Innovations in Research Methods

... are the first relatively comprehensive assessments of folk literature. Although the psychology and ideology of Nguyen Cong Tru is not the first work to research the life and poetic career of Nguyen Cong Tru (before that, Le Thuoc had published the work Career and poetry of Uy Vien Tuong Cong Nguyen Cong Tru (1928)), it was Nguyen Bach Khoa who was the first to apply the new research method of the West (sociological method) to the study of this author. Thieu Son's criticism and thesis are considered the first research work with the clearest method and viewpoint ever. Tran Thanh Mai with Trong dong song vi and Han Mac Tu are also the first research works on the life and poetic career of Tran Te Xuong and Han Mac Tu according to the objective biographical method. This allows us to affirm the pioneering role and efforts of researchers in the process of modernizing literary research activities in the first half of the 20th century.

Along with the study of authors and works; the activity of literary history research was born later (after 1940), but it can be said that, in the entire life of Vietnamese literature in the first half of the 20th century, the activity of literary history research was quite prominent (with not only the study of each literary period but also the study of the national literature); and together with creative activities, it contributed to accelerating the modernization process of the country's literature. The literary history research works of Ngo Tat To, Nguyen Dong Chi, Vu Ngoc Phan, Duong Quang Ham clearly show us each step of the modernization process of literary history research in the first half of the 20th century, which mainly focused on the early years of the 40s.

Absorbing foreign academic concepts to propose new literary concepts is one of the successes of theoretical research activities.

Maybe you are interested!

Literature. Different from the concept of taking “literature to convey morality” and “poetry to express one’s will” of literary works as the consistent goal and object (non-ego) of medieval literary criticism; the debate on “art for art’s sake” or “art for life’s sake” has raised a number of new literary theoretical concepts about the nature of literature according to the viewpoint of unity between content and art. This viewpoint was studied relatively comprehensively by Dang Thai Mai in his work Introduction to Literature (1944).

Contributing to enriching the appearance of the process of modernization of literary research activities in the first half of the 20th century was the role of researchers in foreign literature. The introductions to French literature by Pham Quynh; introductions to advanced revolutionary writers of the world such as Maxime Gorki, Romain Rolland and Henri Barbusse by Hai Trieu; research on Tolstoy by Nguyen Phi Hoanh, although still sketchy, contributed to proving that the exchange with Western literature in this period had begun to be extensive. The works Lu Xun (1944) and Modern Chinese Literature, Miscellaneous Essays (1945) by Dang Thai Mai delved into the authors, works and genres typical of Chinese literature, thereby helping readers have a relatively specific and complete view of the history and literature of this country.

In short, the movement of the modernization process of Vietnamese literary research in the first half of the 20th century shows us a regular step through each stage of development. In practice, it is the law of negation of negation. That is, the latter often negates the former, because the latter often adapts the former and applies methods that have many new features (of course, any law develops in a zigzag manner and cannot be a straight line), so sometimes there are still works that appear later because they too affirm the new, so they somehow "completely negate" and

not achieve the same success as previous works. This is also a rule that often occurs in the evolution of an object or phenomenon. When "intentionally" affirming something new, it often denies (extremely to explain its newness) the previous ones, especially in the field of literary research - a field where emotional factors and subjectivity are often quite heavy. This rule has clearly shown that the modernization process of Vietnamese literary research in the first half of the 20th century is gradually moving from the primitive, incomplete stage to the perfect steps of a process.

Chapter 3 - INNOVATIONS IN RESEARCH METHODS

Just like the process of absorbing Western theories and creative trends in literary creation, the absorbing of research methods in this period also took place in a similar way. That is, Vietnamese researchers absorbed many different methods at the same time, not each method in the order of its appearance in the West. If in creative activities, Vietnamese poets and writers simultaneously absorbed romanticism, realism, surrealism, symbolism, expressionism... to create diversity and richness in the process of modernizing literary creation in the early 20th century, causing Vietnamese literature to complete the path that French literature had to go through in nearly 100 years in just 12 years (1932 - 1945); the same is true in literary research activities. The simultaneous adoption of many different research methods has led to some research works in this period initially emerging interdisciplinary research. For example: the comparative method, the intuitive method, the sociological method... in Vietnamese Poets by Hoai Thanh - Hoai Chan; the sociological method, the psychoanalytic method in the research works on Truyen Kieu and Nguyen Du, Nguyen Cong Tru by Nguyen Bach Khoa... And it should also be added that in this period, there were not only five methods as we have studied but also many other methods applied by researchers such as: psychoanalytic method, stylistic method, genre method... However, to easily recognize the achievements in the adoption and application of each method in the study of Vietnamese literature in the early 20th century, in this topic, we would like to conduct a study on the achievements in the application of each method of the authors and typical works that contributed to

part of the modernization process of Vietnamese literary research in the first half of the 20th century.

3.1. Main research methods

In receiving and applying Western literary research methods, Vietnamese literary researchers have almost absorbed all the methods that literary researchers in other countries have applied. Within the limited number of pages of a thesis, we would like to select five outstanding methods with the most achievements for research and analysis.

3.1.1. Comparison method

The comparative method is a method that has long appeared in scientific research in general and in literary research in particular. This is an important thinking operation in perceiving things and phenomena in order to discover similarities and differences to grasp the nature of things and phenomena. Medieval authors such as Le Quy Don, Ngo Thi Nham, Phan Huy Ich, Cao Ba Quat... when affirming the beauty and uniqueness of their country's literature with China's all compared Vietnamese literary authors with Chinese literary authors.

In the first half of the 20th century, along with the influence of Chinese and Indian culture, Vietnam was also influenced by Western culture. It was in this exchange that Vietnamese literature quickly modernized. Therefore, the awareness of the need for comparison in literature to realize artistic truth became increasingly clear. And comparison is truly one of the very successful methods of research on Vietnamese literature in the modernization process of national literature during this period.

In research works on the Tale of Kieu, authors such as Pham

Quynh, Dao Duy Anh, Duong Quang Ham all used the comparison method.

comparison. In his research paper, in the section “The Roots of the Tale of Kieu”, Pham Quynh translated the novel Vuong Thuy Kieu - the original work of Du Hoai in Ngu So Tan Chi to compare with the work Tale of Kieu , from which there is a basis to affirm that the work Tale of Kieu originated from a Chinese novel. Pham Quynh also compared the character Kieu in Nguyen Du's Tale of Kieu with the character in the novel by "Thai Tay" to affirm Nguyen Du's talent in creating characters. Dao Duy Anh in his Essay on Kim Van Kieu also used the method of comparison to see the similarities and differences in the plot and character Kieu in the work Doan Truong Tan Thanh by Nguyen Du with Ngu So Tan Chi by Du Hoai and Kim Van Kieu Story by Thanh Tam Tai Nhan. When researching Tale of Kieu by Nguyen Du, Duong Quang Ham also compared Tale of Kieu with Kim Van Kieu Story to affirm that Nguyen Du relied on the plot of Thanh Tam Tai Nhan. And after comparison, the researcher made a very accurate comment: although influenced by the plot, Nguyen Du was not a translator of Chinese prose into a Vietnamese verse story. The work Truyen Kieu is a unique creative work.

Applying the comparative method throughout the presentation of the face, progress and achievements of our country's literature is one of the successes in the research method of scholar Duong Quang Ham. In this way, the author of Vietnamese Literature History Outline has pointed out the factors and sources of internal and external influences that have impacted the formation and development of our country's literature such as: folk literature, Chinese influence, French influence, learning methods, examination methods, language, writing; as well as seeing the strong manifestations of the spirit of independence, autonomy, and self-respect of the Vietnamese people in literary creation alongside foreign influence. In each issue raised, Duong Quang Ham has specific comparisons

can. For example:

- Comparing the influence in terms of content and ideology, Duong Quang Ham wrote an introduction to the popular character of Chinese literature and Vietnamese literature, in which he pointed out the similarities in ideology and writing style such as: emphasis on ethics, emphasis on ideals, lack of realism, respect for the ancients, noble character, emphasis on allusions, and tone in Vietnamese and Chinese literature. Similarly, when introducing the influence of the new Chinese literature (Liang Kai Chao) and French studies on the ideology and language of the Southern people , Duong Quang Ham pointed out the literary revolution of China and the Chinese writers who had an influence on our country's scholars such as Kang You Wei, Liang Kai Chao; the influence of French studies on social ethics, academia, literature, language, and writing to see the transformation of our country's literature in the first half of the 20th century.

- Comparing the influence in terms of genre, Duong Quang Ham introduced Chinese and Vietnamese literary genres, Chinese poetics and Vietnamese musical rules, Parallelism and fu in Chinese and Vietnamese literature to present the genres that Vietnamese literature received from Chinese literature as well as the changes of those genres. The researcher also pointed out the fundamental difference between Vietnamese and Chinese verse in the way of rhyming. At the same time, he also introduced genres that only exist in our country such as: Nom stories, chants, spoken songs, Hue songs, and boi songs. Duong Quang Ham also introduced the transformation of literary genres: Drama - Criticism - Prose - Translation - Journalism to talk about the influence in terms of genre of French literature on Vietnamese literature. For each genre, after researching, Duong Quang Ham had brief but comprehensive comments on its development. For example, discussing the critical genre, he said: “The critical genre is a genre we have recently borrowed from French. It is not that our ancestors did not criticize in the past, but

The judgments and criticisms of the elders were only inserted into an essay or a book, but were never isolated into a work or a separate literary genre. Only recently have writers imitated the French criticism style and written works belonging to that genre" [46, p.413]; or "In the new national literature, prose is the literary genre that has changed and is somewhat more progressive, because it is the most commonly used literary genre and is written about by many authors" [46, p.416].

- Comparing the influence on the aspect of written language: along with determining the position of Chinese characters as the official script and the literary achievements written in Nom characters in the medieval period, Duong Quang Ham also highly appreciated the role of priest Alexandre de Rhodes in the process of forming the national language. Comparing Vietnamese with Chinese and French, Duong Quang Ham said that: Vietnamese is rich in concrete words but poor in abstract words. He also analyzed quite carefully the origin of newly appeared Vietnamese words borrowed from China, Japan, France, and commented that there are three types as follows: borrowing from Chinese characters, there are two ways of taking old words to use in new meanings and combining Chinese characters to translate foreign languages; Nom na words created by the people; transliteration from French. The researcher also noted how to use them appropriately for each specific case in order to make Vietnamese a standard and scientific language.

Not only discussing the multi-faceted influence on the language, writing, content, and ideology of the work, Duong Quang Ham also compared the influence on the author. Discussing this issue, he introduced Chinese writers and poets who had a great influence on Vietnamese literature such as: Qu Yuan, Tao Qian, Li Bai, Han Yu, Su Dong Po, Liang Qi Chao, Kang You Wei; at the same time, he also introduced famous Vietnamese authors of the Middle Ages such as: Han Thuyen, Nguyen Trai, Le Thanh Tong, Nguyen Binh Khiem, Ho Xuan Huong, Nguyen Du... and raised the true values.

Comment