Lily Briscoe's Chinese Eyes

Patricia Laurence

Description

A map of the mutual influence of Bloomsbury, the Crescent Moon Society, and modernism in English and Chinese culture

Lily Briscoe's Chinese Eyes traces the romance of Julian Bell, nephew of Virginia Woolf, and Ling Shuhua, a writer and painter Bell met while teaching at Wuhan University in China in 1935. Relying on a wide selection of previously unpublished writings, Patricia Laurence places Ling, often referred to as the Chinese Katherine Mansfield, squarely in the Bloomsbury constellation. In doing so, she counters East-West polarities and suggests forms of understanding to inaugurate a new kind of cultural criticism and literary description.

Laurence expands her examination of Bell and Ling's relationship into a study of parallel literary communities—Bloomsbury in England and the Crescent Moon group in China. Underscoring their reciprocal influences in the early part of the twentieth century, Laurence presents conversations among well-known British and Chinese writers, artists, and historians, including Virginia Woolf, Vanessa Bell, G. L. Dickinson, Xu Zhimo, E. M. Forster, and Xiao Qian. In addition, Laurence's study includes rarely seen photographs of Julian Bell, Ling, and their associates as well as a reproduction of Ling's scroll commemorating moments in the exchange between Bloomsbury and the Crescent Moon group.

While many critics agree that modernism is a movement that crosses national boundaries, literary studies rarely reflect such a view. In this volume Laurence links unpublished letters and documents, cultural artifacts, art, literature, and people in ways that provide illumination from a comparative cultural and aesthetic perspective. In so doing she addresses the geographical and critical imbalances—and thus the architecture of modernist, postcolonial, Bloomsbury, and Asian studies—by placing China in an aesthetic matrix of a developing international modernism.

Sujets

• Literary Criticism
• Modern
• Letter from Peking
• Lin Huiyin
• Li Ruzhen
• Chinese pagoda
• Chinese garden
• John Chinaman
• Modern history
• Chinese painting
• Chinese opera
• Chinese name
• Chinese literature
• Chinese nationalism
• General officer
• Classical Chinese
• Chinese art
• Chinese law
• Chinese room
• Chinese philosophy
• Confucianism
• Liang Qichao
• General
• Obermodern-Zutzendorf
• Xu Zhimo

Informations

• Publié par: University of South Carolina Press
• Date de parution: 02 janvier 2013
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781611171761
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 2 Mo

Extrait

L ILY B RISCOE S C HINESE E YES
L ILY B RISCOE S C HINESE E YES
BLOOMSBURY, MODERNISM, AND CHINA
P ATRICIA L AURENCE
2003 Patricia Laurence
Cloth edition published by the University of South Carolina Press, 2003 Paperback and ebook editions published in Columbia, South Carolina, by the University of South Carolina Press, 2013
www.sc.edu/uscpress
22 21 20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
The Library of Congress has cataloged the cloth edition as follows:
Laurence, Patricia Ondek, 1942-
Lily Briscoe s Chinese eyes : Bloomsbury, modernism, and China / Patricia Laurence.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references (p. ) and index.
ISBN 1-57003-505-9 (alk. paper)
1. English literature-20th century-History and criticism. 2. Bloomsbury group. 3. Chinese literature-20th century-History and criticism. 4. Literature, Comparative-English and Chinese. 5. Literature, Comparative-Chinese and English. 6. English literature-Chinese influences. 7. Chinese literature-English influences. 8. Modernism (Literature)-Great Britain. 9. Modernism (Literature)-China. 10. Xin yue she. I. Title.
PR478.B46L38 2003
820.9 00912-dc21 2003008688
ISBN 978-1-61117-148-8 (pbk) ISBN 978-1-61117-176-1 (ebook)
To my mother, Ann Ondek, who first read to me the nursery rhyme Did You Ever Dig to China in Your Own Backyard? from the worn, red Childcraft volume. Little did she know that one day, I would.
C ONTENTS
List of Illustrations
Foreword , by Jeffrey C. Kinkley
Acknowledgments
Abbreviations
Historical Time Line
Introduction
Images on a Scroll
Maps of Seeing
The Historical Moment
The Formation of Literary Communities and Conversations in China and England
The Uses of Letters
Empiricizing the Theoretical
Evolving Modernisms
C HAPTER O NE
Julian Bell Performing Englishness
The Sentimental and the Modern: Pei Ju-Lian (Bell, Julian) Teaching in China
The Provincial Turns Political
From Fairy Stories to Letter Quarrels: Julian Bell and Ling Shuhua
Translating Together: Julian Bell and Ling Shuhua
C HAPTER T WO
Literary Communities in England and China: Politics and Art
Imagining Other Communities: The Crescent Moon Group
Politics and Art
A Parallel Community: Bloomsbury
C HAPTER T HREE
East-West Literary Conversations: Exploring Civilization and Subjectivity-G. L. Dickinson and Xu Zhimo
Terms That Fold and Unfold Meaning: Civilization and Subjectivity
Xu Zhimo: The Great Link with Bloomsbury
An English Don in a Chinese Cap: G. L. Dickinson
The Cultivation of the Romantic Self: Xu Zhimo
Feeling as a Transgressive Act: The Narration of Self in Developing Chinese Modernism
Redefinitions of British Civilization : G. L. Dickinson
The Unwritten Passage to China: E. M. Forster and Xiao Qian
The Unpopular Normal : E. M. Forster s Expanding Notions of Transnational Sexuality, Culture, and the British Novel
Swallowing and Being Swallowed: Poverty in China and the British Novel
British Modernism through Chinese Eyes: Katherine Mansfield, D. H. Lawrence, James Joyce, T. S. Eliot, and Virginia Woolf
Interrupted Modernism
C HAPTER F OUR
Chinese Landscapes through British Eyes
The Naturalist Landscape: Julian Bell
The Painter s Eye: Vanessa Bell and Ling Shuhua
Constructing the Narrow Bridge of Art : Virginia Woolf and Ling Shuhua
China on a Willow Pattern Plate: Charles Lamb, George Meredith, and Arthur Waley
Expanding Englishness : Le Jardin Anglo-Chinois and the Kew Gardens Pagoda
C HAPTER F IVE
Developing Modernisms
Incorporating Chinese Eyes
Chinoiserie and the International Chinese Exhibition
The Liquidation of Reference
The Aesthetic Gaze
The Epistemology of Boundaries: Subject and Object
The Crisis in Representation: Aesthetic Reciprocity
Leaving Things Out: The Line
Flatness and Plasticity
The Literary Effect of Visual Aesthetics
Postscript
A PPENDIX A
Index of Chinese and British Figures
A PPENDIX B
Selection from Ling Shuhua s Story Writing a Letter with Julian Bell s Annotations
A PPENDIX C
Table of Contents, Selections of Modernist Literature from Abroad , eds. Yuan Kejia, Dong Xengxun, Zheng Kelu, 1981
Notes
Bibliography
Index
I LLUSTRATIONS
BLACK-AND-WHITE ILLUSTRATIONS
Map of China
Ling Shuhua in modern dress
Julian Bell (Mr. Pei Ju-Lian), professor of English, Wuhan University, 1935
Lake at Peking University, Peking, China, ca. 1936
Chen Yuan (Xiying), dean of humanities, Wuhan University, 1935
Professor Fang Zhong, dean of foreign languages, Wuhan University, 1935
Margery Fry by Roger Fry
Still Life with Tang Horse by Roger Fry
Chinese translations of Virginia Woolf s novels
English speaking contest, organized by Julian Bell
Julian Bell s English literature students, 1936
Ye Junjian, Julian Bell s favorite student at Wuhan University
The triangle: Julian Bell; Chen Yuan, Ling s husband; and Ling Shuhua
Julian Bell, 1936
Ling Shuhua, 1936
Lin Huiyin, Rabindranath Tagore, and Xu Zhimo in India, 1928
Liao Hong Ying, confidante of Julian Bell and Innes Jackson Herdan
Ling Peng Fu, grandfather of Ling Shuhua, in western attire
Ling Shuhua and her four sisters, ca. 1910-15
Hsiao-ying Chen, daughter of Ling Shuhua, ca. 1936-37
Julian Bell with Hsiao-ying Chen, ca. 1936-37
Ling Shuhua with her daughter, Hsaio-ying Chen, ca. 1936-37
Illustrations from Ling Shuhua s autobiography, Ancient Melodies
Rabindranath Tagore, Indian poet
Symbol of the Crescent Moon group
Qu Qiubai and Lu Xun of the Chinese League of Left-Wing Writers
I. A. Richards and Dorothy Richards at a university luncheon in China
Dadie Rylands and Virginia Woolf
G. L. Dickinson, Cambridge don, in Chinese cap
Leonard Elmhirst, Xu Zhimo, and Rabindranath Tagore at Dartington Hall, 1928
Chinese and British intellectuals
Sidney Webb
Beatrice Webb
Cover of G. L. Dickinson s Letters from John Chinaman (1901)
Lytton Strachey and Virginia Woolf
E. M. Forster by Dora Carrington
Cover of Julian Bell s Work for the Winter (1936)
Mei Lanfang, famous female impersonator in the Beijing Opera
Xiao Qian in knickers, 1930s
Wen Jieruo, translator, holding Joyce s Ulysses and Chinese translation
Yuruo and Jin Di
Xiao Qian
Qu Shijing and Quentin Bell
John Maynard Keynes by Gwendolyn Raverat
The Western Hills, near Beijing
Julian Bell and guide hunting in Tibet, 1936
Vanessa Bell, 1932
Ling Shuhua, ca. 1930s
Invitations to Ling Shuhua gallery openings
Virginia Woolf by Man Ray
The three talents of Luojia : Su Xuelin, Ling Shuhua, Yuan Changying
Xiao Qian and his wife, Wen Jieruo
Still Life, the Sharuku Scarf by Duncan Grant
Lopokova Dancing by Duncan Grant
Dartington Hall, Totnes, England
Illustration from Wu Cheng en s Monkey by Duncan Grant
The Chinese pagoda, Kew Gardens, London
Liberty catalog cover, Eastern Antiquities (1877-1900)
The pagoda dress
COLOR PLATES
following page 226
1-8 .
Ling Shuhua s Friendship Scroll, compiled 1925-58
1 .
Landscape (ink wash) by Roger Fry
2 .
Two Horses Galloping through Long Grass (ink) by Xu Beihong
3 .
Dora Russell inscription and Gentleman under a Pine Tree by Zhang Daqian.
4 .
Impression of Two Westerners (ink) by Lin Fengmian
5 .
Gentleman in a Boat among the Reeds (ink) by Chen Xiaonan
6 .
Tolstoy (ink) by Wen Yidou
7 .
Child with Ball (ink) by Wang Daizhi and inscription by Xie Bingxin
8 .
Two Children Walking Away by Feng Zikai
9-10 .
Floral watercolors by Duncan Grant
11 .
Bookmarks by Duncan Grant
12 .
Silk fan and two boxes painted by Duncan Grant
13-16 .
Calendars by Vanessa Bell
17 .
From Geneva to Montreux, Switzerland , painting on silk scroll, by Ling Shuhua
18 .
Scroll of Sissinghurst by Ling Shuhua
19 .
Blue willow plate, adaptation of Chinese design
20 .
Daughters of Revolution by Grant Wood
21 .
Cover of Ling Shuhua s autobiography, Ancient Melodies (1953)
22 .
Duncan Grant cover for Wu Cheng en s Monkey
23 .
Portrait of Julian Bell as an infant by Vanessa Bell (1908)
24 .
Sketch of Julian Bell by Vanessa Bell
25 .
Julian Bell and Roger Fry playing chess by Vanessa Bell
F OREWORD
Modernism seems more than ever a genuinely international movement in this intriguing and path-breaking book. Examining the Bloomsbury and Crescent Moon groups at home and abroad, in England and China, Patricia Laurence asks us to see Chinese arts through the lens of British modernism, and the modern British legacy through contemporary Chinese eyes. We vicariously enter an educated and privileged circle that wrote, painted, and traveled. In China, these visionary avocations tended to merge and support each other. What was new in the twentieth century was the public embodiment of such pastimes in women, including Ling Shuhua-writer, artist, and finally, expatriate. Meantime, Bloomsbury performed the ancient Chinese literati s amateur ideal. In Bloomsbury, women were not just