Just as the pear blossoms all over the world

Author: Zhao Yong, Professor, School of Arts, Beijing Normal University

Cheng Zhengmin (right), Tong Qingbing (center) and Li Zhuangying, the "three elders" of the Literature and Art Research Center of Beijing Normal University, took a group photo at an academic conference.

Narration

Biography of scholars

Cheng Zhengmin (1937-2024) was born in Xiamen, Fujian Province. In 1959, he graduated from the Chinese Department of Beijing Normal University, stayed in the school to teach in the Literature and Art Theory Group, and taught the course of Introduction to Literature. In 1965, he was transferred to the Soviet Literature Research Institute and served as the deputy director of the Soviet Literature Research Institute and the executive deputy editor in chief of the Soviet Literature magazine. In 1993, he was transferred back to the Literature and Art Theory Teaching and Research Section of the Chinese Department and served as the head of the Chinese Department. His works include "Russian Soviet Literary Theory in the 20th Century", "Bakhtin's Poetics", "New Perspective of Russian Literature", etc.

At more than eight o'clock on the morning of February 20, when the news of Cheng Zhengmin's death suddenly came, I was too shocked to speak. There was the first class of the new semester that afternoon, and I had to be prepared, but my mind kept wandering during the preparation of the class, and everything about Mr. Cheng poured in

Introduction to Bakhtin

I know Mr. Cheng's name was 1993, but it was 1999 when I met him. That year, I was admitted to Beijing Normal University and studied for a doctor's degree under Tong Qingbing. Teacher Tong took the lead and offered us a special course of "Literary Mind and Carving Dragons"; Mr. Cheng followed suit and opened a special course on western literary theory with another professor. According to my lecture notes, Mr. Cheng walked onto the platform of this course on March 8, 2000. He told us that his class was to let everyone read Dostoevsky's Poetic Problems carefully by Bakhtin, a Soviet literary theorist. He gave two lectures first, which was regarded as a guide reading, followed by the optional action of everyone: select a chapter, read it carefully, and explain it.

To be honest, although I have bought this book of Bakhtin for a long time (the date of purchase was December 1993), I have been sleeping on my bookshelf. With Mr. Cheng's narration, as the concepts of dialogue, humorous style, carnivalization, polyphonic novel, carnival world feeling and so on bubbled out of his mouth, I began to read Bakhtin formally. Because I listened to Teacher Tong's class in the first semester, I couldn't help but secretly compare the teaching styles of the two teachers. The result of the comparison is that if Teacher Tong focuses on being slow, then Teacher Cheng focuses on "big strings are noisy like rain". This machine gun speed makes me realize that he is not only quick in thinking, but also acute. If he sang, he would probably find that the rhythm of "a winding and long path" was too slow, but he would change it to "just when the pear flowers are blooming all over the world". Why? Because "Katyusha" is a four two shoot.

This is my first impression of Mr. Cheng. This kind of auditory effect, together with the lean, capable and energetic visual image, makes me feel that Mr. Cheng is full of vitality. In fact, when he was in his sixties, he was retired at home, but was pulled into the Literature and Art Research Center, a key research base for humanities and social sciences of the Ministry of Education, which had just been declared successful at that time by the teacher Tong, who was one year older than him. He became a retired full-time researcher and the right arm of teacher Tong.

In the spring of 2000, I not only read Dostoevsky's Poetics in detail, but also decided to read Rabelais Studies because I was very interested in the "Zhuangxieti", "Menipe's satire" and "Socrates' dialogue" discussed in Chapter 4. Although the previous book also talked about carnival and carnivalization, it seemed to be an improvisation. I wanted to make clear that carnival What is the carnival square and carnival world feeling like? It is impossible to detour in front of Rabelais Research, because all the secrets of these problems are hidden in this book. After reading this book, I specially wrote a few sentences at the back of the book to record the excitement at that time. One of the sentences was: "During the reading of this book, the impact and shock were unparalleled." It was also after reading this book that I finally wrote the course paper of teacher Cheng's course, "The Excavation and Amplification of Folk Language -- On Bakhtin's Carnival Theory", This article was not only praised by Mr. Cheng, but also published smoothly, and even won the 2002 Excellent Paper Award of Foreign Literature Research. Now, if there is no guidance from Mr. Cheng, can I touch the Rabelais Study? Can Bakhtin occupy a permanent and important position in my mind?

It is because of this book that I really understand a truth: some books let you learn, and some books can go deep into your soul. For me, Rabelais Studies obviously belongs to the latter.

However, it was not until the day of Mr. Cheng's death that I took down his book "Bakhtin's Poetics" from the bookshelf and began to read it. Because I believe that reading a person's works after his death is the best way to remember him. Because of this reading, I realized that Mr. Cheng is just like a man: his exposition is simple, vigorous, tedious, straightforward, clear, cautious, methodical and light. After his cleaning, reflection, refining and induction, Bakhtin's overall poetics is both dazzling and orderly. This book, published in 2019, is his work in his later years. From the lines, it seems that I also appreciate the style of "Yu Xin's article is more mature than before", and the spirit is not only a shock. What is more exciting to me is that I not only reviewed Bakhtin, but also found some connection between Bakhtin's "internal sociality of art" and German scholar Adorno's "internal criticism". At the same time, the idea of writing it as a paper also grew in my mind.

On From History

When summing up his academic career, Mr. Cheng once said, "Among the various poetic schools in Russia in the 20th century, the most important and fascinating one is Bakhtin's poetics." ("The Academic Road I've Been Through") I believe that. In my mind, although Mr. Cheng has written books such as Research on the Creative Psychology of Russian Writers, he is naturally an expert in Russian and Soviet literary theory, but the background of this expert is Bakhtin's poetics. That is to say, if there is no Bakhtin's bowl of wine at the bottom, whether his Russian Soviet literary theory research can still be as full as it is now may be a question mark.

However, it was not until Mr. Cheng's death that I found that his research on Bakhtin also started at the turn of the century when he gave lessons to our students, because that was when he published Bakhtin's Cultural Poetics (Literary Review, 2000, Issue 1), and when Mr. Zhong Jingwen encouraged him to "expand this article into a book". Then came the later Bakhtin's Cultural Poetics (Beijing Normal University Press, 2001 edition), and the expanded work Bakhtin's Poetics (China Social Sciences Press, 2019 edition). When I realized that Mr. Cheng was "determined not to relax" in the season of "the most beautiful but the red sunset", my respect for him increased a bit. For many scholars, the 60 year old is the beginning of the closing phase, but Mr. Cheng has designed a new starting point for himself. How can people not admire such ambition and ambition?

Even Teacher Tong is admired! I remember that on December 26, 2013, the Literature and Art Research Center held a year-end summary meeting as usual. At the end of the meeting, Teacher Tong said, "We should learn in a down-to-earth manner and adhere to the academic standard. Look at our teacher Cheng, he has been studying Bakhtin, and has become an expert in this field. Therefore, you should learn like Teacher Cheng."

Teacher Cheng's solid knowledge is related to his pursuit of "theory from history", and I have seen that he often speaks this sentence. For example, in the first ten days of July 2014, the Center held a retreat in Dajue Temple in the suburbs of Beijing. When talking about the development of disciplines, Teacher Tong stressed that the future construction of literary theory should not be the battle of the big regiment, but should be chosen by each person who is interested in issues, pondering for years, and then combining with the project. When it was Mr. Cheng's turn to speak, he pointed out: "We need to think carefully about how to deal with the relationship between theory, history and the status quo. It is important to start from history, but it is difficult to move forward if we do not attach importance to the research on the status quo. Theoreticians such as Belinsky and Bakhtin, in fact, are very concerned about literary reality."

As a research method, "theory comes from history, and combination of history and theory" naturally relates to the tradition of Chinese historical research at first. However, the reason why Mr. Cheng attaches great importance to it and wants to combine it with reality is obviously related to Bakhtin. In Bakhtin's Poetics, I read the following statement: "In a broad sense, theory comes from history, and any theoretical problem must return to history. Through historical research, its essence and development law must be clarified. From the perspective of literary history research, literary history is to find the law of literary development, but the law is not fabricated out of thin air, and the law is derived from historical research. " In another place, Mr. Cheng directly pointed out: "The greatest enlightenment of Bakhtin's cultural poetics research is that literary research cannot be closed in the text, and the study of literature cannot be separated from the complete cultural context of an era. It is necessary to closely combine the study of literary theory with the study of cultural history, and only by doing so can we reveal the essence of literary creation." (The Academic Road I've Been Through) This is an emphasis on "theory comes from history" from another perspective. From this, I also realized that although in their later years, Teacher Tong and Teacher Cheng both talked about cultural poetics, and although they both emphasized the "historical and cultural context", there was an additional "theory comes from history" in the cultural poetics that Teacher Cheng talked about, which was a gift from Bakhtin.

Since Mr. Cheng is an expert in Bakhtin studies, I often ask him for help when I encounter problems in this regard. I remember in 2012, I asked him if Bakhtin had ever used "dialogic heteroglossia". Because at that time I was taking some students to translate the American scholar Brysler's Literary Criticism: Introduction to Theory and Practice, and the terms in it need to be accurate. In 2017, I asked him which Biography of Bakhtin was more worth reading, because at that time I was thinking about Qian Zhongshu's "dark thoughts" and wanted to compare Qian Zhongshu with Bakhtin. In the first month of 2022, I went to pay a New Year's call to Mr. Cheng and asked him face-to-face what his explanation of "poetics" was in the Russian context. He immediately took out an Introduction to Literature (Peking University Press, 2006 edition), turned to page 196, and let me see what the author Harizev said. He also said, "Didn't I give you my copy of Bakhtin's Poetics? I explained the three meanings of poetics at the beginning. You can go back and have a look.".

Coming out of Mr. Cheng's house, I couldn't help sighing: Mr. Cheng is really a walking dictionary. At the same time, a statement from Teacher Tong sounded in my ears: there is an old man in the family, if there is a treasure.

a heaven-made match

According to records, Tong's words were on March 11, 2009. In the afternoon of that day, the members of the center held a meeting. Teacher Tong said that he was going to resign and hand over the director of the center to Professor Li Chunqing. Turning to the personnel composition of the center, he said: "Our current situation is' three old ',' five middle schools' and 'five young'. I am a three old man, a teacher Cheng, and a teacher Li Zhuangying. As the saying goes, 'If there is an old man, there is a treasure.' Our big family has' three old men ', that is, if there are three treasures?"

In fact, Mr. Li was only sixty or forty at that time. It seemed inappropriate to call him "old". The only real old people were Mr. Tong and Mr. Cheng. They all entered the Chinese Department of Beijing Normal University in 1955, and both came from Fujian. They also came to prominence during their university years, and eventually became candidates to stay in the university. The difference is that Teacher Tong was in Class 1 of Chinese and Teacher Cheng was in Class 4 of Chinese; Teacher Tong graduated one year ahead of schedule, while Teacher Cheng graduated normally after four years of study. The two became colleagues from classmates and taught in the Literature and Art Theory Teaching and Research Section of the Chinese Department. Later, although Teacher Tong was also transferred to the Academic Affairs Office of the school, he basically did not leave the Chinese Department. Since 1965, Teacher Cheng has been transferred to the Soviet Literature Institute. It was not until the dissolution of the Soviet Institute of Literature in 1993 that Mr. Cheng returned to the Chinese Department to teach. After working as the head of the Department for a term (1995-1997), he retired.

Teacher Cheng can return to the Chinese Department, and Teacher Tong should have made great contributions.

According to Professor Li Chunqing, as early as the mid-1980s, Teacher Cheng became the "assistant tutor" in the minds of children's disciples. The reason is that at that time, Teacher Tong had asked Teacher Cheng to help with the project and lead the students, which was tantamount to drawing him into the group (My "Assistant Tutor" Mr. Cheng Zhengmin). After the dissolution of the "Su Wen Institute", Mr. Cheng was hesitant about where to go, because he could also choose to go to the Department of Foreign Languages, but Mr. Tong hoped that he would return to his roots. With the support of Miss Tong, Miss Cheng not only returned to the Chinese Department, but was later promoted to the position of department head.

Why did Teacher Tong invite Teacher Cheng back? In fact, the answer is not complicated. I think he wants to find an effective helper.

It is said that in the early 1990s, Teacher Tong was preparing to work hard. But at that time, most of the teaching and research offices of literature and art were young. Although they were young and vigorous, they were good at learning, but once they entered the administrative management and discipline planning level, they might appear to be inexperienced. Therefore, it is urgent to find a bosom friend who knows the root and the bottom of his heart to give him advice and make use of his strengths to avoid weaknesses. In this way, Mr. Cheng, an old classmate, becomes the best candidate. Because he is not only modest, low-key and calm, but also has a lively mind and many ideas, as if "the tower lights up, and each layer is bright".

I remember that at the conference to celebrate the 80th birthday of Teacher Cheng (the academic seminar on "New Trends in the Development of Russian Poetics"), Professor Luo Gang compared Teacher Tong and Teacher Cheng Er to the relationship between hairpin and Dai in A Dream of Red Mansions, saying that they were "two peaks facing each other, two streams diverging". In my speech, I used the words in the Folktale Morphology by the Soviet scholar Prop to regard Teacher Tong as the "leading role" and Teacher Cheng as the "helper". I said: "In a story, the protagonist is of course important, but without the help of matchmaker, Zhang Sheng could not marry Cui Yingying; without Shao Jianbo's staff, Yang Zirong could not enter Weihu Mountain. It can be said that in the construction of the discipline of literature and art, it was their old partners who fulfilled their respective positions and duties that completed the discipline narrative of literature and art and brought our discipline to a glorious period. "

Hongniang is the second female in The West Chamber, and Shao Jianbo is the chief of staff in The Wisdom of Winning Tiger Mountain. Many people are familiar with these two plays, and they don't need to be explained. What needs to be explained is the theory of Propp. In Morphology of Folktales, Plop summed up seven roles - the aggressor, the giver, the helper, the princess and her father, the dispatcher, the hero, and the fake hero - which covered all kinds of characters in the story. A "circle of action" is formed around each role, and they perform different functions in the story. In the stories written in the literature and art of Beijing Normal University, of course, Teacher Tong is the absolute protagonist, while Teacher Cheng is the perfect helper (helper). The "princess" they are looking for is the "top-level design" of Beijing Normal University's literature and art, or, as Teacher Tong said, "literary theory with Chinese characteristics". In this search, Mr. Cheng has been willing to be a helper, a supporting actor, a staff member, and Green Leaf, without any complaints. This kind of role consciousness is not to go through the motions, but to be completely convinced and unambiguous.

In about 15 years, I have witnessed the perfect cooperation between Tong and Cheng. I even think that it is not enough to describe this degree of perfection without "a perfect match".

Red clay stove

After the death of Teacher Tong, I began to serve as the director of the Literature and Art Research Center. I remember the first time I visited Mr. Cheng's home after the "new official" took office, he told me about his past as the dean of the department: "It was the school leader who suddenly talked to me, and then forced me into the position of the dean. After becoming the dean, I went to visit several old men in the department. Because there were many contradictions and complicated situations in the Chinese Department at that time, I complained to Mr. Zhong Jingwen and Mr. Qi Gong, and the two old men gave me ideas and solutions when they talked and laughed. In fact, Zhong is always an idealist, like Don Quixote; Qilao is like Hamlet, he is a skeptic, and the world is composed of these two types of people. This is not my opinion. Turgenev has already written an article. When you become a director, you have to do something. When you do something, you have to provoke others. But as long as you are public minded and win the support from the above, you just go ahead. " This is Mr. Cheng's talking style, which is eloquent, quoted from classics, concise and to the point. He appeared there, as if to teach me how to be a director.

At 9:00 p.m. on June 14, 2017, Mr. Cheng called me. He opened his mouth and said, "Today is the day when Teacher Tong has been away for two years. It's so fast! I miss him and I specially call you." Then he asked me, "Will you think of Teacher Tong, especially in difficult times?" I said, "Yes, because we don't have the wisdom of Teacher Tong, nor the prestige he has formed over the years." So Teacher Cheng comforted me, He said, "It's not easy for you. In the future, we should discuss things more and take our time. Don't worry." In fact, when I was the director, it was Mr. Cheng who realized that I was "not easy". Although these words seem abstract and ethereal, they are also a kind of comfort after all. It seems that a "red mud stove" came to me in the season of "coming late for snow", which made me feel warm and harmonious.

On October 20, 2018, the academic seminar (the second session) on "New Issues in Literature and Art and Teaching of Literary Theory" hosted by the Research Center of Literature and Art was held in Beijing. I asked Mr. Cheng to deliver a speech. He first said some general remarks, then turned to me and said: "Zhao Yonggang bought a new car at the meeting in Xiangshan in 2011, and he drove the car to send me and Teacher Tong home. At that time, he was a novice and his driving skills were average. People didn't dare to ride in his car. Seven years later, he is an old driver, so it is safe to take his car. " After Cheng said that, there was laughter and applause.

I knew he was cheering me on, so I immediately followed up and said, "Thank you, Mr. Cheng!"

My doctoral thesis defense was in 2002. More than 20 years later, most of the words of Zang or No from other members of the defense committee have been forgotten, but I still remember one statement of Mr. Cheng. He said: "Zhao Yong's paper can be picked up, unlike some students who write it loosely. His topic is" Integration and subversion: the dialectics of mass culture - the theory of mass culture of the Frankfurt School ", and he refined two sets of words," integration "and" subversion ", which is picked up."

As I understand it, "being able to lift" means that the paper has a core meaning. The destiny is like a grab that can be released and attacked in all directions; If we can gather them together, we can collect everything. The paper that "cannot be lifted" is not necessarily poorly written. There are also scattered gold and jade in it, but it has not been refined into pieces and shaped. The reason may be that the materials are not up to standard, or the method is faulty. I dare not say how good my paper is, but I have a good grasp; The second is gold inlaid jade or iron. I was able to realize this, thanks to Mr. Cheng's reminding that he weighed the weight of my paper and made it famous. Although his statement is simple and homely, without praise such as "filling the gap", I like it. Later, the reason why I criticized some doctoral theses, such as Sartre's Intervention Theory Research and Bart's Structuralism Thought Research, was that these topics only covered the scope of discussion, without a core point of view. In the words of Mr. Cheng, it is "no grip, no lift". In ancient Chinese, the most desirable sentence is "a soldier without a commander is called an unorthodox soldier".

Although I was deeply impressed by Mr. Cheng's paper review, for many years later, I just published a book and asked him to be upright, and I didn't dare to write any articles for him to read. The reason is simple. First, he is old. Second, he has a lot of work on hand. I can't occupy his limited energy and precious time.

However, it was also after the death of Teacher Tong that I began to let Teacher Cheng review my articles. Why should I let him suffer? Because I often wrote some words about people and things of Beijing Normal University when I was writing my thesis, I had the idea to let Mr. Cheng see it, because he could not only point out the writing method, but also identify the truth and falsehood, and even provide me with some details. So every time the first draft is finished, I print it out and submit it to him for review. Usually, after three or two days, Mr. Cheng's "review comments" will be in place. Of course, I dare to disturb him frequently, also because those words are not lofty speeches, which can make him depressed. Especially after learning that Mr. Cheng likes reading this article, I have no psychological burden.

Now think about it, over the years, I have been asking Mr. Cheng to comment on my compositions. What is my goal? There should be no utilitarian purpose, and even no praise from Cheng. I probably think that when I write about the legendary people and things in the Chinese Department of Beijing Normal University, I can only find information from the old papers, and Mr. Cheng is a witness on the scene, so I need to ask him to check, verify and guide me. Only in this way, the historical context I came back to - that is, the thing that he and Teacher Tong repeatedly emphasized - would not be too abstract and too skinny, but had a bit of flesh and blood flavor. Teacher Cheng is also merciful and has some knowledge, so his comments are often just right, and his suggestions are often to the point. This kind of teaching is so important that later I even thought that only after he had seen it and I revised it again could I get the article. Otherwise, I would not be sure.

Whenever I think that I can no longer ask for help from Mr. Cheng, and that I can only be "responsible for my own work" in the future, I can't help but feel sad. There is a desolation of "who can I ask if I have problems". Therefore, for many people, Mr. Cheng's death is the loss of a wise teacher and a generous elder, but for me, in addition, a warm-hearted and rigorous article gatekeeper has gone away.

This photo is provided by the author and Cheng Kai, the son of Cheng Zhengmin and a researcher of the Institute of Literature of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences