Literature And Folk

The "folks theory" created by Chen Sihe generates great echoes in the republic of letters. The theorists and the critics of culture sum up and elucidate it from different aspects. As a new theory and perspective of studying literature, it has initiated a fresh space of literature explanation and widened the eyeshot of critics.In the developing process of Chinese Contemporary Literature of nearly twenty years, Mo Yan is an important one. His fascination in literature is related to the folk character. At the present time, the thorough studies are mostly carried out to a particular work of Mo Yan and the systematic study of the folk character in all of his works is absent. Moreover the extent and the depth of these studies are not enough. Using the folk theory of Chen Sihe, this thesis discusses the folk character in the works of Mo Yan based on the explanation of folk and its historic changes.The main part of this thesis begins with the folk resources of literature creation, explaining Mo Yan's stand on folk writing- "writing as the civilian". This stand is related to the experiences in his childhood and countryside life. Under the effect of folk culture, Mo Yan accepted the shape of culture and the value orientation from the bottom of his heart; inversely, the folk life provided him with creation resources and the habitat for his nervous soul. Based on this folk stand, Mo Yan pushes aside the shroud of the fog over the folk generated by the strong mainstream ideology and accepted the life spirit hidden in the folk society which is free and never-ending, showing the various culture shapes in the common people's humble life. It's more important that Mo Yan is not shrouded by the diversity of the folk life when he walked to grass root stratum. On the contrary, he has accepted the folk spirit growing vigorously in the folk society on a stand of a modern person. He found the same elements between the folk spirit in the past history and the modern people and also turned it into the precious resources of humanism spirit.Mo Yan keeps his folk stand as a son of folk, creates a human"republic of literature" which is established in the "Gaomi county northeast countryside" but not confined to it.