The Research On Martin Kern's Early Chinese Literature, Beginnings Through Western Han

In 2010,The Cambridge History of Chinese Literature,a significant work of the history of literature written by sinologists,was officially published.It vividly reflected the application of western contemporary academic concepts in Chinese literature and brought new perspectives,materials,methods and opinions to Chinese researches.The Cambridge History of Chinese Literature is a collective work completed by different authors and each chapter of it has different academic style.Therefore this thesis intends to study Martin Kern's “Early Chinese literature,beginnings through Western Han”.Here are the two research questions of this thesis:Firstly,Kern's history of Chinese literature provided reference to the history of Chinese literature.Based on the study of early Chinese literature history in Western cultural context,Kern provided new perspectives and writing modes: he emphasized the significance of “suspicion” and attached importance to unearthed literature and interdisciplinary research method;he created Pre-Qin Dynasty-Western Han periodization method;he put forward that bronze inscriptions are written by a group of official historians and Western Han reconstructed the early texts in a large scale;he stressed the characteristics of Chinese characters,the “unique” function of material culture and the “continuous” characteristics in literary style and works;he highlighted the writing style which involved subjectivity and story.Kern's writing style broke the traditional mode of researches and writing in the history of Chinese literature and added credibility,interests and creativity to it.Secondly,there are some controversial opinions in Kern's history of Chinese literature.From the perspective of cultural history and social history,Kern combined new,unpublished and unearthed literature to put forward a variety of subversive and controversial views: there were no existence of original texts of The Book of Songs,he was suspicious of the authenticity of Qu Yuan;he denied aristocratic culture in The Verse of Chu;“burning Confucian scholars' works” was a lore made by Han Dynasty and Han Confucians.These opinions,though are helpful to broaden the understanding of the history of Early Chinese literature,are in fact controversial due to their lack ofacademic accuracy.The research on Kern's history of Early Chinese literature is not intended to prove the superiority of Kern's study,but helps to deepen the understanding and comprehension of the compilation of the history of Chinese literature.Meanwhile,it is beneficial for us to reflect those limitations in the writing of the history of Chinese literature,in order to promote the construction of the discipline of the history of Chinese literature and to provide new horizons,perspectives and content for further study.