He Qifang Literary Thought

Mao Zedong said that He Qifang was tyPical. His thoughts and lifereflected the tort'Uous development progress of Chinese ContemporaryLiterary Theory. So studying him will be helpful to understand theachievement and shOrtcomings of our liteop theory, Which is of great valueto the construction of Marxism literary theory with Chinese features.Therefore, this thesis takes the historic level of Liteop & An as the point ofdeparture to discover the psychological development progress of his theoryand outlines the basic framework of his theory .By doing so, I attempt todesign a proper historical position for his theory. Overall this thesis is dividedinto the following three parts:Part one is a brief introduction to the development progress of HeQifang's theory, Which is roughly divided into three stages. The first stage isfrom l93l to l938 with the discussion of He Qifang's poems, essays and hisindividualism ed idea as a lonely poet. Stage tWo is frOm l938 to 1949. In thisperiod, He Qifang came to Yan'an. The abruPt changes in mind made himreject his old ideas and tri to Marxism. All of his effort was centered onpropagandizing, interpreting and protecting Mao's SPeech on the SymPosiumof Literary & Art in yan trn and thus becarne a practitioner to interpret andpromote Mao Zedong's IiteraIy & art Iine. Stage three (l949-1977) shows thecontradiction of He Qifang's double roles. As a theoretician, he realized theweakness of our developing revolutionary literary policy, but as apropagandist, he had to abide by it. This made He Qifang's internal worldcoMict with his extemal action. After the Great Cult'Ural Revolution, HeQifang began his new StUdy, which made his theory more matUr than ever.Part lI Comments on the basic theories of He Qifang's Literary & ArtThought. In short, creativity of He Qifang's theory shows in four respects.i) Theory of Poem He defined the poem according to his writingpractice and proposed the idea of creating Modern Rhyme Which developedWen Yiduo's theory of New Poem. As to the road of poems, He Qifangrealized the defects of fOlk poems and pointed out that the new poems afterWusi Movement and some fOreign poems were worthy of reference. Heinsisted the forms of poem should be many and varied.ii ) Writing NatUre and Characteristic. To the formalism and generalizedtendency in writing, He Qifang advanced the individuality, rationality andirrationality in the course of writing and also analyzed inspiration and geniusscientifically, which showed his respect to an law.iii) FUrther Discovery on Realism. Combing with concrete practice, HeQifang made a systematic Exposition on the connotation of realism thIoughargument. He made special effOrts on the problems of tyPicality, worldoutlook, writing method, reality and authenticity. His typicality model freedthe study of typical characters from the restriction of cIass determinism and1aunched an innovation of study method.iv) Critic Practice In He Qifang's critic activities, he stick tdAesthetic--historical critic method of Marxism. He examined art phenomenaby retuming it into a historic form. He opposed talitiona dualism antithesisand upheld the materialism theory of reflection with which he aPpraised manywriters and works precisely. Moreover, He Qifang emphasized on the artaccomplishInents of the critic subject and pointed out its promotion wouldadvance gradually. FinaIly in this section, this thesis shows the natUr of HeQifang's critic theory by analyzing COmment on The dreams of Red Mansion.Part three sums up the features of He Qifang's theory and its moderusignificance. Influenced by his epoch, He Qifang's theory bears political,independent and contradict features. His experience and lessons are ourprecious wealth fOr the construction of Marxism Literary Theory with Chinesefeatures.