, at the transition between the end of one century and the arrival of another, we become aware of its penetration into our spiritual lives today, while we can also temporarily confirm the concept of a specific historical period through the passage of time. Many historically obscure phenomena may be grasped and elaborated on from a complete perspective, and they may also provide inspiration for contemporary creation. We need a new academic category to re-interpret and explain the literary phenomena within it, making it a discipline closely related to current life and full of enlightening significance.
Regarding the exploration of how the art of the essay can break through, I have had a similar interest in recent years. I believe that the concept of the "essay" is somewhat similar to that of poetry—it is both a very difficult genre to define and a very difficult genre to standardize in rhetorical terms. For example, when we read some novels, poems, or even dramatic works that are not standardized in artistic form, we often call them "essayistic," such as "essayistic novels" or "essayistic poems." This shows that the essay has a very broad scope—it can permeate various genres and play a role in subverting rigid artistic forms. As a result, strict formal norms may give rise to new artistic vitality when they are diluted, dissolved, and subverted.
So, is there a kind of essay that could be called "essayistic"?