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CHENG Baoyi has acquired a very prestigious position in France: his poetry has been published in Gallimard’s poetry series, thus enjoying the reputation as a classic in contemporary French poetry; his critical views on paintings and poems have exerted immense influence upon contemporary painters and poets in France; he has been awarded some important prizes in the field of French literature upon the strength of the precision and elegance of the French language he displays. In June 2002, he was elected to the ‘Académie française’, thus becoming one of “the forty immortals”, which has been one of the focuses of attention in the Chinese and French cultural history.
Cheng Baoyi’s Journey Between the Chinese and French Cultures
In his two names, the first being Cheng Baoyi, which was in reality changed from Cheng Jixian, a name with some Confucian flavour, and the second being François Cheng, a French name he adopted for himself, were imprinted his life ideal, spiritual pursuit and notions of creative activities.
We shall come to expound Baoyi first. Baoyi has occurred in Laozi at two places. The first occurrence is “merging blood and spirit into a whole” (refer to Chapter Ten of Laozi), where Bao means “merging into a whole” and “Yi (one)” means, in turn, the Way. Therefore, Baoyi, in the final analysis, means “merging into the Way”. In the light of Chen Guying’s exposition, Baoyi in this chapter refers to the fact of merging spirit and soul into a whole, and the merging of spirit and soul means merging into the Way, which has implications of integrating and uniting things into a whole.(1) The second occurrence is “the harmony of the blood, spirit and soul, the Way practiced by the Saint, which is the model of life for all the people under the Sun” (refer to Chapter 22 of Laozi), where Baoyi means abiding by the Way. Yan Lingfeng says, “Yi (One) is the number of the Way; the Way can not extend to Er (Two), for Yi (one) displays adherence to some principle to the end. Bao means adhering to.”(2) Therefore, the saint is the very man who abides by the Way. The Way in the Taoist philosophy is something inexplicable, but represents some supreme wisdom and cosmic life view. Cheng Baoyi never strays away not even a bit from the pursuit of and exploration into the Way, either in his research work or in his creativity. In addition, Yi (One) also means the origin, or rather the origin of life and the cosmos. Baoyi means reverence for and adherence to the origin. In Cheng Baoyi’s works, the Way has rich implications and vast extensions. Having a close examination of Cheng Baoyi’s process of creative activities, we never fail for a moment to have a strong feeling that Cheng Baoyi shows persistent efforts to trace back the origin of cosmic life, and the most remote source of poetic art and it is along this very “Way” that we are able to constantly approach by degrees his literary world and cultural ideal.
Now we shall look into the name François Cheng. Cheng—Chine has a strong Chinese tang and François—France is a typical name with French colour. So he retains his family name with a tint of the Chinese culture and acquires his first name with a tint of the French culture. Besides, “François” implies a coincidence: it is a blend of the first half of “Français” and the second half of “Chinois”, so it carries the overtone of marriage between China and France.
What we need to point out is that the name François also alludes to another person, which displays Cheng Baoyi’s more profound spiritual pursuit. That person is Saint Francis of Assisi, a Christian saint in Medieval Europe, about whom there are a number of legendary tales. He was born in the city of Assisi, Italy. He was reputed for his pious devotion to his missionary work and his work to stipulate cannon laws, and he was held in reverence by people of later generations by virtue of his superior moral integrity. He put forward a series of idealized notions, such as total purity, absolute detachment, total joy with peace, etc., which exerts far-reaching influence in the Christian world. He was also a poet, a great friend of nature, who found himself in great harmony with the universe. Saint Francis of Assisi believed in mysticism, individual creative power, thus uplifting nature, life, water and fire into a higher sphere. It is said that he could communicate with birds and could quiet them while praying. Two years after he passed away, i.e. in 1228, Pope Gregory IX canonized him as a saint. Cheng Baoyi cherished supreme respect towards this saint and his communication with nature and harmony with the universe are major subjects in his works and his highest expectations in life as well.
“The academician’s sword” Cheng Baoyi holds demonstrates in great measure his own cultural ideal and characteristics of creative work. According to the rules and regulations of the French Academy, the sword of every academician is conceived and designed by the academician himself, and then is wrought out by some appointed craftsmen—hence a unique historic and cultural treasure. The theme Cheng Baoyi determined for his sword is the integration of the Chinese and Western cultures. The sword body is made of silver and on the upper side of the sword handle is inscribed in Chinese calligraphy “There is the spirit of the Unyielding Integrity between Heaven and Earth”, the initial line from “Unyielding Integrity Song” by Wen Tianxiang, a Chinese poet of the Song Dynasty, and on the other side is written in French “L’ Esprit souffle où il va” (the spirit blows where it wants), and accompanying the Chinese characters and the French words are some symbolic pictures: some Chinese plant bamboos and some French plant lilies (the lily here is not a royal symbol, but it is derived from the novel, Le Lys dans la vallée, by Balzac, for Cheng believes that those among the Chinese who love French literature all know this novel); the Chinese fowl of the air, which flies thither in autumn and returns hither in spring just like a man travelling and residing in a place far from home, symbolizes a messenger; and the French sky lark, that is Bailing Bird (lark) in Chinese, helps to stir up our free associations of some poetic images in our mind’s eye. The word “harmony” carved on the sword handle represents his cultural ideal. Cheng Baoyi remarks that the word “harmony” can be understood as the dialogue between and the integration of the Chinese and the Western cultures and the accompanying birds are intended to elevate the dialogue into the lofty and transcendent sphere. Any one culture can find the embodiment of its essence in another culture through the dialogue. It is not only possible, but necessary as well for Chinese and Western cultures to open up and maintain the dialogue between them.(3) The ruby inlaid in the sword handle demonstrates his deep feelings towards his motherland and unflinching determination to promote the dialogue between the two cultures. If we examine this sword and Cheng Baoyi’s specific creative works, we may easily find the most conspicuous feature: the formation of his unique aesthetic world and artistic sphere results from the cultural and artistic dialogue between the two different cultures and their integration.
Cheng Baoyi once expressed his thought that anyone who has left his motherland and settled permanently on some foreign soil may have found himself consciously or unconsciously just like Ulysses in the middle of nowhere for a certain period of time regardless of his educational degree.(4) For an intellectual, the agony incurred by the exile could be all the more acute. The exile here does not refer to a political exile, but a cultural exile instead. When one stays away from one’s culture and the society of one’s motherland, and wanders between two cultures, one he has turned himself into a “culturally marginalized man”. Among the culturally marginalized people, some are inflicted with the life-long agony of wandering between the two cultures; however, some have found after strenuous efforts the ground where the two cultures meet, and have cultivated and developed unique and inspiring notions by comparing and contrasting the two cultures.
Cheng Baoyi has found this firm cultural ground in the process of his perseverance in reviewing the cultural tradition of his motherland and absorbing the merits of Western culture; he established himself as a “ferryman” between the two cultures and integrated in himself the two cultures. In his early days, he took over, as the theoretical framework in the Chinese language studies, the linguistics, structuralism and semiotics, etc., which were prevalent in the West, and at the same time, he took the aesthetic contents of Chinese poetry and paintings as his final objects for study. In his novel Le Dit de Tianyi, many notions and techniques of Western novels are borrowed, but the reflections upon the history of the hard life that the Chinese nation has undergone enables the novel to obtain some shocking power. His poetry displays his efforts to integrate the two great poetic traditions in terms of the linguistic characteristics and artistic charm. To him, the influence exerted upon him by the Book of Songs, Qu Yuan, Li Shangyin, Li Bai and Du Fu, etc., the representatives of Chinese culture, is no less than that of Dante, Rilke and Mallarmé, the representatives of Western culture.
Cheng Baoyi conducted a creative dialogue between the integration of the two literary traditions and artistic notions, so that the Chinese cultural spirit, his passion for the French literature and his view of the cosmopolitan culture predominate his works. He is credited with the title of being the best messenger of communication between Chinese and French literature and culture upon the strength of his dual cultural identity, unique cross-cultural background, vast cultural vista and solid foundation of his knowledge of the two cultures. We should give sufficient heed to and take as food for thought Cheng’s special perception and acceptance of the alien culture, his exploration and interpretation of the culture of his motherland, on which basis he promotes and makes contributions to the cultural dialogue between China and France...
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1. Chen Guying, Notes and Critical Comments on Laozi, Zhonghuashuju Press, First Edition,
May 1984, p. 97.
2. Ibid., p. 154.
3. Yu Xi, Rendesvous in Paris, New World Press, First Edition, September 2003, pp. 5-6.
4. Zhang Ning, “Cheng Baoyi & His Prizewinning Novel Le Dit de Tianyi”,
source: http://www.francebooks.info.
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Niu Jingfan was born in Xi’an, Shannxi Province, in 1977. She graduated from Fudan University, with a Ph.D in Chinese Language and Literature. She is a lecturer at Shanghai University of Political Science and Law, and her principal field of research is a comparative study of Chinese and French Literature. |
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| Issue 6.1 |
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The Sorcerer’s
Apprentices
—A Global Tale
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