(East-West Question) Ning Jiayu: Should the study of ancient Chinese narrative literature return from the "West" to the "East"?
China News Agency, Tianjin, April 4th: Ning Jiayu: Should the study of ancient Chinese narrative literature return from the "West" to the "East"?
China News Agency reporter Zhang Daozheng
Chinese academia has a long history and its own system and characteristics.
Since modern times, with the introduction of Western culture, the Chinese academic system, including the study of ancient Chinese narrative literature, has basically been covered by Western paradigms.
The Western academic system has strengthened the paradigm and method of academic research in many aspects, but after a hundred years of practice, it has gradually exposed the problem of “inconsistency” with the local research objects in China.
Ning Jiayu, a talented professor and doctoral supervisor of Nankai University, recently accepted an exclusive interview with China News Agency "Dongxi Wen". Taking the study of ancient Chinese narrative literature as an example, he analyzed the research on the inherent story types of Chinese narrative literature (ie, the study of Chinese narrative culture). , to replace the necessity and feasibility of the Western academic research paradigm with stylistic history and writers' works research as the main body.
The following is a summary of the interview transcript:
China News Service reporter: In your opinion, what is the basic pattern of ancient Chinese narrative literature research?
Ning Jiayu:
Compared with the West, the ancient Chinese narrative literature with novels and operas as the main body not only came into being and matured later, but also formed a unique pattern and characteristics in the research paradigm, which is mainly reflected in the criticism-based research.
This kind of research is influenced by traditional Chinese scattered thinking, and has the characteristics of being unconstrained and feeling.
The disadvantage is the lack of grand system awareness and tight logical control.
In August 2020, aerial photography of the "Peony Pavilion" rice field art painting in Zhangpu Town, Kunshan, Jiangsu.
Photo by China News Agency reporter Yang Bo
Since modern times, the research on ancient Chinese narrative literature has been influenced by the Western academic paradigm, and the Western narrative literature genre history research and writer's work systematic research has replaced China's previous critical research.
Lu Xun's Brief History of Chinese Fiction, Wang Guowei's History of Song and Yuan Opera, and Hu Shi's series of textual research on Chinese Zhanghui novels all reflect the shift of research paradigms from "East" to "West".
Throughout the more than 100 years of research on ancient Chinese narrative literature, although there are numerous and outstanding achievements, the basic pattern is "Western style and Chinese use".
China News Service reporter: What are the advantages and disadvantages of studying ancient Chinese narrative literature under the Western academic system?
Ning Jiayu:
From the positive point of view, it makes up for the lack of academic system and close logical relationship caused by the impromptu and emotional development of previous critical research.
For more than 100 years, Chinese narrative literature research has made great progress and fruitful achievements in the history of literary styles and writers' works, and has successfully achieved integration and integration with the international academic community.
But with the in-depth research, its drawbacks gradually surfaced.
Its important manifestation is that this paradigm is at odds and out of touch with the inherent form of Chinese narrative literature.
An important feature of the inherent form of Chinese narrative literature is that it is a literary collection that connects many genres and writers' works centered on the type of story.
Taking the story type "The Story of the West Chamber" as an example, the love clues of Zhang Sheng and Cui Yingying are its core elements.
Around this center, from Yuan Zhen's "Yingying Biography" in the Tang Dynasty, to Dong Jieyuan's "The Story of the West Chamber" in the Jin Dynasty, and then to Wang Shifu's "The Story of the West Chamber" in the Yuan Dynasty, writers of the past dynasties not only created many mainstream narrative literary works, but also produced hundreds of literary works. Poems and allusions based on this type of story are used.
In 2012, the classic Kunqu opera "The Story of the West Chamber" was staged in Suzhou, Jiangsu.
Photo by Wang Jiankang issued by China News Agency
In the face of so many genres and types of stories formed by writers' works, the Western research system based on the history of literary genres and the study of case writers' works seems unable to handle it.
As a result, many self-contained literature materials can only be divided into different genres and writers’ works research: the history of novels focuses on The Biography of Yingying, a novel style; A large number of poems and prose with stories of the West Chamber as themes and allusions are included in the research scope of different styles and works of writers.
Because of this, the West Wing story genre cannot be observed, examined and systematically studied as a whole.
From this, it can be seen that without the actual situation of "China" and completely applying and copying "Western", it is impossible to finally solve the research problems with China's own characteristics.
China News Service reporter: How to solve the drawbacks caused by the Western academic paradigm to the study of ancient Chinese narrative literature?
Ning Jiayu:
The basic idea to solve the drawbacks of the Western academic paradigm should be from "Western style in the use of" back to "Chinese style with the West".
This "body" is the inherent form of Chinese narrative literature itself - the type of story, that is, from the Western paradigm of literary history and the study of writers' works, back to the ontology of the type of Chinese narrative literature story.
Although the story type is "Chinese style", "Western use" cannot be completely abandoned and excluded.
Because in terms of method, traditional critical research methods are still unable to solve the systematic and global research of the story type.
It is necessary to start from the actual research of the type of story and find a suitable method.
After years of exploration and thinking, the thematic approach in the field of Western folktale research has reference value.
The most distinctive feature of the story form of folk tales that use oral inheritance as a communication channel is the diversity and complexity of the story form due to the uncertainty of the content in the process of oral inheritance.
The decisive lever behind this feature is the vertical historical and cultural background and the horizontal regional cultural differences.
On the basis of comprehensively collecting and sorting out the types of folk tales, the theme study conducts all-round material collection and cultural motivation analysis on the types of case stories, and finds out the historical and cultural factors behind the various forms of folk tales.
Folk tale type and narrative literature story type are both narrative literature, which are very similar in content and form elements, and have the characteristics of "multiple interpretations of the same story" in the form of case story types.
These commonalities are the important theoretical basis for the thematics to be used in the study of ancient Chinese narrative literature story types.
In October 2018, the American Nuwa Story delegation came to Geng Village, Gaocheng District, Shijiazhuang City, Hebei Province, to exchange stories with the children of the village.
Photo by China News Agency reporter Zhai Yujia
Referring to the Western thematic approach, I think and construct a research method that overcomes the drawbacks of Western research paradigms and targets the types of Chinese narrative literature stories—Chinese Narrative Culturology.
The basic procedural steps include: first, explore and sort out the bases and categories of ancient Chinese narrative literature story types; second, select the types of stories with research value to carry out carpet-style, exhausting and fishing-style literature mining (regardless of style and carrier, without any Third, read and comb the related literature of the story type to find out the morphological similarities and differences of the story type in the process of vertical diachronic development and horizontal geographical spread; fourth, analyze and summarize all the morphological similarities and differences of the story type. The inherent historical, cultural and literary motives.
Although the method of Chinese narrative culturology refers to Western themes in terms of thinking, its object is the type of Chinese narrative literature, which constitutes a distinct Chinese subject characteristic.
At the same time, the philosophy and methods of his collection of documents and materials are also derived from the textual research of the Qianjia School of China.
The analysis of the similarities and differences of the types of stories and the motivations of history, culture and literature also share the common characteristics of Chinese and Western historical and cultural research methods.
Therefore, this method is more in line with the pattern of "Chinese body and western use".
Photo by China News Agency reporter Du Yang
China News Service reporter: What is the significance of Chinese narrative culture research, which is mainly based on story type research, for Chinese academics to return from the "West" to the "East"?
Ning Jiayu:
In the field of ancient Chinese narrative literature research, the disconnection and "inconsistency" between Western academic paradigms and Chinese research objects is not an isolated phenomenon.
Due to historical reasons, from the end of the 19th century to the beginning of the 20th century, the method paradigms of Chinese academia basically came from the West.
These Western approaches and paradigms have played an important role in changing the lack of overall disciplinary planning and rigorous logic in Chinese academics in the past, but the discrepancy between Western academic paradigms and their research objects in different disciplines is not an isolated problem.
When writing "History of Chinese Philosophy", Mr. Feng Youlan said that China did not have the word "philosophy" at all, and now, under the influence of the Western academic and cultural system, he must also write the history of philosophy.
Therefore, in accordance with the system framework and plate model of the history of Western philosophy, materials that conform to the framework plate of the history of Western philosophy were selected from the ancient Chinese classics and organized and presented.
Such a history of philosophy is a typical model of "Western style and Chinese use".
Its value is to make up for the lack of a history of philosophy in China that does not fully reflect the philosophical thoughts of the past dynasties and penetrate history.
How do these materials relate to the history of Chinese thought in past dynasties?
What is the pattern of Chinese thought history formed by them together with the selected materials?
These are important questions worth thinking about and exploring in the relationship between "Chinese" and "Western" in the field of intellectual history, and they are related to the return of the main body of China's academic system.
In view of this, there is an urgent need to unify the understanding of this issue in various disciplines, to rethink and position the entire Chinese academic subjectivity, and then to grasp it as an important aspect of cultural self-confidence.
(over)
Interviewee Profile:
Ning Jiayu, Ph.D. in literature, is now a talented professor and doctoral tutor of Nankai University.
Mainly engaged in the teaching and research of ancient Chinese literature and culture, the research fields mainly involve ancient Chinese classical novels (represented as "General Catalogue of Chinese Classical Novels"), ancient Chinese literature and culture (represented as "Wei Jin Shiren Personality Spirit"), Chinese Narrative Culturology (represented as the Index of Theme Types of Narrative Literary Stories in Pre-Tang Dynasty), etc.
He has undertaken many national and Ministry of Education projects, and his achievements have won many awards.
At present, he is the chief expert of the major project of the National Social Science Foundation of the "Quan Han, Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties" novels.