The Poetic Sentiment In Li Guangtian's Post Sino-Japanese War Prose

As a famous representative of Beijing style writer and prose writer in the 30's, LiGuangtian, in his early time creation, showed typical characteristics of Beijing style. He paidgreat attention to individuality, emphasized the mood, and pursued pure and ideal thinking.His works revealed heavy emphasis on abstractness. However, this kind of esthetics style hashad the very big changes after the Sino-Japanese War . Usually people pay attention to therealism added to the literary works, but the author believed this is insufficient to summarizehis style during this time period. His styles in this time is to combine abstractness and realism.This article embarks from the Li Guangtian's prose works, attempts to show thischaracteristic from both aspects, and explains the reasons by discussing the Li Guangtian'scharacter. At the same time, this thesis suggests his views on intellectual's value. The first ofthe two aspects is shown in the themes of his writing. Through the description of themiserable lives of common people, he condemned the authority's corruption and the war'sbrutality. These inevitably manifest realism. The description of people's life is the origin ofthis writing, and the other two themes are the causes of people's suffer. Therefore, it is hard tofind, in his work, the description of the latter two themes. This is the uniqueness of thiswriting, in which he calls on sincerity and kindness, and shows that as long as commonpeople can live in contentment the world will be a good one. Thus, he avoids the excessiveinvolvement in politics and excessive nationalistic passion, which allows him to really focuson "human".Next, this realism is also shown in the esthetics style of his prose . There is an increaseduse of narration in his prose during this period, so chronology becomes the major clue in hisworks. In his articles, he often writes sentences that point out the theme of the writing, anduses simple literary style that easy to understand. In order to give a straightforward account ofhis personal view, he has also made the new attempt in the literary style. Some of his prosesshow the style of essays and correspondence. However, Li Guangtian is after all a learnedintellectual. His proses unintentionally show the beauty of his writing.The author believes that, Li Guangtian's change in writing styles in his works createdafter the Sino-Japanese War is related to his growth and the mental makings. Moreover, itcannot be separated from an intellectual's thinking on individual value. Li Guangtian is awriter from the countryside, and is familiar with the land and the people working on the land.Thus, in his writing there is the marking of "sincerity". Moreover, his education and theinfluence of Zhou Zuoren also add "beauty" to his writing. Unlike other Beijing style writers,Li Guangtian neither retreated to his study nor joined the revolutionary cause. We can see thathe both showed his concern about the society and acknowledge the fact that intellectuals canhelp to promote good and beautiful value.