Xu Fuguan And Contemporary Taiwan Literature,Art,Ideology And Culture

Xu Fuguan is a distinguished scholar of Neo-Confucianism.Previous researches on Xu are mainly static studies focusing on his Neo-Confucianism,democratic political thoughts,aesthetic ideology and are less concerned with his local practice in Taiwan.As an important "public intellectual" in contemporary Taiwan,Xu participated in many controversies among ideological sphere and literature and art field in Taiwan from the 1950s to the 1970s,such as the debate with liberalists in the 1950s,the controversies of Chinese and Western culture and the debate of modern art in the early 1960s,and the controversies of native literature in the 1970s.These local practices have greatly promoted the shaping and evolution of Xu Fuguan’s literary thought of "art for life".At the same time,out of the ideal of Confucian moral humanism,he devoted himself to the cultural practice of Taiwan in the 1960s and edited Xueyi Weekly,trying to reverse the cultural atmosphere dominated by westernizers and modernists.Besides,Xu Fuguan had deep friendship with Yang Kui,Ye Rongzhong,Zhuang Chuisheng,Hong Yanqiu,Zhang Shenqie and other important writers and social and cultural activists during the Japanese occupation period in Taiwan.He also helped,encouraged and cultivated the young generation of Taiwan writers such as Yang Mu and Chen Yingzhen.These contacts helped him realize the national consciousness and the spirit of protest of Japanese occupation period Taiwan literature,and have more deep understanding of"Chinese culture in Taiwan" and gradually integrate into Taiwan’s "localization"movement against the trend of "Westernization".Xu began to observe problems from the perspective of "folk Confucianism",consciously distancing himself from the"official pseudo Confucianism" of the Kuomintang authorities who distorted the doctrine of Confucius and Mencius.At the same time,he had a serious introspection and criticism on the western cultural colonialism and was deeply anxious of western society’s spiritual enslavement in Taiwan in the 1960s.During the debate on native literature in 1977,Xu Fuguan dissolved a seemingly imminent political repression into invisibility with Hu Qiuyuan,Zheng Xuejia and others who supported native literature writers.Xu Fuguan influenced and changed many liberalists’ prejudice against Confucianism,especially the cultural turn of Yin Haiguang in his later years as well as Yin’s students.His position of "folk Confucianism" also inspired Chen Zhaoying,Huang Junjie and other younger Confucian scholars.During his 14 years in the Chinese Department of Donghai University,he criticized the Kuomintang politicalized education and supported classical education in the debate with westernizers.Besides,he carried out personality education personally,achieving the continuity of "human to human" in the cultivation of the humanistic spirit of the next generation.Xu Fuguan’s social practice in Taiwan is an important part of Taiwan’s literary history and ideological history,and also an important driving force of Taiwan’s localization movement which differs from the later "Taiwan independence" movement.All these are worth sorting out in detail.The paper also discusses an issue that Xu Fuguan rejected the modernist movement in the 1960s,while he supported young writers of native literature in the 1970s.This issue will constitute an important clue of this paper.This paper will try to explain the shaping and development of Xu Fuguan’s Confucian literary view of "art for life" and its relevance with literature ideological trend in Taiwan.Therefore,the paper will explore Xu Fuguan’s spiritual world using the way of "chasing experience" as Xu Fuguan said,systematically investigate Xu’s social practice in Taiwan and break through the boundary between literary history and ideological history combining dynamic research and static research so as to have a richer and comprehensive understanding of the contemporary Taiwan literature and art ideological trend.