Zhou Zuoren Prose Style Research

It is acknowledged by the researchers that Zhou zuoren contributed a lot to prose style innovation. Whereas, the research about his prose style was superficial for a long time mainly due to lacking of enough theoretical foundation. Most of the research papers only concern about its ostensible factors and deficient in profound research. However, in recent years great progress has been made in style theory research, which provides the new ideas and foundations for zhou 's prose style research. Based on "language, imagery and meaning" and combined with Zhou's specific life experience and taste of art, this essay analyses the three component elements as well as its features to establish his complete prose style system."Simple and amicable style" is the main characteristic of zhou's prose language. In its language form, this feature is reflected in the choice of words, making of sentences, arrangement of paragraphs as well as the use of rhetoric. To be specific, in the choice of words, he cuts down the use of adjective and adv to simplify language; in the use of sentences, he uses more long sentences to make the content ease and grace; in the organization of paragraphs and discourses, he chooses different narrative style to dormant theme. While his moderate rhetoric use increases the aesthetic feeling of art. These features are all integrated by the core of life philosophy and aesthetic feeling, which haveformed zhou's unique prose language style.This theses distinguished the definition of imagery and put forward that it has three meanings. The first refers to the descriptive part of the prose. This essay takes 'affection' and 'reason' as clue, putting his descriptive area in order. The second meaning is the improvement and refresh to the descriptive part, using the literature device and according to the author's expressing purpose. The present thesis classified zhou's different prose images, for example, he uses simple sentences in essays; in vignette, he usually shapes the character through the description of daily trifle; in describing natural scenery, he takes objective attitude and put affection and reason into the prose. The third is made from the feeling of the main body and has a strong symbolic meaning, which distinguishes it from images of the common literature and poems. Combined with the feeling he expressed in the works, we can divide his prose into two types, one is nostalgia, the other is life . The former shows his love to hometown, the later expresses his understanding to life , destiny .Both constitute the important content of his spiritual life.The meaning system of works is a relatively stable language setup, which can determine 'language' and 'imagery'. In his prose, it simply means life consciousness, namely, the author's understanding to the issues about human being, which expresses his pursuit of natural and relaxed life style. It includes two aspects in his works. One criticizes the backwards nationality, combining with the excellent element of Chinese traditional philosophy and the advanced ingredients from other nationalities to improve nationality and make people more civilized. The other aims at changing the inferiority of the individual by advocating 'art life'. The three factors interact with each other and make up a complete style system. In this essay, the author analyses these three elements and expounds the relationship between them.Zhou's innovation in style reflects in three aspects: Firstly, he uses modern Chinese as foundation, combining with traditional Chinese and dialects as well as loanwords etc. to create a completely new prose language style; Secondly, he enlarges prose descriptive field; Thirdly, using Chinese traditional prose as reference, combining the modern sense of valuing human being, he creates a new area for prose. These achievements have established his reputation in the history of Chinese modern literature.