Folk Culture Writing In Contemporary Western Literature

The western literature is an indispensible plateau in the map of Chinese contemporary literature, where emerged some landmarked writers and works. The west of China is the birthplace of Chinese civilization and the place where minority nations live together. Although the place is relatively closed, backward and remote, abundant folk culture is preserved here. Since the folk culture is internalized as the daily life of western people, naturally it has been the main content of the descriptions by western writers. Therefore, to make study of western literature starting from researching western folk culture is the way to find the soul and bloodline of the western literature.The significance of the subject can be illustrated from four aspects:First, it can promote the research of contemporary western literature in researching the folk culture. Second, it can broaden the aesthetic space of the "folk" theory put forward by literary circles since1990s. Third, it can be a theoretical guidance to the creation of the western literature. Fourth, it can seek the spiritual resource for western literature and Chinese contemporary literature.The thesis consists of introduction, main body and conclusion:In the introduction, the reason to choose this subject and the significance of the subject is first presented, which highlights that it is not only a new expanding on the research of the western literature, but also an inspiration on the creation of it to research the western literature from the perspective of folk culture; then, the thesis defines the concepts of "the west of China" and "the western literature" in the introduction, which clarifies some conceptual differences of "the west of China" and "the western literature" by people since1980s, in order to establish the literature of the west; what’s more, in this part, the thesis makes a brief introduction to the folk culture of the west of China, establishing the way of discussing the western literature from the aspects of folk song, dialect, folklore, folk custom and folk belief; at last, the overseas and domestic research status on folk cultural writing of the western literature is cleared up in this chapter, besides, the focuses and difficulties, the methodology, innovation and the structure of the thesis is also discussed. There are seven chapters in the main body. The first two chapters are discussing two types of civilization forms which are the folk custom of farming and nomadism. In the discourse of farming, the key features of farming are discussed, while in the discourse of nomadism, the key features of nomadism are discussed. This type of discourse aims mainly at stressing different features of two kinds of civilization and folk customs. And the writing of folk culture makes western literature take on striking western characteristics.The third and fourth chapters expound the western literature from the perspective of folk belief, by which the western cultural characteristics can be prominent. In the west, the Han nationality is the major nationality, and the Han people in the west preserve the features of abundant Chinese traditional culture especially Confucian culture, which is the main spiritual resource of Han writers in the west. After Han nationality are the Tibetan and Hui nationality, and they respectively believe in Tibetan Buddhism and Islamism, which is one of the spiritual resources of Tibetan writers and Hui writers in the west. At last are other minorities, most of whom believe in Tibetan Buddhism, Islamism or Shamanism with their own features, and these are also the spiritual beliefs of the minority writers. The spiritual resources are gradually becoming the main content written by today’s western writers, so that the western literature can be the plateau of Chinese literature.The western literature is discussed from the angle of folk literature in chapter five. The west preserves a lot of folklore and legends because of its longtime relative closure and marginality. The folk literature is recreated by the writers then given to new spiritual features. Such as A Lai’s restatement of the Tibetan epic King Gesar, and the exploration and re-enchantment of Hui’s folklore by Zhang Chengzhi, Shi Shuqing, etc.Chapter six discusses the western literature from the aspect of folk song. Seen from the application in literature, the folk songs in the west can be classified into three types:first type is Xintianyou, which is widely used in the works by Shanxi writers; the second type is Hua’er, widely used in the works of Gansu, Xinjiang, Qinghai and Ningxia’s writers; the third is the folk song of the minorities, applied to the works of most minority writers. Applications of these folk songs enable the western literature present an elegant lyric style, and play an important role in the construction of literary works. The seventh chapter discusses the linguistic feature of western literature from the perspective of dialect. In western literature, dialects are flexibly used by some writers, which not only creates the literature with local characteristics, but also makes the literature be gifted with special characteristics of each writer. For example, writing with dialect, the writers as Lu Yao, Chen Zhongshi, Jia Ping’au, Xue Mo, Liu Liangcheng, Ma Busheng and Yang Xianhui’s works are presented as two types of various aesthetic style and outstanding regional features.The conclusion part is the theoretical extension of the western literature in the aspect of folk cultural writing, which emphasized on illustrating the significance in today’s Chinese literature of this kind of writing. Meanwhile, in this part, the existed issues and difficulties which are to be solved of the western literature are pointed out, and the author looks forward to a further study of the western literature in the folk cultural writing.The innovation of the thesis is that, this is the first time to investigate and research the western literature from the folk culture including folk song, dialect, folk custom and folk belief, which not only opens a wide aesthetic space for western literature and contemporary literature, but also seeks abundant spiritual resource for the research and creation of the western literature.