Comparative Literature and China: A Bibliographical Review of Materials in English 1

Transcription

1 Comparative Literature and China: A Bibliographical Review of Materials in English 1 John J. Deeney I. Introduction In a recent newsletter on Chinese Literature, there is a report about a special session on "Bibliographical Control of Contemporary Chinese Literature" which attracted forty-seven teachers and librarians at the annual meeting of the Chinese Language Teachers Association (CLTA) on November 26, 1977, in San Francisco. 2 The problem invariably encountered when compiling bibliographies is incompleteness, but it was observed that, "The American Council of Learned Societies has formed a task force for developing East Asian material at the fifteen major collections in the United States. There is a plan to use the latest data-processing technology to consolidate bibliographic information by 1981, with the Library of Congress as the center." 3 A second problem which haunts the would-be bibliographer as he hesitates to begin such a time-consuming task is the possibility that he may be duplicating work in progress or already done abroad or even in his own bibliographical back yard. A third problem is how to minimize if not entirely avoid misleading inaccuracies. This problem does not necessarily stem from any lack of vigilance on the part of the bibliographer. It may be simply due to the lack of funds to pay a competent staff or the unavailability of the materials required. The bibliographer is often forced to copy information from secondary sources, the reliability of which is often questionable. A fourth problem is trying to convert individual scholarship into a collective act of conscious team-work. To this end, Donald A. Gibbs suggested to the bibliographical session of the CLTA that they collaborate with librarians who would receive volunteer help from "all of us here and others elsewhere who share our interests, 1 For an annotated bibliography of Chinese Materials on Comparative Literature see John J. Deeney 5 j H» Pi-chiao wen-hsueh yen-chiu chih hsin fang-hsiang Jfct&SC$j?f2t;2ljfff2;lp] (Taipei: Lien-cbing, 1978), pp See Modern Chinese Literature Newsletter, 4 (Spring, 1978), a Modern,

2 288 NEW ASIA ACADEMIC BULLETIN I (1978) so that talent and labor can be harnessed, with the idea being that by spreading the work load over many, it will not be an insurmountable chore for the few." 4 The overall solution then is "going public" in order to promote active communication and mutual contact. In this way, a constant interflow of information may be fostered. This first issue of the Hong Kong Comparative Literature Association journal proposes to initiate this ambitious enterprise; it wishes to serve as a clearing house of bibliographical information in order to compile an annual up-dated report which eventually may be revised and published in book form. Its success and continuance will depend on the response of our readers. II. Scope Because of the wide-ranging scope of Comparative Literature, Universal Bibliographical Control (UBC) is even less likely than its application to a single discipline. The number of languages, the variety of journals, the geographical spread, the time lag, etc., make UBC a virtual impossibility. We in the Far Easf, particularly in China, however, need not overly concern ourselves with all the details of Western comparative literature studies since so few of them attempt to relate themselves to the East. On the other hand, since we all find our root in the same Comparative Literature tree, there is no reason why we cannot branch off into the relatively restricted area of Chinese-Western literary relations with some confidence. While UBC may elude the grasp of the comparatist-in-general, scholars interested in Chinese-Eastern-Western literary relations have a sufficiently circumscribed field to pool their resources and exchange information with a good chance of achieving a practical bibliographical control. Our field may be new, but it is burgeoning quite rapidly as the following pages indicate. We simply wish to survey a small but significant part of the field; namely, China's literary relationships with other countries. It would be premature to try and discern trends in the field, but the sample entries which follow will indicate some of the milestones which mark some of the directions we may wish to explore. The best arrangement, therefore, would seem to be according to general types of writings and then chronology within each type. Some of the entries which follow may seem to be more proper to Chinese Literature or Literary Criticism, but if they are also pertinent to Comparative Literature, they are included even though some may be doubtful, borderline cases. It is, indeed, interesting to observe how often Chinese Literature comes up when eminent Western critics begin to question traditional literary frontiers. In his "Comparative Literature Today," Ren6 Wellek has insisted that the ultimate ideal of Comparative Literature is "a comparative study of all literatures, including those of the Farthest East." 5 In another of his famous essays, "The Concept of Comparative Literature," he says: "Linguistics has shown that much can be accomplished when we give up this one-sided approach and compare languages which are not genetically related at all. The same is true of literature. For instance, we would certainly profit from a study of old Chinese or Korean or Burmese poetry if we dealt with texts not in- * Modern, 31. o Comparative Literature, 17 (1953), 330.

3 John J. Deeney 289 fluenced by the West and would learn more from confronting them with Western poetry than from a study of the fortuitous and casual contacts which developed later." 6 And G. L. Anderson relates an interesting conversation he had with Auerbach: "Erich Auerbach once mentioned to me that the approach of his book Mimesis could be extended with great profit into Far Eastern literature, but he said, 'I am too old to learn Chinese.' " 7 In 1971, A. Owen Aldridge, after remarking about the policy of his journal, Comparative Literature Studies (which specializes in neglected areas like Ibero- American studies), told the Japanese comparatist, Shunsuke Kamei 3&#&:fr, that he was on the way to Taiwan to attend the First International Conference on East-West Literary Relations. Professor Aldridge wondered outloud "whether it might not be a good idea to change once more the direction of Comparative Literature Studies in order to encourage East-West Relationships." 8 Horst Frenz, the president of the International Comparative Literature Association, gave the keynote speech during Taiwan's Second International Comparative Literature Conference on Literary Theory and Criticism East and West (August, 1975). At this Conference, Professor Frenz traced the development of Comparative Literature in the West through the meeting places and topics of the International Comparative Literature Association. The first very parochial meeting took place in Venice with the same city as its main topic; later meetings took place on the European continent; and the one in 1973 took place in Canada which could be considered as an enlargement of the ICLA's horizons. Professor Frenz saw the trend of the future as moving more and more towards the East. Harry Levin, who attended the same Conference in Taiwan, is well known for his insistence on the importance of the Greek and Latin classics in "comparing the literature" within the Western tradition. But he also suggests that we verify our premises by "considering parallels among the Classics [Greek and Latin], or in the Near and Far East." 0 While confiding that, in retrospect, he might well have studied an Oriental language if his generation had not been raised on the importance of Greek and Latin, he insisted that if Comparative Literature was to develop in so many countries of the Far East, it should keep in touch with its cultural roots, so many of which are centered in China's tradition. III. Divisions A. BIBLIOGRAPHIES AND GENERAL REFERENCE WORKS The history of the bibliographical work done in Comparative Literature is relatively easy to trace, but in the initial stages very little attention was paid to the East. The first real landmark was Louis-P. Betz's La Litterature comparee: essai bibliographique (1904), which was unannotated, with emphasis on a few European coun- 6 Yearbook of Comparative and General Literature, 2 (1953), 3. 7 In William Theodore de Bary, ed., Approaches to the Oriental Classics: Asian Literature and Thought in General Education (N.Y.: Columbia Univ. Press, 1959), p "Problems and Vistas of Comparative Literature in Japan and the United States: Dialogue," Mosaic, 5 (Summer, 1972), "What is Realism?" Comparative Literature, 3 (1951), 199.

4 290 NEW ASIA ACADEMIC BULLETIN I (1978) tries (France, Germany, Italy, and England). Fernand Baldensperger and Werner P. Friederich tried to up-date Betz's work in their Bibliography of Comparative Literature (1950). Their unannotated coverage is extensive for the Western world but treatment of the Far East is quite scanty (only little more than one page of items on China and Indo-China). The Yearbook of Comparative and General Literature published an annual comparative Literature bibliography from 1950 (vol. 1) to try and continue up-dating Baldensperger-Friederich's work. Another special feature from 1960 was to give a list of translations from the proceeding year for foreign works translated into English (including Chinese). Unfortunately, the bibliography was discontinued after vol. 19 (1970), covering 1969, and their plans for a comprehensive index to all 19 volumes never went through. They now invite readers to submit annotated, specialized bibliographies and reviews of research including topics such as literary relations between countries and civilizations (e.g., Chinese-Western, African-Western, etc.). The MLA [Modern Language Association] International Bibliography was originally published annually as an issue of the PMLA: Publications of the Modern Language Association from From 1969 (published 1970) to the present the bibliography is only available separate from the PMLA. There was much reduplication between the YCGL and the PMLA, but the present MLA International Bibliography does not achieve the scope of the defunct YCGL bibliography, although the former is the only publication in English that pretends to cover the Comparative Literature field internationally. The first reference source to consult for bibliographical items on China's literary relations with the rest of the world is Chi Ch'iu-lang, John J. Deeney, et al., An Annotated Bibliography of English, American, and Comparative Literature for Chinese Scholars (Taipei: Western Literature Research Institute, Tamkang College of Arts and Sciences, 1975). 10 The pertinent sections in this 604-page bibliography are: Literary Criticism, World and European Literature, Chinese and Asian Literatures, Cultural and Intellectual Background, Comparative Literature, International Literature, East-West Literary Relations, Modes (genre, influence, periodization, thematology), Interdisciplinary Studies in Comparative Literature, and Translations. In addition, there is an annotated listing of 239 periodicals (including subscription addresses), serials, serial bibliographies, and series; a list of 46 associations, proceedings, and conference materials related to Comparative Literature; a supplementary listing of 480 books and articles en East-West literary relations; another supplement of 54 articles on the theory and practice of translation. John O. McCormick has published a Syllabus of Comparative Literature" which concentrates on primary sources but contains a useful Appendix (pp ), "Introduction to Indian, Chinese and Japanese Literature." The first installment of ECCE ABT (English-Chinese Chinese-Englisii: An Annotated Bibliography on Translation) appeared in the July, 1978 issue of the Hong Kong Translation Society's Bulletin. In the editor's note, the compilation is described as a bibliography of important titles of secondary sources (books about the theory and 10 Copies of this bibliography are available at the Tien Audio-Visual Center, Roosevelt Road, III-202-2, Taipei, Taiwan (107) (Cloth: US$5.50; Paper: US$3.50). 11 Comp. the Faculty of Comparative Literature, Livingston College, Rutgers Univ., 2nd ed. (Metuchen, N.J.: Scarecrow, 1972).

5 John J. Deeney 291 practice of translation rather than a list of primary materials which have been translated). The bibliography will try to steer a middle course between quantitative comprehensiveness and qualitative selectivity. In addition to the usual books and articles, it will include: A. periodicals and serials; B. dissertations; C. proceedings, D. prefaces and introductions, etc. Naturally, overlapping is inevitable but some of the main categories will be: I. Bibliographies and General Reference Works; II. Theory and History; III. Method, Evaluation and Problems; and IV. Study and Teaching Although the editors propose to include entries written in either Chinese or English, in order to reach a more international readership, the annotations will be in English. Outside of the general reference works which are proper to any given literature (bibliographies, indexes, dictionaries, encyclopedias, handbooks, historical and biographical reference tools, etc.), there is an area of particular importance to the comparatist: the vexing problem of the standardization of terminology within and beyond national boundaries. The very term, "comparative literature," as well as attempts to distinguish it from general literature, world literature, and so forth, prompted Janos Hankiss to tell his colleagues at the Second International Congress of Comparative Literature (1958): "L'6rudit qui, vers la fin de ce siecle, s'avisera d'6crire Fhistoire de notre discipline entre 1920 et 1950, se trouvera embarrasse* par la terminologie extremement flottante que nous appliquons a 1'ensemble ou a certaines branches de cette discipline." 12 Hankiss wrote hopefully that some clarifications and standardizing of terminology would take place, but we find the same fundamental concern voiced in the Third International Congress of Comparative Literature (Utrecht, 1961) and repeated again in the Friebourg congress of In a book review summary of the latter (whose published proceedings added up to a 1459-page collection which ended with only, "some limited attention to the literatures of the Far East" 13 ), Robert M. Burgess of the University of Montana, describes the collective concern over the definition and illustration of literary terms related especially to the notions of imitation, originality, and influence: "One of the primary tasks which the association has picked for itself is the clearer definition of terms used in literary context, and one of the most important long-term projects is the preparation of a Dictionnaire international des tcrmes litteraires" 14 This ambitious work was first proposed in 1957 and is edited by Robert Escarpit. The first 85-page volume of essay studies on nineteen key literary terms under the letter "L" appeared in 1973 (The Hague: Mouton). For each term (for example, litterarite, litterature, litterature comparee, literature generale, literature inondiale, and even the Chinese poetic form, && til shi[h]) t it gives etymologies, brief semantic studies, linguistic equivalents (from German, English, Arabian, Chinese, Spanish, French, Italian, Japanese, Russian), lengthy historical commentary, and bibliography. The entries are usually in French but some are in English. For a detailed description of the long-range project, see Robert Escarpit's Rapport sur le "Diction- 12 In Werner P. Friederich, ed., Comparative Literature: Proceedings of the Second Congress of the International Comparative Literature Association (Chapel Hill, North Carolina: The Univ. of North Carolina Press, 1959), I, Robert M. Burgess in Comparative Literature, 20 (1968), 187. " Burgess, 183.

6 292 NEW ASIA ACADEMIC BULLETIN I (1978) naire international des termes litteraires" (Bordeaux, France: Faculte des lettres et sciences humaine, Universite" de Bordeaux, 1964). The newly-established Comparative Literature and Translation Centre of The Chinese University of Hong Kong is now engaged in two related research projects. The first is a compilation of a glossary of over two hundred basic Comparative Literature terms taken from every language. It will be published in both English and Chinese. The second even more ambitious project is to make a critical selection and translation of the forthcoming three-volume Chung-kuo wen-hsiieh p'i-p'ing tzuliao hui-pien # «l S*4*$i. The nine members of this research unit are also planning to publish a translation (with critical articles in appendix form) of D. W. Fokkema and Elrud Kunne-Ibsch's Theories of Literature in the Twentieth Century (London: C. Hurst, 1978). The work is valuable to students and scholars of literature in both the East and the West. It provides one of the most recent discussions of literary assumptions and theories of the twentieth century, and a relativistic cultural view of literature which takes into consideration "the structures of various alien value systems" in their "comparative" sense. In addition to translation of the texts (e.g., The Chinese Reception of Marxist Literary Theories), critical essays and annotations on their relevance to Eastern (Chinese in particular) literary concepts will be added by the nine individual scholars engaged in the translation work. Another project already begun is the preparation of a Companion to Comparative Literature: Chinese-Western Literary Relations. This will include a comprehensive, annotated bibliography as well as a compilation and translation (Chinese to English and English to Chinese) of the most valuable extracts about Comparative Literature published by Chinese and Western scholars. These extracts (a few of the most thought-provoking paragraphs) will be arranged according to the traditional categories: definition, scope, literary theory and criticism, influence, periodization, genre, thematology, translation, interdisciplinary approach, etc. Finally, there will be a practical section covering terminological considerations. It will consist of descriptions of key terms relevant to Comparative Literature from both Chinese and Western traditions. Another useful reference book is the three-volume Dictionary of Oriental Literatures, ed. Jaroslav PrusSk (New York: Basic Book, 1974), prepared by the Oriental Institute in Prague and covering practically all the literatures of Asia and North Africa. The first volume describes the Chinese, Tibetan, Japanese, Korean, and Mongolian literatures. The majority of entries give biographical and evaluative comments about individual writers while the remaining articles describe literary genres, forms, schools, movements, etc. B. PERIODICALS AND PROCEEDINGS The number of journals related to Chinese-Western literary relations in whole or in part, ex professo or incidentally are multifarious. The Research Institute for Humanistic Studies at Kyoto University in Japan lists over eighty periodicals in their annual bibliography of Oriental Studies. The Journal of Asian Studies annual bibliography lists over 180 area periodicals reviewed and almost a 100 non-area periodicals reviewed. There are about a dozen journals devoted to bringing Eastern literatures to the English-speaking world and many of these contain articles related to Comparative Literature. Current journals more directly related to Comparative Literature and published

7 John J. Deeney 293 in English are listed below with imprint information and a brief description. arrangement is chronological. 1) Comparative Literature. 1, Quarterly. University of Oregon, Eugene, Ore , U.S.A. Published with the cooperation of the Comparative Literature Section of MLA. Founded by Chandler Beail and W. P. Friederich. Articles discuss the interrelations between literatures (mostly Western), with treatments of broad views and movements, genres, periods, and authors. Index. Cumulative index ) Yearbook of Comparative and General Literature. 1, Annual. Comparative Literature Office, Ballantine Hall 402, Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana 47401, U.S.A. Regular features of the Yearbook include "Reviews of Professional Works" (in vols. 1-); "List of Translations; I960-" (in vols. 10, 1961-); "Review of Recent Translations" (in vols. 1-18, ); biographies of famous comparatists and descriptions of related associations (Part 2 of vols. 1-9 only); and surveys of CL departments and curricula (Part 3 of vols. 1-9, and periodically later). The "List of Translations" attempts to list the translations from foreign literatures into English for the previous year. Volumes 1-9 of the Yearbook appeared as volumes of the University of North Carolina Studies in Comparative Literature. 3) Literature East & West: The Newsletter o] the Conference on Oriental- Western Literary Relations of MLA. 1, Quarterly. Roy E. Teele, Editor, Box 8107, University Station, Austin, Tex , U.S.A. Acts as newsletter, along with articles and book reviews. Index. 4) Comparative Literature Studies. "Special Advance Number," 1963; 1, Quarterly Foreign Language Building, University of Illinois, Urbana, 78712, U.S.A. Articles in all major European languages. Founded at the University of Maryland (vols. 1-3). Focus on literary history, history of ideas, and European-North and -South American literary relations. Index. Cumulative index, vols. 1-10, in vol. 10, No. 4(December, 1973). 5) Comparative Drama. 1, Quarterly. Department of English, Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo, Mich , U.S.A. Interdisciplinary articles dealing analytically with material in two or more foreign languages. Has bibliographies. Index. 6) Mosaic: A Journal for the Comparative Study oj Literature and Ideas. 1, Quaiteriy. University of Manitoba Press, Room 208, Tier Building, University The

8 294 NEW ASIA ACADEMIC BULLETIN I {1978) of Manitoba, Winnipeg R3T 2N2, Manitoba, Canada. Text in English or French. International in scope. Each issue devoted either to a specific theme, or to the general theme of the relationship of literature and ideas. Most issues appear to be later released as separate collections by the press, with the advertisements not citing which issue is involved. 7) Yearbook of Comparative Criticism. 1, Annual book series. Pennsylvania State University Press, University Park, Pa , U.S.A. Collections of articles, each year on a specific topic. In both advertisements and many libraries, the editor of the series, Joseph Strelka, is listed as the editor of each volume. In libraries, the series may not even be noted. The Yearbooks published so far are Perspectives in Literary Symbolism (1968), Problems of Literary Evaluation (1969), Patterns of Literary Style (1910), Anagogic Qualities of Literature (1971), Literary Criticism and Sociology (1972), and The Personality of the Critic (1973). 8) Comparative Literature in Canada: Newsletter/Litterature Comparee au Canada: Bulletin. 1, /year. Prof. M. V. Dimic, Fiction, Inc., 513 East 13th Street, New York, N.Y , U.S.A. Newsletter of the Canadian Comparative Literature Association, with text in English and French. The title on pre-publication brochures was Canadian Review of Comparative Literature/Revue Canadienne de Litterature Comparee, Articles on international history of literature, theory of literature, methods of literary scholarship, and relationships of literature to other spheres of human expression. 9) Tamkang Review. 1, /year. Western Language Research Institute, Tamkang College of Arts and Sciences, Taipei, Taiwan, R.O.C. Mainly devoted to comparative studies bewteen Chinese and foreign literatures. Each issue paged separately. See below, e) and h). 10) Renditions: A Chinese-English Translation Magazine. 1, /year, September and March. Comparative Literature and Translation Centre, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shatin, N.T., Hong Kong. Translations of classical and contemporary Chinese literature, including poetry, fiction, essays, literary and art criticism. Also carries scholarly articles on Chinese literature and on problems of translation. A good portion of the original Chinese texts appears at the end of each issue. 11) Comparison. 1, Quarterly. Susan Basnett-McGuire, Editor, University of Warwick, Coventry,

9 John J. Deeney 295 Warwickshire, CV4 7AL, England. Topics cover the whole field of Comparative Literary Studies, including literature in its connection with the other arts, comparative literary theory, and the methodological processes of comparison. 12) New Asia Academic Bulletin Special Issue: East-West Comparative Literature. 1, 1978-Annual. William Tay, Editor, English Department, Chung Chi College, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shatin, N.T., Hong Kong. This inaugural issue is, in fact, a special case in which New Asia College has invited the editor of the Hong Kong Comparative Literature Association to be guest editor of the Bulletin. Future publications of the Association may or may not continue this practice, but the editorial policy will remain the same: to promote Comparative Literature studies between China and other countries of the world. Eventually, some indefatigable bibliographer will have to go through all the journals in this section and systematically prepare a list of articles directly related to Chinese literature and the rest of the literary world. Not infrequently, articles of great importance for Comparative Literature studies are printed in journals not immediately concerned with this topic. It is planned to provide a bibliographical sampler of such seminal articles in the next issue of this journal. There are three essays, however, which must be mentioned here because they are important signposts along the path leading into the field of Chinese-Western literary relations. Perhaps the first significant break-through for Oriental-Western literary relations was A. E. Kunst's "Literatures of Asia" lecture which appeared in the revised edition of the popular handbook, Comparative Literature: Method and Perspective, ed. Newton P. Stallknecht and Horst Frenz (Carbondale, 111.: Southern Illinois Univ. Press, 1971), pp He speaks most eloquently and persuasively about the need for Western comparatists to expose themselves more to the three great literary traditions of Asia, each as rich or richer before modern times as the Western tradition. The second essay is by Anthony C. Yu and is called "Problems and Prospects in Chinese-Western Literary Relations," YCGL, 23 (1974), He wishes to "present the problems and possibilities relative to the study of literatures between which there is no genetic relation, where there are few or no linguistic or cultural affinities, and where frequently even the images and symbols have accrued vastly different meanings" (48). Furthermore, he points out that "the use of the more peculiarly Western critical concepts and categories in the study of Chinese literature is, in principle, no more inappropriate than the classical scholar's use of modern techniques and methods for his study of ancient materials" (50). The third essay is James I. Y. Liu's "The Study of Chinese Literature in the West: Recent Developments, Current Trends, Future Prospects," Journal of Asian Studies, 35 (1975), It is an excellent bibliographical survey of the field and also suggests that the application of modern Western critical approaches to. Chinese literature implicitly involves a comparative dimension.

10 296 NEW ASIA ACADEMIC BULLETIN I (1978)... Underlying this application are the tacit assumptions that comparable features and qualities exist between Chinese and Western literatures and that comparable standards are applicable to both. Deferring consideration of the question whether these assumptions are true or not, we may take note of three beneficial effects that the comparative approach has had: first, it has brought fresh insights to Chinese literature;, second, it has placed Chinese literature in a wider perspective, thus helping avoid cultural chauvinism or parochialism; third, it has made Chinese literature more accessible to non-specialists. To enlarge on the last point: it is due to the efforts of comparativist students of Chinese literature that scholars in Western literature and comparative literature have recently become more aware of and interested in Chinese literature.... On the other hand, the application of Western critical approaches to Chinese literature raises some serious questions. How far are critical methods and standards derived solely from Western literature valid when applied to Chinese literature, given the widely divergent cultural environments in which the two literatures have been produced? Should we totally ignore traditional Chinese critical concepts and standards, dismiss them lightly as being too vague or outmoded? And if not, how far are they intelligible and acceptable to us? Are there universal qualities and features of literature, universally applicable criteria for the evaluation of literary works? Should we be content with historical and cultural relativism; or should we aspire to be trans-historical and transcultural?... Furthermore, it would be desirable to attempt a synthesis of Chinese and Western theories of literature and of critical concepts and methods, so as to provide the study of Chinese literature with both a theoretical basis and a practical methodology (28-29 passim). The three most important journals (in reverse chronological order) for promoting studies of literary relations between China and the rest of the world are numbers 12, 9, and 2 listed earlier. These journals, especially 12 and 9, endeavor to attract relevant articles, so that this focusing of materials can help to minimize the time-consuming search in periodicals not specifically comparative as well as communicate such research more economically. The serious student of East-West literary relations will certainly peruse the three above-mentioned journals on a regular basis. A special feature of these journals is to promote conferences on Oriental-Western literary relations and to publish the proceedings. Although uneven in quality, these published proceedings have the advantage of concentrating a wide variety of scholarly views on Oriental-Western relations. These and other proceedings are listed below in chronological order: a) Indiana University Conference. [Proceedings of the First Conference on] Oriental-Western Literary Relations, ed. Horst Frenz and G. L. Anderson. University of North Carolina

11 John J. Deeney 297 Studies in Comparative Literature, No. 13. Chapel Hill: Univ. of North Carolina Press, This conference took place in 1954 and was the first of a series helping Western scholars to become better informed about the largely neglected area of Asia's cultural heritage. The essays are divided into four sections: Poetics; Modern Oriental Literature; Issues and Ideas; and Discussion of Oriental-Western Cultural Relations, Translation Problems, and the Teaching of Oriental Literature. b) Indiana University Conference. Asia and the Humanities: Papers Presented at the Second Conference on Oriental-Western Literary and Cultural Relations, ed. Horst Frenz. Bloomington, Ind.: Comparative Literature Committee, Indiana Univ., This conference took place in 1958 and emphasized cultural understanding (as opposed to political considerations) as a basis for all future relations between East and West. Papers are divided into four sections: Literature, Philosophy, the Arts, Cultural Values, Cultural Understanding, and Miscellaneous Discussions. c) Indiana University Conference. [Proceedings of the] Third Conference on Oriental-Western Literary and Cultural Relations, ed. Horst Frenz. Yearbook of Comparative and General Literature, 11 (1962), Meeting in June of 1962, this conference devoted itself primarily to the discussion of drama and theatre, fiction, poetry, literary criticism, and folklore, with a special emphasis on the cultural interrelations between the Far East and the West. Issued as a supplement to YCGL. d) Indiana University Conference. [Proceedings of the] Fourth Conference on Oriental-Western Literary and Cultural Relations, ed. Horst Frenz. YCGL, 15 (1966), This conference, held in 1966, concentrated on East-West cultural interchanges, particularly in the visual arts, literary criticism, poetry, and drama. Issued as a supplement to YCGL. e) Tamkang College of Arts and Sciences. Proceedings from International Comparative Literature Conference [On Chinese-Western Relations], ed. Yen Yuan-shu. Taipei: Western Literature Research Institute, Tamkang College of Arts & Sciences, Published in a double issue (525 pp.) of the Tamkang Review 2, No. 2 (1971) and 3, No. 1 (1972). This First Conference held in Taiwan in 1971 is described by A. Owen Aldridge, one of the participants, in YCGL, 21 (1972), f) Indiana University Conference. "Islam in World Literature." [Symposium held During the] Fifth Conference on Oriental-Western Literary and Cultural Relations, ed. Horst Frenz. YCGL, 20 (1971), This symposium was held in 1970 and the Islamic topics seem to have been the only material published from the conference.

12 298 NEW ASIA ACADEMIC BULLETIN I (1978) g) Indiana University Conference. [Proceedings of the] Sixth Conference on Oriental-Western Literary and Cultural Relations, ed. Eugene Eoyang, YCGL, 24 (1975), This symposium was held in 1974 on the theme of "The Art and Craft of Translating Chinese Poetry." Another portion of the symposium on "Literature in the Context of Art" will be published elsewhere, h) Tamkang College of Arts and Sciences. Proceedings from the Second International Comparative Literature Conference [on Chinese-Western Relations}, ed. Yen Yuan-shu, Taipei: Western Literatuie Research Institute, Tamkang College of Arts and Sciences, This conference was held in 1975, taking "Literary Theory and Criticism, East and West" as its theme. In the words of the editor, "The spirit of our comparative literature studies and programs has always been that of defining in a contrastive framework the nature of the Chinese national literature and that of seeking through analogies and relations congenial echoes in world literature. Consequently, our efforts are centered in our national literature but our outlook is trained upon literatures in the world as a whole." Published in a double issue (495 pp.) of the Tamkang Review, 7, No. 2 (1975) and 7, No. 1 (1976). A. Owen Aidridge, a participant, gives a recapitualation in YCGL, 25 (1976), i) Lai, T. C, ed. The Art and Profession of Translation. Proceedings of the Asia Foundation Conference on Chinese-English Translation. Hong Kong: The Hong Kong Translation Society (1976). This series of papers covers a wide variety of translation topics related to Chinese (over 257 pages of text). Scholars from all over the world are represented. The conferences of the International Comparative Literature Association also have promoted the study of non-western literatures from a comparative point of view. Although the amount of participation in such talks by the Western-dominated membership is usually disappointing, at least there is representation if not enthusiastic reception. The organizers of these recent triennial congresses are to be congratulated on their efforts to expose the Western world to Eastern literatures by including among the Symposia: Oriental-Occidental Relationships, Western Literary Theories and the Study of Chinese Fiction, Comparative Study of Asian and African Literature, etc. C. BOOKS AND DISSERTATIONS There are now a fairly large number of Comparative Literature introductions to choose from. 15 Although such texts usually do not allude to anything beyond the 15 a) Stallknecht, Newton P., and Horst Frenz. Comparative Literature: Method and Perspective. Carbondale, III.: Southern Illinois Univ. Press, Attempts to cover the problems and methods students of Comparative Literature may encounter. Essays by noted comparatists considering problems of definition, terminology, influence, genre, history of ideas, other arts, oral literature, translation, and critical methods. Uneven but well-indexed. Notes. Useful bibliographies accompany many individual essays. The rev. ed. of 1971 contains the famous Kunst essay cited above on p. 295.

13 John 3. Deeney 299 Western tradition, they can be useful in stimulating the comparatist of Oriental-Western literary relations to do analogous kinds of research. Arthur E. Kunst has reviewed one of the latest of these introductions 16 in relationship to its predecessors. His remarks are worth quoting at length: With another glance at the next generation of comparatists and their appropriate needs, these introductory volumes are, for comparative studies, extremely parochial. Admittedly, there are valiant efforts to overcome the European orientation; Jost's efforts, again, are the noblest of these in every section he has scoured the bibliographies for telling examples outside the small compass of the European experience while other volumes (Stallknecht & Frenz) segregate a chapter for non- European literatures, or contemplate with gloomy pleasure b) Etiemble, Rene. The Crisis in Comparative Literature. Trans. Herbert Weisinger and George Joyaux. East Lansing, Mich.: Michigan State Univ. Press, This is the English translation of the original French, Comparaison n'est pas Raison (Paris: Oallimard, 1963). Discusses some crucial questions of Comparative Literature: bibliographies, working languages, objectives, methods and programs. Urges the real internationalization of Comparative Literature by reference to the Orient (several references to China); a UNESCO-sponsored bibliography of studies from each country; etc. Contains substantial, spirited, somewhat hyperbolic foreword by translators (vii-xxiv). No index. c) Brandt Corstius, Jan. Introduction to the Comparative Study of Literature. New York: Random, Practical preparation for the study of Comparative Literature. Certain problems are chosen to illustrate western literary tradition and its relationship to literary originality. Selective bibliographies with some descriptive comments. Index. d) Aldridge, A. Owen, ed. Comparative Literature: Matter and Method. Urbana: Univ. of Illinois Press, Essays collected from the jouinai, Comparative Literature Studies, with a brief general introduction and with section introductions. Gives practical applications of various aspects of the field in the West. Rudimentary general bibliography. e) Gifford, Henry. Comparative Literature: Concepts of Literature. London: Routledge, A presentation of cosmopolitan points of view within Anglo-American literary scholarship. Thirty pages discuss "Comparative Studies," especially at British universities. Bibliog. f) Stallknecht, 1971 (see above, p. 298, n. 15 a). g) Prawer, S. S. Comparative Literary Studies: An Introduction. New York: Barnes & Noble, Discusses and evaluates the various ways in which the term, Comparative Literature, has been employed as well as procedures concerning analogy, translation, adaptation, and national treatment of identical themes. h) Weisstein, Ulrich. Comparative Literature and Library Theory: Survey and Introduction. Trans. William Riggan with the author. Bloomington, Ind.: Indiana Univ. Press, "Undoubtedly the best book of its kind, well-informed, clearly organized, and clearly written, sensible and tolerant in its judgments. The book should serve admirably as an introduction to the subject for all graduate students of comparative literature" (Rene Wellek). More emphasis on historical rather than theoretical approach. Notes. Bibliog. Index. 10 Jost, Franfois, Introduction to Comparative Literature (Indianapolis: Pegasus, 1974).

14 300 NEW ASIA ACADEMIC BULLETIN I (1978) modern man's inability to read everything worth reading in a lifetime (Etiemble), or merely gesture handsomely in the direction of "other literatures" (Prawer, Weisstein, Corstius). But the overwhelming assumptions underlying the generalizations are those of Europeanists. The suggestion is that literary knowledge can be complete from an inspection of one tradition (the Western, invariably), and even Jost is guilty of an occasional lapse into what Edward Said calls the archaeology of Orientalism.... It is customary now for one to hear in cultural circles about "the Western tradition" or "Western philosophy," usually from people who know nothing about any other tradition or any other logical system. Here, too, Jost's volume (and the rest) partake of a dichotomy of mind and intention: Asia, Arabia, and Africa exist, but they don't really matter. Jost's Introduction, then, is the best of a generation that has pointed the way but not taken it. It is up to those in the new generation, the present generation, who owe everything to their predecessors, to look about themselves and do comparative literature. 17 There is, indeed, a new generation of scholars who have begun to "do comparative literature" with a Chinese perspective. Naturally, most of the publications are in Chinese, 18 but solid scholarship in English has also begun to appear in both book and dissertation form. A few of these (by no means complete) may be singled out for special notice (arranged chronologically), although space limitations do not permit any further annotation: a) Liu, James J. Y. Elizabethan and Yuan: A Brief Comparison of Some Conventions in Poetic Drama. London: China Society, b) Fokkema, D. W. Literary Doctrine in China and Soviet Influence Hague: Moulton and Co., c) Yip, Wai-lim. Ezra Pound's Cathay. New Jersey: Princeton Univ. Press, d) Lau, Joseph S. M. Ts'ao Yu: The Reluctant Disciple of Chekhov and O'Neill, A Study in Literary Influence. Hong Kong: Univ. of Hong Kong Press, e) McDougall, Bonnie S. The Introduction of Western Literary Theories into Modern China, Tokyo: The Centre for East Asian Cultural Studies, f) Sesar, Carl Gordon. "No Drama and Chinese Literature." Diss. Columbia g) Lee, Leo Ou-fan. The Romantic Generation of Modern Chinese Writers. Cambridge: Harvard Univ. Press, h) Hall, Katherine Wai-hing. "The Chalk Circle from Li Hsing-tao to Bertolt Brecht." M. Phil. Diss., University of Hong Kong, YCCL, 26 (1977), See above, p. 287, n. 1.

15 John J. Deeney 301 i) Wang, Ching-hsien. The Bell and the Drum: Shih Ching as Formulaic Poetry in an Oral Tradition. Berkeley: Univ. of California Press, j) Miller, Lucien. Masks of Fiction in Dream of the Red Chamber. Tuscon: Univ. of Arizona Press, k) Plaks, Andrew. Archetype and Allegory in the Dream of the Red Chamber. New Jersey: Princeton Univ. Press, I) Fisk, William Cris. "Formal Themes in Medieval Chinese and Modern Western Literary Theory: Mimesis, Intertextuality, Figurativeness, and Foregrounding." Diss. Wisconsin 1976 m) Hsai, Paul Fai-sheng. "China in the Movement of Orientalism in Eighteenth-Century English Literature." Diss. Michigan n) Fu, James S. Mythic and Comic Aspects of the Quest: Hsi-yu Chi as Seen Through Don Quixote and Huckleberry Finn. Singapore: Singapore Univ. Press, o) Chou, Ying-hsiung. "The Wooden-tongued Bell: The Uses of Literature and Poetry-collecting in Han China." Diss. California, San Diego p) Tay, William Shu-sam. "The Sun on the Silk: Ezra Pound and Confucianism." Diss. California, San Diego In order to keep up to date on the unusually large amount of dissertations on Chinese Studies in the West, one should consult: Doctoral Dissertations on China, : A Bibliography of Studies in Western Languages, compiled and edited by Frank Joseph Shulman (Seattle and London: Univ. of Washington Press, 1978). The volume is the first in a projected series of five-year supplements to Doctoral Dissertations on China: A Bibliography of Studies in Western Languages, by Frank Joseph Shulman (Seattle and London: Univ. of Washington Press, 1978). 1972). The bibliography is a comprehensive, interdisciplinary, classified listing of doctoral-level research dealing in whole or in part with China, Hong Kong, Mongolia, Tibet, and Chinese communities in North America and Southeast Asia. It contains entries for 1573 doctoral dissertations, indexed by author, degree-awarding institution, and subject, accepted by institutions of higher learning in North America, Europe, Australia, Hong Kong, and India between 1971 and Also included are 228 entries for dissertations completed between 1945 and 1970 that were not listed in the earlier volume. Virtually all academic subjects are covered, ranging from anthropology, religion, and history to literature, economics, and the natural sciences. There is full bibliographical information for each dissertation cited including the location of any published abstracts, information on the availability of dissertations, and, where appropriate, details about the publication of book-length manuscripts based on the doctoral dissertations themselves. IV. Conclusion In this first stage of our bibliographical trek through the relatively unexplored field of Chinese-Western literary relations, we have only been able to map out some of the more notable highlights of such a journey. Subsequent trips in the area should reveal fascinating new vistas.