Personal Discourse In A Turbulent Age

Xuxu is connected with Chinese literature in the 1930s and 40s. In a turbulent age, he creates a unique world of art with beautiful yet fantastic romantic stories. With an analysis of Xuxu's novels in the 1940s, the present thesis attempts to seek how his novels have appeared and become popular in the specific historical and cultural context, and further, to discover their distinctive values. The author also endeavors to probe into Xuxu's rich and unique spiritual world through a deep analysis of the textual presentation of his novels.This paper falls into three parts.Part I: Writing in a commercial culture. Because literary creation is a way to make living for Xuxu, his works inevitably took on a commercial colour. Xuxu pursues popularity in his works so as to meet the taste of the ordinary readers. However, as a modern intelletual with a sober mind, he sticks to the independent thinking of intelletuals while pleasing his readers. Therefore, "popularity" is only the outward form of his works while "refinement" is the real essence.Part II: The persistence of individuality in a collective world. Due to the reality of the time, war is a recurrent topic in many literary writings in the 1940s, and realism becomes a literary trend in this period. Xuxu is different from other writers. He focuses on the philosophical thinking of humanity and ideals instead of the description of the real scenes of the time, and in so doing, provides the time with a spiritual symbolism with romance and aestheticism.Part III: The pursuit of modernity hi Xuxu's works. Xuxu's novels are both popular and refined. From the angle of popularity, the sentimental element in his novels have taken on modern changes compared to traditional model of sentiment. From the angle of refinement, Xuxu starts with individuality in his literary creation, and pays special emphasis on the unique and unforgettable feelings in people's lives and his unique understanding and findings. With an "aesthetic modernity", his works questions the "social modernity", a pursuit of the mainstream literature ever since the early modern tunes.