An Anthology of Chinese Literature: Beginnings to 1911 (review)

Features 23 say that two volumes edited by de Bary, Seifand Society in Ming Thought (New York: Columbia University Press, 1970) and The UnfoldingofNeo-Confucianism (New York: Columbia University Press, 1975), contain much material relevant to TSCC, which, surprisingly, the scholars contributing to the latter volume did not broach. 55.A recent work, which the contributors to TSCC could not have utilized because of its simultaneous publication, is Anticipating China: Thinking Through the Narratives ofChinese and Western Cultures (Albany: State University ofNew York Press, 1995), coauüiored by David L. Hall and Roger T. Ames. However, as Hall and Ames explain, the basic approach ofAnticipating China, which insists that Chinese thought be interpreted on its own terms rather than in terms ofnotions derived from Western culture, was rehearsed in their earlier monograph, Thinking Through Confucius (Albany: State University ofNew York Press, 1987). Hall and Ames see themselves continuing a hermeneutic project akin to that discussed by Paul Cohen in Discovering History in China: American Historical Writing on the Recent Chinese Past (New York: Columbia University Press, 1984) and earlier advanced by Jacques Gernet's Chine et christianisme (Paris: Editions Gallimard, 1982), translated into English by Janet Lloyd as China and the Christian Impact : A Conflict ofCultures (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985). Gernet characterized the cultural conflict between Christian missionaries and Chinese intellectuals as one issuing from two different ways ofthinking, each culturally specific. Also, Hall and Ames endorse Marcel Granet's characterization of Chinese thinking as "correlative." 56.Huang and Zürcher, "Cultural Notions ofTime and Space in China," p. 14. Stephen Owen, editor and translator. An Anthology ofChinese Literature: Beginnings to 1911. New York: W. W. Norton, 1996. 1,212 pp. $39.95, isbn 0-393-03823-8. Ifto anthologize is to reinvent, as many ofus believe, Professor Stephen Owen has succeeded marvelously in his new work An Anthology ofChinese Literature: Beginnings to 1911 (hereafter Anthology). In it, he ingeniously blends literary history , literary criticism, and literary translation and presents us a meritorious reinvention that goes far beyond the scope and vision ofan anthology in the conventional sense. With a measure oflofty detachment and admirable familiarity with his subject , Owen gives the reader a grand tour of Chinese literary history from early in „,„„,„.the first millennium b.c. to the end of the Qing dynasty in 1911. He includes© 1997 by University6 ' ' ofHawai'iPressnearly all the significantwriters and poets in Chinese imperial history and encompasses all the major genres and subgenres in the Chinese literary tradition. But unlike conventional anthologies ofits sort, Owen's Anthology can be read as a 24 China Review International: Vol. 4, No. 1, Spring 1997 literary history that, in addition to literary texts, provides fairly detailed socio-cultural -historical contexts and comments as found in its ample introductions and prefaces. Literary history, as we know, used to occupy an important position in literary studies, but the developments in literary theory during the past few decades , as noted by scholars like G. Watson (1969), R. Wellek (1982), and W. Dissanayake (1989), have contributed much to the displacement ofliterary history . As a result, there has been a sharp decline in literary history in the fields of both Chinese and Western literature. Although recent years have seen a revival of interest in literary history, there are still comparatively few solid studies with refurbished views and perspectives. In that regard, Owen's new work, though not a literary history per se, is a timely and thus important contribution to a rather neglected area in the field. However, what makes Anthology truly unique is that it does not merely offer a "static arrangement of 'monuments' in chronological order"; rather, as the author hopes, it represents "a family of texts that achieve their identity and distinctness in relation to one another" (p. xii). In order to "show differences and continuities from a larger perspective," Owen from time to time offers "a text from a thousand years in the future or from a thousand years in the past" within the primarily chronological sections. For example, in introducing "Airs" (Feng), the first part ofthe Classic ofPoetry (Shijing), which represents regional song traditions of the feudal domains ofthe early Zhou monarchy, Owen presents...