The Search for a New Audience
The question of the nature of literary invention that had been so intensely discussed in the early years of the May Fourth movement gave way to a new concern in the early 1930s. Particularly after the establishment of the League of Left-Wing Writers, more and more Chinese intellectuals turned their attention to matters of literary consumption:
[92] Marián Gálik, Mao Dun and Literary Criticism , p. 115.
who was the audience for the new literature, and by what mechanism did it influence its readers' lives? Such questions had, of course, not been overlooked by earlier advocates of literary reform; late Qing thinkers like Liang Qichao had originally been impressed by the wide audience that fiction attracted in the West and by its evident power to alter the consciousness of its readers. In describing how literature exerted this power, Liang borrowed from traditional expressive theories: a work of literature, he wrote, influences its readers above all by stirring their emotions. The didactic and expressive functions of literature were thus, in Liang's view, complementary rather than opposing forces. A genuinely popular and social fiction of the kind he advocated should inspire the masses' active participation in the campaign for national restoration—not, however, by preaching at them, but by awakening their instinctive longing for a better world. Later reformers, as we have seen, did not abandon this belief in the social efficacy of fiction (even Lu Xun's darkest expressions of doubt seem to betray his continued susceptibility to it), and the May Fourth movement saw an intensified struggle for literary democratization. In the years that followed much was achieved: scholars began to take an active interest in popular art forms and folklore,[93] and most significantly, the spoken language
But the success of the language reform movement did not result in the expanded audience for fiction that had been anticipated. The reformers soon discovered that the new literature appealed to an even smaller audience than traditional vernacular literature had, and they could not but observe the irony of a literature's seeming closed off from the very people whose needs it purported to address. In the early 1930s Qu Qiubai pointed out that by concurrently promoting baihua and introducing a wide range of Western terminology, Chinese writers had created a new hybrid language that the illiterate masses found just as incomprehensible as classical Chinese
[93] For a full treatment of the folklore movement see Chang-tai Hung, Going to the People .
their propaganda work and through their theoretical expositions of mass literature and the new realism. The results, however, were not immediately encouraging. As we have seen in our discussion of Su Wen, many felt the new prescriptions for literature posed insurmountable difficulties for authors, and even such architects of the new realism as Qu Qiubai recognized that few contemporary works actually met the requirements of theory.
The deteriorating military and political situation of the late 1930s made this situation even more difficult, increasing as it did the pressure on writers to produce literature that would directly benefit the war effort. When the league disbanded in 1936 amid the famous Battle of the Slogans, a new group, the Zhongguo wenyijia xiehui
Formulism
tween Hu Feng
This disagreement about Ah Q may seem innocuous enough, but it in fact reopened some old wounds. One of Qian Xingcun's most bellicose contributions to the Revolutionary Literature debate of 1928 had been an essay entitled "The Bygone Age of Ah Q," in which he had accused Lu Xun of creating in Ah Q a negative model that failed to convey the innate heroism of the Chinese peasantry and indicated no potential for positive change. Zhou Yang intended no such condemnation of Lu Xun, but implicit in his argument was the suggestion that Ah Q may be called typical only of a former and now fading reality, not of a present or future one. In a more general sense Zhou Yang questioned the way in which Hu Feng associated typicality with observation in his description of the creative process. According to Hu Feng, authors must begin their work with the careful scrutiny of real people and events; through such investigation they uncover the historically determined general truths that underlie the existence of people and events and give them meaning. It is these truths that they then com-
[94] The relevant articles of the debate were reprinted in Hu Feng, Miyun qi fengxi xiaoji , pp. 19–62.
[96] Zhou Yang, "Xianshizhuyi shilun," in Wenxue yundong shiliao xuan 2:342.
municate in their writings.[97] Zhou Yang, on the other hand, believed that characters in literature are valued for their individuality, not simply because they represent allegorical types, but he went on to insist that artistic representation of reality should stem from a "subjective honesty" that is ideally guided by a "correct worldview." Zhou Yang's position on this subject is somewhat difficult to assess: he wants both to insist on the uniqueness of all fictional phenomena and to argue the importance of ideological rectitude ("correct worldview") over observation. Although Zhou Yang tries to find a place for self-expression in the creative process with the phrase "subjective honesty," it is clear that in his view an author's subjectivity must first be brought into line with an objectively sanctioned worldview (for which one may here read "Marxism").[98] Hu Feng believed that general truths should not be arrived at theoretically but should be uncovered through observation, that is, that one should move from the specific to the general rather than vice versa. Despite the somewhat equivocal nature of Zhou Yang's position, Hu Feng's view was perceived as the more liberal, for it allowed individual authors a measure of latitude to discover their own worldview through observation.
Hu Feng was attracted to the notion of typicality because it helped resolve for him the apparently conflicting demands of realistic and ideological integrity in fiction. The same concern may be discovered in the articles on formulism, or all-the-same-ism
[98] Zhou Yang had long concerned himself with the dialectics of subjectivity and objectivity. In his 1933 article "Wenxue de zhenshixing" he wrote that authorial subjectivity is always in dialectical conflict with objective reality but insisted that subjectivity is not in the end distinguishable from "class consciousness." He went on to equate "proletarian subjectivity" with "historical objectivity." "Truth in literature" is thus not a matter of artistic technique, nor even of the artist's sincerity (as Ye Shaojun had maintained), but of an author's class standing. That is to say, one can only objectively understand the world if one looks at it through proletarian eyes.
seem to proceed from a formula and thus easily give the impression of being all the same." He blamed this development primarily on the authors' slavish following of political guidelines, which had the effect of curtailing independent thought.[99] Later that year the critic Wang Renshu
In his theoretical essays of the late 1930s Mao Dun sometimes defended the "temporary immaturity" of the new literature,[102] but he clearly agreed with the critics' underlying assessment—that much of the new literature treated contemporary events in an ideologically acceptable, but dry and methodical, manner. In a discussion of the new war literature, Mao Dun observed that works with a military theme, if written without the benefit of observing soldiers in action, for example, were invariably schematic and undifferentiated.[103] The simple
way to remedy this tendency toward formulism, in Mao Dun's opinion, was to recognize the centrality of characterization (rather than theme or plot) in the composition of a story. He wrote of his own fiction:
To my mind, character is the most important element in constructing a short story. In my own experience, I first let a character ripen in my mind, let him or her come alive so that when I close my eyes, it is as though a real human being were before my eyes. Then when I begin writing I discover that I can move right along without laying down my pen—the story simply flows out.[104]
A similar emphasis on characterization can be discovered in the critical writings of many other May Fourth realists during the late 1930s and 1940s. In his debate with Zhou Yang over typicality, Hu Feng had repeatedly underscored the importance of character over events in fiction,[105] and the writers Wu Zuxiang
Although realists continued to explore the problem of characteriza-
[105] See, for example, Hu Feng, "Xianshizhuyi di yi 'xiuzheng,'" p. 307.
tion in fiction, polemical objections to formulism were heard less often after 1938, when late in that year a campaign was launched to criticize literature "not related to the War of Resistance"
The critical, pessimistic nature of satire had in fact been noticed years earlier, during the Revolutionary Literature debate, in connection with Lu Xun's satirical stories.[108] The essayist Lin Yutang
[107] Lan Hai discusses the satire debate in Zhongguo kangzhan wenyi shi , pp. 338–42.
appears in a group, that group is already doomed; certainly writing cannot save it."[110]
Many of Lu Xun's arguments (though not his cynical afterthought) were repeated by critics and authors who spoke in defense of "Mr. Hua Wei." Most vocal of these was Mao Dun, who defended both exposure literature r
The debate that had the most widespread effect on the course of Chinese fiction, however, finally directing it away from May Fourth cosmopolitanism, was over national forms
[111] Mao Dun, "Bayue de ganxiang," p. 766.
the May Fourth demonstrations few had endorsed these arts as relevant to the contemporary struggle. Lu Xun, for example, though a highly erudite and original scholar of traditional vernacular literature, had written in 1927 that since popular literature was formally and ideologically tainted by exposure to the high culture, it was decadent and could not be called a "true people's literature."[114]
In the early 1930s, however, concern about questions of literary reception sparked a movement for the popularization—or what might in the Chinese context more accurately be called the "massification"—of the arts. Yu Dafu first introduced the term dazhong wenyi
With the gradual discrediting of Western fictional models in the late 1920s and 1930s, however, more and more critics came to believe that only a revolution in form could close the gap between the new literature and the masses. Zhou Yang, following the Soviet model, advocated the use of various agitprop small forms, such as sketches, reports, and brief political poems.[116] Others called for a "mass fiction" that would take the crowd itself as both theme and protagonist and heralded Ding Ling's
[114] See Lu Xun, "Geming shidai de wenxue," p. 422.
the most vocal among them, began to suggest that writers reexamine traditional artistic forms to discover the source of their popularity. Oral storytelling, opera, and popular songs, unlike elite Western forms, could win immediate acceptance with the masses and thus could prove useful in forging a truly populist culture.[118] Qu was not suggesting uncritical appropriation of the old forms, however, as the following warning makes clear: "One should avoid the kind of opportunism that would consist of blindly imitating old forms. Here our efforts should be twofold: first, in emulating old forms we should make our own revisions; second, we should forge new forms out of the elements of the old."[119] Lu Xun was one of those persuaded by Qu's argument. In 1934 he wrote an essay in which he acknowledged the need for artists to concern themselves with the interests of the general public and conceded that much could be learned from the old forms. But he reiterated Qu's caution that "when old forms are adopted, certain things must be removed while others must be added, resulting in a new form, a change."[120]
In 1938, however, in the context of the wartime effort to mobilize the masses through the arts, a much more aggressive effort, supported by such Communist party theorists as Zhou Yang, Ai Siqi
totally irrelevant to China and the Chinese people.[121] In discussing the important achievements of modern Chinese fiction since the May Fourth movement, Zhou Yang and Chen Boda calculatedly downplayed the Western impact, emphasizing instead modern fiction's indebtedness to traditional vernacular literature. Their attitude toward Lu Xun, who after his death in 1936 had rapidly been elevated to an unassailable position in the Chinese Communist pantheon, is revealing in this regard: in stark contrast to the Creationists, who had berated Lu Xun for his slavish imitation of bourgeois Western forms, Zhou Yang and Chen Boda now hailed Lu Xun above all as a creator of national forms.[122]
Not surprisingly, May Fourth realists and their sympathizers, while outwardly approving the slogan "National forms," treated it with much caution. They were clearly reluctant to entirely repudiate Western fictional models and resented the theorists' attempts to rewrite the history of modern Chinese literature. Hu Feng insisted (as did Guo Moruo) that Western literature and thought had played a decisive role in the May Fourth period and specifically cited Lu Xun as an example of an author who took his inspiration primarily from foreign literature.[123] Hu went on to warn that by obscuring the true nature of the May Fourth rebellion, advocates of national forms ran the risk of simply catering to the superstitions of the readers rather than educating or challenging them. The end result would, he feared, be the reinstatement of traditional prejudices.[124] Mao Dun shared many of Hu Feng's reservations: he insisted that in the course of its development modern Chinese literature had borrowed from both Chinese and foreign literatures and that to see either influence as exclusive was a mistake.[125] In discussing a slogan frequently used by the national-
[124] For a fuller discussion of Hu Feng's position on the national forms debate see Theodore D. Huters, "Hu Feng and the Critical Legacy of Lu Xun," in Leo Ou-fan Lee, Lu Xun and His Legacy , pp. 143–46.
forms advocates, "New wine in old bottles," he suggested that perhaps only 1 percent of the "old bottles," i.e. traditional literary forms, actually merited study.[126] Moreover, he reiterated Lu Xun's and Qu Qiubai's warnings of the mid-1930s: "When we say 'use,' of course we don't mean unqualified acceptance. At this time we need to do research to discover to what extent old forms may be used and experiment to discover how to make something new of the old."[127] Zhang Tianyi, in an essay specifically devoted to the subject of national forms, recognized a temporary need for the existence of two levels of literature, one "advanced," one "popular," each appealing to a different audience in forms that audience would understand. As literacy spread, however, he expected that the two levels would merge, since ideally literary form should be determined solely by content.[128] But Zhang's two-level view of contemporary literary needs was rejected outright by most advocates of national forms,[129] and his "form follows function" argument was criticized by others as abstruse and theoretical when the times demanded direct cultural intervention in the lives of the people.[130]
In his 1942 "Talks at the Yan'an Forum" Mao Zedong specifically addressed the issue of national forms, as well as the other issues of contention among leftist writers that we have touched on, in the hope of unifying all cultural workers behind a policy of massification. Although his reasoning in the "Talks" is highly dialectical in form, Mao clearly lent his authority to those who had taken positions of ideological rigidity in each of the earlier literary debates. He affirmed the importance of a correct worldview in fiction over the independent
observations of the author; he favored a restricted use of satire that would permit a truly adversarial or caustic tone only in works that targeted the enemies of socialism; and he strongly urged the substitution of popular native forms for the Western models that had been introduced in the May Fourth period. The series of "rectifications" that followed Mao's talks quickly bolstered the authority of his opinions. The intellectual Wang Shiwei
The introduction of realism into China in the early twentieth century was motivated by a profoundly iconoclastic ambition: with it and other tools Chinese intellectuals hoped to completely remake an ancient and highly developed culture. As May Fourth writers were themselves to discover, however, dramatized iconoclastic gestures do not in themselves constitute real change. The cultural field is not so easily molded, and traditional prejudices often govern even the manner in which the appurtenances of tradition are overturned. In elevating fiction to the domain of high culture, May Fourth writers continued to rehearse traditional notions of what constituted that culture,
[133] See the discussion in Merle Goldman, Literary Dissent in Communist China , pp. 42–43.
if only from the necessity of distinguishing their own works from such popular—and, they believed, damaging—genres as "black screen"
Realism, as we have described its operation in the West, is a fundamentally epistemological exercise, which involves testing the capacity of language to capture and communicate the Real. Realism served an indisputable purpose in China as long as it was being used to question the underlying principles of traditional Chinese culture, but once this goal was accomplished, its status became increasingly problematic. As we have seen, writers who adopted realism defined it in terms of its moral and pragmatic limits, whereas the times seemed to call for an activist art that could serve as a tool to unify and organize the Chinese people. These writers did not expect, or desire, that their literature would achieve the purgation of antisocial passions that, I have argued, characterizes its operation. But with the increasing politicization of the literary scene in the late 1920s and 1930s the actual effect on readers of the new literature came under closer scrutiny. The Western literary models Chinese writers had so eagerly adopted, realism in particular, became suspect, their impact now appearing more conformist than radical. Once the limitations of realism were observed, the notion of literature as Kulturkritik came to be understood as a function of individualism and thus as part of a larger ideological webbing that the Chinese associated with the hegemonic intentions of the West. The Western equation of critique with a superior grasp of the Real, independent of the context from which the work emerged and the audience to which it returned, was suppressed, if indeed it may be said to have ever taken a very firm root in China. Critical realism, which had been adopted in China as a tool for revolution, became suspect precisely for its failure to advance the communal ends of that revolution.
Theodore D. Huters has written that "the essence of Lu Xun's critical thought must be sought in the uncertain space left by his avoidance of the pitfalls of system on the one hand and of self-
complacency on the other."[134] Something similar might be said about the many writers who continued to practice critical realism in China in the late 1920s and 1930s. While disabused of the individualistic (and therefore in Chinese eyes self-indulgent) tendencies of some forms of realism, they continued to hope that the mode's emphasis on observation and critique could counterbalance the increasingly presumptuous demands of ideological dogma. In the chapters that follow, we will consider the creative works that emerged from the "uncertain space" occupied by critical realists. In examining the works of individual authors we will address two primary questions, which parallel Chinese preoccupations with the creative origins of literary works and their reception. The first concerns the nature of the self-imaging that accompanies any attempt to give representation to the external world.[135] As I have suggested, the desire to fully describe Chinese society, to make its elements separate and signifiable, obliged Chinese authors to construct a new and independent sense of self. The process of fashioning the self left its traces in the form and style of individual works, which we will work to uncover. The second question we will broach is that of literary transitivity: what imprint does the authors' concern with the utility of their work leave on their fiction? In particular we will explore authorial discovery of and resistance to the consolatory effect of catharsis as it operates in realist fiction.
[134] Theodore D. Huters, "Hu Feng and the Critical Legacy of Lu Xun," p. 130.
[135] Jacques Lacan has observed that the image a child sees of itself in a mirror is the prototype for all objects it later distinguishes in the world. From this notion we may speculate that representation of the external world involves a projection of the ego onto the objects that make up that world. See the discussion in Julia Kristeva, Powers of Horror , pp. 46ff.