On Body Aesthetics Of New Sensation School

Body is the prerequisite of the existence of human, the material base for the world of perception, the flesh-and-blood organism and also the foundation of life. With the transition of human society from ancient to modern, the body gradually went from backstage to front stage and the rediscovery and recognition of body were one of the features of modernism. However, as the first modernistic literature school in China, New Sensation School’s emphasis on body was incomparable by previous literature schools, which advocated and praised the bodily desire and vigorously excavated the aesthetic value of body and their meticulous depiction of the female body was always praised. In view of this, from the body and combined the Chinese traditional and western new body theory, the arguments of "body" and "mind", relationship between body and disease, sex and politics, violence aesthetics of body and other contents of New Sensation School represented by Liu Na’ou, Mu Shiying and Shi Zhicun are expounded systematically, the body aesthetics consciousness of the author reflected in the novel, essay and diary of different theme of New Sensation School is analyzed comprehensively, and the uniqueness and richness of the body aesthetics of New Sensation School are manifested in this paper.This paper has five chapters. Chapter Ⅰ:Origin of body in modern China:rediscovery and recognition of body in the late Qing Dynasty and the early Republic of China. New Sensation School’s emphasis on body has complex background and historical origin and is closely related to the development of China’s modern social and cultural thoughts. In the late Qing Dynasty and the early Republic of China, with the social transformation and influx of western natural science theory, Chinese traditional body thoughts changed greatly. Since Gong Zizhen and Wei Yuan envisaged "feeling" and "desire", China’s thought circle formed the body-based mind-body monism thought, the unique and selfish concept became the common practice and at the same time body developed from "empty" to "solid" and became the flesh-and-blood physical object, rather than an dependency to illusory "mind". However, facing the crisis of national subjugation and genocide, the personal body modification was always related to the state strengthening and race conservation. In a certain sense, body modification almost became a political task. Therefore, body was instrumentalized after getting out of the control of feudal ethical code. The entanglement of body of individual and body of state almost ran through the whole modern and contemporary Chinese history, in which two parts that saved the state by modifying the personal body from bottom to top and liberated the personal body by changing the national system from top to bottom were included.Chapter Ⅱ:New Sensation School’s arguments of body and mind:bipolar rhythm between repression and indulgence. On one hand, New Sensation School’s novel was good at depicting the subjective feelings of human, the essence of which was the body’s intuitional experience of outer world and New Sensation School’s writers made their works present a strong modern sense by enlarging and visualizing the body experience. The characters in their novels followed their desires with body as the criterion, adhering to the body-oriented principle. On the other hand, New Sensation School’s "body emphasis" embodied the importance of "mind". With love and disgust attitude towards body, New Sensation School’s writers were immersed in the material enjoyment and afraid of lost "mind" and their body aesthetics lingered between "soul" and "body". In the tearing of body and mind, New Sensation School’s writers were looking for the reservation road-returning to the nature because the sensation of body would be amplified and the soul would be peaceful and tranquil temporarily in the nature.Chapter Ⅲ:Disease and violence:maverick body aesthetics. Disease and violence could directly lead to the failure and destruction of body and were avoided by people in most cases. However, in the western modernistic literature thought, there were many works regarding ugliness, disease and death as beauty. New Sensation School, who were familiar with modernistic literature schools, often admired the maverick body aesthetics in the literary creation. First, Shi Zhicun, Mu Shiying and Liu Na’ou were keen on describing the morbid psychology of characters and the twisted world in the eyes of morbid characters. Then, New Sensation School’s writers regarded sick body as beauty, especially Mu Shiying, who depicted the sick body carefully with stream-of-consciousness means and novel metaphors to make her maverick and unique in the disease description of modern literature. Next, under New Sensation School, there was an extreme beauty of body-violence aesthetics of body destruction and devastation and the characters in their works attempted to seek pleasure in destructing the body of others, which was in the disguise of morality and resistance to oppression.Chapter Ⅳ:Game of individual and group:advocate personal body and get away from grandiose narration. Since the late Qing Dynasty and the early Republic of China, personal body has been coerced by the state to become a dependency of war, revolution and national liberation, but New Sensation School challenged this mainstream body narration. When the individual and the state conflicted with each other, their choice was:respect the personal body and following the individual desire. First, individualized war experience. In Mu Shiying’s Leisure Mayor and My Generation that described "January 28th" Incident, Mu Shiying mainly described the individual experience in the war, rather than the war itself. Second, antinomy of the Left’s "evolution+love" novel. The revolutionaries in the works of New Sensation School lacked of evolutionary enthusiasm and social transformation motivation, they joined the revolution because their desires were suppressed and could not be met. The determination of revolution of the leading character was always dominated by the personal desire. Next, elimination of morality and inversion of history. The leading characters in the historical novel of Shi Zhicun finally chose to respect the body desire after painful struggle and hesitation facing a choice between the state and body desire.Chapter Ⅴ:"South and north poles" in the metropolis:"stratified" body narration. Shanghai in the 1930s was in the golden age of capitalism, but the increase of social wealth aggravated the social strata differentiation:people at the top, bottom and "middle" of the society had different body recognition and body appeals. For the lower classes represented by beggars, unemployed workers and bankrupt farmers, the principal thing was to solve the problem of food and clothing and the sense of hunger caused by the food shortage often became the motive power of revolution and rebellion. For the "middle classes" represented by dancing girls, commis and small intellectuals, they had to stoop to compromise on the sacrifice of body for temporary safety, living a depressed and gloomy life. For people at all classes, their body was "materialized" and "toolized" in the capitalism civilization, with different ways and means. For the female under the men’s authoritative rule, this phenomenon was more serious.New Sensation School’s body aesthetics has inherited the body liberation thoughts since the May 4th movement in late Qing dynasty, with certain breakthrough, and their affirmation and emphasis on the personal body desire and their exquisite and detailed depiction of body are incomparable by other literature schools. However, in the transition of Chinese society from ancient to modern, New Sensation School’s writers represented by Liu Na’ou, Mu Shiying and Shi Zhicun, had the unique conflict of transition period, who pursued material enjoyment, but yearned for the nature; was immersed in the pleasant sensation of "body" and could not escape from the trial of "mind". They formed rich and unique but complex and contradictory body views under the influences of Chinese and western culture.