The Confusion Between Salvation And Enlightenment——On Wang Shiwei's Iiterary Thoughts

As an important and unique part of the Chinese Literature in 20th century, the liberated-area literature has been largely ignored, although it had been studied enthusiastically for a period of time after the founda- tion of PRC. Since 1990s, with the seperation between literary study and politics as well as the increasing subjectivity of litcrary researchers, the study of the liberated-area literature began to break though some forbid- den areas of the past decades and became diversificd. During die process of reexamination of the history, some historical I)roblems have got new explanation. Among them the study on Wang Shiwei has attracted much attention and has got great improvements recently. By scperating Wang Shiwei from the political and cultural criticism, this paper intends to make an academic study on his literary thoughts. Through the inspection of his literary thoughts, this paper hopes to draw lines for the development of the liberated-area literature, so as to I)rovide sonic advice on the (level- oping direct ion of contcrnI)orary Chinese literature. Thus paper consists of three parts: introduction, body and COUCIUSIOfl. The introduction reviews the new trends of the dcvelopnient of the liberated-area literature and the study on WangShiiwei since I 990s. Fur- thcrmorc, it expresses the intent ion of this paper. 4一 The body of this paper is con1lrosed by three parts, which makc asurvey on WangShiwei's literary thoughts for its specific historical cultur-al background, the main contents, its value in literary history and the re-action after publication respectively. In this way, the author tries to makea systematic and comprehensive survey on WangShiwei's literarythoughts.Part l briefly describes the evolutionaI trace of the Yenan literatureunder the special historical circumstances. After the break out of the Anti-- Japanese war, a large number of writers and artists in the kuomintangdominated area rushed to Yenan, which was"the sacred place of the revo-lution",with the hOpe for victory. Under the impact of the war and thestress on the political function of literature and arts advocated by Commu-nist Party, the worker -- peasant -- soldier literature in the liberated areasbecame the major trend and developed greatly. The early literary circle inYenan apeared with one vast scene of prosperity of "the same voice". Asthe situation became more serious, the writers got a deeper understandingof reality, and a new 1iterary trend appeared besides the major trend ofthe worker -- peasant -- soldier literature. From the later part of l94l tothe spring Qf l942, the consideration of reality and literature in some lite-rary works took place of the pure acclamation in the early period. In thisnew trend Wang Shiwei composed a historical tragedy with his life.Through the analysis of WangShiwei's works, part 2 dicusses themain contents and the historical significance of Wang Shiwei's literary. 5. tIloughts. Ill thc author's vicw, Wallg Sl1iwei dcvotcd atlcllti()ll t() tI1csl,eciality and healtl1y devclol)nle11t uf litcrature. He exl)l(,red tllc cl1arac-terization of the literary creation and the acadcmic quality of literary criti-cism when the national war became the main theme of tlle age. Actually,his consideration and exploration on the dcveloping direction of modernliteration were something entirely different from the nlain trend of theworker -- peasant -- soldier literature. First, Wang Shiwei inherited theenlightening literature in "May Fourth" period which took anti -- feudal-ism as the general principle and held that literature was a revoIutionarycourse...