Japanese Novelists And Yu Dafu

Yu Dafu is a writer with exceptional characteristics in the history of modern Chinese literature. In his short literary career, he wrote a lot of poems, essays, novels and reviews. Mr. Liu Haisu, a friend of the deceased, once appraised Yu Dafu's literary achievements like"Yu's poems ranked the first, essays the second, novels the third and reviews the fourth."Actually, what made Yu gain his literary fame was not his poems or essays but his novels with audacious and straight style. Yu Dafu read widely German, English, Japanese and Russian literature works when he studied in Japan, so he was influenced deeply by these foreign literary works. Through reading the Complete Works of Yu Dafu, the author finds that while Yu's literary views and novels were influenced by European writers such as Rousseau and Ivan Sergeevich Turgene, he might have shown more of literary elements of Japanese writers. The author tries to explore and verify it by using the method of Impact Study characterized by the first hand material and scientific proof, complemented by the aesthetic evaluation.This dissertation consists of three parts: introduction , body part and conclusion.In the introduction, the author presents the cause of choosing the topic, the research status quo on domestic and overseas, research methods, values and the structure of the thesis.The body part is composed of five chapters. In the first chapter, the author tells about the Japanese literary status at the time when Yu Dafu studied in Japan, generalizes the different genres and glamorous writing styles. The second chapter contains the life history of Tayama Katai and the influences the western naturalism and other literary theories exert on his works. By comparing the novels writen by Tayama Katai and by Yu Dafu, the author points out the similarities and differences between them, such as in the design of characters'identity, plots, persona's behaviors, psychological description and props utilization. Meanwhile, by the comparison of their literary theories, the author also points out the fact that Yu's writing and literary views were affected by Tayama Katai. Finally the author analyzes the reasons why Yu Dafu, on the one hand, criticized Naturalist Literature, on the other, he was greatly influenced by Japanese naturalist writers like Tayama Katai, explains why Yu expressed boldly without regard to technique in his novels. In the third chapter, the author introduces the life history of Satou- Haruo and the association between Satoharuo and Yu Dafu, analyzes specifically the effects"Pastoral Melancholy"by Satou Haruo made on"Sink"by Yu Dafu, such as in the design of protagonists, quotations from foreign poems, description of natural scenery and the third person narrator, indicates the difference between them in implying the root cause of the protagonist's Melancholia and the approach to natural scenery. Satou Haruo put forth his non-utilitarian view of art in his early time called"The pleasure of artists lies in creation itself.""Love expressing, value expressing"He claimed,"Loneliness benefits artistic creation","Honestly observe and distinctively represent","An artist is a special talent".All these creative ideas inspired Yu Dafu so that he advocated similar artistic views when he returned to China. But China and Japan have different national conditions, and the two writers'personal situations are totally different, so Yu's reputation can not be comparable with that of Satou Haruo at that time. Lastly, the author analyzes the reason why their friendship broke up during the war and points out a series of action Satou Haruo took to support the war against China, without introspection of cherishing old friendship even after the war. In the fourth chapter, after a brief introduction to Kasai Zenzou's life and his major works, the author analyzes specifically the impact he made on Yu Dafu, the realistic factors and its root by demonstrating the presentative similarities and underlying differences. In the last chapter, the author traces the effect of aestheticism Tanizaki Junichiro and Yu Dafu felt and their respective aesthetic propositions. Both novelists touched upon sadism, masochism and fetishism in their writing practice, the author hereby tries to verify the impact that the former made on the latter, through the comparison and analysis of their texts.In concluding part, the author summarizes the causes that different Japanese novelists exerted different influences on Yu Dafu, analyses the profound reason of the differentiation. By pointing out the impact mentioned above, the author stresses that Yu Dafu's novels are by no means simple imitation but full of alternatives and innovation, in which he blended into the Chinese traditional cultural spirit that writers should pay close attention to social reality and embody value of life. In the end, the author briefly summarizes the research value of this dissertation.