Shen From The Country Folk Of The Text Of The Novel And Original Sense Of Passion And Modern Vernacular Novel Form

The objective of this thesis is to compare the rural folk conscious-style as well as the erotically primitive-motif of Shen Congwen(1902-1988),with the style of mockery comic and boldly erotic in vernacular novels from the Pre-modern(13th-19thcentury). Both the Modern and the Pre-modern "literalists" share a common lyrical form of narrative.While Shen used the abstraction of the lyrical form to portray the humanistic compassion of mankind,the Pre-modern literalists employed the aestheticism of the lyrical form of traditional chinese writings in a narrative way to enhance the depiction of life's experiences in a broad perspective.Both Shen's rural folk conscious-style and the mockery comic style of the Pre-modern literalists allowed each to ironicize life's experiences in childish naivety relevant to each historical context.In addition,the erotic motifs in both cases raise the subjectivity and self awakedness.From the view of the Theory of Narratives,ironic literature is form of "mirror-text" that helps one to see his subjectivity within the suppressions ruling his life.Repetitive story telling maintains one's " will to live".Erotic plots in the narrative stories represent life's natural drives and in essence promotes the use of ones own experience to fulfill one's own meaning in life as opposed to being blindly led by strict ethics and empty knowledge.The style and motif of lyrical writing require an internalization of the human experience.In this thesis,a comparison of the novels by Shen Congwen to that of the vernacular novels of Pre-modern:Pal An Jing Qi(Amazing Tales),Jin Ping Mei(The Plum of the Golden Vase) and Hong Lou Meng(Dream of The Red Chamber),revealed three characteristics that are common in the life situations of the authors and that of the characters in their tales:foolishness,funny and isolation.The Modern and Pre-modern lyricists used these characters as masks to face the realities of their period,in other words,to oppose generally accepted beliefs and instead,evaluate life with childish naivety.From analysis of the eroticism in the novels by Shen to that in the vernacular novel Jin Ping Mei,it is proposed that authors from these different historical periods were making an artists impression of life's solemnity and magnificence through the dark,evil and crude side of human nature.Besides the comparison of Shen's novels with Hong Lou Meng shows both analyzation employed the lyrical narrative form to express the opposite nature of abstraction versus reality,prudence versus eroticism and the inhibited versus the bohemian.Instead of the Pornography way of writing,the authors presented a clean,beautiful,healthy and natural way of life that does not oppose basic human nature.Through the analysis of Shen Congwen's novel Bian Cheng(The Border Town ), I am reminded of repetitive story telling and the Pre-modern vernacular stories,were all in a space that is the border.This is a metaphor of the border in one's mind that one tries to cross.According to the theory of Northrop Frye,repetitive stories is like the collective unconscious of human minds.In this respect,one can deduce that the message of the lyrical narratives of Modern and Pre-modern stories could be to maintain the collective unconscious,whereby to raise the individual self awareness.In this point of view,this thesis shows the meaning of inheritance between Chinese modern novels and Pre-modern vernacular novels in such lyrical form of narrative.