Chapter 38 Preface to "A Collection of Wu Songs"

Preface to "A Collection of Wu Songs" Seven years ago, I said: And in the future, after the rise of Mandarin Chinese literature, there can be "dialect literature".The more literature in dialects there is, the more materials are used in the literature in Mandarin, and the more rich in content and lively life it has.For example, although the British language is gradually becoming popular in the world, there are at least one hundred dialects in its three islands, such as Scots, Irish, and Welsh, all of which have noble literature.After the national language literature was formed, there were standards. Not only was it not afraid that the dialect literature would compete with it, but it also had to rely on the new materials and new blood supplied by the dialects of various places. (Volume 1 of "Hu Shi Wen Cun")

At that time, I did not want to frighten a group of people who advocate Chinese language literature, so when I said this passage, I carefully added a few restrictive words, such as "after the rise of Chinese language literature in the future", "after the formation of national language literature, there will be standards." Waiting for words, it seems that it is useless now. Let’s be honest, Mandarin is just the most superior dialect; today’s Mandarin literature was nothing but dialect literature so many years ago.Precisely because people at that time were willing to use dialects for literature and dared to use dialects for literature, a lot of living literature was accumulated over a thousand years, and the most universal part of it was gradually recognized as the foundation of Chinese literature. .Naturally, we should not be satisfied with just holding on to this historically inherited basis.The literature of the national language has emerged from the literature of the dialect, and still needs to find new materials, new blood, and new life from the literature of the dialect.

This is conceived from the perspective of "national language literature".If we think about literature in a broad sense, we have to rely on dialects.Literature must be able to express differences in individuality: beggars and prostitutes all say that Sima Qian's and Ban Gu's ancient Chinese are ridiculous; Zhang San and Li Si's vernacular is also ridiculous.The ancients had already seen this level, so Lu Zhishen and Li Kui both spoke a lot of dialect, and the important figures in the film were even better at dialect.Pinghua novels such as Pinghua and Pinghua both deliberately use local dialect.In southern literature since the late Ming Dynasty, Suzhou dialect has often been used in Kunqu Opera and novels, and there are wonderful descriptions in it.Take a passage in the example as an example: ...Shuangyu came forward and sat on the edge of the bed with Shuren.Shuangyu leaned slightly, put both hands on Shuren's left and right shoulders, and taught Shuren to hook Shuangyu's head with his right hand, and press his left hand to Shuangyu's heart, and asked face to face: "Ni Qiyue is here." Garden', just like the story of the story, I sit on the waves and gossip, remember?"... (63 chapters)

If we changed Shuangyu's words into official Chinese: "We sat together in Yiliyuan in July and said what we are talking about now, do you remember?"—the meaning is certainly correct, but the air is much reduced. So I often think, if Mr. Lu Xun's "The True Story of Ah Q" was written in Shaoxing dialect, how much life would be added to that novel!It's a pity that writers in recent years have not dared to take this road. Even Suzhou literati such as Mr. Ye Shengtao are only willing to learn European vernacular instead of using his native dialect.In Mr. Xu Zhimo's collection of poems recently, "A Golden Trace of Light" was written with the clay of Xiashi. In today's living literature, it can be regarded as the most successful attempt.Some of the most exciting lines: Yesterday, I went to the Yiwu early in the morning, what a sin!

The old lady has already gone, rolling in the straw coldly, don't know when she will be out of breath, no one knows! I couldn't do anything about it, so I had to call a few people. Some said it was Hungry Shaou, and some said it was Bingshaou. This is a branch of Wu dialect; anyone who understands Wu dialect can appreciate the air in this poem.This is the real vernacular, this is the real living language. Among the dialects in various parts of China, there are three dialects that have produced a lot of literature.The first is Beijing dialect, the second is Suzhou dialect (Wu dialect), and the third is Guangzhou dialect (Cantonese).Peking dialect produced the most literature and spread the farthest.Beijing has been the capital city for five hundred years, the eunuchs and garrisons of the children of the Eight Banners, and the popularity of Beijing opera in recent years are all reasons for the spread of Beijing language and literature.Cantonese literature is centered on "Yue Acura"; Yue Acura originated in the folk, and in the past hundred years, since Zhao Ziyong, there have been many imitations, and it can be regarded as very successful in rhyme.But although there are many people who can speak Cantonese at home and abroad, Cantonese literature is too far away from Putonghua after all, and its influence is still very little.Between the Beijing language literature and the Cantonese literature, there is the Wu language literature.In terms of regions, Su, Song, Chang, Tai, Hang, Jia, and Hu can all be regarded as Wu dialect regions.

In terms of history, it has been three hundred years.In the past 300 years, everyone who has studied Kunqu Opera has been trained by Wu Yin. In the past 100 years, Shanghai has become the center of national commerce, and Wu Dialect has therefore played a special and important role.In addition, the beauty of Jiangnan's daughter has long conquered the hearts of young people all over the country; Xiangri's so-called Nanban's tongue-in-cheek voice has long become the softest language of Wuzhong's daughter.Therefore, besides the literature in the Beijing language, the literature in the Wu language is considered the most powerful and promising dialect literature.

Wu language literature has always been seldom completely independent.The Wu dialect in Kunqu opera is often limited to the parts that are used for jokes, and only Su Bai is occasionally inserted in the Tanci. Even in recent decades, novels about the life of prostitutes only use Su Bai for part of the conversation, and the narrative part is still in Mandarin.To find a completely independent Wu language literature, we must look for it in the ballads of Suzhou. This "Wu Ge Jia Ji" edited by Mr. Gu Jiegang is the first independent Wu language literature.Collection A is divided into two volumes: the first volume is full of nursery rhymes, which is the purest Wu language literature.When we read this volume, we seemed to see the clever, lively, soft, and playful expressions of Suzhou children.This is the dialect literature of "Daodi" ("Daodi" originated in ancient times and divided the whole country into various ways. Song Yanyu replied to Wu Jingxian's book cloud: "The skills of the world still have their own tutors, and those who practice silk in the market must be divided into Daodi." Today's pharmacy The signboard also reads "Chuanguang Daodi medicinal materials". These two words are most suitable for describing dialect literature).The second volume is about songs sung by adults, among which there are quite a few long songs compiled by people who are proficient in literature, which are no longer purely Su Bai's folk songs.Although there are a few excellent folk songs among them—such as "Quick Shoes", "Picking the Heart of Vegetables", and "The Bone Door Latch"—most of the long songs show the evil influence of Tanci libretto: floating clichés and The intrusion of familiar formulas into folk songs reduces the simple flavor of folk songs.

Jie Gang divided Wu songs into five categories in his preface: first, nursery rhymes; second, rural women's songs; third, boudoir women's songs; fourth, peasant workers' songs;My impression of reading the second volume is that he has collected too many boudoir women's songs - long songs with Tanci style - and too few genuine folk songs in the second and fourth categories.No wonder.Jiegang grew up in the city of Suzhou, and the few friends who helped him collect are also from the city. They are not too close to rural women and peasant and worker hooligans, so this episode inevitably has the disadvantage of focusing on boudoir lyrics.Although these boudoir lyrics can also represent the psychological habits of some people, but because there are too many inherited parts and too few creative parts, the tailoring is not strict, and the words are not fresh, their literary value is not very high.

We sincerely welcome the publication of this first special collection of Wu language literature.We all admire Jiegang's contribution to collecting and annotating.There are many interesting and valuable discussions in his "Miscellaneous Notes on Writing Songs" (such as on "Awakening" and other chapters), which can add a lot of insight to us.But we hope that when Jiegang edits the second episode, he will collect more songs of rural women and peasant and worker hooligans.If the publication of "Wu Song A Collection" can arouse the interest of people from all over Suzhou, and enable them to help collect "authentic" folk songs from various villages, then all the following collections will become a special collection of pure Wu language civilian literature.Well, the publication of this book can really be said to open a new era for the history of Chinese literature.

On the night of September 20, 1925, in Beijing Volume 8 of "Three Collections of Hu Shi's Essays"