The Chinese Political Novel: Migration of a World Genre

Abstract

This book illuminates the “steep, short and international career” of the political novel as a “world genre” between the 1830s and the first decade of the twentieth century (1). Situating Chinese political novels written during the decade of “Reform of Governance” (xinzheng 新政) from 1900 to 1911 as explicit parts of this world genre, Catherine Vance Yeh highlights the processes of transcultural interaction that allowed these texts to flourish and emphasizes that “transcultural nature is not marginal but essential to this genre” (14). Guided by the premise that “transcultural interaction is not a recent phenomenon but the lifeline of culture altogether” (7), Yeh utilizes an approach that critically differs from established comparative literature practice in that she does not simply engage in comparisons of textual samples but instead considers the ways in which different authors, writing in their particular contexts and languages, create local configurations of a world genre that remain closely tied to particular political realities. Throughout her study, Yeh explores several interrelated questions. First, how can one define the identity of a “world genre” like the political novel? Does it maintain its identity as it crosses borders, and how is this done? What are the dynamics of translingual and transcultural appropriation of its forms? Where is the agency in these dynamics? What is the relationship between political and literary considerations in the writing and reading of these novels? And what has been the impact of this type of advocacy fiction in different cultural, social, and political milieus? A substantial contribution to the field of transcultural studies as well as Chinese literary scholarship, this book engages ideas and methodological tools set forth by Pascale Casanova, Franco Moretti, David Damrosch, and others to sketch the outlines and dynamics of “literature as interconnected strands in a world literature” (5). It is also an important resource because it showcases a large number of texts from the late Qing, which further deepens our understanding of the diversity and creativity of literary imagination at this time.To trace the creative cultural hybridity that gave rise to the Chinese political novel during the late Qing period, Yeh divides her book into two parts. In part 1, titled “The Formation of a World Genre: The Political Novel,” she defines the core features marking the identity of the genre through a literary and political analysis of key works. While tracing the formation and development of the political novel, she asks how stable the conventions of the genre were as it moved across borders via translation and became adapted and reimagined in different cultural, social, and political contexts. In part 2, titled “Bringing the World Home: The Political Novel in China,” Yeh closely examines the migration of literary forms, the formation of a new public sphere during the era of “Reform of Governance,” the role of women in New China, the search for new heroes, and finally, the significance of a uniquely Chinese contribution to the genre: the wedge chapter. The book is based on a wealth of research and insightful readings of a multitude of sources. It also features a variety of visual images that illustrate the author's analyses.In chapter 1, “Forming the Core,” Yeh begins by introducing the reader to Benjamin Disraeli's (1804–81) Young England trilogy, comprising the novels Coningsby (1844), Sybil (1845), and Tancred (1847). Identifying Coningsby as the very first political novel by means of which Disraeli hoped to “create public opinion instead of following it” (16), Yeh presents a fully contextualized reading of the statesman's writings, which introduced a new idealized protagonist: the young man as a political reformer. Yeh's reading shows that the novel's action hinges on the main character, who perceives that the nation is in crisis. At the same time, “the hero embodies and lives out the contradictions of the time, searching as a reformer for principles worth preserving and formulating the new political program for the country's future” (22). She also underscores other key literary features of the text: the plot is set in present time; the places are real urban localities in the modern world; contemporary political problems provide the time frame; and the bildungsroman motif of travel in pursuit of truth and knowledge is both a powerful image and a role model for actual behavior. In the balance of the chapter Yeh examines key examples of the political novel in Italy, the United States, and the Philippines. In each case, she brings new elements of the political novel to the foreground.In chapter 2, titled “Global Migration: The Far East,” Yeh examines the migration of the political novel to East Asia in the late nineteenth century, which, she notes, occurred for two reasons: first, the genre had shown its effectiveness as a political tool in Europe, and second, it had mobilized the public to participate in the struggle for political reform. Yeh's study in this chapter underscores that the Meiji Japanese political novel was directly and explicitly connected to English and French political novels and also featured a major and innovative contribution to the genre: the literary device of the miraiki (future record). This device, first fashioned by Suehiro Tetchō 末広鉄腸 (1849–96), was rooted in Japanese tradition but radically recast by newly translated texts during the 1870s. A new way of writing about the present from an imagined future, the miraiki frequently featured a narrator's time travel during a daydream and brings into focus the scientist literary device of looking back from the future to advance a particular point of view in the present. Yeh then proceeds to a discussion of the late Qing political novel (zhengzhi xiaoshuo 政治小說), and particularly how both Kang Youwei 康有為 (1858–1927) and Liang Qichao 梁啟超 (1873–1929) learned from Japanese writers that political novels had the potential to “transform the mentality of the people” (73). Throughout her careful readings of a multitude of sources, Yeh shows that Liang helped the genre cross over into a new language and political environment because he retained in his translations the features that were considered markers of the political novel, which coincide to a large degree with features found in the original Coningsby. Yeh also discusses other practitioners of the late Qing political novel, such as the writer Zheng Guangong 鄭貫公 (1880–1906), as well as the “career of the genre” in Korea and Vietnam.In chapter 3, “The Migration of Literary Forms: Transcultural Flow and the Japanese Model,” Yeh focuses on how precisely “literature migrates through form.” Interestingly, she argues here that the political novel can be credited with having established a new literary space in its migration from Europe to Asia (114). At the same time, the political novel adds a popular platform to “bring the world home” and to insert China into a world context. In this chapter Yeh presents readings of several texts to trace the evolution of stories as they move via translation from their points of origin in the West to Japan and on to late Qing China.In chapter 4, titled “‘Reform of Governance’ and the New Public Sphere,” Yeh asks this crucial question: How is the political novel situated within the reform of governance? By defining the context during which most late Qing political novels emerged, Yeh especially highlights the nature of the edicts issued in 1901 and 1906 and the ways in which authors of political novels responded by writing advocacy fiction. She emphasizes that authors of Chinese political novels brought about the true discovery of the public sphere and engaged discourses ranging from the need for constitutional reform to creating a new citizenry through science.In chapter 5, “Women and New China,” Yeh traces the evolution of new women heroines in late Qing political novels, such as “chaste women to save the nation” in Chen Xiaolu's 陳嘯盧 Xin jing hua yuan 新鏡花緣 (A New Flowers in the Mirror, 1908) and “women as civilized citizens” in Zhan Kai's 詹垲 (ca. 1860–ca. 1910) Zhongguo xin nühao 中國新女豪 (New Heroine for China, 1907) and Nüzi quan 女子權 (Women’s Rights, 1907). Her readings reveal that novels on women's education and emancipation show a strong and independent agency of society and the new media. Moving beyond the allegorical use of women characters to signal weaknesses of China in the world, they took up substantive women's issues, such as women's education, their political role, their economic contribution and independence, and marriage.Chapter 6, “In Search of New Heroes,” reveals that during the late Qing new heroic figures were called on to personify new ideas and ideals advocated by local reformers. Liang Qichao, for instance, believed that Western heroes could provide direct and immediately relevant role models for the reform of “national character” and the “renewal of the people.” Yeh shows that historical figures such as George Washington and Napoleon stand out as the most prominently discussed political heroes while the political leader, the Western scientist, the urban detective, and the revolutionary also came to the foreground in late Qing political novels.In chapter 7, “Beginning of the Beginning: The Wedge Chapter,” Yeh posits the wedge as “the place where the integration of the modern political novel into the Chinese cultural universe was negotiated” (347). It signifies both a use and transformation of a traditional form in that it lessened the unpredictability and openness of the new genre for the reader. The insertion of the wedge, a standard feature of traditional Chinese novels, served the purpose of bringing this foreign plot structure under local control. As Yeh shows, this led to a highly creative process of merging and blending to fit the wedge for this new purpose.