An Alien Stone

Stephen Owen, a professor at Harvard University, is known for his work on Chinese Literature as well as for his probing and masterful comparative studies. He is one of the most important contemporary scholars in the field of sinology in the west. And due to his great academic attainments and contribution during his research, he has been named the James Bryant Conant University Professor. This thesis deals with Stephen Owen's argument posed in his famous book Traditional Chinese Poetry and Poetics that nonfictionality features Chinese literary tradition. Combining his diachronic research into ancient Chinese literary theory, the thesis tries to give a deep study on the view's purport, rationality and limitation with a cross-cultural vision and to make an objective comment. The author adopts the methods of historical analysis and comparative argument (and it works) from following aspects: the philosophical paradigms of China and the west, manifestation theory of Confucius and Mencius, formation of the universe, and Chinese language. Through this work, it is supposed to help to have a new understanding of Chinese literary tradition and to provide use for reference for the domestic research on Chinese literary theory in thinking and methods.Stephen Owen puts forward five pieces of propositions on traditional Chinese literature, among which, he points out that in the Chinese literary tradition, a poem is usually presumed to be nonfictional: its statements are taken as strictly true.Meaning is not discovered by a metaphorical operation in which the words of the text point to Something Else. Instead, the empirical world signifies for the poet, and the poem makes that event manifest. Also in his studies of traditional Chinese literary theory, Stephen Owen found out that the tradition of nonfictionality had been inherited through those successive works on literary theory such as Wenfu, Wen-hsin tiao-lung and yuan shih. And this became the common view held by scholars in the west who study the Chinese literature.So, following Stephen Owen's theoretical analysis and practical reading, it is necessary to probe into the possibility and the ideological roots of the formation of nonfictionality. First, in terms of philosophical paradigm, in the Greek philosophy, which is the foundation of the whole history of western philosophy, the idea world coming from Plato transcend the realistic world, which developed the subsequent dualism involving idea and reality. And this tradition of cognition provided the dominant pattern of understanding the world for the occidental, and further it led to the tradition of poet-making with fictionality and mimesis. When it comes to Chinese ancients, the idea that the whole world is the all and the one takes everything in nature and affairs in human society to the Tao (the Way), which includes universe function and harmonious order. As a result, the truth lies in the practical world and in the people's experiences of the real life. This divergence of the philosophical paradigms radically brings about different directions of poetics in China and the west. Second, the statement in Analects that "Look to how it is. Consider from what it comes. Examine in what a person would be at rest. How can a person remain hidden? — how can someone remain hidden?" implies a manifestation theory, which means there is a certain and reliable connection between the outward truth and inward truth. And this guarantees that through the trueness of the words in a poem, readers can reach the trueness of substance, even the Way of universe. Third, the thought from Holy Bible that the God create the world had a deep influence on western world so that people hold that the world is not self-born but created. And this religious mode became an important component in westerncultural tradition. As far as the Chinese way is concerned, the formation of the universe started from entia which was in chaos in the beginning, and its evolvement need not depend on the external forces and model, instead, it was natural and binary self-division and generation inside. That is the distinction between the west and China about the world created or uncreated. And so that it caused the different attitudes toward reality and pursuits of trueness. Last, the peculiarity of the Chinese characters contributed to the tradition of nonfictionality. People in early times got to know from flesh bodies when it is near and physical things when it is far. Also in such a way did the Chinese characters come into being, which made them bear a ideographic or pictographic function. Just it was Chinese characters' pictorial quality and visual effect that make the poetic language point directly to the real world and the internal trueness behind it.The thesis mainly discusses the feature of nonfictionality in Chinese literary tradition in four aspects above. At the same time, this point of view has been also questioned by many scholars at home and abroad. They hold that ancient Chinese literature abounds in fictionality and imagination. It's necessary to point out that nonfictionality Stephen Owen mentioned here mainly talked about how the poem had been read, not written. However, this tendency does not reflect all features and patterns of the reading tradition in ancient literature.