Zong Pu ’Yan Yuan Series’ Prose Studies

Zong Pu is an abundant writer who has a great achievement in fiction and prose. She gother rich knowledge through paternal teaching and campus culture influence. She didn’t giveup writing until21century, even though suffered through Anti-Japanese War and the CulturalRevolution. People will always find and give the hard-working writers great respect andhonor and Zong Pu was given the sixth Mao Dun Prize for Literature in2005.Zong Pu once had lived in the Yan Nan Yuan of the Beijing University for more thanhalf a century and she has deep feeling and affection for the campus of Yan Yuan and wroteabout it. Her ‘Yan Yuan series’ prose including Yan Yuan scenery, human feelings andthe life experience, involves the feeling of life and cultural inheritance proposition. Thisseries is divided into three parts:The first part prose includes four-season landscape and cultural relics of the campus. Onthe one hand, her prose expressed plaint for the tree’s growth with the life force. Zong Puprefers bright colors and flexible life. Her prose showed sincere love, respect and praiseespecially for the short blooming flowers. Under her pen Yan Yuan became poetic homeof harmony between man and nature, which made the reader happy and intoxicated. On theother hand, the introduction of deep sense of cultural and historical sites showed ZongPu self-restraint.The second part of the prose is an overall interpretation of Zong Pu’s mourning herparent intellectual. Born in a family of scholar, Zong Pu has received good family educationfrom the youth. For many years studying in Tsinghua University and living in the Yan NanYuan, she was inadvertently affected by master scholar’s personality and learning. Her proseis not only personal life writing, but also a reflection of Chinese intellectuals in the20thcentury life course. From Zong Pu’s prose, we see the images of the devotion and dedicationof Chinese intellectuals group who get through the ups and downs of life, maintain the noblemoral integrity and character, are away from the hustle and bustle of fame and fortune,consciously shoulder the mission of cultural succession. The third part is the description of fun life in Yan Yuan garden. It explores aesthetictaste and spiritual pursuit spirit of Zong Pu. Zong Pu lived in quiet study, reading books andtasting tea. Her genuine feeling warmed the life journey. Her poetic flavor resolved thetroubles of life. She is the spirit of the noble, blending Confucianism ‘getting into thesociety’ and Taoism ‘getting out the society’ in a body.Zong Pu belongs to the post ‘May4th’ generation, favored by the infiltration of Chinesetraditional culture. Her profound language skills make her prose create meaningful artisticconception between the lines and exude a thick literary style. She used precise literarylanguage and descriptive presentation of scenery to reflect the inner spiritual images in theprose. Her mourning words for family members and teachers are full of affection, but rationalexpression and temperance which make people have a long aftertaste. Her indifferent to lifeand optimistic attitude make the prose ordinary but with philosophized meanings. Zong Pu’sprose is a very good interpretation of traditional Chinese prose inherent artistic methods andaesthetic norms.