Musicality Of Mo Yan's Novels

Mo Yan's novels embody a kind of "vocal" language art.This kind of "vocal" elements is presented in the external form of his novels.On the one hand,Mo Yan uses the narrative tone of literature to produce musical forms and the musicality of novels.On the other hand,he uses the opera tone of music to create musicality of novels for reference and imitation.In the meantime,it is also presented in the internal structure of the novels.Specifically,Mo Yan reflects his understanding and deep love in traditional Chinese music into the presentation of musical forms to novel structure.In light of this,the dissertation takes some of Mo Yan's novels with musical characteristics as the research object,Mo Yan's view on music as the research basis,and traditional Chinese music and traditional opera music as the main theoretical background,thereby attempting to interpret the subtle relationship between Mo Yan's novels and music from the perspective of cross-disciplinary art.In this process,it involves profound analysis of music and emotion from "small tradition" — folk traditional music elements,traditional opera music language to "big tradition" —the structure of traditional Chinese music.Mo Yan is a novelist who "reads with his ears",and music has naturally become an indispensable part of his life and literature.Hence,this is the motive of the author's dedication to the study of Mo Yan's novels in the field of music."Natural Sound" is the first form of music written in Mo Yan's literary tune.The author first sorts out the natural sounds in the geographical map of Mo Yan's hometown Gaomi,which he is familiar with,and realizes the important value of some of the natural sounds in his hometown as a form of music to Mo Yan's literary creation.Then the author probes into the study of specific novel texts,revealing four kinds of natural sounds,namely "Flood Sound","Horse Sound","Plant(sorghum)Sound" and "Frog Sound" in the text with external musical trait of "emotional expressiveness",which explains how Mo Yan uses the narrative tone(language)of literature to recreate and re-express the natural sound.In order to highlight the uniqueness and originality of Mo Yan's musical writing style,the author deeply explores the musical characteristics of these four kinds of natural sounds through intensive reading of the text.It is discovered that natural sounds presented in the text boast special expressiveness of "title music" and "natural music"(poetic language),which has greatly enriched the textual effect of musical presentation."Interlude" is the second form of music written in Mo Yan's literary tune.The way "interlude" intervened in the novels is similar to the songs arranged in the movie or drama art.It appears in Mo Yan's novels as narrative content and means,and forms the presentation of the external musical characteristics of the text.Mo Yan has a unique way of musical writing methods for songs.In his narration in novels(this dissertation mainly takes Black Beach,Thirteen Steps,The Garlic Ballads and Sandalwood Death as examples),he is accustomed to two kinds of arrangement and combination of "interludes" — "single song cycle","multi-song mixture",and an "opera" aria performance which conforms to the match of songs for literary re-creation."Interlude" is not only one of the elements in Mo Yan's narrative literary works,but also a metaphor that influences the expression in thenarrative process of the novels."Opera Tune" is another kind of special musical means adopted by Mo Yan and the special content of musical characteristics in his novels.Based on research on Mo Yan's Transparent Radish and Red Sorghum,the author makes a concrete study of "drawl tune"."Drawl tune" belongs to a kind of performance category of opera tune.There are two types of intervention texts,namely single type and combined type with two purposes.First,it is an extension of the singer's emotional needs,aiming to enlarge the expression of the singer's emotional characteristics and to reveal the emotional connotation that the singer cannot express.At the same time,It is also the "Drawl tune" directed to create a reiteration and display of the important thematic events in the aria itself."Aria" belongs to another category of performance in opera tune.The author mainly studies the musical characteristics of dramatization's rhythm and cadence from the language of novels.There are many kinds of Aria in Mo Yan's novels.In particular,the voice outside the character's "word" is created in the form of monologue's Guankou,Kutou and Jiaotou.In the novel Frog and Red Sorghum,monologue acts as a kind of "atonal" performance,The tone of opera is hidden between speech expressions,and the rhythm of speech is hidden in the character's speech state and its emotional rhythm.In the novel "Sandalwood Death",monologue serves as a kind of "tonal" performance,and the rhythm of speech is hidden between the tones of opera.The speech state and emotional rhythm of characters are full of strong flavor in opera cavity.It presents a heteroglossia "vocal" language atmosphere.In the novel Sandalwood Death,Kutou not only plays a role in rendering the characters' emotions,it also prepares for the narration of the novel.It is related to the trend of changes in characters' emotions.The deduction of the behavioral mode of the characters' emotions and the metaphor of the themes derive from the characters' emotions.Kutou and Jiaotou not only play the role of opera prologue in the narrative process,they also have the stage effect of "song,speech,performance and acrobatix fighting" which makes the narrative of the whole novel form a certain opera style."Musical Form" is a musical characteristic of the author's involvement in the internal structure of Mo Yan's novels.The author adopts Mo Yan's view of music as a novelist to comprehend the traces of musical forms' reference and imitation in his novel's stylistic structure.It is worth noting that the author analyze and relate "literature" to "traditional opera" instead of "traditional opera" to "literature".It is an intertextual interpretation and analysis of the basic musical forms in traditional Chinese music under the premise of repeated intensive reading of the text.The novels Red Sorghum and Frog blend Mo Yan's personal musical view of the song and dance duet in northeastern China with traditional Chinese unrepeatable single trilogy musical form.The novels Folk Music and Drizzle on a Spring Night integrate Mo Yan's personal musical view of "cattle and sheep singer" and "touch the soul" with traditional Chinese folding play musical form,and the internal structure of the two novels also coincides with the presentation of the folding play form.The novels Transparent Radish,Life and Death Are Wearing Me Out and The Garlic Ballads integrate Mo Yan's personal music view of "hook and loop without breaking" with traditional Chinese cyclic musical form.In terms of cyclic musical form,the author adds the content of "polyphony" and "complex two-part form" as the emotional grasp and structural expansion of the form.In addition,the author also makes a comprehensiveanalysis in combination with the large-scale traditional music's cyclical forms.From the thematic performance of the novel Big Breasts and Wide Hips,the author points out the basic reason and purpose of the author's reference to the traditional Chinese music's cyclical forms and the basic technique of music development— "retrospective pattern" as a micro-level discussion of the musical form.Based on the above research,the author can safely draw the following conclusion: Mo Yan is the novelist who has carried out the profoundest integration of traditional Chinese music and literary works and has made the "farthest retreat" in modern and contemporary Chinese literature.It is no wonder that Kenzaburo Oe,a close friend of him,once remarked that Mo Yan's works released "intense musical energy".For the inheritance and innovation of traditional Chinese music,Mo Yan is not the first person in the history of Chinese literature,but he is undoubtedly the best one.