2021 Vol. 4, No. 1

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Articles
Preexisting Conditions and the Recounting of Plagues
Samuel Weber
2021, 4(1): 9-24. doi: 10.19857/j.cnki.ICL.20214101
Abstract:
This essay is conceived as the introduction to a book that will be published under the same title.It begins by demarcating the traditional plague-bubonic and other-from the current pandemic,with which it shares certain similarities but from which it is also quite different.It then goes on to raise the question of how and why the experience of plagues depends in great measure on narrative accounts.To this end,Walter Benjamin's 1936 essay on "The Storyteller" is found to provide a useful framework within which to approach this question,since it determines storytelling as a response to a situation of extreme distress("Ratlosigkeit" in German).That response does not purport to resolve the distress but to provide "advice" or counsel(Rat),calling for the invention of further stories.Simply put,even the most epic of epics,the Odyssey,tends to confirm Benjamin's insight that "there is no story for which the question,'What comes next?'could not be asked." If the storyteller has only "borrowed" his authority from death,it is because "death" has no authority that it could give to anyone for all eternity.The time of the storyteller,like the time of human lives,is limited.That being said,there may always be another story waiting.
[Abstract](87) [PDF 469KB](11)
Inspirations from New Philology/World Philology: How Chinese Humanities Integrated with World Humanities
JIA Jin-hua
2021, 4(1): 25-35. doi: 10.19857/j.cnki.ICL.20214102
Abstract:
Philology is the common academic tradition in both China and the West.In the West,philology began in Greece as early as the third century BCE,which has been regarded as the origin of the various modern disciplines of the humanities.In China,philology encompasses paleography,phonology,exegetics,textual studies,bibliography,documentation,and evidential studies.It had been the academic foundation since the Han dynasty and reached a high peak in the Qianlong-Jiaqing scholarship of the Qing dynasty.Since the beginning of the twentieth century,with the rise of modern linguistics and the ramifications of other humanities disciplines,philology has declined in both the West and East.In recent decades,however,philology has presented a tendency of reviving and reforming.Various kinds of new philology have emerged and are developing into world philology.New philology/world philology emphasizes investigating socio-historical contexts and language-cultural implications by studying and interpreting primary literature(either textual or in other media).As a result,this new tendency can reintegrate the various disciplines of the humanities.As the common tradition of China and the West,new philology/world philology can throw away the endless disputes concerning the superiority of Chinese learning or Western learning.Because of its emphasis on the combination of evidential study and analytical research,new philology/world philology as a research approach can lead to greatly improved outcomes of solid documentation,profound interpretation,and international academic standards,eventually integrating Chinese humanities with world humanities.
[Abstract](82) [PDF 694KB](30)
Predictability and Uncertainty: A Structural Analysis of Characterization in Shiji
YANG Lei
2021, 4(1): 36-55. doi: 10.19857/j.cnki.ICL.20214103
Abstract:
Using a structural perspective,this article analyzes how characters are built in the historical work Shiji《史记》(Records of the Grand Historian),written by the Han historian Sima Qian司马迁(?145-86 BCE).While the adept charac-terization of Shiji has been considered the peak of Chinese standard histories,previous scholarship has mostly studied the portrayals of character by dividing them into categories such as appearance,speech,act,psychological penetration,and so on.The emphasis of individual aspects of character causes an overlook of their interrelations in between.Narratological definitions of characters emphasize their entirety,shedding light on the correlations between their propositions.The textual nature of characters is a logical sum of traits,which can only be achieved when the narratives are stable and unified texts.The fundamental difference between Shiji and its predecessors in characterization lies in their structural divergence:the self-contained narrative units in earlier texts only allow fragmented distribution of character traits at the episode level,whereas the unified textual structure of Shiji empowers a coherent and integrated characterization process at the account level.From pre-imperial narratives to Shiji,Chinese historical narratives underwent a significant structural transformation:Sima Qian's creation of biography as a new textual form was revolutionary in stabilizing the textual sequence and thereby establishing an internal logic within an account,which allows for his painstaking attachment of propositions to characters.Characters forged in Shiji are thus coherent,organic,whole entities,differing remarkably from those fragmented and contradictory images seen in earlier histories.Meanwhile,its storyline incorporates unpredictable elements in a logical way to throw twists and turns in the protagonists'paths.I argue that the predictability of Shiji's characters,coupled with the uncertainty of its events,prioritizes the historical process over outcome,distinguishing Shiji from other histories and explaining its influence upon narrative literature of later ages.
[Abstract](106) [PDF 667KB](33)
Poet-Translator and Personalized Rebellion: On the Translation Strategies of Kenneth Rexroth's English Translation of Du Fu
XU Yi-fan
2021, 4(1): 56-82. doi: 10.19857/j.cnki.ICL.20214104
Abstract:
In 1956,Kenneth Rexroth published his first anthology of translated Chinese poems,One Hundred Poems from the Chinese,which included thirty-five English translations of Du Fu poems.Not only is this work regarded as an excellent translation of ancient Chinese poetry,but also as a classic of modern American poetry.Rexroth played both roles-as a poet and a translator-in translation activities,so this essay will be based on the duality of identity,in order to discuss how Rexroth challenged the impersonal theory proposed by T.S.Eliot,a major poetic figure at that time,with the translation of Chinese poems in the context of the development of American poetry in the first half of the twentieth century.The core of his rebellion is the subversion of the Western traditional values behind this theory.Through technical analysis in close reading and theoretical interpretation in translation studies,the essay will explore the translation strategies adopted by Rexroth under specific goals and positions.We will further discuss the aesthetic reflections Rexroth projected in these translation strategies,especially the problems he contemplated,such as the relationship between man and world,the universality and individuality of emotion,and the significance of tradition and individuality.Through these special strategies,Rexroth introduced different aesthetic values of a foreign civilization to the native culture,which helped initiate the renewal and activation of English expression as well as promote his adjustment of individual aesthetic ideas and values.At the intersection of translation history,translation theory,and aesthetic theory,this article discusses how Rexroth's English translations of Du Fu poems have called back the first person to the text and have liberated the individual emotions in the process of integrating heterogeneity and local value,thus completing a poet-translator's rebellion against native poetics by the personalized interpretation of these poems.
[Abstract](156) [PDF 1164KB](29)
Realism and Architecture
Graham Harman
2021, 4(1): 83-88. doi: 10.19857/j.cnki.ICL.20214105
Abstract:
Although "realism" can mean numerous different things in different contexts,it is safe to say that there are two basic types of realism.The first-usually found in the arts and in politics-defines the "real" as the ugly facts of life that cannot be denied.We can call this kind "Realism of Immanence." The second-most prominent in mathematics-treats the real as that which is superior to anything merely earthly.Let's call this kind "Realism of Transcendence." Which sort of realism is a better model for architecture to follow?The answer is neither,since the Realism of Immanence "overmines" architecture by reducing it to its function or program,and the Realism of Transcendence "undermines" it by reducing it downward to a small set of functional elements or even geometrical solids said to be at work in every great building.Instead,the true path for realist architecture requires an "impure" admixture of forms and human functions.But this raises important questions about Immanuel Kant's aesthetics,which overemphasizes "purity" even while conflating it with autonomy.By purity,Kant effectively means the separation of two particular kinds of entities:(1)human thought,and(2)everything else.In this respect he follows the central dogma of modern philosophy,assuming that the human being is something so radically different in kind from the rest of the cosmos that it automatically de-purifies whatever it touches.As a result,architecture is disqualified by Kant as a possible case of pure beauty,since in his view the fact that architecture has a use-value disqualifies it as a purely aesthetic phenomenon.What Kant thereby misses is that the human beholder and the art object it beholds becomes a new third object that is autonomous from its environment even though its two elements(human and art object)are no longer autonomous from each other.
[Abstract](120) [PDF 426KB](52)
Gunsangnorbu Narrated: Research on the New and Old Editions of Mongolian Local Produce and Its Contemporary Significance
DAI Wurihan, ZHOU Yue
2021, 4(1): 89-104. doi: 10.19857/j.cnki.ICL.20214106
Abstract:
Kawahara Misako was an important figure who initiated the education of women in modern Inner Mongolia and also performed secret missions for the Japanese military during the Russo-Japanese War. Her Mongolian Local Produce, published in 1909, was mainly based on her two years of experience in Harqin, Inner Mongolia(December 1903-January 1906), and was reprinted twice in Japan(1944, 1969). This book not only has important historical material value,but also great literary character. It is a very unique and complex text, due to Misako's narration of Gunsangnorbu. Gunsangnorbu was a famous politician and reformer in the modern history of Inner Mongolia. The author's description of Gunsangnorbu deviates from reality, which is not only a reflection of the difference of the two people's goals, but also an effect of the complex environment of the times. Through the analysis of the new and old editions of Mongolian Local Produce and the analysis of other historical materials, this article aims to not only restore the real Gunsangnorbu, but also reveal the writing intention of Kawahara Misako. This can help view Japan's China policy and the development and changes of modern SinoJapanese relations from another perspective.
[Abstract](109) [PDF 963KB](15)
A Palimpsestuous Writing: Maxine Hong Kingston's The Woman Warrior
LIU Xiao-qing
2021, 4(1): 105-128. doi: 10.19857/j.cnki.ICL.20214107
Abstract:
Maxine Hong Kingston's The Woman Warrior is one of the most successful Asian American literary works.Rather than reading the book as an autobiography of an Asian American girl growing up in Chinatown in America,I view it as a multifarious telling and writing of the stories of Asian American women in their interrelated relationships living in both the past and present in their hyphenated lives between China and America.With her palimpsestuous writing strategy,Kingston reexamines what it means to be an Asian American woman.She not only uncovers what is forbidden,hidden,unspoken,wronged,or covered in the official history of Asian Americans but also rewrites and reinvents it.Nevertheless,she does not intend to use her story to erase or replace the other versions.Instead,while writing herself and women like her into the history,she has various voices and versions complement and sometimes even contradict one another to form its reality.Furthermore,with her new genre of writing,she writes the dreams,fantasies,and imaginations of Asian American women into the history too.Thus,transgressing various boundaries,Kingston rewrites the history of Asian American women by representing the interaction of multiple voices and versions.In this way,Kingston not only makes herself a woman warrior but does so also for all women who contribute to the struggle.
[Abstract](114) [PDF 561KB](13)
The Evolution and Social Customs of Monks and Nuns in Narratives of Past Dynasties
WANG Zi-cheng
2021, 4(1): 129-146. doi: 10.19857/j.cnki.ICL.20214108
Abstract:
Literary images of monks and nuns have gone through a complex process of evolution since their emergence.Although there is no lack of images of eminent and virtuous monks past dynastic narratives,generally speaking,the images of monks and nuns have gradually changed from noble and unsullied to secular,from being respectful to disdainful and even hateful.Especially in the Ming and the Qing Dynasties,licentious monks and nuns were common.Their bad habits and behaviors not only corrupted the monastery,but also harmed society.The evil change of images of monks and nuns in literary works is due to the mutual influence and joint action of innate human evil and the evil of social customs.By exploring the evil transformation trajectory of monks and nuns in the narratives of past dynasties,especially the narratives of the Ming and the Qing Dynasties,and analyzing the causes of these changes,this article has profound significance on literary history and a positive sociological effect.
[Abstract](34) [PDF 1066KB](31)
Interview
Sound Poetry, Language Poetry, Conceptual Poetry, and Ouplio: An Interview with Professor Marjorie Perloff
Marjorie Perloff, FENG Yi
2021, 4(1): 149-159. doi: 10.19857/j.cnki.ICL.20214109
Abstract:
As one of the foremost and most influential American critics of modernist and contemporary poetry,Professor Marjorie Perloff is the author of seventeen monographs-the most recent of which is Edge of Irony:Modernism in the Shadow of the Habsburg Empire,published in 2016-and nearly four hundred essays.I was very honored to meet Professor Perloff during the CAAP conference in 2019,when she gave a keynote speech entitled "Reading the Verse Backward:Visual and Sound Design in Ezra Pound's Cantos." This interview mostly centers around the sound of poetry and its significance in conveying meanings in poetry.Beginning with a discussion of Pound's silent Chinese ideograms in The Cantos,Professor Perloff elucidates her unique understandings on a variety of topics,ranging from sound poetry,homophonic translation,and Oulipo,to language poetry,conceptual poetry,and the latest trends of contemporary American poetry.She argues that Pound uses Chinese ideograms to thicken and multiply the meanings in The Cantos.As a prominent critic who has long studied language poetry,Professor Perloff presents her profound understanding of the relationship between language poetry and its successor,conceptual poetry.She expresses her faith in the future of poetry in the era of digitalization and multimedia.She also provides her definition of sound poetry,exemplifies how sound patterns can create meanings,and discusses the significance of the Oulipo movement.At the end of this interview,Professor Perloff recalls her seventy-year career as a poetry critic and affirms the importance of understanding contemporary poetry in the context of history and culture.
[Abstract](118) [PDF 11039KB](23)
Book Reviews
TONG Ming. Deconstruction in Perspectives: A Logic in Contemporary Critical Theories
WANG Hong-chao
2021, 4(1): 163-167. doi: 10.19857/j.cnki.ICL.20214110
Abstract:
[Abstract](43) [PDF 480KB](28)
Giles, Paul. American World Literature: An Introduction
HUANG Xi-ling
2021, 4(1): 168-171. doi: 10.19857/j.cnki.ICL.20214111
Abstract:
[Abstract](63) [PDF 492KB](20)
Heinich, Nathalie. Ce que l'art fait à la sociologie
ZHANG Qiao
2021, 4(1): 172-179. doi: 10.19857/j.cnki.ICL.20214112
Abstract:
[Abstract](40) [PDF 494KB](9)
A "World" Journey through World Literature: On David Damrosch's Book Project "Around the World in 80 Books"
YANG Shu-rui
2021, 4(1): 183-188. doi: 10.19857/j.cnki.ICL.20214113
Abstract:
[Abstract](61) [PDF 516KB](20)
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