The Cambridge History of China. Vol. 13: Republican China 1912-1949, Part 2
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BIBLIOGRAPHICAL ESSAYS 891
against landlords or local tyrants or ruffians in Chekiang, Fukien and Hunan from
December 1930 to October 1933, but none of these cases apparently involves
a riot or even a minor disturbance.
In the
West,
as opposed to China
(on
Maoist and post-Mao Chinese historiogaphy,
see James P. Harrison,
The Communists and
Chinese
peasant rebellions
and K. C. Liu,
'World view and peasant rebellion'), the study of spontaneous (tyi-fd) local
peasant agitation is a recent development. But the field is rapidly growing, a fact
attested by many issues of
Modern
China,
the single most useful periodical on the
subject
in any
Western
language.
One approach emphasizes the
social
consciousness
of the peasantry and the revolutionary potential of its spontaneous struggles:
it is shared by many contributors to, and the editor (Jean Chesneaux) of, the
collective volume
"Popular
movements
and
secret societies
in China, 1840-19
jo.
A recent
study by Ralph Thaxton, China
turned rightside
up, likewise concludes that the
Chinese peasants turned towards revolution before, and independently of, their
mobilization by the Communists. At variance with the above views are those
expressed by Elizabeth Perry in
Rebels and revolutionaries
in North
China,
1S4J-194J
and by Lucien Bianco in Claude Aubert et
al.
Regards froids sur la
Chine,
as well
as in articles quoted in chapter 6. For a stimulating symposium on the debate
opened by James C. Scott
{The moral economy
of
the peasant)
and Samuel I. Popkin
{The
rational
peasant),
see 'Peasant strategies in Asian societies: moral and rational
economic approaches' (JAS 42.4). Finally, three monographs devote substantial
developments to a famous bandit chieftain (Pai Lang) and a no less famous secret
society, both active in Northern China during the early Republican period: Philip
Billingsley, 'Banditry in China, 1911 to 1928, with particular reference to Henan
province'; Tai Hsuan-chih,
Hung-ch'iang-hui
(The Red Spear Society); Roman
Slawinski, La
Societe
des Piques
Rouges
et le
mouvement
paysan en Chine en 1926-1927.
A
pioneer study on the Hai-Lu-feng soviet
is
that of Shinkichi Eto,' Hai-lu-feng:
the first Chinese soviet government'. More details can be found in Roy Hofheinz,
The broken
wave.
The definitive in-depth study of P'eng P'ai's revolutionary career
and the Hai-Lu-feng soviet is: Fernando Galbiati, ' P'eng P'ai, the leader of the
first soviet: Hai-lu-feng, Kwangtung, China (1896-1929)'. This monumental
three-volume thesis will be published in a condensed form by Stanford University
Press.
P'eng P'ai's own report ('Hai-feng nung-min yun-tung', The peasant
movement in Hai-feng) is both graphic and lucid. His many insights into the
problems and techniques of peasant organization are available in the translation
by Donald Holoch,
Seeds
of
peasant
revolution.
The sources and studies relating
to later developments (1928-49) can be found in the bibliographical essays for
chapters 4, 12 and 13. Let us only recall here two seminal works: Chalmers
Johnson,
Peasant nationalism
and
Communist power
and William Hinton,
Fanshen:
a
documentary
of
revolution in a Chinese
village.
Few ' China books' have been so much
discussed and criticized by so many authors (including myself) over the last two
decades as was
Peasant
nationalism,
but it is the privilege of truly original works
to provoke infinite debate. Most recent scholarship stresses the economic over
the national factors in the Communist mobilization of peasants. That that
Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008
892 BIBLIOGRAPHICAL ESSAYS
mobilization was
no
easy job is eloquently illustrated
by
Hinton's
Fanshen,
a richly
documented, first-hand account
of
revolution
in a
North Chinese village.
It
exhibits,
in
spite
of
the author's obvious sympathies,
the
superb ambivalence
of
a classic work.
7.
THE
DEVELOPMENT
OF
LOCAL GOVERNMENT
The archival basis
for the
study
of
twentieth-century local government
is not
yet established.
The
background
in
Ch'ing administration will one day
be
studied
through
the
archives
of
Shun-t'ien prefecture (Chihli). More than 12,000 items
cover
the
official system, civil administration, constitutional reform, judicial
system, finance
and
currency,
and ten
other subjects, spanning
the
period from
the 1720s
to 1911.
This rich source, held
by the
First Historical Archives
in
Peking, awaits cataloguing
and
preservation,
and
access
to it is
uncertain.
Of
the
Pa county (Pa-hsien) archives
in
Szechwan,
no
general description
is
available,
though researchers have begun
to use
them.
The
Ch'ing archives
of
Tan-shui
subprefecture
and
Hsin-chu county held
by
National Taiwan University have
been described
by
David
C.
Buxbaum,
'
Some aspects
of
civil procedure
and
•
practice
at the
trial level
in
Tanshui
and
Hsinchu from
1789 to
1895',
JAS 30.2
(Feb.
1971)
255-79.
Th
e
modern evolution
of
local administration
is
beginning
to
be
researchable
at the
Second Historical Archives, Nanking, which holds
materials from
1911 to
1949,
but
access
to
that collection
is
still limited. Both
the First
and
Second Archives have begun extensive publication
of
holdings
on
certain topics.
For
example,
the
local self-government component
of
late Ch'ing
constitutionalism
may be
studied
in
Cb'ing-mo ch'ou-pei
li-hskn
tang-an sbih-liao
(Archival materials
on the
late Ch'ing constitutional movement),
a
publication
of the First Historical Archives.
The normative basis
for
local government since
the
late Ch'ing
is
found
in
compilations such
as
Ta-Ch'ing Kuang-hsu
hsin fa-ling (New laws
of
the Kuang-hsu
period)
and
similar volumes listed under
the 3.2
heading
in J. K.
Fairbank
and
K.
C. Liu,
Modern
China.
The
problem
is to
discover
how far
these rules were
applied
in
practice.
For
this purpose, gazettes (kung-pao)
of
government
organizations, particularly
of
provincial administrations, show how governments
reacted
to
concrete local situations. Publications such
as
Chiang-su sheng cheng-fu
kung-pao (Gazette
of the
Kiangsu Provincial Government)
are
described
in
P.
K. Yu et al., eds.
Research materials
on
twentieth-century China:
an
annotated list
of CCRM
publications,
7iff.
Government year books
(nien-cbien)
can
often serve
the same purpose.
Extensive surveys
of
local society contain rich information
on how
local
governments operated. Japanese local fieldwork studies
are
introduced
in
John
Young,
The
research
activities
of
the
South Manchurian Railway Company,
rpo/—rp4f.
Probably
the
best first-hand source
is the
village-by-village study
of
certain areas
in Hopei
and
Shantung from
the
early 1940s, Chugoku noson kanko chosa
kankokai,
ed.
Chugoku noson kanko chosa (Investigations
of
Chinese village
Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL ESSAYS 893
customs). In addition to interview transcripts, there is primary material on local
government since the late Ch'ing. The political side of these materials has been
studied by Prasenjit Duara, 'Power in rural society: North China Villages,
1900-1940'. Japanese studies of this subject are also extensively explored in
Duara's work. A compendium of field reports prepared under the Land
Administration Academy (Ti-cheng hsueh-yuan) of the Central Political Institute
(Chung-yang cheng-chih hsueh-hsiao) during the
1930s
includes much information
on local government:
Min-kuo erb-shih nien-tai Chung-kuo
ta-lu fu-ti wen-fi
t%u-liao
(Materials on land problems in mainland China during the 1930s).
The major collaborative research project on regional studies of China's
modernization at the Institute of Modern History, Taiwan (mentioned above)
reveals much of the context in which local administration evolved in the late
Ch'ing and early Republic. Also consult articles in this institute's
Chung-yang
yen-chiu-yuan
Chin-tai-shih
yen-chiu-so chi-k'an
(Bulletin of the Institute of Modern
History, Academia Sinica), vol. 6 (1977) by Chang Yii-fa, 'Ch'ing-mo min-ch'u ti
Shan-tung ti-fang tzu-chih' (Shantung local self-government in the late Ch'ing
and early Republic), and Wang Shu-huai, ' Ch'ing-mo Chiang-su ti-fang tzu-chih
feng-ch'ao' (Riots against local self-government in Kiangsu during the late Ch'ing
period).
Study of the politicization of local elites should begin with Chang P'eng-yuan,
Li-hsien-p'aiyu Hsin-hai ko-ming
(The constitutionalists and the 1911 Revolution),
and R. Keith Schoppa,
Chinese elites
and political
change:
Zhejiang
Province
in the early
twentieth
century.
The local self-government movement as a whole is treated by
Philip A. Kuhn, 'Local self-government under the Republic: problems of
control, autonomy, and mobilization', in Frederick Wakeman Jr and Carolyn
Grant, eds.
Conflict and control
in late
imperial
China.
How local elites interacted
with government throughout the modern period is addressed in Select papers from
the
Center
for Far
Eastern
Studies,
University of Chicago, 3 and 4 (1978-9). See
in particular articles by Guy S. Alitto, Susan Mann Jones, and Philip A. Kuhn
(as listed in the bibliography). An influential study of the imperial background
is Wada Sei,
Chugoku chiho
jichi hattatsu shi (Development of Chinese local
self-government), a reprint of the 1939 edition which, however, contains an
important new bibliography by Yamane Yukio. Hsiao Kung-ch'uan's Rural
China:
imperial control in the nineteenth century
and Ch'ii T'ung-tsu's Local government
in
China under the Ch'ing
are still valuable introductions to the Ch'ing background.
The local systems of regional regimes left many volumes of material, most of
it programmatic and self-congratulatory. Yet much can be read between the lines
of such collections as Shan-hsi ts'un-cheng-ch'u, comp.
Shan-hsi ti'un-chenghui-pien
(Collected materials on Shansi village government), which contains documents
flowing from province to county during the period 1916-27. On Kwangsi, see
Diana Lary, Region and nation: the Kwangsi
clique
in
Chinese
politics, 192;—19p.
The Kuomintang's local administration and its background are introduced in
Ch'en Po-hsin,
Chung-kuo
ti
ti-fang chih-tu chi ch'i
kai-ko (China's local system and
its reform); and Ch'ien Tuan-sheng et al., Min-kuo
cheng-chih shih
(The history of
Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008
894 BIBLIOGRAPHICAL ESSAYS
governmental institutions under the republic). County administration is treated
by Ch'eng Fang,
Chung-kuo hsien-cheng
kai-lun (Chinese county government),
which cites and summarizes much of the existing literature up to 1939; and Shih
Yang-ch'eng's comprehensive work of 1946 does the same for provincial
government:
Chung-kuo sbenghsing-chengcbih-tu
(Chinese provincial administration).
The background in the early Republic is surveyed by Baba Kuwataro, 'Shina
chiho gyosei seido no kenkyu' (The local government system of China), Shina
kenkyu (Research on China) 1927.12, 81—317. A revealing institutional study is
Odoric Y. K. Wou, 'The district magistrate profession in the early Republican
period: occupational recruitment, training and mobility',
Modern
Asian Studies
8.2 (April 1974) 217-45. Tung Hsiu-chia summarizes the Kuomintang's putative
system for local self-rule in
Chung-kuo
ti-fang
t^u-chih
wen-fi (The problem of
China's local self-government). The highly touted 'new county system' is treated
by a prominent Kuomintang programmatist, Li Tsung-huang,
Hsin-hsien-chih chih
li-lunyii
shih-chi
(The theory and practice of the new county system).
On the local politics of the rural reconstruction movement, the basic work
is Guy S. Alitto, The last Confucian: Liang Shu-ming and the Chinese dilemma
of
modernity.
The rich Chinese literature in this field can be approached through
the bibliography of this work, as well as through P. K. Yii's
Research materials
on
twentieth-century
China, cited above. Charles W. Hayford has studied the
Ting-hsien case in ' Rural reconstruction in China: Y. C. James Yen and the Mass
Education Movement'.
8. THE GROWTH OF THE ACADEMIC COMMUNITY 1912-1949
The academic community embraced individuals and institutions whose histories
are recorded in a varied complex of literature that touches upon intellectual
currents, political trends, and other aspects of the socio-cultural environment.
Here we can only cite basic materials for the present chapter, devoted to higher
education.
Government archives in Peking, Nanking and Taipei, as well as in Tokyo,
London, Paris and Washington, DC, remain comparatively unexplored in this
field. The Rockefeller Foundation Archive at Tarrytown, New York, offers data
on American assistance, especially in medical and other sciences.
Published documentation is extensive. Shu Hsin-ch'eng's early four volumes,
Chin-tai Chung-kuo chiao-jii
shih-liao
(Source materials on modern Chinese
education), documented the transition from 1898 to the inauguration of party
education in 1928. Shu Hsin-ch'eng's three volumes published posthumously in
1962,
Chung-kuo chin-tai chiao-yii shih
t^u-liao
(Source materials on the history of
modern Chinese education), is a quite different work with documents spanning
the period 1852-1922. Taga Akigoro's four volumes of 1976, Kindai
Chugoku
kyoikushi sbiryo
(Historical materials on the history of education in modern China)
reproduces many thousands of pages of sources from late Ch'ing to 1948, making
it the most extensive single collection. A week-by-week chronology to 1933 is
Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL ESSAYS 895
provided by Ting Chih-p'in,
Cbung-kuo
chin
cb'i-shih-nien
lai
chiao-yii cbi-shih
(Events in Chinese education during the past 70 years). Wang Yun-wu,
Shang-wu
yin-shu-kuan yii
hsin-chiao-yii nien-p'u
(A chronology of the Commercial Press and
the New Education) provides data and documentation from 1897 to 1972 (after
1949 concerning Taiwan). Extensive data are also compiled in Lin Tzu-hsun,
Chung-kuo liu-bsueb chiao-yii shih
(A history of Chinese students studying abroad).
Among journals,
Chiao-yii tsa-chih
(Chinese educational review) was published
by the Commercial Press in Shanghai from 1909, and
Chung-hua chiao-yu chieh
(Chung Hua educational review) by the Chung-hua Book Company from 1912.
Hsin-chiao-yii
(The new education) edited at first by Chiang Monlin (Meng-ling)
was published from 1919 under the sponsorship of the Kiangsu Education
Association (Chiang-su sheng chiao-yii kung-chin she).
For a concise early survey up to 1930 see Wang Feng-chieh,
Chung-kuo
chiao-yii,
shih ta-kang
(An outline history of Chinese education). For the years after 1930
a number of surveys were published under diverse auspices: among them were
Ts'ai Yuan-p'ei et al. Wan-Ch'ing
san-shih-tvu-nien
lai chih
Chung-kuo chiao-yii
(1S97-1931)
(Chinese education in the 35 years since late Ch'ing (1897-1931)).
JCang-chan ch'ien shih-nien chih Chung-kuo
(China in the decade before the war)
contains several chapters on academic institutional development; P'an Kung-chan,
ed.
Wu-shih-nien
lai ti
Chung-kuo
(China in the last 50 years) includes chapters by
leading academic figures. Chuang Tse-hsuan, ed. 'K'ang-chan shih-nien lai ti
Chung-kuo hsueh-hsiao chiao-yu tsung chien-t'ao' (General assessment of Chinese
education in the ten years since the [beginning of the] war of resistance) was a
special issue of
Chung-hua chiao-yii
cbieh,
new series 1.1 (1947). Official figures on
the educational establishment include three volumes issued by the Ministry of
Education, Office of
Statistics,
Erh-shih-i
[erb,
san] nien-tu ch'iian-kuo kao-teng chiao-yii
fung-chi (Statistics of higher education in China for the academic year 1932—3
[1933—4,1934-5]). Two educational year books
were
published:
Ti-i-t^'uChung-kuo
chiao-yii nien-chien
(The first China education year book), 6 vols in 1934 with a
preface by Wang Shih-chieh as minister of education; and Ti-erh-t^u... (The
second year book) in 1948 with a preface by Chu Chia-hua.
Since 1981 a series has been under publication in Taipei with the general
designation
Hsueb-fu chi-tven
(Records and reminiscences of academic institutions),
which consists of single-volume histories of leading universities. Among
the first volumes to appear are, for example,
Kuo-li Pei-ching ta-hsueh
(National
Peking University), Kuo-li
Ch'ing-hua ta-hsueh
(National Tsing-hua University),
Kuo-li Wu-han ta-hsueh
(National Wuhan University),
Kuo-li Hsi-nan lien-ho ta-hsueh
(National South-west Associated University), Ssu-li
Yen-ching ta-hsueh
(Yenching
University). Contents include a variety of materials, from formal chronological
accounts, contemporary articles and reports and public speeches, to commemora-
tive papers and personal reminiscences, much of it anecdotal. The monthly
journal
Chuan-chi wen-hsueb
(Biographical literature) and its press in Taipei have
published
a
Biographical Literature Series
(BLS)
on personalities of the Republican
period, including many in the academic community: Wang Wen-t'ien, Chang
Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008
896 BIBLIOGRAPHICAL ESSAYS
Po-lingjii Nan-k'ai
ta-hsueb
(Chang Po-ling and Nankai University), BLS no. 26,
1968;
Liang Shih-ch'iu, Tan Wen I-to (About Wen I-to), BLS no. 3, 1967; Lo
Chiz-lun, Shib-chefu-ssu
chi
(Recollections of those who are
gone),
BLS
no.
14,1967;
Ts'ai
Yuan-p'ei
t%u-shu
(Autobiography of Ts'ai Yuan-p'ei), BLS no. 22,1978: Hu
Shih et
al.
Ting
Wen-chiang cbe-kojen
(Ting Wen-chiang as a person), BLS no. 21,
1979;
Yang Liang-kuang,
Tsao-ch'i san-shih-nien
ti
chiao-hsueh sbeng-huo
(My life as
an educator: the first 30 years), BLS no. 98, 1980.
On the special contribution of Ts'ai Yuan-p'ei to modern Chinese academic
life,
see T'ao Ying-hui,
Ts'ai
Yuan-p'ei
nien-p'u
(A chronological biography of Ts'ai
Yuan-p'ei), and two detailed articles in the
Bulletin
of
the Institute
of
Modern
History,
Academia Sinica, Taipei, no. 5, 1976, and no. 7, 1978. In addition to the widely
known Ts'ai Yuan-p'ei
ch'iian-chi
(Collected works), there is a separate volume
that concentrates on Ts'ai's pronouncements on educational matters, Kao
P'ing-shu, ed. Ts'ai
Yuan-p'ei chiao-yii
rven-hsuan,
published in 1980. Some alumni
magazines contain useful historical data, such as
Ch'ing-hua hsiao-yu
fung-bsun
(Alumni gazette) of Tsing-hua University. First-hand accounts of academic
personalities in English include Chiang Monlin, Tides from
the
West.
The story of the Christian colleges in China and their interaction with the
Chinese environment is told in Jessie G. Lutz,
China
and the
Christian
colleges,
18jo—19
jo;
see also Anthony C. Li, The History of privately
controlled
higher
education
in the
Republic
of
China.
The histories of individual colleges have been issued by
the United Board of Christian Higher Education of Asia; although uneven in
quality, these works serve the dual purpose of providing an outline of Christian
educational endeavour in China since the nineteenth century, based mainly on
mission archives and private papers, and revealing the divergent attitudes
prevalent among the Christian educators and their chroniclers. The volumes
include: Charles Hodge Corbett,
Shantung Christian University
(1955); Clarence
Day, Hangchow University (195 5); Dwight W. Edwards, Yenching University (1959);
Mary Lamberton, St John's University, Shanghai, 1879-19JI (1955); Mrs Lawrence
Thurston and Ruth M. Chester, Ginling College (1955); L. Ethel Wallace, Hwa
Nan College: the women's
college
of South China (1956); and Lewis C. Walmsley, West
China Union University (1974). See also Reuben Holden, Yale in China: the
mainland,
1901—19J1.
For recent analyses of the Western - especially American - impact
on the development of higher education and scientific research in China see
American
science
and
modern
China
1876-1936
by Peter Buck, and Philip West,
Yenching University and Sino-Western relations
1916-19j2.
The whole area of Japanese influence on Chinese culture and education was
most fully opened up by the great pioneer Saneto Keishu, whose early works
of
1939—45
(see items 6.8.1 to 6.8.5
m
J-K. Fairbanks/
al.
Japanese studies
of modern
China) reached their climax in his
Chiigokujin
Nihon
ryugakushi
(A history
of Chinese students in Japan) of
i960.
For
a
Chinese version see Huang Fu-ch'ing,
Cb'ing-mo liu-Jib bsueb-sheng
(Chinese students in Japan in the late Ch'ing period).
The Saneto collection in Tokyo remains a major resource for this field, without
a counterpart in any other country. Y. C. Wang,
Chinese intellectuals and the
West,
Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL ESSAYS
897
is
an
introductory survey;
but in
general
the
personal memoirs
of
Chinese
who
studied abroad remain
an
untapped resource. Sally Borthwick,
Education
and
social change
in
China,
lists some
5 o
volumes
of
such memoirs
on
pp.
200—1.
The most useful starting points among recent publications, in addition to Philip
West,
Yenching University and Sino-Western
relations,
1916-19J2,
include the detailed
Tsing-hua history from Peking,
Ch'ing-hua ta-hsueh-hsiao
shih-kao,
completed 1965,
published 1981 (of which John Israel has published selected portions) and Jerome
Grieder's survey,
Intellectuals
and
the
state
in
modern
China:
a
narrative
history,
of
1981.
9.
LITERARY TRENDS: THE ROAD TO REVOLUTION I927-1949
The general state
of
the study
of
modern Chinese literature was discussed
in the
bibliographical essay
for
the chapter
'
Literary trends
I:
the quest
for
modernity'
in CHOC 12. The present essay provides additional information which was
not
available when that chapter and
the
present one were written.
Since
the
downfall
of
the 'gang
of
four'
in
1976,
a
resurgence
of
intellectual
activity
has
brought forth
a
rich harvest
of
scholarship
on
modern Chinese
literature.
(In the
Chinese
way of
chronological division,
the
'modern period',
hsien-tai,
refers
to
1917-1949, which
is
followed
by the
'contemporary period',
tang-tai,
from 1949
to the
present.) Among
the
mushrooming journals,
at
least
half a dozen
are
devoted
to
literary resources
and
studies
of
the
hsien-tai
period,
of which
the
most notable include: Hsin
wen-hsueh shih-liao
(Historical materials
on
new
literature), featuring
the
memoirs
of
Mao
Tun and
other significant
sources;
Chung-kuo hsien-tai wen-hsuehyen-chiu ts'ung-k'an
(Collection
of
modern
Chinese literature studies);
and
Chung-kao
hsien-tai wen-i t^u-liao ts'ung-k'an
(Collected materials
on
modern Chinese literature
and
art).
In
addition, several
journals
are
concerned exclusively with
Lu
Hsun studies (the year 1981 marked
the centenary
of Lu
Hsun's birth).
A
massive dictionary
of
Chinese writers,
Chung-kuo wen-hsueh-chia
ts^u-tien,
is
being issued
by the
Foreign Languages
Institute:
the
first
volume
of
the
hsien-tai
section, published
in
1978
in
draft form,
contains biographies
of
405
writers; volume 2, published
in
1982,
is
bulkier with
582 biographies.
The
standard literary histories cited
in
this chapter, including
those
by Li
Ho-lin, Wang
Yao and Liu
Shou-sung, have been reissued,
and a
number
of
new textbooks have been published.
A
new
national archives centre
for the
study
of
modern Chinese literature
is
being established; future archives will be housed
in a
sixteenth-century longevity
temple
in the
vicinity
of
Beijing. According
to
information provided
in
Chinese
Literature (February 1983),
the
collection 'will include manuscripts, letters,
diaries, photos, portraits, reference films, recordings
and
video tapes
of
modern
writers, theorists, translators
and
literary activists since
the 1919 May
Fourth
Movement, along with their works
in
various editions, journals
and
other
important materials'
(p.
137). Perhaps
the
most ambitious undertaking, which
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898 BIBLIOGRAPHICAL ESSAYS
has already begun, is the compendious series
Chung-kuo hsien-tai wen-hsueh
shih
t^u-liao
hui-pien
(Collected materials on the history of modern Chinese literature),
which will consist of materials on literary movements, societies, controversies,
as well as on writers and their works, plus indexes to individual writings and
articles in newspapers and journals. This massive project represents
a
collaborative
effort of scholars from a dozen leading universities under the supervision of the
Institute of Literature of the Academy of Social Sciences. When publication is
completed (projected for 1985), this new compendium, numbering perhaps
hundreds of volumes, will become the most valuable repository for students and
researchers of the field, both Chinese and Western.
This sheer quantity of
Chinese
scholarship is, however, not necessarily matched
by interpretive quality. Although post-1976 works evince less Maoist ideology,
the basic Marxist-Leninist framework, made vulgarly schematic by successive
ideological campaigns over the past thirty years, is not abandoned. Most recent
textbooks still tend to emphasize the literary debates of the 1930s and the
significance of party leadership in the League of Left-wing Writers and, of course,
in the Yenan literary scene. Accordingly, leftist literary trends and works receive
more extensive coverage than non-leftist writers or artistically interesting works,
especially those published in wartime Chungking and in Japanese-occupied
Shanghai. Among writers of the
hsien-tai
period, Lu Hsun remains a towering
giant occupying a politically deified position, although a small number of studies
(such as a refreshing biography by Liu Tsai-fu and Lin Fei, Lu
Hsun chuan)
have
attempted to portray him in more human proportions.
Most recent textbooks on the history of modern Chinese literature tend to give
prominence to six major writers, ranked in the following order: (1) Lu Hsun,
(2) Kuo Mo-jo, (3) Mao Tun, (4) Pa Chin, (5) Lao She, and (6) Ts'ao Yii. Those
who are valued highly in C. T. Hsia's A
history
of
modern Chinese
fiction
—
Chang
T'ien-i, Wu Tsu-hsiang, Shen Ts'ung-wen, Ch'ien Chung-shu, and Eileen
Chang - seem obscured in Chinese literary histories. The modernistic trend in
poetry, which flowered briefly in the early 1930s, hardly received any attention
in previous Chinese studies and is only beginning to attract scholarly interest in
China, partly as a result of the recent controversy centred around the young
practitioners of 'obscure poetry'
(meng-lung
shih).
In contrast, poetry and the works of such non-leftist writers as Hsu Chih-mo
and Yii Ta-fu remain the only part of the larger legacy of May Fourth literature
which is allowed to be read in Taiwan, whereas most other writers, including
Lu Hsun, are banned for being 'Communists'. A rather daring scholarly series,
Chung-kuo hsien-tai wen-hsueb yen-chiu
ts'ung-k'an (Collection of modern Chinese
literature studies), edited by Chou Chin and numbering about thirty volumes,
represents an initial effort to circumvent the official ban, although the intellectual
quality of the individual volumes is uneven.
Much remains to be done, therefore, in advancing the study of modern Chinese
literature as
literature
in the context of social and cultural history, rather than
mainly as a reflection of political ideology and policy. This challenge is being
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BIBLIOGRAPHICAL ESSAYS 899
met by a growing number of Western scholars who have been able in recent years
to have direct personal contacts with the writers they were studying. Among
recent studies (published or about to be published) which have benefited from
such an experience, the most notable include: Yi-tsi Feuerwerker, Ding Ling's
fiction -
ideology
and narrative in modern Chinese literature; Ko Hao-wen (Howard
Goldblatt),
Hsiao Hungp'ing-chuan
(A critical biography of Hsiao Hung, expanded
and revised from the author's English monograph,
Hsiao
Hung);
Jeffrey Kinkley's
forthcoming book on Shen Ts'ung-wen (revised from his dissertation at Harvard,
' Shen Ts'ung-wen's vision of Republican China'); and Theodore Huters, Qian
Zhongshu.
These scholars have either interviewed their subjects in person, or done
research at the actual locations of the subject's life, or both. Following in their
wake, a number of graduate students from American universities have done
research or interviewing in China on such figures as Wu Tsu-hsiang, Lao She,
Hsiao Chun, Ai Wu, and Ting Ling and on such generic topics
as
autobiographical
literature and symbolist poetry.
The general area of concentration among Western scholars remains, however,
the literature of the 1930s. This is understandable, owing to the productivity and
artistic maturity of the writers of this period despite the pressing socio-political
circumstances. On the other hand, literary polemics and the activities of the
League of Left-wing Writers have not been extensively studied by Western
scholars, with the notable exceptions of Paul Pickowicz, Marxist
literary thought
in China: the
influence
of Ch'ii Ch'iu-pai and a recent dissertation on the league
by Anthony Kane: 'The League of left-wing writers and Chinese literacy policy'.
The period of the 1940s, in which modern Chinese literature was embroiled in
war and revolution, has received scant attention in Western scholarship. The
wartime writings of
Mao
Tun and Pa Chin await further research and translation.
Mao Tun's novels, such as Shih (Eclipse) and Fu-shih (Putrefaction), have not
been rendered into English; Pa Chin's best novel,
Han-jeh
(Cold nights), has only
recently been translated by Nathan Mao. Wartime drama in Chungking is a crucial
subject yet to be explored. And the literary scene in Japanese-occupied Shanghai
receives its first scholarly treatment in Edward Gunn's masterful book,
Unwelcome
muse.
The Yenan scene has been studied by David Holm, who has written articles
on the Yang-ke movement and on Lu Hsun's legacy in Yenan. Mao Tse-tung's
famous Talks on art and literature received a new and careful English translation
by Bonnie McDougall, based on the earlier 1943 text. The post-war film industry,
briefly discussed in this chapter, is being researched by Paul Pickowicz, Paul Clark
and others as a source for social history; its artistic and literary merits remain
to be assessed. (Jan Leyda's book on modern Chinese cinema,
Dianying,
is seriously
flawed.) In short, the entire period offers a rich territory for continuing scholarly
exploration.
The growth of
a
new field can be gauged also by collective scholarly activities
such as workshops and conferences. Since the ground-breaking workshop and
conference at Harvard in 1974, which resulted in a significant book,
Modern Chinese
literature in the May Fourth era (edited by Merle Goldman), half a dozen
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900 BIBLIOGRAPHICAL ESSAYS
international gatherings have been held, of which three are directly relevant to
the period covered in this chapter. The first of these conferences was a colloquium
held in Paris in June 1980, organized by Robert Ruhlmann. The conference
volume, published in 1982 under the title of
1M
litterature chinoise de la guerre de
resistance centre le Japon (de 1937
a
194/),
contains twenty-nine papers by European,
American, and Chinese scholars and writers, with special
hommages
paid to Ting
Ling and Ai Ch'ing (the latter attended in person). The second international
conference, devoted entirely to ' Lu Hsun and his legacy', was held as Asilomar,
California, in August 19
81.
Now in preparation under the editorship of Leo Ou-fan
Lee is a volume which includes a dozen papers assessing the broad-ranging impact
of Lu Hsun on modern Chinese literature, politics, and thought as well as his
reception in world literature. The most recent academic gathering was a
workshop on 'Critical approaches to modern Chinese short stories', held in
Honolulu in December 1982. Some twenty scholars discussed the viability of
employing Western critical theories for the analysis of specific Chinese short
stories from the early May Fourth period to the present. The workshop marked
the first sustained exploration of the intrinsic structures of selected stories as
literary
texts, not as historical documents or biographical data of their authors.
One may also consult the bibliographical essays contained in Winston
L. Y. Yang and Nathan K. Mao, eds.
Modern Chinese
fiction:
a guide
to its
study and
appreciation;
and Donald Gibbs and Yun-chen Li, eds. A
bibliography
of
studies
and
translations
of
modern Chinese
literature,
1918—1942.
The most comprehensive sampling in English of modern Chinese fiction is
Joseph S. M. Lau, C. T. Hsia, and Leo Ou-fan Lee, eds.
Modern Chinese stories
and
novellas,
1919-1949; of modern Chinese poetry, Kai-yu Hsu, Twentieth-century
Chinese poetry; and of modern drama, Edward Gunn, ed. Twentieth-century Chinese
drama: an anthology..
For Chapter
JO,
see
bibliographical essay
2 and 10, above.
II.
NATIONALIST CHINA DURING THE SINO-JAPANESE WAR,
Despite its drama and manifest importance, the period of the war against Japan
remains an undeveloped segment of China's modern history. Perhaps the best
general portrayal of the Nationalists during the war is still that of two American
journalists who were in China at the time: Theodore H. White and Annalee
Jacoby,
Thunder
out of
China.
This work was highly critical of the Nationalists,
but its general assessment is being corroborated by more recent scholarly studies.
The most comprehensive study of the period is the two-volume work by modern
China's most prolific historian, Wu Hsiang-hsiang, entitled Ti-erh-t^u
Chung-Jih
chang-cheng shih
(History of the second Sino-Japanese War). Although useful for
its presentation of data, Wu's study is remarkably weak in critical interpretation
or analysis. A work that is analytically stronger and has valuable information
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