Theory On Yu Dafu And Religious Culture

From the end of 19th to early 20th century,China underwent the transition from traditional to modern era.The "May Fourth" intellectuals pondered over problems of country,nation andlife in the collision of old and new values,Eastern and Western cultural systems,and strived to construct and build the imposing blueprint of the new culture.All kinds of cultures,including religious cultures,were put under survey and revaluation,and the "May Fourth" intellectuals,either enthusiastic or rational towards religious cultures,were not confined to the religious doctrine,but rather focused on their spirits,their material practical significance and value.As the founder of modern literature,Yu Dafu's attitude towards religious culture has a certain representativeness.In this paper,Yu Dafu is placed in a historical and cultural context of a variety of religious and cultural collision and fusion,in order to clarify his choice and sublation of various religious cultures and based on that,to analyze the complex influence those religious cultures had on Yu Dafu and his works,and to interpret how the religious cultures penetrated into modern Chinese writer's affections,how it influenced the practices of new literature creation in all key factors.In Yu Dafu's works,religious cultures were not shown as background only,but permeated his creative ideas,and influenced his writing in both levels of consciousness and sub-consciousness.According to his practicalneeds,following the principle of "heart-centered,self-regardness",Yu Dafu actively absorbed the beneficial ingredients of Buddhism,Christianity,Taoism and other religious cultures to build his own spiritual world and personality structure.He creatively absorbed ideas from various religious cultures,adopted and transformed languages from the Bible on his literary works,used the imago of the Buddhist scriptures,and the concepts of confession,salvation,sacrifice from Christianity,"Suffering and emptiness","how could have seen the Buddha without going down to the abyss","zen vision" from Buddhism,as well as from Taoism,"imitation of nature",the thoughts of"High Value of Life","harmony between heaven and human",and divination and geomantic omen from folk beliefs.These different religious cultural factors was integrated in his literary works and formed a culture of polysemy.These religious cultures,through the filtration of formative rationality,after Yu Dafu's reinterpretation,were injected with new connotations,which deviated from the original creed,and constructed Yu Dafu's personal religious value system.This diversity of absorption made his works parti-colored,and to a certain extent also reflects the confusion of his value orientation.Although Yu Dafu has a typical supramundane mentality,and the thoughts of becoming a monk germinated from time to time,he never achieved the state of "go to the end of the world with a bottle and a bowl".He lacks rational reflection on self-perception and lacks metaphysical thinking about religion.His association with the religious cultures was not built on the philosophical state of"being",but on the emotional experiences and spiritual communications.Such a unique way of receiving caused his works,in the pursuit of value,did not reach the ultimate height of caring.Though,in terms of aesthetic style,stic characteristics and so on,impacted by the religious cultural characteristics,his works did created a mood of leisure and calm,and achieved the aesthetic effect of "infinity beyond the words".The implantation of religious images,the creation of religious artistic conception,enriched the connotation of his works,and brought a variety of interpretation.The religious and aesthetic consciousness were intertwined,religious and artistic emotions permeated,religious and artistic ideals inspired each other,and in combination all of those had given his works a distinctive personal style and unique meaning,resulting in enduring artistic charm.Yu Dafu's creative absorption of various religious cultures had typical significance in the history of Chinese literature in the 20th century.His exploration between literature and religion left an endless stream of literature and spiritual resources for the later generations.It is of great significance for contemporary writers in similar historical and cultural context to study his value judgment of a variety of religious culture and the advantages and disadvantages of choice,as well as his creation and ingenuity on artistic gains and losses.