World Literature and Modern Chinese Fiction* #

LIN Xiaoxia

Abstract:Goethe’s “invention” of Weltliteratur in the late 1820s helped shape a post-Napoleonic world.The revival of world literature has now become another cutting-edge theoretical topic on which both eminent Western and Eastern scholars are focusing today.Although scholars often debate globalization’s favorable or unfavorable impact on the development of comparative literature,as if it were a preexisting entity inflected by a changing cultural environment,this paper contends that the globalization of material,cultural,and intellectual production,followed by the dissolution of Eurocentrism and “West-centrism” and by the rise of Eastern culture and literature,has assisted the development of world literature in the context of globalization.Moreover,taking diaspora intellectuals Eric Auerbach,Edward Said,and Ling Shuhua,for example,this paper also gives a general account of the development and relationship between world literature and modern Chinese fiction.

Keywords:world literature; modern Chinese fiction; Erich Auerbach; Edward Said; Ling Shuhua

Goethe’s “invention” ofWeltliteraturin the late 1820s helped shape a post-Napoleonic world.The continuing division of the German “nation” in numerous small kingdoms led Goethe to search for the higher aggregate of a “world literature.” We know that some works,such as Homer’s epics,Dante’sDivine Comedy,Hamlet,Don Quixote,andFaustbelong to world literature,while some other works do not.For Goethe,to build a stable,inclusive,and inherently strong national identity,it is important to transcend national identity and ideology.In his conversation with J.P.Eckermann (1792–1854) on January 31,1827,Goethe began by speaking of the influence of the British writer Samuel Richardson on his work,but before long he came back to Chinese novels and manners,emphasizing how morally elevated the Chinese novel was.Eckermann was surprised again:

Eckermann:“Isn’t it strange that the works of this Chinese writer are so morally elevated while those of the foremost poet of France ［Pierre-Jean de Béranger］ aren’t?”

Goethe:“I suppose you’re right,” ［...］

Eckermann:“Nothing could be further from the truth.The Chinese have thousands of them and had them when our ancestors were still living in the tree.”1Johann Peter Eckermann,Gespr?che mit Goethe in den letzten Jahren seines Lebens (Leipzig:Brockhaus,1837),324.

On that day,Goethe compared the Chinese legend with Pierre-Jean de Béranger’s poetry,and used the term “general world literature” when referring to the universal value of poetry and world literature.Faced with Eckermann’s obstinacy,Goethe reached for the term that would truly jar him out of his complacency,and intoned:“The era of world literature is at hand,and everyone must contribute to accelerating it.”2Ibid.,325.The termWeltliteraturpassed into common currency after Eckermann published hisGespr?che mit Goethe in den letzten Jahren seines Lebensin 1835,three years after the poet’s death.As David Damrosch states,“［t］he term crystallized both a literary perspective and a new cultural awareness,a sense of an arising global modernity,whose epoch,as Goethe predicted,we now inhabit.Yet the term has also been extraordinarily elusive,from the moment of its formulation onward.”3David Damrosch,What is World Literature? (Princeton:Princeton University Press,2003),1.After Goethe,the concept of “world literature” was described by Marx and Engels as follows:

By exploiting the world market,the bourgeoisie has made production and consumption a cosmopolitan affair.To the annoyance of its enemies,it has drawn from under the feet of industry the national ground on which it stood.All traditional national industries have been destroyed or are daily being destroyed.They are pushed aside by new industries,which all advanced nations need in order to thrive.These industries no longer use local materials but raw material drawn from the remotest zones,and its products are consumed not only at home,but also in every quarter of the globe.In place of the old needs,satisfied by domestic production,we find new needs,which can only be satisfied by the products of distant lands and climes.In place of the old local and national seclusion and self-sufficiency,we have commerce in every direction,universal interdependence of nations.And as in material,so also in intellectual production.The intellectual creations of individual nations become common property.National one-sidedness and narrow-mindedness become increasingly impossible,and from the numerous national and local literatures there arises a world literature.4Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels,The Communist Manifesto and Other Writings,with an introduction and notes by Martin Puchner (New York:Barnes and Noble,2005),10—11.

Marx and Engels presciently predicted the globalization of economy and culture,describing world literature as the result of the expansion of global capitalism.World literature was also on Marx’s and Engel’s minds when they concluded their preamble with the bold announcement that theManifestowould be published in the English,French,German,Italian,Flemish and Danish languages.During the Second World War,world literature further developed in Istanbul,where the German philologists Eric Auerbach and Leo Spitzer found themselves in exile from Nazi Germany.After Istanbul,they moved to the United States with their own version of world literature.As writers-in-exile,Auerbach and Spitzer existed in a world of cross-culture; they functioned in a context of transformation.As a result of their emigration from Europe to the United States,they drew on the traditions and intellectual resources of two historical cultures in order to investigate the properties of Western literary evolution.

In 1921,Auerbach received his doctorate in Romance philology at the University of Greifswald.He enrolled at Heidelberg University and received his Doctor of Laws degree in 1913.In 1923,Auerbach accepted a position as a librarian on the staff of the Prussian State Library in Berlin.Although the employment lacked the prestige and personal freedom of a university appointment,it enabled him to remain within a scholarly environment and to continue his studies.Auerbach’s translation of Vico’sScienza nuovawas published in 1924,and his bookDante,Poet of the Secular World,a unique synthesis of the secular,humanist Dante and the deeply Christian Dante—the two poles ofdantistascholarship over the centuries—was published in 1929.At any rate,on the basis of these two books,and with the backing of Spitzer and Vossler,Erich Auerbach was appointed to the chair of Romance philology at the University of Marburg,which he held from October 1930 until October 1935.He was then thirty-seven years old when he held the teaching position.To be initiating one’s first professional appointment at a relatively advanced age required a considerable degree of patience,ambition,and personal vision.Auerbach’s peaceful career as a German academic scholar was disrupted by the rise of the Nazis to power in 1935.According to James I.Porter,“It is at this point that the life of the Auerbach who is revered among scholars and aspiring students of literature alike begins.”5James I.Porter,“Introduction,” in Erich Auerbach,Time,History,and Literature,ed.James I.Porter (Princeton and Oxford:Princeton University Press,2014),XI.In 1936,Auerbach followed the lead of Leo Spitzer and took a position at Istanbul State University.The philological school created by Spitzer in collaboration with a number of Turkish scholars was the center of a thriving form of comparative literary study,combining Turkishlanguage politics and European philological humanism.Many of the issues associated with the heuristic challenges posed by the paradigms and the problems ofWeltliteratur—global translation,linguistic imperialism,transnational humanism,nationalism,and modernity—are seen to be strikingly anticipated by Spitzer’s pedagogical vision and philological practice.

In Istanbul,Auerbach wrote his masterpiece,Mimesis:The Representation of Reality in Western Literature(1946).An account of the rise of novelistic realism from antiquity to the twentieth century,the book presented close readings of exemplary passages from the Bible,Homer,Dante,Rabelais,and many more writers up through Proust and Virginia Woolf.Auerbach simultaneously held the mastery of stylistic analysis and of the broader social,historical context,which made him to appeal to philologists,historians of literature,formalists,and Marxists at the same time.Mimesishas legendary status,in part,because most Western critics,especially diaspora intellectuals such as Edward Said,emphasize that it was written between 1942 and 1945 outside Europe and in the absence of adequate research material.This fact was commented upon by Auerbach himself in the epilogue toMimesis:

The book was written during the war and at Istanbul,where the libraries are not well equipped for European studies.International communications were impeded; I had to dispense with almost all periodicals,with almost all the more recent investigations,and in some cases with reliable critical editions of my texts.Hence it is possible and even probable that I overlooked things which I ought to have considered and that I occasionally assert something which modern research has disproved or modified.I trust that these probable errors include none which affect the core of my argument.The lack of technical literature and periodicals may also serve to explain that my book has no notes.Aside from the texts,I quote comparatively little,and that little it was easy to include in the body of the book.On the other hand,it is quite possible that the book owes its existence to just this lack of a rich and specialized library.If it had been possible for me to acquaint myself with all the work that has been done on so many subjects,I might have never reached the point of writing.6Erich Auerbach,Mimesis:The Representation of the Reality in Western Literature,fiftieth-anniversary edition (Princeton and Oxford:Princeton University Press,2003),557.

To a great extent,critics have been fascinated by Auerbach’s suggestion that this seminal book owed its very existence to a lack of adequate resources.However,as one of Auerbach’s admirers,Edward Said plays a key role in making Auerbach well-known among American humanities scholars.In 1969,Maire and Edward Said translated Auerbach’s “Philology and Weltliteratur” from German to English.In his introduction to the fiftieth-anniversary edition ofMimesisin 2003,Said elaborates:

Books of criticism have usually come in waves associated with academic trends,most of which are quickly replaced by successive shifts in taste,fashion,or genuine intellectual discovery.Thus only a small number of books seem perennially present and,by comparison with the vast majority of their counterparts,to have an amazing staying power.Certainly this is true of Erich Auerbach’s magisterialMimesis.7Edward Said,“Introduction to the Fiftieth-Anniversary Edition,” in Erich Auerbach,Mimesis:The Representation of the Reality in Western Literature,fiftieth-anniversary edition (Princeton and Oxford:Princeton University Press,2003),ix.

After the war,Auerbach left Europe for America,holding professorships first at Pennsylvania State University and then at Yale,where he worked on studies that would be published after his death in 1957.Auerbach’s output was considerable,and it took numerous forms,including essays,many of which have been unavailable in Chinese and English until now.As James I.Porter states,“A close look at his writings from before 1935—both his books and his essays” will “rapidly dispel any notion of a radical break,as will a deeper grasp of Auerbach’s thought before and after this date” :

What stands out clearly at all points in his development are three distinguishing features:first,his complex relationship to the Judaeo-Christian tradition; next,his underlying philosophy of time and history,which he owes largely to Vico but also to Hegel; and lastly,his unique theory of ethics and responsible action,which emerges as a deeply committed stance toward human history and human reality,but also as an original and provocative view about the rise of modern,post-Christian subjectivity and individuality.Together,these form the bedrock of Auerbach’s more familiar theory of literary mimesis,without which that theory cannot be truly fathomed.8James I.Porter,“Introduction,” in Erich Auerbach,Time,History,and Literature,ed.James I.Porter (Princeton and Oxford:Princeton University Press,2014),XII.

As one of Goethe’s greatest disciples in the field of literary scholarship,Auerbach insisted that,however we are to understand world literature,it is not simply as a library or collection of books,but as intimately bound up with world-historical processes.In “Philology and Weltliteratur” (1951),Auerbach argued that the task of a philology of world literature was to preserve,for future generations,a memory of a world literary system characterized as a play of similarities and differences.However,to continue quoting Edward Said,“reading the 1951 essay one senses that for Auerbach the great book he wrote was an elegy for a period when people could interpret texts philologically,concretely,sensitively,and intuitively,using erudition and an excellent command of several languages to support the kind of understanding that Goethe advocated for his understanding of Islamic literature”9Edward Said,Orientalism (New York,Vintage Books,1979),preface..Moreover,“positive knowledge of languages and history was necessary,but it was never enough,any more than the mechanical gathering of facts would constitute an adequate method for grasping what an author like Dante,for example,was all about.”10Ibid.Auerbach also made this point at the outset of the postwar period,which was also the beginning of the Cold War.As Edward Said states:

After the war,Auerbach notes mournfully,the standardization of ideas,and greater and greater specialization of knowledge,gradually narrowed the opportunities for the kind of investigative and everlastingly inquiring kind of philological work that he had represented,and,alas,it’s an even more depressing fact that,since Auerbach’s death in 1957,both the idea and practice of humanistic research have shrunk in scope as well as in centrality.11Ibid.

In the West,the concept of “World Literature” usually turns away from Goethe’sWeltliteratur,encouraging those movements and fashions of literature which transcend national lines,for it is not “the world’s literature,” but literature centered on Europe and America.

Old wine in a new bottle,or a paradigm shift? Since the 1990s,Western academic circles have had a profound reflection and criticism on colonialism and imperialism in the nineteenth century,and have the desire and tendency to break the “eurocentrism” and “Western centralism.” From 1991 to 1997,Djelal Kadir edited the journalWorld Literature Today,where world literature was regarded as a hotbed of post-colonialism as well as a warm-up of revival for world literature in the early twenty-first century.In 1999,an arrival into this intellectually messy space came from France:Pascale Casanova’sThe World Republic of Letters.Its terms and arguments,even when contested,have been the catalyst for “re-research” on world literature in French humanities circles,and subsequently all over Europe.Published in English by Harvard University Press in 2004,this book became a focus of literary and cultural studies.Christopher Prendergast,editor ofDebatingWorld Literature,contends thatThe World Republic of Lettersis equally as influential as Franco Moretti’sConjectures on World Literature(2000).As Gayatri Spivak writes in her 2003 bookDeath of a Discipline,“the book you are about to read is therefore out of joint with the times in a more serious way than the Wellek Library Lectures of May 2000 were.I have changed nothing of the urgency of my call for ‘a new comparative literature.’ I hope the book will be read as the last gasp of a dying discipline.”12Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak,Death of a Discipline (New York:Columbia University Press,2003),acknowledgment.So,it is worth mentioning that Spivak announced the death of comparative literature in the traditional sense,which contributed to the revival of world literature in the era of globalization.Even so,there is a real issue here,in that Gayatri’s critique taps into a long-running debate that began in the 1950s as world literature courses began to gain visibility in the United States.In 1959,an important conference was held at the University of Wisconsin,Madison,on the teaching of world literature.David Damrosch has perhaps made the greatest contribution to the revival of world literature in theory and practice today.According to Damrosch:

In one sense,world literature is prior to the creation of most national literatures,but in another sense,world literature exists onlywithina national space for any given reader.So in this sense world literature is actually a function of national systems and needs to be thought about that way.National literature,comparative literature,world literature exist in a dynamic interplay,and no one of these can eat the others up.13Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak and David Damrosch,“Comparative Literature/World Literature:A Discussion with Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak and David Damrosch,” Comparative Literature Studies 48,no.4 (2011):481.

Goethe is not only a theorist,but also a practitioner.Goethe’s idea,however generously conceived,is of its time,and hence circumscribed and constrained by the presuppositions and preoccupations of an age that is no longer ours.But,for all its limits,Goethe’s example matters a great deal.So,based on this,it is not hard for us to understand why Damrosch spares no effort to establish the Institute for World Literature and to hold a month-long summer school of world literature in a different part of the world every year.14The Conference “World Literature in Between” was held at Bilgi University in December 2008 in Istanbul.During the process of David Damrosch’s dialogue with Turkish writer Orhan Pamuk,the winner of Nobel Prize in 2006,the prelude to the establishment of the Institute for World Literature was opened.David Damrosch is the director of the institute,with its headquarter at Harvard.The first-term of the World Literature Summer School was held at Beijing University in July,2011.In 2019,the World Literature Summer School has successfully held its ninth session at Harvard together with Beijing University and other countries and regions.Of course,Damrosch continues:

Teaching world literature poses intellectual as well as institutional challenges.Whatever their approach,people who teach this subject must develop a working sense of what they mean by the term.What literature? Whose world? How hasliteraturebeen understood in its myriad manifestations over time and across space? Pedagogically,just how much time can and should be spent in class on issues of definition,literary history,and cultural context?15David Damrosch,ed.,Teaching World Literature (New York:The Modern Language Association of America,2009),3.

How to teach world literature properly is what we are trying to demonstrate.In his bookThe Idea of World Literature,John Pizer argues that world literature courses should include direct discussion of the history of the termWeltliteratur,16See John Pizer,The Idea of World Literature:History and Pedagogical Practice (Baton Rouge:Louisiana State University Press,2006).while Thomas Beebee articulates his puzzles for the teaching of world literature in his paper “Beyond Lecture and Discussion:The World’s Oldest Approaches to Literature” :“While the assignments listed above give,in my opinion,a more accurate view of how world literature actually came into existence through borrowing,interchange,adaptation,and imitation,we are still missing the historical and cultural factors that valorize such activities for some texts and traditions and suppress them for others.”17Thomas Beebee,“Beyond Lecture and Discussion:The World’s Oldest Approaches to Literature,” in Teaching World Literature,ed.David Damrosch (New York:The Modern Language Association of America,2009),278.

At any rate,Damrosch’s summer school of world literature has largely contributed to the publication of the revised bookHow to Read World Literaturein 2018.18As Damrosch puts it in his preface to the Second Edition:“For this new edition I’ve drawn on the illuminating experience of co-teaching survey courses with my colleagues Stephen Owen and Martin Puchner over the past seven years at Harvard and on the new perspectives brought from around the world by the faculty and by participants in the sessions of the Institute for World Literature in our month-long meetings in Beijing,Istanbul,Harvard,Hong Kong,and Lisbon.” See David Damrosch,How to Read World Literature,2nd edition (Hoboken,NJ:Wiley Blackwell,2018),preface.Collaboration and comparison have led to the comeback of world literature not as a method but as a space.As formulated by Marshall Brown in his paper “Encountering the World” :

Damrosch has probably done more for the good of world literature than anyone else alive,and we are all in his debt.He has made texts available in his anthologies,and he made them accessible in his monographs.And he has tirelessly and fruitfully urged us to make use of them.As I found my essay turning polemical as I wrote,then,it is certainly not for lack of admiration.Indeed,without his challenge,I would not have been able to articulate my resistance.And without a doubt,what haunts me is a matter of temperament,not of superior understanding.19Marshall Brown,“Encountering the World,” Neohelicon 38,no.2 (August 2011):351.

In short,the relationship in the world of literature should always be an agreeable relationship,while sometimes with challenges and resistances.Damrosch’s collaborative style,though difficult at times,has made a monumental contribution in this light.

All national literatures “are simply dealt with in succession.The only justification for calling these treatises world literature is that they are bound and published together.”20Fritz Strich,Goethe and World Literature,trans.G.A.M.Sym (London:Routledge ＆ Kegan Paul Ltd.,1949),1.There’s no doubt that Damrosch is a practitioner of the idea.As a founding editor-in-chief of theLongman Anthology of World Literature(XI volumes,2004),Damrosch has consciously included a fitting proportion of oriental literature—especially Chinese literature,such as theAnalects,theBook of Songs,Zhuang Zi—in the anthology as windows on very different worlds of culture and aesthetic expression.For in so doing,much time and energy were taken to write the introduction,and related (including local) specialists and scholars based on different fields and cultural backgrounds were invited to carefully select very doctrinal texts.Taking theBook of Songsfor example,Damrosch states the following:

The linguistic difficulty of theBook of Songshas challenged both traditional Chinese commentators and translators into Western languages.Arthur Waley’s translations offer the best compromise between philological accuracy and poetic fluency,but they may be usefully compared with two alternatives.Swedish sinologist Bernhard Karlgren (1889–1978) translated the poems into philologically accurate prose.The poet Ezra Pound (1885–1972),who knew no Chinese but considered himself a Confucian,sought to highlight the resemblance of theSongsto English ballads and was said by T.S.Eliot to have been “the inventor of Chinese poetry for our time.21David Damrosch,et al.eds.,The Longman Anthology of World Literature,6 vols,2nd edition (New York:Pearson,2009),1027.

Furthermore,in so doing,editors hoped to remind both scholars and students of how wide the range of historical,geographic,and linguistic coordinates for the study of world literature could be.As Damrosch once said,22Notes taken when attending Prof.David Damrosch’s seminar “Selected Anthology Tables of Contents and Introductions” in the Department of Comparative Literature at Harvard University on Apr.22,2013.for a long time,he thought that European literature and North American literature were enough to represent the world of literature.But now,he has come to realize that it is wrong to think so.In the process of compiling the anthology,Damrosch had made significant changes on his perception of the non-Western tradition.At the same time,“the boundaries of ‘the West’ have been shifting significantly,with new attention paid to minor literatures within and beyond the borders of the few major powers long favored in world literature courses.”23David Damrosch,ed.,Teaching World Literature (New York:The Modern Language Association of America,2009),1.It is exciting for Chinese scholars to see classic Chinese literature (along with non-Western literature) included in numerous authoritative anthologies edited by distinguished Western scholars.This should be one of Damrosch’s greatest achievements,not only for his vigorous faith in the progress of anthology compiling,but also because he views comparison as an ineluctable consequence of the great expansion of knowledge in history in the context of world literature.Although oriental literature is playing a growing role today among international circulation and reception of writers and their works,it was brought into the horizon of the leading Western scholars of world literature a dozen years ago,24Chinese modern and contemporary writers,such as Zhang Ailing and Mo Yan,etc.,are included in Norton Anthology of World Literature and Longman Anthology of World Literature edited by leading Western scholars.for which reason it is not only a reform that changes the traditional order of literary classics,but also a higher level of academic exchange and innovation.

Chinese fiction has its roots in storytelling,and folk literature of this kind has traditionally been despised by the feudal ruling class.The characteristics of various forms of fiction through the centuries,the development of these forms,and their influence on each other are lucidly presented in Damrosch’s anthology,while such major works as the novelsHong Lou Meng《紅樓夢》(A Dream of Red Chamber) andShui Hu Zhuan《水滸傳》(Outlaws of the Marsh) are reviewed in detail.It has often been said that the nineteenth century was a relatively stagnant period for Chinese fiction,but preeminent scholar Patrick Hanan who served with distinction as chair of the Department of East Asian Languages and Civilizations and as director of the Harvard –Yenching Institute,shows that the opposite is true:the finest novels of the nineteenth century show a constant experimentation and evolution.In his bookChinese Fiction of the Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries,Hanan examines Chinese fiction before and during the period in which Chinese writers first came into contact with Western fiction.25See introduction to Hanan’s monograph on book cover of Patrick Hanan,Chinese Fiction of the Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries（New York:Columbia University Press,2004).Basically,Hanan’s views are similar to those of Lu Hsun,one of the most influential Chinese writers and thinkers of the twentieth century.According to Lu Hsun’sZhong Guo Xiao Shuo Shi Lue26According to Publisher’s Note,A Brief History of Chinese Fiction grew out of the lecture notes edited by Lu Hsun when teaching a course on Chinese fiction at Peking University between 1920 and 1924.In December 1923 a first volume was printed and a second volume in June 1924.In September 1925 these were reprinted as a whole book.In 1930 the author made certain changes,but all subsequent editions have remained the same.《中國小說史略》(A Brief History of Chinese Fiction):“There has never been a history of Chinese fiction,if we except the accounts in the histories of Chinese literature written by foreigners.Recently certain summaries have appeared in Chinese works too,but the space devoted to fiction is usually less than onetenth of the whole.Hence we still lack a detailed account of the development of Chinese fiction.”27LU Hsun,A Brief History of Chinese Fiction (Beijing:Foreign Languages Press,2009),“Publisher’s Note.” See footnote for the book’s preface by The Commercial Press (商務印書館，Chinese Version) in 2011:Foreign scholars’ books focus on Chinese history,such as,Russian King Siri’s 王西里(В.Л.Васильев) Zhong Guo Wen Shi Da Gang《中國文學史綱》（The Outline of the History of Chinese Literature）published in St.Petersburg in 1880,Japanese Scholar Mosong Qiancheng’s 末松けんちょう，末松謙澄Zhong Guo Gu Wen Xue Lue Shi《中國古文學略史》(A Brief History of Chinese Ancient Literature) published in Tokyo in 1882,British scholar H.Giles’s 翟理斯Zhong Guo Wen Xue Shi《中國文學史》(History of Chinese Literature) published in London in 1901,German scholar W.Grube’s 葛魯貝Zhong Guo Wen Xue Shi《中國文學史》(The History of Chinese Literature) published in Leipzig in 1902,etc.Chinese authors at the beginning of the 20th century,such as Lin Chuanjia’s 林傳甲Zhong Guo Wen Xue Shi《中國文學史》(The History of Chinese Literature) (1904),Dou Jingfan’s 竇警凡Li Chao Wen Xue Shi《歷朝文學史》(The History of Literary History) (1906),and Huang Ren’s 黃人 Zhong Guo Wen Xue Shi《中國文學史》(The History of Chinese Literature) (1907),rarely talk about novels.Taking Xie Wuliang’s 謝無量 The History of Chinese Literature《中國大文學史》（1918) for special example,there are sixty-three chapters consisting of the whole book,only six of them centering on novels.Foreign scholars’ involvement in the study of Chinese literary history should not be overlooked when we look back upon academic research of modern novels in the twentieth century.The history of twentieth century Chinese academic research must be one that centers on the work done by the Chinese as well as the contributions made by foreign scholars through cultural exchanges.28This subject has been addressed in the preface to a book entitled Zhong Guo Xiao Shuo Shi Lue Shu Shi《中國小說史略疏識》(A Brief History of Chinese Novels) by Zhang Bing 張兵and Nie Fusheng 聶付生，which was published by Fudan University Press in 2011.Explaining the first passage of Lu Hsun’s A Brief History of Chinese Fiction in this way:“ According to the former Soviet sinologists Ai Delin 艾德林，Li Fuqing 李福清，etc.,Shi Jie Wen Xue Shi《世界文學史》（The History of World Literature） edited by the famous Russian scholar Kirsch 柯爾施in the 1880s can be regarded as the earliest work on the history of Chinese literature by foreigners.The book was published in 1880,and the first volume centered on Eastern literature,including China,Egypt,India,etc.,with 160 pages about Chinese.Furthermore,the book Zhong Guo Wen Xue Shi Gang Yao《中國文學史綱要》(The Outline of Chinese Literature History) was published separately in the same year (“Xinmin Evening News”新民晚報 August 18,1980).Kozyo Satakichi’s 古城貞吉Zhi Na Wen Xue Shi《支那文學史》(The History of Literature in Zhina),as well as Sasakawa lang’s 笹川種郎《支那小說戲曲小史》(A Concise History of the Novel and Drama in Zhina) and A Concise History of Chinese Literature《支那歷史文學史》(Zhi Na Li Shi Wen Xue Shi) successively appeared in Japan in the years of 1897 and 1898.It is worth mentioning that A Concise History of the Novel and Drama in Zhina (China,1897) is“the earliest fentishi 分體史 on Chinese novels and dramas” (according to Huang Lin 黃霖and Gu Yue’s 顧越paper:Yan Gu Wen dui Zhong Guo Xiao Shuo Shi de Yan Jiu《鹽谷溫對于中國小說史的研究》(On Shionoya’s Study of the History of Chinese Novels) in Fudan Journal (No.6,1999).Later,British scholar H.Giles’s The History of Chinese Literature (1901) and German scholar W.Grube’s The History of Chinese Literature (1902) were published.The occurrence of the history of Chinese literature as the carrier of textbooks is the product of modern educational discipline.The establishment of modern education system has a direct impact on the knowledge production of the history of Chinese literature.The earliest literary history book in China is Zhong Guo Wen Xue Shi《中國文學史》(The History of Chinese Literature) compiled in 1904,which was a textbook compiled by Lin Chuanjia 林傳甲 (1877—1922),a scholar from Fuzhou District with the pseudonym of Kuiteng 奎騰 .Just at the same time,Huang Ren 黃人 (1866—1913),a scholar of Soochow University 東吳大學，simultaneously edited and printed his lecture notes Zhong Guo Wen Xue Shi《 中國文學史》(The History of Chinese Literature) from 1904 to 1907.Consisting of 30 volumes,the textbook was first used at the school and then officially published by Shanghai Sinology Rotary Club上海國學扶輪社.These textbooks all cover the content of Chinese novels but relatively simple,as Lu Hsun puts it in the preface to A Brief History of Chinese Fiction,“ Hence we still lack a detailed account of the development of Chinese fiction.” In contrast,monographs on studies or introductions of the history of Chinese literature,such as Tian Lusheng’s天僇生 Zhong Guo Li Shi Xiao Shuo Shi Lun《中國歷史小說史論》(The History of Chinese Historical Novels),Zhang Jinglu’s 張靜廬Zhong Guo Xiao Shuo Shi Da Gang《中國小說史大綱》(An Outline of Chinese Novels),Guo Xifen’s 郭希汾Zhong Guo Xiao Shuo Shi Lue《中國小說史略》(The History of Chinese Novels),and Lu Yin’s 廬隱Zhong Guo Xiao Shuo Shi Lue《中國小說史略》(The History of Chinese Novels), also have contributed to changing the situation of the development of Chinese fiction with no history,together with Lu Hsun’s A Brief History of Chinese Fiction.See：張兵、聶付生：《中國小說史略疏識》，上海：復旦大學出版社，2011年，序言。［ZHANG Bing,NIE Fusheng.Zhongguo xiaoshuo shilue shushi (A Brief History of Chinese Fiction),Shanghai:Fudan University Press,2011,preface.］

Who first put forward the term “world literature” in China? As Jing Tsu at Yale University points out in the bookSound and Script in Chinese Diaspora:

In 1898,the first bilingual Chinese Francophone writer,Chen Jitong,first proposed the notion of a “world literature” (shijie wenxue) in Chinese.Though momentous from the perspective of the current interest in world literature,his invocation involved a particular set of circumstances.It came not at the inaugurating moment of a literary turn to the world but at the conclusion of a series of political and legal attempts to reshape the global space to China’s advantage.Before nationalism became the sole imperative,Chen had the vantage point of seeing the world as a possibly cooperative,though cautiously strategized,arena.This required tapping into the international venues of cultural prestige so as to promote China’s civilizational superiority,as well as conducting political affairs in a way that would overturn European supremacy while averting Japan’s rising dominance in East Asia.29Jing Tsu,Sound and Script in Chinese Diaspora (Cambridge,MA:Harvard University Press,2010),113.

The concept “world literature” formulated by Jing Tsu tellingly differs from David Damrosch’s.In the introduction toWorld Literature in Theory and Practice,Damrosch describes that “the term ‘world literature’ (shijie de wenxue) made an early appearance in Chinese in the first modern history of Chinese literature,theHistory of Chinese Literatureby Huang Ren (1907).”30David Damrosch,ed.,World Literature in Theory (Malden,MA:John Wiley ＆ Sons,2014),introduction.However,Jing Tsu shares the same opinion with Li Huachuan 李華川 and Pan Zhengwen 潘正文 .Li Huachuan regards Chen Jitong as the first scholar in China to propose the notion of “world literature” in his paper “The Term ‘World Literature’Appeared in China” 《“世界文學” 在中國的發(fā)軔》(2002).31李華川：《“世界文學”在中國的發(fā)軔》，《中華讀書報》2002年8月21日。［LI Huachuan,“‘Shijie wenxue’ zai Zhongguo de faren” (The Term “World Literature” Appeared in China),China Reading Weekly,August 21,2002.］Moreover,Li Huachuan explains,“In his late years,Chen Jitong expressed the concept of ‘world literature’ in his conversation with Zeng Pu 曾樸 in 1897,Qing Dynasty.” Pan Zhengwen quotes Li Huachuan’s view in his paper “Progressive Extending of Eastern Learning to the West and Raising of ‘World Literature’ Concept in China” （《“東學西漸” 與中國 “世界文學”觀的發(fā)生》，2007）.32潘正文：《“東學西漸”與中國“世界文學”觀的發(fā)生》，《浙江師范大學學報》2007年第1 期，第15—19 頁。［PAN Zhengwen,“‘Dong xue xi jian’ yu Zhongguo ‘shijie wenxue’ guan de fasheng” (Progressive Extending of Eastern Learning to the West and Raising of “World Literature” Concept in China),Zhejiang shifan daxue xuebao (Journal of Zhejiang Normal University) 1 (2007):15—19.］But there is a discrepancy between Jing Tsu on the one hand and Li Huachuan and Pan Zhengwen on the other.Jing Tsu believes that the term “world literature” made an early appearance in Chinese in 1898,while Li Huachuan and Pan Zhengwen date it at 1897.Of course,the topic needs further research and analysis.

As Lu Hsun himself says inA Brief History of Chinese Fiction,there has never been a history of Chinese fiction.So,it can be speculated that Chinese fiction did not own a high status and was not highly appreciated in ancient China.In some Chinese scholars’ terms,though there isn’t a specialized history of Chinese fiction,Chinese fiction has its own traditions,and has sometimes been well appreciated by the public for example,fiction of the Ming and Qing dynasties.Despite ancient Chinese fiction’s incredibly long history,male writers dominate the field.Before the twentieth century,little fiction was written by female writers includingHong Lou Meng Ying《紅樓夢影》(The Dream Shadow of Red Chamber) by Gu Taiqing 顧太清，the first Chinese novel written by a woman.The absence of women’s novels is not only caused by women’s social identity in feudal China,but also because of the novels’ low social statuses.However,women poets’ works were appreciated in ancient China.

I’ll never forget the look on both their faces as the prisoner gave his wife the beautiful, long-stemmed roses. I’m not sure who experienced the most joy—the husband in giving, the wife in receiving, or myself in having the opportunity to share in this special moment.

Late Qing Dynasty is an era characterized by its strenuous turbulence in both Chinese society and Chinese culture.As to the late Qing literature,it differentiates from that of the past in almost every respect,namely,the literary patterns,literary concepts,literary contents and structures of literary creation,as well as the literary dissemination paradigms.“Literary revolution” in late Qing Dynasty is generally known as an important component of Bourgeois Reformation,including “revolution in poetry circle”（詩界革命）,“revolution in literary ＆ artistic circle” （文界革命）and “revolution in fiction circle”（小說界革命）.Among the three circles,“revolution in fiction circle” is of a crowning achievement and the strongest influence because distinguished scholars in the cultural transformation such as Yan Fu 嚴復，Liang Qichao 梁啟超，etc.advocate new fiction and regard fiction as one of the tools of national improvement.In 1897,Yan Fu,the editor-in-chief of the Chinese newspaperGuowen Bao《國聞報》（Guowen Daily）in Tianjin,wrote a long articleBenguan Fuyin Shuobu Yuanqi《本館附印說部緣起》with Xia Zengyou 夏曾佑，and the article has been taken as the first article in modern China highlighting the social function of fiction.Ever since then,articles on this topic comes one after another.Liang Qichao’s “Yi Yin Zhengzhi Xiao Shuo Xu” 《譯印政治小說序》(Foreword to the Publication of Political Novels in Translation) was published by the initial issue ofQing Yi Bao《清議報》(Qing Yi Newspaper)(Yokohama,Japan,December 1898).Liang himself established another journalXin Xiao Shu《新小說》(New Stories) in Yokohama in October 1920,and wrote an accompanying piece entitledLun Xiao Shuo Yu Qun Zhi zhi Guan Xi《論小說與群治之關系》(On the Relationship Between Fiction and the Government of the People),”33See 夏自清：《人的文學》，福州：福建教育出版社，2010年，第62 頁。［C.T.Hsia,Ren de wenxue (Human Literature),Fuzhou:Fujian Education Press,2010,62.］emphasizing the function of fiction at the very beginning：

If one intends to renovate the people of a nation,one must first renovate in its fiction.Therefore,to renovate morality,one must renovate fiction; to renovate religion,one must renovate fiction; to renovate politics,one must renovate fiction; to renovate social customs,one must renovate fiction; to renovate learning and arts,one must renovate fiction; and to renovate even the human mind and remold its character,one must renovate fiction.Why is this so? This is because fiction has a profound power over the way of man.34LIANG Qichao,“On the Relationship between Fiction and the Government of the People,” trans.Gek Nai Cheng,in Modern Chinese Literary Thought:Writing on Literature 1893—1945,ed.Kirk A.Denton (Stanford:Stanford University Press,1996),74.

The above three articles prompted the “revolution in fiction circle” in the early twentieth century,which led to a turning point in Chinese fiction,by mainly manifesting in the improvement of the ranking of fiction,emphasizing the function of fiction,transforming the main ideas of fiction,developing fiction styles,fiction translation theory and methodology.As far as the translation of fiction is concerned,the late Qing and early Republic of China witnessed a boom of fiction translation in China.Due to the impressive amount of translated fiction and its great impact upon Chinese society at the time and afterwards,fiction translation of this period ranks irrefutably among the few translation climaxes in the history of China.Taking Lin Shu for example,we see that there are two main reasons whyCha Hua Nü《茶花女》（The Lady of the Camellias） translated by Lin Shu,was so popular at that time.On the one hand,Lin Shu could not master a foreign language,but was proficient in ancient Chinese.In cooperation with Wang Shouchang 王壽昌，Lin translatedThe Lady of the Camelliasinto classical Chinese,which was a kind of cultural translation via a translation method that was quite popular in those years; on the other hand,the protagonist ofThe Lady of the Camelliasis very similar to the Chinese novelYu Li Hun《玉梨魂》(The Death of Yuli).Furthermore,the romance between “beautiful ladies and talented scholars” is a traditional model for a long time in China,and it’s obvious thatTheDeath of Yuliwas influenced by this model.Coincidently,bothThe Lady of the CamelliasandTheDeath of Yuliare diarystyle fictions,with “beautiful ladies and talented scholars” as romantic model.No doubt,Lin Shu frequently adopted Chinese stylistic model in the process of translation.Chen Pingyuan,a famous Chinese literary critic,comments on Lin Shu’s translation ofThe Lady of the Camelliasin an ironic way:“Alexandre Dumasfils tells a very sad and touching story for the Chinese people.What the literati in the late Qing dynasty repeatedly praised isThe Lady of Cha Hua‘茶花女’instead ofThe Lady of the Camellias《茶花女》.”35陳平原：《中國現(xiàn)代小說的起點——清末民初小說研究》，北京：北京大學出版社，2010年，第140 頁。［CHEN Pingyuan,Zhongguo xiandai xiaoshuo de qidian—Qing mo Ming chu xiaoshuo yanjiu (The Starting Point of Modern Chinese Novels—Studies on Novels in the Late Qing and Early Ming Dynasties),Beijing:Beijing University Press,2010,140.］Nonetheless,Leo Ou-fan Lee reviews Lin Shu’s translation with a positive attitude,stating that “the combination of Chinese style and Western content sometimes may narrow our understanding of the West,but Western content will have some stimulation to the Chinese literary stylistic features.”36李歐梵：《未完成的現(xiàn)代性》，季進編，北京：北京大學出版社，2005年，第13 頁。［Leo Ou-fan Lee,Wei wancheng de xiandai xing (Unfinished Modernity),ed.JI Jin,Beijing:Beijing University Press,2005,13.］In Chen Pingyuan’s terms,“The rise of short stories was undoubtedly one of the most noteworthy literary phenomena in early Republic of China.” However,it had not been for the enduring appeal of the early embryonic short stories:“During the period of late Qing Dynasty and early Republic of China,short stories had gradually rose […] Only when short stories were written by the authors of the May Fourth Movement did they really have magical charm,which replaced chapter novels (zhanghui xiaoshuo) became the main driving force for the development of the novel.Short stories remained the most important literary genre for Chinese writers in the twentieth century,though with European style at the same time.”37陳平原：《中國現(xiàn)代小說的起點——清末民初小說研究》，第140 頁。［CHEN Pingyuan,Zhongguo xiandai xiaoshuo de qidian—Qing mo Ming chu xiaoshuo yanjiu (The Starting Point of Modern Chinese Novels—Studies on Novels in the Late Qing and Early Ming Dynasties),140.］Within a period of just fifty years,Chinese fiction spanned myriad stages:from the romantic,self-centered,often semi-autobiographical literature of the early twenties to the more socially and politically oriented literature of the thirties in the twentieth century.

The theoretical premise of the whole fiction revolution in the late Qing dynasty is based on the idea proposed by Liang Qichao:“If one intends to renovate the people of a nation,one must first renovate in its fiction.” Liang Qichao brings the political novel into enlightening propaganda domain for the “New People,” then leads to the residential social stratum,which objectively expands the breadth of “New People,” and is beneficial to the incorporation of Western thought in the late Qing dynasty:

The intersection and alternation of the old and the new in the field of fiction theory is the contradiction and struggle between the theoretical system of Chinese classical fiction and the theoretical system of Western modern fiction.Although Western fiction theory has not yet been systematically introduced to China,some conceptual categories and expressive techniques have gradually been understood and accepted by Chinese readers along with the translation of Western fiction.In fact,some Western fiction theories have been adopted by Chinese critics.38陳平原：《小說史：理論與實踐》，北京：北京大學出版社，2010年，第209 頁。［CHEN Pingyuan,Xiaoshuo shi:lilun yu shijian (History of Fiction:Theory and Practice),Beijing:Beijing University Press,2010,209.］

In the late Qing Dynasty,“the most outstanding work among women’s issues fiction isHuang Xiu Qiu《黃繡球》(The Yellow Embroidered Balls) (1905) by Yi Suo 頤 瑣.”39阿英：《晚清小說史》，江蘇文藝出版社，2009年，第107，117 頁。［A Ying,Wan Qing xiaoshuo shi (Fiction History of the Late Qing Dynasty),Nanjing:Jiangsu Literature and Art Press,2009,107,117.］Meanwhile,“other works,such as,Hong Gui Lei《紅閨淚》(Tears of Red Maiden) (1904) by Mrs.Wang Miaoru 王妙如，Zhong Guo Nü Zhen Tan《中國女偵探》(Chinese Women Detectives,Commercial Version,1907) by Lü Xia 呂俠，Shi Nian You Xue Ji《十年游學紀》(Ten Years of Traveling Study) by Hong Ye 紅葉，Guizhong Jian《閨中劍》(Boudoir Sword) by Yadong Pofo 亞東破佛，and so on,are also included in the list of excellent fictions.”40Ibid.These female works listed by A-ying show that women writers at the beginning of the twentieth century have also turned their attention to the field of fiction,having tentative explorations and experiments at the same time.Although the attempts of the earliest “female fiction” failed to form a fiction genre or literary trend with great influence,it is of great significance and far-reaching influence for the development of Chinese female fiction.The May 4th New Culture Movement is the most far-reaching cultural movement in modern Chinese history because Chinese literature written after the May-Fourth era,fiction in particular,has been recognized in recent years as a potentially powerful vehicle for enhancing Western understanding of China.Moreover,the magnificent new cultural movement is eager to create and develop new fields,especially for women.The emergence of the May 4th female writer group is an important symbol of the rise of female fiction because some famous ladies from privileged families had become the main cadres to criticize the feudal system,the feudal family,and feudal culture with literary weapons.And while they were deeply influenced by traditional feudal culture in their early years,they also immersed themselves in Western culture and civilization.

Turning to the development of short stories in modern Chinese female literature,we can consider Ling Shuhua (1900—1990),who wrote short stories about women and children,that manifested a more mature sensibility and psychological acumen and thus constituted a prominent achievement.Ling Shuhua’s works have been included in all the above-mentioned monographs on female literary history,excepting Cao Ye’sModern Chinese Female Writers.As an important member of the “Modern Review School,” “Crescent School,” “Beijing School,” and “New Boudoir Group,” Ling Shuhua was one of the most talented modern female writers influenced by the New Literature Movement.Chinese literature—especially female literature—of the twentieth century has often been unfairly criticized for its immaturity,crudity,and lack of sophistication.The fact is,the best Chinese fiction of the past ninety years or so rivals the best in the West.However,alongside the gems of twentieth-century Chinese literature,there exists a huge bulk of second-and third-rate products,some of which have for one reason or another gained sizeable readerships,misleading the non-discriminating Western critic to form an erroneous low opinion of modern Chinese fiction.Today,Chinese contemporary literature has basically completed the process of classicization.Frankly speaking,Ling Shuhua can be deemed as a research subject with a “worldly” meaning in the context of the globalization of world literature due to the significance of narrative art in her short-story writing,her translation practice with Julian Bell,her relationship with the Bloomsbury group,and her “transnational feminist” English autobiographyAncient Melodies,written under the guidance of Virginia Woolf.In the twenty-first century,the understanding of “world literature” has gone beyond the narrow scope of classical European masterpieces,and also encompasses different kinds of literature and culture as well as reflections and refractions of political,economic,and religious forces sweeping the world.In this context,much attention is given to diaspora writers and intellectuals,such as James Joyce and Edward Said.Colin Mackerras writes about Edward Said’sOrientalism:“Although designed specifically as a critique of the Western study of West Asian civilizations,its main points are equally applicable to the study of China.”42Colin Mackerras,Western Images of China (Hong Kong:Oxford University Press,1989),3.The work of the best modern Chinese diaspora writers can be classified among the most brilliant modernist writing.

A significant diaspora female writer,Ling Shuhua had long been ignored by Chinese literary critics.But in recent years,her importance has been rediscovered due to the efforts of both overseas Sinology circles and Chinese domestic scholars.As Edward Said remarks:“Like people and schools of criticism,ideas and theories travel from person to person,from situation to situation,from one period to another.Cultural and intellectual life are usually nourished and often sustained by this circulation of ideas,and whether it takes the form of acknowledged or unconscious influence,creative borrowing,or wholesale appropriation,the movement of ideas and theories from one place to another is both a fact of life and a usefully enabling condition of intellectual activity.”43Edward Said,The World,the Text,and the Critic (Cambridge,MA:Harvard University Press,1983),226.That said,it is a very complicated question for one to study female diaspora writings in other countries and the ambiguous use of a completely different culture in one’s own civil society because each has her own unique experience out of the story frameworks,and each contains questions that are part of that “intellectualization” of a “diaspora consciousness.” Ling Shuhua had lived in China for a long time and settled in London in 1947 when she was forty-seven years old,having traveled from China to Europe,first to Paris and then to London,with a stint teaching in Singapore.As a “third-world” intellectual,Ling chose to live in the “first world.” But during her “first-world” sojourn,Ling was not only a native speaker of the “third world,” but also made herself an indigenous “first-world” citizen.During her diaspora,Ling introduced Chinese modern literature to Western readers in her own way,which drew Western readers,especially those who were interested in Chinese historical literature,female studies,and autobiography,to Chinese literature.The same experience was shared by other diaspora writers such as Hu Shi,Lin Yutang,Hsu Chih-mo,Eileen Zhang,and Han Suyin.As Wang Ning once commented,“World literature itself is a traveling concept,but the track of the traveling is not from West to East,because its genes stem from the East at the very beginning and then gradually form a theoretical concept in the West and then travel to the East and even the whole world.”44王寧：《世界文學的雙向旅行》，《文藝研究》2011年第7 期，第14—20 頁。［WANG Ning,“Shijie wenxue de shuangxiang lvxing” (A Two-Way Journey of World Literature),Literature and Art Studies 7 (2011):14—20.］

In a sense,the development of world literature took place concomitantly with the writing of diaspora writers and intellectuals in their process of migration,the uncertainty and complexity of which give the works more energy and enduring vitality.