2021 Vol. 4, No. 4

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Articles
Beyond Circulation
Galin Tihanov
2021, 4(4): 609-622. doi: 10.19857/j.cnki.ICL.20214401
Abstract:
This article considers some of the central concepts pertinent to the current Anglo-Saxon discourse of world literature. Focusing on one such concept, circulation, it examines its implications for how we think about the literary text and write the history/histories of world literature. A reconsideration of the notion of circulation could provide tangible benefits by sharpening our sense of the fundamental incompleteness of the text in the process of its multiple appropriations.This argument is advanced from a much-needed longue durée perspective, while asserting its validity for the current environment in which the literary text undergoes incessant fragmentation and re-medialisation.
[Abstract](109) [PDF 1706KB](37)
Visions and Emotions of Dionysian Life: On the Evolution of the Greek Chorus
TONG Ming
2021, 4(4): 623-635. doi: 10.19857/j.cnki.ICL.20214402
Abstract:
While his plot-centered theory of tragedy is well-known and influential, Aristotle can be seen as lacking in his explanation of the spirit of tragedy. Nietzsche, on the other hand, who views the dithyrambic origin as the essence of Greek tragedy, offers a more convincing response to the classical question of why tragedy pleases. Following Nietzsche's theory, this essay explores how the chorus, a specific manifestation of dithyrambic music, has evolved from the Hellenic period to the modern world, in the works of great poets who continue the Dionysian spirit in reinvented forms of the chorus. The essay's argument is divided into four parts:(1) In the context of Greek tragedy's origins in Dionysian worship culture, the essay explains why the pleasure of tragedy is a paradox and shows how earlier forms of the chorus are expressions of the visionary power of the Dionysian as the cyclical life force in the universe;(2) From the perspective of Nietzsche's aesthetics of a Dionysian-Apollonian interactive duality, the essay examines how intense emotions of awe and rapture occur simultaneously in moments when the principium individuationis(the principle of individuation) merges into the infinite Dionysian life;(3) The essay then explains that in works of tragedy, the "I," supported by the chorus, is in effect the vocal expression of Dionysian life-subsequently, some of the most moving soliloquys in Shakespeare's tragedies(such as in Hamlet and Macbeth) can be seen as changed forms of Greek chorus;(4) Finally, the essay examines selected passages from William Faulkner's Light in August and Virginia Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway, and shows their choral nature as transformations of the Greek chorus in modern fiction. In sum, the essay argues that the "I" in tragedy is not the subjective "I":the emotions are not personal, but are rather invoked from the Dionysian vision of life. A suffering individual therefore sings dithyrambic songs as an intoxicated individual who has been baptized in the Dionysian ocean. Such is the spirit of tragedy which informs the chorus and its evolution.
[Abstract](221) [PDF 1858KB](78)
Moral and Aesthetic Feeling in Eighteenth-Century Western Enlightenment Thought
JIN Wen
2021, 4(4): 636-654. doi: 10.19857/j.cnki.ICL.20214403
Abstract:
The Enlightenment, long known as the "Age of Reason," has increasingly been associated with "feeling" in recent scholarship. The eighteenth century witnessed a concerted effort on the part of Enlightenment thinkers to comprehend the connections between the body and the mind through the lens of feeling. A powerful strand of Enlightenment thought seeks to justify feeling and thereby suture the body and the mind by turning feeling into a bridge between the two, capable of transforming sensations and physical reactions to the environment into conditions for proper moral and aesthetic judgment.
[Abstract](197) [PDF 2037KB](44)
Recovering Lost Voices: French and Chinese Anarcho-Feminism in the Early Twentieth Century
WANG Lang
2021, 4(4): 655-677. doi: 10.19857/j.cnki.ICL.20214404
Abstract:
French anarcho-feminism greatly influenced Chinese anti-statist feminist discourse in the early twentieth century. Chinese anarchist Li Shiceng launched the organ journal Xin Shiji on June 22, 1907, in Paris under the influence of Elisée Reclus. It soon became the bridge between French anarchists and Chinese anarchists in Tokyo who inaugurated Tianyi on June 10, 1907. The interwoven genealogical roots of French and Chinese anarcho-feminism constitute a rich case for transnational inquiry. Scholarship of first-wave feminism often centers on the suffragist achievement, neglecting the anti-statist discourse in the two countries.However, the rich legacy of first-wave feminism can only be understood by exploring the counter-discourse that anarcho-feminism poses. This project brings together a close analysis of articles published in anarchist journals such as Le Libertaire, L'Idée libre, L'Anarchie, Xin Shiji, and Tianyi, and historical materials to reconstruct anarcho-feminist conceptions on women's sexuality, education, and labor. This study supplies an important chapter in the history of global feminism. It offers a liberating paradigm that allows for a decentralized power structure and stands as a counter-discourse that dismantles power, hierarchy, and state.Challenging the principles of aggression, competition, and independence that underlie masculine culture, it fosters a philosophy of love and peace that builds on equality, mutual aid and care, and interdependence. It is a vision that continues to nourish present-day feminist politics.
[Abstract](125) [PDF 1909KB](21)
Deciphering the Silence of Postwar American Jewry: Cynthia Ozick's The Shawl
CHEN Shuping
2021, 4(4): 678-698. doi: 10.19857/j.cnki.ICL.20214405
Abstract:
Silence is a crucial topic in Holocaust studies, and the response of American Jews to the Holocaust immediately after the Second World War remains a polemical issue. The Jewish American female writer Cynthia Ozick and her representative The Shawl perform a positive act of breaking the postwar silence. Due to religious, historical, and socio-political reasons, American Jews have been accused of collective Holocaust amnesia in the postwar era. Ozick has also undergone the transition from shunning the Holocaust to confronting the event steadfastly. As Ozick's "literary manifesto" of breaking the silence, The Shawl offers the panorama of the imagined Holocaust survivor-Rosa Lublin's traumatic life before, during, and after the Holocaust based on the thematic topic of silence.Lawrence Langer's concept of "preempting" the Holocaust is transplanted to offer the conceptual basis for reconsidering the historical context of postwar America and reevaluating the ethics of Holocaust representation. "Preempting" the Holocaust refers to gestures that take advantage of the Holocaust as a humanistic lesson to achieve moral redemption and to promote higher values. Ozick, inheriting the Jewish doctrine of Zakhor, the midrashic style of narrative, and the Hasidic legend of "pure intention," manages to contrive her own writing strategies for Holocaust representation without falling into the wrong path of "preempting" this unprecedented calamity in human history.
[Abstract](204) [PDF 1811KB](24)
Wandering between Bodhisattva and Jesus: The Change and Influence of Chongzhen's Belief
WANG Qiyuan
2021, 4(4): 699-713. doi: 10.19857/j.cnki.ICL.20214406
Abstract:
Emperor Chongzhen of the Ming Dynasty spent a period studying and practicing Catholicism before finally returning to local beliefs due to various external factors. This paper makes a comprehensive use of Chinese and Western literature to verify the exact range of Emperor Chongzhen's attempt to adopt Catholicism, which lasted nearly nine years, from the fifth to the fourteenth year of Chongzhen(1632-1641). This process began with Xu Guangqi's admission to the cabinet and his reading of Catholic classics under the influence of the Jesuit missionary Johann Adam Schall. In addition to religion, these developments were also due to considerations of calendar making and military training. However, after a series of changes caused by the apportionment of "help rates" to kinsmen of the emperor, as well as the death of his son in the eleventh year of Chongzhen, his interest in Catholicism came to an end. Emperor Chongzhen's hesitation on the choice of faith is a microcosm of the religious diversity that arose in modern political life in the late Ming and early Qing Dynasties; Catholicism, which entered China in the late Ming Dynasty, also became an integral part of modern Chinese faith. This paper goes on to discuss the influence of Chinese and Western literature, position differences, and other factors on the study of religious history.
[Abstract](101) [PDF 2050KB](18)
The Fold and the Baroque
GUO Yue
2021, 4(4): 714-725. doi: 10.19857/j.cnki.ICL.20214407
Abstract:
Deleuze borrowed Leibniz's concept of the "monad" in developing his own concept of the "fold." Leibniz presented the monad as a simple substance that constitutes composites and has no extension. The dynamics and perspectivism of monads are further elaborated in Deleuze's thinking on folds. The fold is not only a folding within the monad, but also a folding between monads, which is external.The fold is constantly extended, and extension does not signal the demise of the fold, but rather its constant changing. It is here that Deleuze finds common ground between the Baroque and folds, and he uses folds to define the Baroque. The Baroque refers not to an essence but rather to an operative function, to a trait:it endlessly produces folds. The key to folds and the Baroque is the bend:the bend is the core, and is constantly being generated. The bending characteristic of folds in Baroque art not only lends fluidity and vitality to paintings, but also strengthens Baroque architecture's visual impact on the viewer. The light in Baroque artworks reflects the folding characteristics of folds. The folding relationship of light and shadow not only gives the picture a sense of space, but also symbolizes the folding of the soul and body. Finally, Deleuze believes that each monad shows the universe from a different side. This view is a transformation from center to point of view, which erases the distinction between the center and the edge, constituting the new harmony of Baroque art.
[Abstract](232) [PDF 1957KB](17)
Special Topic
Opening Remarks by the Moderator
MENG Qingshu
2021, 4(4): 729-730.
Abstract:
[Abstract](76) [PDF 1303KB](24)
How Should Humanity Face All Organisms after the Covid-19 Pandemic: Rereading Wang Jinkang's Grade Four Panic
TOMARI Ko
2021, 4(4): 731-738. doi: 10.19857/j.cnki.ICL.20214408
Abstract:
Today, the entire world continues to fight the spread of COVID-19.This is a scientific battle between the virus and human intelligence, and touches all aspects of human civilization, including politics and economics. Infectious diseases have often been depicted in literature, through stories about how humanity fights against viruses and how people act toward each other(including foolish behavior) during a pandemic. However, perhaps only one book treats viruses as living organisms on the same level as humans and philosophically questions the relationship between them:Wang Jinkang's science fiction novel Grade Four Panic.During this COVID-19 pandemic, one question raised in the book deserves some consideration:"Does humanity have the right to arbitrarily decide which organisms are hostile to humanity and deprive them of their right to live in nature?"
[Abstract](148) [PDF 1911KB](37)
Loss and Surpassing in Virtual Dreams: Yasutaka Tsutsui's Paprika
DING Zhuo
2021, 4(4): 739-751. doi: 10.19857/j.cnki.ICL.20214409
Abstract:
In the 1970 s, rapid developments in virtual technology gave rise to science fiction works that focused on representing virtual worlds. A virtual world is a simulated situation generated according to reality with virtual technology. Science fiction that deals with virtual worlds explores human consciousness in the transition between real and virtual through two types of virtual world:virtual reality and virtual dreams, of which the latter reflects the loss and surpassing of people in a more concentrated way. "Loss" refers to people losing their grasp on living consciousness and beginning to confuse hallucination and reality. "Surpassing" here means that people surpass the state of loss by reshaping and recreating their consciousness in their own virtual world. Paprika, by the Japanese writer Yasutaka Tsutsui, reveals the trifold loss state of "Where am I?," "Who is she?," and "How do I return?" in the blend of virtual and real worlds. The writer also explores surpassing in the entanglement of truth and falsehood between the virtual and real worlds, the cognitive contradiction between self and other, and the dreamland transformation of indulgence in sensual pleasure and healing, so as to inspire people's rediscovery of life consciousness from the three perspectives of "virtual and real equality, " "third perspective," and "psychological healing."
[Abstract](247) [PDF 2049KB](43)
Interview
Sci-Fi and “Literature”; the Sci-Fi Boom in China; Sci-Fi and Education
MENG Qingshu, WU Yan
2021, 4(4): 755-765. doi: 10.19857/j.cnki.ICL.20214410
Abstract:
At this once-in-a-century turning point, facing the post-epidemic era, Chinese sci-fi encounters an opportunity that brings with it new challenges. In order to bring the already prosperous Chinese sci-fi industry to new heights, we strive to stand at the cutting edge, reflecting on the problems that most need in-depth research and voicing our personal understanding of the situation. This interview explores the question of "What is literature?" from the perspective of science fiction, and conducts a new inquiry into human nature in a digital era of "Intelligent Plus." The interview strives for specificity, includes the input of a host of insiders and outsiders, and addresses a new field of sci-fi research in a new era, particularly aimed at the comparative literature and educational fields, so as to add its contribution to the dynamic and pluralistic exploration of sci-fi culture in the new era.
[Abstract](264) [PDF 1857KB](21)
Book Reviews
Falaschi, Isabella. Trois pièces du théâtre des Yuan: texte présenté, traduit et annoté
DU Lei
2021, 4(4): 769-773. doi: 10.19857/j.cnki.ICL.20214411
Abstract:
[Abstract](97) [PDF 1387KB](34)
HAO Tianhu. Milton in China
LUO Shimin
2021, 4(4): 774-778. doi: 10.19857/j.cnki.ICL.20214412
Abstract:
[Abstract](103) [PDF 1249KB](14)
WANG Ding'an. Sacrifice as if They Were Present: Confucian Funeral and Sacrifice Contrasted from the Perspective of Western Learning during the Ming and Qing Dynasties
DAI Guoqing
2021, 4(4): 779-783. doi: 10.19857/j.cnki.ICL.20214413
Abstract:
[Abstract](95) [PDF 1242KB](25)
Harman, Graham. Skirmishes: With Friends, Enemies, and Neutrals
Charles William Johns
2021, 4(4): 784-790. doi: 10.19857/j.cnki.ICL.20214414
Abstract:
[Abstract](125) [PDF 1139KB](13)
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