A Study On Shen Congwen's Style Experiments Of Narrative Nonfiction In 1930s

Shen Congwen mainly wrote three long narrative non-fiction books in the 1930s:the Autobiography of Shen Congwen,In Memory of Ding Ling and Random Sketches on a Trip to Hunan.In these three works,Shen tried to use his previous experience offiction writing to create an experimental genre between fiction and non-fiction.From this point of view,I tried to scrutinize the three experimental works,not only analyses the causes of the style experiments,the narrative modes and techniques in the text,but also the rhetoric effects and the hidden psychology aspects behind them.I also made a systematic comparison between them and Shen's early short stories,so as to observe Shen's change on his literary concepts and creative techniques around 1930.In chapter one,I mainly explored why Shen carried out such experiments,which was partly due to the improvement of his economic situation and writing environment.More importantly,Shen's early stories were severely criticized for not conforming to the convention of fiction,which made him strongly hostile to the "rules"of fiction.This hostility implies the irreconcilable contradiction between Shen's literary concept and the common literary concept in 1930s.Therefore,when he tried to create something different,he tended to avoid the genre of "fiction"and choose a more liberal form,a non-fiction prose or a modern(auto)biography which did not have a literary tradition or convention at that time,in which he applied fiction techniques in order to gain the advantages of both.Shen 's experiments were also results of his anxiety about the capability of novel to reflect reality.When it comes to real issues,he tended to mix as many styles as possible to illustrate the reality from his perspective.However,his failure in the1940s proved that it was difficult to achieve his original purpose with this"comprehensive"writing mode.In chapter two,I carried out a form study on the Autobiography of Shen Congwen.Firstly,the Autobiography of Shen Congwen is not a perfect and unified work,in which different chapters have different styles,more like a collection of stories.Secondly,even if this work is regarded as a complete narrative,as a result of Shen's various concerns,some parts of it omitted key moments,which damages the integrity of the overall narrative.Lastly,in this book,Shen borrowed much of narrative discourses and techniques from his early stories,which he tried to innovated and improved.In addition,from 1940s to 1980s,Shen made two major revisions to this work,which undid the original experimental intentions and disturbed the pure narrative voice.From the point of view of narrative aesthetics,they failed.In chapter three,I discussed the writing modes of a series of biographies,like In Memory of Ding Ling.With In Memory of Ding Ling,Shen attempted to create a novel mode of biography,in which he record real events by using many fiction techniques.However,influenced by the author's early fiction-writing experience,In Memory of Ding Ling was inevitably dyed with strong subjective color,which was also one of the reasons for the discord between Ding Ling and Shen Congwen in the 1980s.In Memory of Hu Yepin and In Memory of Ding Ling follow a similar narrative mode,which was a blueprint of the former,and was comparatively rough in form.From the 1940s to the 1960s,Shen tried several times to practice the idea behind In Memory of Ding Ling,but for various reasons,not all of them succeeded.In chapter four,I discussed the narrative characteristics of Random Sketches on a Trip to Hunan.I started with the magazines that first published the essays and stories of the book.Different magazines had different styles.Then I explored how these stories and essays interacted and blended with Shen's early stories in different aspects,and how this interaction reflected Shen's inner and hidden consciousness.Generally speaking,Shen's style experiments was from unconscious to conscious chronically.His style were also approaching his most successful stories.From the perspective of narrative aesthetics,there were both success and failure in this change.In the Autobiography of Shen Congwen,it was proper to use a natural style.Although In Memory of Ding Ling were created as a more conscious experiment,it had provoked much controversy because of Shen's use of fiction style in it.Random Sketches on a Trip to Hunan is somewhere between the two.It was Shen's attempt to carry on a more balanced style experiment after the Autobiography of Shen Congwen and In Memory of Ding Ling.