The Research On Diaries Of Chinese Modern Writers

The achievements of diary writing and publication by the 20^thcentury writers sufficiently constitutes an important spectacle of Chinese modern literature research, however,for a long time,an in-depth thorough research on it in academic circles is not enough.Based on the text of diaries,from the multiple perspectives of stylistics, psychology,sociology,culture,documents study,aesthetics and communication,this thesis tries to inquire into diary's basic character,social function,aesthetic standards and meaningful value so as to construct a self-sufficient theory system,thus broadening the train of thoughts and extending the field of diary and literature research with open and plural new patterns.This thesis consists of seven chapters and is divided into two parts.The first part includes the first three chapters,which mainly discuss diary's origin,character and value.The first chapter is the discussion of diary's origin,which locates the position of modern Chinese writers diaries under the tradition of Chinese and foreign diaries. Chinese traditional diary originated from Tang dynasty,developed in Song dynasty, declined in Yuan dynasty and flourished during Ming and Qing dynasty.Western modern diary originated from Renaissance and became flourished in western countries such us Britain since 17^thcentury.The difference between western diary and Chinese traditional diary lies in that western diary reflects the writer's personality and genuine inner-world to a large degree and thus shows man's subjectivity and free spirit,which is also the core connotation of modern diary.Modern Chinese writers' diaries prefer western diary and they experienced different developing stages with fruitful achievements.The second chapter mainly discusses ontology of diary.Focusing on modernity, it analyzes modern writers' subjective awareness and modern diary's stylistic characteristics.The appearance of modern writers' diary originated from the re-discovery on "man" since May Fourth Movement(1919).Through reading these diaries,the readers can perceive the true image and personality of modern intellectual and feel their free,flexible and genuine language styles.The third chapter is the value discussion which mainly pays much attention to the social ideological and literary history and aesthetic value of modern writers' diaries.Closely connecting to the progress of modern political movement,the ups and downs of class struggles as well as the shift of social background,the writers' diaries can provide a lot of materials that orthodox history lacks.The researchers on ideological history concern about ideology's emergence and communication by the individual thinker or group thinkers in the concrete context.The writers' diaries,as the self-orientating writings,have increasingly become the important object of ideology research.There is always the inter-textuality relationship between the writers' diary and their works.Only through putting the works in the inter-textuality net behind them can we interpret their connotation reasonably.The emotional life content and elegant discourse style are the main sources of aesthetic value of the writers' diaries.The second part includes the last four chapters,which is mainly the case study of modern Chinese writer Luxun,Hushi,Wumi and Yu Dafu's diary.Chapter four studies "Luxun's Diary" and shows the essence of the writers' diary, that is,the projection of the writer's subjective spirit."Luxun's Diary" is an extremely sketchy yet systematic narrative text in which Luxun neither recorded the external social environment nor revealed his genuine feelings,which is different from the normal keeping of diary and also against the reader's reading expectations.In fact, Luxun's Diary,holding on the diary style firmly and being the text "written for himself to read",reveals his true inner-world of despair and nihility toward the world. And what is valuable in Luxun lies in that he fight against nihility to affirm his subjective existence by depending on diary writing.Chapter five studies "Wumi's Diary" and analyzes the function of the writers' diary,that is,self cognition and psychological therapy."Wumi's Diary" faithfully recorded the great impacts on the inner heart of the intellectuals caused by social shift and cultural reform.As the private narrative text,"Wumi's Diary" carries out the function of self-cognition and self-therapy and it is Wumi's spiritual salvation ark.Chapter six studies the social character of the writers' diary through "Hushi's Abroad-study Diary",which is the only published,most popular and wide-spreading diary during Hushi's life.It was first published on the "New Youth" in series and then printed by the Shanghai YaDong publishing house.Although as a private text,Hushi successfully brought it to public domain and made it participate in the modern cultural production and public opinion creation,and thus realizing his self-image moulding and the construction of May Fourth memory.The last chapter studies the literary character of the writers' diary through "Yu Dafu's Diary".Yu Dafu is the "creator" of modern diary literature,whose preference toward diary literature comes from his quest for the literature's subjective truth.The image subject in Yu's diary is not the mere copy of reality but his own imagination, the supplement and continuation of the "superfluous person" image in his novels.Yu's diary contains the double quality of historical materials and aesthetic value,of which the aesthetic quality is not only reflected in the language style but also included in his contemplation and understanding of the existing state and meaning of life.