Narration In Symphony

Wang Meng's novels and stories are a great existence. First, the number of his novels and stories is great with rich social and historical experiences implied. His works are a mirror of Chinese history in a certain way and Wang Meng himself is a'cursitor'like Balzac. Because Wang Meng always keeps an eye on people's soul and spirits his works have a value of'history of soul and thought'as was said by Brandes. Second, the language of Wang Meng's novels and stories is forceful and unrestrained, woven in everyday language, political comment language, poetic language and music language. The grammar of his works is ever-changing and with rich rhetorical strategies, which is a breach of the conventions of Chinese novels as far as style is concerned. Third, both Wang Meng and his works were gestated and born in the context of revolutionary politics and culture but Wang Meng is the one among the small number of writers who can reflect upon, while they at the same time are devoted to, the revolutionary politics and culture.To the present author, the strength of Wang Meng's works lies in his melodic way of writing:In the first place, in all'languages'music is the most free one not insistent on formality and its freedom in form brings about its freedom in spirit and thought. It is the free nature of music in aesthetics that leads Wang Meng to the innovation of the style in his novel writing and to his Faust way of exploration into human spirit.In the second place, the variety of musician resources brings about the multivariation of Wang Meng's spiritual structure. Various musical and cultural resources, including Russian classical music, revolutionary songs of the Soviet Union, minority music of the Northwest of China, the film music of Hollywood and modernist music of the West world, help Wang in his reflection on and transcendence of the'revolutionary'politics and culture.Based upon the above analysis the main part (the text proper) of the present thesis is divided into two parts:1. Through the close text reading I try to find what music constitutes the musical resources of Wang's novels and stories and what influence the cultures exhibited in the music have exerted on Wang's thought. This part is an external and empirical study with the data from three sources: (1) the data provided by Wang Meng himself; (2)'music'manifested in Wang's novels and stories. Wang claims that'music is a part of my works'and he frequently quotes from music. By reading his works of the four periods, including the'youth novels'of the 1950s, the stream of consciousness novels'in the 1980s,'season series novels'in the 1990s and'post season novels'in the first decade of the 21st century, we can clearly see that music runs through his writing, helping complete the narration of the stories and the shaping of the personality, mentality and images of the characters. The songs in his works take a part in the special historical tenor, bear the weight of roughs and imply unique significance; (3) the contexts in which the music appears. There is a clear line of the music manifested in his stories. In the flow of changing contexts the synchronic and diachronic significance of music is highlighted. The social contexts composed by the politics, economy, culture and ethics of all times are refracted, reflecting and embodying the history of New China in more than a half century and the histories of the soul of modern people (represented by intellectuals).2. The influence of the music as a special language on Wang's stories (external, internal and stylistic structure analyses, but following the principles of'from form to meaning'methodology)The music nature of literature has already existed, which has been richly manifested in modern and ancient poetic writing and studies home and abroad. This music nature of novels and stories appeared along with the birth of the genre. The most effective are Milan Kundera's practice and Bakhtin's polyphony theory. These show the isogenesis of music and literature, which seems coincidental but actually reasonable. The form of music inspired Wang most in his novel writing.Music inspires his writing aesthetically and he understands the metaphor of the form of music, and then he uses this inspiration in his creative practice, forming his unique way of musical qualities in novel writing.As a matter of fact, the unsolved issue by now is what is form and what is the content in music aesthetics. These meta-problems are not problems in other arts, but are specially significant in music aesthetics. The form of music is the'meaningful form'. The form and structure of novels are speaking unspeakable utterances. With the help of the concepts and categories in music I interpret and explain Wang's innovation in novel form so as to analyze the unspeakable meaning in literature. That is the content of the second part of this thesis.