Memory And In Illumination

Literary works, with confession consciousness implied, have been emerging constantly while entering the new period. Since the 1980s, confession has become a concept that commonly used in literary criticism. By the mid-1990s, the discussion about confession once became one of the hot spots among Chinese cultural, ideological and literary world. But there also exposes a problem about the confession consciousness revealed in Chinese literary works, the research towards literary works and all the arguments concerning confession. The problem is that people are lack of understanding about Augustine's confession. They didn't separate Augustine's and Rousseau's, two types of confession, from each other, which is the limitation, as well as the difficulty, of present research and creation. This article, with the research that we have conducted about the Christian theology as its basis, brings in two types of confession to measure the confession consciousness in Chinese modern literature. It also attempts to arouse our Chinese scholars to look at the problem concerning confession with a wider scope of spiritual resource.There are two types of confession. The first one is the confession of Theodicy, which was led by Augustine. And the other one is the confession of Anthropomorphism with Rousseau as its example. Rousseau's thinking and creation definitely has a great impact on Chinese thinking and culture when it was introduced into China in late 19th century. That's why his The Confession is praised. The express ways of confession of Anthropomorphism in modern literature, whether evades it or a just whitewash, or transfers the guilt to the society and the others, have the same purpose. That is to prove one self's innocent and clear. But there is something needs to be pointed out. In modern Chinese literature, the express of Rousseau's confession is also mixed with China's inherent spiritual quality, which thereby strengthens China's existing confession of self-examination.In comparison, Chinese intellectuals are unfamiliar with Augustine's confession. That's why it is left aside in literature creation. Many critics can not provide correct understanding and opinion towards Christian Confession. Nevertheless, some different characteristics of writing, which needs to be noticed, have emerged in the academic and creative field. While in the process of understanding the conscience that human's nature is gloomy, the expression of confession consciousness in Chinese modern literature has entered into an unexpected new era.Influenced by two types of confession, there have obviously different expressions about sin, confession and salvation in Ba jin's Random Notes, Fan Xuede's the Confession in Cultural Revolution, Tie Ning's A woman At Her Bath, Shi Wei's Eden Exile and Bei Cun's Wrath and The Promise between God and I. It is not difficult for us to find that there shows a fresh view upon modern literature. Taking the creation as a whole, however, confession literature is far from enough. So we still need a fresh view towards the confession.