Influence·Congeniality·Development

Wang Meng, a famous writer of contemporary China, has become an importantsymbol of Chinese culture. His political fate and literary creation are typical andvivacious specimens for witnessing the development of Chinese contemporaryliterature. Among different literature styles and schools, Wang Meng’s work, existingas a rich and complex entity, is undisputedly the most brilliant and worth further study.His cultural ideology mainly comes from the traditional Chinese thinking and culture.Confucian ideology, such as positive engagement in the world, concern for the fatethe country and the people, putting one’s country in the first place, etc. forms the mainpart of his ideology. And He also learned the positive factors from Taoistphilosophy:Imitation of Nature, philosophical freedom, acting but not competing,Nakamichi tolerance, etc. and gradually established the psychological mechanismover the reality of life. Though in Wang Meng’s early years, the revolution and thepolitical constitute the main theme of his cultural thinking, Taoism is onlyoccasionally looming notes. In his old age, he totally submerged in Taoist philosophy,and published a series of works that carry forward Taoism philosophy, such as LaoTzu’s help、 enjoying Chuang-Tzu and Chuang-Tzu’s happiness. Wang Meng’sreference and surpassing of the traditional Chinese Taoist culture, philosophy andaesthetic appreciation, display us the spiritual exploration of a maverick. But thisrecognition did not arose in-depth inquiry by the critics due to the scatter andobscureness of Wang Meng’s narrative discourse and the transfer of attention of theliterary world in the1990s, until in his seventies, a series of the interpretation ofLaozhuang classics were published that this valuable wisdom in Wang Meng’s literary creation and literary thought was able to arose extensive attention of researchers.Throughout the study of Wang Meng, judged from the external environment, hisliterary study and his literary practice basically maintain synchronized. Judged fromthe internal system of his work, Wang Meng’s novels, essays, poetry, biographyresearch, have made great progress in content, quality, theoretically and systematically.But till now most of the stylistic studies about Wang meng focus on the concepts andcategories of sociological and ideological field, and though there are other researcheson the comparison between his work and the ancient literature, as well as betweenWang Meng and other Chinese writers. The majority of them are review articles, fewscholarly works are presented. So based on the background of "traditional culturalhot" and the new national cultural development strategy, this thesis will conduct acomparative Study of Wang Meng and Chuang Tzu, from the horizontal and verticalangles to compare the differences and similarities between them, to find out WangMeng’ inherence and development to Chuang-Tzu. By making reference to ageneration of intellectuals’ construction and integration of the spiritual personality andcultural state, we will discuss the significance and the feasibility of today’s culturalstrategy. The first chapter combs the development and evolution of the Taoism andcard the overt and covert influence of Chuang-Tzu thinking and Chuang-Tzu artisticfeatures to literary thought and literary creation in that specific writing context.What’s more, by analyzing Wang Meng, we will find out the relation between WangMeng and Chuang-Tzu, how the Chuang-Tzu influenced Wang Meng in philosophyof life, cultural characters and literary thought, etc. in that specific historicalbackground, and Wang Meng’s inheritance and development of Chuang-Tzu’sphilosophy, literature and art, and aesthetics thoughts.Chapter two adopts comparativemethodology analyzing Wang Meng’s literary creation and the writings ofChuang-Tzu. By taking three aspects, namely,"excursion" narrative, stylistic featuresof fables, and game-like language style into comparison, this chapter explores WangMeng’ reference, absorption and conversion of the writing of Chuang-Tzu in hisliterature creation, especially in fiction and prose writing. Chapter three studies thestudies of Wang Meng’s literary Criticism. His three writings about Chuang Tzu written in his later years, reflect his change from imitation, learn, absorption, tointerpreting Chuang-Tzu with a full heart. And this change is also a gradual processfor Wang Meng to inherit and internalize Chuang-Tzu, to achieve self-regulation andcreativeness. Wang Meng’s modern interpretation of Chuang-Tzu is in fact hisinterpretation of philosophy of life. This thesis will further explore the gradualshaping and construction process of Wang Meng’s literary thoughts and culturementality under particular contemporary political and cultural background, analyzethe meaning for nowadays of studying Wang Meng’ classical literary, and discuss thetrends and the process of construction of the inheritance and development of Chinesetraditional culture.