Twentieth-Century Comparative Poetics of China and the West

Author: Lai Ganjian
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2003-10-01
Features: Although Zhou Zuoren accepted the individualism advocated by Natsume Sōseki, their understanding of individualism was not entirely the same. Natsume Sōseki believed in Nietzsche's will to power theory and regarded Nietzsche's concept of the "übermensch" as the ultimate goal of human evolution and development. Zhou Zuoren, however, disagreed with this view because, in Zhou Zuoren's humanistic concept system, individualism was still constrained by the humanitarian idea of universal love. Indeed, both humanitarianism and individualism are rooted in the modern Western theory of natural human nature, but as (Aulard) said, one manifests as loving others, while the other manifests as loving oneself. These are two different life value orientations. However, when Zhou Zuoren affirmed individualism, he also accepted the humanitarian idea of universal love from Russian literature, primarily influenced by Leo Tolstoy's "What Is Art?". The meaning of popular literature that Zhou Zuoren expressed in "Popular Literature" is permeated with Tolstoy's humanitarian thought. In this article, Zhou Zuoren proposed: "Popular literature should focus on what is opposite to aristocratic literature, which is rich in content, meaning universality and sincerity." These two points are exactly the basic requirements of Tolstoy's universal art advocated in "What Is Art?", and Tolstoy particularly emphasized the universality of art. He believed that the characteristic of art is to unite people emotionally, but aristocratic or non-Christian art only unites certain people and creates mutual hostility among the crowd. Tolstoy emphasized that modern excellent art, "should not be the art of a particular group, not merely the art of a particular class, not merely the art of a particular nation, not merely the art of a particular religious cult—it conveys emotions that all people can understand." Therefore, he believed that "Christian art, i.e., modern art, should be universal." Clearly, Tolstoy emphasized the universality of art to give it a nature that belongs to all of humanity. He hoped to promote the universality of art to implement his humanitarianism and achieve the humanitarian ideal of a harmonious world. Zhou Zuoren accepted Tolstoy's humanitarian artistic view and used it to interpret the universality of popular literature, so in his article "The Requirements of New Literature," he emphasized: "This literature is both human and individual, but not racial, national, local, or familial." He also regarded this literature's universality as the result of literary evolution: "The humanistic tendency in literature is actually a historical fact, having undergone many changes, from the art of various classes back to the whole of the people." This concept of humanity and the concept of the individual formed the ideological basis of Zhou Zuoren's "Human Literature" theory. Zhou Zuoren accepted Tolstoy's advocacy of the universality of art but disagreed with his extreme humanitarian stance—denying the self through complete altruism—because, in Zhou Zuoren's "Human Literature" theoretical model, the humanitarian idea of universal love is constrained by individualism. So, in Zhou Zuoren's "Human Literature" theoretical model, how is the contradiction between individualism and humanitarianism, or between self-expression and the universality of art, resolved? In fact, Zhou Zuoren's theoretical orientation is not to emphasize the conflict between the two, but