Chinese Literature Transition In Religion Vision (1915-1919)

This paper selectes religion vision as a research method which can helpus to find new materials in May Forth literatrue transition. This is basedon two points to consider：Firstly，Look at literature with religion visioncan beyond the single perspective of literature historical narrative whichescape away from historical and intellectual methods, and it’s moreimportant to a unbalanced magazine in theory and writings such as NewYouth.Secondly, in order to establish its legitimacy, the new literature,intentionally or not, to exaggerate the confrontation with traditionalliterature, the slogan of "vernacular literature authentic" covers therichness of history. Religious view can change focus perspective to thescatterplot perspective in some extent, dispelling the simple linear forwardof literary history and thinking mode. Therefore, Religion actually containsdouble properties, it is a significant influence on literary development ofthe research object, but also from belongs to the history of academic historyresearch methods of literature, methodological significance.This paper focuses on the relationship between religion and Chineseliterature transition in New Youth magazine from1915to1919. Set time rangeis related to the theme change of the magazine and the whole Chinese society.When New Youth birthed, the struggle between traditional literature andcontemporary literary is fiercely,and literary conception and literarycreation form intricate, present a transition fierce collision and exchange. Literature revolution makes the confrontation between the “old” literatureand the new one more obvious，at the same time, the magazine’s attitude towardreligion tend to be intensely. The theory of"aesthetic education instead ofreligion",is put forward the critical tendency to religion to a pole."May4th" events in1919largely contributed to the society as a whole by theenlightenment to the theme of the national transformation. After theeditorial of New Youth back to Shanghai, the original ideological andcultural construction of proposition gradually to politics and the socialrealistic problems, and the connection between literature and religion areavirtually be dispelled. Therefore, discussion will involve materials after1919, but it is not the main object of this investigation.The New Youth played a important role in Chinese literature transitiondue to the construction of the new culture, including religion, arts, etc,the macro-view advocates the literary revolution. Its superiority is alsoa limitation which emphasis more theory than practice, more abstractexposition than in view of actual problem. New Youth’s discussion ofreligion has many inconsistent places, this probably is the result of insolving practical problems of the construction of the culture, and theshortcomings of the original theory gradually revealed. The same problem alsoappeared in the literature, in spite of realism and humanitarian theory,single for novel, besides the minority writers such as lu xun, almostinvisible to implement these ideas. This inevitably leads to a morecomplicated relationship between literature and religion. If only from theliterary creation or examine the impact of religious theory, then get onlysporadic mutilated fragments, but unable to reach the question. Therefore,this thesis focus on the literature related to religious phenomenon, oftenescape literature or literary theory level, and more linked to theideological and cultural discussion.Firstly, introduces research results about this theme, specify theobject of study and research questions and arguments process. Past researchof the relationship between modern Chinese literature and religion, can beroughly divided into tow paterns,"religion in literature works" and " literature in religion works ": one is given priority to withhold some kindof religious believers, and another researched religious thought andreligious theme in the literature works. This paper attempts to find a newway beyond this two by the way of view the religion as a belief system andway of life,at the same time, the religion become a historical existence whichinfluence the chinese literature in a certain period largely. The innovationof this study is that religion is not only a simple research object evencontrast system, more research vision similar to that of the academic history.Writers psychology, literature idea, subtle changes in the form of languageand literature creation will be more clear in this view,and the research canfocus more on historical data rather than literary which is weak to revealthe whole screen of literature trasition in this period.The first chapter discusses the literature revolution under theinfluence of the Christian. In the view of many May4th literaryrevolutionaries, such as Hu Shi, Chen Duxiu, Christian is a symbol of westernculture whose equal humanity idea, the spirit of heresy even bloody crackdownto heresy will to be compared with oriental cultural. Due to the experienceof overseas study, their doubt attitude was more different with Christianintellectuals who envy and identity to Christian values. The conflict betweenNew Youth and the Christian cult embodied when the magzine was commaded tochange its name.From a certain perspective, it also led to New Youth morerational understanding of western culture. At the same time, the magazine’seditorial guidelines are also adjusted, the introduction of westerncivilization articles decreased,in the same time,fans’ essays and letterswhich discussed China’s social reality problem increased. Changes inliterary concepts is reflected in the translation and "misreading" of westernwriters related to Christianity. Said Nietzsche’s “Will to Power”theoryis seen as philosophy prosecced european war(the first world war), this isobvious defferent with New Youth’s previous opinion stands for the army ofthe national. Chinese intellectuals’complex attitude toward is influencedin this "misreading, because Nietzsche’s philosophy is largely based on itsanti-Christian ethics position. Tolstoy formed his own passivity,such as no resistanse theory,anti-warism, humanitarian with transformed Christianthought, and his double roles of religious reformer and moralists attractedChinese intellectuals’interesing in fact.The second chapter is about the Buddhism and the change of the ethos ofthe literature before the May Fourth event. Modern intellectuals’s attitudetowards Buddhism differs in the academic research and belief system manypeople attempt to solve the problems about life worldviews and moral practice.This is also reflected in the new young colleagues. With the identity of theBuddhist spirit, they are against the Confucianism and Taoism but not reallyopposed to Buddhism, some people even showed obvious identity to buddhistspirit. Xie Wuliang had written “the outline of Buddhism” and “Chinesegreat history of literature”, his thoughts with the characteristics of"literary or religious" made him embodies the inclusiveness of the literarytradition. His long poems published in New Youth magazine were praised byChen Duxiu as “the highest national spirit”, but Hu Shi criticized itsclassicism tendency. Although these two were trying to lead the path towardthe realism of Chinese literature development, their differences lied in ifthe old literary form can accommodate realistic spirit. Buddhism influenceon literary also reflected in the poetry monk Su Manshu, and his BrokenHairpin contained complex religious feelings; his exquisite and exaggerateddescription of desire and love, both presented the development of theclassical lyric tradition, and symbolized certain new possibility of newliterature. Qian Xuantong, Hu Shi and Liu Bannong divided in evaluating hismain writing style, since after his death, realistic reasons in literaryethos was gradually spread.Chapter three is about the literary language evolution during the MayFourth Movement from a religious perspective. In religion, the value of LiShutong’s literary history came out, and his vernacular lyrics before hebecame a monk had blended with his intense thoughts about the metaphysicsof the universe and life. And different from the vernacular poems in New Youth,the “singing friendly” nature of these lyrics was the real reason that itcould show the human’s hidden thoughts and feelings. As a significant flow of poetry, it emphasized on "talk" and had a serious reasoning bias. Theinfluence Christianity had on Chinese literature’s language evolution isreflected on the creation and experiment about the replacement of " RomanizedChinese character" to the original kanji writing system, because of itsintention to use the vernacular for communication needs. This gave newwriters great inspiration, and they showed great enthusiasm for "RomanizedChinese character" and Esperanto. Therefore literary revolution was directedinto deeper levels of characters revolution. The meaning of kanji revolutionlies in that it linked the characters with its Confucianism and Taoismthoughts. What phonetic writing system really wanted to replace was Hannationality’s way of thinking linked together with the Chinese characters.The forth chapter focuses on the discussion of the deconstruction of the“religion substitution theory” in old culture system. Cai has given severalspeeches at the beginning of his palm in Peking University, showing theposition of Confucianism and entire religion. Overall, it was very obviouslysympathy. Soon, he and Chen echoed each to overturn the previous view. This"double reed letter" event suggests the importance of religion in the lifeof the human spirit is re-understood and assessed, and the New CultureMovement intends to adjust the relations among Confucianism, religion andscience. Study on the relevant discussions of New Youth can find that, thistransition from fuzzy agreement to explicitly opposition is the commonfeature of people’s attitude towards religion. The praise of the scientificdoctrine, as well as the consequent overall negative religious thought, hasled to the physicochemical tendencies in New Culture Movement. In view ofthe past and even present central location of religion in the ideologicaland cultural fields, all kinds of religion substitution theories came intobeing. Among them, Cai’s "Aesthetic Religion" had the greatest impact.Substitution is not to replace the original objection or simply "down"; itdoes not exclude the reasonability of existence of religions. It called onusing the new religion to replace the old religious superstition. Aestheticstressed the importance of arts education including literature. It has beenable to replace religion because most humans can meet the emotional and spiritual needs from it."Aesthetic substitutes religious" is not onlyemphasizes the social function of literature, but also eliminates the adverseeffects of excessive expansion of over-generated scientism. In a way, itfollows the traditional Confucian rituals, bridging the cultural gap,reconstructing the core spirit of the new culture.Lastly is the conclusion. Viewing the literature change five years before the May Fourth Movement from the angle of religion, it is found that it has very distinct stage characteristics, both caused by changes ofthe writer population and changes in religion and peripheral cultural environment. Due to the different modes of action of various religions, their impacts on literature are also different. The translation of foreignliterature had more profoundly influence than original writing, while the concept of language genres had more greatly impact than the languageliterary concept form. Its influence structure is more in three-dimensional rather than plane. In addition, the reverse influence of religious literature is very clear that religion substitution theory is not only reactionary before the strong involvement of religion, but also provides atheoretical basis for after the Science and Metaphysics and "non-Christian" movement.