Decline And Salvation

The folklore has been always playing an important role in the process of the creation of local novels through the past hundred years.Folklore writing of the local novels not only is a simple image,event and scene,but is a complicated system concerning tradition,nationality and imagination of modernity.Folklore,displaying in various forms has been put into the writing of the novels in indifferent eras.No matter the folklore is in the Enlightenment Literature,or belongs to the traditional classics,so far as to the revolutionary literature,it is always a desideratum concealed the unknown cultural content,which attracts attentions from different scholars.But considering the status quo of the research achievements,there are rare critics about folklore writings since the 1990s.Many researchers have noticed the aesthetic changes of the local novels that have happened since the 1990s,but did not analyze them systematically from the perspective of the writings of the folklore culture.The folklore writings of the 1990s do not extend and accrue the value of the previous traditional folklore writing any more.It is free from the tradition for more than half of a century.Many people argue that,based on this conception,the rural society which is in decline,fractured and fragmented is of no significance,with its also being easily excluded from the narrative tradition of the local folklore of the new literature.When it comes to the folklore narrative of the local novels,a reconstructed era of the local can be summed up,because no matter the creative background,creative ideas,or the specific aesthetic appearance,it has shown tremendous variances,also including many independent aesthetic characters needs to be explored.At the same time,the local narrative of the 1990s is an important part of the narrative tradition of the folklore in the new literature.Its creative connotation has still inherited the local spirits,which should not be partially endowed with the view of the other and a weird scrutiny.From both the perspective of the rural narrative vision,and the discussion on the creation of rural literature of the 1990s,folklore writing is an important perspective tool,which needs to be scrutinized.Folklore is attached to the surface and deep level of the text,which presents a unique feature both inside and outside of the literature.It is also a "cultural backdoor",which is easy to reveal the writers'consciousness and mentality and helps us to examine the development of the whole local literature in a better way.On the analysis above,this dissertation will be unfolded as follows:The introduction is mainly about the origin and significance of the research,and the summary of the related research,with some explanatory questions being illustrated.The first chapter mainly discusses the historical background of folklore writing in local novels.The folklore began to associate with Chinese literature long ago.But the moderm local novels emerged at the May Fourth era,when the intellectuals began to reflect on the relationship between "folk" and "custom" from the perspective of modem civilization,based on which the paradigm of folklore writing in modern local novels was formed.From the appearance of local novels,folklore is an important form of expression.As for either the local novels in the 1920s and the left-wing local novels,or the later seventeen-year literature and the root-seeking novels,folklore writing was never a simple image,event and scene,but a complex system concerning tradition,nationalities and moden imagination.No matter which period of the local novels,folk customs occupied a larger position and played an important role of manifestation.Different from the previous folk literature,modem Chinese local novels are the product of modernity and were produced in the special historical context,whose meaning and cultural functions can be interpreted only when being placed in the process of modernization.The second chapter is an overall survey of the manifestations of folklore writing.Effectiveness of the old genealogy of knowledge of the local writing has been fading away,which makes the local enter into an age full of hollowness,emptiness,and fragmentation.The local is no longer the center of the value.The local literature has been silently bearing the condition of the missing of the nomination and the lost of attention whereas the local narrative has not collapsed with many writers endeavoring to repair the fracture.They keep constantly recognizing the local,the folklore,and stepping into the literature from returning to the creation of the reality overall,which shows the aspiration to resort to the folklore of the local.On the whole,the folklore writing of the local novels shows a trend of the coexistence of decline and revival.In the folklore writing,different writers have showed different aesthetic tendencies,some still continues the route of enlightenment,harnessing the folklore to criticize the nationality and the social reality.Some make use of the folklore to reflect the history,placing the abstract allegory.These multifarious styles lead to the folklore writing and local novels showing the developmental trend of inheriting the past and ushering the future,also including the flexibility.Since the 1990s,the local writers have shown different folklore patterns.Folklore customs have also been endowed with more ecological meanings,which makes a richer and more diverse folk landscape begin to appear.In the returning process,the anxious minds of the writers in the local writings have been gradually diluted as time goes by.The new phenomenon will inevitably trigger the new forms of expression,which will be fully reflected in the inner-visualized and fragmentary narrative.Folklore is no longer simply expressed and written,and it is also reconstructing the narrative and textual structure in various ways.The third chapter elaborates the changes and characteristics of folklore writing in local novels since 1990s.Since the 1990s,the local literature generally has given up binding the folklore custom,which makes the folklore writing of the local novels lose the functional meaning,showing a kind of purposelessness.The folklore writing of the local novels also displays a new style and content features.However,it also reflects the various plights of the folklore writing of the local novels.If the overview of the folklore writing of the 1990s needs to be generalized,it can be called the"shadow local".The so-called "shadow local" is the main to describe the empty condition of the interior local,with just having the shape but lacking of the substance.The blood ties,the ethical concept,the folklore items and the natural landscape,which has composed of the essence of the local life has been emptied,with only a dry,,fractured,single-dimension local world left.The local society has different aspects because of the different folklore concerns coming from the different writers:in many writers' eyes,the folklore items which dominates people's daily life has fallen into the useless condition.The folklore interpretation system is also faced up with the dislocation;the crisis that the folklore brings has been continued.Besides,the gab between "the folk" and "the secular" has been increased.Many writings show the chaos of the structure and dislocated condition between those two.There are many failure cases in the construction of the folklore space,or because of external force,or because of their own reasons that lead to the collapse and break.The vicissitude of the spatial structure is also an expression of the subjective consciousness of the writers.Many writers try to construct the folklore picture,they,however,have to fall into the paradox of the purpose and result-abstraction,hollowness,also fall into a situation just with the folk without the secular elements.In many local novels since the 1990s,there exists the phenomenon of "fake folklore",which is more concerned by the folklore circle,but did not appear in the previous folklore writing of local novels.It not only reflects the great changes in the local social life,but also shows that the local folklore has presented the variation from the interior,the origin of the folklore itself has been lost,and the local society is gradually being filled with something alien.The fourth chapter mainly expounds the salvation appeals behind folklore writing in local novels.Every period of the local writer will show the typical features that belong to that time.The local novels of the 1990s are to find the common sense of the ages.Under this background,the folklore writing of the local novels can be summarized as a "decline-renaissance" mode.We can truly feel the existence of the psychological contradiction and the nostalgia of the writers,who has presented the features of the principle spirits.According to the folklore narratives,the local novels have created a new landscape and many writers sort out and clean the rural landscape again,with removing the anonymity of the landscape.Some writers revive or rebild the personal physical and spirit through the folklore,or write the stories of the different ethnics,or bind the children and with the folklore to achieve the reconstruction of the folklore subjects.The folklore writing is also an effective way to finish looking for the order sense,which mainly focuses on the construction of the local time order,spatial order and the chains of the folklore,etc..At present,the local society has begun to change from the existed reason into the economical reason,from the ethical reality into the profitable reality,which also brings various chaos and instability.Some writers try to fix the leak from the perspectives of reconstruction of the psychological identity's acknowledgement,the reconstruction of the ethical and moral criterion,the reconstruction of the spiritual belief,etc..Chapter five mainly reflects deeply on the folklore writing of the local novels of the 1990s.The folklore writing of the local novels of the 1990s has a significant value,whereas there are also many problems in the reconstruction and rewriting of the folklore.Especially we have not seen a profound subjective consciousness lack of an integral counterattack,only with fragmentary repair.Folklore has not realized a"spatial cohabitation".The reasonable culture is a kind of an adjusted culture;culture of different levels can be in a condition of the "spatial cohabitation".However,for the contemporary writers,their psychological condition is still in "the middle area of the conflicts ",and they have not consciously adjusted the inadaptability of the previous culture.When in the contradiction of the traditional and modern psychology,they are more willing to return to the past.The existence of folklore contributes to the determination of order,security and continuity,which makes folklore become increasingly a fantastic object of the sentimentalists,an object dependent on the protection.In their process of writing,the defects of the folklore imagination are also a conspicuous question,and lots of the monotonous folklore writing has made the folklore forms frozen.That folklore seems much easier to devote to the past but unable to keep some charming,which makes folklore be performed as influenced by the certain history.Some folklore has the previous experience,quality,odor,also shows the structural images of the past.However,it is not intact and compact,which only depends on the sensory experience and is lack of stability.Some writers try to return to the original appearance to realize a kind of the re-enchanted situation and achieve the abandonment of the museum.However,the endeavor of the abandonment of the museum is till ambiguous,which seems to confront the decline of the local but actually the thought has stagnated.Once the current folklore writing in local novels no longer focuses on the human beings,it means the end of the "true man" and represents the abandonment of one writing pattern and the emergence of folklore writing in local novels which lacks the political and ideological factors.The current local folk narrative is in a period of aesthetic transformation and the new aesthetic forms will continue to emerge,which is the requirement of the development of the local society and the inevitable result of the development law of the art itself.