The Particle of Art

Extract

“Where ideology restricts, art frees …”: the opening section of T. A. Hsia's paper provides an eloquent statement of a fundamental distinction, a distinction which is at the centre of a dilemma. How is a group of men whose inclinations and commitments are to literature as art to approach a literature which is ideological in inspiration and intent? For this, we agreed, is a fair statement of the nature of Chinese Communist literature. It is more than a matter of guidance, or direction or control. It is not at all to be taken for granted that control is disastrous for literature. Great works of literature emerged in the past from under the control of despotic monarchs and authoritarian religions. Dante did not necessarily understand the authority of the Church to impose some kind of fetter on his work; it was a measure of restricted freedom that Chinese writers of the past knew and felt at home in. Great literature endures, as Mao Tun maintains, “not because literature is independent of politics but because it serves in a way much more profound than can be assessed at the moment.”