We know that Chinese classical literature, especially pre-Qin literature, is still in a situation where literature, history and philosophy are not distinguished, and the concept of so-called pure literature has not yet been formed. The objects highlighted in the history of literature, such as "Laozi", "Zhuangzi", "The Analects", "Han Feizi", etc., are both literary works and philosophical works; similarly, "Shangshu", "Zuo Zhuan", "Guoyu", "Guoyu", "National Policy" and so on are probably historical writings first, and literary creations second. Even the "Book of Songs" and "Chu Ci", which have a more obvious literary flavor, are somewhat historical and philosophical. During this period (in fact, it continued in later generations), writers were also thinkers and historians. We can even say that people such as Laozi, Zhuangzi, and Confucius had a much higher status in the history of thought than in the history of literature. As World cultural celebrities, their contributions are more reflected in philosophy and ethics. Therefore, for such works, it is not enough to study them only from a literary perspective. Concepts from philosophy, ethics, and history must also be introduced; and even literary research must have several perspectives, including literature and philosophy, literature and history. Only by making historical references and comparisons can we better understand the works and better grasp their significance in the history of literary development.
Since the Han Dynasty, the influence of philosophy and religion on literature has also been an important aspect of the study of literary history. For example, Confucian classics had a great impact on the literature of the Han Dynasty, metaphysics was on the literature of the Wei and Jin Dynasties, Zen Buddhism was on the literature of the Tang and Song Dynasties, Neo-Confucianism and Xinxue were on the literature of the Song and Ming dynasties, and their influence on the formation of the literary characteristics of this period cannot be underestimated. role. Taking the study of literature in the Wei and Jin Dynasties as an example, the discussion of the relationship between meaning, object, and text in literary theory, and the metaphysical poetry and palace poetry in creation may originate from pre-Qin Taoist thought, or may be related to Indian Buddhism. If the field of vision is limited to the scope of literature, it may be difficult to explore the underlying reasons for its development and evolution, and therefore it will be difficult to make an objective and fair judgment on it.
It is also a quite common phenomenon in the history of ancient Chinese literature that writers are also proficient in other arts, such as painting, music, calligraphy, etc. Many literati in the Wei and Jin Dynasties had various talents. The famous Zhulin scholars such as Ji Kang, Ruan Ji, Ruan Xian and others were not only good at poetry but also had high attainments in music. He can both perform and compose music. For example, Ji Kang composed "Ji's Four Songs" (four qin pieces, "Changqing", "Duanqing", "Changside" and "Shortside"), Ruan Ji wrote "Jiu Kuang", and Ruan Xian wrote "Three Gorges Flow". "Spring" handed down from generation to generation. Wang Xizhi and Gu Kaizhi are famous for their calligraphy and painting respectively, but they were also quite famous at that time. Literary commentaries in the Wei and Jin Dynasties often used music as an example. For example, Cao Pi's "Essays on Classical Theory" argued that the Qi is not strong enough, saying, "For example, although all kinds of music have the same tune and the same rhythm, the Qi is not uniform. Although skillful and skillful are in the hands of father and brother, they cannot be used to divert children." Lu Ji's "Wen Fu" directly borrowed the five terms "response, harmony, sadness, elegance, and beauty" from music to comment on literary diseases. He believed that a good article should have "the iteration of sounds, if the five colors communicate with each other" "The characteristics of the song give people the aesthetic feeling of "like dancers joining hands at a festival, and singers singing in response to the strings". Of course, the reason for this phenomenon cannot be entirely attributed to the emergence of concurrent talents, but rather to the trend of the times formed by the simultaneous maturity of music, painting, calligraphy and literature. In the history of ancient Chinese literature, we can certainly cite special talents like Wang Wei who were poets, painters, and musicians, but what is more universally significant is the style, style, and style that result from the mutual influence and mutual reference between different artistic styles. Convergence or new changes in styles and techniques. Regarding these two aspects - the study of the mutual influence between scholars who have made great achievements in multiple art fields and different art styles, we also need to have an open vision and break down the barriers between different art styles.
There is another situation that should be mentioned. In ancient Chinese literature, there is a special genre that combines two or more artistic styles. For example, poetry is the product of a combination of literature (poetry) and music, while opera has a performance component in addition to literature and music. Of course, we can put aside other factors and study them as pure texts, which is equivalent to general lyrical literature or narrative literature, but that will also cancel their uniqueness.
In addition, for example, Wen Yiduo's research on the objects in the Book of Songs integrates linguistics, folklore, and culture; Chen Yinke's "Yuanbai Poetry Notes" uses history to explain poetry and poetry to prove history. The comparative analysis of different writers and different literary styles also has obvious characteristics of interdisciplinary comparison.
The situation after the 1980s is not unlike that of the 1930s and 1940s. It is also the change of literary concepts, the introduction of methods and theories, and the comparison of Chinese and foreign literature and interdisciplinary comparison. The difference is that the reference methods and theories are richer and more diverse than before, the objects of interdisciplinary comparison are broader, the research is more in-depth, and the results are more significant. Taking the study of literature in the Tang Dynasty as an example, Cheng Qianfan's "Tang Dynasty Jinshi Records and Literature", Fu Xuancong's "Tang Dynasty Imperial Examinations and Literature", Dai Weihua's "Tang Dynasty Shogunate and Literature", "Tang Dynasty Embassy and Literature Research" Monographs such as "Literature and Buddhism in the Tang Dynasty" by Sun Changwu and "The World of Imagination - Taoism and Literature in the Tang Dynasty" by Ge Zhaoguang have made a more in-depth and comprehensive discussion on the relationship between the imperial examination system, the shogunate system and literature in the Tang Dynasty. "" focuses on the relationship between religion and literature in the Tang Dynasty. In 1996, Lijiang Publishing House launched the "Tang Poetry and Chinese Culture Series" edited by Liang Chaoran, including "Tang Poetry and Manor Culture" by Lin Jizhong, "Tang Poetry and Music" by Zhu Yi'an, "Tang Poetry and Painting" by Tao Wenpeng, and "Tang Poetry and Painting" by Zhang Mingfei. "Tang Poetry and Dance" by Chen Fei, "Tang Poetry and Imperial Examinations" by Chen Fei, "Tang Poetry and Buddhism" by Mao Shuiqing, "Tang Poetry and Taoism" by Huang Shizhong, and "Tang Poetry and Confucianism" by Liang Chaoran. The series of books is named "Tang Poetry and Chinese Culture", and it can also be said to be the study of Tang poetry using interdisciplinary comparative methods. In addition, there are hundreds of papers that conduct multi-angle and multi-faceted research on the relationship between Tang Dynasty literature and politics, history, religion, and art. The prevalence of interdisciplinary comparative methods in the study of classical literature can be seen here. No wonder Mr. Xu Gongchi, when summarizing the characteristics of classical literature research in the last 20 years of the last century, specifically listed "the expansion and opening up of disciplines" as the "expansion and opening up of disciplines" during this period. The most striking phenomenon”. Mr. Xu pointed out: “Since the mid-1980s, the study of classical literature has gradually integrated concepts and methods from other disciplines, such as sociology, anthropology, folklore, ethnology, mythology, religion, psychology, linguistics, etc. This has greatly broadened the research horizons, added new research methods, and opened up many marginal research topics for the discipline, especially the establishment of a cultural research perspective, which has brought a new atmosphere to this discipline.”[6]( P159) At the New Century Discipline Prospects and Information Exchange Symposium for the National Doctoral Program in Ancient Literature and Philology held in Tianjin in September 1998, Mr. Luo Zongqiang also talked about this: In the past 20 years, “the existence of diverse concepts and methods has At the same time, interdisciplinary research has also become a common phenomenon in the study of ancient literature. The tradition of independent study of Chinese literature and history has been carried forward. Anthropology, folklore, psychology, linguistics, religion and mythology and other disciplines have been widely involved in the study of ancient literature. The entire The ancient literature research community shows an active and diverse coexistence in research models and research methods." [7](P105)
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From this point of view, interdisciplinary comparison does have its own unique significance for the study of Chinese classical literature, and should not be regarded as a comparative literature researcher patent. But what is interesting is that few people in the field of ancient literature research mention interdisciplinary comparison, and they seem to prefer to use terms such as "multidisciplinary integration" and "interdisciplinary" instead. So, what is interdisciplinary in the minds of comparative literature researchers? By comparison, is there any difference from the method used by researchers of ancient Chinese literature? Does this difference in the name of the method mean that researchers of ancient literature have their own understanding and choices of this method?
Facts I'm afraid that's exactly what happened. As mentioned above, the significance of interdisciplinary comparison is mainly to connect literature with the entire spiritual activity of human beings, and to better understand the uniqueness of literature, the basic differences between literature and other humanities and even natural sciences, and between literature and other disciplines through comparison. The ultimate purpose of the mutual influence and mutual penetration is to promote the research of cross-national and cross-cultural "total literature".
The study of ancient Chinese literature is first and foremost a study of national literature, and its focus is not on "overall literature" but on Chinese literature itself. Although the understanding of Chinese literature itself also requires comparison, in the end it is not the same as the focus of comparative literature. different. In addition, in terms of the function of interdisciplinary comparison, it focuses more on solving problems at the theoretical level, and is therefore closer to comparative poetics; while the study of ancient Chinese literature mainly focuses on specific writers' works, even if it is related to other disciplines, There is no need to force comparisons or to deduce universal laws. Can it be said that these two differences determine that the study of ancient Chinese literature is more inclined to "multidisciplinary integration" - introducing and drawing on theories and results from other disciplines to examine and study ancient Chinese literary phenomena, rather than starting from the perspective of comparative literature researchers? The study of national literature moves towards the study of general literature.
As far as the specific operational level is concerned, both interdisciplinary comparison and multidisciplinary integration face the same problem, that is, how to truly be literature-oriented. Mr. Luo Zongqiang mentioned this issue in his above speech. On the one hand, he affirmed that the integration of multi-disciplines "is an inevitable development trend"; on the other hand, he also expressed concerns about existing problems: "What is the foothold of multi-disciplinary integration?... Literature, history and philosophy are not separated, literature and sociology are , literary anthropology, literary psychology, etc., where do they end up? Does it end in sociology, anthropology, psychology, etc.? Or does it end in literature? Is literature used to explain sociology, anthropology, and psychology? Studies, etc.? Or use these disciplines to explain literature? This problem seems to have not been completely solved, both in theory and practice. "[7] (P106) This is indeed a problem in multi-disciplinary integration research. Judging from the actual research situation, although there are many studies that successfully apply multi-disciplinary integration to solve literary problems, there are also some works that only use literary works as materials to confirm the theories of other disciplines. This is in the sociology mentioned by Mr. Luo The performance is particularly outstanding in , anthropology, and psychology research. In fact, similar situations also exist in philosophy, history, religion, and art research, but they are less obvious because they are closer to literature.
If we investigate carefully, this deviation in interpretation can be said to have a long history. In ancient Chinese literary criticism, poetry is equal to history, poetry is equal to Zen, and poetry is equal to painting. In fact, it means using history to interpret poetry, Zen to interpret poetry, and painting to interpret poetry, which erases the difference between literature and other disciplines. Wellek divided literary research into two types: external research and internal research. He believed that external research should pay special attention to "centering on literature". This was also because external research often deviated from literature. [8](P67) The same is true for interdisciplinary comparisons. Since it is a comparison, it is inevitable to refer to each other as subject and object, so there will inevitably be times when literature is used to explain and confirm the characteristics of other disciplines. Qian Zhongshu's "Chinese Poetry and Chinese Painting", Chen Yinke's "Yuanbai Poetry Notes" and "Liu Rushi's Farewell Biography" are classic works of interdisciplinary comparison. It is inevitable to use poetry to prove painting and poetry to history, let alone What about the research of ordinary people whose talents are far inferior to those of Qian Zhongshu and Chen Yinke? Therefore, the key to the problem may not be the name, but the motivation and purpose of the researcher. Whether it is external research, interdisciplinary research or multi-disciplinary integration, the key is how to apply it. Yes, we can emphasize and stipulate that literature must be the basis, but the specific application process often varies from person to person. The researcher's academic background, knowledge structure, research interests and other factors play a crucial role in his research direction. . There is a famous saying by Lu Xun on "Dream of Red Mansions": "The meaning of fate varies depending on the reader's vision: Confucian scholars see "Yi", Taoists see prostitution, talents see lingering, revolutionaries see rows, and gossips see secrets in the palace. …”[9](P145) Reading is like this, and academic research is certainly no exception.
Compared with the general multi-disciplinary integration or external research, the special significance of interdisciplinary comparison to ancient literary research may lie in: (1) It is different from the one-way investigation of external research.
Interdisciplinary comparison emphasizes comparison, so in the specific research process, we must change perspectives and interact with each other as subject and object. Although there is no guarantee that we will never deviate from literary research, it is more conducive to returning to literature than one-way investigation, and two-way analysis is indeed helpful. It helps us better understand the characteristics of literature. After all, the ultimate goal of comparison is still to solve literary problems. As one of the research methods of comparative literature, interdisciplinary comparison is different from similar research in comparative history, comparative religion or comparative art. This is the fundamental reason. (2) Different from the multi-angle approach of multi-disciplinary integration. Multi-angle approach has its own advantages, that is, it can study literary phenomena from multiple aspects and aspects from a macro perspective. However, it is relatively beyond our reach to examine specific issues and it is difficult to go deep into the interior of literature and other disciplines. Identify similarities and distinguish differences; interdisciplinary comparisons seem to be more qualified in this regard, especially in comparisons between adjacent disciplines, it is easier to focus and enlarge, and discern doubts within a millimeter. (3) It is more closely related to cultural studies. Interdisciplinary comparisons need to be carried out in a broader context. The relationship between literature and other disciplines, as well as the uniqueness and individuality of each other, are not only related to their respective constituent elements, but also subject to specific cultural backgrounds. Therefore, as interdisciplinary comparisons become more in-depth, research will naturally be directed to the cultural level, and thus external research on literature will be integrated to form a three-dimensional research pattern that combines points and areas.
In short, from the perspective of ancient Chinese literature research, the relationship between interdisciplinary comparison, multidisciplinary integration, and external research should be complementary rather than mutually exclusive. In other words, interdisciplinary comparative methods can be adopted An attitude that is flexible and does not necessarily adhere to the conventions of comparative literary theory. We believe that interdisciplinary comparison can help to better understand overall literature, but we can still limit the research to the scope of ancient Chinese literature; we admit that interdisciplinary comparison is more theoretical, but we can also use this method to examine specific literature Phenomenon; we agree that interdisciplinary comparisons should be conducted between systematic and independent disciplines, but it may not be possible to apply it within literature. For example, for phenomena such as using text as poetry and poetry as lyrics in the history of literature, if we can follow the By comparing this idea and identifying similarities and differences, I believe we will have a more objective and fair understanding. In the final analysis, the method is always determined by the research object. It is the object that chooses the method rather than the method that chooses the object. Starting from the reality of ancient Chinese literature, it should be a meaningful way to integrate traditional and modern academic paradigms using interdisciplinary comparison as a platform. choice.