In my view as a I wrote in my old book, Lu Xun is full of paradoxes,

full of innovations, and full of ironies.

He's certainly not your naive Chinese writer who hopes

to awaken his people with one single work or one form of literature.

Rather he is always torn between hope and despair.

But eventually, because he had written many, many volumes of works,

stories, prose poems, essays, I think we can finally come to the verdict that,

precisely because of this corpus of his work, hope has won out.

In other words, despair does not degenerate into nihilism,

into nothingness.

At least we have his written word.

Well it now sounds a little philosophical but let's leave it at that.

But I want to go back in line with the sort of thread of this course, to

his own rather difficult and paradoxical entanglement with Chinese tradition.

Form is one aspect of it, the other interesting aspect, also related form,

is Lu Xun's penchant in writing poetry in a classical style.

That is even more revealing of Lu Xun's own tormented psyche,

because on the one hand he writes short stories in the modern vernacular.

On the other hand,

he still continues the old tradition of writing poetry in classical.

Why not write something even in another language as his contemporaries were doing?

Lu Xun detests modern poetry written by his contemporaries,

in fact, he wrote a few dog rules satirizing their work.

Actually, I think Lu Xun cherished a very deep fondness for

the form of classical Chinese poetry.

For one thing, it is mostly succinct.

It is full of imagery and poetic power.

We may recall that famous Song dynasty poet and essayist, Su Dongpo.

Who writes all forms of Chinese poetry effortlessly, naturally,

as his mentality blends with the beauties and the references of nature.

Lu Xun uses classical Chinese poetry in a more deep and

paradoxical way, because he knows fully well that his contemporaries

are experimenting with the modern vernacular form of story and poetry.

Let's try to use one example

to see how Lu Xun uses classical Chinese,

to portray a modern sensibility, namely his own.

This is probably the most famous poem Lu Xun has ever written, because for

one thing Chairman Mao has canonized it by quoting two lines from it.

This is called, in original title, Self-Mockery, or [FOREIGN].

Let's read the English translation, a very good one by Jon Kowallis.

What's to be done under ill-boding stars with such a change of luck.

Before I'd even dared rise up, my head already struck!

A worn-out hat to cover my face, I cross the busy marketplace:

In a leaky boat loaded with wine, 'mid torrent float as though supine.

Eyes askance, I cast a gold glance at the thousand pointing fingers; But

bowing my heard, I gladly agree, an ox for the children to be.

In a little garret hidden away, I make my bid

at unite; Of outside climes,

why care at all- be it winter, summer, spring or fall.

If you pay close attention to the first lines of the poem,

you can see that in fact, Lu Xun is giving a self-portrait.

And it is a portrait of bad luck.

He makes very, very clever and

very subtle reference to the classic scene of lyricism.

In fact, first immortalized by Su Dongpo himself.

In that famous Radcliffe poem, that we talked about in my lecture, Free.

Let me read these two lines again, to see whether you can still recall a similar,

or shall we say, earlier example of a typical lyrical scene.

I think it's the same scene, but with different cadences.

A worn hat to cover my face, I crossed the busy marketplace.

Now here we go.

In a leaky boat loaded with wine, 'mid torn float as though supine.

Here, the point, probably alone,

is also floating, most likely not drunk,

or in a happy inebriated state, in a leaky boat.

In other words, the boat is gonna sink.

So here, the torrent, of course, becomes metaphorical.

It refers to the torrents of politics, society,

the dark forces, etcetera, etcetera.

So, politically, the poem becomes self mockery, because of political pressure,

or Lu Xun's feeling about the pressures of his society.

So he uses classical Chinese references and

turn them around into something new and even more personal.

So lyricism was a twist, if you like.

I also read the first couple of lines, just before these two lines.

I wore no hat to cover my face.

I crossed a busy marketplace.

These lies seem to be very commonplace, but a worn out hat.

Why a worn out hat?

Some scholars say that Lu Xun in fact,

always wore a worn out hat but why not just a hat?

So the worn out hat and then across a marketplace.

I think the two lines conjure up another remote

reference to the [FOREIGN] in fact [FOREIGN].

So Lu Xun I think, putting some Western modern elements into

his classical Chinese poetry, thereby creating a paradoxical tension.

The first two lines and

the following two lines in fact are in tension to each other.

Which constitute a very, very remarkable feat.

I maybe over doing it, but let's say that if we come down to the very last

two lines everybody can see that Lu Xun's mood at that point was to hide.

Hide into his own garret, into his study,

if you like, from the tumult of the age.

Be it winter, summer, spring, or fall.

Maybe the spring and fall in Chinese has a twist of a metaphor

in that as well, namely, the Spring and Autumn Annals.

Some scholars agree, some disagree, it doesn't matter.

In other words, he's trying to get away from the orthodox,

the history of orthodox tradition, of Chinese culture.

If I may, I want to use another example to show Lu Xun's creativity

as a modern writer, again with references to classical Chinese culture.

This is his prose poem called, The Shadow's Leave-taking.

This is one of the most famous poems in a slim collection called, Wild Grass.

The narrative is very simple, but the allegorical content is more important.

It is basically about a shadow talking to the self, or

the poet's self, saying that I want to leave you.

Now here is what the shadow says, Friend,

I will no longer follow you; I do not want to stay here.

I do not want to!

I would rather wander into nothingness.

I am only a shadow.

I shall leave you and sink into darkness.

Yet darkness will swallow me up and light also will cause me to vanish.

But I do not want to wander between light and shade.

I would rather sink into darkness.

So the last four lines, of course, again,

represent a paradox between light and darkness.

Which the shadow becomes the wanderer.

That's a very very interesting allegorical representation

of Lu Xun's mood in my view, yeah.

Well you look at this again since I made reference to an issue.

You can find the same references in Nietzsche's [FOREIGN].

In which the shadow is talking to [FOREIGN] in fact, saying that I've

been following you, I've been very tired, I want to leave you.

And [FOREIGN] basically says, okay, you can leave me.

You can go to the mountains and have a rest.

But of course, it is much more poetical than that.

I have this book here.

Interested readers can really find references to [FOREIGN].

So again, we know that he borrowed from [FOREIGN] in form.

He probably borrowed some sentiment from Nietzsche.

But I would contend that this setup of the person and

his shadow comes essentially from classical Chinese sources.

Particularly from Lu Xun's favorite classical author Dong Su the Taoist poet.

In one part of Dong Su, in fact there is a dialog between the shadow and

the power of darkness.

In which the power of darkness is addressing the shadow as series of

paradoxical questions.

Although now tradition has been inherited by other Chinese poets.

I've been told that another famous poet that Su Dongpo worshiped,

Pao Yung Ming wrote three poems about the shadow,

the spirit, and the self, or something to that effect.

So this kind of split personality, or split representation,

imported form of a very subjective mood is both old and new.

But Lu Xun has made some thing old into something new by the careful and

clever display of parallels and tangents.

We can find similar examples in other prose poems, but

I don't think I have time for that.

So let me just move on to other parts of my lecture.

Part 2

Classics of Chinese Humanities: Guided Readings

与讲师见面