Two Mirrors Of Russian And Soviet Union Literature In China

Focusing on the period of 1920s and 1930s and works by Jiang Guangci and Mao Dun, the dissertation mainly studies the influence of Russian and Soviet Union literature upon the narrative arts of the Chinese left-wing writers. It argues that Jiang and Mao take different ways in literary creation although they are both affected by Russian and Soviet Union literature. And studying the relationship between their different artistic orientations and different influences they receive is of great significance in reflecting the role of political ideas and the breakthrough of artistic aesthetics.The main body of the dissertation studies the different manifestations of artistic creation by Jiang Guangci and Mao Dun, and the orbits of changes in their works from three perspectives of the narrative structure, characterization and narrative style. Combined with their literary ideas and the influence they receive, it also analyzes how they follow and transcend the literary theory of Russian and Soviet Union Proletariat literature. In terms of narrative structure, Jiang Guangci preferred taking social movements as the leading structural line in his earlier works, while he paid more attention to the exploration of his characters' inner world after the failure of the 1925-1927 Revolution. But Mao Dun realized the transformation from the depiction of the characters' realistic aesthetic feeling to the taking of political ideas as the leading structural line. In terms of characterization, most of the characters in Jiang's earlier works are the general demonstrations of the class characteristics, while his later works began to pursue the presentation of the characters' complex and profound psychic world. Nevertheless, while portraying the authentic and natural life of the characters in his earlier works, Mao Dun shifted to the depiction of the collective and class nature of the characters for the sake of displaying the magnificent social themes. In terms of narrative style, Jiang's works are generally more radical and inflammatory. But his later works present a strong aesthetic characteristic of calmness and easiness as a result of his more profound contemplations of human being and society and his more mature feelings. Since Mao Dun has always regarded the description of realistic feeling toward life as the fundamental requirement of the literary creation, his novels generally take a style of indirectness and easiness. But he intentionally reduced the proportions of the parts describing the loss and perplexity of the petty bourgeoisie in the 1930s, and turned to the portrayal of the complex society, stressing the function of the world view. Therefore, his works are full of the magnificent and inspiring force. But on the other hand, the tendency of conceptualization in his works is also very obvious. All in all, these changes have a close relationship with their reception of different aspects of the Russian and Soviet Union literature in different phases, which shapes their complicated attitudes towards the literary creation. On one hand, they acknowledge the guidance of political ideas. On the other hand, they are unwilling to give up their pursuit of the artistic aesthetic power.The concluding part of the dissertation summarizes and reflects Jiang and Mao's struggle between their life feelings and revolutionary ideas, and their wanderings between their sense experience in literary creation and the ideological ideas. With the analysis of their individual psychology, it also studies in the sense of Typology why they step on different literary roads when faced with the same resources.