The theory of Chinese narrative prose in the early twentieth century.

Zakharova Natal'ya Vladimirovna ORCID: 0000-0002-1434-1901 Doctor of Philology Head of Department of Literatures of Asian and African Countries, A.M. Gorky Institute of World Literature. RAS 25-a Povarskaya str., Moscow, 121069, Russia, of. Institute of World Literature radaeva2002@gmail.com

The history of recorded research on Chinese literature dates back as many millennia, as many as the literary texts themselves. In the early years of the twentieth century, the fascination of Chinese writers to explore the poetics of texts, both canonical and modern, continued, but these studies gradually acquired new features. The innovations were not revolutionary, but their differences from the previous ones were becoming more noticeable.

Articles of the nineties of the twentieth century, the authors of which were translators, literary theorists, writers Lin Shu (1852-1924), Liang Qichao (1873-1929), Wu Voyao (1866-1910), Xu Nianci (1875-1908), known for their enlightening views, still continued the traditions of their predecessors. As the famous Soviet sinologist V.I. Semanov writes, they had not yet thought "about a creative method that could serve as the main feature uniting various works" [Semanov, p. 195], but turned to the linguistic and thematic criteria of prose, tried to classify genres.

The most influential literary theorists of this historical period include Wang Gouwei (1877-1927), who was one of the first to propose an approach to evaluating domestic prose based on the experience of foreign literature, for example, to apply the theory of Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860) to evaluate Cao Xueqin's novel of the XVIII century. "A dream in the Red Chamber." The appeal to Schopenhauer was not accidental: Wang Govei was impressed by the German philosopher's fascination with the postulates of Buddhism. Wang Gouwei's articles trace an attempt to interpret European aesthetic thought by combining it with Chinese traditional philosophy. Thus, Van Gouvey borrows the concept of "tragedy" from European critical articles on the aesthetics of literature. In the article "Review of the novel "The Dream in the Red Chamber", Wang Govei, in violation of traditional criticism, considering the novel as an example of love and everyday prose, believed that "the value of this novel -"The Dream in the Red Chamber lies precisely in its tragic character" [Cit. according to Dai Chuan, p. 17].

In the articles of Chinese writers of the early XX centuries, who were looking for ways to reform the traditional literature of the Middle Kingdom, the thoughts of European critical critics with experience in the transition of classical literature to the spoken language became predominant. Lu Xin (1881-1936), one of the most influential writers of the twentieth century, whose novel "Notes of a Madman" (published in the magazine "New Youth" in 1918) in mainland China is called the starting point of the birth of modern Chinese literature, believed that "the language in which the book is written should be the language of the corresponding nation" [cit. according to Semanov, p. 202], i.e. in spoken language. This demand to abandon the outdated classical literary language of Wenyanyi and switch to the spoken language of Baihua, understandable to the general reader, became dominant in critical articles of the first and second decades of the twentieth century.

A new generation of critics - Zhou Zozhen (1885-1967), Hu Shi (1891-1962), Su Manshu (1884-1918), Yu Dafu (1896-1945) thought about creating modern national literature (xiandai wenxue)according to the new artistic principles, examples of which they saw in English, French and German fiction. Unlike their predecessors, the younger generation of writers and literary theorists read Western authors not only in translations, but also in the original.  At this time of the birth of new approaches to the analysis of the poetics of Chinese literature, "there was a process of accumulation of new artistic facts, comprehension of new phenomena" [Voskresensky, p. 612].

      The interest in the theory of literature is confirmed by numerous article publications in the 20s, testifies to the desire of Chinese writers to lay the theoretical basis for the emerging new Chinese literature. The numerous discussions that took place during this period between supporters of different theoretical attitudes were often fierce, and the authors of different points of view became ideological enemies. Lu Xin took a particularly irreconcilable position. His ideological opponent was Hu Shi, who appears more in the history of Chinese literature as an author of critical articles, his prose legacy is small. One of the initiators of revolutionary transformations in the language of Chinese literature, he advocated the renewal of the genre system of Chinese narrative prose. Just like Lu Xin, Hu Shi preferred a realistic artistic style among literary movements.

Experiments with spoken language conducted by Hu Shi when writing articles on classical Chinese literature have become the object of criticism not only by domestic writers, but also by the outstanding Russian sinologist academician V.P. Alekseev, who noted: "the language in which Hu Shi writes is a mixture of old vocabulary with new, in a new rhythmic way. This is the so-called "white" language, i.e., as it were: simple, insipid, a language devoid of literary saturation and literary traditional imagery" [Alekseev, p. 130].

     Lu Xin addressed the issues of literary theory in letters addressed to both editors and colleagues in the writing workshop. For Lu Xin, the main thing in the debate about the future of national literature was the ideological component of works of fiction, he stood in the position of the revolutionary orientation of Chinese prose, both in its form (novels, novellas), as well as short stories and the popular genre of essays in these years. In a letter "About the plot of the story" addressed to the writers Ai Wu and Sha Tin (12/25/1931), Lu Xin writes about the importance of the class affiliation of writers: "most of the works of fiction written by people from other classes have nothing to do with the struggling proletariat. If the petty bourgeois does not breathe the same air as the proletarian, then from the point of view of the proletarian, the criticism of the petty bourgeoisie of his class and even hatred of him is a family quarrel, when a more intelligent and talented gentleman hates his loser brother. <...> When describing the lower classes of society <...> the so–called objectivity is essentially just a cold look from the top floor, and the so-called sympathy is hypocritical charity, they do not help the proletariat" [Lu Xing, p. 17].

Lu Xin did not agree with those Chinese publicists who believed that in order to create new literature, one should turn to the classic novels of the XVIII century, copying their plots and characters. To prove his point, he cited a Chinese saying: "you can't pour new wine into old furs." He wrote: "To attract the old to help the new means only to change the name; to turn to the "Dream in the Red Chamber" to depict the love feelings of the heroes of the XX century is like calling Bao Yu a "hero of modernity", talking about the revolutionary spirit of the "River Pools", but forgetting about that time of events" (Lu Xin. An afterword to the publication of the "Stream" by Benl).

Yu Dafu, unlike Lu Xin and Hu Shi, who followed the romantic trend in his work, as the Chinese researcher of his work writes [Xing Xianxi, p. 70], emphasized the influence of European, more precisely, English fiction on the writings of Chinese writers.  He noted: "The influence of British prose is a deeply ingrained potential force among our intellectual class that will never disappear in ten or twenty years [Quoted by Zhou Bingcheng, p. 83].

In the article "On Narrative Prose" ("Xiaosho lun"), Yu Dafu writes about the genesis of the xiaosho genre, and also explores the origins of modern narrative prose, its tasks, composition, and characters. Yu Dafu traces the historical and literary evolution of prose and outlines the classification of classical prose: vernacular literature, historical, fantastic, social and psychological prose" [Ajimamudova, p. 158]. Arguing with the authors of classical Chinese poetics, who attributed prose in the spoken language to "unworthy pursuits," Yu Dafu writes: "The movement for a new culture that began five or six years ago, a huge number of translations of works of art and literary studies of the West have shown that reading novels is by no means an immoral activity, just as the novels themselves are not despicable little teachings" [Quoted by Ajimamudova, p. 159]. Yu Dafu concludes that Western literature has conditioned the peculiarities of the content, composition and figurative system of modern Chinese narrative prose, making it sharply different from the traditional novel. Yu Dafu speaks for the first time about the place of Chinese literature in the global system, he writes: "In essence, modern Xiaosho belong to the system of European literature," Yu Dafu comes to this conclusion [Quoted by Ajimamudova, p. 159].

     In the article "The Value of literary preferences" (1923), Yu Dafu classifies the literary inclinations of readers. He connects, quite naively, the birth of different literary movements with his own interpretation of the evolution of the type of artistic thinking, manifested, in his opinion, in the changing demands of "ordinary" people.  "Ordinary people choose essays about the amazing because they get tired of reading in books about what happens to them in everyday life" [Yu Dafu, p. 70]. Yu Dafu concludes that "the appearance of artistic works of different literary movements is explained by changes in the literary preferences of readers" [Yu Dafu, p. 70]. And further: "during the heyday of naturalism, too many primitive writings appeared, which began to cause protest among readers. Therefore, new literary schools have emerged – romantic, decadent, symbolism" [Yu Dafu, p. 70].

        Classifying lovers of literature by type of preferences, Yu Dafu refers to those who have "the works of Homer, Shakespeare, Moliere" cause fanatical delight, meet their spiritual aspirations. Unfortunately, he writes, there are few such works [Yu Dafu, p. 70]. The second type of preferences is determined by the individual inclinations of readers. Yu Dafu quite critically characterizes the preferences of this type, ironically noting: "some fans may value primitive French poetry higher than the Divine Comedy or the poetry of Qu Yuan." [Yu Dafu, p. 71]. And he offers the controversial thesis that "those whose lives are full of suffering like to read stories about sorrows, and aristocrats prefer writings about the elegant" [Yu Dafu, p. 70]. According to Yu Dafu's preference system, the third type is the usual hobbies, it is determined by our age and environment.

     Just like Wang Gouwei, Yu Dafu rates tragedies higher than comedies, because those who enjoy life are fewer than those who experience difficulties. "The main topics that are interesting to all readers, he writes, are sexual attraction and death, so if the essay is about this, its relevance increases significantly. Classical Russian prose talks a lot about love and death, so it is attractive to the reader," he writes [Yu Dafu, p. 71]. 

According to Yu Dafu, "literary preferences are determined by the age of the reader. Teenagers are attracted to detective stories, young people are attracted to love prose, middle–aged readers are attracted to those writings that describe the difficulties of life, and the elderly like to read memoirs, philosophical and books about the inexplicable (shenmi). <...> If we talk about gender differences, women prefer those books where a peaceful and beautiful life is presented, for men, first of all, it is important that the content be highly artistic" (" (Yu Dafu, p. 72).

In the first two decades of the twentieth century.  Critical articles by Chinese writers and literary theorists Wang Gouwei, Lu Xin, Hu Shi, Yu Dafu were devoted to the creation of modern Chinese literature. These articles trace the reception of the views of European, in particular German, thinkers on the development of Russian literature. The critical development of Western literary theories contributed to the formation of new literary trends and, in fact, the emergence of modern Chinese literature. Chinese literary critics were united in the opinion that the main vector in the process of creating modern national literature (Xiandai wenxue) is the transition from the literary language of classical Confucian monuments (Wenyan) to the spoken language (Baihua). At the same time, the vision of the tasks that the writers had to take on differed. Lu Xin insisted that the future of literature depends on the class affiliation of writers, Yu Dafu believed that writers creating a new domestic literature should take into account the literary inclinations of readers.