Research On Literary Thought Of Jing School

Scholars have achieved great achievements in researches on Jing School, one of the most famous schools of literature, from case study on members to the whole study on the school. Based on the researches on the history and status quo of Jing School, the author finds that qualified researches on literary thought of Jing School(short for LTOJS) are lacked. For one thing, the researches on LTOJS are scattered in literary creation and literary criticism, which becomes the subordination of the researches on the latter, so they are loose and not systematic. For another thing, researches on writers’individual thought or literary thought of individuals can not represent literary thought of this school in essence although they have provided rich specific character for researches on LTOJS. Jing School, as a school of literature, has its uniqueness. The members of the school are related to one another owing to the similarity and sameness of their literary thought. However, the literary thought of a school are not the totality of individual thought of its members nor a certain thought of literary creation or criticism of this school, but should be an entirety which can reflect the whole thought of this school. In this dissertation, the author constructs and expounds the system structure and the core thought from the perspective of the whole, holding that LTOJS is systematic. The LTOJS includes noumenon thought, creation thought and criticism thought, among which, noumenon thought are concerned with writers’ thought on literature itself and standardize and influence creation thought and criticism thought, while creation thought and criticism thought enrich and prove noumenon thought. Connected closely and penetrating one another, they form a trinity which constitutes the complete system of LTOJS. The author makes researches on Jing School from the perspective of literary thought, aiming to break though the state of attaching too much importance to literary creation and literary criticism and pay attention to the achievements made in LTOJS, so that we can make complete appraisal on Jing School, and on the other hand, we can make breakthrough of the loose state of researches on LTOJS and make concrete and systematic construction based on the core of its literary thought. These two breakthroughs are new ideas this dissertation aims to bring forth.As great achievements have been achieved in literary creation and literary criticism in Jing School, we will combine LTOJS with creation practice and criticism practice in this dissertation to make the research reliable.This dissertation consists of six parts.The introduction clarifies the history, the status quo and the significance of researches on Jing School. The framework of the dissertation, the perspective of the research, the research methodology, and the theoretical creation are also presented in this part.Chapter One:the source exploration and the development and evolution of the LTOJS. Section One discusses the origin of the concept of Jing School and the confusing phenomenon of mixing Jing School with scholars of Jing School and Jing Flavor in the process of understanding Jing School, focusing on the connections and differences of the three concepts. The author points out that the fundamental reason why Jing School can be a school is the sameness and similarity of the members’ literary thought as well as the other factors such as literal world reasons, publication position and region and so on. Meanwhile, the author traces back to the source of Jing School, demonstrating culture and literature resources which LTOJS has absorbed, from such aspects as Chinese and western culture, Chinese and western literary and artistic classics and May Fourth New Literature tradition. The formation of LTOJS, a complete system, is the result of the combination and penetrations of the above three forces from beginning. As for its final formation, it is because of Jing School writers’ absorption, transformation and creation in their rich literary theory and writing practice based on the resources they absorbed mentioned above. Section Two discusses the development and evolution of LTOJS. Breaking through previous division of the development of Jing School into the earlier stage and the later stage, the author divides the development of Jing school into three stages according to the critical point of the breakout of anti-Japanese war:prewar stage, in-war stage and postwar stage, in order to show the dynamic process of "stable change" of LTOJS. Before the war, the LTOJS had been finalized in the main. The writers of this school made efforts to rebuild literature value and held that literature should be separated from politics and commerce, which made LTOJS an outlook of appreciating Utopia. During the war, new elements were merged into LTOJS. Jing School writers began to think about the relation between literature and people, and hoped to "rebuild man" and "rebuild nation" and pursued for the beauty of "force", which makes LTOJS a sense of strong misery. After the war, Jing School shows strong tendency of revitalization, scholars carrying out new theoretical reflections on " literature constructing nation". Jing school writers connected literary innovation with national rejuvenation, hoping to build "new people" and promote the coming of "new era", which embodies their ideal of "literature constructing nation". The ideal was shattered in the turbulent political situation soon. The LTOJS experienced the "stability with changes" in the above three stages, and this dynamic process makes the thought mature and perfect.Chapter Two:the noumenon theory of LTOJS. The noumenon theory of LTOJS is the core and system that Jing School writers display in their thinking about literature itself. The first section discusses the meaning of freedom thought of LTOJS. Zhou Zuoren’s individualism literary thought constructed by the literature view of "one’s own garden" and Zhu Guangqian’s exploration into the relation between literature and freedom from the perspective of cultural thought reveal the nature and function of literature and arts and express the core of LTOJS, that is, "Freedom is the nature of literature and arts". Meanwhile, Jing School writers publicize writers’ subject awareness in creationism and adopt tolerant principle in criticism, which makes it another feature of LTOJS. The author holds that freedom thought influences internally the other literary thought. So, freedom thought is the core and the essence of the whole LTOJS system. The second section discusses the dispute of interest thought of LTOJS. Jing School started the construction of pure literary interest in the criticism of political interest represented by the "Left" literature, commercial interest represented by overseas literature and individual interest represented by Zhou Zuoren and Lin Yutang, and later, Zhu Guangqian finalized the complete theoretical formation. The pure literary interest consists of three aspects. Firstly, pure literary interest is accomplished by literature; secondly, pure literary interest is the broad literary interest in its connotation; thirdly, pure literary interest is the criterion of literary and artistic creation, appreciation and criticism, and is the main content of literary interest thought of Jing School. Correspondingly, Jing school writers set good examples for this thought in their literary edition, literary creation and criticism. Section three discusses the debate on utilitarianism thought. Jing School has been pondering over the relations between literature and life and the relations between literature and politics. On the one hand, Jing School shows identification with literature utilitarianism due to its emphasis on the connections. On the other hand, it shows the complexity of literature utilitarianism owing to its ad vocation of literature beyond life and politics. The author holds that the essential meaning of Jing School resulting from literature is the expression of emotion and proposes emotional educational function of literature. Jing School carries out the activity of social enlightenment and human salvation with literary theory of "beauty" and "love" to realize the aspiration of remolding human character and rebuilding national morality.Chapter Three:literary creation thought of Jing School. This chapter expounds the core idea in the gist of literary creation and artistic exploration of Jing School, constructing the subject of literary creation thought with "composing with heart and deeds" and traditional creative transformation. In the gist of literary creation, Jing School writers establishes the literary creation idea of "composing with heart and deeds", advocating that literature should contain social phenomenon and individual dream, and literature should discover humanity and interpret humanity. They follow this idea in their writing to depict different aspects of life and discover humanity. The base of their creation thought is "heart" and "deeds". Taking a two-way point o f view, Jing School, on the one hand, rebuilds the connection between new literature and tradition; on the other hand, adopts the fusion of Chinese and western thought and promote the creative transformation of tradition when inputting western literary theory and practice. The author holds that the respect for harmonious and quiet literature appreciation is one of the main contents to communicate Chinese with western literature, while mixing the local, the national and the tradition with the modern is the basic way to promote the creative transformation of tradition. In the third section, when expounding writing practice of Jing School literature, the author focuses on Jing School writers’insistence on artistic pursuit for literature noumenon, which makes Jing School literature a unique artistic style.Chapter Four:literary criticism thought of Jing School. The first section discusses artistic aspects of literary criticism of Jing School from three perspectives: spiritual construction, criticism principle and aesthetic awareness, displaying the guiding line of literary criticism "in the name of arts". Jing School critics attach importance to the establishment of criticism subject, emphasizing "honesty" and "modesty" of subject. Therefore, they evolve tolerant criticism principle and attitude. They hold that the object of literature criticism is literature works, so they insist on "literature as measure" in criticism criterion and criticism method and pay attention to the artistic manifestation of literature works, acting on the aesthetic principle of temperance, appropriateness, and harmony and emphasizing that literature criticism is also a piece of artistic works. Section two expounds the methodology thought of literary criticism of Jing School from the perspective of methodology, focusing on the openness and tolerance of literary criticism of Jing School which has used western Impressionist criticism for reference. Jing School critics are inclined to the western Impressionism but they make many changes when borrowing Impressionist criticism. They adopt "comparative method" and "comprehensive explanation" to combine perception with rationality, pursuit for aesthetic experience with artistic value judgment, aesthetic awareness with literature history awareness. Therefore, the methodology thought of literary criticism of Jing School are also rich and diverse. The third section discusses the view of " creative criticism" and presents the artistic style which literary criticism of Jing School have by analyzing the case of literary criticism. Jing School writers advocate creative criticism, among whom, Zhu Guangqian formed "creative criticism" in his reception and criticism of Croce aesthetics, which gives highly theoretical summary to Jing School literature criticism. Meanwhile, Jing School critics merge their literature view, literature interest, aesthetic ideal and writing inclination into their criticism practice, fully marked with self as subject, showing the feature of "Studio Criticism". They accomplished the interpretation of "creative criticism" with the feature of "Studio Criticism".The conclusion, from the case of Wang Zengqi, analyzes the significance of Wang’s literature history from the aspect of literary thought. Wang’s revival in new era literature not only revives Jing School tradition but also presents LTOJS of 1930s and 1940s to people. Meanwhile, it makes contribution to the continuing and spreading of Jing School, which enables us to peep at the ideal and influence of Jing School’s literary thought, and the "lonely" or "unlonely" destiny that Jing School once had.