Spiritual Identity And Cultural Dialogue

The Bloomsbury Group was an enormously influential group of associated English writers, intellectuals, philosophers, artists and economists, including Bertrand Russell, Virginia Woolf, E. M. Forster, Lytton Strachey, Clive Bell, Roger Fry, Thomas Stearns Eliot, Vanessa Bell and John Maynard in the first half of the20th century. The character and thoughts of these people has gradually become an important force in the cultural construction of Chinese literary criticism and influenced the special cultural circumstance in China, through frequent intercommunications with the Chinese intellectuals like Xu Zhimo, Ling Shuhua, Xiao Qian, Ye Junjian and Xu Gongchao. This paper tries to excavate and interpret the relationship between the Bloomsbury Group and Chinese literary criticism and probe into the ruling laws of generation and evolution of Chinese literary theory and cultural atmosphere in the social context of the first half the20th century, from the point of view of overall cultural character, individual influence, comparison of literary bodies, intellectual spirit, modernism seduction and cultural dialogue and misreading.The first chapter expatiate the origin, members, development and general characteristics of the Bloomsbury group, whose identity of intellectual noble and anti-tradition posture, loose and free organization, proud and exclusive image, individual shining and group commonness, complex sexual relationships and pure friendship, all constitute the spectacular style of the group and attract great outside attention.The second chapter expounds the translation and introduction of the Bloomsbury Group in China since the beginning of the20th century and provides theoretical evidence for analysis of the influences of the group in China and the comparison of the two. The study shows that the translation and introduction of the west modern culture kept the same pace with its development and the intellectuals after the May Fourth Movement yearned for keeping up with the course of the world civilization with an acute western vision in anxiety.The third chapter illustrates the intercommunications between Chinese intellectuals, such as Xu Zhimo, Ling shuhua, Xiao Qian, Ye Junjian and Ye Gongchao and the members of the Bloomsbury Group and reveals the significance of cultural communications between China and the West.The fourth chapter compares the overall characters of the Bloomsbury body and the Chinese literary bodies such as the Crescent School and the Beijing School. The identity of the upper intellectuals, the salons, the magazines, the poems and the plays of the Crescent School and the Beijing School shows their similarities with those of the Bloomsbury Group in cultural identity.The fifth chapter examines the spiritual identity of the Bloomsbury Group and Chinese intellectuals, the associations of college and intellectuals and the social functions and cultural influences of intellectuals. The Cambridge to the Bloomsbury Group is just like Beijing University to Chinese intellectuals in the early period of Republic of China. The reason and humanism of college had become the cradle of Chinese intellectual groups and led the development of society and culture.Starting from case studies, the sixth chapter discusses the influence of thoughts and literary and artistic theories of the Bloomsbury Group on the generation and development of modernism in China in the20th century. Chinese intellectuals were in a paradox of identifying with the modern artistic tide of the Bloomsbury Group, while at the same time resisting it. The contradiction of their attitude reveals their clear mind and self determination in the face of temptation of modernism.The seventh chapter analyzes the dialogues and misreading between the two sides through the retrospection of the past and the application of cultural theories. Both the Bloomsbury Group’s views toward China and Chinese intellectuals’ misreading of the Bloomsbury Group display the possibility and hardship of the cultural communications between the west and the east, which guarantee the attraction and independence of the otherness in a certain degree.In the end, this paper makes a conclusion and points out the viewpoints of cross-culture and cross-discipline the author takes and the aim of further study.