前两段
Jacob Grimm, a renowned jurist as well as a beloved editor of fairy tales, states that “Dasz recht und poesie miteinander aus einem bette aufgestanden waren, hält nicht schwer zu glauben(That law and poetry rise together from one bed is not difficult to believe)” (8). Law is a recurring subject in literature, largely because it is able to produce the quality of drama that the latter craves. Legal scenes, consistently tense, bring conflicts into focus and go to the core of any issue; therefore, when I intend to examine the social realities in late-imperial Chinese vernacular novels, I choose to adopt the legal approach.
Rejecting the simplistic views that either reduce law to a set of rules impervious to human interference, or equal it to a mirror of class interests, James Boyd White, in The Legal Imagination, sees law as “an enormously rich and complex system of thought and expression, of social definitions and practices…a language…[that] structures sensibility and vision” (xiii). As a result, he advises that legal plots in literary texts be analyzed, in that such endeavors will be able to reveal those unstated assumptions that underpin our society. While agreeing with him, I would take one step further and propose that it is even more enlightening and urgent to study the legal blunders in great literary works; the fact that, consciously or unconsciously, the author is willing to risk the authenticity and relatability of her work and the fact that such inaccuracies are at least tolerated suggest that those legal aberrations are consistent with deeply hidden social structures and can reveal previously unsuspected realities.
My love of Chinese literature extends back as far as I can remember. One of my most vivid memories from my high school days is of me simultaneously writing poetry in class while trying to hide it from my teachers. The poems that I scribed were undoubtedly immature in construction, but they were original. The feeling of pride that swells after creating something out of nothing but one’s own thoughts is incredibly rewarding.
It was my love of writing and of literature that led me into the fields of journalism and publishing during my undergraduate studies at *** University. I believe that one only gets into these fields for the purest love of vocation, as the world is constantly telling advocates of literature, history, and other realms in the arts how difficult it is becoming to make our way in this chosen profession.
My academic performance was rather humdrum, consistently finishing middle of the field in my subjects and achieving a GPA of 3.29. I strongly believe that this mediocrity was not due to a lack of knowledge or effort on my part but instead a shortage of inspiration. While the material covered in class was adequate, we were not challenged to question and debate, to analyze compositions to the fullest. What is the point of literature and the written word if not to generate healthy discussion?