The Theory Of Subject In 1940s: Literature, Politics And History

Hu Feng's theory of Subject, which represents the features of his literary theory, and by which his literary theory is defined, has always been a key point in the studies of Hu Feng. Though Hu Feng paid attention to author's subject in literary creation in his whole life, the emphasis varied in different times. What my dissertation concerns about is the appearance of problem of Subject in Hu Feng's theory in 1940s. I try to re-explain its appearance in a historical context with the studies of various corresponding thoughts and debates.During the 1940s, Hu Feng and his Friends put forward the theory of Subject to battle against the dogmatism in the left wing, taking Yao Xueyin, Sha Ting and Mao Dun's literary creation as dogmatic in one side, and Guo Moruo's studies on the Confucianism and the Mohism in the other. But there is still little attention paid to the influence of Guo Moruo's studies in the appearance of theory of Subject. Therefore, I think, without this perspective, we cannot properly understand Hu Feng's theory of Subject in its limit in the problem of anti-dogmatism. Meanwhile, the theory of Subject has complex relationships with the theory of Attitude to Life put forward by Caizi Group. The theory of Subject got inspiration from the theory of Attitude to Life in its beginning. However, Caizi Group became the main force to criticize the theory of Subject in the Critique from Hong Kong in 1948. The research on the relationship between Hu Feng's theory and the theory of Attitude to Life has always been carried out in a binary frame of faith and treachery, paying little attention to the main points of the theory of Attitude to Life, let alone its historical motivations. I think that such studies cannot fully explain the transition of Caizi Group's theory of Attitude to Life to their points of views in Hong Kong's Critique, and they cannot explain what Hu Feng's persistence means either.It is not accidental that Hu Feng's theory of Subject put great emphasis on subject and sensibility. It is a theoretical practice of intellectuals in the left wing to consciously develop the subjective and sensible factors in Marxism and to go against the nationalist thoughts derived from popular sensibility, which attempting to use nationalist criterion to substitute for class and internationalism in Marxism. It is also a component part of the sinolization of Marxism, based on Marx and Engel's works on ideology and the Chinese revolutionary literary tradition formed by Lu Xun and other writers afterwards. If we simply study the development of Hu Feng's literary thought While neglecting this background, we can neither fully understand the appearance of the concepts such as the Sensible Object in Hu Feng's thought in this period, nor properly estimate the value of his literary theory in the tradition of Chinese Marxist literary theory.