Research On The Creation Of Tragedy During The Anti-Japanese War

During the Anti-Japanese War, the development of Chinese modern drama was in a golden era, and the drama creation become more mature. Tragedy, as an important category of drama, was valued by dramatists during the Anti-Japanese War because of the special background of national crisis, and bore the weight of history memory of the Chinese nation with its stirring expression and inspiration. On the other hand, on the basic of the "May4th" and the left-wing literature, the creation of tragedy during this period had a wealth of resources to draw upon. This paper will make a systematic study about the creation of tragedy during the Anti-Japanese War, and analyze the production logic, realistic meaning and historical value of it, and also figure out its defects. The analysis contains three parts:times consciousness, modern consciousness, and national consciousness.Chapter one "Two types of tragedy during the Anti-Japanese War", divides the creation of tragedy in the period into two types:social tragedy and individual tragedy, according to the different tragedy conflicts. And the classification is based on Hegel’s theory about the differences between ancient tragedy and modern tragedy. Under the influence of reality and traditional cultural psychology, political and ethical drama as the main forms of social tragedy occupied the dominant position in the creation of tragedy, while pure individual tragedy had a relatively small number.Chapter two "Times consciousness:An angry voice in the war years", analyses the times consciousness of the tragedy during this period, including three levels:production, performance and significance. In terms of production, the human chaos provided the realistic material for tragedy, and also affected the psychology of tragedians. The external and internal factors constituted the soil which gave birth to tragic emotions. In terms of performance, on the basic of the tradition of realism which was laid by the "May4th" literature, the creation of tragedy during the Anti-Japanese War grasped the spirit of the time and showed different characteristics during different period. In terms of significance, tragedy produced a series of tragic pleasure such as fear, pity, noble sense, catharsis, relaxing and purification in readers and viewers, leading to stimulate the enthusiasm of the messes.Chapter three "Modern consciousness: Modern tragic experience", summaries the modern consciousness which was different from the ancient tragedy, including further break of reunion consciousness, humanism, and the soul impulse in individual tragedy. These all reflected the important results of literature modernization since the "May4th".Chapter four is "National consciousness: The artistic expression of national spirit and nationalism". Ideologically, the creation of tragedy in this period inherited the tradition of being concerned about one’s country and one’s people and the ethical culture. At the same time, dramatists also rediscovered the important national sprits such as sacrificing for justice and ideal, endurance and toughness. In terms of the content, tragedy in this period showed the universality of characters and the broadness of stories which are different from western tragedy. From the artistic point of view, tragedy in this period inherited the poetic language style and lyric tradition from Chinese ancient drama.However, the creation of tragedy during the Anti-Japanese War also has some drawbacks. On the one hand, the creation of the tragedy in this period did not become a big trend, and most of the progresses of the drama creation during the war were not reflected in tragedy. On the other hand, the domination of social tragedy and the lack of individual exploration led to superficial and simple handling of tragedy conflicts, according to political and ethical ideas. The passion for fight overwhelmed the literary and philosophical pursuits, lacking of profundity.