Research On Chen Mengjia And Crescent Literature

The thesis focuses on the literary creation of new poems and novels and the editing activity of publications and anthology of Chen Mengjia,a representative of the Post-Crescent School.It probes into Chen's style-changing and crescent temperament during the Crescent School transformation and the consequent promoting effect on the Post-Crescent poetry.This thesis starts with the classification of the members' Salon&Activities,followed by the creation track and the aesthetic trends of Chen,thus demonstrating the development and evolution from the pure and magnificent literary proposition to the symbolistic modernist style.The transformation happens due to the joint efforts made by Post-Crescent School including Chen and it is a process of inheritance and development in nature.Chapter One starts with Chen's first entering the Post-Crescent circle.Three mental coincidence foundations for Chen's "crescent temperament”are touched upon.First is the unique religious consciousness.It came from his Christian family.Second is the self-discipline consciousness.Inspired by his mentors,Wen Yiduo and Hsu Chih-mo,Chen got access to the poetic theory in early Crescent School times and cultivated such self consciousness in new poems'creation.Third is a kind of gentleman consciousness.It took root in the specific cultural context.The above provides clues for the basic components in Chen's early works,reasons of getting involved into this circle,and his important position in Crescent School transformation.At this time,Chen was still marked with the Early Crescent School features.The construction of the poetic theory did not start and modify.Actually,the true self-inspect and style-changing were accompanied by the transformation to Post-Crescent period.Chapter Two explains the transformation to modern aesthetic consciousness.The Crescent Periodical,as a new creating position for the Crescent School members,represented the establishment of the Post-Crescent School.It was the premise for new poems' creation and literary aesthetics changing by providing a new authoring environment.Chen's efforts in poetic form diversity and poetic artistic conception are investigated through the literature supplement,the college journal,and works in Crescent Periodical.Governed by this pure literacy periodical,Chen inherited his predecessor's theoretical resource and prevented from the formalism of rules and forms of classical poetic composition.Breakthrough in theme,emotion,and artistic conception were achieved consequently.This also explains the diverse styles and the period feelings of the new poems in Post-Crescent period.Chapter Three introduces Chen's poetic novels that tackled areas of weaknesses of the New Crescent School.Poetic novels were neglected before and Chen made them consistent with the Post-Crescent works in terms of artistic form and language style.Previous studies took Chen's poetic novels as accessory literature for reference instead of independent literary existence for further investigation.Chen's works at this period enriched the fiction diversity,for example his poetic novels and temperament novels.The style fusion by cross-genre literature also brought greater artistic value and aesthetic connotation for novel creation.Chapter Four examines the editing thoughts and aesthetic taste embodied in Poetry and Crescent Poetry Anthology,followed by the direction guiding of Chen after the creating position construction.It can be concluded from a series of editing work that Chen built the Post-Crescent stage into a literature field where the literary aesthetics gathered together.It offered a bunch of excellent works and cultivated a large number of writers among readers,greatly promoting the artistic conception of the new poems.Chapter Five focuses on the shift of Chen's academic interests caused by the social environment and a leap in his academic career was then realized.Chen was granted an opportunity by the shift to review his poetic works and creative experience.It also reflected his initiative pursuit for patriotism during the times.His choice demonstrated his personality,his influence,and his persistence of literature.A series of later literature essays also reflected his crescent temperament and aesthetic consciousness.Throughout the review of Chen Mengjia's writing track,his own exploration in poetic creation and the pioneering spirits of the young poets were all manifested.Crescent poems created a new chapter of distinctive features and profound contents in Chinese new poetry.They explored poetic beauty inwards and spread poetic skills outwards in the beginning of 1930s.In the preface of Mengjia Poems,he wrote:"Greater love hovering within my heart,its beauty as magnificent as stepstones that rise a thousand feet sheer.You need to climb up layer by layer.Only poetical truth can survive here".It is such kind of pure affection and unswerving dream that generate Chen's poems as well as his romantic and free life full of love and song.