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

had progressive thoughts at the time. Vo Liem Son was always interested in the relationship between literature and society. He considered that "literature cannot be separated from society, literature is to express society, criticize society, or to say: Literature has society as its content, then it has spirit, life, long-term value, and great character" ( Literature and Society ). As for Tan Da, in addition to other concepts, in the Dong Phap Times , issue 641 (1927) with the article "The Writer", he wrote: "And to be fair, if you do not love your country but write patriotic words, if you are immoral but write moralistic tones, then who are you trying to deceive? Even if you can deceive anyone, there will come a day when it will be exposed" [126, p.429]. As for Phan Chau Trinh, with the consciousness of literary innovation, in the poem Chi Thanh Thong Thanh , he wrote: " The people are slaves in droves/ The ancient literature is passionately sleeping " to criticize the type of literature that is far from the reality of the people's suffering lives. Or in Van Minh Tan Hoc Sach (1904), the author (not yet leaked) also called on writers to renew their concepts and understand the rules of poetry to do useful work for humanity and society.

Sharing the same viewpoint as above, Phan Boi Chau also always affirmed the material strength and the ability to expand democracy and civil rights of literature: “ Three inches of tongue, sword and gun, the authorities look at the wind with fear. A feather both empty and gong, the door of democracy lights the lamp more brightly ”. And in the article “ My concept of literature ”, Phan Boi Chau also clearly stated: “Literature is very related to the path of life, when life is prosperous, there is often good literature, and when there is good literature, the path of life is prosperous. If it is the opposite, then literature is bad and life is declining, then literature is even worse. Literature has such a great influence, how can we say that literature is a worthless species?” [16, p.232].

As for the uses and purposes of literature; Nguyen Ai Quoc, in

The article "Reply to Mr. H" (April 9, 1925) raised a very specific question about literature:

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“A simple, precise style of writing is much better than a verbose and ornate style of writing. A good writing that is difficult to understand is useless. For example, telling our people to listen to the French or the Chinese sing, even if those musicians are great artists, they still cannot attract our people.” So here, Nguyen Ai Quoc had an early concept of the relationship between content and form and the important thing is that the content and form must be suitable for the masses in each situation of the revolution, of the country. Also during this period, besides stories and memoirs, Nguyen Ai Quoc also expressed his anti-imperialist and anti-colonial spirit, expressing his concept of literature in the revolutionary cause of national liberation, in the work The Revolutionary Path (1927). He wrote: “Literature and hope, this book is only in two words: Revolution! Revolution! Revolution!” [118, p.181]. So, before and after, in literary creation and research, Nguyen Ai Quoc - Ho Chi Minh always considered literature as a weapon of revolutionary struggle in every era.

Through that, we realize that, from Confucianists to revolutionaries, they all consider the function, effect and mission of literature to be for the people's livelihood, democracy and civil rights in each period of history, that is, useful literature, literature with revolutionary spirit, is a sharp ideological weapon for the struggle for national liberation, serving the advanced class in society. That is, researchers and critics must be soldiers participating in that front of struggle. Because of this concept of literature, in literary research activities, a new research method will inevitably arise: research to see that the value of literary works is always closely linked to the reality of life, revolutionary reality.

Thus, the Marxist sociological method requires high principles and consistency in stance and viewpoint. Hai Trieu is the pioneer who proposed this.

high realistic works, in which social circumstances and people appear most clearly, from general to particular, from contradiction to prospect as in the works Lam Than (Lan Khai), Buoc Duong Cuoc ( The End of the Road )...

The achievement of this trend of literary research and criticism is that the works have considered the development of Marxist literature as a part of revolutionary literature, creating theoretical models to relate and apply to the research and criticism of specific works and authors. Of course, each researcher has his own concept, but their common point is that they all pay attention to the relationship between literature and reality, to create a "world view", systematizing the relationships between people and people, people and nature. Representative of this trend, in addition to Hai Trieu, there are many other progressive researchers and critics on the same side such as: Dang Thai Mai, Phan Van Hum, Hai Thanh, Hai Khach ....

Hai Trieu - the most enthusiastic revolutionary soldier in spreading Marxism and revolutionary literature and art through debates on Idealism or materialism, Art for art's sake or art for life's sake with Phan Khoi, Hoai Thanh, Luu Trong Lu, Le Trang Kieu, Thieu Son... Hai Trieu wrote: "The more clearly a literary or fine art work expresses the social character, the more valuable it is. In other words, if a work can express the common ideological feelings of the majority of people in an era (the majority of people who know how to appreciate art), then those works will be welcomed". "Art in this society is only relative and limited, a work for this class, this era, this country, even if it has value, but for another class, another era, another country, it is nothing" [193, p.315].

These can be considered the first clear concepts of literary theory.

Marxism that Hai Trieu proposed, although it is incomplete in some places, is complete.

as later . Thus, from the early days of literary criticism and research in the early 20th century, with works such as Van minh tan hoc sach of Dong Kinh Nghia Thuc (1904) and a series of opinions from Vo Liem Son, Tan Da, Phan Chau Trinh, Phan Boi Chau... then Hai Trieu, Hai Thanh, Hai Khach...; the research trend has developed from classical sociology to Marxist sociology, creating undeniable achievements. When Dang Thai Mai's Literary Concept was born (1944) and achieved new successes, we see that the movement of modern literary theoretical thinking in Vietnam has always been the effort of many people in accepting the new, advanced, revolutionary things of the West to meet the needs of national liberation, national renewal and the need for orientation and development of literature.

The period from 1930 to 1945 was marked by literary debates in many contemporary newspapers and magazines, especially the debate on Art for art’s sake and Art for life’s sake (1935-1939). The debate attracted many participants, including Hai Trieu, Hai Thanh, Hai Van, Ho Xanh, Bui Cong Trung, Lam Mong Quang representing the “for life” faction on one side and Hoai Thanh, Thieu Son, Luu Trong Lu, Le Trang Kieu, Thieu Quang representing the “for art’s sake” faction on the other side.

Hai Trieu believes that art is a product of social life, the cause of art is in society and its salvation is also in society. That is, Hai Trieu believes that "art for life" is progressive art. He criticizes Thieu Son's concept and considers it art for art's sake, not paying any attention to human life, that is pure art (L'art pur), divine art (L'art Olympien), art for art's sake (L'art pour L'art). With Hai Trieu, and with materialists, "art is always advocated as a product of social life " (L'art est un produit de la vie sociale). Therefore, "Who takes art

Making art a private toy, using art for art's sake, using art as a charm to charm people, all intentionally or unintentionally give fuel to anti-evolutionary forces.

Through the debate, important issues such as the reflective function of literature; the nature, characteristics and laws of literature; the class and national character in literature; the relationship between reflection and reception; the civic responsibility of artists and the issue of freedom in creation, etc. were widely and enthusiastically discussed with many opposing opinions, helping us to better understand the essential issues of literature. Hai Trieu's concept of "art for humanity" is basically correct and has a solid social and artistic ideological basis, "but it must also be understood flexibly, not just a shallow, mechanical reflection". It was this concept of Hai Trieu that truly created a fundamental impetus and was the first brick to build a literary and artistic foundation, including criticism and research according to the revolutionary and Marxist categories. The articles “Cu Sao Nam’s interpretation of the word literature is very wrong”, “The issue of people’s livelihood”, “The evolution of literature and the evolution of human life”, “Mr. Phan Khoi is an idealist scholar”… by Hai Trieu had a great resonance at that time. From then on, Vietnamese literary life truly had the presence of Marxist methods and thoughts in literary research.

A series of articles in Hanoi newspaper in 1936 about Popular Writers, articles by Phan Van Hum, Hai Thanh, Son Tra, Ho Xanh, Cao Van Chanh, Khuong Huu Tai, Hai Trieu... made the atmosphere of academic debate become more lively.

It should also be remembered that at this time, Vietnamese social life had great political and revolutionary changes, which had a significant impact on literary creation and research. The birth of the Party's Outline of Vietnamese Culture in 1943 was an event of great significance for the development of

Marxist sociological method. This was the Party's first platform on the cultural front. The platform outlined the Party's cultural revolution line during the most difficult period of the national revolution. Thoroughly grasping the viewpoint of considering culture as one of the three leading fronts, the platform determined the goal of rebuilding the national culture, fighting against the risk of being enslaved by fascist culture through fighting activities on three aspects: doctrine - ideology, literary and artistic trends and language with the motto of nation, mass and science. In 1944, Truong Chinh wrote the article Several major principles of the new Vietnamese cultural movement, which continued to reveal the Party's leadership direction with practical evidence of the "three diseases" of our country's culture at that time: anti-national, anti-scientific and anti-mass. He also emphasized the urgent task of cultural warriors at this time is to "fight on all fronts of literature, language, customs, beliefs..." and determined that this is the "inseparable front of the national liberation revolutionary movement of our people at this time". It can be said that the Outline of Vietnamese culture affirmed a Marxist principle that: culture belongs to the superstructure of society, at the same time affirming the leading role of the proletarian party in the cultural revolution. The article " Several major principles of the new Vietnamese cultural movement at this time" by Truong Chinh showed the deep concern of the Party for cultural and artistic work, making the life of literary research in general, and Marxist research in particular, become vibrant, profound and reap solid achievements.

Thus, it can be seen that the researchers of the “art for life” school with a materialist, proletarian, and revolutionary viewpoint have actively fought and thereby proposed their basic viewpoints on Marxist literary theory. Although there are some extremes when overemphasizing the relationship between literature and life, literature serving politics without paying due attention to the aesthetic characteristics of literature.

chapter, but anyway, the strong voice of the "art for life" faction is suitable for the situation, historical and social context and requirements of literature as well as the internal laws of theoretical thinking and the level of literary theory and creation at that time.

Here, it is necessary to identify the contribution of Dang Thai Mai - who, together with Hai Trieu and other colleagues, established new perceptions and new concepts for literary research, even though in the circumstances of that time, they did not really see that "the soul of the Marxist critical method is the aesthetic principle and the historical principle - the principles that Marx and Engels often mentioned during their lifetime [39, p.705].

Dang Thai Mai's famous and influential work in the academic world is Literary Concept (1944), after his articles were published in Tri Tan and Thanh Nghi newspapers under the pen name Thanh Tuyen. With Literary Concept, for the first time, the issues of literary principles according to Marxist concepts were systematically established. The tendency and scientific nature are clearly shown through the content: literature is a form of social consciousness. Dang Thai Mai is a person who thinks and absorbs the problem in a dialectical and scientific way (this is different from the excessive enthusiasm of Truong Tuu - Nguyen Bach Khoa). He accurately analyzed the relationship between politics and literature, the principle of dividing literary history and he affirmed that "a rich and beautiful literature always develops on a solid theoretical foundation". He believes that “In today's period, the creative method needs to use socialist realist art to overthrow idealistic literature and romantic art, and on the other hand, must overthrow the ideas that have commented on society too simply from a mechanical point of view” [105, p.144]. Therefore, he also promotes the concept of personality, ideals, and the writer's imagination to generalize art on the basis of a deep understanding of the relationship between

The content and form of the work, between typicality and creative personality, between national character, international character and the issue of creative freedom in literature and art. And the most important thing is that the writer must act as a citizen, an artist, and clearly recognize his relationship with the organization and the community. The flexibility and adaptability in Dang Thai Mai's concept of literature has prevented literary theory from falling into rigidity and dogma.

The dialectical spirit in Dang Thai Mai's theoretical thinking has made the central issues and the nature of literature clearly expressed and open, dynamic, not closed, unchanging. Dang Thai Mai and other researchers, together with Hai Trieu, deserve to be typical researchers according to the Marxist viewpoint, not only for this period but also opening up new steps of development for writing and research in later periods.

It can be said that from Hai Trieu to Dang Thai Mai, the Marxist sociological method has brought about remarkable new achievements in the process of modernizing Vietnamese literary research activities in the first half of the 20th century. However, due to overemphasizing the element of real life, the works of the "art for life" school, including Hai Trieu and Dang Thai Mai, sometimes underestimated the artistic value of literary works. From these initial steps, in the second half of the 20th century, the Marxist sociological method has truly become the main method in the country's literary research activities.

In short, the emergence of many new research methods has made the appearance of Vietnamese literary research in the first half of the 20th century completely different from the medieval criticism, because when using the method, the researcher has carefully studied the theory of the method he applied, and at the same time put forward systematic arguments to dissect the author and the work. Of course, not all of the methods applied above are new to this stage. Comparative method

The process of modernization of Vietnamese literary research in the first half of the 20th century - 23

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