Another Statement Of History

In the late 1980s,a group of vanguard writers indulged in the creation of historical novels. It was coincidence that they queried the essence of history and hankered after the reconstruction and rewriting of history. Su Tong was a representative of them.Comparing with the past historical novels and other new historical novelists' works,Su Tong's new historical novels kept quite great differences in the conception of history and narrative methods. This thesis illuminated the dissimilarities and reasons why there were such dissimilarities. The significance of Su Tong's new historical novels in the contemporary literature history:(1)breakthrough of the conception of history. Su Tong's new historical novels surpassed the objective conception of history that made those works in the 1950s-1960s pay much attention to the essential ideology. Previous determinism based on historical causality,evolutionism of development,teleology expressing scientific rules- all these were raised queries in his writing. His novels didn't pursue the historical incidents after textual research and representation of historical figures,but by means of a individual restatement of history exposed the historical life neglected,omitted and evaded by the orthodox history. In his books,history became pluralistic space for writer to imagine and was stated as a declining process. Just some accidental elements controlled the history,The heroic characters in his novels were replaced by some fringe lay folks,As a nuclear illumination,personal desires replaced the conception of history filled with class struggle. He displayed the true qualities through stating common people's life and living condition in the history. There was more subversive significance that Su Tong abandoned the belief of historical authenticity and constructed the supposition through subjective imagination and dispelled the intrinsic history. Here history,which was the writer's self-experience,was displayed as a parabolic and intelligent narrative progress with distinctive individual colors.(2)breakthrough in historical narrative style. Su Tong 's new historical novels dispelled the pattern of traditional historical narrative of collectivism,pushed the individual discourse toward the center of historical narrative,built the new discourse historical narrative by means of concerning the individual existence and power. He changed the historical narrative from the center to the fringe,retold history on the edge remedied the past lopsided narrative and used such methods as relation,retell,reverse and satire and made narrative turn to another interpretation.