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| [a] Whole RF |
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| [b] Embodied RF |
Marcel Granet’s reaction to the pages that Durkheim and
Mauss devoted to Chinese classification is instructive, and provides a window
to his thought. Although there is an air
of advocacy in his statement—promoting the work of his friend and his
mentor—there is much more to it than that. Marcel Granet was generous in his scholarship, but in a way that goes
far beyond kindness to others. He saw
whole arguments where others often saw fragments.
He was not alone in this, of course, because that very generosity lay at the heart of the Année sociologique approach to social phenomena. Rather than pointing out the quite obvious confusion of even basic issues in Primitive Classification, Granet saw its interpretive potential, conceptual rigor, and creativity. These were things that he brought to his own work, and the criticism of his Chinese scholarship often reflect an irritation with his attempt to find wholes, where (for many readers) parts would do.
A prominent professor of Chinese studies once remarked to
me that he hoped that someone would translate Granet’s last book, La
pensée chinoise,
and said that it would be an easier job for a translator because Granet’s
chapters on etiquette, government, and public service, being somewhat
derivative, could be skipped. To my
mind, that approach is exactly what
is wrong with sinological readings of Granet, and is why he is not fully
appreciated by many readers. Even when
scholars of China find him brilliant, they focus only on a few chapters that,
if read in the wider context of the book as a whole—or Granet’s whole body of
writings—would show the sociological foundations of his thinking, and his
reworking of his mentor’s ideas in a Chinese context. Indeed, isolated readings of even a great
work such as La pensée chinoise will never bring a
reader to an understanding of the method to which Granet adhered so closely,
and that deeply influenced his own students.
Our focus must be reversed if we are to bring out the full impact of Granet’s work, and that requires a thorough understanding of his early work on Chinese religion and seasonal festivals, his careful studies of Chinese sociology, and his almost forgotten blend of sociological insight and sinological depth, Danses et légendes de la Chine ancienne. For, as one prominent scholar has noted, Granet was “a historian by training and a sinologist by accident…spiritually and intellectually a sociologist in the sense given that term in the 1920s.[1]
When reading even the table de matières of Danses
et légendes, once
can see the themes of Année sociologique, for it deals not only
with the social background of China’s Spring and Autumn period (722-481 BCE),
but the role of ritual, sacrifice, and communion in early Chinese society. In addition, Granet addresses early Chinese
classification and categorization, as well as political themes (rendered always
in the wider context of his sociological understanding) such as the transfer of
power and the creation of new political orders.
Indeed, in the widest possible sense, it represents a seven-hundred page
expansion into the realm of Chinese texts of Durkheim’s Elementary Forms of Religious Life and Marcel
Mauss’s studies of sacrifice, magic, and gift exchange.
The spirit of Danses et légendes can best be summarized by Granet’s student, Rolf Stein, who has done as much as anyone—even while producing a formidable scholarly reputation of his own—to preserve the memory of Granet’s work. Here it is in Stein's words.
He was not alone in this, of course, because that very generosity lay at the heart of the Année sociologique approach to social phenomena. Rather than pointing out the quite obvious confusion of even basic issues in Primitive Classification, Granet saw its interpretive potential, conceptual rigor, and creativity. These were things that he brought to his own work, and the criticism of his Chinese scholarship often reflect an irritation with his attempt to find wholes, where (for many readers) parts would do.
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| [c] Round-square RF |
Our focus must be reversed if we are to bring out the full impact of Granet’s work, and that requires a thorough understanding of his early work on Chinese religion and seasonal festivals, his careful studies of Chinese sociology, and his almost forgotten blend of sociological insight and sinological depth, Danses et légendes de la Chine ancienne. For, as one prominent scholar has noted, Granet was “a historian by training and a sinologist by accident…spiritually and intellectually a sociologist in the sense given that term in the 1920s.[1]
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| [d] Ritual RF |
The spirit of Danses et légendes can best be summarized by Granet’s student, Rolf Stein, who has done as much as anyone—even while producing a formidable scholarly reputation of his own—to preserve the memory of Granet’s work. Here it is in Stein's words.
In his courses, Granet forced us to analyze texts on our own, to examine
them critically, and to draw from them the maximum amount of knowledge.
The questions he asked were designed to elicit not necessarily an immediate
solution to any single problem, but rather a slow, progressive journey toward
personal discovery. If he was not always pleased with our replies, this was
simply because even the most advanced student could not hope to reach the
high level of a master like Granet.
In order to work as Granet did, a student would have to have complete
knowledge of ancient Chinese literature, for Granet set down this general
principle: no single detail of any civilization can be understood and explained
except in the context of the entire civilization, just as in a jigsaw puzzle the
meaning of a piece can be seen only when it is put into it place in the larger
picture. Any interpretation from the outside, based on a priori principles, was
immediately rejected. Only those who have completely misunderstood Granet
could accuse him of holding preconceived ideas. He always refused, for
example, to “explain” a legend or a myth on the basis of any “theory.”
But he did actually have one preconceived idea: that of the importance of his
method of working. He would accept only explanations that resulted from
casting a new light on facts by putting them side by side, revealing their
relationship to each other, and finally grouping them into a whole.[2]
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| [e] Steps RF |
Although it is the purpose of series of posts—as a whole—to make a detailed analysis of Granet’s sociological sinology (or sinological sociology), I turn briefly to one of the most cited sections of Danses et légendes for an introductory example. As part of the book’s final section on “Heroic Sacrifice and Dynastic Dance,” Granet analyzes the Yubu—the “step of Yu.” Beginning memorably with the phrase: “He knew how to dance,”[3] Yu, the great sage king and founder of the Xia, “dragged a leg as he walked,” the result of his toil on behalf of the fledgling empire as he worked without respite to quell the flood waters ravaging all under heaven. The “Yu Step” is a Daoist dance and ritual that celebrates, in precise motions—left foot trailing, right foot in front—the toils of Yu.
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| [f] Coordinates RF |
For Granet, the example of toiling Yu follows hundred of pages dealing with the context of Chinese history and political life in the Zhou period, and grows directly out of a chapter that begins with an analysis of agnatic and uterine kinship as they connect to sacrificial ritual. Unlike even Edouard Chavannes, his “other” mentor, Marcel Granet showed little interest in the scholarly “trinkets” of Chinese texts. He was not inclined to polish and admire them in relative isolation, as have been many of his predecessors and successors.[4] For Granet, the “Step of Yu” was instead part of a great jigsaw puzzle of Chinese society that must be understood—indeed, could only be understood—as part of an embodied whole.
Notes
[1] Marcel Granet, Danses et légendes de la Chine ancienne [Introduction by Rémi Mathieu] (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1926), vi. Rémi Mathieu writes in the préface à Danses et légendes... « Quoique historien de formation et Sinologue par accident, M. Granet est spirituellement et intellectuellement sociologue au sens donné à ce terme dans les années vingt du XXe siècle. Sa méthode est essentiellement « sociologique », c’est a dire, à ses yeux, durkheimienne et maussienne, mais cette adhésion est autant rationnelle qu’affective. »
[2] Rolf Stein, The World in Miniature (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1990), 3.
[3] Danses et légendes, 549. « Il savait
danser.»
[4] Marcel Granet, The Religion of the Chinese People (New York: Harper & Row, 1973), 10. Even Granet’s own students
struggled with these matters. “Granet
seems to have divided his teaching into the mythique
and juridique, and was disappointed
when, as appears generally to have been the case, he could not hold their
interest equally in both: the kinship often bored those who were entranced by
the myth and ritual.”
Bibliography
Granet, Marcel. Danses et légendes de la Chine ancienne [Introduction by Rémi Mathieu]. Paris:
Presses Universitaires de France, 1926.
Granet, Marcel. The Religion of the Chinese People [Translated with an introduction by Maurice
Freedman]. New York: Harper & Row, 1973.
Bibliography
Granet, Marcel. Danses et légendes de la Chine ancienne [Introduction by Rémi Mathieu]. Paris:
Presses Universitaires de France, 1926.
Granet, Marcel. The Religion of the Chinese People [Translated with an introduction by Maurice
Freedman]. New York: Harper & Row, 1973.
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