Liang Shiqiu And Western Literature

Liang Shiqiu’s academic career was always closely associated with western literature, from his criticism on the Chinese new verses in 1922 to the "History of British Literature" published in 1985. On one hand, he set up his own system of literary theory under the influence of western literature. On the other hand, he studied and translated it as a profession all his life. We can explore his literary thoughts and evaluate his gain and loss on literary criticism objectively and comprehensively, on perspective of "Liang Shiqiu and Western Literature".Chapter One reveals the relationship between Liang Shiqiu’s literary thoughts and the view of western literacy criticism. The improvement of Liang’s spiritual growth was closely related to western literature, as most litterateurs in the early twentieth century. Liang Shiqiu wasn’t a classicist when he was a student in Qinghua School. At that time, he attached great importance to self-consciousness in literary works, which met the spiritual situation of age. Byron, Wordsworth, Shelley and Rousseau were his idols. However, when he come back from the United States after finishing his study in 1926, his view of literature and art had changed a lot. He pointed that there was a "Romantic chaos" in modern Chinese literature, with a classical standard. After 1928, the focus of his criticism transferred to Revolutionary Literature, negating the standard of class character instead of common humanity. So to speak, Liang Shiqiu was a critic who was always protesting the epochal topic in Chinese modern literary circles.Although it wasn’t an overnight process from a romanticist to a classicist, there was no doubt that Irving Babbitt’s theory of humanism made Liang Shiqiu change suddenly. He pointed the drawbacks in modern Chinese literature, compared with western classical literary tradition. He only noticed the extremes grindingly and V analyzed no specific writers’ works, which made his viewpoints superficial and harsh. He not only criticized the mistakes in modern Chinese literature, but also negated the value of classical Chinese literature. In his opinion, romantic Taoist literature was the main current in classical Chinese literature and Confucian culture was unfit to the development of literature. It is not difficult to find the mistakes of Liang’s points, if we know a bit about classical Chinese literature. Liang Shiqiu cancelled the existence of problem that how to sublate traditional culture and literature with the period of social transition and literary innovation. After 1928, Liang Shiqiu’s criticism to Revolutionary Literature could be seen as a continuation of the criticism to romantic literature, reiterating the request of common humanity and people’s reason. On the other side, due to the object of criticism had changed, Liang adjusted the emphasis of his literary theory. He continuously emphasized that literature had its own value and position, as against the way of regarding literature as a propaganda tool. He affirmed the historical value of genius, as against the popular route of Proletarian literature. In fact, the emphasis of common humanity and the sense of elite were not mutually exclusive at all times."Humanity" "reason" and "morality" were not only modified by each other, but also mutually premised in Liang Shiqiu’s theorietical system of art and literature. They could be replaced by each other in some specific expressions, which sometimes entered a trap of circular. Liang Shiqiu believed that the essence of literary criticism was "judgment", which embodied the spirit of classical criticism. He accepted the concept of "arbitral criticism", and criticized the romantic impressionistic criticism and the scientific critical methods in the late nineteenth Century. He ignored other standards, especially the aesthetic standard, bringing about the nonliterary tendency of literature. Although he had rich knowledge and solid logical disciplines, Liang Shiqiu was narrow-minded when judging the value of literature.Chapter Two evaluates and analyses Liang Shiqiu’s researches on western literary theory. Chinese modern western literary theory researches focused on the contemporary western literature and new trends of thoughts, and tried to depict the overall trend and the basic law of the development of the western literary ideas, paying no attention to the analysis of the specific literary critics. Liang Shiqiu focused on the classical tradition of Western literature. He studied most western literary critics before the twentieth century. He emphasized that the factors of the development and change of motivation come from the development of literature itself, paying no attention to the influence of external factors. Following nature or self-expression, emphasizing ration or emotion, attaching more importance to the ethical values or sensual pleasure were the laws he judged the western literary critics.Some western critics were Liang Shiqiu’s teachers and friends, whose literary thoughts brought some illumination and theoretical support to his literary viewpoints. Aristotle’s thoery that literature and art were the description of what may happen, was an explanation of Liang’s "Common Humanity". Samuel Johnson who both broke the discipline of the neoclassicism and resisted the coming trend of romanticism, was a model of classicists in Liang’s opinion. Liang defined literature as "the criticism of life", inspired by Matthew Arnold’s relevant viewpoints. If we compare Liang Shiqiu’s literary thoughts with Irving Babbitt’s, we can find the similarities between them. But oversimplification and radicalization appeared because of the impulse of establishing standards, especially without the background of western intellectual history.Chapter Three analyses Liang Shiqiu’s achievements in literary translation. Liang selected his translating object, regardless of the political value and the social effect of the time, different from some translators like Lu Xun and Zheng Zhenduo. Some people felt that translating Shakespeare’s works was inappropriate in 1920 s and 1930 s. But in Liang’s opinion, Shakespeare’s works possessed enduring value, because they reflected the universal human nature. Liang not only objected to translating part of the original works, but also disagreed that some one translated from another translation instead of the original work. He supported the literal translation, meanwhile he criticized the rigid translation which made readers feel awkward and dizzy. He followed the principle of faithfulness when he translated collective works of Shakespeare, which made his translation short of literary grace. We can know about his advantages and disadvantages in depth, compared with Zhu Shenghao, Sun Dayu, Fang Ping, Tu An and Ying Ruocheng’s versions. The mass of explanatory notes in his translation introduced western allusions and cultural customs, studied the version and discussed how to choose the sentence structures and certain linguistic patterns. He also researched the source of the story, introduced the performance and stage and talked about the researches of Shakespeare in the West in every preface. So his translation can be called "a scholar’s version".Chapter Four focuses on Liang Shiqiu’s western literature studies. He was the critic who published most Shakespeare critical articles with high level in 1930 s when Chinese Shakespeare criticism was just in early stages. Liang Shiqiu didn’t regard the literary works as the footnotes of his literary thoughts as usual and broke through the stereotypes when he studied Shakespeare. He analyzed comprehensively and profoundly both the forms and the contents, both moral mean and artistic charm in Shakespeare’s works. He studied the works themselves on the side of academic theory, when the realistic criticism on Shakespeare represented by Mao Dun become the main current in China.In 1985, Liang Shiqiu published the three volumes of "History of British Literature" at the age of eighty-two. He took notice of the influence of various factors when he clarified the development in English Literature. He put a lot of effort on fact sections, which showed a scholar’s profound knowledge and rigorous style. Although personal vision was difficult to avoid, his theory come from the history instead of telling history under the existing concept. The history was not written for explaining his literary thoughts, so the three volumes of "History of British Literature" showed Liang’s holistic and historicist conception. Those romantic writers he criticized a lot previously were be treated fairly. Although he didn’t try to publish his criticism on writers and works, his wide vision as an expert on literary criticism and comparative literature could help us understand the facts better from a broader field.On the whole, There was obvious flaws in Liang Shiqiu’s classical literary system which was influenced by Irving Babbitt’s theory of humanism. He also published many wise ideas and thoughts ahead of time. He always emphasized the independence of literature and the academic standards in literary studies, which not only reflected his historical value, but also showed the independent personality of an intellectual.