Unusual To Talk About Gods And Ghosts:the Research On Gods And Ghosts In Zhouzuoren's Works

Zhou Zuoren(1885-1967)is one of the writers who were most attracted by and best at “talking about gods and ghosts” in the history of modern Chinese literature.In the "May 4th" New Culture Movement,Zhou,who first appeared in the literary world,devoted himself to "exorcise ghosts" with metaphors for ghosts.He left the devils and ghosts nowhere to hide under “the scientific light”,and used the “scent of art” to call back the spirit of the dead citizens.With the ebb of the "May 4th",Zhou fell into the "vanity of vanities" and began his "great action of chasing the wind" and turned to the study of "folk ghosts".He only wanted to hear and know trifling things like "the river ghosts".But actually he tried to find out the people behind this "ghosts".After the outbreak of the anti-Japan War,Zhou manipulated the stories of "ghosts" to find moral support for his treachery,and quietly completed his self-metaphorical switch from the "traitor" to the "old monk" and "Dayu" during his "talking about gods and ghosts",which also unintentionally revealed much information hidden deeply in his heart.On the basis of fully absorbing the research results of predecessors,this paper focuses on the gods and ghosts in his works and makes comprehensive use of the research methods of literary psychology,cultural anthropology,folklore and so on to try to revisit the history.Meanwhile,it also tries to take root in the truth and materials to get as close to Zhou and his works as possible,so as to study the connotation and significance of his discussion of “gods and ghosts”,and reevaluates his "talking about gods and ghosts" from the two dimensions of history and reality.There are two points of innovation in this paper: First,it draws the overall outline of Zhou's wrtting of the "god and ghosts" from 1919 to 1945,and on the basis of which,analyzes the reasons and influences of the change of his attitude towards “gods and ghosts”.Second,through studying Zhou's "talking about gods ghosts" before and after his treachery,it tries to analyze how he completed the metaphorical switch from the "traitor" to the "old monk" and "Dayu".