The default maneuver in Chinese traditional writings,I argue,is to situate the human voice on a continuum with other sounds,rather than isolating it as a categorically separate phenomenon in its own right.My strategy in this chapter,therefore,is to trace the emergence of different models of the voice over time.There are two diametrically opposed approaches to the voice in canonical writings from early China(fifth century BCE to first century CE):an expressive model found in Confucian statements on music and poetry and a physiological model found in the volume on acupuncture in The Yellow Emperor's Inner Canon(黄帝内经).I then locate a major turning point in court literature of the Six Dynasties(third to fifth centuries CE),where a model of voice as a natural musical instrument is developed in several interesting directions,including the carnal voice,voice beyond language and voice as inherently musical.A Pedagogical Method for the Operatic Voice(乐府传声)by the Qing dynasty physician Xu Dachun advocates a modern,technical approach to training the voice as an idealized vehicle for repairing a fatal rupture between the musics of the past and present.In Xu's view of opera,only two things are fixed and unchangeable:not melodies and rhythms,but the system of keys and modes and the need for mouthing methods.Only the sound-producing voice can bring the human microcosm into harmony with the order of the cosmos and human governance in harmony with the teachings of the sage-kings.And not just this.Only the trained operatic voice can realize this potentiality by perfecting the sounding instrument that all human beings innately possess.
One of the most striking aspects of spirit writing in late imperial circles was its integration into literary culture.Spirit writing makes the past part of a continuous present,the infinite repeatability of authorship becoming proof of immortality.The absence of the medium in the literary record correspondingly enhances the impression of the spirit's independent presence,much as the absence of the playwright and director from the stage contributes to the illusion that the characters in a play are real.You Tong documented his fondness for spirit writing in a variety of forms.You Tong's engagement with planchette falls mainly into two distinct periods of his life.The first phase during 1642‒1644,the second phase in the 1670s.Although after a hiatus of some thirty years,the second phase in some ways uncannily replicates the pattern of the first phase:the death of You Tong's closest friend or wife intrigued him to write a torrent of mourning poems and seek to learn their fates in the other world.Writing,particularly unpublished writing,resembles the human body all too closely and is no bulwark against death.One of the reasons for men's interest in women's poetry in this period is that women's poetry,usually devalued and unpublished,represented writing most at risk of being lost,and consequently,most in need of pity,protection,and preservation.The fragility and vulnerability projected onto women's writings reveals the common tendency to conflate female body and text in this period,but it also betrays the anxiety that the male subject's own writing will not last,his own self disappear without a trace.You Tong's yearning to transcend the restraints of the spirit writing relationship,to see the form and hear the voice of an entirely literary creation—an ideal woman constituted only through words—resembles nothing so much as the desire of an author to witness one of his own characters come to life.There is one real way to satisfy this fantasy,of course:to script a play and then watch it performed.Celestial Court Music(钧天乐)is autobiographical not so much because it tells the story of You Tong's life,but because it portrays major themes and experiences in his life anchored to a dense web of personal referents.We may speak once again of an absence of performance in that no seance is dramatized in the play,despite the importance of spirit writing in his emotional life.But You Tong's fascination with female planchette immortals as the ideal woman and his anxieties about the posthumous fate of writing are tightly woven into the fabric of the play.
Given the geopolitical reality of the imbalance of power between the West and the Rest,there is also the imbalance of cultural capital and knowledge.The currently circulating works of world literature are by and large canonical works of the major European and Western literary traditions,while non-Western and even"minor"European literatures remain largely unknown,untranslated,and unappreciated beyond their culture of origin.Even today,traces of Eurocentric biases can still be influential in the study of world literature,as can be seen in Pascale Casanova's book,The World Republic of Letters.Therefore,world literature should not be just returning to the reading of literature,but to the discovery of many of the world's yet-unknown literary classics,the canonical works that have long been recognized in different literatures but not yet introduced to the global readership beyond their original scope of native readers.It is now the task of literary scholars of the world's different literary traditions to bring those works to the global critical attention and expand the canon of world literature.World literature in its true sense will be the discovery of the yet-unknown canonical works from the world's different,especially non-Western and the"minor"European,literary traditions.
俄罗斯语言学家雅各布森1966年在《中国格律诗的组合模式》一文中用对称理论来解释近体诗声律,发现了中国诗律学家未能充分揭示的诗行关系:反对称、镜像对称、镜像反对称.其中的镜像反对称受到了中国科学家杨振宁在研究粒子规律时提出的镜像反照说的影响,即可以通过镜像反照来转换物质与反物质.雅各布森的学说,被高友工继承,后者在《格律诗的美学》中提出了镜像的概念.之后王靖献在《新普林斯顿诗歌与诗学百科全书》"中国诗"辞条下,受到雅各布森的影响使用了"镜子效果"一语.这些研究尽管具有科学价值,是准确的解释,但不是如实的解释.中国古代的诗人无法把握量子力学的对称学说,他们只能通过可以直觉到的经验来建设诗律.就文化的根源来看,《周易》的阴阳二分法,与平仄二分法对应;对卦与覆卦的卦变规律,与近体诗诗行的变化规则相同.中国诗人从乾、坤两卦以及屯、蒙两卦可以直接得到对卦和覆卦的经验.而近代诗"粘"的技巧,实际上是先求对卦,再求覆卦(或者次序相反)而得到的.近体诗声律并非是对梵语诗律的模仿,它充分吸取了《周易》的卦变思想,是具有中国文化自身特征的美学结构.雅各布森发现了一种科学的解释,但对于近代诗声律而言,固有文化的解释更符合历史事实.
"意象派"在英美现代诗歌发展的历史上占据着关键地位.休姆、弗林特、洛威尔等人都为这个运动作出了贡献,但一般认为庞德才是其中最具有决定性的人物.作为一名优秀的组织者,庞德以《诗歌》杂志为阵地,为"意象派"造势,并编撰了诗歌小册子《意象派》.不过在"意象派"内部,庞德曾经受到排斥,并最终离开.几年之后,意象派便结束了.文章认为,这种内部的分歧除了内部领导权之争之外,还体现了其内部成员理论主张上的两种核心区别:是学习法国现代诗理论还是也学习中国传统诗学?庞德并不回避法国的影响.1914年出版的选集直接采用了他自己创造的法语单词"Des Imagists"(意象派)作为标题.然而,与弗林特不同的是,他一直否认"意象派"是法国象征主义的附庸.弗林特和休姆(尤其是休姆)是柏格森理论的热情倡导者,尽管柏格森重视"形象",但"形象"对他来说只是一个中介,最终导致情绪和直觉.继柏格森之后,休姆将"形象"视为一种中介,直到庞德,他才将"形象"视为具有独立价值的主观情感和客观对象的统一体,从而真正发展为"意象"(为此他创造了一个法语单词"imagisme"),成为"对象"本身(主观对象).因此,我们推断,庞德在柏格森和休姆的基础上发展了"意象"的概念,赋予了它独立的理论地位,从而促进了诗学的发展.庞德的"意象主义"主张里有着直接或间接来自中国文化和诗歌的影响,这也许才是他能将"形象"向前推进一步发展到"意象"的根本原因.
