From Irrationality To Rationality

Unprecedented exchange and communication are happening between Chinese and western culture and literature.The schools of Chinese modern and contemporary literature,which are in the transition from classical to modern form and content,are going to realize their nationalization and at the same time the modernization.Moreover,while they open up to the world,they should still be based on Chinese native culture and literary tradition.Furthermore,they must follow the inherent laws of literature and integrate the truth of the history into the reality.Therefore,the artistic style and values have gone through a significant change from the condemnation literature of the late Qing Dynasty to the school of social analysis of the 1930s.Accordingly,a dynamic complex content and form appears.The present research attempts to find out the laws of Chinese "social realistic" novels from the two particular schools.Under the framework of holistic view of Chinese new literature,the thesis,by comparing the particular literary schools,investigates the internal links and transformation of Chinese realistic novels.This thesis consists of three chapters.Chapter One "Historical Context and the Construction of Identity" gives a brief account of the background of the two schools,the influence of the western literature and the construction of the cultural identity of the writers.Based on the particular "cultural system",this chapter discusses the rise of the condemnation novels of late Qing Dynasty and the school of social analysis as well as their difference in cultural identity. Chapter Two "Art Style and the Comparison of Aesthetic Characteristics" contributes to a general survey of the internal world of literature writing.In this chapter,the writing approach, narrative pattern,character modeling and aesthetic style will be analyzed and compared.Since condemnation novels and the school of social analysis are similar in the theme of "realism" which indicate the preference of "interference of the reality" of the authors at different times,their similarity is then summarized.However,because of their different history and thoughts,they are different in spiritual and artistic characteristics.Writers of the late Qing Dynasty focus on "deformational recording" and "excessive ironic tension" while the writers from the school of social analysis emphasize on the "loyalty of the novels".They differ historically in "irrationality" and "rationality".Chapter Three "Mutual Reference of the Value of Literary History" studies both vertically and horizontally the dialectics of the creativity and tradition of Chinese modern literature,and comments on the literature and thinking of the two cross-referenced schools.The expansion of the perspectives and the deepening of the connotation of value symbolize the development and advancement of Chinese social realistic novels.