Methods and Practices—Studies on Sino-foreign Literary Relations

Author: Song Binghui
Publisher:
Publishing Date: 2004-10-01
Features: American comparative literary critic Rene Wellek once discussed the discipline of comparative literature in his book Literary Theory and said, "I recommend comparative literature here, of course, without implying any neglect of the study of national literatures. In fact, it is precisely the 'national character of literature' and the unique contributions of each nation to the general literary process that should be understood as the core issues of comparative literature."① I believe that the unique contributions of national literature mentioned by Wellek must be placed within the relationships among national literatures and viewed in the dynamic process of the development of multiculturalism in the world, that is, they should be observed and analyzed in the pluralistic, holistic, systematic, and changing process of world literature and culture. If modernization itself contains different forms of development such as the advanced and the late-developing, the endogenous and the exogenous, and if these two are in fact interdependent, then literature, which expresses and explores the experience of modernity, should similarly possess at least two different types of modernity. This is reflected in the overall characteristics of national literature as the expression of the modernity experience of the advanced, dominant colonial colonialist countries (nations), and the late-developing,,（）, as well as the two types of expression (each distinct) formed in the process of expressing these two experiences. In this sense, the enduring vitality of national consciousness, the tension between ethnicity and the world, the contradiction between collective consciousness and individual independence, the intense conflict between tradition and modernity, the prominent role of foreign influence in literary resources, and the constant antagonism between literary aesthetics and literary function are all constituent elements of the unique modernity experience of the latter, and also embody the unique contributions of its national literature compared to world literature. Compared to Western literature of the advanced modernization countries,, including China, possesses more and richer experiences of modern national cultural exchange (especially cultural and ethnic conflict), because most of the historical events (including spiritual events) of their exchange and conflict are largely carried out within the "local" of these national literatures and cultures, and often create a life-or-death tension. Therefore, this cultural and psychological experience is also a deeply ingrained life experience. This experience, as a whole, includes the experience of resistance to dominant culture and literature, and this resistance is not simply opposing the West or the powers, but first manifests as continuous learning, imitation, and dialogue with dominant culture and literature, while simultaneously projecting a strong sense of identification towards other nations in the same position, and continuously creating and experiencing in the process of resistance, gradually establishing national subjectivity. In cultural trends and literary fields, this resistance and dialogue often manifest in the form of intense upheavals. In the short hundred years of the 20th century, all Western culture since the Renaissance has become the object of introduction and reference for modern China, corresponding to which, the expression of national cultural experience can only be carried out in the gaps of the introduction and translation of this dominant culture. The diachronic, pluralistic intellectual, cultural, and literary resources are unfolded in a synchronic manner on the same plane in a short period of time, making the conflicts and contradictions between various trends inevitable. I believe that exploring the special experience of modern Chinese culture and its expression in literature is precisely the key content that highlights the global factors of modernity in Chinese literature. In the field of Sino-foreign literary relations, studying the large-scale introduction and translation of various foreign literatures in the 20th century, as well as the impact of these foreign literary trends and works on China, is a relatively important content. The inspirational significance of translation studies in comparative literature and contemporary translation cultural theory is gradually being recognized by the domestic academic community. However, the translation of foreign literature, as a cross-cultural practice, can only be truly accepted by the latter through further friction, collision, resonance, and communication with local literature. Therefore, it must enter the subjective interior of local literary trends and creative practices after completing the linguistic transformation of the text, thereby acquiring a dynamic classic nature, that is, the ability to possess creative qualities and gain creative historical opportunities. After determining whether or not and to what extent foreign literary trends and creations can exert their creativity after entering the target culture, the national consciousness of local culture and literature is undoubtedly a very important content, and in a specific historical and cultural space, it can even be a filtering mechanism for creativity. For a modernization late-developing country like China, regardless of what domestic situation or international circumstances it faces, national consciousness can always find its reason for existence and is always more or less determining and influencing the introduction and acceptance of foreign literature. For other national countries that are in similar international modernization circumstances, their cultural and literary exchanges and understanding can have more common points in this regard. Of course, this does not mean that only literary works that reflect the theme of resisting colonial (or post-colonial) rule and depicting national independence and people's liberation are the common points between modernization late-developing countries (nations) and the premise of their literary identity. In fact, it is precisely the international situation of being "" and "late-developing" that, while awakening national consciousness, also inspires these nations' world consciousness, and among a group of cultural elites within these nations, it gives rise to extremely transcendent world, such as India's Rabindranath Tagore, China's Lu Xun, and the Czech Milan Kundera, etc. These people often receive bilingual education in colonial or semi-colonial environments, have a sensitive understanding of the life-and-death experience of national culture, and possess a relatively broad cultural vision of world culture. Therefore, it is precisely the coexistence, fluctuation, and conflict of national consciousness and world consciousness that constitutes a common survival situation for nations, and how to break through the logic of Western nationalism and open up the future of human culture is the cultural and literary issue they need to address together. Therefore, compared to whether it reflects the theme of resisting colonial (and post-colonial) rule and depicts national independence and people's liberation, whether it reflects the coexistence, fluctuation, and conflict of national consciousness and world consciousness, and whether it finds a unique way of expression for this contradiction, paradox, and anxiety, more concentratedly reflects the filtering function of whether foreign literature can exert its creativity under the norms of local culture. Looking back at the process of modernization in 20th-century Chinese literature, although the literary environment has undergone major changes in this century, national consciousness has always had its rationality, whether it is to break free from national oppression, strive for national independence, construct a national state, consolidate national power, or build national culture. The expression of national consciousness in literature has always been an important spiritual connotation. The problem is that in Sino-foreign literary relations, cultural logic and literary logic are not always unified. The introduction and acceptance of foreign literature cannot ignore the cultural environment and logic, but the logic of literature and aesthetics is also a decisive factor in determining the creativity of foreign literature. If it is merely for the purpose of satisfying the cultural emotional needs of the recipients, then such literary translation may overlook the aesthetic originality of the text and become a mere ideological or cultural event, thereby failing to truly provide local literature with new dynamic classic factors. American Marxist literary critic Fredric Jameson summarized the persistent national consciousness of third-world intellectuals in his article Third-World Literature in the Age of Transnational Capitalism as follows: "They persistently hope to return to their national environment. They repeatedly mention the name of their country, notice the collective pronoun 'we': what should we do, how should we do it, what should we not do, how can we do better than this nation or that nation, we have our own characteristics, in short, we raise the issue to the level of 'the people.'"① However, these issues that American intellectuals feel have been reasonably settled have become a very important form of nationalism in the third world (and also in the main regions of the second world). He also attributes the self-referential mechanism in third-world texts to "national allegory" and argues that this mechanism is different from the self-referential mechanism in Western texts. He uses Hegel's metaphor of the relationship between slaves and slave owners to discuss the relationship between Eastern and Western (strong and nations) and the difference between these two referential mechanisms. Because "only the slave truly understands what reality and resistance are; only the slave can achieve a true 'situational consciousness' of his situation, because it is his situational consciousness that leads to his punishment. However, the slave owner suffers from an incurable idealism—he extravagantly enjoys a freedom without a fixed position. In that freedom, any awareness of his specific situation is like a dream that slips away," so, "the allegorical nature of third-world culture, when telling the story of an individual and personal experience, ultimately involves a difficult narration of the experience of the collective as a whole."① Although Jameson reflects on and examines the internal fragmentation and illusion of the Western cultural subject from the perspective of Western culture in the relationship between strong and national cultures, that is, the target of Jameson's critique is a certain blind spot and defect in contemporary Western culture, in order to solve the problem of Western culture itself. But there is one point that can remind us that culture and its expression, because of its oppressed situation, can better experience and express its own real situation. According to Hegel, "this slave consciousness is not afraid of this or that disaster in this or that moment, but fears its entire existence. Because it has experienced the fear of death, the fear of the absolute master. The fear of death has permeated its inner soul, shaken its entire body, and all fixed rules and commands have made it tremble."② "The fear of death" in Hegel's words is mainly a metaphorical expression, but it vividly illustrates the special modern experience contained in national literature, and for the expression and articulation of this special experience, no one can replace it. In the process of modernization of 20th-century Chinese literature, this experience is reflected not only in the creative practice of the Chinese literary subject but also in the introduction and acceptance of foreign literary trends; it is contained in the influence and acceptance activities of Western dominant culture and literature, as well as in the cross-linguistic cultural practice of Chinese cultural subjects introducing national literature, and is particularly concentrated in the acceptance process of those national outstanding writers who were introduced into the Chinese-speaking world and once inspired great creative inspiration in Chinese modern and contemporary writers. In this sense, focusing on the construction process of the modern Chinese consciousness subject from the perspective of the introduction and acceptance of national literature in China has its unique significance. At least it can enable us to more comprehensively understand the status and characteristics of modern Chinese literature in the world literary landscape, and can better reveal the special connotation of modernity of the Chinese subject. At the same time, examining Chinese literary creation with such a problem awareness can also reveal the consistent efforts of the creative subject in this regard and its specific historical development, thereby establishing higher goals and more effective methods for the study of Sino-foreign literary relations. Therefore, what is called the modernity of Chinese literature is precisely the artistic expression of the special experience of national culture in the difficult and tortuous process of modernization since modern times. And to discover and reveal this special experience connotation and its expression method in Chinese literature is not only an important goal of modern Chinese literature research and Chinese comparative literature research, but should also be a key topic of the study of Sino-foreign literary relations as an interdisciplinary field.