Abstract Lyricism—Shen Congwen's Writing Exploration In The 1940s

The 1940 s was the end of Shen Congwen's writing career,and also a decade of wars.Chinese society had undergone great changes,so had Shen Congwen's life:living in Kunming as refuge taken for eight years,and then getting back to Beijing.Shen suffered much pressure in this process.Great changes in space and the influence of wars brought Shen not only the realistic pressure,but also the mental pressure,which was more severe.During this decade,Shen Congwen had been in depressed and confused state of mind,and the writing output had gradually decreased.No novels or essays have formed concentrated creations,and his writing was showing a sign of fragmentation.Compared with Shen Congwen's characterization of the Xiangxi world in the 1930 s,in the 1940 s he payed more attention to people's psychological state and spiritual world.In his novels and essays,there are a lot of detailed depictions of people's inner consciousness,which showed Shen Congwen's new pursue “abstract lyricism” in his own words.Abstraction can be used to express concern for the inner world,which is the opposite to the real world.Abstraction can be metaphysical philosophical thinking,which is the source of Shen Congwen's spiritual burden;sometimes abstraction also means some kind of ideal that can make writing sublimate… To Shen Congwen,abstraction has many meanings.In general terms,abstraction means the exploration of the whole spiritual world.Abstract lyricism tries to expand the space of expression in the dimension of lyricism,to accommodate abstract and spiritual thinking as much as possible,and to maximize the mix of lyricism and abstraction.This paper mainly discusses the specific characteristics of Shen Congwen's new writing exploration in 1940 s,which is called abstract lyricism by himself.It includes three aspects:inward exploration,abstract theme exploration and language exploration.First of all,inward exploration means Shen Congwen's exploration of the inner world.In some novels,the awakening and flow of the inner consciousness of characters directly become the main content,so do the inexhaustible and metaphysical spirit in his essays.The second aspect is the exploration of abstract themes.to a large extent the thinking of these themes implies a metaphysical philosophical meditation.The themes of time,loneliness,and eros are personalized,but the author wasn't only trying to express his own experience,but trying to express his abstract and metaphysical thinking.The third aspect is the language exploration.Shen Congwen is increasingly pursuing the poetry of language,while he feels the limitations of language in the ultimate poetic pursuit.The crisis of thought and the flow of inner consciousness both exist in the expression of language,but the language itself has limits.It seems impossible to reach the extreme of language.The extreme persuit and incapability of language indicate the innovation of Shen Congwen's language consciousness.Based on the understanding of specific creation characteristics,the last chapter will focus on the reasons why Shen Congwen's writing exploration is unsustainable,which includes three aspects: writing situation,literary thinking mode and value orientation.Through the interpretation of Shen Congwen's specific creation features and the discussion of the internal and external factors of the termination of such creation,this paper tries to more comprehensively demonstrate the important change of Shen Congwen's writing in 1940 s.