Mao Zedong’s “Talks at the Yan’an Conference on Literature and Art”

"The writings of Mao Zedong have been circulated throughout the world more widely, perhaps, than those of any other single person this century. The “Talks at the Yan’an Conference on Literature and Art” has occupied a prominent position among his many works and has been the subject of intense scrutiny both within and outside China. This text has undoubted importance to modern Chinese literature and history. In particular, it reveals Mao’s views on such questions as the relationship between writers or works of literature and their audience, or the nature and value of different kinds of literary products. In this translation and commentary, Bonnie S. McDougall finds that Mao was in fact ahead of many of his critics in the West and his Chinese contemporaries in his discussion of literary issues. Unlike the majority of modern Chinese writers deeply influenced by Western theories of literature and society (including Marxism), Mao remained close to traditional patterns of thought and avoided the often mechanical or narrowly literal interpretations that were the hallmark of Western schools current in China in the early twentieth century. Many of the detailed discussions on the “Talks” in the West have been concerned with their political and historical significance. However, since Mao is a literary figure of some importance in twentieth-century China, McDougall finds it worthwhile to follow up his published remarks on the nature and source of literature and the means of its evaluation. By better understanding the complex and revolutionary ideas contained in the “Talks,” McDougall suggests we may acquire the necessary analytical tools for a more fruitful investigation into contemporary Chinese literature.

Art in turmoil : The Chinese Cultural Revolution, 1966-76 : [book review]

Non UBCUnreviewedUnknow

Breaking Through: Literature and Arts in China, 1997-1986

One of the most notable features of the fifties and sixties in China was the public willingness of the literary and art world to submit to the dictates of the political leadership. The reasons for their cooperation, heavily qualified though it might have been, and the various methods by which the authorities ensured it, have been described elsewhere and are not the topic of this paper.' What I am interested in here is the way in which this cooperation was undermined in the seventies and openly flouted in the eighties. Instead of submission, a sigruficant number of people in literature and the arts offered challenges both within the system and outside it, ranging from flagrant rejection of accepted conventions to a more cautious testing of the limits of tolerance, and from demands for professional autonomy to private arrangements outside existing organisations. The limit-setters and upholders - that is, the overlapping groups of orthodox Party leaders, the entrenched cultural bureaucracy, and writers and artists claiming positions of authority - found themselves restricted in their response to these challenges by the post-Mao modemisation program. The reform faction in the new leadership, acknowledging a complex relationship between the superstructure and the economic basis, found themselves to a certain extent obliged to yield ground, supporting the challengers and restraining the orthodox. The more detached of the Party intellectuals might also have noticed how, with a keen grasp of Marxist imperatives, the new activists began by establishing their own means of production and distribution

Mao Zedong’s “Talks at the Yan’an Conference on Literature and Art”

"The writings of Mao Zedong have been circulated throughout the world more widely, perhaps, than those of any other single person this century. The “Talks at the Yan’an Conference on Literature and Art” has occupied a prominent position among his many works and has been the subject of intense scrutiny both within and outside China. This text has undoubted importance to modern Chinese literature and history. In particular, it reveals Mao’s views on such questions as the relationship between writers or works of literature and their audience, or the nature and value of different kinds of literary products. In this translation and commentary, Bonnie S. McDougall finds that Mao was in fact ahead of many of his critics in the West and his Chinese contemporaries in his discussion of literary issues. Unlike the majority of modern Chinese writers deeply influenced by Western theories of literature and society (including Marxism), Mao remained close to traditional patterns of thought and avoided the often mechanical or narrowly literal interpretations that were the hallmark of Western schools current in China in the early twentieth century. Many of the detailed discussions on the “Talks” in the West have been concerned with their political and historical significance. However, since Mao is a literary figure of some importance in twentieth-century China, McDougall finds it worthwhile to follow up his published remarks on the nature and source of literature and the means of its evaluation. By better understanding the complex and revolutionary ideas contained in the “Talks,” McDougall suggests we may acquire the necessary analytical tools for a more fruitful investigation into contemporary Chinese literature.