Ancient Chinese literary criticism methods (six)?

Does literary criticism exist in ancient literature? To this question, Mao Dun had made a negative answer, he said: "Since China has only literary works but no literary criticism; the definition of literature, the techniques of literature, have not been systematically explained in China. Some of the books of treatises collected in the Zibu Miscellany, such as Wenxin Diao Long (文心雕龙), are not in fact treatises on literature, or on literary technique." (1) Mao Dun's "Western-centered" position of "Western" against "Chinese" has not been recognized by most researchers of ancient literature. This can be seen in the early 20th century ancient literature researchers of the "Siku Quanshu" General Catalogue "poetry and literature review category" in the analysis of the general.

The general description of the "Poetry and Literature Commentary Classes" of the Siku Quanshu General Catalog reads:

Writings flourished in the Western Han Dynasty, where they were all muddy and vast, and where they were established in accordance with law, without the constraints of rules and regulations. In the early years of Jian'an Huang, the genre was gradually prepared, so the thesis was uttered, the first of the canonical theories. The book has been passed down to the present and the past, but it was broken from Liu Inno and Zhong Rong. Innocence study the origin and flow of the genre and assess its work, rong of the author of the A and B and trace the teacher, for example, different. Kyauk Chan's "Poetry Style," which describes the law. Meng Kai's Poetry of the Essential Poetry is a collection of historical facts, while Liu Zhongshan Poetry and Ouyang Xiu's Sixth Poetry are a combination of literary texts. The later treatises are not included in these five examples. (2)

Strictly speaking, the general description of the "Poetry and Literature Criticism" in the Siku is a general compendium of the history of classical literature, but if the construction of traditional literary criticism is measured by the concepts of modern literary criticism, there is something about the "literary criticism" in the "general description". However, if the construction of traditional literary criticism is measured by the concept of modern literary criticism, the "General Introduction" contains the germ of criticism on the description of "literary criticism". It is on this basis that the Japanese scholar Aoki Masayoshi in the "Introduction to Chinese Literature" in the chapter "Criticism" will be the "Siku" "Poetry and Literature Review" five kinds of writings "perfunctory amendment" to six kinds. That is: First, the evaluation of works (Liang Zhongrong's "Poetry"). Second, the record of the facts about the work (Tang Meng Kai's "Poems of the Essentials"). III. Discussions on the body of literature (Zhiyu's "Essay Streams"). Theories of Literature (Poetic Style by Kyauk Ran of the Tang Dynasty). V. A systematic exposition (Liang Liu Fo's Wenxindiaolong). Sixth, a miscellany of essays (Song Ouyang Xiu's Sixth Poems). (3)

Ju Dongrun, in his Outline of the History of Chinese Literary Criticism, also expounded on the theories of the Siku, saying:

Today, if we want to look at what the ancients had accomplished in their literary criticism, there are, in a nutshell, six ends to it. Since the book, the organization is complete, such as Liu Fengzhong Rong's book, a also. The book of Liu Innocenti and Zhong Rong, for example. Such as Han Yu thesis on poetry, two also. Selection of all the families, as a selection of the book, from which the later go to take a peep at its purpose, such as Yin Fan of the River Yue Ying Ling set, Gao Zhongwu of the intermediate gas collection, three also. There are also some selections, with commentaries attached, although the complexity and simplicity of the different interests, language or different, but look at the table to know the inside, the mood is complete, such as Fang Hui's Yingkui Jin marrow, Zhang Huiyin's word selection, four also. If his purpose is there, and the language is not fully transmitted, the light of illumination, from other people have to shine: it is found in other people's books, such as the Valley of the said, ready to see the poetry of the eye of the force of the five; in other people's poetry, such as the four Spirit of the theory, seen in the collection of the water of the heart, the six is also. This six-pronged approach may be cited. The first is that the poem was written by a man who was not a member of the family. (4)

No matter whether the classification made by Zhu Dongrun and Aoki is completely correct or not, they have sorted out the genre characteristics of traditional poetry and literature, which is still a contribution to the study of criticism genre theory in ancient Chinese literary criticism in the twentieth century, and it is clear that this sorting out and analyzing of ancient literary criticism genre theory also contains the recognition of ancient Chinese literary criticism as a unique style of existence.

In fact, ancient Chinese literary criticism, as a kind of "alternative" existence different from Western literary criticism, can be said to be recognized by most researchers of ancient literature in the 20th century. Although this recognition is realized in different forms of discourse, there is a collective subconsciousness contained in this recognition, namely: Chinese literary criticism has its national uniqueness. This can be seen in the study of ancient literary theories in the early twentieth century.

Chen Zhongfan in the "History of Chinese Literary Criticism" in the "literary criticism" on the connotation of the definition: "Poetry and literature of the review, since Liu Feo, Zhong Rong, for the book more than enough, Gu or the study of the origins of the style of literature, or the first author of the A and B, as examples of the different, do not know the standard. For the word 'criticism', failed to confirm its significance. Far Western scholars say that 'criticism' has five meanings: correction, one; praise, two; judgment, three; comparison and classification, four; appreciation, five. If criticizing literature, it tests the nature of literary works and their forms of scholarship." (5) From the tendency to see, Chen's concept of literary criticism is mainly "Western" rope "in", but also said the difference between Chinese and Western concept of criticism, subconsciously still think that there is criticism of Chinese literature, and "for example, each different "The subconscious still believes that there is criticism in Chinese literature, and that there are "different examples of it", but there is no clear conceptual system and unified standard.

While Guo Shaoyu did not make a "righteous boundary" for "literary criticism", he believed that "the transformation of literary criticism is always shifted with the evolution of literature, and sometimes the evolution of literature is changed by the influence of literary criticism". However, he believes that "the transformation of literary criticism is always shifted with the literary evolution, and sometimes the literary evolution is changed by the influence of literary criticism", and "literary criticism is often associated with academic thought", (6) which is an ontology of literary criticism. Guo also carries these concepts into the writing of his history of criticism, which is based on the evolution of literary concepts, writing the historical process of Chinese literary criticism from evolution, retro to completion.

Luo Genze made a close examination of the term "literary criticism". He thinks that "literary criticism" is a translation of English Literary Criticism, which originally means "judgment", but later on it was called "Literary", and then "Literary Judgment" was extended to the theory of Literary Judgment and the theory of Literature. The theory of literary refereeing is the principle of criticism, or the theory of criticism. Therefore, literary criticism in the narrow sense is literary refereeing, while literary criticism in the broad sense has a theory of criticism and a theory of literature in addition to literary refereeing. He thinks that the study of "Chinese literary criticism" "must be in the broad sense, otherwise it is not really 'Chinese literary criticism'." (7) In Roganze's view, the study of "Chinese literary criticism" "must be in the broad sense, otherwise it is not really "Chinese literary criticism". (7) In Luo Genze's view, Chinese literary criticism was originally broadly defined, focusing on literary theory but not on literary refereeing. The reason for this is that, from the point of view of critical writings, Liu Foxing's Wenxin Diao Long "does not aim at refereeing the works of others," but rather at "thesis and narration," stating that "Chinese literary criticism" is "not about refereeing the works of others," but rather about "theses and narratives. The reason is that, from the point of view of critical works, Liu's Literary Heart Diao Long "does not aim at refereeing other people's works", but "thesis and narrative", and "the pivot of literature", and most other literary criticisms "focus on guiding the literature of the future, but not refereeing the literature of the past". From the point of view of the subject of criticism, "Chinese criticism is mostly a reversal of writers, and there are not many experts in criticism. From the subject of criticism, "Chinese criticism is mostly the reverse of writers, and there are not many experts in criticism. The reverse of writers, of course, focuses on the construction of theories, but not on the refereeing of literature" (8); and from the center of attention of criticism, "Chinese people like to argue not on the problem of criticism, but on the problem of literature." (9) On the whole, Luo Genze is also inclined to use "Western" as a means of "Chinese", but this tendency reveals the message that Chinese literary criticism does not focus on the analysis, evaluation, and judgment of specific works as Western literary criticism does, but rather is a way of integrating literary theory into the practice of criticism, and that it is a way of exploring literary theory. Instead, it is a unique system that integrates the exploration of literary theories in the practice of criticism, which contrasts sharply with the strict distinction between literary appreciation, literary criticism, and literary theory in Western literary criticism. Luo Genze's analysis in fact affirms the uniqueness of "Chinese literary criticism" as an "alternative" existence, and at the same time gives a preliminary explanation of the subject, function and focus of Chinese literary criticism.

It was Fang Xiaoyue who explicitly recognized the systematic existence of ancient Chinese literary criticism. In the introduction to Chinese Literary Criticism, he argues that Chinese literary criticism "has always been a system," and that in addition to the special category of "Poetry and Literature Commentary" mentioned in the Siku Quanshu General Catalog, "all collections of poetry and literature should be classified as criticism. should be categorized within criticism", because "the person who selects and records the poems and texts shows a kind of discerning eye, which is the manifestation of specific criticism", "Moreover, the general collection of criticism, but also in the poetry and literature review of the special book occurred first. "If we speak from the influence of power, the power of the General Collection is far above that of the Specialized Book of Poetry and Literature." (10) There are two main points in Fang's argument: one is to recognize the existence of a system of ancient literary criticism, and the other is to open the eyes of the "general collection" in the theory of critical genres. Later on, many scholars shifted their attention from critical studies to "general collections" and "anthologies" other than "poetry and literature reviews", perhaps related to Fang's cataloging. For example, Wang Yao, in his article "Chinese Literary Criticism and General Collections," argued that the books devoted to "Poetry and Literature Review" "did not have as many theoretical guiding roles as the ones compiled by modern people, in terms of their impact on readers and authors at the time, and were generally regarded as nothing more than books of idle talk. The general public only regarded them as a book of gossip. ...... In terms of influence, the effect of 'literary criticism' on readers and writers was that of the 'omnibus'; and that effect and influence far exceeded that of books such as poems. " (11) For example, Mu Kehong in his Study of Zhaoming Anthology (People's Literature Publishing House, 1998), and Jiang Qingbai in his article On the Significance of Ancient Literary Anthologies have explored the ideas of literary criticism embodied in the anthologies. (12)

Ju Ziqing, on the other hand, directly affirmed that Chinese literary criticism had its own characteristics and history of development. In his article "The Development of Poetry and Literature Criticism," he argues that "Poetry," "Wenxin Diao Long," and "Siku Quanshu General Materia Medica" are certainly more systematic literary criticism, while "the general comments of the brow-approval of the selector of the production of the arts," the annotations and preface to anthologies and collections, the notes and preface to the books and preface to the books in the other collections, the poems, the literary words, the excerpts, the biographies in history, literature, and literature, such as tombstones in the literary biographies and so forth, are also reflected in the literary criticism. The so-called literary referee, though not fully developed in China, has an ancient origin and far-reaching distribution. This seems not to be negligible." (13) On the basis of sorting out this style of criticism, Zhu Ziqing also talked about his views on the relationship between "literary criticism" and "poetry and literature", saying, "'Literary criticism' is a translation. He said, "'Literary criticism' is a translation. What we call 'Poetry and Literature Criticism' is comparable to literary criticism, though it may not be exactly the same. Our poetic and literary criticism has its own development; it is now commonly called 'literary criticism' because the term is clearer, more precise, and especially solemn. But when it comes to development, it is not yet possible to obliterate that old name." (14)

In fact, in order to determine the characteristics of the "alternative" existence of Chinese literary criticism, the early studies focusing on the difference between the meaning of "criticism" and the genre of criticism have not yet touched the core of the problem, and it is necessary to discover its uniqueness, so that the problem can be clarified. In order to make the problem clear, it has become a logical necessity to explore the national characteristics of ancient Chinese literary criticism. Throughout the 20th century, there are several views on the national characteristics of ancient Chinese literary criticism:

1, "humanized literary criticism". Qian Zhongshu in the "Chinese inherent literary criticism of a feature of the article" that "Chinese literary criticism" a prominent feature is "the article of the overall humanization or vitalization", "we do not see the same in Western literary criticism, the same scale of humanization phenomenon. In Western literary criticism, we do not see the phenomenon of humanization on the same scale; we can even say that when we ourselves write criticism in Western characters, we often feel the lack of idioms of humanization. In Qian Zhongshu's view, the theoretical benefit of "humanized literary criticism" lies in "breaking through the appearance of the content and having a holistic character." (15) This is an early discussion of the characteristics of ancient literary criticism that moves from the "self-reference" of ancient literary theory to the "two-way reference" of Chinese and Western literary theory.

2. "Stylistic Literary Criticism". Guo Shaoyu, in his History of Classical Chinese Literary Theory and Criticism, makes a distinction between literary criticism in the modern sense of the word, which includes literary theory in the broad sense, and literary criticism in the narrow sense. In his view, "Classical Chinese literary criticism is neither different from literary criticism in the narrow sense nor equal to literary theory, but seems to be confined to the poetic or literary theory of orthodox literature," which Guo calls "literary criticism in the style of stylistic theories." (16)

3. "Comparative criticism". In Hong Shen's view, the traditional "point" and "realization" type of criticism is not a "research and micro-analysis, which is neither precise nor thorough, coupled with the uncertainty of the analogy," resulting in "How to properly evaluate a work is inherently flawed." To make up for this, the ancients often compared writers' works against each other, and this gradually became a habit, thus "comparative criticism" became a feature of ancient Chinese literary criticism. This kind of criticism includes the comparison of literature of different times and regions, as well as the comparative criticism of different writers, and is interrelated with the creation of classical literature. (17)

4. Criticism combining history, theory and evaluation. Yang Mingzhao, by examining Confucius's "Xing, Guan, Qun, and Grievance", Cao Pi's "Wen Qi", "Wen Fu", "Wenxin Diao Long", literary anthologies, poems, lyrics, and novels, etc., argues that "based on the writers, the combination of history, theory, and criticism in classical literary creation is also related to classical literary creation", It is believed that "the writer-based criticism, combining history, theory, and commentary, formed the distinctive national characteristic of ancient Chinese literature", and that "this poetic system, which is constituted by the generalization and summary of appreciative experience from below, is diametrically opposed to the Western poetic system, which is constituted by the deductive inference from above, and has its own distinctive characteristics. " (18)

5. "Point and realization" aesthetic criticism. According to Ye Weilian, "traditional Chinese criticism is of the 'point and understanding' type, with the ideal of not destroying the 'heart of the machine' of the poem, and structurally, with 'simple words but complicated meaning' and 'point and understanding'. In terms of structure, it uses 'simple words but complicated meaning' and 'point to point' to stimulate the poetic activity in the reader's consciousness, so that the poem's mood can be reproduced, and it is a kind of almost poetic structure", "Even in terms of the criticism that utilizes analysis and interpretation, they still only provide a relationship with the poem's 'itself'". Even in the case of analytic and expository criticism, they are still words that only provide an understanding of the poem's 'art' and its 'inner pivot', and they are aesthetic criticism, directly related to the management of the creation and the interest it achieves. It is not a waste of ink and brush in the accumulation of 'bold assumptions of the East and careful proofs of the West', which is a kind of dialectical criticism that starts from the work but ends up a hundred thousand miles away from the artistry of the work itself; it doesn't follow (or at least doesn't rigidly follow) the dialectical rhetoric of 'Beginning, Narrative, Proof, Argumentation, Conclusion', which is a kind of dialectical rhetoric. ' that kind of dialectical rhetorical procedure." (19) In his article "The Historical Development of Traditional Literary Criticism," Wu Chengxue divides ancient literary style criticism into two categories, "general sense judgment" and "figurative description," which have the same connotations as Ye's words, "point" and "description. These two types of criticism are very similar to what Ye called "point" and "realization" criticism. (20)

6. "Impressionistic criticism" (especially in the evaluation of the way of criticizing poetic words). According to Ye Jiaying, "Chinese literary criticism is characterized as impressionistic rather than discursive, intuitive rather than theoretical, poetic rather than prose, and focused rather than holistic." (21) In A New Exploration of Classical Chinese Literature, Huang Weiliang criticized the "impressionistic and practical criticism" of Yang Honglie, Guo Shaoyu, Liu Ruoyu, and others who commented on Chinese poems and words (22). He points out that "Chinese impressionistic criticism, with its sparse terminology, emphasis on intuitive perception and generalization," is a major feature of Chinese literary criticism, but "there is no lack of systematic and analytical writings outside the impressionistic style, such as Da Nian Zhi Poetry and Bai Yu Zhai Lyrics. On the other hand, a concise and appropriate impressionistic description is one of the indispensable critical techniques, the value of which cannot be erased." (23)

7. "Creative Criticism". Sun Rongrong thinks that ancient literary criticism is not only extremely rich in content, but also in various forms, vivid language, flexible techniques, concise and concise, and very much about its own artistry. This is a major feature of ancient literary criticism in China. This artistry is manifested in the following ways: to express appreciation and criticism by literary genres such as fugue, ekphrasis, stanzas, poems and songs; to criticize the object in figurative and descriptive language; or to enlighten abstract theories with concrete poems. Based on this, Sun Rongrong believes that "the artistic literary criticism in ancient China is actually a kind of 'creative' criticism, and there is no strict distinction between it and literary creation; in a way, it is itself a kind of literary creation, a kind of criticism of literature. " (24)

8. "Oriental mode of art criticism". Is there any depth mode and latent system of traditional Chinese art criticism? Pu Zhenyuan not only gave an affirmative answer in the article "A Preliminary Exploration of Chinese Art Criticism Mode", but also described its national characteristics as follows: "This is a kind of oriental art criticism mode that embodies the deeper realm of life of the Chinese nation and the wholeness of the life of the big universe based on the adjustment of man and heaven, and in the multi-level criticism of the sublimation of the image, the gas, and the Tao layer by layer and the integration of the unity of the world. Or it is an oriental art criticism mode (especially with the main symbols of "harmony with heaven and man, advocating neutrality and harmony, clearing the grade, showing the merits and demerits, channeling the arts, emphasizing experience, demonstrating, and marking the round view)." According to the author, it is characterized by six features: first, its philosophical root is an ancient Chinese theory of the unity of heaven and man in the harmony of life in the great universe; second, it is accumulated with the inwardly inclined transcendental thinking tendency of the national group's comprehensive experience; third, "it has a distinctive deep theoretical structure"; fourth, "diversified theoretical existential forms "Fifth, "distinctive aesthetic characteristics" (experiential criticism that combines discursive thinking with emotional thinking, and good use of the discourse expression of "discussing often rhymes with action", etc.); Sixth, "biased in favor of emotion and experience, with insufficient level of theoretical abstraction. experience, the level of theoretical abstraction is insufficient." (25)

On the whole, in the discussion of traditional literary criticism, the recognition of the existence of "otherness" and the elaboration of national characteristics constitute the main tone of the discourse in the study of ancient literary criticism, and the activity of this main tone of the discourse is reflected in two kinds of comparisons: first, the comparison between the East and the West, with the Western literary criticism as the obvious object of comparison; second, the comparison between ancient and modern literary criticism as the obvious object of comparison; second, the comparison of ancient and modern literary criticism as the obvious object of comparison. This discourse is characterized by two kinds of comparisons: first, the comparison between the East and the West, with the Western literary criticism as the apparent object of comparison; second, the comparison between the ancient and the modern, with the modern literary criticism system and concepts as the potential background for comparison. The path of discourse is roughly shifted from the dissection of critical style theory to the summary of critical method theory.