Contradiction, Idea And Literary Form

Zhou Zuoren was a very complex and controversial writer with great influence in the history of Chinese modern literature. His literary style and idea was changed several times in his life, but there were still some constant characters. Contrast to the impetuous and sharp style in the period of the May 4th Movement and the complicated and obscure style in the period of Anti-Japanese War, it is no doubt that his writing style and expression in the 1930s was more mature and had more specific characters. This dissertation tries to choose ten years which from 1927 to 1937 as a period to make a comprehensive study of Zhou Zuoren, because the major part of the period is in the 1930s, so we named it the 1930s. This dissertation tries to enter the inner world of the heart of Zhou Zuoren from his difficult position in the period, and find the major contradiction which company with him for all his life: the sense of reality and reasonable observation. And then we will talk about the idea and the writing style of essay of him in the 1930s. The idea means his"central idea"which most of the thinking of him in the 1930s was came from it. The"central idea"could be divided to three parts: empiricist epistemology, cyclic idea of the history, the hate to pretense and the emphasis to reason. The writing style of essay means the style of"plagiarist", there were many people showed their criticism or appreciation to this style, but few people found that it was a kind of externalization to his"central idea", we could understand why did he choose this special style to writing and his painstakingness of it only because we know that. This dissertation believe that, Zhou Zuoren, with such a complicated style both in his knowledge structure, life experience and personal characters, his heart, idea and writing couldn't be separated. We must try to revert him completely with sympathetic understanding, deep insight and sensitive feeling of art, that is what I want to do in this dissertation.