Abstract
A significant group of modern Chinese literary intellectuals became enlightened by Western literary modernism due to the importation and translation of Western theories, literary, philosophical, and psychoanalytical. For example, Virginia Woolf’s stream-of-consciousness narrative form, which reflected the effects of the First World War and the development of psychological studies of the time, not only served as a marker of Western modernist novels but also inspired many modern Chinese writers in the second half of the twentieth century. Existing research has for a long time investigated the way Western literary modernism founded the modern Chinese novel. This chapter benefits from previous studies but argues that the case of Fei Ming should have a better place in this history of global modernism and that of world literature. Specifically, Fei Ming spontaneously started what Wu Xiaodong called “poetic fiction” without knowing the experiment of “stream of consciousness” used by Woolf in her own place and time. The two writers shared remarkable similarities in terms of their respective literary style, even if they were referred to by different names. The purpose of this study is threefold. First, it explains the relationship between modernity and the aesthetic transformation that Woolf and Fei Ming, in their own cultural literary fields, experienced and facilitated. Second, it compares Woolf’s To the Lighthouse with Fei Ming’s Bridge to reveal the similarities in their stream-of-consciousness process. Third, it exposes the distinct Chinese characteristics of Fei Ming’s stream of consciousness, which made him stand out from his Western counterparts when evaluated from the perspective of world literature. Considering Fei Ming’s extensive influence on modern Chinese writers, especially those belonging to Jingpai Literary School, Fei Ming’s distinct literary style should have a span of influence wider than it now has as it evidences Chinese modernist literature’s unique contribution to global literary modernism.
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- 1.
Before 27th September 1949, the current city Beijing was named as Beiping.
- 2.
Lu Xun’s acquaintance with Freud’s literary views was mainly through the Japanese theorist Kuriyagawa. In fact, Lu Xun’s introductions and translations of Kuriyagawa also facilitated the emergence and development of stream-of-consciousness fiction in the Chinese literary arena. His Madman’s Diary brought forth the interior world of the madman and rendered exterior time and action secondary. Moreover, the free use of flashbacks, parentheses, and textual excursus disjointed the traditional protocol of fiction writing.
- 3.
Guo Moruo’s stream-of-consciousness fiction Can Chun殘春 was published in 1922, and Yu Dafu often used psychoanalysis in his literary works.
- 4.
The term “Jingpai” refers to the modern Chinese writers who remained in northern China, as the main literary circle had moved to Shanghai in the 1920s and 1930s. This was not a voluntary literary group initiated officially by any specific writer. Rather, the term emerged first in a debate launched by Shen Congwen. In October 1933, Shen published the article “The Attitude of Artists,” in which he satirized the group of artists who enjoyed fancying themselves as uninhibited idlers and paid more attention to the broadcasting of their works rather than their actual contents. Although Shen didn’t limit his list of dandyish artists to those in Shanghai, for the writers who then lived in Shanghai, they believed that it was them whom Shen was truly attacking. Therefore, they immediately responded by publishing articles that criticized those still living in Beijing. On January 1, 1934, Shen published another article, “Views on Haipai.” This time, he specifically defined the term “Haipai,” which later on gave birth to the term Jingpai, as a literary group whose principle was mainstream ideology. Hence, the writers who lived in Beijing and Shanghai received the collective names of Jingpai and Haipai, respectively, primarily due to the proximity of their geographic locations to these cities, and then their two separate literary principles. Jingpai writers’ literary principle of detaching literature from political combats and focusing on life itself, along with their insistence on the freedom of literature and their refusal to commercialize literature, situated them opposite of both left-wing writers and Haipai writers. One could even argue that it was in the rebellion against mainstream ideology, in the debate with Haipai and the Left-wing League, that Jingpai was really constituted (Li, 2008: 33).
- 5.
It is necessary to point out here that writers of both the Jingpai and Haipai literary groups paid attention to psychoanalytical fiction. Specifically, representatives of Haipai, such as “Liu Naou, Shi Zhecun, Mu Shiying, and other so-called ‘New Sensationalists’ received Freudianism simultaneously through European and Japanese sources and applied it creatively to their own writings” (Wang N., 2013: 9). Due to the limitation of the length of the paper and for more relevance, I will only examine the Jingpai writers’ association with psychoanalysis in this paper.
- 6.
Actually, before Feng went to Peking University, he had already written several letters to Zhou (roughly from November 1921 to 1922), attaching his own poems. However, he did not meet Zhou in person until he went to the university.
- 7.
Such as Lu Xun and Hu Shi. Mei Jie had found records indicating that Feng used to send a letter to Hu. In this letter, Feng claimed that he had read Hu’s experimental poems many times and found them very inspiring. As for Lu, in one of the letters Feng sent to Zhou, he mentioned that he was thrilled when he had learned that Lu was Zhou’s brother. Moreover, Feng attempted to visit Lu in 1923. Unfortunately, Lu was not at home that day and Feng’s visit only left a mark in Lu’s diary: “Feng Wenbing came today, not seen” (Mei, 2013: 86).
- 8.
This circle did not officially exist. Here, I use it to refer to a group of friends centered on Zhou. In fact, they were also the major members of the Jingpai Literary School, including Yu Pingbo, Bing Xin, Zhu Guangqian, Liang Zongdai, Bian Zhilin, He Qifang, Li Guangtian, etc.
- 9.
Here, “the stones on the ground” refer to stones in reality, a geological matter.
- 10.
Bridge has 51 chapters and each chapter has a different title, normally after a place name or time term.
- 11.
This is a relative incorrectness based on the modern Chinese grammar system that has incorporated the English grammar system. In general, the rules for Chinese idiomatic expressions are much looser than those for English expressions.
- 12.
This word might be somewhat inaccurate since Fei Ming was born in Huangmei, the birthplace of Chinese Zen, and was brought up in an environment filled with Buddhist influences. He wrote a specific work related to Buddhism in order to refute some Buddhist-related issues that appeared in a book by Xiong Shili, a philosopher in modern China.
- 13.
Fei Ming’s idea of completeness might have come from his expertise in Buddhism. In his theoretical work on Buddhism, he clearly professed his pursuit of the status of completeness (Fei, Thoughts on Alaya-Vijñāna, 1994).
- 14.
Shi, the transliteration of Sanskrit vijñāna, or in Chinese, 识, is a Buddhist concept. According to Fei Ming’s theoretical work on alaya-vijñāna, there are eight Shi in total in Vijñāptimātratāsiddhi (Theory of Consciousness-Only). The first five Shis are eye, ear, nose, tongue, and body, the sixth shi is mano-vijñāna, the seventh is manas-vijñāna, and the last one is alaya-vijñāna.
- 15.
The original Chinese text is 橋下水流嗚咽.
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Wang, F. (2020). A Comparative Study of Stream of Consciousness: Fei Ming and Virginia Woolf. In: Chan, K.K.Y., Lau, C.S.G. (eds) Chinese Culture in the 21st Century and its Global Dimensions. Chinese Culture, vol 2. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-2743-2_2
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