The Enlightenment Of Literature

This paper aims to offer a full and detailed interpretation of the literary views of writer Shen Congwen under the perspective of the human thought.Shen's literary creation of the ideal humanity and his criticism of the“emasculated”humanity are actually consistent with the“National Character Criticism”put forward by Mr.Lu Xun.Deeply reflecting the Enlightenment of literature as well as completely removing the simplification and the conceptualization brought by the May 4^th new literature,Shen's writings fruitfully associate“The Consciousness of Literature”with“The Consciousness of Human”and greatly deepen and enhance the Enlightenment of the Chinese literature.An unremitting pursuit toward the value of the Enlightenment of literature enables Shen's literary views to deal with the greatest topics of the Chinese ideology of the 20th century,the inner structure established on pure literature endows his writings with abundant implications which feature a significant concern over the human feelings,will,instincts,authenticity and the integrity of the relations between human and nature.“Xiangxi Myth”,a literary concept created by Shen,conveys a modernized sense through a nostalgic way.More significantly,Shen's psychological recreation of human on the metaphysical level further deepens and enriches the implication of the“National Character Transformation”.Based on what is stated above,this paper can be divided into the following seven parts:There are mainly two sections of the introduction of this paper.The first section attempts to roughly define the ideological and cultural connotations of“The Enlightenment”in terms of etymology,the development history of the Western Enlightenment and the May 4^th New Culture Movement and the Eastern and Western reflection and construction with regard to“The Enlightenment”.Based on the two influential criteria to classify the May 4^th New Literature raised by Professor Chen Sihe,the second section introduces the concept of“The Enlightenment of literature”by focusing on the modern and contemporary Chinese literature.The first chapter mainly deals with Shen's basic views on literature and reviews in turn the origin and beginning of Shen's literary career and his distinctive literary ideas such as his perspectives to the May 4^th New Literature,“The reconstruction of the text tool”,“The abstract lyric”and“The new religion of love and beauty”,conducting a macro interpretation of the inheritance and development of Shen's literary views to“the Enlightenment of Literature”,a branch of the May 4^thh New Literature.Exactly speaking,on the one hand,Shen persists the value pursuit on the basis of Enlightenment,stressing the reestablishment of the“Life Concept”that is ultimately based on human survival;on the other hand,Shen holds that literature should be independent and takes such abstract terms as“love”,“beauty”and“life”into what the literature is expected to express and eulogize,greatly widening the philosophical and aesthetic range of the May 4^th New Literature.The second chapter mainly analyzes Shen's fulfillment of a self-identification and his realization of a subjective construction as an enlightener in the process of the Enlightenment-oriented literary creation.The first part of this chapter takes the complicated relationship between“countrymen”and the liberal intellectuals as an example,interpreting Shen's criticism,imagination and reconstruction of these intellectuals.By doing so this paper intends to analyze Shen's self-identification in the course of Enlightenment.The second part highlights Shen's self-isolation with the mainstream literary criticism and evaluation,deeply examining his personal selection between“name”and“reality”.The Enlightenment Shen holds is fundamentally literature-oriented.Therefore,this part does not place too much emphasis on the elite consciousness or the folk standpoint from the mutual relations between the enlighteners and the enlightenees.Instead,the major focus is put on the enlighteners'general attitudes toward such key terms about enlightenment as“rationalization”,“knowledge”,“science”,etc.The third part takes the clarification of the history of concept as the major research method,analyzing the modern connotations of“countrymen”and the cultural strategy of“Xiangxi Myth”on the level of cultural logic.The third chapter may be recognized as the premier part of this paper.In this chapter,Shen's“human”thought is fully and comprehensively stated.The connotations of“human”thought can fall into two categories.The first category features a strong desire to the value of life that can be clearly available in the praise of the primitive power of life in his early and middle writings and the apotheosis to the power of life,will and instincts in the latest writings.The second category is characterized by a harmonious link between human and nature.The two categories are perfectly interacted with each other,laying a solid theoretical foundation to Shen's creation of an“ideal humanity”.Since the Enlightenment Shen holds is fundamentally literature-oriented,it is accordingly held in this paper that literature simply fulfills part of the mission of Enlightenment that features the reconstruction of human in terms of individual philosophy.That is to say,the external factors which can liberate human fully as the political and economic factors are excluded.It is this sort of exclusion or purification that establishes a platform for Shen to search for the innermost physical and psychological roots of human and thus achieves a literary display of a poetic existence of human,which greatly expands the“metaphysical”vision on human thought under the perspectives of the modern literary history.The fourth chapter mainly illustrates Shen's literary dissolution toward the generalization of the human nature and the two dualistic and opposite ways of thinking that go along with the“Enlightenment”in the process of his literary creation.In the same process,Shen consciously restores the substantiality and the historical authenticity of the enlightenees'real experience and literary imagination.Shen's concrete thinking of“women's Liberation”as well as his concern to the enlightenees'gender differences on the basis of personal experience and the human spirit and the hidden places of the soul,to a certain extent,overcome the contradictions and conflicts between the non-historical complexity of the Enlightenment concepts and realistic context;Shen brings such local cultural resources as“Getting any ways to one realm”and“Letting all of things of the earth do one's it by themselves”into his understanding of the class differences of the enlightenees,which motivates and realizes the ultimate contact between the Enlightenment and the real context;Shen makes it to show us the complexity of human nature and the diversity of life by means of individual memory and experience,depicting the individual authenticity of the people from the lower social class by sticking to the position of“empathy”.The fifth chapter focuses on Shen's enlightening ways and means.Shen consistently holds that a healthy and vigorous outlook on life should be instilled into the personality of the Chinese people.Then what path ought to be taken to wake up and fuel the passion and will of the Chinese people so as to enable them to obtain confidence and power?Shen originally thinks of the“Literature Revolution”,and then he advocates“the new religion of love and beauty”and“reshaping politics through aesthetic education”and argues that various artistic forms should be established to uplift Chinese people's spirit and strengthen their courage and confidence.In addition,Shen's concern is given to the instant feelings and instincts of human in order to seize the rare opportunity of Enlightenment.As far as Shen is concerned,“Borrowing the ideology and culture to tackle the problem”is definitely essential,but the propagandists and recipients of Enlightenment are both humans.Therefore,the solution to the problem of“psychology”,the actualization of the“life concept”,a suitable guidance toward human feelings and instincts,an appropriate aesthetic purification to human spirit,a reestablishment of human psychological inner body on a metaphysical level all become the key issues with regard to Enlightenment.The sixth chapter is divided into two sections as well.The first section elaborates the significance of Shen's criteria of revaluation to the construction of an Oriental cultural subject:Shen's resistance to the system,rule,doctrine on the basis of the value of“life”possesses the same theoretical background with the resistance of Lu Xun.Precisely speaking,essential attention is paid to the cultural integrity behind the Western cultural concepts and the spiritual mechanism that supports this cultural system instead of the specific content of these Western concepts.Moreover,Shen advocates the reshaping of the will and quality of the subject due to its shortage of the spiritual structure.The second section deals with the gains and losses of Shen's reconstruction of an ideal personality in reality.The“Literature Revolution”that Shen believes in aims at changing people's outlook on world,life and values by means of literature.Compared with the social revolution,the“Literature Revolution”is expected to accomplish a complete and profound change in a real sense.Shen's embrace of“Literature Revolution”intends to promote a harmonious relationship among people and even reestablish the Chinese nation.However,such an embrace is doomed to encounter a dead end of individualism because of the failure of feasibility which results from an overemphasis on the identity of goal and means.