Roaming And Watching Of The Spirit

Roaming, as a living style of human being, is an active reaction of the ancients in remote antiquity to Nature, then becomes a choice on their own because of social development and environmental changes. Roaming is always one of the most favorite motifs whose trace is impressed deeply in the history of literature as the reflection to realistic life. From the latter of 20c, roaming begins to take on many new features both in action and spirit. All of these fláneurs, in spite of no lack of materials, are roaming and seeking, because of the spiritual loss and the resulting feelings of homelessness, rootlessness, fatherlessness and brainlessness. The roaming metaphysically, flourishing in the Chinese and Western literature, forms a fin-de-siécle scene. Intellectuals as the special group with the acutest thoughts in their time, most obviously, are in a state of spirit roaming, can be a representative case if take them as examples to analyze this theme.Zhang Wei, a Chinese writer; Saul Bellow, an American one. Both of them are well-known for their creations on the living status. Zhang Wei is a very important writer in the development of Chinese literature since the Neo-era, whose Baihui is his masterpiece and for himself, the most beloved one. This novel exposes the spiritual travel of the protagonist in the first person, recalling to the readers'mind by letters. In further and further retrospect and self-analysis, the author narrates"my"family's and"my"own fates as well as the sufferings of the persons in"my"life. After the long roaming in the reality and spirit, the protagonist finds a temporal dwelling place in a vineyard at last. Following Hemingway and Faulkner, Saul Bellow is the greatest American novelist, who is apt at describing the life and mindset of the intellectuals, probing into the spiritual crisis and seeking a way out for moderns. Due to the human understanding and wonderful analysis of the contemporary culture, in 1976, he won the Nobel Prize of literature. The novel of Herzog published in1964, is the beginning of the series on the intellectual theme, reflecting outstandingly about the living predicaments and spiritual perplexities of the contemporary intellectuals. It depicts that a Jew historian keeps writing letters to strangers owing to his frequent frustrations, then has to come back to his country lodging and spend his remaining years. The novel reflects the humanistic crisis of the contemporary bourgeois, the depression and confusion of the contemporary intellectuals.Both of Baihui and Herzog express the spirit roaming theme. By the way of thematology in analogy studies, this article takes these two works as reference points, from which, breaking through the narrow circle of nation literature and standing on the commanding point of human culture, to analyze and compare the similarities and differences, and to research for the reasons in society, history, cultural tradition and individual. For the similarities, this article mainly digs out from three aspects: absurdity of being and deviation of value; spiritual predicaments and soul's sought; returning and keep-watching of spirit. For the differences, this article probes from two levels: from industrialization and marketability repel and lack of humanism; criticism of the realistic life and metaphysical investigation.For the cause of spirit roaming and differences of being, this article researches into the social culture, writer's thought, personal experience. The study on this theme in common, is helpful to open up a broad path for the comparison between Chinese and Western literature, further to study Zhang Wei ,Saul Bellow and their workings, further to probe into the theme of spirit roaming, further to learn about the standings and the state of mind of the contemporary intellectuals. The comparative study on the status quos between Chinese and Western intellectuals, is helpful to recheck the role of contemporary intellectuals, to probe the responsibilities and tasks, to grope step by step for the behavioural basis and value system under the new social conditions and historical situations through the analysis.