On Wu Mi's Humanism Literature Thoughts In 1920

As the central member of the Culture Review School,Wu Mi left his cultural heritage as opponents of the New Culture Movement.He introduces Irving Babbitt's idea to Chinese in 1920s.The aim of Culture Review School is that probing into the theory of academic and seeking the truth,thriving the Chinese culture and absorbing the western culture.Irving Babbitt's idea as a theory system pays attention to the human self,which is called humanism.The aim of humanism is to be a completed person.For the Culture Review,Babbitt's idea is a good way to fulfill their culture ideal.But the Culture Review's culture ideal,especially for Wu is not getting it from the America experience,but from the Tsinghua years.For Wu,Babbitt's theory system is a useful tool which can help him to make his culture ideal come true,but not his purpose and aim itself.Nevertheless,Wu and Babbitt has the same idea about to be a perfect individual.The Culture Review's idea is the positive response of the western humanism tradition in china,which is an inevitable culture school when china transform from the monarchy age to modern republic time and is an integral part of modern civilization.Thus,Wu's culture idea is belong to the New Culture Movement.Wu's ideological basis from two parts,one is from Confucian traditional culture,the other is from western culture.The family members and school teachers,most of them,are influenced by Liu Guyu.Liu is a famous Confucianism in Shaanxi at the second half of the nineteenth century,who especially cares about the education,and his idea is to cultivate one's morality and to be an useful person.Plato's philosophies,especially the"one" and "many" concept become the foundation of Wu's humanism theory system.The ideal moral is "one",that is Wu's only faith.Thus,how to cultivate one's morality and be a completed man is the purpose of Wu's humanism.and the literature for him is an effective way to be a perfect person.Thus his literary theory is become part of his humanism theory system.The basic construction of Wu's literature theory is the Three States that comes from Babbitt's idea.The Three States not only applies literature,but also suitable for life.The first state of literature is Actuality that is the existence of physical state.The Actuality is not only including the external beings,but also includes the internal state of person.So the human nature as the actuality state,which composition with of good and evil.The result that fights between good and evil will decide the deed of a person.The second state of literature is Illusion that needs to expression in the literary works.Illusion is not limited by the time and space,which contain the writer's main spirit.The third and the highest state is Reality that means the Truth and shows the universal relations.And the III truth transcend the time and space that is used for each of person.And the value of one work depends on whether the writer has a purely deeply and healthy outlook on life,whether express the truth of the universe in the Illusion.For Wu,Reality means the true meaning of life,which is also used to the moral ideal of Confucian culture.The mainly reason that Wu refused the new literature is the author lack of moral ideal.For the great influents of poetry,Wu has a clearly understanding when he study in Tsinghua.Since studying in Harvard,he get a theory system about poetry from Babbitt and Matthew Arnold.But some ideas about poetry is from his China education background and his Chinese teacher Huang Jie.Wu's poetry thoughts can be divided into parts.The first part is the poet should have the tender and gentle temper.The second part is the work should be have suffering consciousness.The former can cultivate the poet's pure temper,the latter can help the poet has a great moral character.As for novel,Wu puts forward the theory of ideal novel.Ideal novel is neither a realistic novel,nor a romantic novel,but rooted in the reality,has the style of classicism and romanticism,which is another kind of realism novel.Ideal novel does not focus on the narrative and structure,do not pay attention to the depicting characters,but through the action of the characters of novel reflect the reality of causality.Depends on the causal relationship,the write organize the structure and express of the character's morality.For fulfilling of the functions of literature,the poetry and fiction needs to use of language and style.The new literature writes try to change the language and style so eagerly that launched a literary revolution.Wu resolutely stand with the old Chinese written language and style.Old Chinese written language has the moral standards which is the wisdom of the ancients,and that is the bridge of the humanist and the spirits of ancients.And Wu is not refused the vernacular,but his idea about vernacular should be affected by theory of Dante.As for the old style is the brainchild of scholars in China,and have excellent works for offspring to imitation.Which is also prove that Chinese old style is feasible.The disadvantages of the present old literature lies in the content,rather than the stylistic.So the right direction of today's literary creation is to keep the old style and melt the new materials into the old styles.