From The Life And Art "to The" Art "for The Proletariat

As an influential master in Chinese literary history in 20th century, Mao Tun holds his literary belief of "Art for life" throughout his literary career. In fact, the connotation of this belief changes with his acceptance of Russian literature. In the first period of his career, Mao Tun takes interests in the belief due to his approbation of the "Art for Life" character of Russian literature. In the late twenties of the 20th century, Mao Tun transfers his interest from Russian realism to Soviet proletarian literature , accordingly, his literary conception and writing are much different. After that, he develops the conception following the route. The thesis is to review the process of Mao Tun's acceptance to Russian literature, revealing the influence to his literary conception and writing, and analyzing the misreading in the process. The thesis includes two parts as follows: PartⅠis concerned with the origin of Mao Tun's acceptance of Russian literature. He translates western literature following the tenet of "Art for Life", and gradually turns to Russian literature for appreciation of "for life" character of Russian realistic literature. PartⅡdescribes Mao Tun's acceptance of Soviet realistic literature, focuses on his misreading of Russian literature in the perspective of "for life", rather than its original sense. This brought him the reputation of a great realist as well as the misreading of Russian literature, and the later discounts not only his career but also and the course of Chinese modern literature.