追寻别样的声景：国际现代主义与抗战中国的声音战争

郝宇骢 上海纽约大学

Commissioned by Faber and Faber and Random House to write a travel book，W.H.Auden（1907-1973）and Christopher Isherwood（1904-1986）set out for China in January 1938 to report on the ongoing Sino-Japanese War（1937-1945）.1The finished product，entitled Journey to a War，was published in early 1939.The travel book consists of Isherwood’s diary entries，a collection of photographs on people and landscape during their China trip，and Auden’s sonnets，“In Time of War，”accompanied by a verse commentary.The British travelers first arrived in Canton（Guangzhou）from Hong Kong and then headed north along the coastline of southeast China.They made a major stop in Wuhan and then headed to the area near Xuzhou，where the most critical battle of 1938 between the Chinese and the Japanese，the Battle of Tai’erzhuang，took place.It was a natural choice for many left-leaning European intellectuals atthe time，especially Auden，who recognized the ethicalimperative to support China’s anti-fascist efforts after his involvement in the Spanish Civil War a year earlier.Around the time Auden and Isherwood departed for Wuhan，the wartime capital of China，Dutch documentary filmmaker Joris Ivens（1898-1989）arrived in the city upon completing post-production forThe Spanish Earth（1937），a solidarity documentary on the Spanish Civil War that supported thePopular Frontagainsttheemergent Fascistregimeof General Francisco Franco.

Their encounters with wartime China were crystallized，respectively，into the sonnet series“In Time of War，”which was accompanied by a verse commentary，and a solidarity documentary film，The400Million（1938）.Intheformer，Audenmediatedthehumanexperienceof suffering，redemption，and freedom with world-historical and religious concerns，and yet this grand，metaphysical perspective rendered China almost an abstract，if not unintelligible，signifier that lost its historical concreteness.In the latter，Ivens documented China’s multi-class resistance to Japanese encroachment，deploying techniques of cinematic mise-en-scène，montage，and the insertion of multiplesoundtracksto amplify theexpressivecapacity of theaudio-visualmedium of sound documentary.

In my reconstruction of the wartime experience of Auden and Ivens，and with close analyses of their literary and cinematic works，I investigate questions of soundscape，auditory aesthetics，and the practices of listening.Both Auden and Ivens registered the complex soundscape of wartime China：while they were overwhelmed by the deadly blasts of aerial bombardment，siren sounds，and cries of war victims，they sought to redress the wartime crisis of perception by locating alternative soundscapes beyond acoustic violence.Experimenting with poetry and documentary film，art forms that could be approximated as mediums of sound，the two artists reenacted and re-sounded thepolyglossicvoicesof redemptionand resistance，butintheirownways.

This article，recognizing the centrality of sonic expressions and auditory imaginations in the two texts，seeks to address the following questions：What was the soundscape of wartime China like？How did the artists mediate their sonic experiences？What factors，aesthetic，political，or technological，contributed to the elevation of sound as a central motif in wartime cultural imagination？And how did such sonic expressions and auditory sensibilities bring forth divergent articulationsof theauditory aestheticsof modernism？

Another subject that I tackle in this article is the transnational network of modernism.While Auden’s modernist commitment has been widely acknowledged，Ivens’s relationship to modernist aesthetics is much more ambivalent.In fact，his pair of solidarity films，The Spanish EarthandThe 400 Million，are often regarded as signifying the filmmaker’s departure from modernism to realism.However，contextualizing Auden with Ivens within the broad spectrum of modernist articulations in the global 1930s，I argue that the much-contested concept of modernism could hardly be confined to formal conventions and stylistic considerations.Instead，modernism encompasses a widearray of politicalpositionsand artisticformulationsthatsoughttomediateand mitigatehistorical crises and reconfigured the meaning of modernity during the war years.2Walter L.Adamson，Embattled Avant-Gardes：Modernism’s Resistance to Commodity Culture in Europe（Berkeley：University of California Press，2007），18.Moreover，the transnational sojourns of Auden and Ivens help to decenter the cultural space of modernism from London and Paris and pinpoint a hitherto rarely explored nexus between Madrid and Wuhan，two majorsitesof internationalmodernismconnected byanti-fasciststrugglesintheglobal1930s.3Since the late 1990s，there have been concerted efforts to rethink modernism beyond the geographical confines of Europe，including European modernists’engagement with issues of imperialism and colonialism，the recognition of alternative traditions，and the transnational circulation and reception of modernist texts.See Douglas Mao and Rebecca L.Walkowitz，“The New Modernist Studies，”PMLA 123，no.3（2008）：737-48.Here，I use the term“international modernism”instead of“global modernism”for two reasons：the first stems from the shared connection of the two artists with the International Brigades，though Auden’s engagement was much more fleeting，and the second is to acknowledge Chinese-language scholarship on cultural production during the Sino-Japanese War，where Chinese scholars primarily use“guoji xiandai zhuyi国际现代主义”（international modernism）.

In English-language scholarship，Auden’s and Ivens’s Chinese journeys have often been studied within their respective national and cultural traditions.For instance，Auden scholars often associate“In Time of War”with the emerging market of 1930s travel writings in British literary culture，identify the influence of other European authors on his China sonnets，or compare Auden’s verse with Isherwood’s prose in their collaborative travel book，Journey to a War.4See Hugh Haughton，“Journeys to War：W.H.Auden，Christopher Isherwood and William Empson in China”in Century of Travels in China：Critical Essays on Travel Writing from the 1840s to the 1940s，ed.Douglas Kerr（Hong Kong：Hong Kong University Press，2007），Stuart Christie’s“Disorientations：Canon without Context in Auden's‘Sonnets from China，’”PMLA 120，no.5（2005）：1576-87，and Douglas Kerr’s“Journey to a War：“ATest for Men from Europe，”W.H.Auden：ALegacy，ed.David Garrett Izzo（West Cornwall：Locust Hill Press，2002），275-96.Similarly，The 400 Millionis contextualized within the development of Western sound documentary or the political tradition of realist documentary.5See Thomas Waugh，“The 400 Million（1938）and the Solidarity Film：‘Halfway Between Hollywood and Newsreel’，”Studies in Documentary Film 3，no.1（2014）：7-17，and“Anti-Fascist Solidarity Documentary，”in The Conscience of Cinema（Amsterdam：Amsterdam University Press，2016），195-256.Scholarly inquiries in Chinese，in contrast，are more concentrated on biographical research that explores the European artists’contact with China or traces the reception of their works in a cross-cultural context，and thereby，one may often run into titles such as“Audenin China”or“Ivensand China.”6For instance，黄瑛：《W.H.奥登在中国》，《中国文学研究》2016年第1期，第103~107页。［HUANG Ying，“W.H.Aoden zai Zhongguo”（W.H.Auden in China），Zhongguo wenxue yanjiu（Chinese Literature Studies）1（2016）：103-7.］赵文书：《W.H.奥登与中国的抗日战争》，《当代外国文学》1999年第4期，第165~170页。［ZHAO Wenshu，“Aodeng yu Zhongguo de Kangri zhanzheng”（Auden and the Sino-JapaneseWar），Waiguo wenxue yanjiu（Contemporary Foreign Literature）4（1999）：165-70.］

While this brief comparison offers a glimpse into different scholarly traditions and critical concerns among intellectual communities in China and in Euro-America，I argue that neither of these approaches will be adequate to account for the myriad transnational encounters and the international modernist network in motion at the historical juncture of the global 1930s.In this light，I have found the theoretical framework of transnationalism to be enormously productive，as it allows the recognition of the construction of international cultural spaces，the formation of transnational communities，and the process of meaning-making and maneuvering across different cultural systems by travelling agents.7Victor Roudometof，“Transnationalism，Cosmopolitanism and Glocalization，”Current Sociology 53，no.1（2005）：113.Therefore，while my article posits China as a site of the cultural imagination of European modernism，I do not intend to objectify the place as a passive locale projected by foreign fantasy，be that orientalist or communist.Instead，I understand wartime China as the contact zone that makes possible the encounter between the two European artists and their Chinese counterparts—for instance，the modernist poet and Auden translator Mu Dan穆旦（1918-1977）and the communist filmmaker Wu Yinxian吴印咸（1900-1994）—and informs the entwined trajectories of Chinese modernism and European modernism.Moreover，the framing of transnationalism challenges the conventional narrative of Chinese modernism that focuses solely on the Japan-inspired New Sensationalist fiction developed in semi-colonial Shanghai or the less than successful appropriation of European modernism by the Crescent Moon Society in Beijing.Such understandings，Icontend，would，ontheonehand，reinforcethedenialof temporalcoevalnessbetween Chinese modernism and its European or Japanese counterparts，and on the other，overlook alternativetrajectoriesof modernismthatarelargelyfoundedonnon-metropolitanexperiences.

Wuhan，1938

In the spring of 1938，many western journalists and intellectuals flocked to Wuhan to witness the unfolding of the Sino-Japanese War in China’s wartime capital.Left-leaning Western newspapers such asNew MassesandThe New Republic，after their extensive coverage of Spain in 1937，turned their attention to Japanese aggressions in China.8Stephen MacKinnon，“TheTragedy of Wuhan，1938，”Modern Asian Studies 30，no.4（1996）：939.Noting the striking parallel between the Spanish Civil War and the Sino-Japanese War，two major anti-fascist struggles at the time，these Western observers believed that a full-scale war of a similar kind would soon be staged on the Europeanbattlefield.

Along with the arrival of Western journalists，wartime Wuhan also welcomed high-profile cultural figures，and most prominent among all foreign visitors were W.H.Auden and Joris Ivens，the two central figures of this article.As Isherwood noted in his first impression of the city，Wuhan was full of unusual juxtapositions and unexpected encounters：“All kinds of people live in town—Chiang Kai-shek，Agnes Smedley，Chou En-lai；generals，journalists，foreign naval officers，soldiers of fortune，airmen，missionaries，spies…History，grown weary of Shanghai，bored with Barcelona，hasfixed hercapriciousinterestupon Hankow.”9W.H.Auden and Christopher Isherwood，Journey to AWar（London：Faber and Faber，1939），76.

Notwithstanding its cosmopolitan cultural atmosphere，Wuhan suffered severely from Japanese military attacks，especially in the form of aerial bombardment.It was one of the most bombed cities in the world：from August 1937 to October 1938，it was bombed seventy-two times.Japanese aerial warfare not only aimed at destroying military infrastructures of the United Force but the routine and daily bombardment caused severe destruction to essential facilities and civilian life.10武汉市档案馆：《保卫大武汉》，武汉：武汉文史出版社，1998年，第187~201页。［Wuhan Municipal Archives，ed.，Baowei daWuhan（To Guard Wuhan），Wuhan：The Liberal Arts Press（Wuhan），1998，187-201.］Oral accounts of the local residents revealed a story of fear，fatigue，and tremendous losses.War victims notonly mourned for thedeathsof theirfamiliesand thedemolitionof theirhomes，butthey alsoseverely suffered from psychological and perceptional disorientations.Although Japanese bombers often targeted specific areas of the city，the acoustic violence of air-raiding and sirens and the deafening blasts of bombing were much more far-reaching and pierced the eardrums of almost everyone in the city.As some survivors recalled，due to the constant and earth-shattering explosions of aerial bombardment，they had developed symptoms such as“aerial bombing-phobia”and temporary lossof theirsenses.11李丹柯：《女性，战争与回忆：35位重庆妇女的抗战讲述》，香港：香港中文大学出版社，2015年，第102~103页。［LI Danke，Nüxing，zhanzheng，yu huiyi：sanshiwu wei Chongqing funüde Kangzhan jiangshu（Women，War，and Memory：Oral Histories about theWar of Resistance from 35Women in Chongqing），Hong Kong：Chinese University of Hong Kong Press，102-3.］

Such remembrancestestified to theeffectivenessof themilitary strategy of“terrorattack”（ter⁃rorangriffe）that was widely deployed in World War II，which used aerial warfare to intimidate and terrorize—in addition to the destruction of military and civil facilities—the morale of the civilians.12Dietmar Süss，Death from the Skies：How the British and Germans Survived Bombing in World War II（Oxford：Oxford University Press，2013），2-3.Similarly，the psychological realm of civilian morale became a contested site between the contending forces of the Chinese and the Japanese during the Battle of Wuhan.While imperial Japan attempted to terrorize the mind and perception of Wuhan residents with aerial warfare，China’s war propaganda sought to redress the psychological terror by disseminating and cultivating sentiments of nationalism.News reports，recitation poems，and political cartoons about Wuhan in 1938 widely featured the imagery of air-raids—the most emblematic symbol and familiar experience of wartime China—and accompanied the representation of this perceptual horror with impassioned calls forresistance.

InSonic Warfare：Sound，Affect，and the Ecology of Fear，Steve Goodman examines the deployment of acoustic violence in modern warfare，in which sound’s vibrational force instigates the affective experience of fear from the human body.13Steve Goodman，Sonic Warfare：Sound，Affect，and the Ecology of Fear（Cambridge：MITPress，2010），xiv.While Goodman’s ontology of sonic warfare identifies how the malevolent sound provokes physiological and neural resonances，by turning away from the subjective，situated experience of listening and hearing and instead focusing on the biological and technological operation of sound，it nevertheless dissociates affect from consciousness and renders the human body without history.My discussion of the sonification and resonance of acoustic violence in wartime China，while informed by Goodman’s theorization of the militaryaffective experience of fear，seeks to embody the affect of fear with historical and perceptual specificities.To that end，I have found the idea of perception，specifically the perception of listening and hearing，ausefulintermediarythatconnectsamilitary-technologized soundscape，theaffectiveexperience of fear，and the human subject’s perceptual experience of hearing.In Weihong Bao’s study of film culture during the Sino-Japanese War，she helpfully notes that the wartime condition brought about a crisis of perception，and that wartime filmmakers experimented with the expressive and affective capacity of propaganda film to instill not only the correct political position but alsothecorrectperceptionontothespectatorstorescuethem from thisperceptualdisorder.14BAO Weihong，Fiery Cinema：The Emergence of an Affective Medium in China，1915-1945（Minneapolis：University of Minnesota Press，2015），320.AsBao’s account convincingly demonstrates，the operation of human perception，including that of seeing and hearing，is conditioned on and constructed by an intricate negotiation between political positions，mediumconventions，and artisticexperimentationsof thecinematicapparatus.

Inspired by Bao’s discussion of the manifestation and resolution of the crisis of perception in China’s wartime film culture，this article zeroes in on the critical endeavor to rescue human perception in the aural regime；in other words，how to cultivate techniques of listening and hearing that could transcend perceptual disorientation and political degradation.I argue that the auditory sense，whichcould bebroadlyunderstood asanepistemologicalmodeof navigatingoneself againstacontradictory，perplexing reality，was consciously cultivated by various cultural agents in wartime China to overcome the deterioration of human perception and auralize alternative soundscapes.Here，I have found Nicole Huang’s study on the practice of listening in Maoist China extraordinarily revealing.Borrowing from anthropologist Stefen Helmreich’s discussion of the transduction of listening，that listeners could approximate“a sense of being at once emplaced in space and，at times，porously continuous with it，”15Nicole Huang，“Listening to Films：Politics of the Auditory in 1970s China，”Journal of Chinese Cinemas 7，no.3（2013）：194.Huang highlights listeners’creative agency in mediating an invasive soundscape beyond total submission.The excavation of this alternative auditory culture attests to the possibility of listening against a dominant mode of sound，in which the autonomy of listening，though constantly threatened by a total soundscape，could still be partially preserved throughthesubject’scapacity of transducingdifferentsourcesof sound.

The acoustic environment to which Auden and Ivens were exposed could similarly be perceived as a total soundscape.The pervasive sound of modern warfare—the scream of sirens，the humming of bomber engines，aerial bombardment，and explosions—penetrated the living space of the everyday and caused tremendous psychological paralysis and affective abjection.Under these circumstances，it becomes all the more imperative to inquire if and how it is possible to listen beyond this destructive soundscape.In the cases of Auden and Ivens，while both documented extensively the overwhelming acoustic violence in wartime China，they also endeavored to listen and imagine other types of sound in an effort to reclaim the voice of humanity against the cacophony of the Sino-Japanese War.Thus，the practices of listening against a total soundscape not only illustrate the process of attentively searching for“minor”sounds，but also instantiate artistic and ethical interventions to reenact and resonate sounds that resist being subsumed by sonic warfare.However，I also want to point out the limits of listening，which result from aesthetic considerations as well as bureaucratic constraints，and these factors prevent Auden and Ivens from hearing and reenactingcertaintypesof soundinwartimeChina.

“The BombsAre Real and Dangerous”

In Isherwood’s diary entry on March 15，1938，a few days after his and Auden’s arrival in Wuhan and amid the intensifying air battle between China and Japan，the novelist recorded his first encounter with China’s wartime soundscape.It was an evening when he and Auden were walking home from dinner，and suddenly they were confronted by the scream of air-raid sirens.With a few others from the British Consul and the Navy，the group hurried to the adjacent American bank and waited fortheclearanceof theairraid：

The dull，punching thud of bombs falling，near the airfield，out in the suburbs.The searchlights criss-crossed，plotting points，like dividers；and suddenly there they were，six of them，flying close together and high up.It was as if a microscope had brought dramatically into focus the bacilli of a fatal disease.They passed，bright，tiny，and deadly，infecting the night.The searchlights followed them right across the sky；guns smashed out；tracerbullets bounced up towards them，falling hopelessly short，like slow-motion rockets.The concussions made you catch your breath；the watchers around us on the roof exclaimed softly，breathlessly：“Look！Look！There！”It was as tremendous as Beethoven，but wrong—a cosmic offence，an insult to the whole of Nature and the entire earth.16W.H.Auden and Christopher Isherwood，Journey to aWar，70-71.

Isherwood chronicles in detail his perceptual experience of seeing and hearing aerial bombardment.While he elaborately captures the visual transition between darkness and light，the diary entry provides an even more striking account of an invasive soundscape of sirens，gunshots，and bombings.Though sheltering in a colonial building away from the area of bombardment，Isherwood was not aurally immune to the aerial attack’s deadly thuds.By characterizing them as“infectious，”he revealed both the destructive consequence of aerial bombing and the pervasive nature of this military soundscape.However，despite the metaphor of disease，the sonic spectacle of aerial bombing and killing hardly evoked any real sense of fear among Isherwood and his compatriots.The racially divided urban space of semi-colonial Wuhan allowed the group to sequester in foreign quarters and witness the unfolding of the entire incident within a safe distance and with an unusual calmness.In this light，Isherwood’s remark，“it was as tremendous as Beethoven，”should not come as a surprise.While conveying the grandeur of the clamor of aerial bombing，it reveals the senseof psychologicaldetachmentfeltby aEuropeansubject.

Literary scholars generally agree thatJourney to a Waris a product of a close collaboration between Auden and Isherwood.17Hugh Haughton，“Journey to War：W.H.Auden，Christopher Isherwood，and William Empson in China，”A Century of Travels in China：Critical Essays on Travel Writings from 1840s to the 1940s，ed.Douglas Kerr（Hong Kong：Hong Kong University Press，2007），150；Douglas Kerr，“Journey to a War：“ATest for Men from Europe，”W.H.Auden：ALegacy，ed.David Izzo（West Cornwall：Locust Hill Press，2002），272.Though the structure of the travel book could be neatly divided into prose and verse authored by Isherwood and Auden respectively，the actual process of writing involved close coordination and mutual inspiration：Isherwood’s diary relies heavily on Auden’s notes，and there are also visible traces in Auden’s poetry where he reworked the war imageries of bombardment，death，and sacrifice from Isherwood’s detailed diary entries.Though working from the same set of sources and materials，there exists a major distinction between Auden and Isherwood，as Douglas Kerr’s analysis indicates，in the way they navigated their subject positions in wartime China：whereas Isherwood remained disoriented throughout his China trip and constantly failed to accomplish“arrival，comprehension，integration，and closure，”Auden managed to reorient himself in the foreign land and understand the ongoing Sino-Japanese War metonymically as theepitomeof aprofound civilizationalcrisis.18Douglas Kerr，“Journey to aWar：“ATest for Men from Europe，”W.H.Auden：ALegacy，ed.David Izzo，278.

If disorientation entails an epistemological impasse in which a subject fails to comprehend a different socio-cultural system，as exemplified by Isherwood’s straightforward，if not superficial，description of his sensory experience，then reorientation requires the process of mediation，reflection，and oftentimes empathetic imagination.In Auden’s“In Time of War，”the sonnet series that constitutes the second half ofJourney to a War，it could be observed thatAuden devoted meticulous efforts to reworking a similar set of raw materials in Isherwood’s journals to make it not only legible but also meaningful to a European readership.However，this process inevitably involves abstraction in which the concreteness of the lived experience of wartime China is sacrificed and marginalized tobecomeafootnotetothemasterthemeof civilizationand humanity.

The opening sonnets of“In Time of War”，alluding to the fall from grace in Eden，set the stage for the entire series，in which Auden sketches the entire history of human civilization as continuously threatened by violence and errors，in spite of the promise of progress.The subsequent sonnets are largely allegorical and reflect on themes of truth，freedom，and necessity.On the occasions when Auden makes specific reference to China，he sometimes juxtaposes China’s wartime crisis with the threat of fascism in Europe，thus making what happened in the Sino-Japanese War a relatable and relevant experience for a European subject.For instance，in“Sonnet XVI，”Auden writes，“Andmapscanreally pointtoplaces/Wherelifeisevilnow/Nanking；Dachau.”

Like in Isherwood’s diary entry，the scene of aerial bombardment seizesAuden’s poetic imagination.In several sonnets，the poet captures this wartime soundscape with its clamor and cacophony of bombers and victims’painful cries，but unlike Isherwood’s practice of listening awry，Auden’spoetry exemplifiesamuch moreengaged form of listening，orasIargue，how to listen ethically to a dehumanizing soundscape.In“Sonnet XVIII，”one of the most widely read sonnets，Audenmournsforthedeathof ananonymousChinesesoldierwholosthislifeduringanaerialbombardment：

Far from a cultural centre he was used：

Abandoned by his general and his lice，

Under a padded quilt he turned to ice

And vanished.He will never be perused

When this campaign is tidied into books：

No vital knowledge perished in that skull；

His jokes were stale；like wartime，he was dull；

His name is lost for ever like his looks.

Though runeless，to instructions from headquarters

He added meaning like a comma when

He joined the dust of China，that our daughters

Might keep their upright carriage，not again

Be shamed before the dogs，that，where are waters，

Mountains，and houses，may be also men.19W.H.Auden and Christopher Isherwood，Journey to aWar，276.

Unlike the“Beethoven-like spectacles，”this scene becomes much more quiet and banal with a namelessChinesesoldierbeingthesonnet’sthesoleprotagonist.Yetthesoldier，becauseof theerasure of any social marker，becomes a perfect emblem of war victims.He remains figureless and voiceless throughout the sonnet，and the gradual disappearance of his body and the denial of his name even imply the impossibility of embodying a voice forhim.Therefore，ratherthan try to articulate a voice for this subaltern subject，the poet-narrator analogizes the existence of the soldier to a“comma，”a pause that is soundless and yet capable of regulating the rhythm and semantics of language，and thus acknowledges the silent presence of the deceased’s life.Though the sudden switch to the first-person plural perspective of“our daughters”disrupts the flow of what has hitherto been a third-person reminiscence of this anonymous Chinese soldier，it hardly obscures or substitutes the latter’s existence，but allows the presumably privileged narrator to reflect on his relationship，if not solidarity，with a disenfranchised foreign subject.In this sonnet，Auden grapples with the task of listening to an impossible voice from a deceased subject，and his deliberate choice to recover the silent trace of a voiceless subject against a deafening soundscape instantiates an ethical quest for an appropriatemodeof listening.

Averse commentary follows“In Times of War.”The formal and stylistic freedom of verse allowsAuden to present both a more panoramic overview of human civilization and a more elaborate account of the Sino-Japanese War.While many Auden scholars focus primarily on the sonnets，I think Auden’s commentary illustrates his encounter with wartime China with much substantiality and conceptual complexity.In the commentary，Auden demonstrates a heightened auditory sensibility to reenact his perceptual disorientation instigated by the overwhelming soundscape of wartime，and he further introduces an imagined polyglossic conversation regarding freedom and humanity and the transcendental voice of Man to diversify the sonic environment in an effort to mitigate the malevolence of sonic warfare.With its meticulous reconstruction and imagination of multiple sources of sound and its formal experiments with argumentative voices，the commentary moves freely between local imageries and metaphysical mediation，and between the devastating soundscapeof modernwarfareandtheredemptivevoiceof Man.

In the beginning of the commentary，the poet-narrator elaborates on the perceptual terror and violence instigated by the Japanese military.After the invaders launched deadly aerial strikes“downcountry footpaths，from every civicsky，”thenarratorrecountstheconsequenceof suchbrutal attacks with extraordinary auditory sensibility：“this material contest［has］made Hongkew/A terror and a silence，and Chapei a howling desert.”20Ibid.，291.The verse，however，is much more than a poetic documentation of war atrocities，as it further invites the narrator to self-reflexively recognize his privileged position as a European traveler.While at first he enjoys the freedom of“walking unhurt among the banks，apparently immune，”the perceptual stimuli of war force him to realize that refuge is but an illusion，for the Sino-Japanese War“is one sector and one movement of the general war/between the dead and the unborn，the Real and the Pretended，”21Ibid.，292.thus deconstructing his own psychologicaldetachmentandsolicitingempathetic imaginationfromthepoeticsubject.

However，the narrator is hardly the only agent audible in this commentary.Auden introduces multiple voices from human history to construct a philosophical conversation regarding the meaning of freedom amid the crisis of humanity.With an argumentative style，Auden reviews the entire history of humankind and moderates polyglossic voices from major historical junctures，including the Roman magistrate’s question on truth，Descartes’s reflection that“I am because I think，”and the revelation of the conflict between unity and freedom through the persuasion of Shang-Tzu，Napoleon，and Hobbes.In so doing，he compiles a vocal chronology of the trials and denials of freedominhumanhistory.

Aside from presenting polyglossia from those major historical voices，the poet-narrator also attentively listensforand recordsanalternativesoundscape：

Above the everlasting murmur of the woods and rivers，

And more insistent than the lulling answer of the waltzes，

Or hum of printing-presses turning forests into lies；

And now I hear it，rising round me from Shanghai，

And mingling with the distant mutter of guerrilla fighting，

The voice of Man：“O teach me to outgrow madness.

…

Till they construct at last a human justice，

The contribution of our star，within the shadow

Of which uplifting，loving，and constraining power

All other reasons may rejoice and operate.”22W.H.Auden and Christopher Isherwood，Journey to aWar，299-301.

In this imagined listening，Auden carefully identifies different sources of sounding：the unchanging murmur of nature，the pleasant music of entertainment，the rattling sound of media machines，and finally，the voice of Man thatrises above allother kinds of sound.While the firstthree types imply either indifference or falsehood and thus are not far from noise，the voice of Man，however，is endowed with a redemptive force that seeks to rescue humankind from the current—as well as the eternal—crisis of freedom.This voice，on the one hand，issues a strident call for justice，humanity，and freedom to dispel human degradation in time of war，and on the other hand，merges with the“the distant mutter of guerrilla fighting，”signifying the mutual translatability between sonic expressionand politicalaction.

Writing in the 1990s when the field of sound studies was still at its inception，Douglas Kahn observes the unfortunate silencing of artistic modernism in historiography，noting that the subject of modernism“has been read and looked at in detail but rarely heard.”23Douglas Kahn，Noise，Water，Meat：AHistory of Sound in theArts（Cambridge：MITPress），4.The burgeoning of scholarship in the past two decades，however，has come to recognize the mutual constitution between modern soundscape and modernist aesthetics.Emerging media technologies in the first half of the twentieth century，such as radio，phonograph，and the mechanic noises of modern warfare，while radically transforming and redistributing the human perception of listening and hearing，constantly challenged the medium of writing to adaptto new ways of inscribing the novelexperience of sonic modernity，24Sara Danius，The Senses of Modernism：Technology，Perception，and Aesthetics（Ithaca：Cornell University Press，2002），12.exemplifying what Friedrich Kittler conceptualized as“the competition between media.”25Friedrich Kittler，Gramophone，film，typewriter（Stanford：Stanford University Press，1999），153.As Tyler Whitney writes in his study of German modernism，the pervasiveness of sound in modern society not only allowed modernist authors to explore new ways of literary sonification through media technologies，but also propelled them to look for representational strategies that could adequately reproduce the physical and affective force of sound，often by ways of sonic transduction，internalization，orevenhallucination.26Tyler Whitney，Eardrums：Literary Modernism as Sonic Warfare（Evanston：Northwestern University Press，2019），16.

Resonating with Whitney’s observation of the expanding representational capacities of modernism with regard to the modern soundscape，Auden’s poetic inscription of sound in the verse commentary also departs from the straightforward sonification or documentation of China’s sonic warfare.Instead，the poet laboriously transduces the threatening acoustic violence and anchors the listening subject toward the symbolic realm of sound.By turning the poetic ear inward and attentively into polyglossic arguments regarding humanity and the imagined，redemptive voice of Man，Auden interweaves the audible with the inaudible，the actual and the allegorical.In this way，he envisages a much diversified soundscape that could mitigate the malevolence of the cacophony of warfare and redress the profound civilizational as well as perceptual crisis.However，while Auden strives to listen for this alternative，allegorical soundscape with techniques of internalization and imagination that are characteristic of high modernism，in so doing，the historical specificities of wartime China are sidelined and shrink rapidly into an insignificant footnote to the master narrative of civilization and humanity.Hence the modernistexperimentwith listening paradoxically reveals the limits of listening，exposing how a traveling European subject fails to grasp the historical specificities and actual casualties of China’s wartime soundscape but mediates the profound cacophony intoanobjectof allegorical，auditory imagination.

Joris Ivens and the Making of The 400 Million

Around the same timeAuden and Isherwood arrived in Wuhan，Joris Ivens，who had just finished post-production for his documentaryThe Spanish Earthin Los Angeles，was heading to the battlefield in China.On his trans-Pacific flights，the Dutch filmmaker drafted his grand plan：this new documentary about wartime China should be a work comparable in scope toThe Spanish Earth.As to the documentary’s content，Ivens believed that the most urgent task was not to display the process of reconstruction or provide a Western audience a travelogue-like account of Chinese history.Rather，in his notes he wrote that this documentary“needs focus on war，concentration of all forces for war.Show new China in organization of resistance，uniting of all classes，history of aggression.”27Thomas Waugh，The Conscience of Cinema：The Films of Joris Ivens：1926-1989（Amsterdam：Amsterdam University Press，2016），225.

Ivens’s ambition to represent the vast social landscape of a unified national community and the concerted resistance efforts of the Chinese，however，was never fully executed in the documentary.The 400 Millionis a hybrid of a prosaic travelogue about an Asian society，a newsreel documentation of Japanese aggression，and an Ivensian political documentary in the same spirit asThe Spanish Earth.The stylistic and diegetic inconsistency ofThe 400 Million，on the one hand，is a result of strict censorship and surveillance from China’s ruling Nationalists，who prevented Ivens from filming left-leaning，progressive subjects，and on the other hand，reflects the conflicts between the generic requirements of a solidarity film fora general Western audience and the director’s devotion to exploring the political expressiveness of the documentary medium.While these formal and political constraints thwart the efficacy of his documentary visuals，Ivens seeks to partially compensate for the limits of visual language by incorporating complex soundtracks and sonic expressions to bypass the restrictions of the Nationalist censors and convey the complexity of the vast sociallandscapeof wartime China.

In the 52-minute sound documentary，the beginning features a brief narrative of Chinese history that is intersected by a series of consecutive shots of Japanese aerial bombardment of urban infrastructures and the subsequent civilian fatalities.The abrupt transition between the two parts，while symbolizing of the disruption of idyllic life by the aggression of imperial Japan，brings into sharp relief two modes of temporalities：the stillness and longevity of Chinese civilization，conveyed through a quasi-Orientalist commentary about China’s past，and the urgency and intensity of the current crisis of the Japanese invasion，which indicates that there is no time for any historical contemplation.The incongruence between the two parts，as Thomas Waugh suggests，exemplifies the uneasy reconciliation the Dutch director went through between fulfilling his artistic vision and catering to the Western mainstream public.28Ibid.，246.A significant portion of the war visuals were taken from contemporary newsreels on the Battle of Shanghai in 1937，prior to Ivens’s arrival in China.Whilethefootagepresentsanobjective，largely unmediated imageof acrisis-ridden China，Ivens’s skillful editing and post-production of sound effects and voiceover dramatize the affective intensityof thescenesinanefforttocultivateahighly engagedspectatorship.

In the main body of the documentary，when the camera turns to the vast social landscape of wartime China with people from different social strata assembling in concerted war efforts，then the true Ivensian moment arrives.In this part，Ivens presents a fascinating and highly sophisticated soundscape in which Chinese people，from high-profile political figures to ordinary soldiers and villagers，collectively utter the voice of resistance through public speeches，mass demonstrations，and group singing.By manifesting the accents and timbres of those voices and contrapuntally pairing sound with image，Ivens discovers and reenacts an extraordinarily vibrant soundscape of wartimeChinathatforcefully contendswiththeomnipresent Japanesesonic warfare.

In early April 1938，Ivens and his crew left Hankou and departed for Xuzhou，a city located at the border between Jiangsu and Shandong.The Battle of Tai’erzhuang would begin in a few days.There，Ivens was joined by Israel Epstein，a Polish journalist deeply sympathetic to China’s resistance cause.In Epstein’s autobiography，My China Eye，he recalls the convening of a small circle in Xuzhou at the eve of the Battle of Tai’erzhuang.The group consists of，in addition to Ivens’s crew，Evans Carlson，an American colonel who freshly arrived from the communist-controlled area，Cao Liang，an underground Communist and translator，and a few Nationalist agents from the Ministry of Information.29Israel Epstein，My China Eye：Memoirs of a Jew and a Journalist（San Francisco：Long River Press，2005），92.30 Joris Ivens，“How I Filmed The 400 Million，”Joris Ivens and China（Beijing：New World Press，1983），27.The presence of the censors made the filming process particularly challenging.While Ivens and his like-minded companions were collaborating closely—in addition to Capa and Fernhout，Carlson and Epstein worked as amateur helpers—the Nationalist agents nevertheless demanded to duplicate whatever Ivens had filmed for the sake of censorship.30To make matters worse，Ivens was not allowed to approach the battlefront，which was deemed as too dangerous for foreigncorrespondents，thusmakingadirectrepresentationof thebattlenearlyimpossible.

As Ivens confessed in his memoir，the filming ofThe 400 Millionwas to“get closer to the soldiers and to life”beyond a touristic gaze.31Joris Ivens，The Camera and I（New York：International Publishers，1983），172.When the collection of first-hand war visuals proved to be largely disappointing，the Dutch director accomplished his filmic mission not so much through visualizing life than by means of listening，through which he discovered an extraordinarily exuberant acoustic environment behind the front.As he fondly remembers inThe Camera and I，the international filming crew would sing with the Chinese soldiers.Each of them would croon songs from their own countries：Ivens and Fernhout old Dutch songs，Capa Hungarian folk songs，Captain Carlson playing“Working on the Railroad”on his harmonica，and with Chinese soldiers，together they sang“Chi-Lai，”a popular war song that they had recently picked up.32Ibid.，158.“Chi-Lai”is another popular name for“March of the Volunteers，”which would become China’s national anthem in 1949.On another occasion，Ivens observes the night march of a group of Chinese soldiers，in which“one of the officers up front on the road starts a song，another picks it up，then a third，and then we all sing.It is a volunteer song of North China，a war song.”33Ibid.，163.Deeply fascinated by the air of optimism and determination channeled through the Chinese soldiers’singing of war songs，Ivens repeatedly documents episodes of singing both in his personal recollection andThe 400 Million.This attentiveness to China’s singing culture，on the one hand，indicates the immense popularity of collective singing practices in wartime China with“Chi-Lai”being the most beloved melody that served as a powerful weapon to mobilize and motivate the Chinese efforts against Japanese aggressions，34TANG Xiaobing，“Radio，Sound Cinema，and Community Singing：The Making of a New Sonic Culture in Modern China，”Twentieth-Century China 45，no.1（2020）：22.and on the other hand，is telling of Ivens’s extraordinary auditory sensibility to locate and register the diverse soundscape of wartime Chinabeyondacousticviolence.

In addition to documenting the soldiers’singing voices，Ivens further represents and records the open space of streets and cities across China，where public speakers spread slogans and sentiments of resistance，and amateur performers stagedhuobao ju活报剧（living newspaper theatre）to publicize current affairs.In these scenes that highlight the masses，Ivens deploys the method of“rerecording”to include multiple，oftentimes up to four or five，soundtracks of the original on-site sound，including speeches and conversations in Chinese，upbeat background music，and a voiceover commentary that briefly dubs the speeches.By refusing to superimpose the original speech with a post-produced English-language commentary，Ivens maintains two types of rhythm simultaneously at work inThe 400 Million：a calm，objective narration that seeks to accurately convey information to foreign spectators，and the passionate，engaging voice of the original speaker that reflects the intensity of subjective emotions.Whereas its first rhythm serves the purpose of a solidarity film，the second is faithful to Ivens’s mission for his documentary：getting closer to the timbreof life.

Although the Chinese singing and speeches are notimmediately intelligible to theWestern audience，the director’s laborious preservation of the originalvocaltimbre allows these Chinese voices to convey much corporeal and affective concreteness，thus granting sound with incommensurable specificity and expressivity.Timbre，or tone-color（Klangfarbe），refers to the vocal quality of voice that is beyond semantic description or musical notation.As Andrew Jones theorizes，timbre constitutes an acoustic trace of the resonating body that produced it；thus，being an embodied，sensible experience，it defies any form of abstraction but possesses irreducible historical specificities that are“indexically linked to the people，the instruments，or even the locales and moments that produced them.”35Andrew Jones，Circuit Listening：Chinese Popular Music in the Global 1960s（Oakland：University of California Press，2020），173.

When Ivens first represents the mass gathering，he tends to deploy a visual composition in which an individual speaker，occupying a stage slightly above the audience，incites and mobilizes them with ideas of nationalism and resistance.As the narrative progresses，Ivens departs from the structure of a singular individual in relation to the mass，and instead uses panoramic shots of the people to indicate a fully galvanized Chinese public.Nothing other than the act of collective vocalization could best signify the successful interpolation of this communal identity.Thus，the documentary makes audible the youthful roaring of student demonstrators，the accented timbre of ordinary soldiers，andthecollectivesingingof resistancesongs.

Among those voices，Ivens is particularly invested in collective singing.In one of the most symbolically loaded vignettes，the director screens a flag raising ceremony：while he shows how the Nationalist flag was raised and people saluted，Ivens nevertheless accompanies the visuals with the soundtrack of the amateur，collective singing of“Chi-Lai，”the popular war song that he first picked up in Tai’erzhuang in lieu of the official Nationalist anthem.This deliberate choice to break away from the naturalist，simultaneous audio-visual recording of the original site，while revealing the filmmaker’s political inclination to the left，is aesthetically indebted to the technique of asynchronistic sound first developed by Soviet avant-garde filmmakers in the late 1920s.In Vsevolod Pudovkin’s seminal treatise on sound cinema，he celebrates the revolutionary change that sound brought to the art of cinema：“now in sound film we can，within the same strip of celluloid，not only edit different points in space，but can cut into association with the image selected sounds that reveal and heighten the character of each.”36Vsevolod Pudovkin，“Asynchronism as a Principle of Sound Cinema，”Film Sound：Theory and Practice，eds.Elisabeth Weis and John Belton（New York：Columbia University Press，1985），87.Pudovkin hence expresses his disapproval of the synchronistic use of sound that renders sound secondary or supplementary to image，and calls forth the asynchronistic editing to contrapuntally reinforce the expressivity of the visuals.In Ivens’s treatment of this scene，a similar tension of the asynchronistic use of sound and image can be observed：while Ivens adopts a newsreel-like representation of the ceremony，which was neatly organized by the Nationalist Party to be almost too perfect propaganda material，by associating the scene with the amateur mass singing of“Chi-Lai，”a voice that is rusty and yet passionate，collective and deeply resonating，Ivens successfully enriches the visual objectivity with affective tonality and negotiates，if not subverts，Nationalist politics with his leftist position that valorizes the spontaneousexpressionof themasses.

The tension between image and sound，or the insufficiency of visual expressivity inThe 400 Million，is hardly a matter of Ivens’s aesthetic choice alone，but is conditioned by the actual obstacles that the Dutch director encountered in China，namely，the constant interference from Nationalistcensorsthatprevented thefilmmakerfrom acquiringvisualmaterialsthatwould allow thepanoramic representation of the broad social horizon in wartime China.As Ivens bitterly complained to his friend，Herman Shumlin，he could not carry out the“original conceptions and styles”that weretentimesmoreaccuratethanthefinished productdueto Nationalistcensorship.Giventhematerial and political constraints，the best he could do was to make a straight film.37ThomasWaugh，The Conscience of Cinema：The Films of Joris Ivens：1926-1989，228.In this vein，the orchestration of sound inThe 400 Million—the preservation of vocaltimbre and the asynchronistic editingof sound—should beperceived astheauralcompensationforand complicationtoasetof largelyunmediated visualmaterials.

It is generally believed thatThe Spanish EarthandThe 400 Millioncrystallize Ivens’s departure from modernist experiments in form and aesthetics in his early career，and that these two solidarity films exemplify the director’s embrace of a politically committed vision of realism to propel revolutionary social changes.The stylistic differences between the modernist Ivens and realist Ivens are immediately visible，as the highly abstract expressions of modernism are replaced by realist concerns：the reference to historical time，the representation of social issues，the interpolation of audience into capable subjects，and a constructivist commitment to work out historical contradictions.38Bill Nichols，The Documentary and the Turn from Modernism，”Joris Ivens and the Documentary Context，ed.Kees Bakker（Amsterdam：University of Amsterdam Press，1999），154-55.Notwithstanding the conventionally received division of two Ivenses，Bill Nichols identifies a consistent motif running through the entire oeuvre of the director：the commitment“to［seeing］anew and recast the ordinary and everyday，especially action and effort，in terms of an increasinglycomplex，politicallycomprehensiveperspective.”39Ibid.

Buildingon Nichols’sobservationof thecomplex treatmentof reality inThe400Million，Ifurther propose that this documentary should be perceived，not as a departure from modernism，but as a work of political modernism.The reasons are twofold.On the one hand，as my analysis demonstrates，Ivens’s orchestration of sound not only contends the straightforward，naturalist representation of reality but attempts to mold the perception of the spectators anew.This radical impulse of remaking sound，reality，and perception resonates with the avant-garde quest for the expressive and affective capacity of sound documentary.On the other hand，by acknowledging the political dimensions inherent to modernism，I challenge the formalist definition of modernism that restricts the scope and depth of modernist aesthetics and reactivate the political capacity of modernism in mediating and redressing an increasingly overwhelming reality and a profound crisis of perception intimeof war.

ConceptualizingTransnationalism

The transnational sojourns of Auden and Ivens from Spain to China epitomize the formation of an international topography of modernism in the late 1930s，when a generation of European artists visited China and brought with them modernist convictions，forms，and mediums.The travel and work of Auden and Ivens，however，should not be mistaken as stories of either a diffusionist West that transfers ideas from center to periphery or the primitivist fascination of Europe longing for the revitalizing power of the Orient.40Susan Stanford Friedman，“Periodizing Modernism：Postcolonial Modernities and the Space/Time Borders of Modernist Studies，”Modernism/modernity 13，no.3（2006）：428-29.Rather，this transnational road map of modernism enables us to recognize，first，the internal dynamism within modernist articulations，and secondly，the supranational cultural network set in motion by individuals’movement and their shared wartime experiences.Atonelevel，Audenand Ivensresorttosound—bothasartistictropeand perceptualexperience—to construct alternative sonic expressions beyond the wartime soundscape.The divergence in their auditory imagination is telling of the diverse aesthetic experiments and broad politicalspectrums of internationalmodernism，ranging from the philosophicalmediation of humanity’s crisis to the empathetic affirmation of the agency of the masses.At the other，the cultural network formed around Audenand Ivens，whichconsistsof both Europeanexpatriatesand Chinesecollaborators，not only instantiates transculturality through personal encounters and modernist exchanges，but further testifies to the creative agency of the non-West that does not have to be derivative or reciprocal.Atransnational modernist network，however，will be largely incomplete if the Chinese story is not told.I will conclude the article with the modernist resonance in wartime China：although Auden’s and Ivens’s journeys to wartime China are relatively brief，as both departed from China by mid-1938，they left permanent traces on the development of modernist aesthetics in wartimeChina.

Mu Dan，an accomplished poet and the Chinese translator of Auden active during the Sino-JapaneseWar，enthusiastically embraces the auditory sensibilities from the British modernist poet.In one of his most renowned poems，“Fangkongdong li de shuqingshi防空洞里的抒情诗”（ALyrical Poem in theAir Raid Shelter）（1939），he adopts a similar argumentative style to Auden’s“Commentary.”The poem opens with the narrator’s entry into an air raid shelter，and the shelter’s overwhelming darkness temporarily paralyzes his visual recognition，and thus the narrator utilizes the perception of hearing to listen attentively to the polyglossic conversations in the shelter between the rich and the poor，the alive and the dead.Listening not only serves a primary way for the narrator to navigate himself amid the disorienting aerial bombardment，but further constitutes an affective bondage that enables the collective identification between the narrator and his compatriots.41SHEN Shuang，“Empson and Mu Dan，”Comparative Literature 70，no.1（2018）：13.In this way，Mu Dan rewrites the psychological detachment of Auden and creatively reconnects the solitary poetic self to a national public，a bond that was forged through their shared perceptual and actualwartimeexperiences.

The legacy of Ivens，in contrast，takes a material form.Before Ivens left China in June，he had a secret meeting with the Communists through the arrangement of Zhou Enlai周恩来（1898-1976），a top Communist official who worked in the Eighth RouteArmy Office in Wuhan then.On a dimly lit night near the suburb of Hankou，Ivens had a brief meeting with the Communist photographer Wu Yinxian.Murmuring“Yan’an，Yan’an，”Ivens handed his 35mm Eyemo camera that he used to filmThe 400 Millionalong with over 2000-meter film stock to Wu.As this kind of meeting was strictly prohibited by the Nationalists，they did not have any verbal exchange but simply shook each other’s hand.42Joris Ivens，“How I Filmed The 400 Million，”in Joris Ivens and China（Beijing：New World Press，1983），26.With the Eyemo camera and film stock from Ivens，the Communist filmmakers made their first documentary film，Yan’an yu Balujun延安与八路军（Yan’an and the Eighth Route Army）and accomplished documentary self-determination.