Hu Feng's Thought, Creation And Japanese Culture

No matter as a literary theorist,editor,literary critic or a poet,Hu Feng's thinking of Chinese literature is always focus on a very prominent focal point,which is the "artistry" of literature.Hu Feng's persistent pursuit of the "artistic" of literature can even be regarded as a kind of obstinacy.If you ask him about the confidence or motivation behind this insistence,the Japanese culture and his Japanese experience cannot be circumvented anyway.Hu Feng studied in Japan during 1929 to 1933,precisely catching up with the climax trend of Marxist literature thoughts in the global scope.While attracted by the strong vitality of Japanese left-wing literature,Hu Feng saw various deviations in its development process at the same time.Especially in the peak period of the proletarian movement in Japan,when the left-wing literature gained dominant position,it was mainly manifested the purpose of consciousness in literature.Thus,it led to the choke of the validity of the realism creation.In the face of this deviation,Hu Feng and many Japanese writers liquidated "Rapp" mistakes together.The experience let him re-examine the Japanese proletarian literature and make a profound exploration and reflection on its advantages and disadvantages.It was the exploration and reflection that mainly guided Hu Feng's pursuit of artistry in literature.In Japan,the pursuit of literature and art has penetrated into all aspects of Hu Feng's literary career.First of all,as a literary theorist,Hu Feng's idea of "subjectivism" was not only the result of the objective influence of social environment at that time,but also the result of his subjective absorption of foreign cultural experience.In particular,Hu Feng's experience in Japan activated his creativity and injected various exotic factors into his theories of thought.In more cases,these unique factors have formed the natural quality of Hu Feng's individual,and become the solid foundation for his thought of "subjectivism".Of course,it was his favorite Japanese writers and theoreticians who had greatly affected Hu Feng's construction of the theory of "subjectivity".Kuriyagawa Hakuson,Shiga Naoya and Kobayashi Takiji as Japanese litterateurs that Hu Feng loved and respected very much,had the foundational influence on Hu Feng.Influenced by Kuriyagawa Hakuson's book The Symbol of Depression,the seeds of "mental trauma theory" was developed;learned by Shiga Naoya's "life and art" creation career,Hu Feng conceived "subjective fighting spirit" theory;under the influence of Kobayashi Takiji 's great proletarian revolutionary morality,Hu Feng embarked on the road of the "realism literature".The thoughts,experiences and revolutionary spirits of the three Japanese writers directly prompted Hu Feng to condense his core theory of "subjectivity theory".Secondly,as an excellent editor,"starting a publication from literature" was the starting point of Hu Feng's editing."Building a long-term and powerful new literature" was the key point of Hu Feng's editing,and these editing concepts were closely related to Hu Feng's reading experience from Japanese Puro journal."Publishing works of genuine feelings" in the Japanese Puro journal;exploring potential new writers;promoting the construction of literature theories had an impact on Hu Feng's editorial philosophy and periodical cognition and fundamentally revised the editorial concept of Hu Feng which he had before he went abroad.The concept of Japanese Puro journal had been guiding Hu Feng's editorial career and became his editing direction which he insisted all the time.Moreover,Hu Feng is a poet who has great passion,and the thought of "poems unite with men" was completely reflected in his poetics creations.The characteristics of "life poetics"expressed in his poems and creations are exactly conceived in the Japanese Left-Wing poems.Both the "absorption" of experiences from the development of Japanese Left-Wing poetry,and the"correction" to the wrong tendency of that development contribute to Hu Feng's conception of the two major theory pillars of his poetics--" the unity of the poetry and the age";"the unity of the poetry and life".In addition,the two distinctive characteristics of Hu Feng's poetry creations are"the motherland and the people are the eternal theme" and "the real feelings are the soul of poetry",which was also rooted in his reference of the Japanese Puro poems which contained "industrial and rural communication" and his correction to problems of "the classification of poems".What's more,Hu Feng also got his Japanese experience refined to a series of "images" presented in his poems,and he expressed the anti-war ideas concerning about the internationalism with the help of"the images of Japan".Finally,as a critic,Hu Feng has developed a close relationship with Japan on his way of literary criticism.The multi-dimensional perspectives of Hu Feng's literary criticism are related to the controversy between literary and art in Japanese Puro poems.Besides,many problems about literature in Hu Feng's literary criticism are virtually consistent with the ones introducing in Japanese literature and art debate.In fact,Hu Feng drew on various arguments in the Japanese literature and art debate,and then conceived profound thoughts and sublimation.Moreover,the influence of Japanese culture on the literary criticism of Hu Feng also includes his reflection of the Japanese Left-Wing literature theory,which enlightened the pragmatic criticism of his works.In addition,Hu Feng attaches great importance to the social and historical significance of works as well as writers' practical experiences.The suggestion of this critical reference has a lot to do with his referenceto the literary theories of Tokunaga Sunao's and Fusao Hayashi's.After returning to China,Hu Feng's critical practice was greatly influenced by the Japanese Left-Wing literary critics,Aono Suekichi and Kurahara korehito.In Hu Feng's literary theory criticism,we could see his reference on Aono Suekichi's "external criticism",and his conscious avoidance to Kurahara korehito's "political liberalism".However,Hu Feng never kept in the "use"and "disuse" of the Japanese criticism theory,but to surpass them on the basis of referring and absorbing.He was neither in favor of the political attribute of the literature nor the artistic attributes of the literature.Nevertheless,he committed to finding an effective road between literature and politics.At the same time,Hu Feng deeply realized that Japanese literary world was surrounded by the critical theory of "the machinery" and "concept”,which brought the literature a huge mistake of losing the art life.Therefore,he was rather admired the Left-Wing critic Miyamoto Yuriko,who still used the text criticism of“life-blood" even though the "mechanical theory period" was ongoing.Taking a good example,and gradually,Hu's criticism style had frequently been with Miyamoto Yuriko's,which showing a "perceptual" style of criticism that was very similar to hers.To sum up,since Hu Feng had been involved in the Left-Wing literature movement in Japan,he had deep understandings of the strengths and weaknesses of Japanese Left-Wing literature.Due to the direct or indirect absorption to the thoughts of Japanese writers,critics and theorists,Hu Feng had more abilities to make accurate criticisms to vulgar sociology and anti-realism tendency.Whether concerning about Hu Feng's editing activities,poetry creations or criticism causes,they always pay attention to the drawbacks of realism in Japanese Left-Wing literature and present a unique literary thinking system with Hu Feng's distinctive characteristics.