The Art Features Of Isaac Babel's Novels

The first 30 years of the 20th century can be considered the heyday of Russian literature.This time is characterized by the emergence of a large number of poets,writers as well as literary styles.N.Berdyaev,the famous Russian philosopher and thinker,called this period the "Russian Renaissance".It was during this time that the Jewish writer I.Babel entered the literary world with two collections of short stories Red Cavalry and Odessa Tales.Red Cavalry was based on Babel's own war diary written during his days in Budyonny cavalry army.It has a background story of Soviet-Polish war in 1920.Unlike other war literature,Red Cavalry does not focus on the descriptions of the battlefield but stresses the descriptions of what the self“I”—a young Jewish intellectual and war correspondent Lyutov experienced during the war.The story collection has created a few characters.It talks about various aspects such as war,revolution,ethnics,religion and humanity.Red Cavalry has a very far-reaching historical significance.Odessa Tales contains a series of stories,in which young Babel describes the life of the Jewish criminals of Odessa in the early XX century with exotic features and strong characters.There are thieves,robbers,and also artisans and small traders.These legendary heroes pursue justice,chivalry and happy Jewish life.This collection is full of romantic aroma of Odessa jargon,extravagant antics of heroes and detective plots.Research on Red Cavalry and Odessa Tales in China is still at its preliminary stage.The existing research is limited to the translation,the exploration of the cultural and social background of the characters,themes,and the application of Bakthin's carnival narrative theory in the collection of Red Cavalry,Moreover,very few researchers have recognized the importance of Odessa Tales.Given the significance of Babel and Red Cavalry and Odessa Tales in Russian literature and the lack of research on his literature in China,this paper aims to:1)present the biography and I.Babel's literary creation;2)give a general description of the collections of short stories Red Cavalry and Odessa Tales;3)review the research about Babel and his work in the world;4)describe the process of the formation of I.Babel's artistic style;5)analyze the linguistic and stylistic originalities of the stories in the collections of I.Babel Red Cavalry and Odessa Tales in details;and 6)explore the meaning of these originalities.This paper consists of introduction,three chapters,conclusion and reference.The list of references includes 50 items.The preface of the paper indicates the realistic significance,innovations,main purposes,research subjects and specific methods of the study.The first chapter introduces the creation path of I.Babel,analyzes the formation of his artistic style and provides an overview of the research about Isaac Babel and his work in the world.Being a Russian Jewish writer who was born in Odessa of Ukraine and fond of French literature,Isaac Babel's literary creation received the influence from different people and cultures such as traditional Jewish culture,Odessa urban culture and modernism.After 1956,researches in Russia on Babel and his work became universal and profound.In the USA,study on Babel has already achieved a huge success not only in the ampleness and the depth of the objects and the contents of the study,but also in the theoretical and systematic research methods.In China,many scientists began to study his creativity from the point of view of the narrative,themes,characters,and cultural background.The linguistic originality of Babel's works Red Cavalry and Odessa Tales will be analyzed in the second chapter.This linguistic originality is embodied in three aspects:a short and concise linguistic style,the antithesis in the language and the identity of color words.Babel uses exact adjectives,laconic phrases,proper separation of paragraphs and compact responses to compose a concise and compressed style.By the use of antonyms and associative antonyms,Babel creates the antithesis,thus causing reflection and at the same time making the image vivid,expressive and meaningful.In the use of color words,three main functions are achieved in the stories of Isaac Babel:1)creating living characters;2)forming the atmosphere and accentuating the situation;3)expressing the evaluation and the emotion of the narrator or the author.Chapter three is devoted to the analysis of the stylistic individuality of Babel's stories.There are many original stylistic techniques in Red Cavalry and Odessa Tales,including comparison,personification and irony.According to the narrator's position,comparisons here will be divided into three groups.With these comparisons expressing the narrator's various positions,the writer demonstrates narrator's different attitudes to the little people,Cossacks,meanness of human beings and reveals the harmful effects of war on human beings and their acceptance of the surrounding world.Diverse impersonations in the collections Red Cavalry and Odessa Tales perfectly perform three roles:1)a clock;2)an observer of events;3)a mirror,reflecting the mood of the characters or the narrator.Babel loves and is expert at using stylistic technical "irony".He applies mild or friendly ironies to the description of the narrator's beloved characters.In the sardonic ironies,the writer indirectly expresses his scorn and disgust at some characters or their conducts.The conclusion is an overall summary of the whole passage.Babel in his stories successfully created a kind of linguistic and stylistic style.It is not difficult to find that,although Babel wanted to be a Russian"Maupassant" and to free himself from the influence of Russian classical literature,he still failed to do so;in contrast,he became a Russian "Babel".Like the works of his Russian antecessors in literature history,Babel's stories are also filled with humanistic concern.This means that Babel continued the tradition of Russian literature,continued the path of Russian classical writers and made his own contributions to Russian literature.