The Bifurcation of Qing ( 情): The Lyric Tradition, Affect Theory, and the Possibility of Literature
Qing (情) has been represented in literature through various conceptual guises—lyricism, affect, emotion, and feeling. Rather than recuperating a pre-lyrical state or clarifying the historical genealogy of qing, this paper argues for a critical shift toward the act of shu ( 抒 , expression), emphasizing formal analysis and the agency of enunciation. In this framework, while the lyric tradition may function as an invented prehistory of modern and contemporary literature, its very articulation is a modernist undertaking, one that engages the present literary field through its dialogic and affective concerns.This articulation intersects with the affective turn, which, in the wake of the linguistic turn, resists infinite textual deconstruction and anti-essentialism by recentering embodied sensation and pre-cognitive intensity. Within this critical conjuncture, the classical notion of feng (風) in Chinese lyricism resonates with the concept of immediation in affect theory: both navigate terrains beyond the binary oppositions of body/mind and sensibility/rationality. They pose ontological questions such as "How is the self possible? " and "How is the other possible?"Furthermore, through the expressive motion of shu and the practice of reparative reading, the work of representation and the affective orientation toward the other transform into broader inquiries: "How is literature possible?" and "How is society possible? " This paper interrogates the bifurcation of qing across Chinese and Western literary theories in order to explore how qing can serve as a critical vector for re-opening the literary, thereby reconsidering both the nature of literature and the agency of the literary subject.
Berlant, L. (2008). The female complaint: The unfinished business of sentimentality in American culture. Duke University Press.
Chen, G. (2013). Shuqing Zhongguo lun [抒情中国论: On lyrical China]. SDX Joint Publishing Company (Hong Kong).
Chen, G., & Wang, D. D.-w. (Eds.). (2014). Shuqing zhi xiandaixing: "Shuqing chuantong" yu Zhongguo wenxue yanjiu [抒情之现代性:"抒情传统"与中国文学研究: The modernity of lyricism: The "lyrical tradition" and Chinese literary studies]. SDX Joint Publishing Company.
Deleuze, G. (1997). Essays critical and clinical (D. W. Smith & M. A. Greco, Trans.). University of Minnesota Press.
Deleuze, G. (2016). Deleuze zai Wansai'ne de Sibonuosa jiangke (1978–1981) [德勒兹在万塞讷的斯宾诺莎课程(1978–1981)记录: Deleuze's
Spinoza lectures at Vincennes (1978–1981)] (W. Min'an & G. Xiaoyan, Eds., Y. Jiang, Trans.). In W. Min'an & G. Xiaoyan (Eds.), Shengchan (Vol. 11, pp. 13) [«生产»第11辑:"德勒兹与情动"]. Jiangsu People's Publishing House.
Egginton, W. (2013). Affective disorder. Diacritics, 43(2), 74–86. https://doi.org/10.1353/dia.2015.0013
Feng, Z. (1999). Shisihangji [十四行集: Sonnet]. In L. Chunfu (Ed.), Feng Zhi quanji (Vol. 1). Hebei Education Press.
Gao, X. (1997). Xiucixue yu wenxue zhoudu [修辞学与文学周读: Rhetoric and weekly readings in literature]. Peking University Press.
Gong, P. (2009). Cong Lvshi Chunqiu dao Wenxin Diaolong — Ziran qigan yu shuqing ziwo [从«吕氏春秋»到«文心雕龙»——自然气感与抒情自我: From The Spring and Autumn Annals of Mr. Lü to The Literary Mind and the Carving of Dragons: Natural sensibility and the lyrical self]. In K.
Qingming & X. Chi (Eds.), Zhongguo shuqing chuantong de zaifaxian (Vol. 2) [中国抒情传统的再发现 (第二卷): Rediscovery of the Chinese lyrical tradition (Vol. 2)]. National Taiwan University Press.
Hardt, M., & Negri, A. (2000). Empire. Harvard University Press.
Jiang, T. (2018). Youqing de weizhi: Zaidu Shen Congwen de tugaixin ["有情"的位置:再读沈从文的"土改书信"]. Wenyi Zhengming [文艺争鸣], (10), 72–81. Retrieved from http://www.wyzm.com.cn
Lam, L. H. (2018). The spatiality of emotion in early modern China: From dreamscapes to theatricality. Columbia University Press.
Macherey, P. (2022). Ganxing shenghuo: Sibonuosa yulixue di san bufen daodu [感性生活:斯宾诺莎〈伦理学〉第三部分导读: Life of affects: An introduction to part III of Spinoza's Ethics] (Z. Wen, Trans.). Northwest University Press.
Marcus, S., & Zaloom, C. (Eds.). (2019). Think in public: A Public Books reader. Columbia University Press.
Massumi, B. (2015). Politics of affect. Polity Press.
Massumi, B. (2021). Parables for the virtual: Movement, affect, sensation. Duke University Press.
Negri, A. (2000). The savage anomaly: The power of Spinoza's metaphysics and politics. University of Minnesota Press.
Nussbaum, M. C. (1990). Love's knowledge: Essays on philosophy and literature. Oxford University Press.
Sedgwick, E. K. (1990). Epistemology of the closet. University of California Press.
Sedgwick, E. K. (2003). Touching feeling: Affect, pedagogy, performativity. Duke University Press.
Seigworth, G. J., & Gregg, M. (2010). An inventory of shimmers. In G. J. Seigworth & M. Gregg (Eds.), The affect theory reader (pp. 1–25). Duke University Press. https://doi.org/10.1215/9780822393047-001
Stewart, K. (2007). Ordinary affects. Duke University Press.
Wang, D. D.-w. (2010). Shuqing chuantong yu Zhongguo xiandaixing: Zai Beida de batang ke [抒情传统与中国现代性:在北大的八堂课: The lyric tradition and Chinese modernity: Eight lectures at Peking University]. SDX Joint Publishing Company.
Wang, D. D.-w. (2011). Xiandai "shuqing chuantong" silun [现代"抒情传统"四论: Four essays on the modern lyrical tradition]. National Taiwan University Press.
Wang, D. D. -w. (2014). Xiandangdai wenxue xinlun: Yili, lunli, dili [ 现 当 代 文 学 新 论 : 义 理 、 伦 理 、 地 理 : New theories on modern and contemporary literature: Doctrine, ethics, geography]. SDX Joint Publishing Company.
Wang, D. D.-w. (2015). The lyrical in epic time: Modern Chinese intellectuals and artists through the 1949 crisis. Columbia University Press.
Wang, D. D.-w. (2019). Shishi shidai de shuqing shengyin: Ershi shiji zhongqi de Zhongguo zhishifenzi yu yishujia [史诗时代的抒情声音:二十世纪中期的中国知识分子与艺术家: The lyrical voice in an epic age: Chinese intellectuals and artists in the mid-twentieth century]. SDX Joint Publishing Company