Literary Language As Politics

The focus of literary language reform in early 20th century was on the conflict between classical Chinese and vernacular Chinese, which in fact began in Tang Dynasty and ended in 1930s with the triumph of"the masses'language movement"over"classical Chinese Renaissance". As the subject of my study, the practice of literary language movement in over one thousand years was more than the continuity and the mechanical repetition of the conflict in time, but a political allegory, a conflict between different classes and a evolution of political ideology. This allegorical interpretation originated from Fredric Jameson's Political Unconscious theory. Based on the theory, I historicized the conflict and discovered the relations between literary language reform in early 20th century and political ideology in order to demonstrate that literary texts are ideology of form composed of ideologeme of different classes and literary language is always controlled by the current leading ideology, is always a political event and a display of political unconsciousness.The theory of the paper stemmed from Fredric Jameson's Political Unconsciousness, from which I discussed the inter-relation between language, literature and politics and believed that each literary text was a close linguistic structure, which is ideological and is reflected in the form of political allegory. Only reading with James'theory can we obtain this result. After analyzing the Political Unconsciousness by James and interpreting the aesthetics and ideology of literature by Althusser, I indicated that language ,literature and politics are an organic unity, which is the foundation of my discussion about the literary language reform in early 20th century .In the following chapter, I searched for the origin of this reform, the reasons for the contrast of classical Chinese and vernacular Chinese and its presentation. After making the conflict of classical Chinese and vernacular Chinese the focus of literary language reform in early 20th century, the co-existence of classical Chinese and vernacular Chinese in Tang Dynasty without no doubt became the origin of this reform and the development of literary from late Tang to late Qing as a whole was the background of it. Controlled by the difference of classical and folk literature, classical Chinese and vernacular Chinese were contrasted and became the symbols of two different classes: classical Chinese was the patent of the leading class, vernacular Chinese was used by lower people. The use of different variations of the same language became a political issue and naturally the variations were politicalized. As the evolution of social ideology and change of viewpoint towards literature, classical literature slowly merged with folk literature. Classical Chinese mixed with vernacular Chinese in some literary texts was the sign of this merger and the intertext between classical literature and vernacular literature was a hint of this trend. This compromise of these two variations resulted from the control over the language by political ideology.This reform was divided into two periods by"the vernacular Chinese movement"and"New Literature Movement". In the first period, the ideas of literary language advanced by Hong Xiuquan, Huang Zunxian, Qiu Tingliang and Liang Qichao etc. , especially Liang's theories about"Poem Reform","Poetry Reform", and"Novel Reform", and his practice in these fields showed that this movement in fact a open political fight between classical Chinese and vernacular Chinese. In particular, the appearance of vernacular Chinese paper, the advocacy of unity between written and spoken Chinese. Latinalization of Chinese Character, Chinese Movement and prosperity of novels in early 20th century were just the illusion of political movements. The conflict and hierarchy between classical Chinese and vernacular Chinese still existed though vernacular Chinese was confirmed as the literary language.I regarded the New Literary Movement as a deeply political metaphor in three aspects: ideas about vernacular Chinese, editing Chinese Literature and ideological revolution. First, ideology slipped into this language argument when the nature of vernacular Chinese was ascertained in Hu Shi and Zhou Zuoren's words. Second, the editing of Vernacular Chinese Literature, which was told in political allegory from its revolutionary spirit and folk's tendency, was indeed a political movement. Guided by"Revaluing all things", the History of Vernacular Chinese Literature concluded that Vernacular Chinese Literature was the true origin of Chinese Literature so that it overturned thousands of years'Chinese literature and cultural tradition. It reflected the sharp change in literary ideas, viewpoints of thoughts and ideology. Last, language revolution virtually was a revolution of ideas. New Literary Movement brought about a modern change in ideas : western ideas of democracy, freedom and equality, like the ideas of"human literature"and"masses'literature", was well expressed in Vernacular Chinese Literature .Masses'Language Movement carried on the literary language reform. In 1930s, three discusses about the Popularization of Literature and Arts were made, the first two of which were taken among Left-wing intellectuals, Qu Qiubai as their leader ; the last was widespread all through the fields of education and culture. The core of the three discuss was the relationship between literature and masses, getting entangled with politics. Qu Qiubai defined this conflict as a cultural and literary revolution under the leadership of the new class, maintaining that Putonghua of the new class should replace Vernacular Chinese in"May Fourth Period"in order to eliminate feudal and bourgeois ideology, so did Chen Zizhan and Chen Wangdao in their advocacy. In their vision of language evolution, classical Chinese, vernacular Chinese and masses'language are respectively opposed to feudal nobles, the capitalist class and the proletariat and literary language reform was described as a class struggle.In conclusion, literary language exists as politics, both literary and political. Hence, literary language reform in early 20th century resulted from the practice of political ideology.