Modern China suffered a change that had not happened for thousands of years, which was accompanied by the spread of western learning to the east. Under the changes of the world and academic, western classicism began to enter the field of vision of China people. This book is a systematic study of the language, literature, history and philosophy of ancient Greece and Rome, which occupies an important position in the whole western academic circles and is closely related to the changes and evolution of western thought.
Kang Youwei, Liang Qichao, Zhang Taiyan, Su, Zhou Zuoren, Wu Mi, Xiang Da, Tang Yongtong ... These famous intellectuals in modern China paid close attention to western classicism and had many translated works.
Plato's image in Xue Heng magazine founded by Wu Mi and others.
For example, Kang Youwei, who was determined to find a way to save the country, did not go abroad at that time, but he widely bought various western books translated into Chinese in coastal cities and actively absorbed new knowledge from the West. In the book "Ten Thousand Mu Caotangkou" published in the form of handouts, he told the students: "Greece was founded in Shunliu, and Aceh was still a small country." "The seven sages of Greece, the Persian assisi Cup and the ninety-six Indian heretics are all in the Zhou Dynasty, just like the philosophers of Zhou and Qin Dynasties." "At the beginning of the Zhou Dynasty, Greece began to move in Bagutara, and Jiajing was five years old. Copernicus elaborated." In Kang Youwei's view, these things, like pre-Qin philosophers, Confucian classics in Han Dynasty and Neo-Confucianism in Song and Ming Dynasties, all belong to "academic origin" and deserve attention. From this example, we can see the position of western classicism in the minds of China people at that time.
In fact, this science was introduced to China by western missionaries in Ming and Qing Dynasties. Since modern times, western missionaries have set foot on jade again under the strong guns of western powers, and their status and momentum are very different from before. At that time, many missionaries and China people who cooperated with them began to translate some books introducing western history and civilization, including Greek and Roman history and academics, which had a certain influence at that time.
As for the widespread spread of western classicism in modern China, in my humble opinion, we should start with Liang Qichao, Kang Youwei's great disciple.
Liang Qichao introduced western civilization. Why is it called Greece and Rome?
After the failure of the Reform Movement of 1898, Liang Qichao avoided Qin and went to Japan. During this period, he widely read various western classics published in Japan. As a result, his thoughts and viewpoints changed. Instead of sticking to Kang Youwei's theory of "reforming the ram", he turned to introduce the western theories he had contacted and understood to China. At that time, Qing Yi Bao and Xinmin Cong Bao, which were edited by him, were very expensive in Luoyang, China, and they liked to say that almost all new schools had an editor. Liang Qichao's articles have influenced a generation of China people.
In A Moon Born in the East, Liang Qichao focuses on the Ancient History of the West written by Japanese scholar Kazumi Fukuda and the Ancient History written by Kazuo Hirauchi. Liang commented: "Both books are good. Fukuda's works are especially great. Only in ancient times, its volume is vast, citing the whole history of each family, unparalleled. However, its narrative is poor and lengthy, which is covered by ethnic changes, social conditions, political similarities and differences, gains and losses, so it must be detailed. Greek and Roman civilization was born out of modern global civilization. Scholars must pay attention to this if they want to know the origin of the founding of Taixi. " We can see that Liang Qichao attached great importance to Greek and Roman civilization, and thought that Greek and Roman civilization was "the product of modern world civilization". Based on this view, Liang wrote a lot of articles about Greek and Roman history and culture.
liang qichao
These articles include Aristotle's political theory, ancient Greek scholarship, Spartan notes, Athens notes and other articles devoted to Greek and Roman history and culture. In addition, China's Historical Narration, New History, Textual Research on the Evolution of Gezhi Studies and A Brief History of the Evolution of Livelihood Theory also introduce Greek and Roman theories. In a word, it seems that China culture must start from the ancient three generations, and Liang Qichao's introduction to western civilization is often called Greek and Roman.
Liang Qichao's Introduction to Greek and Roman History and Culture, although narrated by Taixi thousands of years ago, is still China in the "transitional era" at that time.
For example, he introduced Aristotle's theory of regime classification and pointed out: "There are so-called monarchies, democracies, monarchies and people in China, and their names are slightly different from the theory." Therefore, "Today, when aristotle's aristocrats are deleted, only monarchy and democracy exist, and among monarchies, Fuqu is a dictatorship and constitutionalism, which is a good thing." It can be seen that his evaluation of Aristotle's political thought is based on whether it has reference significance for China, who was in the fierce political debate at that time.
For another example, when he introduced the history of Sparta, he expressed this feeling: "What I am even more puzzled is that there are 4,000 people in Sparta, and one of the Spartan countries has 2,000 times the land, but it is not included in public law, which is not equal to humanity. The speaker took it as an example of corruption, and the newspaper took it as a joke. Thousands of years of history, there is no such thing as ugliness and humiliation. " The speaker was China, when China was in decline. He praised Sparta's political system and educational methods, emphasizing that it is very consistent with "military nationalism" and can boost people's morale and expel foreign enemies from invading in troubled times. This is actually borrowing the history of other countries to pour a brick in his heart, hoping that China can also make a fortune and gain a foothold in the world.
It is worth noting that many of Liang Qichao's introductions to western learning at that time referred to the relevant expositions of Japanese scholars, and some even directly rewritten their own original works. Therefore, the Greek and Roman history and culture he described is largely related to the research experience of Japanese academic circles. In him, it embodies the complicated relationship between "middle school", "eastern learning" and "western learning"
Set foot on the footsteps of the Renaissance and revitalize "Chinese studies"
Modern China suffered a great crisis, and many people learned from it, pointing the culprit at China's thoughts and theories of past dynasties. They either thought it was backward and ignorant, or denounced it as an accomplice of autocratic emperors, and anti-traditional voices gradually became rampant. As far as the wind is concerned, many people in China "respect the westerners as emperors and regard the westerners as saints", and worship foreign things and flatter foreign countries. Huang Jie, Deng Shi, Ma Xulun and others felt this situation, so they founded the magazine "quintessence of Chinese culture" in 1905, hoping to advocate "Chinese studies" to revitalize the decline, praise the old learning, and at the same time inspire people's hearts and advocate nationalism.
However, the idea of the quintessence school to revitalize Chinese studies in the late Qing Dynasty was largely based on the history of the Western Renaissance. In their view, the latter restated the knowledge of ancient Greece and Rome, so it made civilization look brand-new. Therefore, the word "revival of ancient learning" is often mentioned by them.
Deng Shi said in the article "On the Revival of Ancient Academics": "The birth of the philosophers of Fu, Zhou and Qin coincided with the prosperity of the Greek school. Rope planets, one east and one west, set each other off first. It would be strange if the copper mountain collapses and the bell rings. " In his view, since the European Renaissance explained the new spirit of the times by re-developing Greek and Roman philosophy and advocated the quintessence of China today, we should rediscover the pre-Qin philosophers whose status has been neglected and belittled for a long time as the real "national studies" in China. This is just like the Renaissance scholars used the theory of Greece and Rome to resist the church rule, and can also be used to criticize the Manchu rule at that time.
Here, the Greek-Roman theory is regarded as something comparable to the pre-Qin philosophers by the quintessence school in the late Qing Dynasty. They discussed the former in a series of articles, which made people who ruled China's traditional academics know about western classicism. Later, many people who defended the value of China's traditional culture were used to quoting Greek and Roman philosophers to show that the feelings of the East China Sea and the West Sea were interlinked.
This trend of thought of "reviving ancient learning" was even considered by people at that time to promote the success of the Manchu Revolution. After the founding of the Republic of China, Zhang Taiyan recalled: "Looking closely at the decline of Rome, China people demanded the literature of the past few hundred years, and then Italy flourished. Zhu Xiafu is also 300 years old. He has written about it since he took care of himself, Wang Fuzhi, Quan, Dai Wang and Sun Yirang, and later he will return to the past. " In his view, to overthrow the rule of the Qing Dynasty was to "recover" the rivers and mountains of the Han nationality. Since the Qing Dynasty, scholars who study the Han nationality have studied China's ancient scholarship, just like scholars who studied Greek and Roman literature in Florence and other places in the Middle Ages, which directly prompted people to feel nostalgic and criticize the aspirations of the present.
The ancient academic revival theory of the Journal of Chinese quintessence praised the pre-Qin philosophers with the Greek academic history of the Renaissance.
Therefore, Su, who was familiar with Zhang Taiyan at that time, appreciated Byron's poem "Sorrow for Greece" very much, and quoted the latter's love for Greece as a sigh for the hatred that great rivers and mountains had become "alien" rule, just like a confidant. Lu Xun, a student of the Zhang family, is also extremely concerned about Greek and Roman history and literature. He once wrote the article "The Soul of Sparta", enthusiastically praising the Spartan army's fight against Persian invasion at the gate of hot springs. Later, he quoted Nietzsche's viewpoints in his works, such as The Birth of Tragedy, in articles such as Cultural Bias and Breaking Bad Voices, and expounded the romantic trend of thought that originated from the Greek Dionysian culture, emphasized individual self-reliance and broke the trap.
How to explain Greece and Rome? Advocate individuality or emphasize tradition?
After entering the Republic of China, out of strong dissatisfaction with the turbulent situation, various cultural thoughts appeared one after another. Through the reflection and introduction of Chinese and western thoughts, we have solved everyone's confusion about the times. At that time, the New Culture School based in Peking University and the Xue Heng School based in Nanjing Normal University were in tit-for-tat ideological and cultural terms. Among the topics they discussed, western classicism was included.
In the New Culture Movement, Zhou Zuoren believed that merely advocating vernacular Chinese could not overthrow the decadent and backward traditional culture in his eyes, but should carry out an "ideological revolution" and advocate "human literature" in the field of literature, that is, expressing people's personality, expressing people's feelings and describing people's lives through literature.
In the book History of European Literature, Zhou Zuoren thinks: "The changes of European literature must be traced back to Greece. Although there are differences in race, time and place, their feelings are different and they are different from each other. Only human nature is the same, and Greek thought is the representative of secular law. " Therefore, "Greece is still beautiful, and the beauty of the human body belongs to God. I reappeared in the world, so I returned to the world with the joy of life. It is said that the god of heaven and earth, eating and living is no different from people, and love and hate are no different. "
Based on this understanding, Zhou Zuoren introduced many Greek poems at that time. Especially the poetesss Sha Fu and Zhou Zuoren. Therefore, he studied his own life and translated his poems, thinking that Sappho, as a woman, can write poems, which not only has beautiful words, but also embodies the pursuit of individuality. In addition, Zhou Zuoren also introduced the Greek Elegy and translated the Greek Love Poem, which all showed his literary ambition, that is, through the translation of Greek literature, he emphasized that literary works should express human temperament. Incidentally, after 1949, Zhou Zuoren translated a large number of Greek literary works, and the translation quality was recognized by many people.
As early as during his stay in the United States, Wu Mi was very dissatisfied with Hu Shi and others, thinking that the latter advocated vernacular Chinese and criticized tradition, which was a great sin. Shortly after returning to China, he founded Xue Heng magazine with like-minded people, shouldering the banner of "prospering the quintessence of the country and merging new knowledge" to fight against the northern new culture school.
Wu Mi
Although Wu Mi emphasized "the quintessence of prosperity", he majored in western literature while studying in the United States. However, for China's traditional scholarship, his foundation is indeed limited, so he often falls into a position of advocating the inability to do so. Therefore, his understanding of Chinese and western cultures is largely rooted in Nais Babbitt's point of view. Bai was deeply dissatisfied with the western ideological trend since the Enlightenment, and emphasized that he should go back to the works of China, Indian and western philosophers thousands of years ago to find a solution to the ills of modern civilization.
Therefore, Xue Heng School also advocates western learning, especially the theory of western classical times. Babbitt thinks that Greek and Roman thought can penetrate the middle way of rules, so it is commendable. Therefore, Miao, who graduated from Nanjing Normal University, published an article entitled "Greek Spirit" in Xue Heng magazine, discussing various Greek philosophies. He believes that it has the characteristics of joining the WTO, harmony, moderation and rationality. Compared with the increasingly extreme modern people, it can be called "coolness" that people clamor for today.
Similarly, Xue Heng magazine published many articles about Greek culture. For example, Wu Mi translated the History of Greek Literature, Jing Changji and Guo Binhe translated Plato's Dialogue, and introduced Aristotle's Ethics to Dada and Tang Yongtong. They hope to introduce "real" western learning to China people, and then realize that ancient and western philosophers in China have something worthy of respect, so that people can no longer indulge in "superficial learning" advocated by Hu Shi and others such as Rousseau and Dewey.
Since modern times, western learning has spread to the east, and western classicism has entered China under this background. Whether introspecting, borrowing the candle of other countries, introspecting the secluded places, or drowning their worries with wine, when introducing and commending China scholars, it can be said that what is truly unforgettable is the cultural development of China itself since modern times.
When talking about the past, we should think about how to combine the study of western academic thoughts with the specific cultural situation in China, so as not to become narcissistic and complacent, nor to become a new type of talk material to escape from reality. I think there are still many places worth pondering.