USSH respectfully introduces the latest book by Associate Professor, Dr. Nguyen Pham Hung (Faculty of Tourism Studies). The book is published by Hanoi National University Publishing House, Quarter IV/2011, 620 pages.
In the seemingly quiet atmosphere of ancient literary research life, it turns out that it is never quiet. Many problems of past literature that seemed to have been "resolved" turned out to be unsolvable. There are still many problems of ancient and medieval literature that continue to be raised for research, exchange, and discussion in order to seek a higher persuasion of viewpoints and evaluation methods in the academic world, such as the problem of the integrity and unity of Vietnamese literary history; the problem of the concept of the spatial and temporal borders of Vietnam, of Vietnamese culture and literature; the problem of literature during the Northern domination period; the problem of Champa and Phu Nam - Thuy Chan Lap literature; or even the role of different national literatures in the great family of Vietnamese ethnic groups... up to now, it is still not easy to have a consensus in the literary world.
It is not yet possible to eliminate the “problems” caused by the influence of utilitarianism or one-sided and extreme views in literary research. For example, in the field of religious literature, it seems that we have just opened the door to the world of Buddhist literature, while the world of literature of other religions, especially Catholic literature, still seems to have many mysteries and seems to be closed to us. This also happens to many issues of “overseas literature”, “Southern literature”, or “literature of the war zone”… with many things that we have not resolved satisfactorily. These things make the wish to build a unified and complete literary history of a unified and complete Vietnam seem very far away. “Vietnamese Ancient Literature, Research and Thoughts” is a collection of studies published in a number of books, newspapers, and scientific journals at home and abroad from 2001 to 2011. The research and thoughts are presented in three parts, the first part is about literary theory and history, the second part is about specific authors and literary works, and the third part is about some ancient literary works that have recently been taught in schools. The research and thoughts on some issues of Vietnamese ancient literature as well as of literary theory and history presented in this book are more or less “under a new perspective, different from long-standing prejudices”.
(Excerpt from the author's "Foreword")
