Zhou Zuoren’s Thought Of The Study Of Folk Literature

Zhou Zuoren is a pioneer in the study of Chinese modern folk literature andfolklore theory. He insisted on the tough academic exploration in the field of folkliterature and folklore and writing practice of folk prose.Zhou Zuoren’s folk literature thought is formed and developed with his ownspecial experience. In the turbulent social environment with the background of theinflux of western thought and the inoculation of Japanese culture and the force of theMay Fourth New Culture Movement, Zhou Zuoren launched a huge Beijing universityBallad Movement with his colleagues. They began to research folk literature from theperspective of academic. They made it the first time to promote folk literature to theheight of the "national literary form" and "the basis of national art”.It laid a solidfoundation for the idea of "human literature".In the field of folk songs research, he initiated the important research methodof "fieldwork" and encouraged colleagues to make a deep-going research among thepeople to investigate and collect private information seriously. He unscrambled the"obscene songs" from the perspective of the anthropology for the first time and madethe wrong understanding of folk songs for a long time cleared. In the field of fairy talesresearch, he put forward the thought of “Children’s orientation” and clarified train ofthought of fairy tales research and emphasized the children’s standard. It made thethinking of the fairy tales more scientific and more accords with the children’sgrowth. In the field of myth research, he made a new interpretation of the Chinesemythology from the perspective of the anthropology theory and stimulated theenthusiasm of the colleagues for myth researching. It laid a good theoretical basis forstudy of Chinese mythology.In conclusion, we argue that in the field of academic research for the folk literature,it is hard to erase his merit, also should not be eliminated. Even though he is the sinnerof the history with the transcription defection in his political behavior. He settles inthe field of folk literature and emphasizes the inheritance of the aesthetic value in thestudy of folk literature. And he is obsessed with folk literature in his whole life and stickto it to construct the independent discipline theory system for modern folk literaturein our country. It should be worthy to our further study, digestion and absorption..