The future of literature

Author: C. T. Hsia
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2002-12-01
Features: In 1961, the Yale University Press in the United States published C. T. Hsia's A History of Modern Chinese Fiction. Eighteen years later, Hong Kong Youlian Publishing House and Taipei Biographical Literature Publishing House respectively published the Chinese translation of A History of Modern Chinese Fiction. Before the Chinese translation was released, chapters of the literary history were included in Hsia's two essay collections, Love, Society, and Fiction and The Future of Literature, giving overseas Chinese readers an early glimpse. The Future of Literature is Hsia's second collection of Chinese literary criticism, first published in October 1974 by Taipei Chunwen Literature Publishing House, under the guidance of the female writer Lin Haiyin. The reviews in the book on modern Chinese literature, Taiwanese literature, British and American literature, and the research approaches of overseas Chinese scholars demonstrate Hsia's comprehensive expertise and original insights in Western and Chinese literary studies. Among them, the two essays, The Literary Revolution and Shen Congwen's Short Stories, were selected from A History of Modern Chinese Fiction. Since its publication, A History of Modern Chinese Fiction has faced various opinions. The study of modern Chinese literature both in China and abroad has sparked numerous heated debates around this book. This is not surprising and also illustrates its significance. It is precisely in this grand and insightful literary history, A History of Modern Chinese Fiction, that Hsia, as a literary historian, devoted himself to discovering and evaluating excellent works of modern Chinese fiction, laying the foundation for the study of modern Chinese literature within Western academia. The critical perspective and methodological significance of this work should not be overlooked. As Professor Wang Deli of Columbia University in the United States aptly said: Forty years after the first edition of A History of Modern Chinese Fiction was published, the book remains closely relevant to contemporary critical issues. At the turn of the century, when scholars study modern Chinese literature, they may encounter many theories and materials that Hsia could not have foreseen at the time. However, few can start from scratch without referencing, challenging, or reflecting on Hsia's viewpoints. It is due to like A History of Modern Chinese Fiction that our understanding of the modernization of Chinese literature has been fundamentally changed. Those who come after must fully absorb and refute Hsia's views before innovating and creating new paradigms. Before the mainland simplified-character edition of A History of Modern Chinese Fiction was published, reading the two essays The Literary Revolution and Shen Congwen's Short Stories in this book would be a good way to sample a small part of it. Since the late 1960s, Hsia has also paid sufficient attention to Taiwanese literature, particularly Taiwanese fiction. The essays in this book that study Yu Lihua's masterpiece Again See Palm, Again See Palm and a series of early short stories by Pai Hsien-yung are Hsia's earliest achievements in this field and have become a "paradigm" for understanding Taiwanese fiction. At the same time, the simplified-character edition of this book also adds Hsia's preface, Two Worlds in Taiwanese Fiction, written in 1976 for the English translation of A Selection of Taiwanese Short Stories: 1960–1970 (edited by Liu Shaoming), in order to provide a more comprehensive understanding of Hsia's views on Taiwanese literature. The essay A New Discussion on Lao Can You Ju included in this book is also worth noting. Hsia published Chinese Classical Fiction with Columbia University Press in the United States in 1968 (this book has already been published in mainland China in simplified characters), forming a "dual peak" alongside A History of Modern Chinese Fiction. Chinese Classical Fiction explores classical fiction masterpieces such as Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Water Margin, Journey to the West, Golden Lotus, The Story of the Scholars, and Dream of the Red Chamber. Lao Can You Ju is the later work in both form and technique in the tradition of Chinese classical fiction, and this essay, A New Discussion on Lao Can You Ju, can also be seen as a continuation and deepening of Hsia's research on Chinese classical fiction. The last section of The Future of Literature includes remembrance essays on the overseas Chinese scholars Chen Shixiang and Lu Feibai, though not strictly academic papers. As Hsia said in the preface to The Future of Literature, the biographical materials on Chen Shixiang and Lu Feibai provided in these essays can also be considered part of the contemporary Chinese literary history and academic archives. Twenty-eight years ago, in an essay titled The Future of Literature, Hsia briefly analyzed the development of Western and Chinese literature since the 20th century and expressed skepticism about the future of literature. However, this book was reprinted five times in Taiwan over a decade, averaging one reprint every two years, proving that literature is still read, and literary criticism is still of interest. Even today, with the rapid development of film and television culture and the internet, literature remains irreplaceable, and literary studies are by no means dispensable. The publication of the mainland simplified-character edition of The Future of Literature is yet another small testament to this.