Between Tradition And Modernity

New literature emerged under the direct influence of western literature. It is especially so with novel writing. After the founding of the People's Republic of China, realism became the dominating mode of writing, which is characterized by the whole-hearted pursuit for typical character in typical environment. As a result, contemporary literature, especially novels, was seen to be largely disjointed with traditional Chinese literary theories. But the influence of the national tradition on literary creations can never be erased. In the 1930s, the works created by writers of the Beijing school clearly show the influence of the Chinese lyrical tradition. After the founding of the PRC, the Beijing school gradually retreated from the literary field, but some writers of the school, represented by Shen Congwen, still exerted subtle influences on writers, who thus consciously inherited the Chinese traditional literature. That is why when most writers were engaged in learning from western literature, a group of writers, represented by Sun Li, Wang Zengqi, produced a large amount of novels which show the deep influence of Chinese traditional literature, particularly note-novels. These works in the 1980s rehabilitated the status of traditional literature to be a significant influence on literary compositions and got some critical attentions. These novels were named by some critics or readers note-novels or new note-novels, which were acknowledged by some writers. The new note-novel was a spectacular scene in the literary world of the 1980s, for its extraordinary literary compositions and its attempts at the way of inheriting traditional Chinese literature, both the achievements and failures during which are valuable. But the study of new note-novels is far from being adequate, considering their distinguished achievements and influences, so there is still a large space to explore about new note-novels.This dissertation consists of three parts, namely introduction, body part and conclusion. The body part is made up of two sections. The first section is composite of four chapters of case studies, on the basis of which the second section conducts comprehensive studies of the new note-novel in three chapters. The introduction starts with a description of the new note-novel and pointing out that it has become a remarkable and influential current in the contemporary literary world. Therefore, it is necessary to carry out a deep study of it. Then, we briefly trace the artistic sources of new note-novel. It was named new note-novel mainly because it directly inherited the tradition of ancient Chinese note-novel. This apart, new note-novels learned from traditional Chinese prose, poetry, historical biography, calligraphy, painting and opera. On the basis of all these, new note-novel acquired distinctive national style.So, we thus defined the new note-novel in the study. Simply speaking, new note-novel, appearing in the 1980s, is the short novel characterized by unique national style. Its representative writers, like Sun Li, Wang Zengqi and Lin Jinlan, aiming at the typically oriental aesthetic effect of image, atmosphere and romantic charm of literary works, wrote in a simple and straightforward style, by inheriting the tradition of Chinese short novels and drawing on the artistic feats of prose, poetry, historical biography, calligraphy, painting and opera. The introduction ends with the summary of the contemporary study of new note-novels and a short explanation of the thesis structure and methodology.The first part focuses on the new note-novels written by the four representative writers, namely Sun Li, Wang Zengqi, Lin Jinlan and Jia Pengwa. The chapter entitled multiple influence of national tradition mainly explores Sun Li's inheritance of traditional literature. It first studies the influence of ancient Chinese literature, which Sun Li read after going to town, on his understanding and presentation of life. Then, it proceeds to explore the national style of Sun Li's novels which were written in the 1980s and named after his study Yunzhai, concerning its realistic spirit, ideal pursuit, moral evaluation and narrative feature. The chapter named returning to the national tradition starts with Wang Zengqi's childhood experiences and his literary attainments cultivated in the traditional family. It goes on to study the national style of Wang's new note-novels, manifested by their objects, culture-laden language and their artistic atmosphere. The chapter named the fusion of note and poetic soul focuses on the national style displayed by Lin Jinlan's Customs of Aideng Bridge. Based on Lin Jinlan's literary creations in the 1950s, this chapter first reveals that Lin Jinlan rebelled against the rigid realistic ideal and actively pursued the national tradition in the 1980s and then uncovers its national style by analyzing its language, structure, aesthetic ideal. The chapter entitled Oriental Beauty and national pursuit is designed to uncover the national style manifested in Three Accounts of Shangzhou and Travels of Taibai Mountain written by Jia Pingwa, the younger writer of this group, who consciously pursued national style. The above two works demonstrates his pursuit for the spirit-imbued form and implicit beauty. It further analyzes Jia's large amounts of descriptions of mysterious phenomena, which are understood to be out of Jia's aesthetic exploration on the one hand and his superstitious outlook on the other. It is undeniable that when Jia presented the reality in the light of traditional Chinese philosophy, he criticized and questioned the reality, which shows his pursuit of aesthetic modernity. Although these four chapters are all case studies, they are simultaneously similar and different. Striving to be loyal to the individual features of the objects, they concentrate on these writers'identifications with the tradition in their compositions, particularly in their pursuits of image, aesthetic atmosphere, literary gap and implicit beauty, which are the characteristics of traditional Chinese literature.The second part consists of three chapters, which explore the new note-novel's inheritance from traditional Chinese literature and its influence on literary history, concerning new note-novel's aesthetic category and significance for the literary history, and the writers'subjectivity. The chapter named The manifestation of beauty further studies new note-novels'aesthetic pursuits, displayed by their characteristic sketches, anecdotes, images, etc. The chapter entitled the spiritual dimension discusses new note novelists'outlooks on the life and aesthetics, which are seen to be influential on their subjects, styles and presentations of the world. The chapter named looking back on history, explores new note-novels'inheritances from traditional literature and culture, as to the artistic expression and traditional morality. In this chapter, the section on the new note-novel's inheritance and development discusses its achievements and weak points in inheriting from the traditional literature. The section named Carrying forward Traditional Virtue and Pursuing Aesthetic Modernity points out that it pursues aesthetic modernity when carrying the traditional virtue to a new height.The study arrives at the conclusion that new note-novels revived the traditional aesthetics to a great extent by creating many literary works of typical Chinese style. In so doing, they exerted far-reaching influences on the later literary compositions. In new note-novels'inheritance from traditional literature, both the achievements and weak points are valuable for the literary history.So far the research method is concerned, this study combines case studies with comprehensive studies. Besides, it pays attention to the factors both within and out of literary works. On the one hand it studies the qualities of the writers, and the social and cultural environments in which they find themselves, on the other it compares the outside factors and texts themselves. Meanwhile, it examines individual writers'works in the light of a literary current, so that the conclusion of the study can be more...