Going to the People
豆瓣
Chinese Intellectuals and Folk Literature
Chang-tai Hung
简介
It is generally believed that Mao Zedong’s populism was an abrupt departure from traditional Chinese thought. This study demonstrates that many of its key concepts had been developed several decades earlier by young May Fourth intellectuals, including Liu Fu, Zhou Zuoren, and Gu Jiegang. The Chinese folk-literature movement, begun at National Beijing University in 1918, changed the attitudes of Chinese intellectuals toward literature and toward the common people.
Turning their backs on “high culture” and Confucianism, young folklorists began “going to the people,” particularly peasants, to gather the songs, legends, children’s stories, and proverbs that Chang-tai Hung here describes and analyzes. Their focus on rural culture, rural people, and rural problems was later to be expanded by the Chinese Communist revolutionaries.
contents
Acknowledgments
Preface
1. The Discovery of Folk Literature
The Meaning of Folk Literature
The “Going to the People” Movement
The Romantic View of Rural Life
Nationalism
Foreign Influence
Predecessors
2. Pioneers
Liu Fu
Zhou Zuoren
Gu Jiegang
Geyao zhoukan and Minsu zhoukan
The Method of Collecting
3. Folksongs
The New Literature Movement
Dialect Literature
Songs of Love
Songs of the Suffering of Women
Songs of Life
Obscene Folksongs
Folksong Collecting and Politics
4. Legends
Gushi and Chuanshuo
The Scholar-Rascal: Xu Wenchang
Meng Jiang nü
Zhu Yingtai
Legends, History, and Values of the Common People
5. Children’s Literature
Children’s Literature and Children’s Issues
Criticizing the Past
Inspiration from the West
The Significance of Children’s Literature
The Merits and Failings of the Fairy Tale
Teaching and Morality
Nursery Rhymes and Children’s Education
6. Proverbs
The Study of Folk Sayings
Proverbs and Maxims
Proverbs and Literature
Peasant Proverbs
Normative Proverbs
Regional Proverbs
Intellectuals and Folk Sayings
7. Intellectuals and the Folk
Social and Government Pressure
Two Clarifications
The Theory of Two Literatures
Two Views of Folk Literature
Anti-Traditionalism and Anti-Confucianism
Folklorist Populism
Abbreviations Used in the Notes and Bibliography
Notes
Bibliography
Glossary
Index
