2013.9 Journal of Literature and Art Studies

Journal of Literature and Art Studies
Volume 3, Number 9, September 2013 (Serial Number 22)
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Publication Information: Journal of Literature and Art Studies is published monthly in hard copy (ISSN 2159-5836) and online (ISSN 2159-5844) by David Publishing Company located at 3592 Rosemead Blvd #220, Rosemead, CA 91770, USA Aims and Scope: Journal of Literature and Art Studies, a monthly professional academic journal, covers all sorts of researches on literature studies, art theory, appreciation of arts, culture and history of arts and other latest findings and achievements from experts and scholars all over the world. Editorial Board Members: Eric J. Abbey, Oakland Community College, USA Andrea Greenbaum, Barry University, USA Punam Madhok, East Carolina University, USA Carolina Conte, Jacksonville University, USA Maya Zalbidea Paniagua, Universidad La Salle, Madrid, Spain Mary Harden, Western Oregon University, USA Lisa Socrates, University of London, United Kingdom Herman Jiesamfoek, City University of New York, USA Maria OConnell, Texas Tech University, USA Manuscripts and correspondence are invited for publication. You can submit your papers via Web Submission, or E-mail to literature.art@davidpublishing.org, art.literature@yahoo.com. Submission guidelines and Web Submission system are available at http://www.davidpublishing.org, www.davidpublishing.com. Editorial Office: 3592 Rosemead Blvd #220, Rosemead, CA 91770, USA Tel: 1-323-984-7526, 323-410-1082 Fax: 1-323-984-7374, 323-908-0457 E-mail: literature.art@davidpublishing.org, art.literature@yahoo.com Copyright2013 by David Publishing Company and individual contributors. All rights reserved. David Publishing Company holds the exclusive copyright of all the contents of this journal. In accordance with the international convention, no part of this journal may be reproduced or transmitted by any media or publishing organs (including various websites) without the written permission of the copyright holder. Otherwise, any conduct would be considered as the violation of the copyright. The contents of this journal are available for any citation, however, all the citations should be clearly indicated with the title of this journal, serial number and the name of the author. Abstracted/Indexed in: Database of EBSCO, Massachusetts, USA Chinese Database of CEPS, Airiti Inc. & OCLC Chinese Scientific Journals Database, VIP Corporation, Chongqing, P.R.C. Ulrichs Periodicals Directory LLBA Database of ProQuest Summon Serials Solutions Google Scholar Subscription Information: Price (per year): Print $420 Online $300 Print and Online $560 David Publishing Company 3592 Rosemead Blvd #220, Rosemead, CA 91770, USA Tel: 1-323-984-7526, 323-410-1082. Fax: 1-323-984-7374, 323-908-0457 E-mail: order@davidpublishing.com
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DA VID PUBLISHING
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Journal of Literature and Art Studies

Volume 3, Number 9, September 2013 (Serial Number 22)
Contents
Literature Studies
From the Eyes of the Soul to the Sense of the Body: An Interpretation to the Philip Roths The Human Stain LIU Wen-wen The Body Transgressed in Chuck Palahniuks Choke (2001) Jessica Folio The Travelling MuseCathay and the Influence of Chinese Classical Poems on Ezra Pounds Poetics WEI Shu 547 541 533
Art Studies
Technique and Technology in the Composition Mantra: Some Analytical Considerations Simonetta Sargenti Hyper-real Narratives: The Emergence of Contemporary Film Subgenres Stefan Octavian Popescu 568 553
Special Research
Igbo Language and Identity Umo Uju Clara The Influence of the Gentry on Rural Political Construction WANG Zhen 589 576
Journal of Literature and Art Studies, ISSN 2159-5836 September 2013, Vol. 3, No. 9, 533-540
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From the Eyes of the Soul to the Sense of the Body: An Interpretation to the Philip Roths The Human Stain
LIU Wen-wen
Wuhan University of Technology, Wuhan, China
The Human Stain (2000) is a novel full of the characteristics of visualism, making the readers imagine the fair skin of Coleman as a black, as well as the black identity hidden under his fair skin. Black and white, these two colors create the general ideology of the book. Coleman revels in his personal feeling of the body because of the vision of his skin color, thus leading to his irreplaceable desire, emotion, and inner spiritual experience. This paper tries to analyze and explore the racialism existing in the novel by applying the gaze theory and offering a philosophical interpretation to the Colemans tragedy. Coleman feels the pressure of betraying himself from time to time, and confounds himself with the virtual image in others gaze. In order to seize back the subjectivity lost in the adversarial gaze from the white, Coleman resists it at the cost of cutting off relationship with his mother, which impressively shows the solitude and alienation of the black race in the American modern civilization. Keywords: Philip Roth, Coleman, gaze, visual, racialism
Introduction
Philip Roth has gained sustained attention from different critical perspectives since the publication of his first novel Goodbye, Columbus (1959). The Human Stain (2000), the last piece of his American Trilogy, won Pulitzer Prize in 2000. The Spook event in the novel is a metaphor of the protagonists identity predicament. Coleman, who tries hard to hide his black identity with great care, is smeared ridiculously as a racist against the black. The features of the visual game in the novel gradually emerge when the skin color cannot be the criterion to classify race. Since Coleman is a black with fair skin, the racial identity disappeared imperceptibly in his skin color. Coleman revels in his personal feeling of the body because of the vision of his skin color, thus, leading to his irreplaceable desire, emotion, and inner spiritual experience. Coleman feels the pressure of betraying himself from time to time, and confounds himself with the virtual image in others gaze. In order to seize back the subjectivity lost in the adversarial gaze from the white, Coleman resists it at the cost of cutting off relationship with his mother, which impressively shows the solitude and alienation of the black race in the American modern civilization.
Gaze is a way to watch with an authority operation or entangled desires, which is usually an outcome of the status centered by vision. The observer is endowed with the privilege of watch by authority and establishes his subject position through watching. The one being observed becomes the object of vision. Meanwhile, he feels the pressure of the authority
LIU Wen-wen, Ph.D. in Wuhan University, lecturer, School of Foreign Languages, Wuhan University of Technology.
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FROM THE EYES OF THE SOUL TO THE SENSE OF THE BODY

from the observers vision and self-materializes by internalizing observers value judgment. (ZHAO, 2006, p. 349)
Vision is the headstream of Western philosophical speculation. Since Plato, vision freed itself from the dependence of the human body, ascended to the height of soul and finally became the eyes of the soul that could gain insights into all truth. In the modern society, vision participates in cultural and self-construction. Crary (1992) once said: Problems of vision then, as now, were fundamentally questions about the body and the operation of social power (p. 3). Vision is considered as the carrier of the sense system, which is inseparable from humans intellectual judgment. It turns knowledge into a visible entity, while the body becomes the object of vision, selected and shaped by it. Body is suspended in the vision and antagonizes itself during the process of socialized practice: The more Coleman wants his body, the further he alienates from it.
The Failure of Self-creation in the Eyes of the Soul

Coleman, the protagonist of the novel, is a black, but often viewed as a white man because of his fair skin. The mismatch of vision and identity creates a free space for the game of Colemans life. Especially after his fathers death, Coleman seems to break the shackles of his family and gains the absolute freedom of choosing his own identity. He can play his skin however he wanted, color himself just as he chose (Roth, 2000, p. 109). This visual game of skin color is a double-edged sword, giving Coleman the pleasure of freedom, as well as the illiberality coming together with the identity betrayal and absolute freedom. It turns Colemans life into a succession of cruel jokes: He is driven out of Norfolk brothel because of his black identity, and rejected by Athena College because of his fair skin. Brothel symbolizes the sense of the body while college signifies reason. In this visual game, Colemans body, identity, and reason are segregated apart. They look at each other without the least of familiarity. The visual card Coleman plays is actually his life practice and self-creation, showing that the existence of being cannot be penetrated by any cognition. Anybody, who has the audacity to do, that doesnt just want to be white. He wants to be able to do that. It has to do with more than just being blissfully free (Roth, 2000, p. 335). The fact that Coleman can be white is based on the visual cognition of his skin color. In order to run away from his black identity, he betrays his history and conceals himself in the eyes of others. However, being white is not his sole purpose. He regards being white as the art of his life, which requires vision to be free from the stain of his body and gain aesthetic purity from the soul. Colemans behavior is a kind of Platonic self-spiritual-hypnosis, in which the soul becomes the real performer of the eyes. Apart from the pleasure and freedom gained from this visual game, Coleman wants to practice his will and ambition: penetrating the social existence with his impenetrable being.
He did love secrets. The secret of nobodys knowing what was going on in your head, thinking whatever you wanted to think with no way of anybodys knowing (). The power and pleasure were to be found in the opposite, in being counter confessional in the same way you were a counterpuncher. (Roth, 2000, p. 100)
Secret exists, because there are prying eyes in the world. It is bound to bear the invasive vision from the outside. There is a battle between the invasion of vision and the preservation of secret. The invisibility of secret enables Coleman to keep out of others vision, choose his own truth as he likes and carry out his self-creation adventure and experiment.
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Coleman wants from earliest childhood on, was to be free: not black, not even whitejust on his own and free (Roth, 2000, p. 120). In fact, he is not yet able to wipe away the boundary between the black and the white. He chooses to be a white. The visibility of body is the most apparent representation of racial difference. Body can be read as a text, which offers an absolute and definite diversity among races. In order to be a real white, Coleman proceeds to break the relationship with his mother without any hesitation, and cut off the history that he was born with. Colemans mother says wisely: You are white as snow and you think like a slave (). Now, I could tell you that there is no escape, that all your attempts to escape will only lead you back to where you began (Roth, 2000, pp. 139-140). Coleman escapes with the bondage of vision. He cannot go beyond the racial barrier and throws his natural self willingly in a white net woven by the society, in which he takes great trouble to create a new Coleman. He is constrained by others sight when pursuing his so-called freedom. During this process, he loses his subjectivity. What he tries hard to escape is actually something he firmly believes and would never change. Nietzsche (1999a) believed that the pleasure of life lies in constant self-creation, which contains a kind of practice with the unity of knowing and doing, inspiring us to do whatever we want and find a way to create ourselves. However, the knowing and doing in Colemans visual game are separated: In doing, Coleman wants to control his fate by his will and determines to be a white even more white than the whites, which is the aesthetic practice of his life. On the other hand, the psychological root of his self-creation lies in the fact that he does not want to submit his life to a world hostile to him, and let it be manipulated by the intention with ignorance and hatred, which means he agrees unconsciously with the racial difference he resents superficially, just as his mothers saying that he thought like a slave. Zarathustra hopes we can find ourselves: I need living companions, who will follow me, because they want to follow themselves (). Him who breaketh up their tables of values, the breaker, the law-breakerhe, however, is the creator (Nietzsche, 1999a, p. 37). Colemans self-creation is a failure, because he does not follow himself. Even when he is trapped in the spook event and faced with slander that he is a racist, he could not show his real identity. In this sense, he is not a sea that can receive polluted streams without becoming impure, but he himself is a stained river. For Coleman, the truth is that his life is being confirmed and kept in some specific perspective, or rather, the perspective of the white. As such fixation, truth means the stagnation of life which eventually blocks and destroys life. Colemans self-creation could be a success if there were not the spook event. The spook event that fails Colemans life is in fact a rude affair of the reason in language. Language is the vocal expression of the eyes of the soul. The hidden reason in the language projects existing being to the universe, so that everything becomes the virtual image of the eyes of the soul. Every word we say is in defense of our existence. The concept of being is only derived from the concept of I. Nietzsche (2005) said in Twilight of the Idols: I am afraid that we have not got rid of God, because we still have faith in grammar (p. 170).Coleman uses spook in the classroom to refer to those absent students. Ridiculously, this word is interpreted with a meaning not used long ago. Because of this spook, Coleman is tagged as a racist by the people with ulterior motives. Language does not describe object, instead, it shows the attitude of people and speaks for the eyes of the soul. Coleman mentioned the bondage of language more than once, his father was able to speak with all his deliberateness and precision and directness and could wither you with word (Roth, 2000, p. 93). When Delphine knows the sexual relationship between Coleman and Faunia, she puts down Everyone knows in an anonymous letter. Whats behind this anonymous letter are countless eyes and pervasive morality. Delphine needs language to win. Because the
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symbolic order in language provides Delphine with the only possibility to fabricate her own truth. She plays language according to Saussures theory. Language is arbitrary mainly because it is the reflection of the eyes of the soul. Words and their meanings are defined by its social nature that provides a larger context for analysis, determination, and realization of its structure. Delphine thinks that she has all the truth and knows everything. But in fact, Nobody knows () you cant know anything. The things you know you dont know (). All that we dont know is astonishing. Even more astonishing is what passes for knowing (Roth, 2000, p. 209). Delphine who smears Coleman with her prejudice and intention is actually an extreme perspectivist. It is not only because of her mysterious feminism mentality, but also because Coleman has something that always led her back to her childhood and precocious childs fear that she is being seen through. Afraid of being exposed, dying to be seentheres a dilemma for you (Roth, 2000, p. 185). Colemans gaze makes her uneasy. She is dying for his gaze due to her subconscious admiration. Delphine is a child at mirror stage in Lacans theory, who needs to recognize and discover herself with the help of Colemans existence, making up her own deficiency. She knows herself and realizes her value in Colemans gaze. Meanwhile, Colemans gaze alienates her. This is a profound opposition between self-recognition and self-reservation in others vision. A battle for authority is performed in their mutual gaze. She is afraid to be seen through and becomes the object in others eyes being controlled completely. In order to win this battle, Delphine resorts to others sight to fight against Coleman. She creates spook event first, then everyone knows anonymous letter, and finally turns Coleman into a misogynist in the name of mourning for Faunia. Not only does she hurt Coleman by others vision, she is also a victim who treats the feeling of her body like a thief with a solitary and miserable soul under her powerful appearance. Athena College, Delphine and a society with racial discrimination are the representatives of the real world, which has different variants, like rational authority, conscience, and benefit for the majority. This real world is not seen through the eyes of body, but created by the eyes of the soul, which must be recognized via rationality and meditation. It is a world trimmed and simplified by our brain and soul. Its falsehood seems to us to be like real. We live in the falsehood, which is the proof of its truth.
There is truth and then again there is truth. For all that the world is full of people who go around believing theyve got you or your neighbor figured out, there really is no bottom to what is not know. The truth about us is endless. As are the lies. (Roth, 2000, p. 315)
Delphines so-called truth is a virtual image formed in the eyes of the soul, whose falsehood lies in the separation from the root of existence, during which she secretly replaced others feeling of life with her own. According to Plato, the world in the eyes of the soul should be the real world, where people who get rid of their emotions and are full of wisdom and rationality can reach. However, the real world that breaks away from the mundane life proves exactly the falsehood of this proposition. The eyes of the soul cannot know the truth. Instead, they produce false impressions and set a series of illusory obstacles to the sense of the body, sending ourselves even further from the truth.
The Regression to the Sense of the Body

After the spook event, Colemans mission is to abolish the real world and save the sense of his body from the eyes of the soul. Coleman and Faunia rush out of the suffocative vision together.
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They are the simplest version possible of themselves. The essence of singularity. Everything painful congealed into passion. They may no longer even regret that things are not otherwise. They are too well entrenched in disgust for that. They are out from under everything ever piled on top of them. Nothing in life tempts them, nothing in life excites them, nothing in life subdues their hatred of life anything like this intimacy. (Roth, 2000, p. 203)
The two souls used to experience the ordeals of life wander freely in the human stain without any hatred, disgust, or excitement, and hold the whole world easily with a kind of simplicity and innocence coming after seeing everything through. This is the purity of restoration of human body that will not tremble with fear and shame in others eyes. They are so intimate with their bodies that no stain can contaminate them. They return to the wholeness and happiness of Eden. Faunia awakens Colemans body sense from a dead sleep and teaches him how to look with the eyes of his body. Coleman watches Faunia working, Often they said nothing, because saying nothing intensified their pleasure. She knew he was watching her; knowing she knew, he watched all the harder (Roth, 2000, p. 47). Abandoning language and rationality, Colemans watch is a sheer respond to his body, which generates emotion, feeling, and passion rather than knowledge, judgment, or truth. It is not the contemplation with distance between Coleman and Faunia, but the state of desiring for each other. Even if no rationality is included, this vision is not pure. Because it contains his irreplaceable desire, emotion, and inner spiritual experience. This is Nietzsches vision. Different from Aristotle and Hegels cognitive vision, it seems to Nietzsche that vision is not a tool to know truth, but a free place full of emotions. Coleman watches Faunia milking and fertilizing the cow with great attention. Watching animal body is connected with the comprehension of self-existence, eventually revealing the natural body that has long been concealed by the culture and the society. The pointless meaningfulness of livingall was recorded as real by tens of thousands of minute impressions. The sensory fullness, the copiousness, the abundantsuperabundantdetail of life, which is the rhapsody (Roth, 2000, p. 52). This gaze is free and full of euphoria, without the need to reflect, but an epic experience of the real life. No other reality exists, except for the one that he sees and feels with his body. Pointless meaningfulness confirms Nietzsches (1999b) famous saying that the existence of the world is justified only as an aesthetic phenomenon (p. 8). We just need to be satisfied with the appearance, which is the real existence with self-contained meaning and theres no necessity to search for the meaning behind it. Coleman watches the strip show of Steena who shows him her irresistible beauty, what he feels is the power of her whiteness. He sees That big white thing(Roth, 2000, p. 115). The political symbol of Steenas body presented in Colemans eyes reveals his hidden black soul. However, the strip show of Faunia is another case. Faunias body is natural: the evocative vegetal smell, straggly graying yellow hair, scars on her body and roughed hands. Faunias naked body, just as that in Gauguins picture, shows a rough beauty, trying to arouse some kind of intimacy with the body, in which spirituality is cast into an unaffected daily life. Her body performing amazingly is an earthly Venus, a self-created and consciously-created sexual object with undisguised exposure and the most natural allure, and a body relative to sex but without any guilt, fear, or hatred. Her body is not symbolized by the eyes of the soul, but rather a natural scene, which implies the secret regression to the Romanticism. Coleman and Faunia walk through the stained reality and back to a real world created by themselves, which pushes the body to the front stage and endows it with the most significant meaning: Just like watching Eve in the Eden without shame, it is sexy and innocent as an object showing in a natural but unreal environment. The body becomes the ultimate carrier of pleasure and meaning and summons vigorously the
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spirituality contained in the body itself. Faunia is a kid who cant read in Colemans eyes. The end of the story tells that she could read and keep a diary. She tries to conceal her capacity to read because she wants to be back to the chaotic life of a child, Something in Faunia is permanently fourteen and as far as you can get from shrewd (Roth, 2000, p. 30). Faunia danced nakedly in front of Coleman and said more than once I see you (Roth, 2000, pp. 228-234). Just like the kid in The Emperors New Clothes (1837), the only one that tells the truth that the emperor doesnt wear anything, Faunia sees Colemans body, his wrinkles of the age and his desire. The rational gap between illiterate Faunia and senior intellectual Coleman is exactly where Faunias wisdom roots in. Being stupid Fauniathats my achievement, Coleman, thats me at my most sensible best (Roth, 2000, pp. 233-234). There is something in kids closer to the essence of life. They use their body to feel and think, which makes them free from prejudice, convention, and conceit. In defiance of social and cultural identity, the kids can reach the origin of life and see this world more clearly. The liberal and detached spirit that adults struggle hard to get is already there at the chaotic beginning of kids life. Its easy for them to reach the truth with their pure eyes and hearts. Theres an emptiness in Faunia that can hold all those stains in life. She could still flow willfully regardless of the stains drifting along the river of her life. Its hard for us to judge whether Faunia is stained or stainless. Coleman said: This is more than sex, and Faunia replied, No, its not. You just forgot what sex is. This is sex: All by itself. Dont fuck it up by pretending its something else (Roth, 2000, p. 203). Faced with such a kid who cant read, Coleman seems to be stupid instead. He could not tell the truth, while on the road to philosophy, Faunia sees the nature with ease. The human stain is not on the body, but in the eyes of the soul.
The stain so intrinsic, it doesnt require a mark. The stain that precedes disobedience, that encompasses disobedience and perplexes, all explanation, and understanding. Its why all the cleansing is a joke. A barbaric joke at that. The fantasy of purity is appalling. Its insane. (Roth, 2000, p. 242)
The stain is the visual discovery and intrinsic in the soul. The existence of the stain must refer to the purity. However, the fantasy of purity is insane. Thus, it can be concluded that the human stain is imposed on the body by the eyes of the soul to prove the pure morality illusion that does not exist at all. At the beginning, Coleman plays his skin and identity, satisfied with the phenomenon as a pseudophase. For him, to be a white is a premise of his life, just because the bare truth is unbearable: If we force ourselves to look straight at the sun, we have to turn around due to the dazzling sunlight. But finally, Coleman and Faunia choose to spread their waxed wings and fly to the sun at all hazards.
Death as a Rite to the Body

The complex visual game makes the hidden things in the novel apparent. Because of the vagueness of Colemans body features, his body is not the object that can be penetrated by the vision. His visual game is a rebellious desire and the confrontation to the gaze of the white, from which he tries hard to seize his subjectivity back, refusing to be the powerless object in the vision. He wants to reverse the subject position in the game and break through the fixed opinion between the black and the white, which is a profound demonstration of the solitude and alienation of the black in the American modern civilization. After the spook event, Faunia arouses the sense of his body. He does not have to doubt or scrutinize the problem of existence with the eyes of the soul like an intellectual scholar, nor does he need to consider anything about the relationship between his skin color
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and the society. Instead, he goes on the downside road of Nietzsche (1968): Belief in the body is more fundamental than belief in the soul: the latter arose from unscientific reflection on the body (p. 271). Right now, the performer of Colemans eyes is not the soul or the spirit, but his sense of body, thus, reversing thoroughly the rootless state of the eyes of the soul. These two kids, Coleman and Faunia, who have seen the secret of the nature through, could not run away from Oedipus tragedy and experience the disintegration of nature on them. The conversation between Oedipus and Creon on the flyleaf of the book is regarded as the prediction of Colemans destiny, Oedipus: What is the rite of purification? How shall it be done? Creon: By banishing a man or expiation of blood by blood (Roth, 2000). Superficially, Colemans story seems to be a classic fate tragedy in ancient Greek: In order to purify his black identity, Coleman chooses to banish himself, break away from his family and history, and finally taste the bitter fruit by ending his life in blood. If we take another look at Oedipus the King (1984), we know that it is the blind man Tiresias who could predict life, while the one who could not see the truth is Oedipus with eyes, even though, he has the wisdom to figure out the answer of Sphinx Riddle. The rite of Oedipus is not by killing himself, but by pricking his eyes blind. In this way, Oedipus reveals the hidden existence and the blindness of the eyes of the soul symbolizes the perfection of his recognition. Coleman opens the eyes of the soul but cannot see the truth of his fate just like Oedipus. He becomes the object under the control of the vision. He is devoured by his desire and loses himself, leading a kind of weak and unreal life. When Coleman is driven out of Athena College, he is back to himself and destroys self-existence in others eyes, discovering the veiled body once concealed by countless eyes of the soul and indulging himself in finding the pleasure and meaning of his body with Faunia. However, Colemans rebirth once again becomes the target of public criticism and the stain in their eyes. Death is the rite of Coleman and Faunia. They do not die in the moral judging vision of the public, but in the car accident staged by Les, which can be regarded as the natural and primitive body strength.
Hes made up his mind to the extent that hes no longer thinking. Hes on a suicide mission, and inside he is agitated big-time. No words. No thoughts. Its just seeing, hearing, tasting, smellingits anger, adrenaline, and its resignation. (Roth, 2000, p. 257)
As a veteran experienced so much unbearable trauma in the Vietnam War, Less reason has already gone with the slaughter in the battle field. For him, death is more reasonable than living. Killing Coleman and Faunia is not even a plan, but a response to his bodys indignation without words or thoughts. Coleman and Faunias death is told directly as their fate. No breathtaking scene description, no sharp conflicts or distressing atmosphere, death is rather a destiny that they wait for peacefully. From this perspective, the dramatic life of Coleman is not a tragedy as we often regard. Everybody ends his life in different ways. Death is irresistible and apparent truth. Roths intention is not to show us the unpredictable and lethal strength of fate by the death of protagonists, but taking death as the redemption and purification of the body. Only death can shield the eyes of the soul and prove the innocence of the body. Coleman and Faunia bid farewell to the world in masquerade, meet the truth in death and run to the eternity together.
Conclusions
Coleman is such a Greek tragical hero, which derives from his inner strength: to create himself and pursue
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the power of his rebirth regardless of any cost. Even when he struggles and traps in the spiritual predicament, he can have the power to take it and bear it with the most dogged posture. The impulse of Colemans self-creation comes from the difference or distance produced by self-examination of the eyes of the soul. It is the admission of such difference or distance that makes Coleman impossible to get the real freedom of self-creation, instead, lose his subjectivity and becomes the object shaped in the eyes of the soul. Eventually, Coleman gets rid of all his pains by reveling in the sense of the body and comes back to the unity of the origin, which echoes to Roths favorite theme in his workssex. This secret behavior and feelings of the body is regarded as the human stain, which, however, fundamentally implies Roths intention to purify it. Roth also defends body in The Dying Animal (2001) Its not the sex thats the corruptionits the rest (Roth, 2002, p. 69). This is not resentment, but a positive expression of existential model. This is an aggression, not retaliation. It is sacred stain. Without it, pureness is beyond imagination. Body is affirmed and redeemed in the destruction, which is the wordless defense of the sense of the body. It is the fierce fight back to the gaze of the eyes of the soul and finally heads to the most profound nihilism with an omen of eternal return.
References
Crary, J. (1992). Techniques of the observer: On vision and modernity in the nineteenth century. Cambridge: MIT Press. Nietzsche, F. (1968). The will to power. (W. Kaufmann, Trans.). New York: Random House. Nietzsche, F. (1999a). Thus Spake Zarathustra. (T. Common, Trans.). Beijing: China Social Sciences Publishing House. Nietzsche, F. (1999b). The birth of tragedy in the birth of tragedy and other writings. (R. Speirs, Trans.). UK: Cambridge University Press. Nietzsche, F. (2005). The Anti-Christ, Ecce Homo, twilight of the idols, and other writings. (J. Norman, Trans.). UK: Cambridge University Press. Roth, P. (2000). The human stain. New York: Houghton Mifflin Company. Roth, P. (2002). The dying animal. London: Vintage Books. ZHAO, Y. F. (Ed.). (2006). The keys words in Western literary criticism. Beijing: Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press.
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Jessica Folio
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The Body Transgressed in Chuck Palahniuks Choke (2001)
University of Reunion Island, Saint-Denis, France
This paper tackles the issue of limits in Chuck Palahniuks Choke (2001). The narrative is at the image of this controversial American writer and mirrors his work as a whole. The paper aims at exploring the trespassing and even the annihilation of boundaries both at the thematic and linguistic levels. The cornerstone notion of transgression opens the path to a rewriting of the paradigm between signifiers and signified and unveils the problematics of the body linked to the redefined vision of choking and to a deviant sexuality. The body itself is remolded into a land of conquest. The reader is left to wonder where Palahniuks quest for transgression will lead him, if the crossing of limits is precisely limitless and if the body is an enduring cornucopia of possible experiences. Keywords: transgression, choking, sexuality, the body, signifiers
Introduction
Best known for Fight Club (1996), the American writer Chuck Palahniuk explores, throughout his fiction, characters who constantly transgress social norms and expectations and who defy any classifications. Transgression means going beyond limits, defying the law, or a code, or a rule, doing something which is forbidden (Louvel, 2009, p. 21). It refers to the rupture of a norm, to the trespassing of a limit beyond which an act, an event, is considered as morally unacceptable, incomprehensible. It also inherently rimes with excess, immoderateness. In the novel Fight Club, the nameless narrator creates an underground boxing network. The gratuitous brutality that shows through the narrative is expressed during the fights that take on a cathartic undertone and are even tainted with a transcendental hue when considering the pushing away of physical limit. In Lullaby (2002), the dead body is perceived as a source of beauty and necrophilia is viewed just as another type of sexual act. In Dammed (2011), the 13-year-old protagonist Madison wanders through a parodic version of inferno replete with dismembered bodies and turns into a megalomaniac figure. Choke (2001) leads us to consider the notion of transgression in relation to the themes of motherhood, old age, sexuality, and the body. Choke narrates Victor Mancinis life and offers recurrent flashbacks on his childhood. Moved from one foster home to another, his mother, Ida, would kidnap him when not in jail or in a mental institution; however, they would be caught every time. Victor is, in the present setting of the book, depicted as a sex-addict. Ida appears to be suffering from Alzheimers and is institutionalized in Saint Anthonys care center. The novels preoccupation with fraud is pregnant: Paige Marshall, a patient at the care center pretends to be a doctor there; Victor is led to believe that he is the reincarnation of Jesus Christ and he eventually finds out that Ida is not his birth mother. Originally blaming the latter for every problem he faces in his life, Victor learns forgiveness and understanding; he needs Ida to give him closure on his father, the absent figure in the novel.
Jessica Folio, Ph.D., English Department, University of Reunion Island.
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THE BODY TRANSGRESSED IN CHUCK PALAHNIUKS CHOKE (2001)
The Problematics of Choking

Victor pays for Idas nursing home by pretending to choke on his food at restaurants, an experience for which he is compensated for financially. Indeed, people who save his life feel responsible for him and his fictional bills. In Palahniuks narrative, choking ironically becomes a means of subsistence for the protagonist. Food, necessary to ensure peoples lives, is here represented as an auxiliary of death. At the same time, death is for Victor faked and summoning it each night at a restaurant is a way to pay for the bills and food and thus to go on living; death becomes an auxiliary of life in a way that highlights the complicated connection between the body and the notion of limit in Palahniuks work. Victor transforms his body into a vehicle of both death and rebirth. Victor is on a quest for recognition, a need certainly ensuing from the lack of maternal love during his early years. Through this quest, his body is used and abused: You had to risk your life to get love. You had to get right to the edge of death to ever be saved (Palahniuk, 2001, p. 3). The term edge emphasizes this play on limits which again leads to the paradox of the intricate relation between life and death. Victor craves for the attention his foster families have been unable to give him due to the fact that he was repeatedly taken away from them by his thought-to-be mother, Ida Mancini. As far as she is concerned, proving her love to Victor means sadistically leaving him half-naked in the snow to draw the outline of his shivering body with a spray paint. Thus, the theme of the body is a red thread in Choke and its significance is manifold. It is first linked to a deviant sexuality; then it is objectified. The search for limitlessness is also at stake as well as a reworking of the relation between signifiers and signified. The transgression of the body follows different paths and leads to a questioning of the terms transgression and body themselves. Transgressing the common image of the body and its limits parallels Victors quest for his identity and underlines Palahniuks search for transcendence in his novels.
The Problematics of Sexuality

The sexual dimension is a leitmotif and is associated with unexpected elements, for example, myth. Palahniuk (2001) sexualized the notion of myth against its more sacred and spiritual meanings. In Myths, Dreams and Mysteries, Eliade (1960) discussed the creation of myth in terms of: A sacred history; that is, a transhuman revelation which took place at the dawn of the Great Time, in the holy time of the beginnings (in illo tempore) (p. 23). It is linked to the Sacred, referring to the world of the divine, opposed to profane life. In contrast, Palahniuk associates myth with daily life and sexuality, akin to an urban legend.
The contemporary legend is a narration, a collective tale, taken up and transmitted by the group within which it works. The content of this tale is situated, replete with truthful effects, appeals to authorities serving as a point of reference. This tale is given as a true one; it is an object of belief but also of discussion, for the process of legendary diffusion opposes scepticals and believers1.
An urban legend is commonly related to supernatural occurrences. In Palahniuks case, there seems to be an overstatement when he applied the expression urban legend to an act of fellation which may be considered as a trivial act and has no connection with the supernatural. Palahniuk also gave the example of a razor-sharp
1
Campion-Vincent, Veronique. Lgendes Urbaines: Rumeurs daujourdhui (1998), p. 10. One example of an urban legend is the ghostly hitchhiker.
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blade added to a vacuum cleaner in the 1950s and which led many men to race to the hospital with their sexual organ mutilated, at least thats the myth (Palahniuk, 2001, p. 10). The sexual focus and the use of a trivial object debase, desacralize an Eliadian-type analysis of myth. A vacuum cleaner holds no sacred dimension even if we may go as far as considering the loss of the male phallic organ as a castrative rite and the vacuum cleaner as a parodic god or a symbol of post-war consumer society. Continuing in a transgressive vein, Palahniuk sexualizes the understanding of heroism 2 . While conventional heroes such as Theseus or Hercules were endowed with this title after killing legendary monstrous creatures like a minotaur or a hydra, it is sex that gives a heroic status to ordinary people in Palahniuks world. The author chooses to present as legendary a woman who performs oral-genital acts on men during which they are castrated. In one example, fellatio in a car results in a penile dismemberment. The process of castration is not done symbolically, but is physically executed. The theme of the vagina dentata is revisited here: The lethal perception of the female sexual organ is transposed to the oral orifice, as if there had been a regression to the Freudian oral state characterized by the non-differentiation between the sexual act and the ingestion of food. In this modern urban legend, the womans mouth has a carnivorous dimension and deprives men of their absolute virility and power. Palahniuk reveals various transgressive sexual behaviors related to death and, consequently, gives an unexpected perception of the human body. A girl, Mandy, obtains sexual satisfaction by using the stick shift of a Ford Pinto. This sexual act also has a sacrificial dimension3, since it almost causes her death. Another girl, Paula, experiments autoerotic asphyxiation in her shower. It is not so much the exploration of the body as its abuse and negation that engender orgasm. Victor has to think about dead animals or about the dissection of human bodies to be sexually aroused. The closeness with death is a source of pleasure for the character. Sexuality is not only linked to addiction but also to degenerated, fragmented, and rotting bodies. The possibility the latter have to arouse pleasure and bliss, not only echoes the obsession with death characterizing the movement of the decadent Romanticism at the end of the 18th century in England, but also highlights the transgressive treatment of the body suffusing the text.
The Problematics of the Body

Victor is a sex addict who only goes to therapy sessions in order to embark on carnal relationships with female sex addicts. The body is objectified and becomes a substance to be consumed; it is just like heroin for drug addicts. It is also fragmented, described through limbs and not as a total entity. For example, Idas body is perceived as dismembered and monstrous: Theres not just enough of her yellow skin left to fit a real person inside. Her chin puppet arms hover around on the blankets (Palahniuk, 2001, p. 21), her neck looks as small around as my wrist, the yellow skin sunk into deep hollows between her cords and throat. Her face doesnt hide
To understand why we apply the term transgression as regards the treatment of heroes by Palahniuk, we have to remind the reader that the term hero is originally perceived in the sense of half-god and the term legendary rimes with what is universally known. 3 We may look upon the gear shift as a phallic object. As Freud (1999) stated in The Interpretation of Dreams: all elongated objects [] all sharp and elongated weapons, knives, daggers, and pikes, represent the male member (p. 115). The act gives the woman a legendary status as if she offered herself as a sacrifice; the term sacrifice implies making something or someone sacred, that is separated from the one who offers, whether it is a personal possession or ones own life; also separated from anyone who remained profane; separated from ones own self and given to God (the authors translation). Chevalier and Gheerbrants Dictionnaire des symboles: Mythes, rves, coutumes, gestes, formes, figures, couleurs, nombres (1982), p. 839. Sacrifices aim at the purification of the soul but in Palahniuks case, even if the woman gets close to death, she is only concerned with personal enjoyment and her action is not linked to a sacred dimension.
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the skull inside (Palahniuk, 2001, p. 113). Her body shrinks down to nothingness. The motherly body is perceived as other, as repulsive. Yet, at the same time, Victor craves for Idas recognition of his presence when he visits her. The mother is perceived as a Kristevian abject figure. Victor abjects the maternal body, a necessary step in the construction of his identity, so as to reach the Symbolic stage, when language gives meaning to things. Victors perception of Idas body vehicles a plural significance: a distrust of the feminine which leads him to only entertain carnal relations with women; a need to gain closure to be able to trust people in general and a deviant vision of the female body as an object to possess. Throughout the novel, Victor tries to conquer the female body. Nevertheless, even the rape attempt on a character, Gwen, is staged and he is not in control of the situation as she is the one who gives orders. Traditional gender roles do not apply in this sado-masochistic relationship as the stronger sex turns into the weaker one. Our attention is drawn to the artificiality of what we consider natural behavior with Palahniuk disrupting the limits of normal sexual behaviors. Violence, danger, and threats are in a deviant way necessary for Gwen to reach sexual arousal. She requires Victor to hit her and to hold a freezing knife to her throat. The knife replaces the phallic organ since Victor is not allowed to practice the act of penetration. Palahniuk undermines male customary dominance by providing women with a contingent form of carnal pleasure. Besides, the connection made between rape and a religious ceremony is undoubtedly transgressive: A good rapist will plan his crime meticulously. He ritualizes every little detail. This should be almost like a religious ceremony. What happens here, Gwen says, is sacred (Palahniuk, 2001, p. 174). The transgression appears to be double: Religious rituals are desacralized and rape is sacralized. Thus, Victor is in a conquest of the human body. The latter is presented as the last frontier to trespass: Its the last frontier to conquer, other people, strangers, the jungle of their arms and legs, hair and skin, the smells and moans that is everybody you havent done. The great unknowns. The last forest to devastate (Palahniuk, 2001, p. 251). In a spatial metaphor, the human body is to be explored and owned and this exploration seems fairly limitless considering the earths human population. This vision of the human body as a territory to possess like the American West, its fragmented description, contributes to the transgressive aspect of Palahniuks narration. The use of the verb devastate even stresses a will to destroy the human body to reach a very absence of limits. The objectified body blurs gender, abolishes the separation between masculinity and feminity as women become the stronger sex. The body is subject to redefinition. On his quest for the abolition of limits, the author plays with the body of the text itself; he makes use of unexpected words as the blurring of limits also concerns language. Depicting the photograph of a monkey and a man, Victor praises the confidence of that man and his up-front-ness (Palahniuk, 2001, p. 37). The reader understands that it designates the mans ability to confront the world fiercely despite the shocking aspect of the action perpetrated in the photograph. Seeing Page Marshall naked for the first time in the chapel at Saint Anthonys, Victor reflects that she is very doable (Palahniuk, 2001, p. 89). Palahniuk assembles two elements that are not commonly used together. In chapter 15, Ina Mancini tries to teach Victor what really matters in life and tells him they live in an era of Dis-Enligthtnement (Palahniuk, 2001, p. 98). The prefix dis is from the Latin and expresses separation, distance, going in opposite directions and, afterwards, negation, opposition (Rey, Tomi, Hord, & Tanet, 1992, p. 609). The noun enlightenment refers to the 18th century which advocated the principles of rationalism and moderation, faith in the unity and the immutability of reason (Cassirer, 1970, p. 41). The term Dis-Enligthtnement seems to indicate that our society is characterized by the lack of fixed rules, clear landmarks; instability lays in the signifiers themselves.
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Palahniuk revisits the traditional codes of language as though the disruption of the signifier-signified connection magnified the notion of transgression. Instability characterizes Palahniuks narrative. Disruption is created at the level of the logos, accounting for the impossibility of constructive communication between the characters in the text. Here are some examples of Palahniuks reworking of codes: For Nico, one of Victors partners, twirling a finger next to ones ear does not mean being crazy but being a loser. In a hospital, Nurse Flamingo means a fire. Dr. Blaze means a fire. Dr. Green means a suicide. Dr. Blue means somebody stopped breathing (Palahniuk, 2001, pp. 92-93). The Saussurian connection between the signifier and the signified4 does not apply here for the readers do not understand the relation between the chosen colors and their meaning. Let us consider the authors use of the color blue. It is the most immaterial color: nature generally presents it as only made of transparency, that is accumulated emptiness (Chevalier & Gheerbrant, 1982, p. 129). This dimension of void may explain its association in Choke with death and the skin hue of people when they stop breathing. The connection of the color green with suicide is more problematic. Indeed, it is first and foremost a reassuring, refreshing, humane color (Chevalier & Gheerbrant, 1982, p. 1002). It is set in relation with life and regeneration. However, it is also an ambivalent color: Green has a malevolent, nocturnal power, like any female symbol (Chevalier & Gheerbrant, 1982, p. 1005). Palahniuk seems to have chosen this ambiguous aspect of the green color, but the link with depression and suicide is a complete reworking of the original signified. The author associates colors with unexpected codes and this contributes to the disruption of the constituents of the text itself: words. Here are other examples: Mr. Cash is used to call for an armed security guard; the code Sheila to the front is used to signal shoplifting in a store. Palahniuk deviates from the ordinary meaning of cash as money. The association with an armed security guard may come from the fact that security officers keep a close eye on cashiers when they move with the receipts. The connection between the first name Sheila and shoplifting is disconcerting. The pushing away of limits is henceforth visible in the very use of words.
Conclusions
Therefore, Palahniuk explores the theme of transgression and, by doing so, he follows different paths: He reworks the articulation between signifiers and signified, that is the body of the text itself as well as the individuals bodies. One may wonder whether, in our post-postmodern era, the transgression of limits in literature is precisely limitless and which body remains to be transgressed. The bodies of the son (Victor) and of the mother (Ida) are submitted to fragmentation and negation, but the fathers body constantly remains ungraspable by Victor and unsaid by Ida. The father figure remains in the Lacanian Real. Nevertheless, it is the incapacity to know that gives Victor the strength to go on living: and maybe knowing isnt the point. Where were standing right now, in the ruins in the dark, what we build could be anything (Palahniuk, 2001, p. 293). The very impossibility of reaching closure and the very possibility of multiple interpretations give life its excitement. The aim is to go for the unknown, even beyond the very idea of the unknown and materialize it into something concrete, almost materialize the Lacanian Real. We are led to rethink the significance of the body in
4
Ferdinand de Saussure, through his analysis of language, establishes the link between the signifier, the acoustic image, and the signified, the concept. The relation between the signified and the signifier does not seem to work in Palahniuks work. The obvious meaning of words does not necessarily apply to those words. Jacques Derrida exposed in Of Grammatology the notion of deconstruction showing that there is not a unique and universal truth since speech is, just like writing, submitted to instability and shifts in meaning. One word has various meanings, hence the plurality of interpretations of the texts. There is an active differance which works on the meaning of each word.
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itself and consider the fact that transgression questions the commonly known. The body becomes a source for the uncanny and transgression transforms the familiar (the body) into a new and undecipherable entity that refuses closure, henceforth the plurality of interpretations stemming from the narrative. Transgression rimes with instability, which may account for the impossible closure running through the veins of Palahniuks text; the absence of absolute knowledge marks artistic creation along with its interpretation with infinitude.
References
Campion-Vincent, V. (1998). Lgendes urbaines: rumeurs daujourdhui (Urban legends: Contemporary rumours). Paris: Payot & Rivages. Cassirer, E. (1970). La Philosophie des Lumires (The philosophy of the Enlightenment). Paris: Fayard. Chevalier, J., & Gheerbrant, A. (1982). Dictionnaire des symboles: Mythes, rves, coutumes, gestes, formes, figures, couleurs, nombres (Dictionary of symbols: Myths, dreams, customs, gestures, forms, figures, numbers). Paris: Jupiter. de Saussure, F. (1959). Course in general linguistics. (W. Baskin, Trans.). New York: Philosophical Library. Derrida, J. (1976). Of Grammatology. (G. C. Spivak, Trans.). Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Eliade, M. (1960). Myths, dreams, and mysteries: The Encounter between contemporary faiths and archaic realities. (P. Mairet, Trans.). New York: Harper and Row. Freud, S. (1999). The interpretation of dreams. (J. Crick, Trans.). New York : Oxford University Press. Louvel, L. (2009). Taking risks: Transgression and intermedial criticism. In Dir. H. Ventura, & P. Mottet (Eds.), Pratiques de la transgression dans la littrature et les arts visuels (Ways to practice transgression in literature and visual arts) (pp. 21-36). Qubec: LInstant Mme. Palahniuk, C. (2001). Choke. London: Vintage. Rey, A., Tomi, M., Hord, T., & Tanet, C. (1992). Dictionnaire historique de la langue franaise (Historical dictionary of French language). Paris: Dictionnaires le Robert.
DA VID
PUBLISHING
The Travelling MuseCathay and the Influence of Chinese Classical Poems on Ezra Pounds Poetics*
WEI Shu
Beijing Information Science and Technology University, Beijing, China
This paper intends to study Ezra Pounds early poetics and his modernist poetry through a close research of the Eastern elements in the shaping process of his poetics and the significance and influence of his poetic thoughts on the American New Poetry Movement. In order to clarify the essence of Pounds early poetics under the influence of Chinese classical poems, the paper starts from the discussion of the influence of Cathay (1915) and his translation of Cathay; then it provides a detailed analysis of the relationship between Chinese classical poems and Pounds creation; and finally it has given an analysis of In a Station of the Metro. Pound absorbed different poetic concepts from all of them and transformed his poetry from the conventional Romanticism to the innovative Modernism. What Pound innovated in the poetry composition is of great importance if the new era wishes to shake off the banality and out-of-date tradition in literature. Pound changed a whole generation of poets and set a good example for those who desire to write in a new way. Keywords: Ezra Pound, early poetics, Chinese classical poems, American New Poetry Movement
Introduction
Ezra Pound has been widely acknowledged as the founder and the most prolific and talented poet of modernist poetry. Research on Pound is conducted mainly in Western countries and most of the precious manuscripts and materials are enshrined in Western universities like Yale. Though Ezra Pound absorbed a lot Chinese ingredients in his poetic creation, its a shame to admit that the achievements in China are relatively small and immature. This is due partly to the misunderstanding and misinterpretation of his works or his other political activities and partly to the difficulties in comprehending his works. In order to better present the history and status of Poundian studies, this paper will discuss the Eastern elements in the incubating process of Pounds early poetics and the formation of his poetic style. Those elements range from the translation of Cathay (1915), Chinese classical poems and Chinsese culture.
The Translation of Cathay

Cathay is a collection of Chinese classical poems translated by Pound (1995) based on the notes of American Orientalist and art historian Ernest Fenollosa. It deserves a place of its own, as the most attractive
This study is funded by Beijing Information Science and Technology University (1335021). WEI Shu, master degree, Lecturer of Foreign Language School, Beijing Information Science and Technology University.
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THE TRAVELLING MUSECATHAY AND THE INFLUENCE
single volume of Pounds poetry. Scholars irritated by the inaccuracies in Cathay had their doubts confirmed by the later Fenollosa essay on the Chinese written character, which put forward an etymological view. As the ideograms are pictures of thingsthe essay arguesthe Chinese script is by its very nature more concrete and poetic than alphabetic writing: reading the character for sunset, the Chinese actually sees the descending sun tangled in a trees branches. Sinologists point out that the English may just as easily see the sun actually setting when they read the English word sunset; that usage, in Chinese as in other languages, dulls original metaphor and turns words into counters; that most characters are not simple pictograms but of compound, confused of forgotten etymology (Alexander, 1979, p. 97). In Fenollosas1 notes, he advocated that Chinese was concrete and he maintained that verbs should be stressed at the cost of nouns. These ideas are really in accordance with the early poetics of Pound, which he published in Poetry: A Magazine of Verse for March 1913, and were followed by A Few Donts by an Imagiste. He mentioned go in fear of abstraction and demanded direct treatment of the thing in his principles. However, it is not due to Fenollosas ideas that Cathay had the prevalent power over his contemporaries and people of today. Actually Pound did not rely on the theories of Fenollosa, instead he only used some of Fenollosas ideas and his glosses, though it should be admitted that Fenollosas manuscript gave him the vividness and particularity of Chinese. The success of Cathay should go to Li Po and Pound.
The Influence of Chinese Culture and Classical Poems on Pound

People who are really shocked by the prevailing force of Cathay may wonder what the real beauty of this book is. People of today who like Chinese poetry, Eliot (1928) sagely remarked in his introduction to his selection of Pound, are really no more liking Chinese poetry than the people who like Willow pottery and ChinesischeTurms in Munich and Kew like Chinese Art (p. 15). He thought Cathay would be called a magnificent specimen of the 20th century poetry rather than a translation. The beauty of Cathay is to do with Chinese style, the exotic colors, quaint customs, and refined sensation of a world that is seemingly different yet the same. Pounds own interest in China dominates some poems, notably The River Song and Old Idea of Choan by Rosoriu. But the beauty of Cathay is more than just a delight in wine, women and song, or in the strangeness of old China. The dominant themes of this selection are the emotions of exile and homesickness; of friendship and great joys and pleasures; of war; and of contemplation. Therefore, it would be safe to say that the real charm of Cathay is not merely exotic, alien, or sensuous, but the recognition of human emotion. Alexander (1979) maintained in his essay that: The particular emotional quality of Cathay is regretful and plangent, and its themes meet on this note. These themes embrace departure, exile, estrangement, separation, love, war, travel, escape, pleasure, heroism, rapture, ecstasy (p. 101). The nostalgia is not aesthetically skin deep, but has great human depth. Though the language applied in this book is simple and concise, it indeed gives the readers certain kind of precision, freshness, and a wide space for the imagination. This sense of a painful fullness of emotion being accepted, together with the sense of the relations of Time and Beauty, is the taste that Cathay leaves in the mind (Alexander, 1979, p. 102). The
After his death in London in 1908, Fenollosas unpublished notes on Chinese poetry and Japanese Noh drama were confided by his widow to noted poet Ezra Pound who, with William Butler Yeats, used them to solidify the growing interest in Far Eastern literature among modernist writers.
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immediate lines following the conclusion of Exiles Letter can best illustrate the influence of China on Pounds (2003) poems:
And if you ask how I regret that parting: It is like the flowers falling at Springs end, Confused, whirled in a tangle. What is the use of talking, and there is no end of talking, There is no end of things in the heart. (p. 257)
In these lines, the delicacy remains, but the directness, the lack of inhibition, is new, and sounds very innovative. Chinese poets used nature and landscape to express emotion: It is like the flowers falling at Springs end. This use of nature as a language is a permanent contribution of China to Pound. Of course, all descriptive poetry, all nature poetry, uses nature as a language, but as Alexander (1979) stated in his thesis, that China opened Pounds eyes to a nature he or his predecessors had never noticed before and employed the language in new ways, both subtler and simpler (p. 102). Cathays versification, melody, use of image and directness of language are indeed very different from his early poems and the works of his contemporaries. This difference presents itself primarily as a difference in nature, in the actual landscape. The significance of Cathay can be proven in the following scholars remarks. According to Hugh Kenner (1995), In the Cathay poems, made from Ernest Fenollosas notes and cribs to the ideograms of Rihaku (Li Po), Pound is at his best both as poet and translator; he is amazingly convincing at making the Chinese poets world his own (p. 13). Chinese scholars have also made affirmative comments on Cathay. For instance, Wang Guiming (2003) held that Through Pounds Cathay, what English readers get to know about the cultural things is just the essence of Chinese culture. Cathay has actively functioned for the transmission of Chinese culture in the western world, which had been testified by western scholars. It is sure that westerners can learn what the real taste of the classic styles of Tang poetry is (p. 102). In the early 1980s, Chinese scholar Zhao Yi-heng (1983) published a book titled Oriental Muses Travel in the West, in which he discussed the relationship between Chinese literature and culture and the development of American modern poetry. In his later work How Chinese Culture Changed American Modern Poetry (2003), he pointed out that Chinese classical prosody, and painting techniques provide a new artistic framework for the poets of American New Poetry Movement in the 1920s. The tremendous influence functions in many aspects of American literature and culture, ranging from non-literary media (such as chipper ship trade, traveling), the collections of art pieces, to poetry writing. Ezra Pound, a leading poet of the New Poetry Movement, absorbed much from Chinese literary conceptions and cultural values. He translated some Chinese classical poems of the Han and Tang dynasties and published the translations in a collection entitled Cathay, which has been commented on so extensively that many American modern poets modeled their poems on these translations. Pound adopted creative translation methods such as paraphrasing and imitation for his translation of Shijing, another important collection of Chinese classical poems; many of his translations of Shijing are more vivid and accurate than the Victorian translators and his contemporaries. Besides his translation of Chinese classical poems, Pound also translated many Confucian works. His translation of the Four Books exercised great influence not only on his own notions of literature and politics, but also on Western writers and politicians. No doubt, Pound is one of the great contributors who introduced Chinese literature and culture to the Western people who were
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actually influenced by Pounds translations and became interested in Chinese literature and culture. Pound was a talented person in poetry writing and translation. The development of Pounds poetry and translation are very closely related to Chinese literature and culture. Just because of this reason, Poundian studies seem more important in China than most other countries; however, Chinas achievements are not impressive in this field, and the main part of the existing achievements belong to those scholars who live in foreign countries, that is, they are Chinese-Americans or Chinese-British people or Chinese-Canadians, such as ZHAO Yi-heng (2003), XIE Ming (1999), and YE Wei-lian (1992), etc.. Up to date, there are a few publications on the relationship between Chinese culture and the development of American modern poetry. The circle of Chinese cultural and literary studies should pay special attention to the research on Ezra Pound, who was not only one of the great founders of Western modernist literature, but also a great contributor for Sino-western cultural communication. In China, there should have been more great achievements in Poundian studies; it is, however, awfully less achieved in this field owing to various reasons. But anyway, China should never ignore this study (Wang, 2003, p. 100). In recent years, of the mainland scholars, Wang Guiming has achieved a lot. He published some papers on Pounds poetry and translation. His essays Confucian Thoughts in the Pisan Cantos in the journal Foreign Literatures and On Ezra Pounds Conception of Translation and His Creative Rendering of Classical Chinese Poems in Chinese Translators Journal and A Cognitive Approach for Observing and Evaluating Ezra Pounds Translation and Poetics in Ezra Pound and Education are influential in this field. It is urgent to remedy the situation in China. Chinese scholars can make a significant contribution in this field.
An Analysis of the Typical Imagist Poem In a Station of the Metro

A Few Donts is the important rule put forward by Pound for the imagist poetry and also it is the most important of Pounds poetic conception in his early modernist period. In order to demonstrate Pounds imagist principle, this part presents a detailed analysis of the classic imagist poem In a Station of the Metro.
In a Station of the Metro The apparition of these faces in the crows; Petals on a wet, black bough. (Pound, 2003, p. 287)
This poem is widely acknowledged as the masterpiece of Ezra Pound in Imagism School. It was composed around the year 1914, then Pounds main interest was in visual precision and he was working at once towards concreteness and brevity. Ever since 1909, Pound, as we know, had associated with artists who saw the possibilities in the tanka and haikai. By 1914, he had read the Japanese Noh plays and was much impressed by the fact that a whole play could consist of a single image. Later, he was to translate these plays; For the present, he was impressed with their conciseness and applied the lesson to shorter poems. In a Station of the Metro is as short and vivid as anything could be. But this brevity was not effortless and the story of how the poem took shape is very illuminating:
Three years ago, in Paris I got out of a metro train at La Concorde, and saw suddenly a beautiful face, and then another and another, and then a beautiful childs face, and then another woman, and I tried all that day to find words for what this had meant to me, and I could not find any words that seemed to me worthy, or as lovely as that sudden emotion. And that eveningI found suddenly the expressionnot in speech but in little splotches of color. It was just thata
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pattern or hardly a pattern if by pattern you mean something with a repeat in it. But it was a word, the beginning, for me, of a new language in color. I wrote a thirty-line poem, and destroyed it, because it was what we call work of the second intensity. Six months later, I made a poem half that length; a year later, I made the following hokku like sentence. (Amdur, 1936, p. 51)
In this masterpiece of Imagism, the whole poem consists of only 14 words yet it leaves an enormous space for the imagination. In the first line, the poet describes what he saw in that metro. He was touched by the appearance of those beautiful faces, so he introduces the word apparition into his poem, which means the spirit of a dead person moving in bodily form, or just refers to ghost (Gray, 1992, p. 53). This word vividly describes the movement and pace of the beautiful person he met in the metro and the sudden shock of the poet. This word does not show the physical movement of those people; instead, it focuses on the lightness and quickness of them grasped in just a glance. The use of this word is very appropriate under the circumstance, because the inspiration just occurred in a second, and there were so many people in the metro that is impossible to observe certain people for a long time. In the second line, the poet makes a metaphor by comparing those beautiful faces to petals on a wet, black bough. The second line actually is only a noun phrase with petals as the head and the center. Petals the image, favored by both Eastern and Western poets, shows a very vivid and animate picture, since poets prefer to describe a beautiful woman by saying that she is as beautiful as flowers. In the middle of the second line, there are two parallel adjectives wet and black. These two adjectives serve as the color of the background or the curtain on the stage. Only by darkening the color of the curtain can the poet project the image of the petals. This use of parallelism of images is very similar to that of the Chinese poem, which sometimes just puts together many different nouns or images to form a picture. There is not a conjunction or verb in between, readers just use their imagination and the picture is projected. The first line of this poem is a description of the reality while the second line of it is the imagination and the feeling of the poet who was at that moment deeply touched by the scene. The whole poem is a combination of the reality and the inner world of the poet. Though it has only two lines, the content and the feeling is very wide and deep. These images: apparition, faces, petals, and bough, create a complete Chinese painting, since the idea within this two lines is very close to the images and feeling that the Chinese painting with the water, mountain, and flower as the main subjects wants to convey. The gist of reading and appreciating the imagist poem is to combine your own imagination with that of the poet and to try to feel and taste the poem instead of just reading mechanically. In this short poem, Pound follows his poetic conceptionhis donts. For example, he uses two adjectives in the second line yet these two adjectives are not just superfluous word but are important background colors in the displaying of images. This is in accord with the first dont. He uses petals and bough as the main images in this poem, because according to his second dont, natural object is always the adequate symbol (Gray, 1992, p. 53). The composition of the poem is also under the guidance of musical rules: The last word of the first line is crowd, while that of the second line is bough; these two words share the same vowel, by which the poet can create a special effect of sound and of music within these two lines.
Conclusions
The paper has presented the Eastern cultural elements in the incubating process of Pounds early poetics and
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the formation of his early poetic style, for example, the Chinese classical poems and Japanese haiku. Pound absorbed different poetic concepts from all of them and transformed his poetry from the conventional Romanticism to the innovative Modernism. It is with such complex influences that Pound finally formed his early poetics. In order to clarify the essence of Pounds early poetics, the paper has provided a demonstration of the basic imagist principles that Pound declared in his A Few Donts and also has given a detailed analysis of In a Station of the Metro, which is a typical example of Pounds imagist poem. The poem is Pounds powerful example of his early poetics and his applications of his revolutionary thoughts on how poetry should be written in the new century. A close examination of Pounds early poems has revealed an important fact that most of his early poems are based on his translations of the different cultural classics. That is to say, Pounds poetry is very closely related to his translation. In Pounds works, it is hard to distinguish his translations and poems. According to Pound, there is no clear demarcation between translation and literary creation; and translation is a stimulating agent for ones literary creation, especially for poetry writing. Pounds translation has stimulated and enforced his poetry and his poetics, and his poetry, in turn, has enhanced his translation. So Pounds poetics is basically a translation-poetics, which has great influence on the New Poetry Movement.
References
Alexander, M. (1979). The poetic achievement of Ezra Pound. London and Boston: Faber and Faber. Amdur, A. S. (1936). The poetry of Ezra Pound. America: Harvard University Press. Eliot, T. S. (1928). Introduction to selected poems of Ezra Pound. London: Faber and Faber. Gray, A. (Ed.). (1992). Longman dictionary of American English. Beijing: Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press. Kenner, H. (1995). Ezra Pound: Translations with an introduction by Hugh Kenner. New York: New Directions. Pound, E. (2003). Poems and translations. New York: Literary Classics of United States, Inc., N.Y.. WANG, G. M. (2003). On Ezra Pounds influences on Chinese culture (pp. 100-106). Beijing: Foreign Literature. XIE, M. (1999). Pound as translator in the Cambridge companion to Ezra Pound. Ira. B. Nadel (Ed.). New York: Cambridge University Press. YE, W. L. (1992). Chinse poetics. Beijing : Sanlian Bookstore. ZHAO, Y. H. (1983). Oriental Muses travel in the west. Shanghai: Shanghai Translation Publishing House. ZHAO, Y. H. (2003). How Chinese culture changed American modern poetry. Shanghai: Shanghai Translation Publishing House.
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Technique and Technology in the Composition Mantra: Some Analytical Considerations*

Simonetta Sargenti
Conservatorio G. Rossini, Pesaro, Italy
This paper relates to Stockhausens composition method of the 1970s based on the concept called formula. This method is in part a derivation and in part an improvement of serialism. Stockhausen applied it in his works starting from 1970, with the composition Mantra for two pianos and ring modulator, and refined it during his whole life. This paper will discuss the formulas concept and his application. In particular, the author tries to analyze the first composition where the formulas method is applied under two different points of view: the composition method and the rule of technology in the composition. Keywords: formula, technique, technology
Introduction
Mantra for two pianos, antique cymbals, wood block, and electronics, composed in 1970, marks for Stockhausen a turning point in his technique with the experimentation of the formula. This is a method that intends, on the one hand, to provide a structural foundation to the composition and, on the other hand, to overcome some limitations that can be found, for example, in serial composition or in moment form. Mantra is also an example of the application of live electronics with the use of the so-called ring modulation, controlled by the pianists themselves during the performance. Therefore, it is a very significant work within the context of Stockhausens output and, at the same time, also a work that has always been very successful with the audience. It is, therefore, a key work, both with reference to the composition with the formula technique, and as an example of the use of the technology live. In the present lecture, the author has used the term technique to define all her observations regarding the composition method, and the term technology to define them about the use of live electronics.
What Is the Formula

Before presenting some analytical starting points, specifically, relevant to Mantra, it is opportune to introduce the main concepts related to the composition method more in general. What Stockhausen called formula refers to a basic structure comprising the various elements of a composition: pitches, durations, dynamics, and the rests. The whole piece composed with the formula technique has to be planned starting from this structure and developed with the elements contained in it as if it were a DNA. In various articles and
* Acknowledgements: The author is grateful to the Stockhausen Foundation, to Suzanne Stephens and Kathinka Pasveer for the permission to reproduce all the examples contained in the article. Another thanks to Monica Cuneo for her help in the English translation. Simonetta Sargenti, professor of Analisys, Music History, and Electroacoustic Music History, Department of Theory, Composition and Music History, Conservatorio G. Rossini.
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theoretical writings presenting and analysing his compositions, Stockhausen (1992) described this method in which there are some rules as precise as in mathematics or in exact sciences, but there is also the freedom to create unexpected and unforeseen events, that is, the freedom to create:
You are probably familiar with the idea of formula in mathematics or chemistry. Since the composition Mantra in 1970 I use the idea of formula both in sense of a mathematical formula from which a world from relationships can be deduced, as well in the sense of a magic formula with which it is possible to evoke marvellous events. (p. 2)
It is, therefore, evident that with formula is meant an organized entity that can be, in part, considered an extension of other structural nuclei used in the 20th centurys musical composition, for example, of the series, yet it is conceived with more freedom. Also it takes into consideration the various sound parameters, besides pitches only. In composition with the use of the formula, there are no special restrictions and the only basic rules to be taken into account are those for its initial organization. The principles to compose an interesting formula are summarized by Stockhausen in the quoted writing, The art to listen, in which he started from the analysis of In Freundschaft, a piece of 1977 for clarinet. Based on the composers indications, we can identify the criteria to create a formula suitable to develop a musically varied and interesting work, see Table 1. Table 1 Indications to Compose a Good Formula
No. Rule 1 The formula is composed of groups of sounds and rests of different durations. 2 The number of groups of sounds and of rests needs to be balanced. The foundation of the groups can be a numerical progression. 3 Within each group there must be the same type of balance between sounds and rests as in the overall formula. The groups of sounds within the formula, has to be built with variety and using as many intervals as possible. 4 It should have a melodic profile and a cyclical course. There may be repetitions of the same sound. 5 In each formulas element, pitches have to vary in number. 6 Within each group there should be a relation between durations and repetitions should be avoided. 7 Short durations should preferably be placed at the beginning of a group. 8 Each group within the formula has to be dynamically differentiated. 9 Before and after the rests, dynamics should change. 10 For each pitch it is opportune to choose different durations.
By observing the original formula of In Freundshaft (see Example (1)), we can point out its characteristics and verify the general principles schematized in Table 2: (1) the formula is composed of several elements- here there are five- separated by rests; (2) Each element is characterized differently from the others; and (3) pitches, intervals, dynamics, and rhythms vary as much as possible. Example (1) Original formula of In Freundshaft
TECHNIQUE AND TECHNOLOGY IN THE COMPOSITION MANTRA Table 2 Summarizing Table of in Freundshafts Formula Characters
Element 1 2 3 4 5 Number of sounds 1 3 2 5 8 Sounds duration 1/4 2/16, 5/16, 1/16 1/16, 5/8 5/4 1/16, 5/8 Rests duration 4/8 7/8 2/8 11/8
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Characters and Development Procedures of the Formula in Mantra

The criteria to compose a formula is of a general character and, therefore, apply to Mantra too. Both formulae, In Freundschaft and Mantra are ideated in 1970, and present, among other things, some analogies. The piece In Freundschaft for clarinet was composed in 1977, and realised for several other instruments, whereas Mantras formula was developed straightaway in the homonymous work. Among the most evident analogies between the two formulae, there is the specular character of the upper and lower lines. Furthermore, in both formulae, we can notice the differentiation between the number and durations of sounds and of the rests between the various elements. In Example (2) and Table 3, we see the original formula of Mantra and the summarizing table of its distinctive characters. Example (2) Original formula of Mantra
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Table 3 Summarizing Table of Mantras Formula Characters

Element 1 2 3 4 Number of sounds 4 2 4 3 Sounds durations 10/4 6/4 15/4 12/4 Rests duration 6/4 2/4 1/4 4/4
In Mantra, we have four elements, separated by rests of different duration. Each element is composed of a different number of sounds, each one having its own characters. All together, the sounds are 13. The upper and lower line are specular: for example, the first element of the upper line is specular to the second of the lower line, the first element of the lower line is specular to the second of the upper line and so on. Stockhausen often marked all these characters with different colors. Once the basic structure is organized, the works develops through various techniques, principally, transposition and expansion, and also different ways of elaborating the individual sounds and their distinctive characters. It is important to derive all the development of the work from the formula:
The work arises entirely from 13-note formula, the mantra That is, in each of the 13 large cyclesin each of which a note of the mantra is itself the central note around which the expanded forms arisea different one of the 13 mantric characteristics predominates1.
A key aspect of the composition development is, therefore, the elaboration of the 13 sounds characters. Each of them, as we have seen, is central for each cycle of the composition itself. From here, the further expansion of the original formulas different groups begins. We can see the characters of the individual sounds of the formula in Table 4. Table 4 Character of Each Sound of the Mantras Formula
Sound number 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 Sound character Regular repetition Accent at the end of sound Normal sound Turn before the sound Tremolo Sforzato chord Accent at the beginning of the sound Chromatic link Staccato Irregular repetition Trill Sforzato Arpeggio
In each cycle of Mantra, therefore, the characters of the central reference sound are elaborated, the
Karlheinz Stockhausen, Mantra, presentation notes to the CD, Kuerten, Stockhausen Verlag, Kuerten, 1991. The score and CD 16 of Mantra can be ordered directly at www.stockhausen-verlag.com. copyright for excerpts from the score:c Archive Stockhausen Foundation for Music, Krten, Germany (www.stockhausen.org).
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elements of the formula expanded, repetitions and transpositions of individual elements or of significant intervals occurred, still without altering, the structure already established from the beginning the formula and the sounds that compose it. Stockhausen (1991) insisted very much that in Mantra there isnt any form of variation:
There is nothing else than repetitions of this mantra and superimpositions of the same in 12 forms of expansion and 12x13 transpositions. Indeed, in each of the 13 big cycles, each sound of the mantra is a central sound around which the expanded form arise- a different one of the 13 mantric characteristics predominates. MANTRA, therefore is not a variation form. Nothing of Mantra is varied, not a single note is added, nothing is accompanied, ornamented etc. The Mantraalways stays itself and appears twelvefold, with its 13 characteristics2.
The various expansion cycles forming Mantra present, besides the central reference sound and the formulas elements, also a reference to the chromatic scales shown in the draft of Example (3). These are musical elements acting as a starting point for the expansion of the formula intervals and for the definition of the original forms upon which the 13 cycles of Mantra develop. Example (3) Transposition scales
The function of the scales is described in detail by Hermann Conen in his book Formel-Komposition (2009):
The scales, whose draft Stockhausen prepares for the composition of Mantra, serve to create a system of progressive widening of the intervals composing the formula, upward or downward. Therefore, the original ascending intervals extend more and more upward, while the descending ones extend downward. The chromatic scales for Stockhausens Mantra are derived from the chromatic total of the 88 grand piano keys and from the formula fundamental sound, A, considered the central sound. The chromatic scales are equidistant and contain all the sound qualities of the tempered system and are repeated again after 12 sounds toward the next upper octave. For Mantra scales, of all the chromatic scale qualities, the equidistance is taken into consideration most often, the results should be not whole scales, but rather arpeggios of diminished or augmented chords. This way, the widening of the interval is not regular, but quite irregular. The intervals that get switched in each different scale are placed symmetrically in relation to the higher one. (pp. 57-70) Stockhausen. (1978). Texte zur Musik, 1970-1977 (German version, pp. 154-156). All the scores and the books quoted in this paper and all the works of Karlheinz Stockhausen are available at the Stockhausen Foundation of Music in Kuerten, Germany (www.stockhausen.org).
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So, at the basis of the composition Mantra, we have: (1) the original formula with its characteristics; (2) the 13 sounds of the formula, each becoming central in each new cycle of the composition; and (3) the chromatic transposition scales acting as the key element for the development of the individual expansions. In his writing, introduction to Mantra, all these points are highlighted: rhythm, direction of the intervals movement, characteristics of the individual sounds, bipartite structure of the formula, expansions and contractions, and elaborations of sound.
Hints for the Analysis of Mantra: The Original Formula and Theex Position
Mantra opens with the exposition of all the 13 sounds grouped in chords. The chords are placed, stated ,and confirmed by the performance gesture, the final one is longer and preludes to a tremolo on the note A which is both the first and central sound of the mantra and the key sound of the first cycle of the composition (see Example (4)). Example (4) Initial chords of Mantra
The sound A is emphasized by the tremolo, as well as by the pause that prolongs it and makes it resound announcing the initial exposition of the original formula assigned to piano 1, measures 3 to 10 (see Example (5)). This exposition has the function of proposing the basic structure of the work, so that the listeners perception begins exactly from this structure. From it, the individual sounds will be later extracted in order to be proposed again and expanded. Example (5) Initial chords and exposition of Mantra
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The formula, thus, condensed will appear once again at the end of the work, performed by piano 2, very fast and in a melodic version, therefore altering the original durations of the sounds, see Example (6): Example (6) Last measures of the composition, resuming the formula
Hints for the Analysis: The First Expansion of the Formula

At the end of the exposition, the first cycle starts, that is the first expansion that develops up to bar 60, as it appears from Table 5. Table 5 Diagram of the First Expansion
Formulas element Bars number Element 1 10-20 Element 2 21-30 Element 3 31-54 Element 4 55-60
The 13 cycles of Mantra are organized in several ways. Within each of them, the author has identified three different levels of elaboration that he has defined in the following way: Level 1, or macro-level, which uses the original formulas sounds with expanded values; Level 2, which emphasizes the character of the central sound of each individual expansion; and Level 3, which contains the different elements of the formula variously repeated and transposed. In expansion 1 (see Example (7)), the macro-level is obtained by expanding the sounds of the original formula grouped in the same way in the four elements. The expansion of the first element of the formula takes place from bar 10 to bar 20 of expansion 1 and expands the first four sounds of it. Level 2 is about the development of the dominant characters of each expansion central sound. In the case of the first expansion, the second level consists of the regular repetition of the central sound A, in the form of repeated notes and tremolo. The tremolo is a very important element used to prolong the sounds, and in the course of the whole work, it is used in several points and with different speeds. Level 3 comprises the forms of transposition or inversion of original formulas elements. Some examples in the first expansion are: the attack of the second piano that starts in the lower line with the first element of the formula transposed. In bar 15 again the second piano plays a contraction of the third element of the formula. In Example (7), the first part of expansion 1 is introduced, from bar 10 to bar 18. Marked in red are the original formulas sounds with their durations expanded (Level 1); marked in green is Level 2, distinctive character of the central sound of the expansion, in this case: regular repetition; marked in blue is Level 3, repeated and transposed elements of the original formula.
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TECHNIQUE AND TECHNOLOGY IN THE COMPOSITION MANTRA Example (7) Expansion 1: bars 10 to 20 with the three levels of elaboration
Within the main elaborations of the three levels identified, that is expansion of the formulas sounds, emphasizing of the central sound characters, repetitions of the elements of the formula, we also have some important transformations of the individual sounds or groups of sounds that condense in four fundamental typologies: rhythmic, melodic, timbric, and dynamic different elaborations of sounds. These kinds of elaborations are used, not only in Mantra, but also from now on in all Stockhausens works composed with the technique of formula. Table 6 is a summary of these transformations. Table 6 Types of Transformation of the Formula
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Dynamic typologies Timbric typologies Timbric variation on a Sound held Sound held continuous sound Change of colour at the Glissando upward and downward Periodical attack + sound held Initial accent beginning of the sound Indirect attack, the main sound is started Accent at the end of Change of colour at the Sound held + periodical attack the note end of the sound with a mordent or turn Periodical attacks in the middle of Accent in the Change of colour in the Acciaccatura a sound held middle middle of the sound Continuous changes of Alternation of legatos (slurred) Periodical colour with crescendos and Portamento from above or from below and staccatos (detached) on a held oscillation decrescendos note Regular changes of timbre Broken sound Dotted rhythms on the same note Ritardando at periodic intervals Ritardando and accelerando on Tremolo Accelerando Light and dark the same duration Chromatic transformation or in arpeggio Oscillations with Aperiodic parlato (spoken) Irregular changes of the head or of the tail of a sound slurred note Trill Nervous curves Nervous changes Melodic typologies Continuous sound without transformation Rhythmic typologies
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Some Final Observations About the Technique

From the analytical hints offered here, that does not allow the author to examine the whole work in detail, it is already possible, however, to draw some conclusions about the formula technique that, after Mantra, will be used by the composer in many works of small and large size: (1) The formula is a structure with characters defined in function of the subsequent development of the piece; (2) there are rules for its composition, therefore, we can talk of method; (3) the various techniques of elaboration, with reference to pitches, are essentially related to transposition and to expansion; (4) further transformations are obtained through melodic, rhythmic, dynamical, and timbric variations; and (5) even though, there are basic rules both for the composition of the formula and for its subsequent elaboration, however, its not a mechanical course, instead, we can find a certain freedom in the application of the basic principles of this method. The attempt to give shape to a method derives from the need to provide an organization to the composition elements, a form of control that, nevertheless, also wants to be flexible and allows to range beyond the excessive restrictions imposed by other techniques.
The Technology: The Function of Technology in Mantra

As defined above, with the term technology, the author has indicated the use of live electronics controlled by the pianists during the performance. The instrumentation of Mantra indicated in the score includes two pianos, each coupled with 12 ancient cymbals, a wood-block, a sine-wave generator, called ring modulator for its function and a loudspeaker. The plan for the disposition of the instruments is at the beginning of the score and corresponds to Example (8): Example (8) Live schema of Mantra
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TECHNIQUE AND TECHNOLOGY IN THE COMPOSITION MANTRA The application of live electronics in this composition has a twofold function: (1) timbrical,
obtained by multiplying the piano frequencies by the waves of different frequence produced by the modulator; and (2) structural, since each cycle-expansion of Mantra is defined also by the change of the base frequency generated by the modulator and the frequencies generated correspond to the central sounds of the various expansions, the constituent sounds of the formula-mantra. The timbrical function of the ring modulation is accomplished by a device especially designed by Stockhausen and built for the occasion, described by the composer himself:
The so called ring modulation, which I have employed as a technical process, makes possible a new system of harmonic relationships. To this end, each of the pianists has an apparatus at his left into which a microphone amplifier, a compressor, a filter, a ring modulator a scaled sine-wave generator, and a volume control has been built. The piano sounds are amplified by 2 microphones and ring-modulated by sine-waves. Behind each piano stand loudspeakers which project the modulated sound simultaneously with the played sound. (Stockhausen, 2003, p. 7)
Therefore, the ring modulation has the timbrical function of creating new harmonies, obtained by multiplying the frequencies of the piano by those of the sine-wave generator. According to the composer, the result should be a series of new harmonic relationships and which could not be obtained without the use of technology. In 1970, when Mantra was composed, it was necessary to build a special device to accomplish the ring modulation wanted by Stockhausen. In the notes to the score, we can read: A special modulator, MODUL 69 B was built for Mantra. This piece equipment has 3 microphones inputs with regulable microphone amplifiers, compressor, filters, sine-wave generator and a particularly refined ring modulator. If at the time Mantra was composed, technology was based on analogic devices often especially built for the occasion, now technological evolution has brought about a deep transformation that, however, in many cases, has not altered the deep nature of some works; it simply takes the place of the previous one realizing the same instruments in a different way. The ring modulator for example, like, on the other hand, most electroacoustic devices of the past, are currently realized with digital technology and, therefore, consist basically of algorithms simulating those devices. Different performances of work Mantra are by now realised with various examples of digital implementations. At the Studio MM&T in Milan, for example, in 1994 the ring modulator was realized through the software of the MARS (Musical Audio Research Station) workstation, a digital device prepared by the engineer Giuseppe Di Giugno to realize algorithms for live performance and synthetic algorithms for the creation of virtual instruments. In the figure of Example (9), it is possible to see the algorithm of the virtual modulator realized through this experimental workstation. The author described this performance experience in an article where she showed the capability of recreating historic electro-acoustic compositions with new technological supports (Sargenti, 1995).
TECHNIQUE AND TECHNOLOGY IN THE COMPOSITION MANTRA Example (9) Algorithm of the ring modulator realized through MARS
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Technological evolution has progressed further and currently enables us to realize algorithms for the performance of works, such as Mantra in even simpler and improved ways, like, for example, the algorithms realized through the MAX/MSP software (see Example (10)).
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TE ECHNIQUE AND A TECHN NOLOGY IN N THE COMP POSITION M MANTRA Exam mple (10) Algo orithm realize ed through th he MAX/MSP P software by y Studio MM& &T, for the performance p
of Mantra at Festival MITO, M Milan on o 20 Septem mber 2011.
There efore, the tec chnology use ed for the per rformance of f Mantra has s evolved fur rther. In its essence, e the basic idea proposed by y Stockhause en does not suffer s ageing g. He was a pioneer p in el lectro-acoust tic research applied to composition n and the fundamental pri inciples of hi is creations are a often still l topical. An interesting t still today is an elemen nt of topicality of some works of the 1970s is e exactly the fa act that the aspect that musical id dea is not hi indered by the t change of o the instrum ments necessary to reali ize it and with w present technologi ies; if the per rformance pr rocedures are e simplified, the thought below the w work remains unchanged anyway. There efore, electron nics in Mantr ra definitely has a domin nant timbrical l function. Th he structural function of technology y in this work k is not secon ndary. Each expansion e cycle is based, as we alread dy noticed, on n one of the 13 pitches of the formul la which beco omes the cent tral pitch of the t whole exp pansion. Each h of the expan nsions has a relation wi ith a change in the freque ency produce ed by the sin ne-wave gene erator, therefo ore, the ring modulation changes in n each cycle of o the whole work. From Table 7 and Example (11 1), we can se ee where in th he score we have the change c of fre equencies pro oduced by si ine-wave gen nerator (Table 7) and the e value to be e set on the modulator in relation to t the points s in the scor re where the e changes occur. In Exam mple (11), we w have the
TECHNIQUE AND TECHNOLOGY IN THE COMPOSITION MANTRA representation in musical notation of the same frequencies. Table 7 Changes of Frequencies in Hertz Values and in Musical Pitches
FREQ Piano1, bar number Piano 1, value frequencies 220 233 415 330 349 294 923 311 277 262 233 185 220 220 of Piano2, bar number
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Piano 2, value of frequencies in hertz 220 196 117 147 139 165 124 156 175 185 208 169 262 220
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13
0 64 92 110 188 202 284 438 448 527 577 608 639 687
0 64 65 97 151 176 186 448 492 536 580 610 654 687
Example (11)
The 13 frequencies are indicated in the score both in the first and in the second piano and correspond in music notation to the 13 sounds of the Mantra. Since to each expansion episode corresponds a different intonation of the modulator, the function of technology is also that of defining, through a change of harmonic relations, the episodes of the piece, therefore, it is a structural function.
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TECHNIQUE AND TECHNOLOGY IN THE COMPOSITION MANTRA At the same time, though, such changes of frequency not always occur mechanically and
simultaneously. Going back to the definition of formula that Stockhausen himself provided, the author mention again the, so to speak, scientific character that defines precise rules, but also the magical one that enables to create unexpected events through rules. With this regard, the structural function of the modulator frequencies in Mantra, needs to be further analyzed. Indeed, if we pay attention to the change points of the frequencies generated by the electronics in relation to the episodes of the two pianos we can see: (1) The frequencies not always get changed simultaneously in pianos 1 and 2; and (2) there are digressions between one piano and the other one and, therefore, a variety is created, since the frequency changes and the correspondence of the expansion episodes between the two performers is not schematic. Therefore, the application of structural changes is varied and does not reflect a pattern in a totally rigid way. From Example (12), it is possible to understand what said: In the graphic, the course of frequency changes of piano 1 are marked in blue (values on the left side, Series 1) and those of piano 2 are marked in red (values on the right side, Series 2). On the horizontal axis are marked the 13 section of the composition (the sequence of the 13 repetitions and expansions). On the vertical axis is marked the development in the time of different values of the frequencies from the beginning to the end of the composition. As it can be seen, the frequencies at the beginning of the piece are the same for the two performers but the changes are more and more diversified during the central development of the work, to rejoin at the end. Example (12) Graphic of the modulator frequency changes in the two pianos during the 13 parts of the composition.
800 700 600 500 400 300 200 100 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14
Series l 1 Series 2 2
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Conclusions
So, with Mantra, Stockhausen started a new compositional journey, applying criteria that assured an internal logic yet without getting to a complete limitation of creative freedom. After the experiences with the twelve-tone series and the compositions realized using the so called Momentform, Stockhausen with the Formula created a new composition method. From this time on, the formula technique will be used by him in many important works including the cycle Licht, based exactly on a macro-formula from which all the works of the whole cycle are generated. As to technology applied to this composition, it definitely has a very important timbrical function which forms a fundamental part of it and, in the composers intentions, wants to be the proposal of new harmonic relations. However, as it often happens in Stockhausens works, it also takes the structural role of formal definition of the work. Perhaps Mantra can be defined one of Stockhausens most successful compositions. Indeed, it stands the test of time, thanks both to this application of the compositional techniques and to the real possibility of updating the technologies used for its performance. The impression one can draw by listening to it is that of a work rich in interesting ideas and timbrically varied. In particular, the several subsequent repetitions and organizations of the 13 cycles reveal, when being listened, the variety and the creative freedom within a consistent pattern. Maybe for these reasons Mantra remains, among Stockhausens works, one of the most appreciated by the audience and loved, even with its difficulty, by performers too. The author would like to conclude this lecture with the words of pianist Antonio Ballista from an interview of 2010 who, in duo with Bruno Canino, had many opportunities to perform Mantra: The composition Mantra is one of Stockhausens best creations, for its aesthetic consistency, for the interest and variety of pianistic technique, for the balance between the use of technology and art, undoubtedly, a masterpiece (personal communication, June 10, 2011).
References
Conen, H. (2009). Formel-Komposition, zu Karlheinz Stockhausens Musik der 1970er Jahre (The formula technique in the Music of Karlheinz Stockhausen in the 1970 years). Kuerten: Stockhausen Verlag. Sargenti, S. (1995). Software per la definizione di strumenti nella musica elettronica: analisi e realizzazione di Mikrophonie I e Solo di Karlheinz Stockhausen (Software to define instruments in the electroacoustic music: analisys and realization of Mikrophonie I and Solo of Karlheinz Stockhausen), in Proceedings of the XI CIM, Colloquio di Informatica Musicale. Bologna. Stockhausen, K. (1975). Mantras score. Kuerten: Stockhausen Verlag. Stockhausen, K. (1978). Texte zur Musik, 1970-1977 (Texts for music, 1970-1977). Koln: Du Mont. Stockhausen, K. (1991). Mantra [CD]. Kuerten: Stockhausen Verlag. Stockhausen, K. (1992). The art to listen. Kuerten: Stockhausen-Verlag. Stockhausen, K. (2003). Introduction to Mantra. Kuerten: Stockhausen Verlag.
DA VID
PUBLISHING
Hyper-real Narratives: The Emergence of Contemporary Film Subgenres

Stefan Octavian Popescu
Sydney University, Sydney, Australia
The scope of this paper is to investigate a number of emerging contemporary popular subgenres, namely that of mumblecore film, the best-worst film and the gonzo documentary. Unlike historical cinematic movements, these subgenres are the result of our techocentric culture and commercialism. In this respect these subgenres are less motivated by a collective ideology, but rather a cultural phenomenon resulting from increased access to popular culture, hypermedia devices, social media, and new marketing techniques. This paper investigates the displacement of traditional models of temporality through the metamorphosis of todays audiovisual culture, outlining the subjects embodiment of voyeurism and exhibitionism, ushering in a hyper-real era of self-myth making and consumption. Keywords: hyper-real, mumblecore, best-worst film, gonzo documentary, transmedia storytelling, voyeurism, exhibitionism, popular culture
Introduction
With the advent of digital technologies and the constant shifting of moving image production, this paper explores the emergence of new feature film subgenres that dont fit into traditional cinematic models of discourse. The scope of this paper is to investigate a number of emerging contemporary popular subgenres, namely that of mumblecore, the best-worst film, and the gonzo documentary. The author poses that the emergence of subgenres as cultural phenomena are a direct result from increased access to popular culture, hypermedia devices, social media, and new marketing techniques. For this very reason, the author uses mumblecore film as the beginning point of this discussion as it is advent relies on a digital social culture and he moves through to the gonzo documentary to exemplify the embodiment of postmodern ideals, resulting from a techno-commercial culture. The difficulty in discussing these forms lies in the inherent ephemerality and rapid metamorphosis of todays audiovisual culture, which highlights a key issue surrounding contemporary cinemathe displacement of traditional models of temporality. As Paul Virilio (2010) pointed out, that as technology increases in a society, so does speed (as cited in Featherstone, 2010). This stands true for film production methods, the films narrative and the spectator. Contemporary stories are told inter-textually, play with time in ways never possible before and even traverse various mediums. The displacement of temporality even extends to the spectator experience of nostalgia, cult, and even their experience of reality. These subgenres also disrupt traditional models of authorship, performance, and spectatorship. They
Stefan Octavian Popescu, Ph.D., Sydney College of the Arts, Sydney University.
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challenge traditional cinematic concepts by finding common ground in todays viral and hyper-textual culture and exemplify the embodiment of Baudrillards concept of the hyper-real. The lines between storytelling, mythmaking, and the idea of reality are becoming one, through the advent of digital media, moving ever closer to describing a hyper-real cinema.
Mumblecore
The author wants to firstly discuss the mumblecore film, which has its roots roughly around 2002-2004 with the appearance of films like Andrew Bujalskis Funny Ha Ha (2002) and Mutual Appreciation (2005) at the South By SXSW (Southwest Festival in Texas). Bujalski is now proclaimed as the grandfather of the mumblecore movement. His unique style was characterized by a rough, raw, and minimalist aesthetic with evident low-budget localised DIY (Do It Yourself) production values. He would use real locations, available lighting, simple camera set-ups, and friends as actors, hand-held cinematography and minimal takes. These production methods along with a loose script and room for actor improvisation led to an awkwardness of the characters, which stylistically heightens the sense of naturalism and invoked a re-inventing of neorealist sensibilities. Scott (2009) identified that this subgenre is a celebration and exploration of the everyday and the banal, even deeming it as neo-neo realism. It is worthy to note that the myth of the etymology of the term mumblecore is attributed to the SXSW sound mixer Eric Masunga, when jokingly trying to describe this particular style of film (Lim, 2007). With the explosion of digital media devices, this new form of auteurship swept the film scene with filmmakers like Joe Swanberg (LOL, 2006), Aaron Katz (Dance Party, USA, 2006), Lyn Shelton (Humpday, 2009), and Duplass Brothers (The Puffy Chair, 2005), capitalising on the cheap and accessible methods of film production (see Figure 1).
Figure 1. Baghead. Source: Adapted from J. Duplass and M. Duplass (2008).
When being looked at closely, mumblecore has evident stylistic influence from the improvisational directorial techniques influences of John Cassavetes and Mike Leigh. Also, the production methods also mirror those of the Danish cinema movement of Dogme 95 (Lars von Trier and Thomas Vinterberg) and even the
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French New Wave. The scripts and characters of later mumblecore films such as Humpday (2009), share an affinity with the 1990s style of Richard Linklaters Slacker (1991) and Kevin Smiths Clerks (1994), an influence which can be traced back to Andy Warhols Chelsea Girls (1966). During the peak of mumblecores popularity, the author simultaneous witnessed these same stylistic and aesthetic tendencies in his students. Though, outside the scope of the set curriculum, they would have an interest in filmmakers who used quick and low-budget production methods. It was evident they were seduced by the perceived freedom of these works. They were drawn to the improvisational and cheap production values, the hand held camerawork, and general fashionable street credit that came along with digital media. Having been born into a digital world, it made sense, as expectations, attention spans and creative concerns were a response to the immediacy of technology. They did not want to spend two years on a script, two years on trying to get funding, then be bound by the parameters of the established industry to produce their filmthey simply wanted to make their film now. The affordability and immediacy of the digital medium has quickly established a strong filmmaking DIY culture as an alternative to established industry practice and infrastructures, lowering the demand for industry and regulation, ushering in a new era of exploitation/guerilla filmmaking practice. In this respect, the mumblecore movement is part of a large cultural trend of DIY and lo-fi culture, aided not only by the digital revolution, but also by the economics of recession (the lead up to Global Financial Crisis). The movement can be seen as an implicit outcome of economics and commentary on capitalism and the Western culture of waste, Maria (2011) aptly dubbing mumblecore, a cinema of recession (p. 1). Combining the cultural trend of green ideology and the ability to make a film with your friends for $1,000 on a laptop and a digital camerathe advent of mumblecore is no mystery. Of course, the availability of affordable, user-friendly equipment is never itself wholly a determinant; mumblecore was spawned of necessity and inspiration. It was a convergence of new technology and disaffected filmmakers and artists, feeling that Hollywood was not representing their lives. While there are some harsh critiques of the subgenre as being white, middle-class and nothing more than film festival hype stemming from Matt Dentler and blogosphere branding, the criticism does foreground the role of digital media (Taubin, 2007). It was born out of a disaffected digital generation, who found representation in mumblecore and easily won techno-savvy hipster credibility. A large part of these films popularity came from accessing alternative forms of micro/self-distribution through festivals, user generated online videos and marketing through social media and online networks. This articulates a certain contemporary sensibility (social networks and the voyeurism/exhibitionism of YouTube) and even directors/producers acting in the film. As Swanberg (2007) comments, We grew up in the age of the home video. Were used to having our lives documented at every stage. Reality TV shows are an extension of that, and this is the next stage (as cited in Hubert, 2007). Mumblecore reflects the implicit exhibitionism that lies at the heart of contemporary culture. Maria (2011) pointed out about that mumblecore bespeaks a true 21st-century sensibility, reflective of MySpace-like social networks and the voyeurism and intimacy of YouTube (p. 1). This was a period of time when web cameras, cell phones, and social media were just beginning to proliferating through Western culture and played a massive role not only in shaping the content of these films, but also in defining an audience for them.
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Best-Worst Film F
Anoth her subgenre born out of f this techno ocentric, soci ial media dr riven culture is what som me call the so-bad-its-good film m or best-wor rst film (lifte ed from Mich hael Stephens sons docume entary Best Worst W Movie, 2009). Thi is subgenre is usually ca antered on an a auteur wh ho is charact terised by a passionate and a earnest, idiot-savan nt filmmaking g ability. The e characterist tics of these films f diametr rically oppose that of the Hollywood Blockbuste er, by celebr rating really y bad acting and effects s, elliptical dialogue, d ch haracters with h unknown motivation ns and juvenil le emotions and a reactions s to situations s, plot lines that t are nonse ensical, bad editing, e and bad sound. This type of f bad filmm making was traditionally in nstituted by th he likes of Ed d Wood (Glen n or Glenda, 1953; Plan n 9 From out t of Space, 19 959), Stephen n C. Apostolof (Orgy of the t Dead, 19 965), Phil Tuc cker (Robot Monster, 1953), and Ni icholas Webs ster (Santa Cl laus Conquer rs the Martians, 1964). Ho owever, beco oming a cult director an nd fetishising these films as a cult cinem ma only happe ens over deca ades of time, but with a Virilio-esque V compressio on of time an nd space (Har rvey, 1989) (v via the digita al revolution) ) cult-fetishisation now oc ccurs in less than a decade. This new w breed on best-worst contemporar ry cult direct tor is best art ticulated by the likes of Claudio Fr ragasso (Troll 2, 1990), Tommy Wiseau (The Room R , 2003) (see Figure 2), and Jam mes Nguyen ( Birdemic: Shock and Terror T , 2010) ).
Figure e 2. The room. Source: S Adapted d from Wiseau (2003).
Thoug gh the best-w worst films ar re a continua ation of bad taste legacies in cinema, they are qui ite different from films such as Meg ga Shark Vs. Giant Octopus (2009), Killer K Klowns From Outer Space (1988), and Rock n Roll Nightmare N (19 987), which are a somewha at self-reflexi ive and reference already y established cult, camp, kitsch, and d bad-taste aesthetics. So apart a from the e compressed d temporality of the genre, what else di ifferentiates this new er ra of best-w worst films is s the appearan nce of being unintention nally bad and d the director r setting out to have tr ried to mak ke a genuine ely good film m but failed d. Additiona ally, the ano onymity and lack of a pre-establis shed celebrit ty status of th he director, combined c wi ith a lack of f industry exp perience is al lso a major factor in th he identification of this sub bgenre.
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The subgenres success is essentially a celebration of cinematic failure and the humour in the film is often pathos-driven. Audiences ritualistically watch these films purely to laugh at the film and to mock the filmmaker. In this scenario, and especially in the case of The Room (2003) and Tommy Wiseau, the traditional archetypes of author/performer/spectator, totally collapse. Both Bazins auteurship and Barthes Death of the Author apply simultaneously: Wiseau is mock-praised for his personal vision, yet its the interactivity of the audience that completes the text. The audiences have rewritten the text in the experience of watching; the text is not structured to be comedy, it is actually filmic incompetence at its finest and its only comedic when the audience communally deems it so. An example can been found in The Room, where audiences throw spoons at the screen whenever the framed pictures appear (that have the pre-fabricated pictures of spoons the set-designer forgot to replace in them). The best-worst subgenre is one of the last true cinematic contemporary subgenres, mainly because it reinforces what cinema is really aboutas Singer (1990) suggested that it is an active, physical, and communal experience (p. 52). This is the type of film you want to watch in a crowd and not just once, as the more you watch it, the funnier it will get. Watching it alone or even in a small group does not do it justice. This film really proves the idiom that laughter is contagious. The spectator/screen relationship has never been so active and affect based, so much so, that it breaks beyond the one screen. The spectator/screen relationship actually moves into a multiplicity of platforms and into various inter-textual forms, which digital media and user generated online video content has a major role in perpetuating. This also reveals the dark side of this genre as potentially violent and misanthropic, identifying mockery and cruel humour as driving factors in the popularity of these films. But the joke seems to be on anyone but Tommy Wiseau, because his film has been filling cinemas around the world for the past 10 years, not to mention the success of DVD (Digital Versatile Disc) and online sales. Claudio Fragasso, Tommy Wiseau, and James Nguyen actually turn a profit from their films and if you are an independent filmmaker, you will know it is near impossible in the current market. Some savvy contemporary comedians/filmmakers have even tried to channel this idiocy and emulate these bad styles, but it usually contains an element of parody and self-reflexivity. However, what has been happening recently is closer to a pastiche referencing of elements found in the best-worst film genre, take for example Tim and Erics Awesome Show (2007), where directors Tim Heidecker and Eric Warheim have recognized the comedic and commercial potential of actually using real bad actors, singers, performers, and comedians on their show. For example, David Liebe Hart was scouted for Tim and Erics comedic entourage from The Junior Christian Science Bible Lesson Program (1994-2008), a public-access television cable program on which he would perform bizarre singing puppet shows. The advent of such a rapid development of cult status and organic viral marketing potential owes much of its success to user generated online video content and social media, where anonymity give room for mythology and speculation to become actuality. For example, there is such a mythology around The Room and Tommy Wiseau as a person, that it has spawned many online viral narrative offshoots, effectively, creating an organic trans-media story placing Wiseau as a the central character in the inter-textual mythology of The Room. This trans-media storytelling technique of telling a single story or story experience across multiple platforms and formats using current digital technologies (Kinder, 1991, p. 38) is truly symbolic of our cultures embodiment of post-modern sensibilities and is currently being recognised as one of the most effective methods of generating sales.
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The Gonzo Documentary

The other subgenre, which pushes inter-textual trans-media storytelling to another level, where the inability to distinguish the text as fiction or reality, is what we called the gonzo-documentary. This subgenre is particularly effective in perpetuating a bifurcation of online video and other social media forms, as the storytelling happens among the audience rather than from the author; its the rumors, myths, and little bits of other narratives rhizomatically spread over a compressed time and space that we put together and form our own narratives from. Despite the widespread common usage of the term gonzo, as Martin Hirst (2004) expressed in his attempt to find the etymology of the term, there is no clear and definitive explanation of its linguistic origins, apart from Hunter S. Thompsons particular brand of journalism (as cited in Hirst, 2004). Though you can find the established genre of gonzo pornography, where you have pornography that is filmed from a voyeuristic subjective point of view, which can be seen as having a cross over in terms of camerawork, but does not really much else to do with what the author is defining here.
Figure 3. Exit through the gift shop. Source: Adapted from Banksy (2010).
The gonzo documentary that the author is discussing is characterised by the filmmakers themselves rewriting reality: where the filmmakers add fictionalised elements into a documentation of reality, usually re-contextualising their own status as a celebrity. The filmmakers are the actors and act as themselves, but little or no other people know that they are acting. Examples of what the author is delineating here can be seen in the films: Im Still Here (Affleck & Phoenix, 2010), Exit Through the Gift Shop (Banksy, 2010) (see Figure 3), Francophrenia (Olds & Franco, 2012). A key characteristic of this subgenre is the hijacking/redirection or even just exhibition of ones own persona (or status as celebrity) on video and the inability for the audience and participants to distinguish what is real and fiction. In a Baudrillardian gesture, the writer is also the performer and manufacturer of hyper-real reception of the text.
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The cultural significance of this subgenre is that it reveals the inadequacy between the way we consume media the pretence that any of it could be truth. These films are not merely mockumentaries or faux documentaries, but one could argue is the closest thing to a real documentary. What it documents is the way we consume and construct our realities based on marketing and commercialism, taking the marketing idiom of perception is reality to a whole new level. These filmmakers are simply taking something that never was real to begin with (their own status as celebrity) and fictionalised it. To paraphrase Baudrillard, the role of the simulation is not to hide reality or truth, but rather it is the notion of truth or reality that hides the fact that there never was one. The simulacrum is true (Poster & Baudrillard, 1988). The irony here is that Baudrillards quote itself though attributed to Ecclesiastes, is in fact fabricated and does not exist in the text. The subgenre as gonzo documentary is the direct result of the immediacy of digital media and the ability to constantly re-image/re-imagine our subjective selves as a general process of social and cultural interaction. We live in a constant state of reality augmentation. We make ourselves, and others, spectacles, and/or objects of voyeurism and surveillance with the aid of cameras and social media infrastructures. This significant cultural phenomenon, of being able to mediate our own self-image, signifies a new era or reality-mediation allowing us to rewrite our own narratives, cultural mythologies and become the characters in our own representation of reality to an endless audience. Bringing it back full circle to the mumblecore and best-worst film: This is the 21st-century sensibility and these subgenres are outcome of a proliferation of digital technologies and user-generated online networks, promoting an era of gonzo exhibitionism/hyper-real narratives. Maybe gonzo reality is a more apt manner to describe this new era of image self-reproduction and cultural myth making and narrative control, where the boundary between fiction and reality is nonexistent, where we can control the way in which we represent our own image. Reality is no longer something we engage with, it is now something we are able create, re-create, image, and re-imagine.
Conclusions
In discussing the emergence of some contemporary popular subgenres, namely that of mumble-core film, the best-worst film and the gonzo documentary, the author highlights the role of technology in the spectators displacement of traditional models of temporality, embodiement of voyeurism and exhibitionism, and experience of nostalgia and cult. Furthermore, these subgenres also disrupt traditional models of authorship, performance, and spectatorship. They challenge traditional cinematic concepts by finding common ground in todays viral and hypertextual culture and exemplify the embodiment of Baudrillards concept of the hyper-real. The lines between storytelling, mythmaking, and the idea of reality are becoming one, through the advent of digital media, moving ever closer to describing a hyper-real cinema.
References
Banksy. (Director) (2003). Exit through the gift shop [Motion picture]. United Kingdom: Paranoid Pictures. Duplass, J., & Duplass, M. (Producer & Director) (2008). Baghead [Motion picture]. USA: Sony Pictures Classic. Featherstone, M. (2010). Virilios apocalypticism. Ctheory Journal, Arthur, & M. Kroker (Eds.). Retrieved from http://www.ctheory.net/articles.aspx?id=662#_edn2 Harvey, D. (1989). The condition of postmodernity. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.
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Hirst, M. (2004). What is Gonzo? The Etymology of an Urban Legend. Retrieved from http://espace.library.uq.edu.au/eserv/UQ:10764/mhirst_gonzo.pdf Hubert, A. (2007, May 19). Speak Up! The Guardian, pp. 1. Retrieved from http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2007/may/19/culture.features Kinder, M. (1991). Playing with power in movies, television, and video games: From muppet babies to teenage mutant ninja turtles. Berkeley/Los Angeles, California: University of California Press. Lim, D. (2007, August 19). A generation finds its mumble. New York Times, pp. 1. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/19/movies/19lim.html?pagewanted=all Maria, S.F. (2011). A cinema of recession: Micro-Budgeting, micro-drama, and the Mumblecore Movement. Cineaction, (85). Retrieved from http://cineaction.ca/issue85sample.htm#sdendnote1sym Poster, M., & Baudrillard, J. (1988). Selected writings. Cambridge, UK: Polity. Scott, A. O. (2009, March 17). Neo-Neo realism. The New York Times, p. 1. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/22/magazine/22neorealism-t.html?scp=1&sq=a.o.%20scott%20neo-neo%20relaism&st=cs e Singer, L. (1990). Eye/mind/screen: Toward a phenomenology of cinematic scopophilia. Quarterly Review of Film and Video, 12(3), 51-67. Smith, R. G. (2005). Lights, camera, action: Baudrillard and the performance of representations. International Journal of Baudrillard Studies, 2(1). Taubin, A. (2007). Mumblecore all talk?, Film Comment, The Lincoln Film Society, 2012. Retrieved from http://www.filmcomment.com/article/all-talk-mumblecore Wiseau, T. (Producer & Director) (2003). The room [Motion picture]. USA: Wiseau Films.
D
Umo Uju Clara
DA VID
PUBLISHING
Igbo Language and Identity
University of Nigeria, Nsukka, Nigeria
This paper sought to identify the position of Igbo language in relation to its identity both in Nigeria and world wide. Specifically, it expounded the problems hindering the study of Igbo language. A study of Igbo language and identity is pertinent because language and culture are attached to mans identity and human interaction. Unfortunately, most of the Igbos do not want to be identified with this language called Igbo. The paper reviewed available literature on Igbo language and highlighted some strategies for increasing the interest of people in learning Igbo language. It was discovered from the study that pedagogical problems, tone problems, orthography, and diacritic problems, are some of the issues that inhibit the repositioning of Igbo language as Igbo mans identity. In view of this, it was recommended among others that Igbo linguist should try and document all the slight phonological and word differences existing in the dialects and absorb them in central Igbo. Keywords: identity, culture, language, dialectics, pedagogy, mother tongue, orthography, policy
Introduction
Language is a unifying factor, hence, it brings about national unity. More than mere communication, language is a powerful means of verbal transmission of ideas from the speaker to the receiver/public. It is an organized system, which means that its constituent elements are well-organised and well-integrated (Ohaegbu, 2010). He further noted that in our attempt to define language we refer to it as heritage. It is indeed a priceless and most enduring common heritage which members of any linguistic community derive from their common ancestors as indelible mark of their identity. Education is the power house to the development of any language; hence, any society that toys with the education of its citizenry will obviously experience snail speed development wise. One of the national educational goals, is that education shall continue to be highly rated in the national development plan, because education is the most important instrument of change. By implication, any fundamental change in the intellectual and social outlook of any society has to be preceded by an educational revolution, which in turn stabilizes the language of such society. Any language is of great importance to mans life. Its significance can be looked at through its varied uses. Language is seen as a vehicle of communication, socialization, economic value, polishing tool, preservation of culture, building tool, vehicle for learning, excavating tool, personality development etc.. The standard of education in general and Igbo language in particular in our various schools in Nigeria has become a common issue of discussion among the public. This trend has invariably affected the Igbo mans identity. Igbo language is the language of the Igbos, therefore, it is the Igbo mans identity. It is believed that
Umo Uju Clara, professor, Department of Arts Education, University of Nigeria.
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speakers who embrace the identity of a particular community will engage in positive identity practices, while those who reject the identity will use negative identity practices to distant themselves from it (Bucholtz, 1999). Furthermore, Spolsky (1999) noted that conflict arises when the hearer has a different understanding of the speakers identity than the one that the speaker desires. This paper, therefore, exposed those variables which make it difficult for Igbo man to identify him/herself with the language and try to re-position the language to wear a new look as Igbo mans identity because of Nkiruka. These factors are discussed below: (1) poor method of teaching Igbo as a subject; (2) dialectical problems; (3) attitude problems; (4) nature of Igbo language; (5) inadequate instructional material; (6) tone problem; (7) orthography controversy; (8) governmental policy etc.; (9) popularity of English over Nigerian languages; (10) teachers preparedness; (11) practical example of Nkiruka; and (12) full explanation of these highlights forms the study pattern of this presentation.
Pedagogical Problems
Pedagogy has to do with teaching. Teaching needs various methods to enable it achieve its objectives. Teaching methods vary as teachers vary. It depends on the orientation of the individual teacher and perhaps the location of the school (Okobiah, 1990). The method of teaching any subject directly affects the level of motivation of the students. Baldeh (1990) pointed out that every language teacher consciously or unconsciously employs a method peculiar either to enhance his teaching in order to impact on himself or to the society in which he finds himself. Some people believe that the method employed is the cause or failure in language learning. The present author observes that it is not in doubt that some teachers still teach Igbo language in English language inspite of the fact that they have been advised to use standard Igbo. This is why Ubahakwe (1977a) and Umo (2001) indicated that Igbo language teachers engage in an intricate psycholinguistics see-saw in preparing their lessons. An idea is conceived in Igbo, it is then coded in English in the class. The bewildered children begin from the opposite end of the see-saw. They learn a concept in English, decode it in Igbo and code it back into English in their role. Further contended that the psycho-linguistic see-saw is further worsened by the examination bodies. The WAEC (West Africa Examinations Council) in its question in Igbo coded the instructions in English for the Candidates to decode them into Igbo before answering the question. This typical situation was exemplified in November 1985, GCE (General Certificate Examination), Igbo, part III question 3, which stated: write two Igbo sentences to illustrate the use of ka: (1) As an auxiliary verb; (2) As a verb; (3) To show time; and (4) As a subordinate construction. These anomalies often forced the Igbo teachers to teach in English instead of in Igbo in Igbo lessons which also creates problems for Igbo students. Furthermore, Igbo language teachers appeared to neglect the use of different method in teaching the language. The method adopted is monotonous and dull. It is uncommon to see some students sleeping in the class, while the lesson is going on. Ubahakwe (1977b) observed that:
Young learners of 70s and much older learners before them chorus in loud unism the A B G B D E as the teachers (and later the pupils) in turn call out he letter displayed on the wall chart. The cacophony is reminiscent of the toad song in rainy season by the water side until the names of the letters are recited with ease. (p. 7)
Definitely, this type of method will automatically make an Igbo language student to loose hope and identity. Varied example is a useful tool a language teacher should adopts to make his teaching relevant and more
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meaningful. Umo (2001) developed a game package for teaching vowel harmony and word formation in Igbo which is a novelty that could bring back lost identity. A summary of this empirical study is presented as the way forward at the last lap of this study. No wonder Ohaegbu (2010) noted that lost of an individuals mother-tongue and cultures always lead to regrettable crisis of identity and alienation from ones natural human landscape. It creates destructive anguish in the psych of the victim. Lamenting on the loss of ones identity, a protagonist lamenting in adulthood over how he was pulled out of his natural ethno-linguistic community at a tender age when his mother tongue and culture had not yet taken roots in him and obliged to grow and mature in an alien language and culture that of France, his countrys colonizer (Ohaegbu, 2010). The young Senegalese ended up losing his identity and becoming what he himself acrimoniously termed hybrid. Being asked how it all happened, Diallo replied:
I dont know how too well. Perhaps it was with their alphabet with it, they struck the first hard blow at the country of the Diallobe. I remained for a long time under the spell of these signs and these sounds which constitute the structure and the music of their language. When I learnt to fit them together to form words, to fit the word together to give birth to speech, my happiness knew no further limit. (as cited in Ohaegbu, 2010, p. 159)
The statement above points to the fact that the young Diallo was nave and his early happiness over his ability to speak the language until later in the novel when he lost his own language and identity, and latterly, he lamented over the hybrid which he had become. This means that language is synonymous with identity. By implication for an Igbo scholar to retain his/her identity, the Igbo language must be cherished, protected, and developed by people both in speech and written form.
Dialectal Problems
The Igbo language is spoken by some groups of people in the eastern part of Nigeria. It is spoken in Enugu, Ebonyi, Anambra, Imo, and Abia States of Nigeria. Other states where Igbo language is spoken include Delta and Rivers States. These states use language as a verbal means of communication. However, all speakers of a particular language do not use that language in a uniform way. This means that a language has what we can call speech varieties. That is a language has many varieties in spoken form which is recognized by users of different social communities. These variations are referred to as dialects. In other words, dialects refer to speech varieties within a particular language. Some people see dialect as separateness, backwardness and regional. But the most important thing is that it deviates from the standard Igbo in features such as phonology, syntax, and vocabulary. This is why Wikipedia Encyclopedia defines dialect as a variety of a language used by people from a particular geographical area. The number of speakers and the area itself can be of arbitrary size. Dialect is a term used to describe features of grammar, vocabulary, and pronunciation of a language. The dialects of Igbo are quite many and are appreciated by their users as they serve them in their cultural, political, economic, and other social functions. However, these dialects are not accepted in literary use because of its multiplicity in the language. This is why Oluikpe (1979) sees a dialect as a sum total of the linguistic features which identify people from different parts of a language community. A language community can adopt a dialect which is distinct from the other dialects. This is true because language is said to be arbitrary in nature. However, there is a general impression of mutual intelligibility among speakers of different dialect, which means that speakers of one variety can understand speakers of another varieties and no one dialect can claim superiority over
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another. Instead, you may have what we call regional, sub-regional, social, or even religious varieties of the parent language (Oluikpe, 1979). The Standard Igbo formed by SPILC (Society for Promotion of Igbo Language and Culture) in 1973, embraced more people and involved both the major and minor dialects in the formation of the standard dialect called Standard Igbo. Although SPILC tried to set up a standard dialect, there is an indication that it is limited to the writing form of language which means that the problem still exists with the spoken form of the language. This invariably affects both the teaching and learning of Igbo language. Ikekeonwu (1986) carried out research studies on dialects and came up with five groups of dialects namely: (1) Niger Igbo; (2) Inland Igbo; (3) Northern or wawa Igbo; (4) Riverine Igbo; and (5) Inland East Igbo. In another study carried out by Nwozuzu (2008), she observed that Igbo dialects should not exceed twenty in number. This gave rise to the development of artificial standard dialect at different times in the history of Igbo studies in an effort to develop Igbo language. To Nwozuzu, the 20 Igbo dialects should serve as an umbrella covering other minor dialects. Oluikpe (1979) produced a book titled Transformation in Igbo Language based on Ngwa dialect. Ikekeonwu (1985) studied Onitsha and Enyimba dialects and they all came up with their differences. Ida ward (1936) also made her own contribution as a brain behind union Igbo. She later discontinued with the union Igbo where she intended writing all the dialects. This was because she found out that Igbo language is very difficult to study due to too many dialects. Oraka (1983) re-affirmed that people must have lost interest in the study of Igbo language, just like Schon who on finding out that there were hundreds of Igbo dialects became, disgusted and gave up the study of Igbo for twenty years (p. 64). This multiplicity of dialects implies that even within a particular language, there exists many dialects which pose a great problem for the teachers. This is because no teacher can learn all the dialects and be able to teach in any locality. The Igbo language, for instance, has many dialects. Therefore, the issue of a child having a home dialect distinct from one in which he is taught at school poses an obstacle to his learning the standard language. The dialectical problems of the teachers are even more compounded by the grouping of pupils from different dialectical region into a class (Umo, 1996). The heterogeneity of the class pupils dialect makes it absolutely impossible for the teachers own dialect to suit all the members of the class. This is why Emenanjo (1978) claimed that Igbo is a difficult language, because it is a tone language and exposes itself to various to dialects. Furthermore, WAEC chief examiners report (1972) pointed out two twin issues of dialect and orthography and stated that from the candidates script, one could discover that the central dialect and approved new orthography have not yet been universally understood in certain speaking area of Nigeria. Still on the problems of dialects, the WAEC chief examiners report (1993) pointed out that some candidates were unable to express themselves in a standard Igbo and this was a continuous mixture of the English word. All these problems as observed by Chief examiner buttress the point that dialect problems affect effectively teaching and learning of Igbo language. Another area of teachers problem is the vocabulary limitations of most Nigerian languages, like other African languages. As pointed out by Taiwo (1980), the Nigerian languages, like other African language, though in international settings, are deficient in expressing concepts, ideas, though, skills, and techniques which Western Education has introduced into modern Nigerian Education. No wonder Nwokedi (1984) observed that Igbo
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language does not have established writing, not to talk of meta language. This deficiency limits the use of any one Nigerian language as medium of instruction and as a means of communication in handling many more phenomena. Table 1 shows three Igbo dialectical interpretations of some English concepts. Table 1 Three Igbo Dialectical Interpretations of Some English Concepts
Concept Body Orange Hand Here Now Eye Udi Ehu Oloma Eka Nwanu Nnwo Enya Nsukkka Eshu Orume Eka Nwabe Nwoshia Enya Onitsha Aru Oloma Aka Ebea Kita Anya
The issue is that these dialects compete among themselves for official recognition. Based on this, many writers write Igbo language texts from various linguistic groups. This is why Emenanjo (1975) lamented that it is quite unbelievable that Igbo school of thoughts still can not arrive at a consensus on the issue of standard Igbo language despite the competitive situation in Nigeria. Furthermore, many learners are so involved in their own dialect hat they find it very difficult to understand, teachers who are from other dialectical groups even when these teachers are using central dialect. The fear of one dialectical group dominating another is so great that no group would wish the teaching and learning or indigenous language to be outside their own. Using Nsukka dialect as an example, Ohi in Umo (2001) discovered the following: (1) The psychological structure of Nsukka main dialect is an obstacle on the learning of standard Igbo; (2) the morphological differences of Nsukka main dialect is also an obstacle to the study of standard Igbo; and (3) there are also differences in both lexical and syntactic items of Nsukka and that of standard Igbo. These problems constitute serious setback to the teaching and learning of Igbo language in schools as well as problems to the growth and development of Igbo language in general. It, therefore, becomes important that these dialectical problems be identified and that solutions be found. This paper, therefore, is advocating the following measures as a way forward: (1) Scholars of Igbo language should lay more emphasis on the study of dialects because it can be useful to the development of more and standard written language; (2) only qualified Igbo teachers should be employed to teach Igbo in schools; (3) teachers should not stick to only their indigenous dialects. They should have open mind so as to versatile with other dialects; (4) seminars and workshops should be organized for Igbo teachers with emphasis laid on the study of dialects; and (5) Igbo language specialists should be involved in Igbo text writing for schools.
Attitude
Attitude means predisposition to act or react. It has been observed that the attitude of the general public in Igbo speaking areas to Igbo language growth and development is quite low. At times, if you say that you are studying Igbo, you become object of ridicule and caricature. Parents are even worst in this reaction. In reaction to negative attitude of parents, Ogbalu (1975) warned parents who forbid their children to speak Igbo and flood
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their house with ugly sound of Daddy and Mummy should stop doing so, for they are doing their children incalculable harm (Okeke, 2001, p. 48). Writing on the interest of Igbo, elites Afigbo (1975) noted that the majority of educated Igbos are never interested in their language that most of them can not read or write in their dialect. The Igbo man having been brought in the colonial system of education and life style has a great interest for foreign language. This reaction of Igbo man gradually spread to influence other aspects of Igbo language and culture. Most students do not have interest in Igbo language as a subject. They are even not allowed to speak Igbo in the class which boosts their poor attitude which the Igbo in general have towards the language. This is why Oraka (1983) complained that it is a matter of a great regret that teachers and Igbo nationals neglect their mother tongue in schools while they promote and encourage the study of foreign language. More even in UNN (University of Nigeria, Nsukka), which is in Igbo land offer course in foreign language to their students earlier than on Igbo which was lately introduce in 1977/1978 academic session. It was also in the same year that the Anambra State Government included Igbo as one of the subjects in the first school leaving certificates. Even the 1993, 1996, 1997 and 1998, WAEC chief examiners report show that there was poor performance of candidates in Igbo. The popularity of English over Nigerian language poses, perhaps, of the heaviest problem to the study of Igbo language. English happens to be an international language which accords social prestige and access to Western employment to those who use it fluently. There English has somewhat affected the psychological disposition of Nigeria who prefer proficiency in English language to that of Igbo language. This invariably affects the Igbo mans identify. It is rare to see a group of Igbo elites discuss issues with Igbo as language of expression. Their preferred language is English. Unlike the Yoruba and Hausas who proudly discuss with their mother tongue. Where is the Igbo mans identify? The attitude of our high school and university students to Igbo is even worse than the educated elites. These our students whom the future of the nation belong to have no regard and have equally thrown away the use of the language in discussion. Ndi Igbo ebe ka anyi na-aga? (The Igbos where are we heading to?) When a Yoruba man speaks you easily identify him through the language. The Igbo linguist must sensitize our students on Igbo language. Ndi Igbo tetanus nura (The Igbos, wake up from slumber). Igbo language should be a part of general studies courses at tertiary level. Thank God, UNIZIK (Nnamdi Azikwe University, Awka) is already doing that, Subakwa Igbo. A man is known and identified with his language and this is why language is a cultural mark of man. Olagoke (1979) noted that the educated and rich men send their children to private schools where English language is used exclusively for teaching. It is even on record that some parents and common people do not send their children to common school where mother tongue are partially used still have a craving for instruction done substantially in English. The teachers grapple with both language learning difficulty and the waning interest of the pupils, and lack of encouragement from the parents and the society at large. This total neglect of Igbo led to Nwadikes lamentation in his 2008 inaugural lecture that the greatest injustice that can be committed to a person is to deprive him of his language. By implication a man who is deprived of his language is automatically denied of his identity. For Igbo students, to make giant strides attitudinal change should be the first step of action. Every Igbo man/woman should identify with Igbo language no matter the persons area of specialization, because Ebe
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Onye Bi Ka O na-awachi (This is our language, we must speak it and reverence it), and this is why Nwadike (2008), a professor of Igbo language, gave these warnings: Which French man was more French than Dr. Leopold Sedar Senghor of Senegal? But at the hour of determining who was who in cultural identity, the French denied and rejected him (p. 45). Which English man was more English than Joseph Konrad (a polish) but when the English decided to determine who was English, Joseph Konrad was rejected along with his English novels. These warnings were given to those Igbos who prefer to speak foreign languages to their mother tongue. Be warned! Stop glorifying other language, come back to your own language. Any group that has no regard for his language has automatically lost both his culture and identity. Igbo man, where is your identity? Juo onwe gi ajuju a (examine yourself).
Inadequate Instructional Materials

The dearth of text books written in Igbo language also make it difficult to cater for education in mother tongue, because both teachers and pupils need to read extensively books written in their native language if they must study them. The paucity of good text books written in the mother tongue could be the greatest problems facing the language teachers in the classroom. However, it appears that there has been steady improvement in this regard. Ogbalu championed the course of textbook writing in Igbo. Ubesie and others followed suit including Nwadike, Ezike Ojiaku, Onyekowu, and others. It is also observed that the use of ICT (Information and Communication Technology) in the teaching and learning of Igbo language is still backwards compared with that of English language. The reason is not far-fetched. Our children are gradually loosing grip of their language, because Igbo plays and dramas that could have brought their lost hopes back are not in place. For instance, both Yoruba and Hausa languages have slots in the DSTV (Digital Satelite Television) where their languages are permanently used in home movies, whereas the Igbos has no slot except in English language. This made our children to loose sight of the Igbo proverbs and idioms. If the Igbos can take up the challenge of showcasing their films in their own language, our childrens interest will be reviewed. Teachers of Igbo language should use these Igbo home movies to draw their lessons home and also encourage the pupils to watch them instead of watching only foreign films which does not help them to build up their Igbo vocabulary. The government and well placed Igbo scholars can also sponsor the production of Igbo movies thereby popularizing it, Nihi na ebe onye bi ka o na-awachi (Cherish and preserve your inheritance).
Teachers Preparedness
Writing on the preparedness of teachers, Macgrats in Umo (1996) said that the need for competency on the part of language teachers is of importance (p. 19). He stressed that no programme of instruction at any level could be successful when teachers were not sufficiently proficient in language. Still on teachers preparedness, Arogurdade (1991) noted that:
We should be quit to realize that pupils use of language for learning are strongly influenced by their teachers tongue, because the later prescribe rules for the former as learners. Most of the teachers we have in the field presently really do not have a good grasp of their mother-tongue and this is amply evidenced by their inability to fluently discuss, read, or write in the language. (p. 175)
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Therefore, unless teachers whom themselves understand these languages of the immaculate environment are trained, imparting the best knowledge into learners may be impeded, which will lead to loss of identity. Both governmental and non-governmental agencies should be involved in this training process. Igbo student teachers should be motivated and encourage. Bursaries, awards and scholarships should be instituted to encourage learning of Igbo language in higher institutions. In universities, chairs should be instituted for Igbo professors by donor agencies. This will help attract the best brains amidst indigent students into the area.
Nature of Igbo Language

The nature of Igbo language also constitutes problems to Igbo scholars. This is because Igbo language is vast and has three major areas namely the language, literature, and culture. This is why Okeke (2001) confirmed that the scheme of work drawn from Igbo language curriculum has never been finished in any particular year due to its nature. Furthermore, Igbo language is marked with complex system of tonations in distinguishing meanings and grammatical and phonological relationships in a wild range of dialectical variations which creates problems both to foreign learners who study Igbo as L2 (second language) and to the owners of the language who study it as L1 (first language). On the issue of diacritic marks the adoption of African orthography in 1929 was guided by at least three objective considerations namely: (1) to represent the essential sound of language by separate letters; (2) to get rid of diacritics as far as possible; and (3) to supply spelling as far as possible. The Onwu committee on the promotion of language and culture adopted principle a & c and rejected b, which aim at avoiding the use of diacritics. The Onwu committee recommended the use of diacritics and once a person does not put them where they are supposed, then the problem arises because the word automatically looses their meaning (see Examples (1)). Example (1) Egbe and egbe Oku and oku Ukwu and ukwu Onu and onu Oke and oke Akwa and akwa Akpa and akpa Isi and isi etc.. The issue here is that without diacritic marks, these words would be meaningless and create problems which invariably affect the way Igbo man sees the language, which makes him to loose identity.
Government Policy
In our country today, emphasis is being laid on learning the three main Nigeria languages as a means of preserving their peoples culture. With this in mind, the FRN (Federal Government of Nigeria) (1981) came up with the national language policy, which stated that:
In addition to appreciating the importance of the educational process and as a means of preserving the peoples culture, the government considers it to be in the interest of national unity that each child should be encouraged to learn
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one of the three major languages other than his own mother tongue. In this connection, the government considers the three major languages in Nigeria to be Hausa, Ibo, and Yoruba. (p. 8)
This is to foster national unity and for intertribal communication among Nigerians. The policy also states that Government will see that the medium of instruction in the primary school is initially the mother tongue or the language of the immediate community an at later stage, English (FRN, 1981, p. 13), which is generally understood to mean that English should be used from primary four. The problem with government policy is that government does not supervise or see the full implementation of the said policy. Many policies have come and gone, and this made the teachers to perceive the policy as mere statement of the government policy which is never actualized in its reality.
Orthography Controversy
Igbo language studies commenced with the introduction of Igbo orthography produced by Lepsius in 1854 (Oraka, 1983). In 1929, the Africa orthography referred to as Adam ward, R.C.M (Roman Catholic Mission) came to replace the African orthography. As a result of this, prolonged and vigorous controversy ensured. The controversy slowed down the rate of growth and development of Igbo as a literary language. Many writers on the subject lost interest. For instance, Oraka (1983) reported that Schon became disgusted and gave up the idea of developing the Igbo orthography. This orthography controversy was between the Roman Catholic Mission and the giant mission, and it came when people were trying to show interest on the study of Igbo language. The problems seem compounded as books have been written with different orthographies yet, these books were read by students of Igbo language, especially, in the churches. These students naturally had problem in reconciling the different orthographies. The controversy surrounding Igbo orthography lingered till 1961 when Onwu orthography committee, which was set up by the government of eastern rejoin, came up with new orthography which consisted of 36 letters. It also consisted of eight vowels and 28 consonants. Emenanjo (1985) observed that the committee was made up of untrained linguists who were ignorant of what orthography meant, and because of this, they failed to provide the following spellings of distinctive features like vowel assimilation, consonants elisions etc.. He pointed out that the committee also failed to make clearly the writing system of loan words, punctuation, and dialect form to be used in literary writing. He claimed the fact that Onwu orthography failed to recommend such things that the problem arising from the above oversight are still with the study of Igbo language. This standardization was formed by the SPILC (Society of Promoting Igbo Language and Culture) in 1973 so as to get Igbo people involved in using Igbo in discourse and writing to have a standard. They forced all the writing fashion to adopt. This was sent to all examination bodies, institutions, and churches (Emenanjo, 1978). The recommendations have been published in two volumes. Volume one deals with orthography, spelling rules, dialects, loan words, tone, and technical vocabulary. On the orthography, they unanimously agreed to adopt Onwu orthography, but only to re-arrange the 36 letters in alphabetical order. Volume two of the standardization deals with mathematical and scientific terms, numeration in Igbo, names of animals and plants. (SPILC, 1974, Vol. I & II) Stressing the improtnace of standard Igbo, Emenanjo (1980) in his book titled, (SPILC) asserted that we ought to assimilate standard Igbo and put them into practice so that our knowledge on standard Igbo for effective communication should not be a mere waste.
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Nevertheless, the Onwu orthography despite its short comings, formed the basis for the central Igbo language as we have toady. There appear to be no more controversy about the orthography, but the alphabetical arrangement seems not to enter deep into the minds of those who are already used to the old orthography. Teachers must enforce this orthography and make it flow naturally in pupils every day expression. Personally, these authors do not even believe that it is proper to use English alphabets to place the Igbo alphabets in alphabetical order. The sound when the new placement is read is awful. On the other hand, on the effect of orthography, Nwadike (2008) lamented that it has done the following harm: (1) It limits the development of the literary language and production of literature; (2) publishers refuse to publish in Igbo; (3) worse than that, Messrs Longmans and Green published Igbo books in the new orthography but were unable to find enough buyers because of the divided loyalty to the orthographies; (4) it scared would-be Igbo authors, many of whom turned to English; and (5) the dispute created consciousness among the adherents of the protestants and the catholic church. We thank God that the rift between the protestants and Catholic Church on choice of orthography has diminished to the barest minimum. The Catholic church recently commissioned the translation of English bible to Igbo. This recent development appeared to fall in line already existing bible translations. Therefore, religious agents have a lot of roles to play in popularizing current standard Igbo language.
Nkiruka
A practical evidence that exemplifies the dictum Nkiruka. The author in her doctoral degree dissertation carried out a research on the effect of games on the achievement of and interest of junior secondary school students in Igbo. It is pertinent at this juncture to highlight the summary of the study to prove that there is hope and the future of Igbo language is not bleak hence Nkiruka. The achievement and interest of students in Igbo language and grammar, in particular, has been on the decline. The major reason attributed to this poor performance is poor method of teaching. The purpose of this was to determine the effect games as a teaching strategy on the achievement and interest of students in Igbo grammar. Six researches questions were generated to guide the study. It was hypothesized that: (1) the game strategy will not have significant effect on the achievement and interest of students in Igbo; (2) gender will not be a significant (p < 0.05) factor on students achievement and interest in Igbo; (3) location will not be a significant (p < 0.05) faster on students achievement and interest in Igbo; (4) there will be not significant interaction effect of method and gender on students achievement and interest; and (5) there will be not significant effect of method and location on the achievement and interest of students in Igbo. After review of related literature, quasi-experimental study of non-equivalent control group design involving eight intact classes (four males and females) were used for the study. 197 JSSII (Junior Secondary School 11) students constitute the sample for the study. The schools were drawn from Nsukka education zone of Enugu state. The sampled schools were randomly assigned by balloting to the treatment group and control conditions. Regular Igbo teachers who were earlier trained by the researcher taught the students. Identified extraneous variables were controlled and all the groups were pre and post-tested. Data collection was done using IGAT (Igbo Grammar Achievement Test) and ILII (Igbo language Interest Inventory) developed by the researcher. An internal consistency reliability of 0.82 using Kuder Richardson
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formula 20 was computed for IGAT, while an internal consistency of 0.63 using Cronbach Alpha formula was calculated for ILII. The data generated from the study was analysed using means, standard deviation, and 2 2 2 analysis of covariance. The treatment lasted for four weeks. In the experimental condition, games, like vowel harmony games, were used while conventional lecture method was used for the control setting. The result showed that: (1) There was no significant effect of game strategy on students achievement in Igbo grammar; (2) there was a significant effect of game strategy on students in Igbo; (3) gender was a significant factor on the achievement and interest of students in Igbo; (4) location had a significant effect on both the achievement and interest of students in Igbo; and (5) the combined effects of the variables method, gender and location had an influence on both the achievement and interest of students in Igbo but when a pair wise comparison was made on the independent measures, there was significant effect on interest. The education implications of the findings were also discussed. The limitations of the study were also exposed, while some recommendations were made which include among others that seminar and workshops should be organized by various organs of government including the researchers, on the importance of innovative strategies like games in teaching and learning process, especially, in the areas of language education.
Conclusions
Language is mans identity. By implication Igbo language is Igbo mans identity. The paper has raised some issues on the difficulties encountered in the teaching and learning of Igbo language which is, as matter of fact, is the major reason why its identity is lost. Nkiruka is a name, Tabugbo is also a name, they all buttress to hope for better future. We should not fold our hands and allow Igbo language to go into extinction. Something serious must be done to salvage the image of the language in order to re-position it for its proper identity. In the case of negative attitude, government should try and motivate learners of Igbo language. Igbo teachers should also be encouraged. Parents and educated elites should change their negative attitude towards the language. They should feel free to discuss with Igbo language like their counterparts in Yourba and Hausa. We should be proud of our language because that is our cultural identify nkemjika.
Recommendations
In solving dialectical problems, the Igbo linguist should try and document all the slight phonological and word differences existing in the dialects and absorb them in central Igbo. The Igbo linguist can also identify the teaching of standard Igbo in schools occupied by particular dialects. The teaching of Igbo should be made compulsory at all levels of our educational institutions. Department of Linguistics and other Nigerian languages in our Universities should encourage interdisciplinary approaches with departments such as French, English, German, Russian etc. in the area of translation. These approaches will create great awareness of Igbo language, Culture and Traditions which, in turn, will showcase Igbo scholars and non-Igbo scholars for proper identity. This is because a language whose literature is not read by other people cannot grow (Ohaegbu, 2010). In the area of tone, Igbo language being a tonal language should be taught like Yoruba language. By this, some Igbo words that have the same spellings can only be taught putting tone marks on the vowels of their words (see Examples (2)-(3)).
IGBO LANGUAGE AND IDENTITY Example (2) |kw kw kw kw Example (3) k k k k rate boundary share male egg cloth bed/bridge cry
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The teacher teaches the tone marks as: (1) High tone /; (2) Low tone `; and (3) Down step tone _.
Research findings also confirmed what Bamgbose (1990) said that: Although several schools supposedly operate on mother tongue medium policy but finds that there are hardly any text book. The implication of this inadequacy of teaching support materials is that the policy is not fully being implemented. It is suggested that Igbo specialists should be involved in text book writing and curriculum planning for Igbo language. Finally, the Igbo language as an identity for Igbo man should not be taken as a derogatory rather it should be embraced with pour whole heart because Nkem bu Nkem, Ma Nke anyi bu Nke anyi (mine is mine, ours is ours) Igbo Kwenu. We should know that appropriate use of language maintains a uniform identity. Igbo language has lost its identity and we want it back. Nkiruka bu Eziaha (greater future is a good name).
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D
WANG Zhen
DA VID
PUBLISHING
The Influence of the Gentry on Rural Political Construction
Communication University of China, Beijing, China
Based on some former studies of Chinese rural society, this paper summerizes the achievements and limitations of general Chinese rural studies and then proposes a social operation model in rural areas which is dominated by the squires. It uses some specific historical data and discoveries of feild sduty to further examine the profound influence of the squires on rural politcal construction in three different aspects: the model of clan and religion, the role as inter-mediator and the growth of basic armed forces. The study found that this special social group played a center role in Chinese rural political system from ancient to modern times, particularly, the research considers the decline of the squire society since the establishment of the new government in 1949. In the end, this paper points out the cultural guiding significance of this social model in the study to the rural construction in contemporay China by predicting the possiblity of renaissance. Keywords: squire society, rural political construction, clan, religion, mediator, basic armed forces, cultural survival
Introduction
In the field of Chinas social and economic history, there has been a lot of research on the rural society of different stages, which have produced fruitful academic achievements. Many scholars refer in their papers and books to rural elites and their influence, that is, the squires and the role they play in the countryside. In particular, in the late QING Dynasty (1644-1911) and the Republic of China (1912-1949), the squires had their new characteristics, unique academic, and cultural significance. HUANG mentioned the role that the squires played in related fields respectively in his work of The Peasant Economy and Social Changes in North China (1986) and The Autonomous Government in the Republic of China (1984). In Religious Ethics and Merchant Spirit in Modern China, YU (1987) referred the change from merchants to squires when discussing the new look of the merchants in MING and QING Dynasties. In Culture, Power and the State: Rural North China 1900-1942, Duara (2004) discussed the role that the squires played in the change of powers on state and local level in modern China. There is also research focusing on the squires. Hymes (1986), for example, studied the origin and development of the social elites in Fuzhou during Northern and Southern SONG Dynasty, discussed the formation of the gentry, and made a systematic comparison with British squires (also referred to nobles) at the same period. However, the above-mentioned studies failed to take squires as their chief subject and inquire into their role in a certain macro field. It is probable that they were limited to some particular place in a particular period and failed to make a detailed classification of the development process in the whole Chinas social and
WANG Zhen, undergraduate student, School of Cinema and Television, Communication University of China.
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THE INFLUENCE OF THE GENTRY ON RURAL POLITICAL CONSTRUCTION
economic history. As a result, they could not reflect the relationship of operation and administration between the squires and the rural society through the perspective of the squires. What this paper would like to do is to take the squires as the subject of the research and elaborate the change and development of the squires in a vertical and horizontal manner. The construction of Chinas rural administration has been the foundation for the whole rural society, which decides its administration and operation. As far as the overall characteristics of Chinas rural society is concerned, the more authoritative theory is ethics standard put forward by Mr. LIANG Shu-ming (1946). FEI Xiao-tong sumed it up as Cha Xu Ge Ju (Difference Pattern) in his Earthbound China (2005). In operation mode and composition of rural society, there is the market theory known as Skinner Model by G. William Skinner (1964) and cultural power network theory by Duara (2004). In fact, whether it is market theory or cultural power network theory, the role of the squires cannot be ignored. These theories, however, cannot conclude that the squires play a dominant role in administration. Taking the squires as the subject of this research, this paper will summarize Chinas rural society as the administrative mode in which the squires dominate with their core and irreplaceable status. The conventional political construction system in the squire society is the foundation for peasant economy and tenant farming, ethics building, and education and culture transmission. This paper focuses on this subject to generalize the historic significance of the squires on the one hand. On the other hand, this political ecology can lend experience to the practice of strengthening and innovating administration and promoting the traditional culture put forward by the Communist Party of China, improve the political civilization on a local level, and reduce the cost of administration and operation as a whole.
The Origin and Composition of the Squires

The squires, also referred to as county sage, are synonym of the elite class of grass-root society in Chinas ancient and modern history. They were a unique group that played a leading role in traditional Chinas rural development. Their origin and development are time-honored. The origin of the squires was closely geared to the development of the stratum of scholar. As for the origin and development of scholars, Mr. YU Shi-ying (2003) made a detailed research and elaboration. Here, what this paper stresses is the relationship between esquires and Chinas system of official selection and examination. It has been a long tradition that scholars in the countryside participate in local administration. The Juxiaolian system in HAN Dynasty (a system of selecting officials by which those who are filial and clean are recommended) is a case in point. However, the transition from esquires to squires relies on the establishment of the imperial examination system, and the intellectuals and Chinas autocratic bureaucracy have been closely related ever since. The esquires in the countryside were composed of two parts: the officials who are appointed after passing the examinations; and the scholars who fail the examinations but with scholarly honor. These people are well educated with Confucian culture as the center, so they enjoy certain learning and renown. GUAN Zhong (725 B.C.-645 B.C.) early proposed that more plough by peasants will produce more grains and choosing officials from the peasants will produce more sages1. From this, we can see that in the Spring and Autumn Period (770 B.C.-476 B.C.) and the Warring States Period (475 B.C.-221 B.C.), intellectuals had the reputation of sage in
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Guan Zi , Chapter of Xiao Kuang (475 B.C.-221 B.C.).
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the counties. Starting from the SONG Dynasty (960 A.D.-1279 A.D.), esquires became the elites in the counties, which was associated with a change in social background. Particularly, the upsurge of New-Confucianism with natural science as the representative promoted the education development and growth in intellectuals on the one hand. On the other hand, the Confucian ethics of upholding justice and annihilating desires went gradually into the peoples mind. This laid two foundations for esquires to participate in rural administration: necessary knowledge; and right of speech in moral ethics. According to Jimo County Annals (1989) in the QING Dynasty, a vast majority of celebrities are scholars or county sages, which demonstrates the relationship between the bureaucratic elites and the esquires. On the other hand, with the upsurge of the business of the SONG Dynasty, the businessmens social and economic strength was enhanced. The system of scholars, farmers, artisans, and merchants found it harder to restrict and judge the merchants. The burgeoning merchants needed political capital to guarantee their wealth, which was manifested through their contributions to building such public facilities as roads, bridges, water conservancy, and schools. These deeds helped them obtain the functions previously owned by the scholars and gradually acquired qualifications to participate in local administration. As a result, merchant squires grew into another powerful part of the gentry. When the author was doing investigation in the Southern area of Fujian Province, he found many old buildings such as clan halls, old-style private schools, temples housing the god of earth, and Pat Sin temples, most of which were built by some big families, scholars, or officials. In the MING and QING dynasties, quite a few favorable factors pushed the business squires to grow mature. Firstly, the burgeoning of new four-people concept and the enhancement of merchants economic strength brought a high status to merchants, which was only next to that of the scholars. In some commercially developed areas, such as Xiuning and Xinan, merchants were even on an equal footing with the scholars. Secondly, lower successes in the imperial examinations made more and more squires take to business. Thirdly, the donation system starting from the MING Dynasty (1364 A.D.-1644 A.D.) provided a channel for merchants to enter bureaucratic system. The increasing social status of merchants resulted in a brand new phenomenon since the MING Dynasty in which scholars and merchants were closely related, promoting the upsurge of aristocratic families of Confucian businessmen or official merchants. And the most representatives were the merchants in Anhui and Shanxi provinces. Squires and esquires made up the basic framework of elite class of Chinas rural society of the eleventh and twentieth centuries. Therefore, this paper generalizes as the squire society the operation and administration mode of Chinas rural society in which squires were dominant. It covers such aspects as politics, economics, culture, and public services. The development of the squires in the countryside and their influence on rural political construction involved in this paper will be discussed in detail in a later chapter Political Construction in the squire society.
Political Construction in the Squire Society

Since the QIN Dynasty (221 B.C.-206 B.C.), the most basic administrative authority in ancient Chinas administrative division has been county-level. In most cases, villages and towns were autonomous or semi-autonomous. Therefore, the local governments carried out a loose control and management over villages with the usual responsibilities of measuring the land, population statistics, investigation of major legal cases, and
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tax collection (in reality, the squires were entitled to interfering with assessment. Some were even appointed to be the governments representative in charge of tax collection in a certain village). As for specific administration, the gentry were responsible for its implementation. For this reason, the actual power was in the hands of squires with strength. Wealth, knowledge, moral right of speech, and the close-knitted relationship with bureaucratic system, determined the political status of the squires. Usually, there were two ways for squires to demonstrate their political status and strengthen their leadership: clan and religion. The patriarchal clan system implemented since the ZHOU Dynasty (the 11th century-256 B.C.) was based on blood relation and stressed pecking order within clan. Their original purpose was to deal with succeeding issues of kinship, property, and manor. In late Spring and Autumn Period, especially in the Warring States Period, the patriarchal clan enfeoffment system was severely destroyed, but the idea of patriarchal clan was deep-rooted. Patriarchal clan concept emphasized the hierarchical order within the clan, for example, there was a fundamental difference between legitimate and bastardy offspring in status and right. Externally, it required its members to unite and fight against the aggression from outside, so as to safeguard the interest of the whole family. Clan or family is an important element in political construction, whether it is imperial bureaucratic system or the squire autonomous system in rural areas. In rural areas of Southern China, clans had a vast and profound influence, while in the north, clans still participated in the rural administration though they were inferior to their southern counterpart in strength. Regarding selecting leaders, since the squires might be head of a certain clan, their huge family background provided favorable conditions for their participation in rural administration. Sometimes, the head of a clan would interfere with the production of head of another clan, hoping that this newly-selected clan head would be in favor their interests. The clan forces penetrated any aspect in rural administration and it was more evident in some key administrative organizations. For example, Baojia Organization (a kind of military system starting from the SONG Dynasty) in modern China is a case in point. Though it was a channel for the government to strengthen its control of the rural areas, the head of the organization was the clan leader other than a bureaucratic official. In this case, it was still under control of the clan organization 2 , which was not different from traditional clan representative system. Clan political mode is a typical expression of the features of rural Cha Xu Ge Ju, and it is closely related to rural cultural and moral construction. As clan representatives, contradictions would arise between the squires and other clans of different surnames when they were fighting for their own interest. For example, in villages badly short of water in the northern China area, contention for water source or water conservancy facilities was the main reason for clan confliction or inter-village conflicts. Therefore, Zhahui Organization was born at the historic moment, and its manipulator was still the squire who was himself the clan head3. In villages deeply influenced by clan, members would live together, forming the unity of blood and geopolitical relation, which was guarantee for their interest in case of clan confliction. The squires involved in the administration were closely linked with their clan interest. Though education background and position were important prerequisite for the squire status, without the support from a clan with vast strength, the squire would get the worst of it when dealing with rural affairs and the contradictions with the squires from other huge clans.
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Nanman Railway Company Investigation of Chinas Rural Customs (1940-1942). Nanman Railway Company Investigation of Chinas Rural Customs (1940-1942).
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The rural political system with clan and the patriarchal clan concept as its basis was actually a conventional management mode. The squires played their part in two aspects: internally, to unite the clan and deal with major affairs such as dividing up family property, land sale and marriage, and bereavement; externally, through their status as the clan representative, to participate in administration and win over corresponding interest for their own clan. The concept of the same structure of the clan and country specific to China is inseparable from the profound influence of the clan politics on rural society. China is far from a typical religious society. For Chinese, especially the vast majority of farmers, it is easier for the patriarchal clan concept to become the value standard in their life, which decides that the squires or clan members should put the clans interest above everything else. The familys interest can even be regarded as the highest ideal of the traditional farmers while their individual life is usually ignored. The clan activities in rural areas are of vital significance. The clans public sacrifice on Tomb-Sweeping Day (the custom varies in different areas and in some places the sacrifice is during the Spring Festival) is the most important activity. The squires will lead and organize this activity, hosting the sacrifice, showing their pedigree, and treating the clans guests. All these have reflected that the squires express their political status and validity of their involvement in political management through clan channel. In Chinas countryside, unlike the clan concept, religious culture is hard to become the farmers pillar of faith. Whats more, there are differences between rural religious faith and general religious faith. The family background of the squires and their cultural influence made the traditional Confucianism deep-rooted. The farmers believe in Taoism and Buddhism out of some utilitarianism. They focus on a certain god rather than a complete set of religious and ethical system. You can find many religious places in the countryside such as temples housing the god of earth, temple of the dragon king, Guan Yu Temple, and Guanyin Temple. On traditional festivals, farmers would worship the kitchen god and god of wealth. Yet this cannot indicate that the farmers belong spiritually to the religion owned by these gods. For example, farmers worship the dragon king to pray for good weather for the crops. And this sacrificial ceremony is grandly held in years of great drought. The Tien Hou Temples widely built in the coastal areas of the southeast are closely bound up with the fishermen4. Taking GUAN Yu worship for example, Mr. Duara (2004) discussed the relationship between modern rural religion and politics, which proves that the religious sacrificial activities with utility color are far from religion in a real sense. These activities cannot be simply positioned with religion. For example, the pray for rain is more like an important official business that connects the agricultural production of the whole village, and it is inseparable from the political and economic interest. Similarly, the coincidence of religious activities and official business provides a stage for the squires to display their leadership. Most temples in the countryside were built by the squires. Influenced by Confucianism, the squires considered it as their bounden duty to participate and lead religious activities, which was not only related to the social responsibilities of Confucian thought, but to philosophical system of human in nature as well. The fundamental reason for the squires to host the sacrificial ceremonies and make donations to build religious places was that as social elites, their religious faith complied with the religion and the gods they worshiped in the imperialist ideology, which kept them consistent with the state will in cultural awareness and value, thus becoming an important channel for the squires to enter the secular political structure and big opportunity to
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Nanman Railway Company Investigation of Chinas Rural Customs (1940-1942).
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demonstrate their leadership. In the QING Dynasty, most temples and ancestral halls were built by the county magistrates, most of whom were county sages. The sacrificial activities concerning temple housing the gods of earth, Guan Yu Temple and Chenghuang Temple were hosted by county magistrates or squires5 . So, local religious activities have always been connected with squire autonomy and bureaucratic politics. The squires went all out to maintain the status and image of the gods worshiped by the official side and naturally the squires became symbol in the countryside for empire, imperial power, and orthodoxy thought. With the decline of modern religious activities, the squires quickly withdrew from the religious field and took to new activities, including new political businesses such as running new learning and organizing military training6, which showed that the main purpose of the squires crave for manipulating religious activities lay in their political nature under the guise of religion, while the new measures of modern time provided a brand new stage. It is to be observed that Christian was spread in the rural society to some extent, and it contended for schools, land, disciples, and students with traditional clan and religion, becoming one of the factors to disintegrate the squire society. Whether it is clan-type village or religion-type village, the related activities differentiated the status of the county elites from that of common people. It was somewhat different from bureaucratic system. The clan circles and religious circles largely stipulated the business scope of villages, providing main places for the squires to exert their leadership. Clan politics and religious politics together made up the basic features of the power operation and management in the gentry society. The clan and religious strength was not entirely limited to one village with blood and geopolitical relations. They tended to expand their relation network through marriage and sacrifice for the same god by several villages, thus providing new human resources for the squires. Because of the conventionality of clan and religious political management, the implementation of Japans large township system and deepening of Chinas land reform made the political bond based on blood and geopolitical relation easily cut, and the rural political power lost its legality in traditional social culture. As a result, the bridge to gap province-level, county-level administration, and the village affairs was broken, the government and the people missed their original buffer zone, and the rural political ecology underwent radical change accordingly. The next section will discuss the unique function of the squires in the network of the government and the people.
Guardian and Inter-mediator

There were two ways for the transmission and implementation of the central orders: One was through county-level officials and their subordinates; the other one was through appointed squires. Mr. Duara (2004) called them bureaucratic agent mode and guardian-type mode respectively. Obviously, villagers tended to be the latter. The squires tended to pay more attention to maintain the interest of the farmers and the whole village than those officials. On the contrary, the officials would use the opportunity to squeeze farmers to fill their pocket. Especially, in tax collection, officials would collect more and hand in less to the finances of higher levels to make up for their thin salary. As main land owners in the rural areas, the squires would try every means to cover up related information such as land quantity, land ownership, and soil fertility level, use nature and population so as to evade tax. Usually, the designated agents by the government for collecting taxes would be squires or rich farmers. Villagers trusted the squires to be their interest guardians and bridge between the government and the
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Jimo County Annals (Tongzhi version) (1989). Nanman Railway Company Investigation of Chinas Rural Customs (1940-1942).
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people. When farmers had suggestions or were dissatisfied with the government, they generally expressed it through the squires. Therefore, the squires could be regarded as inter-mediators to express public opinion. The political position of the squires determined that they represented the interest of the villagers, reflected public opinions and maintained the interest of their village in terms of tax collection and land measurement on the one hand. On the other hand, the squires had a close relation with the bureaucratic system. Chinas rural society has valued human feelings and the squires would do their utmost to get along well with the officials so as to create stronger political background and human resources. Likewise, local officials attached great importance to the gentry. Through buying off the squires with strength, officials could carry out their administrative orders with less obstruction. There were many ways for the squires and bureaucracy to enhance their relationship, for example, they would exchange gifts, connect through marriage, visit on festivals, and take part in weddings or funerals. Usually, a closer relationship with the officials of county level or even higher level would bring more say to the squires in rural administration. When villagers would turn to the officials, the squires could work as inter-mediators. When clan or inter-village contradictions evolved into lawsuit, the clans or villages that had close relationship with the county officials would be in a favorable state. Therefore, the relation network between the squires and bureaucracy occupied an important place in the gentry political system. The squires could be compared to buffer zone between the government and the people, however, they were not complete appendage under the government of feudal bureaucracy. Mr. Duara (2004) once pointed out that when the national power went deep into the rural society, conflict would arise between the squires and villagers in the traditional autonomy, and prevent the political power from expanding. In the reform in the late QING Dynasty, before the new measures entered the rural society, the squires had already had control over a great part of land production and public facilities. They would not allow their influence in the rural society completely to be replaced by the government and the bureaucratic system, which drove them to manage to maintain their interest and influence in the change of political power. The villagers long trust and dependence on the squires made them more disgusted with some measures by the government, for example, apportioned charges and various kinds of taxes. The fight of the squires with the bureaucracy of the county level and even the province level would conform to the interest of the majority of farmers. As it were, the squires were important instrument for the ruling class to balance the relationship between the officials and the people, while the different mechanisms within the bureaucratic system (self-discipline of officials, achievement evaluation, and establishment of supervising positions) proved to be in a mess because of checks and balances among different schools and corruptions of officials within the bureaucracy. The pursuit of fame and wealth would bring about a vicious circle of one corrupted, all follow suit among the bureaucratic circle. However, this does not indicate that the squires bond, buffer zone, and checks and balances were always positive. Firstly, as an elite class, the squires themselves would unavoidably make profit for themselves and their family, like bureaucrats, through embezzlement, corruption, and squeezing villagers. The negative effect caused by the squires doing bad deeds was even greater than that brought about by of bureaucrats. This was striking in modern China when local tyrants and evil gentry became key fighting objects of the farmers. Secondly, as a local operation mechanism outside the bureaucracy, the gentry mode was not restricted and bound on a legal level. It was rather a customary social operation mode. This implied that the government, people, and the squires were hard to grasp the law and degree within this mechanism. The over resistance of local political power by
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the squires and farmers would become a factor to foster local riot and turmoil and hinder the management of local government. The Broadsword Society during the Republic of China was a case in point. Thirdly, the gentry mode was unable to completely break away from the feudal bureaucratic system. From the origin and composition of the squires, we can see that this mechanism was extension and spread of local political power rather than the end of it. The squire system was inseparable from the imperial autocratic and bureaucratic machine. In a time when the whole court system was loose and in a mess and the mainstream status of Confucian culture was shaken, this mechanism could hardly survive. Interestingly, because of the loose management of the government over villages, when major changes or turmoil occurred, villages would become primary pillage object of the government or rebel forces. For example, in the late QING Dynasty, domestic trouble and foreign invasion quickened the pace of the QING government to plunder the villages so as to obtain money for war reparation. As the chief owner of production means, the squires would carry the brunt. When the squires economic benefit was damaged, the farmers would find it hard to be an exception. Therefore, the squires, as head of a clan and spokesperson, should enhance their armed forces so as to safeguard their own interest.
Enhancement of Basic Armed Forces

Speaking of rural social security and armed forces, we have to mention Baojia System. Until the Republic of China, Baojia System had undergone quite a few changes, it, however, continued to shoulder and exploit its function of maintaining local social security. Baojia System was one method of the central government to control and manage the countryside as well as one branch of the bureaucratic system, we, however, could not see from Baojia System the role that the squires played in local armed forces. Though, we mentioned previously that Baojia System was influenced by the clan strength, it was bound by the bureaucratic politics after all. Particularly, the squires were often exploited and plundered by the landlords and bureaucrats. In a time of turmoil, the banditry became a mortal malady. All these factors drove the squires to achieve their goal through enhancing the armed forces of their clan and village. Under non-bureaucratic system, there were various kinds of armed forces, most of which were directly governed by clan leaders and local elites, and this had a close relationship with clan and religious political road. Some families with vast strength would live in a grand courtyard or a group of relatively concentrated buildings. The head of the clan would hire people to keep watch and go on patrol, build such military facilities as watch tower, blind pass, and thick walls, purchase weapons, guns, and ammunition. The servants who kept watch were different from regular army. They were led by the clan head other than by the royal court. As a result, the rural local armed forces were strengthened. The strengthening of one clans armed forces would be a threat to other clans, villages, and bandits, thus guaranteeing the status and influence in a village, several villages, and even the whole county. In this regard, the most representatives were Jinshang grand courtyard in Shanxi Province, Kaiping watch tower in Guangdong Province, and Kakkas and their earthen building in Fujian and Guangdong provinces. There were all kinds of local armed forces with religious organization as a bond, which were products of the Qing government, the warlord tyranny, and Japanese invasion of China. These organizations included Boxers and
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the Red Spears, which developed into local self-defense organizations7.The Broadsword Society had a slightly different organizational structure from that of the Red Spears. Their main participants were landlords, rich peasants, and the squires. Other similar organizations were Liuli Society and Zhenwu Society. These societies were organized spontaneously by villagers, hoping to defend themselves through the force of spirit and metal weapons. The elites still played a striking role in these organizations. Studies have shown that these religious organizations did play a certain role in safeguarding rural society. In the meantime, they were disturbing factors for local rebel and social turmoil. During the anti-Japanese war, these organizations were divided. Some cooperated with the army to fight against the Japanese invaders. And some broke away from the organizations out of their own interest and even became Japanese puppet army. In the liberation war, quite a few religious organizations controlled by the squires became obstructive factor for liberating the rural areas and pushing forward land reform. In the modern society, with the deepening of the government power in the rural areas, the original traditional squire social mode was quietly disintegrated. Under the squeezing of the government and Japanese invasion, the operation of the squire society became harder and harder. The political status of the village leaders was no longer channel to maintain the interest of the village and increase their own reputation. They were victims pressed between the officials. The rural elites fled from the leadership and strengthened their clan forces in order to defend themselves. The transition of rural society caused reclusion of traditional squires. In the mean time, some broker-type elites subordinated to the government were active and became so-called new squires, including the so-called local tyrants and evil gentry. These new squires sped up exploitation of farmers in the name of the government on the one hand. On the other hand, they acted evilly in collusion with the government to make profit through taxes, apportionment, and land sale. This change became the important reason why the contradiction was intensified between the farmers and the squires in modern Chinese society.
Decline of the Squires and New Evolution

When he was doing investigations in Hunan Province during the land revolution period, Mao Zedong listed the squires (that are, local tyrants and evil gentry) as key object of attack. Through publicizing the policy of reducing rent and interest, and allotment of land, the peasants were encouraged to participate in revolution. In reality, there was not tense contradiction in rural society dominated by traditional squires. On the contrary, the contradictions were relieved. Traditional tenancy system and the gentry guardian system brought about a win-win relation between the peasants and the squires. As mentioned in the previous section, the deepening of the government power in villages promoted the transformation of the gentry. Together with the extended war, traditional squires found that the cost and difficulty for administering village affairs and social management went up. As a result, they had to resign. Through, a series of reforms including tax farming, cities, and the governments gradually get control of the rural society, and village leaders became authentic government brokers. These new squires were the mainstream of local tyrants and evil gentry. In contrast, the main social contradiction in the traditional squire society did not come from themselves other than government taxes and apportion. In view of this, a large-scale land reform in the liberated zone and in new China began to uproot the
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Nanman Railway Company Investigation of Chinas Rural Customs (1940-1942).
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foundation for the social politics and management. The division of status turned those well-educated people to counterrevolutionary and lost all the political rights. The government made the squires lose control of production means through expropriating land property, wealth, and even temples, and then, the government distributing them to peasants and rich peasants, thus making the squires lose control of production means. We can say that the land reform fundamentally destroyed traditional squires and modern squires. Though the conventional social mode of squires underwent devastating blow, as a cultural symbol and social feelings, the squires were kept in the countryside. They even exert far-reaching influence on majority of the peasants in thinking and action mode. Due to the long-term influence on clan and religious political system, the traditional concept of home was deep rooted in the countryside and would become the main vehicle for traditional cultural customs. Meanwhile, the social responsibilities owned by the squires would become key spiritual power for the new county elites. Since Chinas reform and open to the outside world, a great many intellectual youths returned to their homes. Relying on the reform and open policy, many people became rich. Cherishing the good care from the peasants, many successful people threw themselves into the construction of rural economy, becoming modern squires. If the village head and the Party Secretary could bring benefit to the peasants, they could also be called squires. From these changes we can see that after the gentry were destroyed, the power of the squires mainly came from culture and spirit. In recent years, the state has paid more and more attention to issues of agriculture, farmers, and rural areas. Therefore, the able and experienced social elites are called on to make contribution to the construction of socialist modernization. This should become an important way to enhance and innovate social management and improve rural political and economic structure. These changes since the new stage have urged the new elites to return to the countryside. In fact, with the quickening of unification of town and country, the trend of village urbanization has been increased. Traditional culture and thought falls apart. Whether or not these modern squires continue to exert the function of the traditional squires leaves much for further discussion. However, in terms of power construction, the elites are potential to constructing democratic and political civilization and promote the autonomy of county selection. In addition, the mechanism in which traditional squires and the bureaucrats check and balance, which should be a message for reducing money transaction in the current democratic selection in the countryside.
Conclusions and Implications

To conclude, in the process of the squires formation, development, mature and disintegration, as political and cultural elites in rural society, the squires play an important part in social formation and political construction in rural area. The penetration of state power and social transformation will likewise exert huge influence on the transition of the squires. The Squires in the Transition of Ideology and Social System From the origin of scholars to the destruction of the gentry, we can see that the development of the squires have been closely related with ideology and social system. The development of economy and upsurge of new Confucianism in the SONG Dynasty provided a favorable social environment and survival soil for the squires. In the MING and QING Dynasties, the systems of the previous dynasty were conditionally reformed, providing more favorable conditions for squires to lead in the rural society. The turmoil in the late QING Dynasty and the
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Republic of China urged the government to enhance the control of the countryside and seize enough benefit. The disintegration of traditional squire social order weakened their status and role. Finally, the land reform by the new China fundamentally destroyed the special class and elite group that survived for one thousand years. Meanwhile, the squire society takes clan and religion as their political structure, creating a far-reaching and lasting influence on Chinas politics, economiy, and culture. This political mechanism not only maintains and supplements the operation of the central and local bureaucratic system, but also restricts it to a certain degree. The squire mode and the state power structure do not contradict each other. They promote, restrict, and depend on each other, forming a foundation for traditional Chinas political framework and social formation. To our relief, from the semi-autonomous mode of squire mode, we can more or less see some democracy. Additionally, the squires played a certain role in maintaining social security and strengthening basic armed forces. This was striking in modern time. In reality, the squires made great contribution to agricultural production, maintenance of moral ethics, and continuation of traditional culture. Here we will not make a detailed discussion. The Possibility of the Squire Cultures Survival in Modern Time The gentry and the squire culture were severely criticized before and after the new China was founded. The result was the destruction of traditional culture and fundamental integration of the squire social mode. Since the 1990s, issues concerning agriculture, countryside and farmers became urgent and serious. The social security and moral ethics went from worse to worse. Many old people and scholars began to think of the benign role of the traditional squires in rural society and face up to the harsh criticism and utterly refute the squires and squire culture. From current Chinas political environment, social system, and ideology, we can see that the possibilities for the traditional squire mode to survive in China are very small. However, the reform of Chinas political system is a general trend. One major trend is the county autonomy and quite a few scholars and experts had suggestions for this issue. As for county autonomy, traditional mode may provide many helpful experiences. What is more, it is more reasonable to interpret the squires on the cultural level. This may be a good remedy for improving current rural cultural ecology and moral status, after all, the squire culture can find its traces in the countryside. It may flow in the blood vessels of the vast peasants as a kind of cultural gene. The squire culture has a broader sense than the squire society. We can advocate the elites from the countryside to exert part of the functions of traditional squires, for example, maintaining regional social security, mediating disputes between neighbors, defusing social contradictions, pushing forward moral reconstruction, craving for public interest affairs, conveying excellent culture, and actively reporting the sufferings of the peasants to the government. If we consider the squire culture as a kind of higher humanistic concern, its survival will be necessary.
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2013.9 Journal of Literature and Art Studies

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Journal of Literature and Art Studies

Volume 3, Number 9, September 2013 (Serial Number 22)

David Publishing Company www.davidpublishing.com

David Publishing Company www.davidpublishing.com

Journal of Literature and Art Studies

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Death as a Rite to the Body

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