The First National Conference Of The Representatives Of Literary And Art Workers And The Formation Of The Seventeen-Year Literary System

The paper, which evolves around the first national conference of the representatives of literary and art workers (FNCRLAW) in China, explores into the depth, by hair-splittingly combing and penetratingly decoding the literary congress of "high unity and triumphal junction" which was not devoid of conflicts though, into the formation of the core components of the institution of literary works created during the seventeen years following the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949. Besides the Introduction and the Conclusion, the paper falls into four parts outlined below.Chapter I The Background of the First National Conference of Literary and Art Workers and the Formation of the Seventeen-Year Literary SystemThe chapter begins by analyzing the situation of literature and arts prior to the first conference and then expounding on the preparations and efforts made by leftist literary and art circles towards literary institutionalization. It basically explores into the way that the leftist literary and art circles managed to, through multi-perspective literary debates on liberalist literature and heterogeneous discourse, and debates against pro-KMT literary and art forces, depict a clear picture of the native literary legacy that is to be inherited by China's modern literature, and into the way the leftist circles managed to promote the worker-peasant-soldier literary mode originated within the liberated areas to the overall literary composition. It also inquires into the strategic policies of "tolerance within the bottom line" the CPC adopted to unite and win over the most possible literary forces for a talent pool necessary to mould the desirable literary institution. Along with that, the paper takes into due account the role of the former USSR literary modes as a catalyst fully employed and manipulated by the leftist literary and art circles in literary institutionalization.Chapter II The First National Conference of Literary and Art Workers and the Organizational Development of the Writers in the Seventeen Years after LiberationDigging into the historical establishment of literary and artistic organizations such as Wenlian, short for China Federation of Literary and Art Association in pinyin, and Wenxie, short for the later China Writers Association in pinyin, the chapter analyzes literary institutionalization in terms of its influence on writer identity and mode of literary creation. From a historical perspective, the paper first explores into the significance of the establishment of massive and systematic organizations of literature and art under the leadership of the Communist Party of China, and then it combs the advice and proposals for establishing literary organizations outlined at the FNCRLAW and examines the advice and details that affected to whatever extent the implementation of the organizational structure. Besides, there are discussions on the non-subjective, non-individual and hierarchal change in the writer's identity resulted from the role shift from a "freelancer" to an organizational "literary and art worker" in a "unit" and interpretations on the "organizational creation" ideology advocated by the FNCRLAW, and inquiries into the organizational turn in literary creation made by the writer in the unit.Chapter III The Contributions of the First National Conference of Literary and Art Workers to the Writers' Development of their Institutional MentalityThis chapter focuses on the complex presentation of institutional mentality, an invisible literary institution that took roots among the Seventeen Years writers. The topic is more specifically discussed in terms of how the mentality of men of letters in Yan'an pending the FNCRLAW was taken as a resource to catalyst the institutional mentality among the Seventeen Years writers and in terms of the elements that contributed to creating and highlighting the writer's institutional mentality, including the mechanism for selecting the representatives, the power distribution of the congress structure, the designing of the worker-peasant-soldier literature keynote for the congress, and the dominant "we" mode discursive priority. It then examines how the commanding spirit of the FNCRLAW produces in the writer the self-denial awareness, the anxiety from keeping themselves politically updated, the institutional mentality mixture of prudence, veneration and awe for literary norms, and the cross-influence of their complex representations. Taking Ba Jin as a case study, the chapter offers an in-depth investigation of the process and particularities of the institutional mentality of the Seventeen Years writers.Chapter IV The First National Conference of Literary and Art Workers and the Establishment of the Monitoring Mechanism of Literary WorksThis chapter evolves around the birth of a set of literary control mechanism, a product of the spirit of the FNCRLAW, guaranteeing the right political orientation and its perfection in practice. It elaborates on the power distributed to various literary and art entities and bodies by the FNCRLAW on the one hand, and on the other, it surveys the actual coordination and reference of these control vehicles and the gap and interface between control and supervision by authorities and by power entities. Further analysis includes the definition of the nature of literary criticism by the FNCRLAW, the "watering" and "weeding" role of literary criticism during the Seventeen Years as they helped to supervise and control, the non-scientific elements featuring literary criticism of the period and their implications for and constraints on literary control, and the actual formation and operational mode of literary control mechanism of the period with such case studies as "solicited contributions", "editor's note", and "reader's letters".