Chinese Journal of Literary Criticism

No.2, 2021

 

When Bi Xing Meet Irony, from Overseas Sinology to Contemporary Literary Discourse

(Abstract)

 

Zhu Haikun

 

The Western literary term “irony” was first replaced by European and American sinologists in the category of “Bi Xing”(metaphor) in local discourse to study the annotation tradition of “The Book of Songs” in Han and Tang dynasties. In the 1980s, the debate over the appropriateness of this usage became a typical case of the collision between literary concepts and theoretical discourse in cross-cultural and cross-lingual literary research. This group of concepts is on a similar basis between universal artistic experience and literary concepts, but has its own uniqueness rooted in different Chinese and Western cultural traditions and national psychology. The two have similarities in conceptual history, semantic structure, species relationship and meaning themes, but there are differences in applying genres, thinking approaches and creative methods. The comparison between Chinese and Western keywords is not only to explore their respective meanings, but also to find appropriate ways for Chinese and Western discourses to participate in the construction of contemporary literary theory. The conceptual coupling of metaphor and irony is based on the complementary integration of contemporary literary issues, and its value space lies in the realistic intervention function of literature and its artistic approach.