Between Tradition And Modernity

As a standard-bearer of Taiwan's modernist school novels, Bai Xianyong can gain widely and fuse Chinese and Western culture together. His novels not only have rich social contents and incisive cognition value, but also have consummate artistic skill and outstanding art achievement. Bai Xianyong's early creation had much Western Modernism influence, after he reached America , he examined Chinese traditional culture again and studied western literature deeply, fused tradition into modern, viewed tradition according to modern .So, his novels formed unique artistic charm and cultural aroma.Bai Xianyong is from a officer's family, he was under traditional culture and family environment when he was young. And illness during childhood made him very lonely and sad. The unforgettable childhood experience became lasting memory, and made him form his own perspectives on the life and art. To a certain extent, his experiences affected his outlook on life, sense of religion, view on the world, even decided his aesthetic standards and artistic criterion, directly led him to our traditional culture and literature heritage: what to carry on and innovate and in what way . In his unique way, Bai Xianyong showed his sound grip of Chinese traditional culture in his skillful field. And he explained and reappeared Confucianism, Taoism and Buddhism using his own standard. Thanks to Chinese classical literature, his novels show strong"Chinese feeling" from his materials, language, aesthetic taste, value judgement and so on . After growing up, he left his family for America, lastly he settled in America. Then he gained more rational knowledge on Western culture on the base of perceptual knowledge. Western modern culture affects his creation in many aspects, such as sympathy of Christianity, existentialism and Freudism and so on. Among those, novels of western modernist school is a practical point, and the effect is sharpest in his creations. For example, novels of western modernist school's attention to living predicament of man, humanitarianism of western literature and artistry : stream of consciousness, intimation, symbol ,psychoanalysis .Full text contains four chapters, plan to approach effect of Chinese traditional culture and Western modern culture and their fusion in Bai Xianyong's creations, from cultural angle. In the first chapter, I analyse Chinese traditional culture'seffect on Bai Xianyong, according to his family, illness experience and reading life during the childhood. I confirm theeffect from three respects: Chinese classical philosophy: Confucianism, Taoism, Buddhism and Chinese classical literature in his creation. The second chapter discusses western culture's shock to Bai Xianyong .His novels embody effect of existentialism, Freudism and sympathy of Christianity. Chinese and western culture affects Bai Xianyong at the same time, but not independently, they successfully fuse together through the auther's artistic creation. The third chapter discusses two culture's fusion from three aspects: characterization technique, homosexuality theme and symbol skill. The fourth chapter discusses his novels' artistic criterion fusing east and west, taking his only full-length novel {(worthless fellows)) for example.Bai Xianyong has experience living in Chinese mainland, Taiwan, Hong Kong and America, so he receives cultural influence not only Chinese but also western. Special experiences in two worlds give him two languages, two cultural backgrounds, two thinking ways, all these make him measure western culture from a overall and comparative visual angle, and examine Chinese traditional culture under the background of western social culture, in this way, he can gain a higher and objective inspection. Chinese and western culture get along swimmingly with each other in Bai Xianyong's novels in pace with age, learning and cultivation and social experience. He applies Chinese and western literary skills more and more splendidly. In a word, his inheritance and innovation toward Chinese traditional culture and Western modern culture afford Chinese literature a referable model. And this is just the meaning that we study his creations.