Period 1930 - 1945 - Changes in the Modernization Process

The echoes of medieval research and criticism still follow the progress of works, and sometimes in their comments and assessments, researchers still tend to lean towards the rather formal comments of medieval research. In the works of this period, it can be said that the works of Phan Ke Binh and Le Thuoc are more influenced by classical research. In particular, Le Thuoc in The Career and Poetry of Uy Vien General Nguyen Cong Tru (1928) sometimes wants to clearly express the method of literary biography research (using the author's life to analyze and explain his literary career) but still cannot escape the still-praising comments of the old criticism style.

In the initial steps of the modernization of literary research, authors Pham Quynh, Vu Dinh Long… were very conscious of breaking away from the magnetic field of medieval literary research with a fairly clear policy and viewpoint in applying modern Western literary research methods. However, if Pham Quynh was successful in his first work in “Research on the Tale of Kieu” (1919), he did not show enough “modern energy” to shine in his later work in “Commemorating the Tien Dien” (1924), and even lost his way with extreme, unscientific comments that contained a non-literary political purpose. That is why the articles of Ngo Duc Ke and Huynh Thuc Khang strongly refuted Pham Quynh’s shortcomings. However, because of the patriotic scholars' refutation of the nationalist viewpoint, against the cultural enslavement of French colonialism, the articles of Ngo Duc Ke and Huynh Thuc Khang also fell into the weakness of evaluating literary works from a political viewpoint, so there were excessive words when criticizing The Tale of Kieu . But anyway, all the advantages and disadvantages of the above researchers, clearly created a spirit of research for the Vietnamese literary life, which has always been calm.

new. From a positive perspective, this is a vivid manifestation in the initial step of the modernization of Vietnamese literary research activities, gradually moving literary research activities away from the literary criticism style of praising "after tea and wine" of the classical research style of medieval Confucian scholars. Having achieved the initial results as mentioned above, it proves that researchers in this period were very conscious in promoting the transformation of the country's literary research activities; laying the first stones to build the foundation for a new literary research method, creating a basis for this activity to change strongly in the later stage, promoting the modernization process of national literature to progress quickly and firmly.

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2.2. Period 1930 - 1945 - Changes in the modernization process

activism of literary research

It was not until the 1930s that the modernization of Vietnamese literature was pushed to a new level, a leap in both quality and quantity. Along with creative activities, literary research appeared and became a specialized activity. In the opening paragraph of the essay “An Era in Poetry”, Hoai Thanh wrote: “The encounter with the West was the greatest change in Vietnamese history for several decades (…). Before our eyes suddenly appeared strange scenes never seen before. At first, everyone was bewildered, not understanding what was going on. But then we gradually got used to it” [167, pp. 11-12]. Hoai Thanh’s opinion was agreed by researchers. Obviously, not only were there “unprecedented strange scenes” when New Poetry, novels, reports, and plays appeared, but the absorption of foreign artistic concepts and research methods, along with the study of literature becoming a specialized activity, was also “unprecedented”.

During this period, literary research in the modern sense

has truly affirmed its presence in the country's literary life through the appearance of a series of research works from authors, works to summarizing an entire literary period and era; research from folk literature to modern literature; research on domestic literature and foreign literature by contemporary literary researchers.

2.2.1. Research on literary history - Achievements and limitations

Literary history research is an important field in all literary research activities. It can be said that the great achievements in the modernization of Vietnamese literary research activities in the first half of the 20th century have had a great contribution from literary history research works.

In order to have the conditions to survey and study in depth the achievements of each type of literary history research work in this period, we would like to mention it on two levels: One is the works specific to each period and each literary field; the other is the works that generalize the entire history of national literature.

2.2.1.1. Specific works on each period and each literary field

2.2.1.1.1. Folklore research

In the treasure trove of Vietnamese folk literature, proverbs and folk songs are one of the genres with a large number and extremely rich content. However, studying this genre, up to that time, it can be affirmed that there was no work that comprehensively researched the content and art of folk songs and proverbs, except for the work Túc ngữ phong dao (1928) by Nguyen Van Ngoc, Nhung cau hat xanh (1937) by Lan Khai, Nhung bong hoa dai (1941) by Truong Chinh and the article "The vitality of the Vietnamese people in folk songs and fairy tales" (1944) by Nguyen Dinh Thi.

The green songs of Lam Tuyen Khach (pen name of Lan Khai) introduce the folk poetry of the Tay people and consider it a gift from the "green forest and red water" that for many centuries has remained hidden in the cultural treasure.

ethnology. The author of Wildflowers (1941) studied folk literature with the view that, to properly evaluate the value of oral poetry, one must study three elements: its imaginative value, its emotional value, and its musical value. The article "The vitality of the Vietnamese people in folk songs and fairy tales" by Nguyen Dinh Thi focuses on analyzing the spirit and quintessence of Vietnamese national culture through folk songs and fairy tales. This was a speech before the 1944 student festival, which aroused a strong national spirit and awareness of the strength of national culture after the Vietnamese Cultural Outline of the Communist Party of Vietnam was born (1943). In the work Proverbs and Folk Songs, according to the author's preface, because of fear that "the common treasure of humanity" would be lost every day, "We (Nguyen Van Ngoc - DTT) only collected many verses" and "did not dare to be picky, selective, or publish anything". Therefore, the publication of the Vietnamese Book of Poetry (1940) by Nguyen Bach Khoa can be considered the first work to research folk literature in the most methodical way ever.

The content of the work, in addition to the Preface, before the Introduction and Conclusion, the book has three parts: 1- The Chinese Book of Poetry section discusses: Why did Confucius publish the Book of Poetry, the Book of Poetry is a sociological document. 2- The Vietnamese Book of Poetry section introduces the following items: Vietnamese people and Confucianism, Vietnamese society built on an agricultural economy, patriarchal families, anti-male chauvinism, emotional life, instinctive life, social reality determines human consciousness. 3- The final part introduces the origin of folk songs: A hypothesis about the origin of folk songs, the ways of showing off of Vietnamese people.

In Kinh Thi Viet Nam , Nguyen Bach Khoa started from the concept of Paul Lafargue in the work On folk songs and folk songs about weddings and customs (1886): folk songs and folk songs accurately reflect the psychology of the person who composed them to study Vietnamese folk songs. In the section "Before the Introduction", the author of Kinh Thi Viet Nam

affirms that his research will go through two steps: first, study the psychological and social roots of Vietnamese folk poetry; second, from there, study, edit and annotate the Vietnamese Book of Songs . When studying the reflection of the psychology of Vietnamese common people in folk songs, Nguyen Bach Khoa saw that the anti-Confucian spirit in the Vietnamese Book of Songs is different from the expression of the Confucian spirit in the Chinese Book of Songs edited by Confucius. The researcher also saw that: the content of folk songs often reflects agricultural life, patriarchal family spirit, the low status of women, anti-male chauvinism spirit, the emotional life of common people, instinctive needs and concludes that social reality determines human consciousness. Based on the content of folk songs, as well as examining the changes in its rhymes, Nguyen Bach Khoa puts forward three notable hypotheses about the origin of folk songs:

- All folk songs that are not yet in the six-eight meter, with wide and free rhymes, appeared around the beginning of the nation's history;

- The poems that have chaotic rhymes and crude imagery, tending towards the six-eight meter, all tend to be from the period of Chinese domination, which was the period of crystallization of national consciousness;

- The poems in the six-eight meter form are all trends during the period of national independence. He also pointed out three special ways to express emotions in Vietnamese folk songs: contrasting form; satirical form; lyrical form, lamentation. Nguyen Bach Khoa also said that in folk songs, Vietnamese people often borrow scenes and events to express emotions, but "never express them directly".

In short, with a clear policy on method and a serious scientific attitude , the birth of the Vietnamese Book of Poetry affirmed Nguyen Bach Khoa's early efforts in applying Western scientific methods to the study of oral literature. This can be considered a great achievement.

The first program in the history of Vietnamese literary research, explaining literature by social content. However, due to mechanically accepting Freud's psychoanalytic theory with the concept that "...lust is the basis of human psychology. It commands other desires" [202, p.478], Nguyen Bach Khoa came to an unscientific conclusion: lust is a characteristic of Vietnamese people without seeing that the popular folk literature is a reflection of fertility beliefs, which are long-standing beliefs of wet rice farmers with the desire for the growth of crops and people through the expression of genital worship and sexual intercourse in spiritual and cultural life and activities.

2.2.1.1.2. Research on medieval literature

Along with the study of folk literature, researchers in this period also focused on studying typical written literary phenomena of the Middle Ages from the study of authors to literary works. Works such as Looking at the Vi River (1935) by Tran Thanh Mai; Ho Xuan Huong

- Works, life and literary talent (1936) by Nguyen Van Hanh; Nguyen Du and the Tale of Kieu (1942), Literature of the Tale of Kieu (1945), Psychology and ideology of Nguyen Cong Tru (1945) by Nguyen Bach Khoa; Essay on Kim Van Kieu (1943) by Dao Duy Anh were published one after another.

* Evaluation and assessment of medieval literary authors

Tran Thanh Mai is one of the literary researchers who impressed contemporary readers right from his first work, Looking at the Vi River (1935). This is a research work on the life and literary career of Tran Te Xuong. The book is divided into 14 chapters, respectively mentioning the historical and social context of Tu Xuong's time, diplomatic relations, family circumstances, Tu Xuong's life, Tu Xuong's literary career... With a narrative style, Tran Thanh Mai has reconstructed the picture of Tu Xuong's time.

living, as well as portraying Tu Xuong's portrait from poems that the author believed were by the poet. This helped contemporary readers understand more about the reality of Tu Xuong's era. He had many sharp and subtle comments about the "mysterious power" that attracted readers to Tu Xuong's poetry. In this aspect, when reading through the chapters "Tu Xuong's Literature", Tu Xuong "A Satirist", we can see that Tran Thanh Mai was a person who had a deep understanding of ancient poetry, especially the Tang Dynasty poetry form. Tran Thanh Mai was the first person to discover and praise Tu Xuong's "intelligence" and satirical talent through poems mocking the examination process, mocking the unpleasant things in society and especially through Tu Xuong's unique self-mocking poems. The researcher highly appreciated Tu Xuong's satirical poetry, he said: Tu Xuong had reached the peak of Vietnamese satirical poetry. Using the method of comparison, he made many interesting comments about the ingenuity and uniqueness of Tu Xuong in this line of poetry, when he wrote: “Tu Xuong’s poetry is gentle, fluent, and resonates with a soft, melodious melody. Tu Xuong’s poetry does not have the elegance of Thanh Quan’s poetry, the grandeur of Nguyen Cong Tru’s poetry, the restraint of Le Thanh Ton, or the devilishness of Ho Xuan Huong’s. But what Tu Xuong has, and few people have, is the simplicity and the naturalness” [106, p.38]; or “For Tran Te Xuong, as well as Nguyen Khuyen, whatever thoughts come out of the mind, they are used immediately, nimble, fresh, without polishing, without carving, without effort. The literary breath has come out like a stream of water flowing downstream, smooth, strong, and fast” [106, p.49]. Or: “Mr. Tu Xuong uses words like a circus performer juggling his balls: Don’t see the verse and ignore it / Who would have thought that the sharp words would turn out to be empty . Always in one breath, leisurely, naturally but unintentionally, he skillfully used Buddhist words such as sutras, verses, color, and emptiness to compete with each other!” [106, p.51]. Such a genius, but unfortunately, was not paid attention to.

According to Tran Thanh Mai, the reason is: “... one part was not understood by people, so it could not be passed on, and the other part was ignored and ignored, because they did not like humorous satire!” [106, p.56]. Those are the first fairly accurate affirmations of Tran Te Xuong's poetic talent.

Besides the achieved values, Looking at the Vi River still has some limitations such as: considering Tu Xuong as a "philosophical materialist"; "Vi Xuyen's poetry is a sloppy style of poetry", but perhaps these are only certain limitations determined by historical circumstances, but in fact, this is a relatively objective and fair research work on the inherent values in Tu Xuong's poetic heritage.

Later, Tran Thanh Mai wrote two volumes of essays: Fighting against two erroneous notions about Tu Xuong (1957) and Tu Xuong the man and the poet (1961, co-written with Tran Tuan Lo) to correct the shortcomings and mistakes in the previous work. Tran Thanh Mai pointed out two reasons for the mistakes: the first was "originating from the perspective of the puppet feudal colonialists who often hated and feared people like Tu Xuong", the second was "many people did not understand the true character of Tu Xuong, did not have the opportunity to deeply research the poet's life, and then unintentionally let some first impressions of some of his poems and literature lead to inaccurate judgments" [108, pp. 36-37].

Regarding Tu Xuong's satirical art, previously, in Looking at the Vi River, Tran Thanh Mai pointed out that Tu Xuong was a satirical poet, as well as his ability to perceive poetry was very subtle... then here, he was even more subtle when he had very profound comments, expanding on many aspects. Tran Thanh Mai commented:

Tu Xuong, more than anyone before him, knew how to reflect the social reality of his time with materials taken directly from that social reality. To reflect the objective reality of that ridiculous and trashy society, in other words, the poet knew how to express that reality clearly.

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