192 chapter five
relevance of traditional Chinese views of literature as well as orthodox
Maoist poetics, summed up in the time-honored expression that “the
text is like the person” (᭛བ݊Ҏ); in other cultural contexts, judg-
ment of the author’s personality might fall outside the scope of textual
criticism. Dwelling on Xi Chuan’s work up to 1994, Yang Chang-
zheng writes:^4
Xi Chuan’s disposition has always been both gentle and tenacious. How
much wisdom and soul does it take to sustain such gentleness and tenac-
ity in this mortal life with all its disasters, its unpredictable changes and
its endless temptations? Gazing at the starry sky, Xi Chuan says that he
doesn’t want to press himself into being a holy man, but that only true
writing can give him peace of mind. Xi Chuan realizes that of money
one can make a thousand and thousands more, and then a million and
millions more, but that works of literature must be written with single
words, one by one.Liu Na makes the following claim, in a dense review article that is
part of a section devoted to Xi Chuan’s work in a 1994 issue of Poetry
Exploration:^5
In an age when commodity prices are going up and spiritual culture
is devaluating, Xi Chuan and some of his poetry friends [䆫ট] stand
guard over the classical spirit of poetry, protecting with dignity the seri-
ousness of art.In a 1997 issue of Literary Criticism (᭛ᄺ䆘䆎), Wu Sijing makes an
especially resounding statement, extending textual analysis to the au-
thor’s personality as do Yang and Liu:^6
Naturally, it is not only old poets who hold their own in the midst of
loneliness. In the face of surging commercialization and the temptations
of money, not a few young poets have also displayed personal integrity... Xi Chuan is a graduate of the Department of English at PKU and
the great majority of his classmates have gone abroad, but he has stayed
in China, for poetry’s sake. He first worked for Globe Magazine [⦃⧗ᴖ
ᖫ]. In the general fever of literati “going to sea” [to do business], he too
left Globe—not for a high-paid, luxurious job at a foreign company, but
to teach at a much poorer institute for the arts so as to have ample time
for reading and writing, and the opportunity to engage in a mutually
beneficial exchange of views with young artists studying there.
(^4) Bourdieu 1993: passim in parts I-II, Bertens 2001: ch 1, Yang Changzheng
1994: 48. 5
Liu Na 1994: 82.
(^6) Wu Sijing 1997: 80.