Literature in East and West

As we know, to compare and contrast different literatures in different cultures is a kind of complicated process since we have to identify various respects in multiple circumstances. If we want to clarify the differences and similarities between two kinds of literatures, not only it is necessary that we have to be master in both of them, but also we have to be familiar with the cultural background of those literatures previously. For example, if I want to distinguish Eastern literature and Western literature, I have to be familiar with the form of each literature and understand what the cultural particularities in two kinds of literatures. The primary thing is to identify the characters which literature has to be based on as a fundamental attribute. Such as, probably, literature is generated from human beings’ living circumstance or habits, the way of thinking and history, even if the geography objectively. Moreover literature also is a kind of subjective creation by human beings, so it has to be considered as an internal activity of human beings individually. Nevertheless, according to the intention of comparative literature, we cannot pay too many attentions to the individual literary action but to figure out the main general aspect in an objective sense. After that, when I start to clarify the backgrounds and general features of two different literatures in brief, I will not regard many more individuals certainly. After I explain the backgrounds of Eastern literature and Western literature, I will focus on two main literary forms which are poem and novel in East and West.

Eastern literature has the longest history than any other literatures around the world. Generally, Eastern literature can be considered in two continents which are Africa and Asia, those two continents contains four different cradles of civilization which are Ancient Egypt, Old Babylon, Ancient India and China. Eastern literature has its own distinct features; it is mature and developed but has some certain extent of sharelessness. According to the historical perspective, because Eastern literature is derived from the ancient civilizations, there are three literature systems. Chinnese, Indian and Arabic culture would distinctively be the centers. Eastern literature is strongly affected by its religious backgrounds, especially, the Islam and Buddhism. Those religious was used in people’s daily life and created its specific philosophy of living and thinking. The attention of Eastern literature usually in human beings internal world and strongly emphasize introspection. The irrational experience, such as emotion and intuition, is the fundamental appearance in Eastern literature. It often reflects the general sense, the holistic objects, the peaceful and harmonious meaning, and so on. Those literary expressions are based on Eastern specific tendency of spirit and internal philosophical consciousness.

By contrast, the Western literature can be traced back to the Ancient Greek and Hebraism; generally, we can call the Western literature which is affected by Greek mythology and Bible. Ancient Greek culture brings arts, drama to Western literature basically and Greek philosophy gives people a specific way of thinking with rationality. If we use two Ancient Greek Gods to represent the original literature in West, they have to be Dionysus and Apollo. Without those two “gods” or spirits, there is no Western literature. Western literature pay much more attention to each individual or single object which express personal experience or reality, rather than like Eastern literature which prefer to the holistic nature and to live in a world which is above the realistic personal existence. Even if the Western literature regards the personal invisible internal world in the later history, it emphasizes rationality and reason much earlier than they notice the spirit of personal internal and emotional experience individually. This appearance is based on the traditional Western rationalism. However, Western literature is affected by Christian culture, so it is often toward to think about God and much more like to pursue freedom, equality, and idealism with the spirit of humanism.    

Next, I will start to talk about poems in Eastern literature and Western literature first. Primarily, the history of Chinese literature is derived from poems, such as the earliest collection of poems, The Book of Songs, which contains three hundred and five poems and has more than three thousand years history. All of the poems in this book were gathered among the people during almost six hundred years. Those poems described the people’s various lives in ancient China in thousand years ago and expressed human beings’ fine emotions. The Book of Songs starts the history of Chinese poems in narration and lyrics, but it only represented the literature in the North of China. The most developed period of Chinese poem was Tang Dynasty which has been two thousand years to now. There were a large number of famous poets at that time, which included realistic poets and romantic poets. The most famous realistic poets were Tu Fu and Bai Juyi. Tu Fu has more than one thousand and four hundred poems and he is called the Master Poet by people. Bai Juyi’s poems gave a great impact to the world, especially the Japanese culture.

Li Po was the greatest romantic poet in Tang Dynasty, even in the whole Chinese history. He is called as the God of poetry and really good at imagination and creation. His achievement is praised as greatest one in Chinese history. After Tang Dynasty for almost fifty years, Chinese poems history came to another glorious period in Song Dynasty. At that time, the poems were usually called as Sung Phrase since those poems were used to sing in the past. The styles of the sung phrase could be defined with grace and unconstraint. Li Qingzhao and Ouyang Xiu were famous in the style of grace; Su Shi and Xin Qiji were famous in unconstrained style. After Song Dynasty, Chinese poems were going backward until the modern time in the earlier time of twenty century. Some famous modern poets gave the meaningful impact to the modern China before the period of Mao Zedong, such as Xu Zhimo, Wen Yiduo, Lin Huiyin, Mu Dan, and so on. They brought the thought of humanism to China and advocated democracy, freedom, equality and individual liberation.

Poems in Japan, mostly, are affected by Chinese culture, especially, affected by the culture in Tang Dynasty in China. The main characters of Japanese poems are lyric, irrational, surreal and aesthetic. The forms of lyric Japanese poems are pretty short without narrativity, such as haiku. Japanese poems have their own specific way of lyrics, which only reflect the emotional characters of Japanese people. For instance, those poems are full of susceptibility, emotionality, femininity and simple elegancy. The poets only express their personal experience to the objects with fine and smooth technique of poetic writing. They do not focus on the rationality or philosophical thinking in writing poems but only to show the personal internal feeling which is above reality and object itself. So the Japanese poets always try to keep distance with the reality rather are willing to find the aesthetic sense in nature or individual experience.

In India, especially, in the Ancient India, there was an earliest collection of poems in the world, which is named Veda. The meaning of Veda is knowledge and revelation; this work was derived from four thousand years ago and included four parts which were written in different periods. Veda is the most important and basic classic of Brahmanism and Hinduism. It is written in Vedic language which is earlier than Sanskrit. In the modern time, there was a greatest Indian poet whose name is Tagore. He is a philosophical poet and believes his poems are the gift for God. His main poems are collected in his works which named as Gitanjali, The Crescent Moon, and Stray Birds and so on. His main ideas in poems are the depression and sorrow of wars, the peace without political elements and an idealistic world.

By contrast, the Western poems were derived from Ancient Greek mainly since the artist even the philosophers used the way of poems to express their thoughts or emotional feelings. The styles of Ancient Greek poems usually were based on lyric poetry and epic poetry. The lyric poetries in Ancient Greek were different from the eastern lyric poetries which were implicit and euphemistical. The Ancient Greek poems were used to express people’s emotion directly or reflect the realistic lives of people. The great poems in Ancient Greek usually contain a kind of musicality. It is unavoidable to mention the greatest epic poet in Ancient Greek whose name is Homer. He was a troubadour at that time which during 9 BC to 8BC and he wrote two great works which were named as Lliad and Odyssey. His poems reflect a period of heroism which includes the values of literature and history. During the period of Ancient Rome, the pomes inherited the literature of Ancient Greek a lot. The most famous poet in Rome whose name was Virgil; he wrote three great collections of poems which are Eclogue, Georgics and Aeneid. After that, the following periods in Europe, the greatest poet, probably, was Dante in the medieval time. His work, Divine Comedy, expresses the idea of humanism and indicates that the Europe started a period of transition which was from medieval time to the early modern time. Dante was the pioneer of the Renaissance in poet. After him, as we know, the most excellent poet Shakespeare was born in Britain, the Sonnet is his greatest collection of poems. Including Shakespeare and Dante, the Renaissance poets, not only they used to pursue the dignity and beauty in human beings, but also wanted to reflect the reality with the way of poetry and indicate the individual liberation. Goethe was another monument of the European poem. He was the greatest delegate of classicism. The following content in Europe, I only want to mention the romantic poets in Europe. In Britain, there were many famous poets such as Wordsworth, Coleridge, Shelley, Byron, and Keats and so on. Wordsworth and Byron are my favorite British poets, the first one is a Lake Poet and the second one’s poems have the spirit of liberty. Shelley’s was good at the lyric poems and Keats’ pomes were the beginning of the aestheticism. The romantic poetry in Germany is my favorite subject in literature. It started after the Great French Revolution in 1789, most of the poets have been had the hope to the Revolution, but then, immediately, they fell into the depression and disappointment to the Revolution. The German romantic poets pursued the irrationalism and paid attention to individual internal invisible world, such as, my favorite poets Holderlin, Novalis and Eichendorff. Those poets against the idealism, their works were full of mysticism and the tendency of religious. They wanted to find the real existence of human beings, and they were companied with the consideration of soul or God or the natures. I study philosophy, one of the reasons is, I was affected by German romantic poetry a lot and the philosophy in German romantic poetry can be called as poetic philosophy.

Secondly, I want to talk about the Eastern novel and the Western Novel. First of all, I will start to talk about the Chinese novels. The childhood of Chinese novels started from Tang Dynasty, but at that time the novels were not mature enough and only recorded some legends or strange stories in Tai Ping Guang Ji until Song Dynasty. There was a famous novel which named as Shi Yu Xin Shuo which only narrates some oddball events among people. Begging with Yuan Dynasty, Chinese novels became more mature. In Yuan Dynasty, the novels usually were based on historical backgrounds. For instance, the Three Kingdoms describes the history of the later Han Dynasty; the Water Margin describes the legend of one hundred and eight heroes in Song Dynasty. In Ming Dynasty, the subject matters of novels became much more abundant and the way of writing was much closed to the modern Chinese language. The Journey to the West was a genie novel which written by Wu Chengen and the Golden Lotus was a great realistic novel which written by an anonymous person. In Qing Dynasty, the novels became more developed, there were a lot of great novels which written at that time, such as The Scholars, Flowers in the Mirror, Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio, and so on. In Qing Dynasty, there was a greatest novel which named as A Dream in Red Mansions written by Tsao Hsuehchin. This novel is the peak of Chinese literature in the entire Chinese history; even today there are no novels which can surpass A Dream in Red Mansions. Not only it contains a lot of complicated relationship and a large number of different information, but also it gives people an impressed meaning of human beings. The thoughts in this novel are less occurred in Chinese literary history. 

Japanese literature was affected by Chinese literature and Western literature a lot in different periods. Because of that, Japanese literature has its own styles and characters gradually, including the Japanese novels. During 9 century to 12 century, which can be called the golden time of Japanese literature, there was a most excellent work, Genji monogatari, which written by Murasaki Shikibu at that time. This novel is the earliest realistic full-length novel in the world. Genji monogatari started a period of Sorrow for Objects, after this novel, the Japanese novels always have a kind of sense which is called light sadness. From 12 century to 16 century, the noble literature was going downhill in Japan. At that time, most of Japanese novels reflected the legend of warriors and the society was going to change objectively. After that, Japanese novels were going to the early modern time especially the Meiji Era and Japanese novels were much more affected by the Western literatures. The main styles of Japanese novels during Meiji Era were the Zolaism and the critical realism, such as Natsume Souseki’s novel, I am a Cat. In the modern time, the Japanese novels became much more colorful, such as the defective fiction, the novel of modernism and realism. Two Japanese writers won the Nobel Prize whose names are Kawabata Yasunari and Kenzaburo Oe. Kawabata Yasunari was a New Felling writer who focused on the subjective sense and reflected self consciousness. Kenzaburo Oe is an existential writer and he is willing to think the meaning of death and rebirth.

The novels in India only can be talked in the modern time. After independence in 1947, English became the official language in India. Indian writers inherited the tradition of realistic novels, but some of them accepted the Romanism and Modernism as well. Some writers were even influenced by the psychology of Floyd. Nevertheless, compared with Chinese history of novels and Japanese history of novels, the Indian novels do not give much more influence to the world.   

The European novels are colorful as well. There were too many writers around the Europe in different periods. In Renaissance, there was a first modern novel in the history of literature which named Don Quixote and written by a Spanish writer Cervantes. This novel represents some brave people who want to insist one’s dream or belief and against some unreasonable appearances in society. Rabelais was a humanism writer in Renaissance, his work Gargantua and Pantagruel expresses the ideas of self-liberation and self-achievement. In 18 century in Germany, there were two great writers whose names were Goethe and Shiller. Not only both of them were poets, but also they wrote many great works of novel and drama. According to Goethe, he wrote two famous novels. One is Wilhelm Meister's apprenticeship and the other one is the Sorrows of Young Werther which is my favorite work of Goethe’s work. The Sorrows of Young Werther is a kind of work which reflects the sense of sentimentalism. In 19 century, in France, Britain and Russia appeared a lot of great Novelist. For example, Stendhal, Balzac and Flaubert in France; Charles Dickens in Britain and wrote the novel of A Tale of Two Cities. But I much more prefer the Russian Novelist, especially, Dostoevsky. His works the Brothers Karamazov and Crime and Punishment influenced me a lot, not only in the experience of literature, but also the thoughts of existentialism. The Brothers Karamazov reflects ideas of belief, rationality, irrationality, free will, morality, and so on, and it is a kind of psychological novel as well. Crime and Punishment is also a psychosocial novel and mainly talks about death and life, goodness and evilness, God and devil. Dostoevsky believes that the tragedy of human beings is, people abandon God and over use their rationality in order to resolve all of the problems in the world; but the rationality has its own limitation and the consequences of actions usually are unpredictable, so that people have to be responsible for their choices and behaviors. In the later of 19 century, some novelists such as Zola, Maupassant were famous in France, Hardy was famous in Britain. The Russian writer Leo Tolstoy created some novels which were named as War and Peace, Anna Karenina, Resurrection, and so on. His works are full of the sense of humanism. The Modernism was popular in 20 century; a lot of writers were active at that time, for example, Thomas Mann, Hermann Hesse who is one of my favorite writers, Elliott, Marcel Proust, Sartre, Camus, and so on. Most of the existential writers influenced me a lot except Sartre. The best Writers in 20 century, in my mind, were Austrian Franz Kafka and soviet Mikhail Bulgakov. Kafka’s works reflect the absurdity and the contingency of human beings’ existence, and full of symbolism. Bulgakov’s The Master and Margarita is a novel of magic realism and talks about a lot of topics such as philosophy, theology and humanity.

In conclusions, it is pretty difficult to introduce all of the literature in Eastern culture and Western culture and it is almost impossible to put all of the content in one paper. So I only can talk about some of the general stuffs and pick up some topics or writers I am familiar with. The topic of literature is too broad since it contains the knowledge of history, sociology, aesthetics, psychology, philosophy, and so on. Some of writers I chose because of my inclination of philosophy, but actually, a great writer usually is a great philosopher. The differences between Eastern literature and Western literature are complicated. For example, the way of expression is different usually. In East, the literatures are usually implicit and mildly, but the Western literatures are often the direct expression. Western literatures pay attention to the rationalism much earlier while Eastern literatures are much more concerned about the emotional world. However, both of Western literatures and Eastern literatures are influenced by each other. For instance, the humanism was derived from West, and then, gave the impact to East, so that during the early modern period, the Eastern writers started to regard the humanism. By contrast, the rationalism and the idealism did lead human beings become more mechanical and depress in lives, the Western writers started to notice the human beings’ internal invisible world with irrationalism, such as some existential writers. However, literatures are always the exit of human beings depression and confusion in life, and writers are the conscience of the society. It is undeniable that literature represents the wills of human beings which are pursuing the beauties, justice, ideals, freedom, peace, humanity, self achievement or self recognition, dignity, and so on.

Resource

1. David M (1971), A guide to Eastern literatures. New York, Praeger

2. Gerald W (1974),Western writing. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press,

3. Lyall, (1968) C, Sir. Studies in literature and history. Freeport, N.Y., Books for Libraries Press

Eastern literature and western literature, outline

Introduction:

There are many difference and similarities between Eastern and Western literature based on cultural background, living habits, history, and the way of thinking, to name a few.  I will select three types of literatures: poems and novels. Mainly, in Eastern countries, I will discuss literatures of China, Japan and India; I will focus on European literature.

Body:

The characters and background of Eastern literature, generally.

The characters and background of Western literature, generally.

Poems:

1. China 2. Japan 3. India

1. Europe

Novel:

1. China 2. Japan 3. India

1. Europe

Conclusion: Based on those similarities and differences, we can see the main characters in eastern literature and western literature. We can identify how they affect to each other, affect to their own culture and keep their peculiarities as well.

Interview #3 Scores

1. Hanqiong Chen
2. Wenda Qian
3. Brice