"Literature" And "Civilization": A Study Of The "Rebellious" Element In Zhou Zuoren's Prose

"Literature" and "Civilization": A Study of the "Rebellious" Element in Zhou Zuoren's ProseAbstract:This dissertation discusses the rebellious feature in Zhou Zuoren's prose writing before the Anti-Japanese War. From the 1930s, Zhou Zuoren was considered as a representative figure of the leisure prose. However, Zhou himself did not agree on it. He argued that literature, though "non-revolutionary", must be "rebellious". He was definitely opposed to the discussion of the "taste", "simplicity" and "leisure" of literature with no reference to its "rebellious" feature, which would inevitably take the discussion merely as a kind of literary entertainment. His literary concept was centered on the idea of "human literature", which has a value orientation different from the literary thought developed through the enlightenment of the May 4th Movement. In the narrative logic of the May 4th enlightenment, the narrative for "human" was included in the overall value of the nation. But Zhou Zuoren's attention to "human" was based on his proposition of "human proper life", which was the overall concern about the progress of modern civilization. Based on the proposition, he further proposed an "art for life". Here, "art" does not only refer to specific art forms such as literature, painting and music, but also to "li", the social order, which was aimed to "construct China's new civilization" through a "new liberty and new temperance". Zhou Zuoren's prose writing, in terms of his beautiful prose in the 1920s and note-book prose in the 1930s generally had the following cultural tendency: he opposed temperance and made criticisms on various social ethical thoughts. This can be seen from his early works including Ideological Revolution, and the note-book prose in the 1930s. He also opposed indulgence and was alert to the civilization form which was characterized by the material development and pursuit of capitalism. And this is where the cultural orientation lies in his early beautiful prose writing. Between his "beautiful prose" and "note-book prose", he also wrote much "prose on current affairs", in which he not only showed concern about separate affairs, but also explored their underlying "li", the ideological clement which was still associated with the pursuit of human proper life". Therefore, the "rebellious" nature in Zhou Zuoren's prose writing has dual connotations:it was not only directed at Chinese traditional ethical code and people's life under the control of the code, but also at the material civilization of modern capitalism, which provided a rather unhealthy life. In such a rebellion, Zhou's goal was to "construct China's new civilization" with "new liberty and new temperance".