Wikipedia

Qian Zhongshu

In thisChinese name,thefamily nameisQian.

Qian Zhongshu(November 21, 1910 – December 19, 1998), alsotransliteratedasCh'ien Chung-shu[1]orDzien Tsoong-su,[2]was a renowned 20th century Chineseliteraryscholar and writer, known for his wit and erudition.

Qian Zhongshu
Qian in the 1940s
Born(1910-11-21)November 21, 1910
Wusih,Kiangsu,Qing Empire
DiedDecember 19, 1998(1998-12-19)(aged 88)
Beijing,People's Republic of China
NationalityChinese
EducationTsinghua University(BA)
Exeter College, Oxford(BLitt)
Spouse
​
(m.1935)​
ChildrenQian Yuan[zh]
ParentQian Jibo[zh]
Chinese name
Traditional ChineseTiền chung thư
Simplified ChineseTiền chung thư[a]
Transcriptions
Standard Mandarin
Hanyu PinyinQián Zhōngshū
Wade–GilesCh'ien Chung-shu
Courtesy nameZheliang (Triết lương)
Mocun (Mặc tồn)
Art nameHuaiju (Hòe tụ)

He is best known for his satirical novelFortress Besieged.His works ofnonfictionare characterized by large amount of quotations in both Chinese and Western languages such asEnglish,German,French,Italian,Spanish,andLatin.[3]He also played an important role indigitizingChinese classics late in his life.[4]

Qian created a profound theoretical meaning for the three features of motivational nature, empathetic nature, and rational nature of aesthetic emotion for literature by deeply studying questions such as the source of emotion motivation, the ways to express emotion, and the optimal comfort in emotion in writing. He believed that the source of emotion motivation is poems because poems can convey human's emotion. When people transfer their emotion to inanimate objects, they give these objects life, which is the ways to express emotion. Also, Qian insisted that humans cannot express their emotion as they want; instead, they should rationally control their emotion to a certain degree so that they can achieve an optimal appreciation status.[5]

Life

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Most of what is known about Qian's early life relies on an essay written by his wifeYang Jiang.[6]Born inWuxi,Qian Zhongshu was the son of Qian Jibo (Tiền cơ bác), a conservativeConfucianscholar,landed gentry,and Chinese language professor atTsinghua,St. John's University,and National Central University (Nanking), respectively. By family tradition, Qian Zhongshu grew up under the care of his eldest uncle, who did not have a son. Qian was initially named Yangxian (Ngưỡng tiên;lit."respect the ancients" ), with thecourtesy nameZheliang (Triết lương;"sagacious and upright" ). However, when he was one year old, in accordance with a tradition ofzhuazhou,practiced in many parts of China, he was given a few objects laid out in front of him for his "grabbing"; he grabbed a book. His uncle thusly renamed him Zhongshu,[7]literally "fond of books," while Yangxian became his intimate name. Qian was a rather talkative child. His father later changed his courtesy name to Mocun (Mặc tồn,lit."to keep silent" ), in the hope that he would talk less.

Both Qian's name and courtesy name forecasted his future life. While he remained talkative when talking about literature with friends, he kept silent most of the time on politics and social activities. Qian was indeed very fond of books. When he was young, his uncle often brought him along to teahouses during the day. There, Qian was left alone to read storybooks on folklore and historical events, which he would repeat to his cousins upon returning home.

At the age of 6, Qian went to Qinshi primary school and stayed home for less than half a year due to illness. At the age of 7, Qian studied in a private school of a relative's family. Due to inconvenience, he quit school a year later and was taught by his uncle. When Qian was 11, he entered the first grade at Donglin Elementary School, and his uncle died this year.[8]He continued living with his widowed aunt, even though their living conditions drastically worsened as her family's fortunes dwindled. Under the strict tutelage of his father, Qian masteredclassical Chinese.At the age of 14, Qian left home to attend Taowu middle school, an English-language missionary school inSuzhou,after being scolded by his father, he studied hard and improved his writing level.[8]In 1927, Qian was admitted to Furen Middle School, an English-language Missionary School in Wuxi, where he manifested his talent in language. At the age of 20, Qian's aunt died.[8]

Despite comparatively lower score inmathematics,Qian excelled in both Chinese and English languages. Thus, he was accepted into the Department of Foreign Languages of Tsinghua University in 1929, ranking 57 out of 174 male students.[9]One of his few friends was the budding Sinologist and comparatistAchilles Fang.[10]Qian also frequently cut classes, though he more than made up for this in Tsinghua's large library, which he boasted of having "read through."[10]It was probably in his college days that Qian began his lifelong habit of collecting quotations and taking reading notes. At Tsinghua, Qian studied with professors, such asWu Mi,George T. Yeh,Wen Yuan-ning,and others.[11]In 1932, he metYang Jiang,who became a successful playwright and translator.[8]In 1933, Qian became engaged to Yang, and they married in 1935.[8]For the biographical facts of Qian's following years, the two memoirs by his wife can be consulted.[12]Yang Jiang wrote, "Zhongshu's 'foolishness' could not be contained in books, but just had to gush forth'".[13]Two years after Qian graduated from Tsinghua University in 1933, Qian taught at Kwanghua University in Shanghai and contributed to English-language publications such asThe China Critic.[14]

In 1935, Qian received aBoxer Indemnity Scholarshipto further his studies abroad. Together with his wife, Qian headed for theUniversity of Oxfordin Britain. After spending two years atExeter College, Oxford,he received aBachelor of Letters.[15]Shortly after his daughter Qian Yuan (Tiền viện) was born in England in 1937, he studied for one more year in theUniversity of Parisin France. In 1938, he returned to China and was appointed as a full professor at Tsinghua University, which, due to the war, had relocated to Kunming, in Yunnan province and become part of Southwestern United University. In 1939, after Qian returned to Shanghai to visit his relatives, he directly went to Hunan to take care of his sick father and temporarily left Southwestern United University. In 1941, During the Pearl Harbor incident, Qian was temporarily trapped in Shanghai.[8]

Owing to the unstable situation during theSecond Sino-Japanese Warand the Chinese Civil War, Qian did not hold any long-term jobs. However, it was during the late 1930s and 1940s that he wrote most of his Chinese-language fiction, includingFortress Besiegedand the story collectionHuman, Beast, Ghost,as well as the essay collectionWritten in the Margins of Life.After Japan's defeat, in the late 1940s, he worked in the National Central Library in Nanjing, editing its English-language publication,Philobiblon.

The old gate of Tsinghua University, where Qian Zhongshu studied and taught

In 1949, Qian was ranked on the list of National First-class Professors (Quốc gia nhất cấp giáo thụ) and commenced his academic work in his alma mater. Four years later, an administrative adjustment saw Tsinghua changed into a science and technology-based institution, with its Arts departments merged intoPeking University.Qian was relieved of teaching duties and worked entirely in the Institute of Literary Studies (Văn học nghiên cứu sở) under PKU. Qian is a senior researcher at the institute, and his wife Yang Jiang is also a researcher.[8]He also worked as part of a small team in charge of the translation ofMao Zedong'sSelected Worksand poetry.

During theCultural Revolution,like many other prominent intellectuals of the time, Qian suffered persecution. Appointed to be a janitor, he was robbed of his favorite pastime, reading. Having no access to books, he had to read his reading notes. He began to form the plan to writeLimited Viewsduring this period. Qian, his wife, along with their daughter survived the hardships of Cultural Revolution, but their son-in-law, a history teacher, was driven to suicide.

After the Cultural Revolution, Qian returned to research. From 1978 to 1980, he visited several universities in Italy, the United States and Japan, impressing his audience with his wit and erudition. In 1982, he was appointed as the deputy director of theChinese Academy of Social Sciences.He then began working onLimited Views,which occupied the next decade of his life.

WhileLimited Viewsestablished his fame in the academic field, his novelFortress Besiegedintroduced him to the public.Fortress Besiegedwas reprinted in 1980, and became a best-seller. Many illegal reproductions and "continuations" followed. Qian's fame rose to its height when the novel was adapted into a TV serial in 1990 which was acted by some famous Chinese actors, such asDaoming Chenand Da Ying.[16]

Qian returned to research, but escaped from social activities. Most of his late life was confined to his reading room. He consciously kept a distance from the mass media and political figures. Readers kept visiting the secluded scholar, and an anecdote goes that Qian when approached by a British admirer, remarked: "Is it necessary for one to know the hen if one loves the eggs it lays?"

Qian was hospitalized in 1994, and his daughter also became ill in 1995. On March 4, 1997, Qian's daughter died ofcancer.On December 19, 1998, Qian died inBeijing.[17]

Former residence

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Qian's former residence, covering 1,600 square meters, is located at Xinjiexiang #30 and #32 in Wuxi, Nanjing. It was built in 1923 by his grandfather Qian Fujiong. In 1926 his uncle Qian Sunqin built five buildings and several auxiliary rooms on the west side of the back of the house, covering an area of 667.6 square meters. The whole group of buildings are typical Jiangnan courtyard houses. Inside the residence, there are some unique separate buildings, such asHaixu ShulouandMeihua Shuwu.[18]In 2018, it applied for China's significant cultural relics protection units. The former residence has related exhibitions and is open to the public without fees.

Pictures of Qian's former residence

Works

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Qian lived inShanghaifrom 1941 to 1945, which was then under Japanese occupation. Many of his works were written or published during this chaotic period of time. A collection of short essays,Written in the Margins of Life(Tả tại nhân sinh biên thượng) was published in 1941.Human, Beast, Ghost(Nhân ‧ thú ‧ quỷ), a collection of short stories, mostly satiric, was published in 1946. His most celebrated workFortress Besiegedappeared in 1947, but not until 1980s that it receives more attention.On the Art of Poetry[zh],written in classical Chinese, was published in 1948.

Besides rendering Mao Zedong's selected works into English, Qian was appointed to produce an anthology of poetry of theSong dynastywhen he was working in the Institute of Literary Studies. TheSelected and Annotated Song Dynasty Poetry[zh]was published in 1958. Despite Qian's quoting the chairman, and his selecting a considerable number of poems that reflectclass struggle,the work was criticized for not beingMarxistenough. The work was praised highly by the overseas critics, though, especially for its introduction and footnotes. In a new preface for the anthology written in 1988, Qian said that the work was an embarrassing compromise between his personal taste and the prevailing academic atmosphere.

Seven Pieces Patched Together(Thất chuế tập), a collection of seven pieces of literary criticism written (and revised) over years invernacular Chinese,was published in 1984, and has been translated by Duncan Campbell asPatchwork: Seven Essays on Art and Literature.This collection includes the famous essay "Lin Shu's Translation "(Lâm thư đích phiên dịch).

Qian'smagnum opusis the five-volumeLimited Views(Quản trùy biên,lit.Pipe-Awl Collection). Begun in the 1980s and published in its current form in the mid-1990s, it is an extensive collection of notes and short essays onpoetics,semiotics,literary history and related topics written in classical Chinese.

Qian's command of the cultural traditions of classical and modern Chinese,ancient Greek(in translations), Latin, English, German, French, Italian, and Spanish allowed him to construct a towering structure of polyglot and cross-cultural allusions. He took a range of Chinese classical texts as the basis of this work, including theI-Ching,Classic of Poetry,Verses of Chu,The Commentary of Tso,Records of the Grand Historian,Tao Te Ching,Lieh-tzu,Jiaoshi Yilin,Extensive Records of the T'ai-p'ing Eraand theComplete Prose of the Pre-TangDynasties(Toàn thượng cổ tam đại tần hán tam quốc lục triều văn).

Broadly familiar with the Westernhistory of ideas,Qian shed new lights on the Chinese classical texts by comparing them with Western works, showing their likeness, or more often their apparent likeness and essential differences.

"It is a monumental work of modern scholarship that evinces the author's great learning and his effort to bring the ancient and the modern, Chinese and Western, into mutual illumination."[19]

Qian Zhongshu is one of the best-known Chinese authors in the Western world.Fortress Besiegedhas been translated into English, French, German,Russian,Japaneseand Spanish. It represents an alternative strand of modernism, which has long remained hidden and unexamined in the history of modern Chinese literature.[20]"Humans, Beasts, and Ghosts"has been translated into English, French,[21]and Italian.[22]

Besides being one of the great masters of written vernacular Chinese in the 20th century,[23]Qian was also one of the last authors to produce substantial works in classical Chinese. Some regard his choice of writingGuan Zhui Bian(Limited Views) in classical Chinese as a challenge to the assertion that classical Chinese is incompatible with modern and Western ideas, an assertion often heard during theMay Fourth Movement.[24]Ronald Egan argues that the work contains an implicit negative commentary on the Cultural Revolution.[25]

Posthumous publications

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A 13-volume edition ofWorks of Qian Zhongshu(Tiền chung thư tập / tiền chung thư tập) was published in 2001 by the Joint Publishing, a hard-covereddeluxeedition, in contrast to all of Qian's works published during his lifetime which are cheappaperbacks.The publisher claimed that the edition had been proofread by many experts.[26]One of the most valuable parts of the edition which demonstrating Qian's writing ability while blending humor and irony,[27]titledMarginalias on the Marginalias of Life(Tả tại nhân sinh biên thượng đích biên thượng), is a collection of Qian's writings previously scattered in periodicals, magazines and other books. The writings collected there are, however, arranged without any visible order.

Other posthumous publications of Qian's works have drawn harsh criticism. The official writing ofSupplements to and Revisions of Songshi Jishibegan in 1982. In the following ten years, Qian invested a lot of energy to make extensive and in-depthSupplements to and Revisions of Songshi Jishi.[28]The 10-volumeSupplements to and Revisions of Songshi Jishi(Tống thi kỷ sự bổ chính), published in 2003, was criticized as a shoddy publication. Liaoning People's Publishing House published Qian Zhongshu's ''Supplements to and Revisions of Songshi Jishiin 2003.[29]A facsimile of Qian's holograph has been published in 2005, by another publisher. The facsimiles of parts of Qian's notebooks appeared in 2004, and have similarly drawn criticism on account of blatant inadvertency.[30]In 2005, a collection of Qian's English works was published. Again, it was lashed for its editorial incompetence.[31]

The Commercial Presshas, per an agreement with Yang Jiang, begun publishing photoreproductions of Qian Zhongshu's reading notes, totaling several score volumes in both Chinese and foreign languages.[32]

See also

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Notes

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  1. ^From the 1950s, in mainland China the two traditional charactersChungandChungwere both officially simplified into the characterChung,but since 2003 the two characters have been separated again, asChungandChungrespectively.Tiền chung thưis thus the current standard simplified form and is used, for example, in works by Qian's wifeYang Jiang,although the formTiền chung thư,which was standard from the 1950s until 2003, remains in widespread use.
  1. ^Hsia Chih-tsing(1999) [first edition in 1961].A History of Modern Chinese Fiction(3 ed.). Bloomington, Indianapolis:Indiana University Press.p. 432.ISBN0-253-33477-2.
  2. ^Trần kiến quân (2015)."Tiền chung thư đào ổ trung học thời đích nhất thiên anh ngữ tác văn".Thư ốc(8).Giá thiên anh ngữ tác văn nguyên tái 《 đào ổ 》1927 niên 1 nguyệt đệ thập quyển đệ nhất hào, thự danh Dzien Tsoong-su...... Thị mục tiền sở tri tiền chung thư tối tảo sử dụng đích anh văn danh, hậu lai tha hoàn dụng quá Ch'ien Chung-Shu, C. S. Ch'ien đẳng. Tại 《 đào ổ 》 thượng, Dzien Tsoong-su giá cá anh văn danh lánh hữu lưỡng chủng tả pháp: Nhất thị Dzien Tsoong Su, kiến đệ cửu quyển đệ nhất hào "Bổn báo trung văn biên tập bộ"; nhất thị T. S. Dzien, kiến đệ thập quyển đệ nhất hào "Bổn báo anh văn biên tập bộ". Tiền chung thư tiến nhập thanh hoa đại học dĩ hậu, tại 《 thanh hoa chu khan 》 thượng phát biểu A Book Note ( 《 thư trát 》 ), Pragmatism and Potterism ( 《 thật dụng chủ nghĩa hòa thật tại hành vi 》 ) đẳng, hoặc thự Dzien Tsoong-su, hoặc thự kỳ súc tả D. T. S..
  3. ^Lu Wenhu (1990).Quản trùy biên đàm nghệ lục tác dẫn[Indices to Guan Zhui Bian and Tanyi Lu] (in Simplified Chinese). Beijing:Zhonghua Book Company.
  4. ^Liu Shengqing (Lưu thánh thanh); Li Shiyan (Lý sĩ yến).Văn hóa truyện tín tập đoàn điện tử hán văn sử tư liêu khố kiến thiết thấu thị.People's Daily Online(in Simplified Chinese). Archived fromthe originalon 2016-03-03.Retrieved2007-01-11.
  5. ^"Quốc gia triết học xã hội khoa học học thuật kỳ khan sổ cư khố".www.nssd.org.Retrieved2020-11-10.
  6. ^(in Chinese)"On Qian Zhongshu and theFortress Besieged"ArchivedJanuary 1, 2007, at theWayback Machine(T: Ký tiền chung thư dữ 《 vi thành 》, S: Ký tiền chung thư dữ 《 vi thành 》), 1985, collected inYang Jiang's Selected Prose(T:Dương thao tán văn,S:Dương giáng tán văn), Hangzhou: Zhejiang Literary Press, 1994.
  7. ^"CCTV- văn hóa tần đạo - kỷ niệm tiền chung thư tiên sinh".www.cctv.com.Retrieved2020-11-09.
  8. ^abcdefgQian, Zhongshu (July 2017).Weicheng.Shanghai: People's Literature Publishing House.ISBN9787020127894.
  9. ^"Tiền chung thư, văn nhất đa, quý tiện lâm…… Chân thị bị thanh hoa phá cách lục thủ đích?".www.tsinghua.org.cn.Retrieved2020-11-07.
  10. ^abKelly, Jeanne and Nathan K. Mao. "Afterword."Fortress Besieged.By Qian Zhongshu. Tr. Kelly and Mao. New York: New Directions Publishing, 2004.
  11. ^Imperfect Understanding: Intimate Portraits of Modern Chinese Celebrities. Edited by Christopher Rea (Amherst, NY: Cambria, 2018), pp. 18-20.
  12. ^Yang Jiang, tr. Howard Goldblatt,Six Chapters from My Life "Downunder",Seattle: University of Washington Press; Hong Kong: Chinese University Press, 1984;(in Chinese)Yang Jiang,We Three(Ngã môn ba), Hong Kong: Oxford University Press, 2003.
  13. ^Yang Jiang, tr. Jesse Field, "On Qian Zhongshu andFortress Besieged."Renditions: A Chinese English Translation Magazine76 (Autumn 2011), 91.
  14. ^"The Critic Eye | China Heritage Quarterly".www.chinaheritagequarterly.org.Retrieved2016-09-30.
  15. ^His thesis is called "China in the English Literature of the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Century", collected in Adrian Hsia (ed.),The Vision of China in the English Literature of the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries,Hong Kong: Chinese University Press, 1998.
  16. ^Wei cheng,Daoming Chen, Ke Bi, Da Ying, Liping Lü, China Central Television (CCTV), Shanghai Cultural Development Foundation, Shanghai Film Studios,retrieved2020-11-07{{citation}}:CS1 maint: others (link)
  17. ^Yang, Jiang (July 2003).We three.Shanghai: Life, reading, new knowledge Sanlian Bookstore.ISBN9787108042453.
  18. ^"CCTV- văn hóa tần đạo - kỷ niệm tiền chung thư tiên sinh".www.cctv.com.Retrieved2020-11-09.
  19. ^Zhang Longxi. "The 'Tao' and the 'Logos': Notes on Derrida's Critique of Logocentrism."Critical Inquiry.Vol. 11, No. 3. (Mar., 1985), pp. 385-398.
  20. ^He, Weihua (2021). "Fortress Besieged: Cynicism and Qian Zhongshu's Narrative of the Modern Chinese" Self "".Journal of Modern Literature.44(2): 106–119.doi:10.2979/jmodelite.44.2.09.S2CID234168378.
  21. ^"Hommes, bêtes et démons - chinoise - Connaissance de l'Orient, format poche - GALLIMARD - Site Gallimard".3 November 1994.
  22. ^Uomini Bestie Demoni.
  23. ^See, for example, the evaluation inC. T. Hsia'sA History of Modern Chinese Fiction,Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1999, pp. 432-60.
  24. ^(in Chinese)《 quản trùy biên 》 vi thập ma dụng văn ngôn?ArchivedSeptember 28, 2007, at theWayback Machine,Tôn ngọc tường,Thái nguyên nhật báo.
  25. ^Egan, "Guanzhui bian, Western Citations, and the Cultural Revolution," ch. 5 in "China's Literary Cosmopolitans" (Brill, 2015)
  26. ^(in Chinese)Tiền chung thư tác phẩm toàn tập minh niên đa gia thôi xuất,Triệu võ bình, 《 trung hoa độc thư báo 》.
  27. ^Đỗ, khiếu trần (2003).Tòng 《 tả tại nhân sinh biên thượng 》 khán tiền chung thư tán văn đích phong cách dữ mị lực.Thanh đảo khoa kỹ đại học học báo: Xã hội khoa học bản. pp. 75–78.
  28. ^Tiền, chung thư (2002).Tống thi tuyển chú.Sinh hoạt độc thư tân tri tam liên thư điếm.
  29. ^(in Chinese)Đối 《 tống thi kỷ sự bổ chính 》 đích kỉ điểm ý kiến,Trần phúc khang,Wen Wei Po,June 15, 2003
  30. ^(in Chinese)《 tiền chung thư thủ cảo tập 》 đích biên tập thác ngộArchived2005-03-07 at theWayback Machine,Cao vi,Trung hoa độc thư báo.
  31. ^(in Chinese)《 tiền chung thư anh văn văn tập 》 đích biên tập thác ngộArchived2017-06-19 at theWayback Machine, Phạm húc luân,Guangming Net[zh].
  32. ^chinanews."Thương vụ ấn thư quán thôi 《 tiền chung thư thủ cảo tập 》 lịch thời 15 niên cộng 72 quyển sách - trung tân võng".www.chinanews.com.Retrieved2016-09-30.

Further reading

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Innumerable biographies and memoirs in Chinese have been published since Qian's death.

Two critical studies of Qian's life and works in English:

Literary works by Qian in English translation:

A selected translation of Qian's most celebrated work of literary criticism,Guan Zhui Bian,with critical introduction:

An essay about Qian's critical vision and early writings:

Five of Qian's essays on poetry in French translation:

  • Qian Zhongshu, trad. Nicolas Chapuis (1987).Cinq Essais de Poetique.Christian Bourgois Editeur.ISBN2-267-00485-2.
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