Shen Congwen's "Discussion On Creation" And His Creation Of Novels In The 1930s

This essay evaluates Shen Congwen's creation of novels in the 1930s in contrast with his discussion on creation at the same time. His theory participates in his activities of novel creation, whereas the practice of the creation abandons and even exceeds the theory. This paper is divided into four parts.The Introduction is a summary of the former research on Shen Congwen's criticism of literary creation. It also discusses the specific content of Shen Congwen's discussion on creation in the 1930s.The first chapter elaborates the characteristics of Shen Congwen's early creation and the viewpoints given in his discussion on creation in the 1930s. The key points of his discussion on creation occupy "The idea of rebuilding the nation's morality with the sense of human nature", "The literary style of being not following the ordinary cases and rules", "The theme of adventure outside in the scope of the ordinary life", and "The subject of emotional restraint and the accurate writing".The second part discusses the participation process of Shen Congwen's discussion on creation into his novel practice. Affected by his own theory in the 1930s, there were some changes in his novels in contrast with his former creation: from early self~writing to writing for the human nature; from external organizations of novels to the internal; succession of the early general themes as well as not familiar ones; the transition from the early enthusiasm and frustration to control which has implication and metaphor; gradation of language from the words of the Western human native language to modern Chinese, appropriately and originally. The third part discusses the creation's abandoning and exceeding toward the theory, mainly from the scales of the emotion, the intention and the way to express. The conclusion was that Shen Congwen's creation finally refuses his own theory.Conclusion part casts light on the fertility of the content of his novels, under the situation that the rationalization and emotion factors come as a whole. This is just because the theory's participation into the activity of creation and the creation's abandoning and exceeding toward the theory emerge as joint forces. And these all have made Shen Congwen's creations occupied a significant place in the history of literature. Later, on one hand, Shen Congwen's creativity has offered a model for the contemporary literary writer Wang Zengqi and Liu Qingbang. Therefore their novels have confirmed the feasibility of Shen Congwen's discussion on creation. On the other hand, Shen Congwen's writing experience had also made himself to reconsider his idea of literary creation, which guided him into the next creation period, and finally achieved a high degree of life comprehension and self-experience in the 1940s.