Comparative Study On The Original Letters And First Edition Of The Letters From Two Places

The original letters and Letters from Two Places of Lu Xun and Xu Guangping have completely different nature and they cannot be treated equally or replaced each other.The original letters are completed independently and undersigned solely by Lu Xun and Xu Guangping,so they are not any form of cooperative work.Letters from Two Places published in April 1933 is not a true set of letters,but a letter style literary works.Letters from Two Places is created from the original letters,so it has integrity and it cannot be split.The authors of it are Lu Xun and Xu Guangping,not just Lu Xun himself.Xu Guangping is mainly engaged in providing materials,transcribing manuscripts,proofreading and other auxiliary work in the creating process of Letters from Two Places,while she is not in the leading role of practical writing activities.The first chapter mainly expounds the evolution of Lu Xun's youth view and its influence on the creation of Letters from Two Places.Lu Xun always devotes selfless love and consistent help to young people;however,there are many condemnatory statements on youth in Lu Xun's original letters from 1926 to 1927.These statements are almost amplified and strengthened when they are written in the book.As a result,the degree of criticism is exacerbated,and the more details of the disclosure are added and even the condemnation becomes stronger.On one hand,this change lies in the“disintegration”of Lu Xun's “evolutionism”.Lu Xun no longer upholds the“youth-based” view,and no longer firmly believes “the young will be better than the old”,and he enables to carry out dialectical analysis and different treatments towards youth.On the other hand,Lu Xun uses the trampled and abandoned ladder as a metaphor of himself,and he gradually forms a selfish,sophisticated negative impression on the young groups.The start time of the manuscript was roughly in lateSeptember 1932,and it was completed in mid-January 1933.Therefore,this youth view makes him have a grudge against youth and thus the wording of the book about youth is quite harsh.The second chapter mainly elaborates the nature of “romance” in the original letters and the exclusion of “romance”in the creation of Letters from Two Places.Lu Xun rejects “nauseating”,which in Lu Xun's literary world not only refers to the frivolous intonation between men and women,but also refers to greetings and flattery for the wealthy.The original letters are not “nauseating”,but with the “romance”nature.It is the witness of their love development and the carrier for their emotional interaction.“Romance” itself is healthy and desirable.However,Lu Xun not only deliberately excludes the “nauseating” statements of original letters,but also covers the “romance” components to a large extent.The statement of “love words”and expression of “love rhyme” are significantly changed.The readers cannot get a glimpse of the “romance”profile of original letters in the first edition.The writing may be due to Lu Xun's concern about the special state of his marriage.As his marriage with Zhu-an exists in name,he exercises restraint in showing “romance”with Xu Guangping outright.Moreover,Lu Xun may have confidence in the selling prospects of the book,He does not create a gimmick to cater for readers,but he plainly narrates their particular experience and insights.This chapter explains different “romance” approaches of Lu Xun and Xu Guangping in the original letters and the transformation in the first edition,and it systematically summarizes the varying tendency of the appellations,for exploring the motives and effects of the exclusion of “romance”in the writing process.The third chapter mainly elaborates the “privacy” in the original letters and the exclusion of privacy in the creation of Letters from Two Places.Privacy refers to the secret affairs,activities and related information which exists in the private living space and it is a human survival characteristic.Privacy is relative,for the same thing may be transformed from privacy to non-privacy with the changes of prospective reader and publishing time.Lu Xun and Xu Guangping's original letters are reciprocated in a private environment in which they have mutual trust,so many affairsin their original letters are not privacy,but they will be converted to privacy in Letters from Two Places.Lu Xun is bound to carry out strict filtration and processing towards privacy in original letters,to ensure that the contents of the book do not interfere with his relatives and friends,do not damage their personal images,and do not increase unnecessary interpersonal disputes.As for Lu Xun's processing methods of dealing with privacy contents in the original letters,deletion,retention and amplification are involved.This chapter exemplifies the three ways.In addition,Xu Guangping's words in the original letters naturally contain many details related to privacy,while Lu Xun not only weakens the contradictions between Xu Guangping and his relatives,but also deletes her sensitive political words.Especially Xu Guangping's privacy in the workplace and life has been blurred during the creation of the book.Lu Xun tries to optimize Xu Guangping's personal image and to carry out well-intended maintenance or reconstruction towards Xu Guangping.The fourth chapter mainly elaborates the serious publishing environment in the early 1930 s,and “depoliticization” in the creation of Letters from Two Places.The national government has successively promulgated The Publishing Law and The Rules for the Implementation of the Publication Law,and the central committee of the Kuomintang has formulated The Measures for reviewing the Bookshop,The Standards for the Review of Publicity Materials,etc.The authorities censor manuscripts,close down bookstores,and ban progressive books.Before and after the publication of the book,the Kuomintang and The Communist Party of China fought fiercely in military and political fields,and the publishing environment was complicated and severe.This chapter focuses on the revision involving “Russia”,“right”,“left” and “communist”in the original letters.In the harsh publishing environment,any yearning for Russia and sympathy for the communist party and other contents in the original letters are sensitive and dangerous,so the book has been extensively edited to achieve the avoidance or adaptation of the bad publishing environment in China in 1933.Such a move is not a negative retreat for the Kuomintang's cultural dictatorship,but a pragmatic move to ensure normal publication of the book in Shanghai.In addition,one section is designed to analyze the political influence of Li Chuntao,the leftist ofthe Kuomintang,and the reasons for Li Chuntao's complete disappearance in the first edition of Letters from Two Places.The fifth chapter mainly discusses the internal causes of Lu Xun's “acerbity”and“acrimony” in original letters,as well as the “politeness”treatment during the writing process.Lu Xun's “acerbity” aims at seeking truth,lest “get into a swamp of concealment and deception”.Lu Xun can ignore the small defects,distinguish the actual interests,and give the differential treatment without harming the whole by the slightest resentment.Lu Xun describes rather a decaying picture of Xiamen University and puts forward much criticism and condemnation towards Xiamen University's principal and faculty in the original letters.However,all the contents are given “politeness” treatment during the creating process by Lu Xun and the original harsh appearance has been hidden.The “politeness” treatment has three dimensions:region,class and age.In the regional dimension,Lu Xun's comments on the regional deprecation in the original letters are deleted,and there is no negative view of Wuxi,Xiamen,Shanxi,Jiangsu and other places in the first edition.In the class dimension,the words of the lower classes involved in the original letters are overwritten,and the conversion from “servant”to “worker” is realized,therefore the feudal meaning of the original appellation is removed in the first edition.In the age dimension,the original letters have a lot of reprimands to the young people who are called“young master”,but in the first edition,these special words are treated with “politeness” and a lot of negative evaluations have been deleted.However,Lu Xun's treatment of the negative evaluation of the original letters is not solely in the way of “politeness”,but the combination of “politeness” and “acerbity” is applied.Lu Xun treats different groups differently in the creating process.For example,the criticism towards Lin yutang in the original letters is greatly deleted,and Lu Xun improves Lin's image.However,the criticism of Ku Chieh-kang has been strengthened,without reducing the writing force of “acerbity” and “acrimony”.