A Study On Relations Between Shen Congwen And The Writers Of Anglo-American School

After waging a long-term struggle against all conservative ideas, the pioneers of May Fourth movement greeted the dawn of New Literature finally. But because of their different background, the pioneers held different social ideals, political inclination and artistic belief. Therefore, many organizations or schools, which had little in common with each other, came into being in the circles of New Literature. Among them Literary Society, Creation Society N Lu Xun and Anglo-American school exerted a tremendous influence. The ideological trends and artistic beliefs of these schools or organizations had nothing in common at all. Meanwhile, the members who belonged to different organizations didn't get along well, however, the members inside the each organization had friendly and harmonious relations. Literature was an important medium for expressing their social ideals and political inclinations, so a heated and endless dispute happened among them. To expand their own forces, these organizations were trying to recruit more people who cherished the same ideals and followed the same path. Thanks to the writers of Anglo-American school, Shen Congwen who had only finished primary school finally became a famous writer.Hu Shi and Xu Zhimo were the key persons of Anglo-American school. As one of the pioneers of May Fourth movement, Hu Shi who mainly accepted liberalism and reformism wished that China would had taken the reform road, but with Marxism propagating in China swiftly and violently, His voice became thinner and thinner. Therefore Hu united himself to Xu Zhimo and other people who showed the same political inclination to establish the Crescent Moon Society and Crescent Moon club. They had also set up Crescent Moon bookstore and a monthly magazine Crescent Moon. When going in for political and artistic activities, the Anglo-American school had never named itself "Anglo-American school".Hu and Xu, the key persons of the Anglo-American school, had assisted Shenin writing and daily life ardently for a long time. There were more important reasons besides friendship for the Anglo-American school's assistance. Firstly, the writers of this school and Shen held the same political and artistic belief. Secondly, as to the Anglo-American school, works of Shen was one of the best instruments of publicizing its political and artistic belief, which was significant if we would consider the harsh reality of the literary circles in 1930's; as to Shen, the Anglo-American school could help him become a famous writer. We can understand Shen's "stories about west Hunan" better if we would take the Anglo-American school's stand. Its main viewpoints are as follows: firstly, he preferred evolution to revolution in politics; secondly, he didn't agree to class struggle theory; finally, he took a skeptical attitude to all autocratic governments. All these thoughts agreed with the Anglo-American school, but opposite to the Left-wing literary circles.However, Shen had never aped the writers of Anglo-American school at every step. He held his own views on politics and literature. He opposed the writer's dishonesty and conceit, not utilitarian intention of literature. He maintained that we should evaluate various works of literature that showed different tendency equally and leniently.Shen's thoughts mainly came from his experiences, meanwhile, he insisted on his opinions all along. No one understood him completely, so he always felt lonely and depressed.