Tag: Literature

Li Zhi 李贄

Published June 6, 2023 by Eveline Josselyn

Li Zhi (1527–1602) was a scholar-official during the late Ming period. After passing the civil service examination in 1551, Li Zhi worked as a teacher in Henan. He later served in the Ministry of Rites and Ministry of Justice, before leaving public service in order to devote himself to teaching for the remainder of his life. He was considered unorthodox and heretical by his contemporaries and later faced arrest and imprisonment for his ideas, whereupon he committed suicide in jail in 1602.

As a scholar, Li Zhi was a strong critic of the mainstream Cheng-Zhu School of Neo-Confucianism, which espoused the writings of Cheng Yi, Cheng Hao, and Zhu Xi. He also criticized Daoist and Buddhist thought, though later in life he would study Buddhism and the writings of Wang Yangming. He is generally considered a member of the Taizhou School, a radical school of thought developed by some of Wang Yangming’s followers and known for its individualist and egalitarian ideology.

Li Zhi’s most prominent work, A Book to Burn (Fenshu), consists of a collection of essays, letters, discourses, poems, and other miscellaneous writings. One main theme Li Zhi expresses throughout this text is the power of well-written literature, which he believed allowed for the expression of thoughts and desires one might not normally be permitted to voice. Li Zhi made this belief clear both through straightforward statements about literature’s significance and through the use of clever allusions to literary and scholarly classics.

In what is perhaps his best-known essay from the Fenshu, titled “Explanation of the Childlike Heart-mind,” Li Zhi promotes genuineness and encourages individuals to take ownership of their lives through authenticity. Li Zhi’s understanding of the heart-mind is distinguished from other conceptions within the Confucian tradition by his validation of an individual’s inner desires in opposition to long-established arguments regarding the dangers of excessive and selfish desires. Li Zhi believed that following the traditional method of cultivating one’s heart-mind by studying the classics and freeing oneself from desire would cause one to lose their childlike heart-mind as it would come to be dominated by outside influence, and ultimately the genuine, simplistic thoughts within one’s soul would be expressed superficially. Li Zhi warns against blindly following the ideas expressed by others and within the classics, as being in touch with one’s childlike heart-mind means being in touch with one’s originality, and thus it is necessary for one to draw their own interpretations from classics, rather than prematurely subscribing to prominent beliefs and sentiments. If one maintains a sense of self and originality, their childlike heart-mind will allow for a true, pure expression of their inner thoughts and desires. With his explanation of the childlike heart-mind, Li Zhi emphasizes the importance of determining one’s genuine desires by discerning them from desires and beliefs that have been influenced by others, ultimately confronting existentialist conceptions of freedom involving questions of how to live one’s life with genuineness and authenticity.

Throughout A Book to Keep Hidden (Cangshu), Li Zhi applies this individualistic approach to the genre of historical biography. In the “Introduction to the Table of Contents of the Historical Annals and Biographies” in the Cangshu, Li Zhi sets forth a pluralistic view of the truth in which there is no objective right or wrong. He argues against the mainstream Confucian understanding of objectivity in morality, asserting that all individuals possess an innate knowledge of right and wrong resulting in countless individual truths. For Li Zhi, individual conceptions of right and wrong are all equally legitimate, as such fundamental ideas inevitably differ between people, time periods, and places. Li Zhi propounds a more pluralistic approach to understanding truth and morality, urging individuals to refrain from holding others to arbitrary and subjective standards of right and wrong and to instead use their innate knowledge to develop their own understanding of such concepts.

FURTHER READING

Handler-Spitz, Rivi, Pauline C. Lee, and Haun Saussy. The Objectionable Li Zhi: Fiction, Criticism, and Dissent in Late Ming China. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2021.

Li, Zhi. A Book to Burn and a Book to Keep (Hidden): Selected Writings. Translated by Rebecca Handler-Spitz, Pauline C. Lee, and Haun Saussy. New York: Columbia University Press, 2016.

Li, Zhi, and Pauline C. Lee. Li Zhi, Confucianism, and the Virtue of Desire. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2012.

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Chan Koonchung

Published May 17, 2023 by Abby Varricchio

Chan Koonchung (1952- ) was born in Shanghai and received his education from the University of Hong Kong before completing graduate study at Boston University. Koonchung has worked in several different industries, such as film and television production before becoming a novelist. He currently lives in Beijing.

Koonchung’s The Fat Years, or directly translated as The Age of Prosperity: China 2013 uses the theme of dystopian technology in order to critique present actions or policies of the Chinese Communist Party and Chinese society. The Fat Years is set in the not-too-distant future , where the entire month of February 2011 is missing from public memory and record. In the year of 2011, the global economy crashed, but China remained unaffected and ascended to become the top global economic power, attaining great domestic prosperity.

The protagonist, Lao Chen, a Taiwanese writer, reconnects with several old friends, who are trying to determine how they partially remember the seemingly missing month. The group also notices everyone is suspiciously content and happy despite not being able to remember an entire month. Throughout the course of the novel, Xi and Caodi, two of Lao Chan’s friends, reveal their memories and travel to nearby regions to in order to understand why no one remembers the month and is unbothered by it. Eventually, the group kidnaps a knowledgeable Politburo member, He Dongsheng, to understand what role government leaders played in the mass amnesia and widespread happiness. He Dongsheng reveals the Chinese government places small amounts of MDMA (ecstasy) in the water and other beverages throughout the country so that everyone is relaxed and happy all the time. He Dongsheng likes this to the United States putting fluoride in its water. Koonchung implies people have chosen to not worry about the “forgotten month” because they are so content with such economic prosperity.

Though it is obvious Koonchung critiques the Chinese Communist Party in The Fat Years, the novel also presents a larger critique of complicity in the face of lost freedom in exchange for excessive material gain within any economic or political system. In Koonchung’s China, citizens gladly traded their individual rights, such as the freedom of expression, for economic prosperity. Koonchung ultimately urges readers from any country to ask themselves what essential qualities of freedom they are willing to surrender in order to achieve wealth, luxury, and prosperity.

FURTHER READING:

Koonchung, Chan. The Fat Years. Translated by Michael S. Duke. New York: Anchor Books, 2013.

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Magda Portal

Published August 19, 2022 by Amy Weitzman

Magda PORTAL (1900–1989) was a Peruvian socialist poet and leader of the Aprista social democratic party (APRA). She contributed to the Peruvian literary movement of the early 1900s, which advocated for indigenismo, anti-imperialism, women’s rights, and property rights. The movement was inspired by other liberation movements, such as the Mexican Revolution (1910–1920) and Argentina’s University Reform Movement (1918). Her poetry incorporates romanticism with overtly socialist messages. Additionally, she wrote extensively about her own experiences, particularly exclusion from male-dominated politics.

Portal is notable as a founder of APRA, one of the oldest political parties in Latin America. With her influence, it became the first Peruvian political party to recruit women. However, she abandoned it when it shifted to the ideological center. She wrote her only novel, La Trampa, to represent her negative experiences with the party before joining Peru’s Communist Party. Although she is renowned for being a woman in leftist spheres, her writings on other issues are significant. One example of her socialist poetry is “Proletarian Song.” Its vivid imagery of manual labor expresses the necessity of class reform. Her poetry often advocated for indigenous people’s integration into the state and society as well. Furthermore, she valued unity. Her correspondence reveals her desire for Latin American unity against the imperialist United States. She saw the Mexican Revolution as the model that all Latin American countries should follow, in order to not only protect individual rights domestically, but also create ideological unity across the region.

FURTHER READING

Portal, Magda. “Magda Portal Papers,” November 29, 1913. University of Texas Libraries.

Weaver, Kathleen. Peruvian Rebel: The World of Magda Portal, with a Selection of Her Poems. Illustrated edition. University Park (Pa.): Penn State University Press, 2011.

Portal, Magda, and Daniel R. Reedy. Hope and the Sea by Magda Portal. Translated by Kathleen Weaver. Dulzorada, 2021.

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Graciliano Ramos

Published July 26, 2022 by Amy Weitzman

Graciliano RAMOS (1892–1953) was a modernist writer and politician from the Brazilian northeast, one of the poorest regions in the country. He was a noted Communist and his writings feature fictional livelihoods to showcase social and political concerns. He expresses pessimism about generational suffering, illiteracy, misogyny, indigenous dehumanization, and exploitation as a fact of capitalism. Additionally, he had an impact on Brazil’s developing cinema culture.

São Bernardo and Vidas Secas are two of Ramos’s most famous works. Vidas Secas, translated as Barren Lives, is the most accessible to English readers. It details the tragic lives of a migrant family trekking through a drought in search of labor. Its central messages are that exploitation is inescapable for the lower class, suffering has a legacy, and illiteracy is disempowerment. For example, the father worries for his children’s upbringing but cannot help that they were born to labor under somebody else. Moreover, he is arrested when he does not understand the upper-class language of the charges against him. The last chapter leads into the first chapter to demonstrate the cyclical nature of helplessness.

FURTHER READING

Scott, Paulo. “Paulo Scott on Graciliano Ramos.” Asymptote Journal. Accessed July 26, 2022. https://www.asymptotejournal.com/special-feature/paulo-scott-on-graciliano-ramos/.

Ramos, Graciliano. Barren Lives: Vidas Secas. Translated by Ralph Edward Dimmick. University of Texas Press, 2011.

Ellison, Harlan. Brazil’s New Novel: Four Northeastern Masters – Jose Lins Do Rego, Jorge Amado, Graciliano, Rachel De Queiroz. Paris: Les Humanoïdes associés, 1979.

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Indigenismo

Published April 30, 2022 by Amy Weitzman

Indigenismo (approx. 1930–1970) was a political and literary movement throughout Latin America, but particularly significant in Brazil, Mexico, and Peru. Indigenismo advocated for the preservation of indigenous rights and culture. Significantly, many thinkers associate it with socialism due to the poor economic conditions of indigenous communities. The movement critiqued the political systems and cultural deterioration that separate indigenous peoples from the nation-state as a whole.

The Mexican Revolution was one example of an event that lent itself to Indigenismo. A regime change meant an opportunity for reform, leading activists to call for indigenous inclusion. For example, Ricardo Flores Magón was a popular journalist and contributor to the political movement in Mexico. Meanwhile, in Peru, the movement built momentum due to rising modernization at the cost of indigenous livelihoods. José María Arguedas was a novelist and contributor to the literary movement in Peru. Both Magón and Arguedas wrote extensively in support of property rights for indigenous communities. It is still relevant to Latin America as indigenous communities continue to advocate for themselves.

FURTHER READING

Marentes, Luis A. “Latino Indigenismo in a Comparative Perspective.” Oxford Bibliographies Online Datasets, 2013. https://doi.org/10.1093/obo/9780199913701-0040.

Rodriguez-Peralta, Phyllis. “Ciro Alegria: Culmination of Indigenist-Regionalism in Peru.” Journal of Spanish Studies: Twentieth Century 7, no. 3 (1979): 337–52. http://www.jstor.org/stable/27740901.

Tarica, Estelle. “Indigenismo.” Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Latin American History, 2016. https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780199366439.013.68.

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José María Arguedas

Published April 29, 2022 by Amy Weitzman

José María ARGUEDAS (1911–1969) was a Peruvian novelist from a Quechua family. During his time at Peru’s National Agrarian University, he wrote many novels in defense of indigenous Andean culture. He was a significant participant in the Indigenismo movement who also identified as socialist. His novels represent indigenous culture challenged by modernization and capitalism.

Arguedas frequently uses language to express how modernization distorts culture. He includes blends of Spanish, English, Quechua, Aymara, and profane vernacular. His use of language communicates not only the diversity of Peru, but also the degradation of native tongues and appropriation of Western language. His central themes of indigeneity in the face of both modernization and capitalism are found in his final novel, a work of magical realism, The Fox From Up Above and the Fox From Down Below. It features fictional characters whose interactions symbolize industrialization and the resilience of indigenous culture despite a defiled physical environment.

FURTHER READING

Arguedas José María, Julio Ortega, Christian Fernandez, and Frances Horning Barraclough. The Fox From Up Above and the Fox From Down Below. Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2000.

Arguedas José María, and Frances Horning Barraclough. Deep Rivers. Long Grove, IL: Waveland Press, 2007.

Sandoval, Ciro A., and Sandra M. Boschetto-Sandoval. José María Arguedas: Reconsiderations for Latin American Cultural Studies. Athens, OH: Ohio University Center for International Studies, 1998.

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