Abnormal Blend Between "Classical" And "Romantic":a Study On The Thought And Works Of Chen Quan

Chen Quan was the only writer amongst the members of the Zhang Ce School who wrote Zhanguo Ce School literature. The Zhanguo Ce School had been marginalized for many years because it was considered an extreme "fascist" school with "poisoned" thought due to ideological prejudice. Aside from his ideology, Chen Quan wrote various literary forms, reviews and literary criticism. In spite of his work historically being used as negative examples, his works have left a remarkable imprint on modern Chinese culture and literature history. Because of this, his works deserve to be objectively re-evaluated rather than thoughtlessly smothered. This thesis aims to firstly delineate and recover Chen Quan’s thought logic, especially his "Classical" and "Romantic" logical processes; secondly, to re-interpret his literary works and subtext through re-expounding his thought on the Zhanguo Ce School; thirdly, to observe the significant value of his literary criticism and the national literature movement; fourthly, to correct the viewpoints of forerunners by searching and discovering new literary documents. By so doing, Chen Quan’s thought on Zhanguo Ce School which featured with era mission and life limitation can be concluded to be simply a pragmatic theory used during the war period.Textual analysis for this thesis is based on the synthetic method of philosophy and analytical method of history, fleshing out the thought and works of Chen Quan as an abnormal blend between "Classical" and "Romantic". This will be followed by deduction and induction to prove this theory. The time scope for this research is from1928to1948, which was his main writing period. The thought of Chen Quan was a complicated organism, while his cultural conservatism initially had the same western resources as Gu Hongming and Xueheng School. The thought of Chen Quan was transformed twice, first from cultural conservatism to cultural nationalism, and second to critical realism. His thought on Zhanguo Ce School was the cultural nationalism which combined the political and cultural sides of an organic whole. He emphasized romantic emotions such as "Will to power", Power Politics, and Hero Worship, but eventually moved toward classical rational, such as the morality of benevolence and righteousness and statism. Such as unusual classical and romantic elements mixed with each other under the anti-war condition, was actually an abnormal blend between "Classical" and "Romantic". Nietzsche’s "Will to power" theory might be described as political power and cultural motivation, as it aligns well with Chen Quan’s viewpoints."Will to power" is the necessary requirement if one is to be a hero/"superman", which is oriented to the purport of nationalism and statism. People were required to adore heroes in order to attain a national renaissance. Recognizing the survival of the fittest being played out in international politics, Chen Quan proposed a realistic politics as the principle for ideal politics, i.e."Inner Benevolence, Outer Strength", which are both opposing and complementary to each other in their dual standard for benevolence and righteousness. This is a war awareness enlightenment and new statism for China as designed by Chen Quan.This thesis analyzes the pedigree of the hero/"superman" and the "petty man" from the view of "half man" and "half bestial" in mythological and romantic tradition. At the same time, the atypical traitor image, militarily devoted and civilly villainous, can be concluded were the features of the literature of Zhanguo Ce School. There were plentiful and varying thoughts of people images under polyphony that preceeded the dialogue on philosophical speculations and the proposition of the Zhanguo Ce School. The hero/"superman" must sacrifice for his country unselfishly, persisting in "Inner Benevolence, Outer Strength"; otherwise, he was labeled just a scoundrel and a "petty man". Between these two kinds of people, there is a third party, those infected by age disease, struggling in the arena between personal bliss and national benefit. They faced the anxiety of being that which was the the Zhanguo Ce School was unable to solve. Thus, the literature of Zhanguo Ce School was colored with existentialism. For a national renaissance, Chen Quan strongly encouraged people to be a hero/"superman" for the sake of themselves and that of epoch innovation. But subconsiously, Chen Quan indeed created a plot for the third party for the salvation of "authenticity". The transformation from "camel" to "lion" to "child" from Nietzsche could be interpreted reasonably with the three motifs within the esthetics principles of Zhanguo Ce School (i.e."horror","exultation" and "piety").Hence,"superman" ended up in "emptiness" while the third party objected to self-salvation through "authenticity". Nietzsche, M. Heidegger and Lao Zi can be connected at this point and brought from an esthetical concept to a philosophical concept. As for finally returning to Taoism, this is because Chen Quan had a dual-personality:Confucianist in social practice, and Taoist in private.The literature of Zhanguo Ce School is characterized by brisk artistic ideographic strategies. Further explored Chen Quan’s "pride" theory in human nature, his concept of gender is clearly presented. He also satirized the imbalance between gender relationships, including the relationship between master and slave, maternal complex, and emotionalism with "Objective" theory in humour arts. This eventually reflected that he highly respected female status in society. The idea of heroine/"Supergirl" was presented with more manly characteristics than its male counterpart in his works. Actually, Chen Quan attacked extreme feminism and individualism for its motives to get money, power and body because it distorted the relationship between the genders. Some heroine/"Supergirl" images in his works reveal a maternal complex and reflected an Oedipus complex of male images. Aside from this, male emotionalism, which affected anti-enemy action, is vigilantly demonstrated. This emotionalism may be caused by age disease and the "petty man"’s mentality. This was a result of both the psychology and social structure of the long-standing tradition of human beings. Chen Quan produced religious symbols in contrast to a realistic world full of deplorable, ugly and ridiculous influences under powerful and righteous indignation. Therefore, these symbols have profound, lasting and far-reaching implications. Compared with Lu Xun’s way of thinking, metaphors pertaining to decapitation, the crowd and spectators used by Chen Quan imply a continuous significance to literature. Chen Quan had a thorough knowledge of both Western and traditional Chinese, so he always freely quoted himself for intertextuality, which purposed to repeat the proposition and discourse of Zhanguo Ce School for the sake of awakening readers to think about it. The plentiful self-quotes for intertextuality in his works include rewriting, adapting, amending, quoting and title modification。Chen Quan proposed a national literature movement (Sturm und Drang movement) and a military consciousness, which led to national consciousness and statism through appealing for a Faust spirit. Nietzsche’s theories were adopted by both of Chen Quan and Gao Changhong. They proposed a Sturm und Drang movement in light of the shortcomings of the May-Forth Movement. A concealment phenomenon in the Chinese modern literature (movement) would emerge after comparing both movements. Both directly and indirectly, Chen Quan’s literary criticism was involved in literary arguments such as literature evolution, human nature versus class nature,"disclosure and satire", etc. during the war period. He utilized the philosophical method to get a perspective on national personality (human nature) while using the historical method to dissect zeitgeist (epoch situation), then responded to issues in accordance with these two remarks. Such methods were undoubtedly valuable theory innovation.It cannot be denied that the literary criticism and discourse of Chen Quan revealed political imagination for the National Party. He preferred rightist and anti-communist thinking, resulting in him being stigmatized as "fascist" and "official literati" for the National Party. Nevertheless, Chen Quan and the main members of Zhanguo Ce School kept themselves at arm’s length from politicians and even attacked the National Party with regard to corruption and incompetence issues. They defended the independent position and critical spirit of the intellectual, although the National Party tended and tried to unite them. Regardless of Chen Quan’s thinking, literary works, or literary criticism of Zhanguo Ce School, they all presented an abnormal blend of "Classical" and "Romantic".