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'Pure' Poetry and 'Red' Verse: A Comparative Study of Puritan and Chinese Red Guard Works
| Article
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18838 |
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Section : |
MODERN THOUGHT
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| Issue
Date : |
12 / 1991 |
5,802 Words |
| Author
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Xiao-huang Yin
Xiao-huang Yin, a professor at Occidental College, is the
author of Chinese American Literature Since the 1850s
(University of Illinois Press, 2000). |
Comparative study of the Puritans in colonial New England and the Red Guards in China is not a new but a familiar idea. As early as 1966, when the Cultural Revolution had just broken out in that vast Asian mainland, scholars in the West had compared it to the seventeenth-century Puritanism of this country. Despite the lively interest in the resemblance between the two, most of the discussion has been concentrated on the similarities between the two phenomena's intellectual, political, and economic backgrounds; one sensible way of approaching the subject--comparative research of their poetic achievements--has not been sufficiently pursued. Therefore, this essay differs from other works in that it focuses on poems produced by the Puritans and the Red Guards and sets them in a comparative context to illuminate the overall resemblance between the two poetries under their seemingly different "colors" and to indicate that poetry, as a form of literature, is heavily dependent on its social as well as political environment.
It is often maintained that both the Puritans and the Red Guards were hostile to literature and the arts due to the ascetic essence of their doctrines. According to the familiar accusations, the Puritans were joyless hypocrites whose blue laws condemned and forbade any secular happiness and human enjoyment. In a sense, the very word Puritanism has become a symbol representing any stern, harsh, and irrational anti-intellectual tendencies in American history. For the Red Guards, it has been pointed out frequently that they laid a curse on all forms of literature and arts and that traditional Chinese culture was well-nigh throttled during those Cultural Revolution years.
Undoubtedly, these criticisms are true in general. Puritanism indeed acted as an inhibiting force in many cultural areas, notably drama, music, religious painting, and sculpture, because it insisted that anything that prevented man from coming into direct communion with God was a distraction and constituted a serious danger to their doctrine. In the case of the Red Guards, the absence of any literary works that could merit comparison with those produced before or after the Cultural Revolution demonstrated clearly that the movement was a serious setback to literature and arts. In both cases, however, the point should not be exaggerated. As historical evidence indicates, neither the Puritans nor the Red Guards were the austere, ascetic, and prudish people that they are frequently taken to have been. As least as far as poetry is concerned, there is strong proof that both of them had a liking for verse writing and a widespread inclination to try their hands at it. Being children of the Renaissance as well as of the Reformation, the
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