From Non-poetic To Poetic

This thesis starts with Kundera’s literary theories on novels,extracting one aspect of his aesthetics,that is,the artful transition from non-poeticness to poeticness.Kundera is a novelist with respect for literary traditions.Nevertheless,he also has a strong tendentiousness for such novelists as Cervantes,Bloch and Kafka,whom he regards as true contemporary "poets of novels".He believes their novels are poetic works but with base on life’s non-poeticness.This thesis studies the connotations of Kundera’s theories regarding "poeticness" and "non-poeticness",attempting to find how Kundera himself transforms "non-poeticness" lives to poetic works.Kundera first distinguishes novels from lyric poetry in style.Regarding novels’development history,he then holds that novels are different from epics,emphasizing novels’ prosy feature to present a "prosaic" world.As for the content,Kundera’s novels also draws "the curtain revealed by non-poetic novels",exposes life’s meaninglessness and gray grounding,unfolds human beings’absurd situation in reality and the ridiculousness as a result of the detachment between man and the world.Benjamin’s "Aura" and modernity theories will also be analyzed to find the modernist dimension in Kundera’s novels.Kundera’s create his poetic novels according to above pinciple.His poeticness is different from that of previous poetic theories with his own distinct characteristics including the language,characterization,the creation of fictional form of musicality,and his complete polyphony theories.The plot is not established upon strict causality,but with an emphasis on improvisation and epiphany to create an unexpected effect.His poeticness is also reflected in ontology,to be more exact,his concern over human existence.He probes into human lives and significance.But how the non-poetic content transforms to poetic works in Kundera’s novels,which build upon reality’s non-poeticness and fabricate reality to create a possible world at the same time.Fantasies also render his novels poetic works.Moreover,Kundera’s humor and game spirit turn serious works into light poetic works.