Tam, Kwok-kan. Chinese Ibsenism: Reinventions of Women, Class and Nation. Springer, 2019. xi+298. pp. ISBN: 978-981-13-6303-0 (eBook); 978-981-13-6302-3 (hardcover); 978-981-13-6305-4 (softcover).
Book Overview
This book is a study of the cultural changes brought about by the introduction of Ibsen to China from the 1910s to the 2010s. It is a companion to Kwok-kan Tam’s two other books, Ibsen, Power and the Self: Postsocialist Chinese Experimentations in Stage Performance and Film (Oslo: Novus Press, 2019) and Ibsen in China: A Critical-Annotated Bibliography of Criticism, Translation and Performance (Hong Kong: The Chinese University Press, 2001). A special feature of the book is that the stage performances, especially those that were performed 80 years ago, are well illustrated with stage photographs which are now difficult to find. Particularly noteworthy is that the front cover shows a color image of Nora from one of the most memorable performances with Ji Shuping playing the lead role in the Beijing A Doll’s House in 1956.
The study is based on forty years’ collection of Chinese materials extracted from library, newspapers and theatre archives from all over the world. Supported by detailed analyses of translations, literary experiments and theatrical performances involved in the cultural debates, the study provides the most comprehensive view of the critical reception of Ibsen in China in the past 100 years. It is moreover a study of the relation between theatre art and ideology in the Chinese experimentations with new selfhood as a result of Ibsen’s impact. It explores Ibsenian notions of the self, women and gender in China and provides an illuminating study of Chinese theatre as a public sphere in the dissemination of radical ideas. As the major source of modern Chinese selfhood, Ibsenism carries notions of personal and social liberation and has exerted great impacts on Chinese revolutions since the beginning of the twentieth century. Ibsen’s idea of the self as an individual has led to various experimentations in theatre, film and fiction to project new notions of selfhood, in particular women’s selfhood, throughout the history of modern China.
As the title indicates, the study focuses on changes in modern China in the cultural and social reinventions of women, class and nation. Literary and social portrayals of women, class and nation are imagined, but they also performative and have led to social experiments in revolution. Even today, China is experimenting with Ibsen’s notions of gender, power, individualism and self, giving messages for new social actions.
Table of Contents
Introduction: Ibsenism and Reinventions of Chinese Culture
Chapter One: Modern Chinese Theatre as Public Sphere
Chapter Two: Iconoclasm in Chinese Ibsenism
Chapter Three: Divided Ibsenism in Divided China
Chapter Four: Translation and the Dissemination of Ibsenism
Chapter Five: Ibsenism as Individualism of the Self
Chapter Six: Noraism and Class Ideology in Modern Chinese Fiction
Chapter Seven: Women and Gender in Modern Chinese Drama
Chapter Eight: Postsocialist Ibsenism Beyond Class Ideology
Chapter Nine: Reinventions of Women and Nation in Ibsen Performances
Chapter Ten: Ibsenism and Ideology in Chinese Playwriting
Conclusion: Chinese Ibsenism in the Politics of Global Literary Reception
Appendix One: Chinese Translations and Rewritings of Ibsen’s Works
Appendix Two: Chinese Stage Performances and Film Productions of Ibsen’s Plays
Chapter Summary
Introduction
A major problem that China faced in the early 1900s was the need to reinvent itself so that it could develop a post-Confucian social and moral order. It was necessary for the Chinese to find a new sense of selfhood when they became freed from the traditional framework that defined a person as a role in a socio-ethical system rather than as an individual with autonomy in personal choices. In this process, intellectuals like Lu Xun, Hu Shi 胡適, tried to find inspirations from Japanese and Western sources for the rejuvenation of Chinese culture. Ibsen was one such source. The ten years from 1908 to 1918 saw numerous attempts to introduce Ibsen’s philosophy and his dramatic works to China before he was finally presented as a champion of individualism that could resolve China’s problem of identity construction. Chinese intellectuals believed that the philosophy expressed in Ibsen’s drama could shed light on China’s cultural reinvention because, unlike other Western thinkers and literary writers, Ibsen offered open solutions that would lead to infinite possibilities of self-redefinition. By focusing on six particular moments of modern Chinese history designated by the years 1908, 1918, 1935, 1949, 1981 and 1998, one can see how Ibsen was introduced to China and what roles he has played in Chinese politics and revolution. As milestones in modern Chinese intellectual history, these moments will show the significance of Ibsen in the construction of a modern Chinese social and cultural order. In the course of the sinicization of Ibsen, one can see not only politics in the consumption but also complexities in the Chinese pursuit of a modern identity.
Chapter One
In the first half of the twentieth century, Chinese drama had undergone changes both in style and in content. All these developments and changes are closely related to the theatre movements of the world. The history of modern Chinese drama is a history of Western influence, with most of the “-isms” and trends of Western drama introduced to China within a short time. And among these “-isms,” only the realistic school exemplified by the social drama of Ibsen has remained influential over a long time. It is also due to Western influence that the Chinese theatre has witnessed its most prosperous time up to the present century. The modern Chinese theatre has been serving as a public sphere for the formation and dissemination of public opinion.
Chapter Two
The iconoclasm in Ibsenism was of the greatest interest to the Chinese intellectuals in the 1910s–1920s. In this period of critical reception, Hu Shi’s essay, “Ibsenism,” was the most important in its influence upon later critics. It was partly because of this essay that later critics tended to treat Ibsen more as a social reformer than as a dramatist. To Hu Shi, Ibsen’s realism advocated a truthful attitude towards life, and realism was not just a literary technique. To the Ibsen critics in this period, the most appealing of Ibsen’s plays was An Enemy of the People, though A Doll’s House also occupied an important position in the Chinese feminist movement. To both Lu Xun and Hu Shi, the most valuable part of Ibsenism was iconoclasm. The Chinese translation of a chapter of James Huneker’s book, Iconoclasts: A Book of Dramatists, together with the introduction of the American anarchist Emma Goldman’s essay, “The Modern Drama: A Powerful Disseminator of Radical Thought,” provided sources for the iconoclastic interpretation of Ibsen. During the peak of the May 4th movement, Ibsen was taken as a force countering Confucianism.
Chapter Three
China was ideologically divided since 1927 when the Nationalists and the Communists collided in power, with both claiming to be revolutionary bringing hope to a new China. There was a similar split among the intellectuals, represented by the debate between Crescent Moon Society and Creation Society, with the former emphasizing literature for the sake of art, and the latter literature for serving society. As regards Ibsenism, the Crescent Moon Society writers highlighted art in Ibsen’s plays, while the Creation Society writers insisted in the social messages. Hidden behind the debate was also the differing views between the Anglo-American and Japanese sources of Ibenism. Most remarkable in this period of reception was that Ibsen became a subject of debate in Chinese theatre criticism and in the feminist movement amidst the rise of media power in China.
Chapter Four
Translations were indispensable to the dissemination of Ibsenism in China. The chapter traces why Ibsen’s social plays were translated into Chinese from the 1910s to the 1980s and how they were situated in the Chinese revolution and became a radical call for freeing the self from familial and social bondages. Although Ibsen came to the attention of the Chinese as early as 1908, interest in his works reached a zenith only in the late 1910s after the beginning of the Literary Revolution, which was accompanied by a massive programme of translating Western literary masterpieces. Ibsen’s major plays, especially those on social problems, were all translated into Chinese prior to the 1950s. In later years, various reprints or new translations came from the press. In 1956, to commemorate Ibsen on the fiftieth anniversary of his death, People’s Literature Press in Beijing published a new four-volume edition of Ibsen translations. The years since the 1980s saw a different emphasis on Ibsen when Peer Gynt was translated in 1978 with an advocacy for a postsocialist notion of selfhood which deviated from the socialist collectivist selfhood.
Chapter Five
It was for the purpose of revolting against outdated and conventional morals that Ibsen was revered in China since the 1910s. In his evaluation of the New Literature Movement, novelist Yu Dafu said in 1935 that the greatest achievement of the May 4th movement was firstly in the affirmation of “the self as an individual.” Because of the new notion of the individual, the concepts of nation and society were changed among the new generation. The advent of individualism in modern China was largely due to Hu Shi’s pronouncement of “Ibsenism,” which was a declaration of autonomy for each individual. In Hu Shi’s view, Ibsen made a great discovery that individualism constituted the change from traditional to modern selfhood. Humanism was Zhou Zuoren’s extension of Hu Shi’s Ibsenism. The widespread and enthusiastic reception was due in large measure to Ibsen’s reputation among Chinese intellectuals as an uncompromising iconoclast. Through the interpretation of Hu Shi, Zhou Zuoren and Emma Goldman, Ibsenism was characterized as anarchism and iconoclasm. The instrumental function and utilitarianism of literature were stressed to such an extent that new genres of writing called “the problem novel” and “the exposé literature” became a fashion in the May 4th era.
Chapter Six
The Chinese interpretation of A Doll’s House as a feminist manifesto and the subsequent literary works produced as a response to it can be seen as a network of relations involving literary and social conditions of text production and consumption that form an intricate relation of intertextuality and intercontextuality. Ever since A Doll’s House was introduced to China, it has been associated with the emancipation of Chinese women and has served as an intellectual guide for women to confront adversities in life. The ideas of individualism embodied in Nora represented to the Chinese youth a new morality that destabilized the old Confucian moral order on which the nation was built. As Chen Duxiu remarked, for China to modernize there must be a fundamental change in culture to “replace family-clan-ism by individualism” (yi geren benwei zhuyi yi jaizhu bewei zhuyi 以個人本位主義易家族 本位主義). The Nora phenomenon resulted in countless women leaving home. Many writers, such as Nie Gannu, who were of the view that Noraism had been excessive and had caused adverse effects mocked against it, while other writers who were supportive of the view that women must leave home wrote novels laying out possible ways of women seeking independence. Mao Dun was such an example whose novel Rainbow (Hong 虹) was an experiment that meant to point out to women that they could join the revolutionary cause after leaving home. In reality many women in mid-1930s followed the heroine in Rainbow, left home and joined the revolution led either by the Nationalists or by the Communists. In the same vein is Ba Jin’s novel Family (Jia 家) which portrays the three brothers being repressed by their grandfather, a Confucian patriarch, to sacrifice their love and personal pursuits for family business, and the youngest brother finally decides to leave home to join the revolution.
Chapter Seven
Ibsen was such a dominant figure in modern Chinese drama and theatre that many young dramatists and theatre directors in the 1920s, such as Tian Han and Hung Shen, aspired to be China’s Ibsen. Because Ibsen has set a very good example of how to use dialogue to convey revolutionary messages, many modern Chinese plays have adopted the technique and created a new genre of Chinese problem play and feminist drama. From Hu Shi to Tian Han and to Cao Yu, modern Chinese drama developed in coincidence with the growing influence of Ibsen. Even in literary influence, the impact of Ibsen’s social themes is no less than that of his dramatic techniques. In drama, as well as in other literary genres, structural elements are often inseparable from the world view they embody. This is at least the case in China. The influence of Ibsen’s drama, as can be seen, is inseparable from that of his social philosophy and his vision on feminine psychology. The characterization of complex females, such as Tian Han’s Chun and Cao Yu’s Fanyi, is indebted to Ibsen’s insights into femininity.
Chapter Eight
Ibsen has created long-lasting impacts in China because the provocative social messages in his plays meet the needs for social change in China. The messages presented in his plays, such as social moral, institution, family, gender and self, are universal and basic to human life no matter how China has changed. Ibsen’s impacts are longer lasting and greater in effect than are those of many other thinkers because Ibsen’s ideas are conveyed through artistic means that have created new discourses on social reality. Ibsenism is stage presentations of new realities of the self and new social psychology. In 1956, there was a nation-wide movement in re-evaluating Ibsen’s ideas of individualism, which was soon followed by ten years of silence during the Cultural Revolution in 1967-1976. However, Chinese Ibsen studies and Ibsen performances became active again in the 1980s onwards. The Ibsen repertoire was expanded to include the romantic and symbolist plays. Ibsenism was reinterpreted beyond considerations of class ideology, and tensions between Nora and Helmer were no longer placed in the context of opposition between class values. The opening up of China since the 1980s also opened up debates on the art and politics of Ibsenism.
Chapter Nine
It was in the context of freeing women from family and social bondages that Ibsen was first introduced to China, and that interpretation has lasted a hundred years. The performances of A Doll’s House produced stage images of new womanhood. The years 1923 and 1935 were most significant in the Chinese history of Ibsen performances because these were the years that the performances became part of nation-wide movements in debating whether women should leave home. As a result of the social impact of these performances, a large number of women left home to find jobs in the city, causing disruption to the Chinese social order. Even during the tormenting years of the Second World War, Ibsen performances continued in different cities with messages calling for resistance and fighting for freedom in the face of Japanese invasion. A second wave of Ibsenism appeared in China in 1956 with a new state-funded performance of A Doll’s House. The actress who played Nora was Ji Shuping, one of the best stage actresses who was noted for her exquisite execution of details in acting. The new image of Nora created by Ji Shuping remained the stage model of new womanhood for two decades in China until there were postsocialist Chinese productions in new representations of womanhood. New experimentations with feminine psychologiy in The Lady from the Sea complemented feminist resistance in A Doll’s House.
Chapter Ten
Modern Chinese drama is called speech drama in China because it is based on dialogue for interaction between characters. It is a new genre structured completely different from traditional Chinese drama. Many of the early modern Chinese plays written in the 1920s were modeled after Ibsen’s plays, particularly A Doll’s House, in terms of scene structure, use of stage directions, and dialogue. Ibsen’s plays provided best examples of retrospective exposition, dramatic irony, character juxtaposition, dramatic conflicts and confrontational dialogue, which are techniques that dramatists in China have been learning from Ibsen The early modern Chinese drama critics, like Chen Liting 陳鯉庭 and Xiong Foxi, developed ideas about playwriting and dramaturgy by learning the techniques from Ibsen. So did Cao Yu, whose trilogy, Thunderstorm, Sunrise and Wilderness, were indebted to Ibsen in many places. Even in the socialist period when China was experimenting with new conceptions of drama in the style of socialist realism, examples were taken from Ibsen to illustrate dramatic structure and conflicts. Li Jianwu 李健吾 was most noted for his invention of socialist drama by adapting Ibsen’s ideas and techniques and giving them new contexts for use in socialism. Since the 1980s there has been a revival of interest in Ibsen, especially in stage experimentations that probe gender psychology, complexities of the self, and cultural conflicts between Chinese values and Norwegian feminism. New trends in playwriting have appeared that experiment with new forms and use of multimedia technology on the stage, such as Ibsen in One Take (2012) and Ghosts 2.0 (2014). Both are international collaborations between Chinese director Wang Chong 王翀 and Norwegian script writers and directors, such as Oda Fiskum and Hege Randi Tørrensen.
Conclusion
Situated in the social and cultural debates within China and in the global politics dividing the world between the liberal and the socialist camps since the 1910s and 1920s, Chinese Ibsenism was claimed by both the Nationalists and the Communists as having voices in support of their causes. The history of Ibsen’s reception in China can be divided roughly into five major periods: 1908–27, 1928–48, 1949–78, 1979–97, and 1998–present. These five periods correspond to the divisions in the history of the world reception of Ibsen. All the new developments since 1978 reflect the sophistication of the new generation of directors who are engaged in international dialogue with Ibsen performances in the West. International collaborations in Ibsen performances were a significant step in internationalizing the Chinese theatre, particularly in Ibsen experimentations. Lin Zhaohua, Wu Xiaojiang, Lu Xiaoping, Jin Xing, and Wang Chong have all reinterpreted Ibsen with new insights into issues of feminism, identity politics, cultural conflicts, nation building, and government corruption because of the involvement of Norwegian partnerships in their productions. The international collaborations bring in not only new styles and new stage technology but also new ideologies and new interpretations that go beyond the socialist stage art. All the new experimentations with international participation in acting and performance design bring Chinese Ibsen productions to a higher level of innovation and breakthrough.
Appendix One: Chinese Translations and Rewritings of Ibsen’s Works
There is a most complete and up-to-date list of Chinese translations and rewritings of Ibsen’s works in this section. Annotations are provided with details of publication data and sources.
Appendix Two: Chinese Stage Performances and Film Productions of Ibsen’s Plays
The list of performances and film productions provided is so far the most complete with annotations of sources, venues and casts.