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Suspended Temporality: Invoking the Transcendental in Canonical Modern Chinese Fiction |
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| Author |
Feng, Xiangjun (著)
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| Source |
International Journal of Buddhist Thought & Culture=국제불교문화사상사학회
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| Volume | v.34 n.1 |
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| Date | 2024.06 |
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| Pages | 99 - 128 |
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| Publisher | International Association for Buddhist Thought and Culture |
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| Publisher Url |
http://iabtc.org/
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| Location | Seoul, Korea [首爾, 韓國] |
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| Content type | 期刊論文=Journal Article |
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| Language | 英文=English |
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| Note | Author Affiliation: University of Toronto, Canada. |
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| Keyword | Modern Chinese fiction; religious experience; impulse of representing; impulse of invoking; suspended temporality; Buddhism; literary criticism |
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| Abstract | This essay proposes a religious approach to reading modern Chinese fiction. Departing from existing scholarship that seeks overt religious elements in literature, it argues that non-religious and even anti-religious texts can evoke psychological states akin to religious experiences, particularly those associated with Buddhism. To this end, it analyzes three “secular” examples from the canon of modern Chinese fiction. The first example, Lu Xun’s short story “My Old Home” (1921), instantiates this essay’s basic analytical framework, which identifies two fundamental impulses in modern Chinese fictional narrative: the impulse of representing—the mimesis of reality in a familiar past-present-future temporal progression, and the impulse of invoking, which creates a suspended temporality apart from the narrative’s natural temporal universe, and thereby allows the readers to witness something that redeems reality rather than representing it. The second example, Lao She’s short story “Soul-Slaying Spear” (1935), is written during a period when realism was criticized for its impotence in changing social reality. This story challenges this view by showing that realism’s transformative power is inherent in its impulse of invoking. The third example, The Travels of Lao Can (1903–1906), points to an indigenous provenance of the impulse of invoking, often masked by post-Literary Revolution foreign influences, which Fredric Jameson calls “the antinomies of realism.” The religious approach exemplified by these three works echoes Francisca Cho’s Buddhist theory of cinema, which argues that the medium of cinema, regardless of its content, can activate Buddhist enlightenment. Similarly, this essay reveals how the medium of language, even in the cloak of realistic mimesis, can give rise to similar experiences. Recognizing this Buddhist connection does not imply that Buddhism is the sole source of this literary phenomenon but foregrounds how Buddhism can provide new perspectives to literary criticism which is often trapped in Eurocentric views. |
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| Table of contents | Abstract 100
Introduction 101
“My Old Home” (1921) 104
“The Soul-Slaying Spear” (1935) 109
The Travels of Lao Can (1903–1906) 115
Conclusion 120
Notes 123
References 125 |
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| ISSN | 15987914 (P) |
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| DOI | 10.16893/IJBTC.2024.06.34.1.99 |
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| Hits | 50 |
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| Created date | 2024.08.13 |
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| Modified date | 2024.08.16 |
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