Chinese Narrotologies

Abstract

Fu Xiuyan has made a significant contribution to Chinese narratives, especially from the perspective of Chinese narrative tradition, whereas accomplished Chinese scholars such as Shen Dan and Zhao Yiheng both base their work mainly on Western narrative theories and works. Of Fu’s works on literary theories, two-thirds are on Chinese narrative origin and tradition. His Chinese Narratologies has aroused much attention among Chinese academics and was translated recently in 2021 by Professor Tang Weisheng, a scholar of narrative studies who once worked with James Phelan and has been dedicated to Narratology for years. Fu mentions, in the introduction, that Chinese current narrative studies benefit a lot from both Classical Narratology and post–Classical Narratology. The change from Narratology to Narratologies means that Narrotology has broken away from the singular linguistic model and gained new momentum by embracing “many methodologies and perspectives.”Talking about “Chinese Narratology” can easily give a false view that it amounts to trying to confront Western Narratology. And many may think that China does not have its own narrative tradition as a large number of Chinese scholars still engage in Western narrative studies.Then what is Chinese Narratology? Both Yang Yi, a Chinese scholar, and Andrew H. Plaks, a Western scholar, have written books on the topic. Yang Yi’s is Chinese Narratology and Plaks entitled his book Chinese Narrative. Neither of them has treated the topic as a self-contained discipline. Chinese Narratology as a self-contained field that takes “Chinese narrative” as its subject matter. It needs to be heard when many internationally renowned scholars come to China not just for spreading their theories, but also in the hope of learning more about Chinese narrative traditions. This exchange is the key in Fu’s version.Fu asks: “Does China have its own narrative tradition?” “Yes, Definitely,” he confirms. “Then why hasn’t it been proposed until recent years?” The reasons, Fu believes, on one hand, lie in the anxiety of influence from the West. The fact that many narrative studies in China are still by and largely undertaken with the framework offered by Western Narratology. The significance of the repeated studies by many Chinese scholars when they just focus on the Western theories should be doubted. On the other hand, China has its own tradition. In terms of narrative history, few Western countries can be compared to China. As the only remaining continuous civilization in the world, China has endured its storytelling culture for thousands of years from the first appearance of narrative, which could be traced back to the inscription on bones or tortoise shells of the Shang dynasty (16–11 century BC).Chinese Narratologies is likely to provide a horizon for those who try to have a view of Chinese narrative tradition, theories, and approaches. Western scholars have been drawn to know more about narrative traditions of China ever since 2007, after which six international conferences on Narratology were successfully organized in China. As the author argues, “Much in alignment with Post-classical Narratology which advocates an inclusive method, the integration of Chinese narratology into the Western narratology will make it more universal and closer to a ‘world literary theory’,” and shall be a task of both Chinese and Western scholars since “there are huge gaps such as language gap and time gap between modern China and the West” as Professor Xie Tianzhen mentioned.Fu attaches great importance to the study of narrative origin in his Chinese Narratologies, proposes new paradigms to break the existing notions, and incorporates Chinese local knowledge.By analyzing the relation between Ur-narrative and sun myth, Fu traces the Ur-narrative in the sun myth. Ur-narrative can be briefly defined as the earliest narrative about the movement of the sun. Ur-narrative has a far-reaching influence on the cognitive development of humans: the movement of the sun from east to west in the daytime and the imagined movement from west to east at night provided the deep structure and basic conflicts for the early human storytelling. From the sun’s cyclical movement arose the circle theory that brought people to presume that “the circle is valuable,” and Yi Jing (The Book of Change), a book also based on the circle theory, and all of these played a significant role in the development of narrative in later ages. By criticizing Northrop Frye’s otherwise impressive work on sun myth, Fu pins down the functions of Ur-narrative in the history of narrative development.Heather I. Sullivan finds the “Proto-Ecological model” in Goethe’s concept of nature. He defines the Proto-Ecological perspective as “a mapping out of the material interactions of all living and nonliving things, including the human, with much similarity to the complex web.” Fu advocates tracing the “Proto-Ecological Narrative” in Shan Hai Jing (The Book of Mountains and Seas) that presents a spatial picture of animals, plants, minerals, and monsters, and organizes them into a relatively orderly resource system. The ecological consciousness of “self in Self” permeates the whole book and its seemingly absurd stories reflect the interdependence and symbiosis of all things.Fu also traces Chinese narrative tradition back to the Pre-Qin Era, which exerts much influence on later narrative. The Pre-Qin Era had the capacity to keep record of kings’ words and saw a growing sense of storytelling and authorial subjectivity, leading to the improvement of the narrative forms and the increase of fictive elements in the narrative, which paved the way for the separation of literary narrative from historical accounts.Apart from the temporal origin of narrative, the author turns his attention to the Ante-narrative on bronze wares and on porcelain. The Bronze Age lasted for more than 1500 years. The “arch-writing” on bronze wares constituted the logical starting point of the Chinese narrative tradition. Through detailed discussion regarding the various categories of “lines/ornament,” “weave/knit,” “empty/full,” and “fear/joy,” the author attempts to analyze the inherent link between ante-narratives and later narratives in order to provide a new point of view for understanding the “genealogy” of the Chinese narrative tradition. The “brief text and short narrative” principle can be seen in both Shang Shu (The Book of History) and Chun Qiu (The Spring and Autumn Annals). The mode of brevity and simplification are also perfectly reflected on bronze wares. China has always been known as “the Country of Porcelain,” which has many tangible and intangible presences in narrative and culture.Chinese Narratologies focuses on analyzing Chinese classic works. Chapter 6 examines the conversion from deep structure to surface narrative structure in the four classic Chinese novels such as Dream of the Red Mansion, Journey to the West, Water Margin, and The Romance of the Three Kingdoms using a Levi-Strauss model, the concept of contractual function in Classical Narratology. Fu believes that under the surface narrative structure with a contradiction between the “big contract” and the “small contract,” there is a deep narrative structure with all the big contracts oriented toward orthodoxy (positive results, authenticity), and all the small toward unorthodoxy (heresy, heterodoxy), which is highly reflective of the profound psychological structure of Chinese ancients. Like the four novels, the four folktales, including The Folktale of the White Snake, Butterfly Lovers, Lady Meng Jiang (The Great Wall Down), and The Cowherd and the Weaver Girl also have their common deep structures. However, seeing the four folktales as an interdependent organic sequence is more significant and more easily understood. People used to trace the development of Chinese narrative from “prefiction to early fiction.” In fact, in the critical period of the development of Chinese narrative, the genre of Fu played a role more important than other genres and therefore deserves more attention than “prefiction” and even “early fiction.” Fu, a highly ornate rhymed prose featuring extremely elaborate description, is usually regarded as a kind of poetry. With its elaborate and detailed description, conversational structure, and the expression of aspirations in the “ending comments,” it has had a profound influence on prose narrative in later generations.Chinese Narratologies also explores new horizons from the narrative semantics of appearance description, the acoustic narrative and the Western “focalization” and Chinese “perspective.” A thorough understanding of the narrative semantics of appearance description requires the knowledge of the body and the relevant conventions in the specific cultural traditions of all ethnic groups in the world. Maupassant’s short story “Mademoiselle Fifi,” a Prussian officer nicknamed “Miss Fifi” has “dandified style and small waist, which looked as if he wore stays.” Yet no one can expect that it is this non-military-looking soldier who performs most abnormally. Lu Xun writes in his “Diary of a Madman” the people are savage as lions, timid as a rabbit, and crafty as a fox. The study of acoustic narrative arouses the readers’ acoustic sense in literary works with a special emphasis on the implication of acoustic space and feelings which are largely neglected in an era of “picture-reading” with a heavy reliance on visual perception. The author employs some sonic vocabulary such as Lincha (observation by hearing) instead of Guancha (observation by seeing) and Yinjing (soundscape) in place of Tujing (landscape) to analyze acoustic narrative. The word “perspective” is more commonly used and more compatible than the word “Focalization” (a hot word from Western Narratology) when it comes to analyze the Chinese literary works. The differentiation between perspective and focalization helps the scholars home and abroad to have a better understanding of the “cavalier perspective” in Chinese culture and the “focus perspective” in Western culture.From the perspectives of Chinese local culture, Crane-Fairy Tales and Xu Xun Legend are indispensable for Chinese Narratologies. Poyang Lake, the largest freshwater lake in China, provides rich sources of tales like Xu Xun Legend and the crane-fairy tales. Though there are parallels of crane-fairy tales (swan-maiden tales in North Europe, Asia, and Africa) on a global scale, the exploration of the origin and creation of local-based crane-fairy tales seems rather necessary and possible.In short, Fu’s Chinese Narratologies provides a panoramic view of Chinese narrative traditions from the perspectives of Ur-narrative, Proto-ecological narrative, narrative in Pre-Qin era, Ante-narrative on wares (bronze and porcelain), the surface and deep structures in Chinese classic and folk works, the acoustic narrative and Chinese local culture, and the like. This is an important book for those in China and internationally who have a research interest in narrative and narratology and who wish to learn in a comparative and world context in literature in practice and theory.