July School Novels

A school of heterogeneous content distinctive styles, the July group is a literary school mainly active in KMT Dominant District during the 1930s and 1940s. The July style novels constitute an important pattern of Chinese novels in the 20th century switching from "May 4th Enlightenment narrative" to the 1940s'"Red class Narrative". This transition results in the "chaos" of July novels both in idea and in form. On the one hand, they inherit the rational spirit of criticisms of the national characteristics led by Lu Xun since May 4th, emphasizing on the transformation of Chinese society and intellectuals'initiative and subjective fighting spirit. On the other hand, limited to the school art, they emphasize on the authenticity of literary and social utilitarian purpose. They describe many distinct "That one" characters in the time of great changes, showing a strong artistic personality and subjectivity. And at the same time, modeling nation-state narrative in accordance with the times, their literary works are full of grand narrative concepts and symbols. Their theories are contradictory and trying to justify themselves as well. Their works often go beyond, or overflow, their theoretical scopes, demonstrating a strong literary potential and big space for artistic interpretation. At the same time, the particularity of the July group also lies in that it will inevitably become a controversial, bumpy-fated literary school in modern Chinese literary history because of its exceptional quality and content and its complex relations with ideology. Their theories of "subjective fighting spirit", stressing on the objective world and " trauma of spiritual bondage", as a vague, far-fetched marginal existence, inevitably became a "premature infant" that couldn't be understood when China moved toward the integration of the discourse in the 20th century. In an era that theories of literature and art are highly united and politicized, this literary school as well as its leader Hu Feng experienced criticisms almost since its birth. Even in the 1950s, the wronged "Hu Feng counter-revolutionary group" came up, which led to a broad public involvement and this school being snubbed and avoided by people.This thesis is divided into five sections, which respectively discussed the characteristics of the cultural context in which the July group novels were born, their germination, development and of maturity, their theoretical resources, and their plight of artistic ideas, their efforts to find discourse model in the cracks of various grand narrative discourses, their themes, character types, artistic styles and linguistic characteristics.The first chapter discusses July group novels in the view of literary history. Section I focuses on the social background and cultural context the July group novels arose from, especially the impact from "May 4th Movement of Enlightenment literature" and "Anti-Japanese War". Such complex literary form as War literature lays the foundation for the generation and growth of the July style novels in theme, aesthetic form and language style, especially for the efforts July novels made to combine and reconcile class narrative, national narrative and enlightenment narrative. Section II focuses on July novels'germination and development. Through detailed and accurate historical data, and the introductions of the germination of the July novels and two important journals "July" and "hope", the author demonstrates the different characteristics of the July novels in the periods of germination, growing and maturing as well as important works. Section III is a brief of the July group members and their works. Dividing the July group members into core members and external members, this paper gives detailed analyses to their fictions.Chapters II and III are the focus of the paper. Chapter II shows the inherent conflict between the theoretical and practical resources of July style novels. Section I pointes out the impact of the complexity and dilemma of Hu Feng literary idea on July novels. Hu Feng is the founder and promoter of the July group. Not only did he equip the July novels theoretically, but his creative practice led to the complexity of the July novels. Section II states the four sources of the July group's literary theory in the light of domestic and foreign cultural impact, namely, Lu Xun, May 4th cultural movement, humanism and materialist dialectics. Section III presents the July group's plight and breakthrough in literary contest. The chapter is mainly about the several discussions evoked by the July group, namely ,the debate on the typical issues, the impact and root of "subjectivity", language ambiguity of the July theory. The July novel issues in literary controversy shows the complexity in theoretical refining and practical creations caused by the July "chaos" in discourse transformation again.Chapter III is the theoretical center of the paper. The first chapter illustrates the interactions among narrative, modern nation-state and literature. It points out that during the formation of the modern nation-state, discourse were shaped precisely by means of "formal ideology" of "narrative". Among the various processes of narrative discourse, "Narrative Literature" is very important, which shapes the common mode of thinking and ideology of the modern nation-state narrative by using the special "synchronic description" of presswork. The second, third and fourth chapters explain the complexity and the embarrassment of the July novels wandering in various "grand narrative cracks" among Enlightenment narrative fiction, class narrative and the national narrative, especially the modern nation- state narrative that presses and integrates the various narrative discourses in the special cultural background of " the war of aggression". Section II characterizes the intellectual national narrative in tribulation through the keywords "original power" of July novels. Section III illustrates that a unique narrative form of July novels is the realism that embraces "objective reality" with "subjective fighting spirit". The fourth quarter explains from the three angles-- "advice for proper management of mental trauma", "people", "historical sense" that the July novels go to "red class Narrative" destination eventually under the influence and integration of national narrative.Chapters IV and V expound the artistic characteristics of the July novels. Chapter IV is the " world images and the conceptual pictures" of the July novels. Section I points out the subject scopes of the July novels. The first is the broad and rich war themes. The second is the "love-and -hate " rural subjects. The third is the compositional, open and flowing urban subjects. Section II focuses on the different types of characters of the July novels, such as the soldiers and officers under the pressure of the war, the peasants and workers miscellaneous in primitive ignorance and modern transformation, the bumpy-fated intellectuals, the women desperately struggling in the cultural shackles, and the helpless vagrants. The paper shows that whether the themes are about the war, the rural or the urban areas, whether the characters are soldiers, agricultural workers, or intellectuals, the July novels do not give a simple binary contrastive description. Neither do they give simple intellectual enlightenment criticisms, nor do they use class - out method. Instead, they display the glorification of human nature in the theme, the attention on the complexity of human nature, and the strong modern features of national narrative. Section III notes that the theme model of the July novels is the conflict between war and humanity, the conflict between ideal and the reality. Chapter V discusses the artistic viewpoints of the July novels. It illustrates the July novels'artistic styles in terms of the complex psychological depiction, firm realistic criticisms, complex portrait of human nature and mottled human lives. Section II introduces in detail the language features of July novels through the analyses of Qiudongping's carbon-painting language and Luling's oil-painting language.