The Study On Chinese Image In Akutagawa Ryunosuke's Literary Works

Known as the "wizard", Akutagawa Ryunosuke grew up under the nature of Chinese classic literature. From Akutagawa Ryunosuke's youth to the grave, China had a great influence on both his world outlook and outlook of life. Under the influence of Chinese classic culture, Akutagawa Ryunosuke's works settled on ancient China carried his romantic illusion and pursuit; not until the journey of China, his bubble had burst. Instead of narrating ancient China, he took a great interest in the reality of China. Facing the reality, he kept this culture returning policy. From this mental journey, came a series of Chinese images in his novels, sketches, essays, travel notes, and poetries. And the works can be divided into three stages in chronological sequence.The first stage of Chinese image:It was before his journey to China, he created these Utopian and poetic Chinese characters, according to Chinese ancient codes and records and Japanese national memory. The works of Akutagawa Ryunosuke showed us the goodness of human nature, the cultivation of family relationship, enormous ego; dare to contend for their fate and the single-minded pursuit of dreams in Chinese people. It also reversed the ugly, stupid, cowardly image of Chinese in other Japanese author's eyes, like Kunikida doppo, Natsume Souseki, Junichiro Tanizaki.The second stage of Chinese image:The poetic Chinese image was erased by the harsh reality in his "Travels in China" when he saw the actual Chinese. He put an end to the narration of ancient China and had a desire for finding out the real China at the same time. After the visit of great cities along the Yangtze River, contact with intellects in modern China, Akutagawa Ryunosuke had a better understanding of China and Chinese. Finally, the deeper look of China and Chinese light the hope of China in him.The third stage of Chinese image:The trip to China took Akutagawa on which to avoid westernized impact spiritual home, but to strengthen the return to the mentality of his culture. Moreover, influenced by the so called "Chinese taste" in that period and double impact of the classic and reality, Akutagawa had built a series of Chinese people images, these images sometimes wearing a veil of mystery, sometimes exposing the dirty ugly face, they were either constructed in the leak disillusionment or in the traditional culture of anti-war and a desire for this love with mixed feelings.This paper deals with the analysis of Chinese image in Akutagawa Ryunosuke's works through Image theory, in order to get the extension of self-culture and prolongation of self-development. No matter the images of poetic, Utopian, in "Traverls in China", or discribed with mixed feelings, we see his process of cognition "from art to reality" towards Chinese culture based on these successful images and it couldn't be done without the interaction between Akutagawa Ryunosuke and Chinese culture.