on july 23, prof. yuan hexiang, visiting professor of tsinghua university’s xinya college, founding president of the hong kong comparative literature society, founding director of the institute of foreign languages at taiwan’s chung cheng, and former chair of the department of english and director of the center for comparative studies of the chinese university of hong kong, gave a lecture titled “mirror and lamp, form and shadow: comparative literature studies of the west and the east by themes” to cflc faculty and students on the tencent conference platform. the lecture was hosted by cflc assistant professor ding xiaojun and attended by prof. cao li, vice dean of tsinghua university’s xinya college. during the lecture, prof. yuan hexiang, with his profound knowledge and broad academic horizon, sorted out the two different veins of the development of chinese and western cultures, accurately summarized the development patterns of western and chinese cultures. he expounded the collision and convergence between eastern and western cultures in the process of development. at the end of the lecture, prof. yuan commented on the history and current state of the study of east-west comparative literature, and elucidated its future development direction.
at the start of the lecture, prof. yuan pointed out that, compared with other fields of comparative literary studies, chinese and western cultures have different origins and development conditions, and fall into two different cultural categories, which need to be examined and treated with fresh eyes when making comparisons. in terms of basic concepts, prof. yuan categorized western and eastern cultures into two systems: “mirror and lamp” and “form and shadow”. the mirror, as interpreted by prof. yuan, can be summarized as the main content of western literature reflecting the social culture and scenes of the times in the classical period; after the 18th century, romantic literature advocated that literature could be used as a medium for expressing and reflecting on the inner feelings of the self, while the lamp was to explore and interpret the spirit of the times reflected in historical texts from the standpoint of modern readers. the form refers to the “mold” of literary creation in china formed by the convergence of confucianism, taoism and buddhism, whereas the shadow refers to the creation and development of later literature under the guidance and influence of this form.
then, yuan gave an overall explanation of the development of western and chinese literature. he pointed out that the classical period from ancient greece to ancient rome can be seen as the first stage of western cultural development, during which mythological stories, represented by homer’s epics, were mainly used to explain natural phenomena and construct the concept of natural society. in this stage, individual heroism was extended to the social sphere and became the representative of a certain group, while the individual spirit was extended to the social and cultural level. in the third stage, the socialization of mythology entered the period of philosophical reflection, which is represented by plato’s, socrates’ and aristotle’s philosophical contemplative prose as the genesis, continuing through the influence of medieval religion and soteriological philosophy until modern times. from the beginning, plato’s ideas on ideals and social governance were similar to confucianism, while nietzsche in modern times sees the development of literature as the result of the constant impact of two cohesive forces, the work (static) and the creator (active), and uses the ancient greek mythology of apollo, the god of the sun, and dionysus, the god of wine, as analogies for these two forces: apollo represents order and finiteness, while dionysus represents unpredictability and unrestrained energy, and the process of literature and even human civilization is the history of these two forces challenging each other, merging with each other, and alternating in dominance. prof. yuan also stated that the spirit represented by apollo and dionysus can compared with the confucian and taoist idea of “action” and “non-action”.
under the chinese literary system, the literature of the pre-qin period, represented by the shanhaijing (the classic of mountains and seas), is dominated by mythology, which can be compared with the western literature of the ancient greek period. the initial formation of chinese literature can be traced back to the spring and autumn period, when confucianism, represented by confucius, required literati to take honesty and justice as the fundamentals of human establishment, and thus put forward the positive thought of entering the world and the concept of “doing something” for the world. at the same time, social turmoil gave rise to the taoist thought of non-action and the concept of entering the world. during this period, these two ideas, like the spirit of the god of wine and the god of the sun in the western world, were in dialogue with each other and coexisted and developed. buddhism was brought to china during the han dynasty and, after localization, was integrated with confucianism to form a third form of chinese culture by the song dynasty. since then, until modern times, chinese literature has been a “shadow” of these three cultural forms. at this point, we can see that, in contrast to the western concepts of religion and non-religion, the ideas of being and non-being and “emptiness” have dominated traditional chinese literature.
on the level of literature, prof. yuan argued that goethe was the first to express the budding consciousness of comparative literature in the western world. in his faust, goethe suggested that when romanticism swept from germany to england, western literature had already eliminated the boundaries of language and country, presenting the state of “the world”. although the concept of the world here is rather limited compared with today’s concept of the world, its emphasis on the inclusiveness of literature beyond cultural and national boundaries is enough to make it the origin of the concept of world literature and the origin of comparative literature. at the same time, goethe’s advocacy of multilingual scholars and the positive significance of understanding world literature in promoting world political peace and prosperity were also ahead of their time. in the 19th century, a french scholar juxtaposed western culture with eastern culture. at the same time, he divided eastern literature into north american and mexican american literature and chinese literature, and argued that although chinese literature had its completeness of cultural expression, it was socially incompetent and decadent. this view was refuted by prof. yuan. since the start of the 20th century to the present, with the advent of the industrial and technological revolutions and the changes in the world landscape, western academia, represented by the united states, has paid more and more attention to translation and linguistics, and comparative literature has flourished. during this period, said’s orientalism was one of the more influential and controversial works. in this work, said emphasizes that the east in the west is not the same as the east in the real world, and that western academia should re-examine oriental literature with fresh eyes, which has become the new law of comparative literature between east and west today.
at the end of the lecture, prof. yuan pointed out that today’s east-west comparative literature is still dominated by the vision of western academia, and that western culture was influenced by religion (mainly christianity) after the middle ages, while eastern culture was reduced to an appendage under the westernized mode of thinking. at present, the correct attitude to carry out the comparison of east and west cultures should be to develop the strengths of each culture, to engage in dialogue and collision with equality, openness and mutual respect, to spark reaction, stimulation and challenges, and to bring into play the true inclusiveness and worldliness of literature, which is also the real meaning of the comparison of east and west cultures.
