Chapter 59 Section 1 Introduction and Influence of Western Modernist Literature

As mainland China once again entered an open international cultural environment, Western modern culture and modernist literary thoughts entered this oriental country that had been closed for more than 40 years, and soon echoed the "May 4th" new cultural period 60 years ago. , became the climax of mainland China's second acceptance of Western culture in this century, and also brought Chinese culture and literature into the world trend again.The first to start translating and introducing Western modernist literature was a group of foreign literature researchers, including poets and writers who entered the literary world 40 years ago under the influence of Western modern art thoughts. The introduction to Western modernism is obviously more comprehensive and systematic. From the early symbolism at the end of the 19th century to the postmodernism in the late 20th century, various schools are gradually known to the Chinese literary world.With the in-depth development of these translation and introduction activities, there was a corresponding response in the field of literary and artistic creation and criticism in the early 1980s. A series of works appeared successively in the creation of poetry, novels, dramas and other styles, embodying a series of The new aesthetic principles bring readers a novel and strong reading experience.

Of course, the translation and introduction of Western modernist literature is only an external factor for the production of these modernist literary works. Only when the external influence matches the internal expression needs of the local culture and the main body of the writer, can the external influence promote the local Correspondingly, writers produce world factors in their creation, that is, literary images that are not only related to or synchronized with world cultural phenomena, but also have the characteristics of their own living environment.These images are not a simple reference and imitation of Western literature, but a nation's own flesh and blood experience added to the literature under the world pattern, thereby forming a rich and diverse worldwide literary dialogue.Therefore, the emergence of the modern consciousness of literature after the "Cultural Revolution" was caused by China's specific historical environment.

The emergence of the modern consciousness of literature after the "Cultural Revolution" can be traced back to the "Baiyangdian Poetry School"2 whose main members were young poets such as Index Finger and Mang Ke, Duoduo, and Genzi in the mid-1970s. These young poets all had a common "Cultural Revolution" experience from fanaticism of belief to disillusionment and then despair. They were the first group of young people of this generation to wake up and reflect.The confrontation between ideal and reality makes them unanimously want to solve it through literature, and the historical opportunity is reflected in them as doubt-awakening-thinking process: my ideal is tossing and falling dead leaves, yes, the future is the abstraction. If the fate of the barley that does not show its sharpness is really like this, I would rather sing loudly for the wild thorns.

── index finger Here, the thinking of personal value and destiny has both the sentimentality of a spiritual nobleman and the arrogance of a fallen hero. The fear and loneliness of the sober person paints a hazy color on humanitarianism and idealism. It expresses the unconscious modern consciousness, but also contains obvious romanticism.This kind of modern consciousness and its artistic expression generated in the cracks of political pressure during the "Cultural Revolution" may have heralded a major distinction between Chinese modern consciousness and Western modernist literature, and also heralded its evolution in the future .If we say that Western modernist culture and art reflect intellectuals’ doubts and despair of the modernization norms of Western society, then this questioned “modernization” was still a holy temple that was actively yearned for by the most sensitive intellectuals in Chinese society at that time. , they directed all their anger at the political factors of oriental despotism that are hindering China's modernization.

The founding of the "Today" magazine in 1978 marked the transition of this wave of modern poetry from the underground to the public, and entered into the wave of literature after the "Cultural Revolution".This is the so-called "Misty Poetry" group, whose members include Bei Dao, Gu Cheng, Shu Ting, Jiang He, Yang Lian, Mang Ke, Duo Duo, Liang Xiaobin, etc. These young poets start from their own hearts and use symbols, metaphors, synaesthesia, etc. The artistic skills of modern poetry have created a batch of poems with new aesthetic characteristics.As soon as this poetry group appeared in the literary world, it attracted people's attention because of its unique and novel aesthetic factors, and caused a series of controversies. In August 1980, "Poetry Magazine" published Zhang Ming's "Inspiring The boring "Hazy"" article denies their meaning and value on the grounds that they are "unintelligible", hence the name "Misty Poetry".Representatives who hold this view include Fang Bing, Zang Kejia, Zhou Liangpei, etc.On the contrary, Xie Mian, Sun Shaozhen, Xu Jingya and others wrote successively to affirm this new wave of poetry. Firstly, poetry critic Xie Mian affirmed the spirit of exploration of these poets from the perspective of literary history, while Sun Shaozhen believed that these young poets What his poems represent is a new aesthetic principle, the difference between this principle and the traditional aesthetic principle lies in the "difference of human value standards", "in the eyes of young innovators, individuals should have a higher status,... When society, class, and times gradually no longer become the dominant force of individuals, the so-called personal emotions, personal joys and sorrows, and personal spiritual worlds in poetry will naturally increase the value of their existence. Society overcomes Barbarism, the return of humanity, will naturally lead to the return of humanity in art", and then summarized the three aesthetic principles of this batch of "misty poems", that is, "disdain to be the mouthpiece of the spirit of the times", "disdain to express self-emotion outside the world "Avoid writing about the experiences, heroic struggles and selfless work of the characters we are used to." And Xu Jingya, who is himself a member of the new wave of poetry, boldly used "modern tendency" and "modern poetry" in his thesis. The term "ism literature" summarizes the nature of the new wave of poetry.These three "rising" articles comprehensively expounded the literary historical significance, aesthetic principles, characteristics and connotations of the "obscure poetry tide".A brief summary of it is: from the reality of the object to the reality of the subject, from passive reflection to active creation.But on the other hand, in the mature form of "obscure poetry", the internal mechanism of the "May 4th" new literary tradition obviously played a role, and techniques such as montage, metaphor, and irony provided personalization and style for the collective experience of intellectuals. The refreshing imagery and the aesthetic tension of the imagery constitute a dramatic objectification of the conflict of consciousness, which is both an aesthetic expression of individual and collective experience.Famous images such as Bei Dao’s “epitaph” and Jiang He’s “monument”5 imply a collective image, revealing the symbiotic relationship between the poet and this generation.In this sense, they participated in the thought trend of "scar literature" at the turn of the 1970s and 1980s with a unique and relatively mature attitude.Shu Ting is one of the representative poets in this "obscure poetry wave".Her poems are sad but not pessimistic, sincere and melancholy. They not only pursue ideals in suffering, but also reflect on human self-worth. Faith, ideals, social justice, and strong personal rationality are all expressed through "I ’ This lyrical image manifests itself.It is precisely because of the firm and enterprising ax god that the image of "I" stands up from the eye-catching ruins: I overthrew definitions one after another; I smashed layers of shackles; only a eye-catching ruin remains in my heart... …But I stood up, on the vast horizon, and no one, no means, could push me down again.

──"The Voice of a Generation" Shu Ting seldom expresses her heart directly in her poems. She often creates the artistic realm of poems with symbolic feelings and hints, the combination and jump of images, which not only expands the artistic conception of poems, but also promotes the change and development of poetic language . Although "Misty Poetry" appears to be somewhat similar to Western modernism in form, it is still a return to the "May 4th Movement" consciousness in the history of experience content.The former is related to foreign literary thoughts and works, but whether it is in the underground period of the new poetry wave or the public period, this similarity cannot be understood as a one-dimensional imitation learning, but that they have recognized the cosmopolitan nature of their own experience in foreign thoughts factors, because in fact "it did not occur during the prosperous period of cultural exchanges between my country and foreign countries, but precisely during the narrowest period of our country's literary and artistic roads, during the years when the country was closed to the outside world. The main force of the new tendency - a group of young people, in cultural life and its In a poor environment, even when there were few volumes of foreign poetry collections circulating in China, similar poems were written sporadically but invariably." 6. Due to the constraints of the social, political and cultural environment at that time, this A debate about "obscure poetry" finally ended with a strong political meaning, but as time went on, this new "obscure poetry wave" has established a position that cannot be ignored in the history of literature, and their aesthetic pursuit has become Recognized by the history of literature and the majority of readers, heresy has been turned into tradition, which constitutes a very important aesthetic text in post-Cultural Revolution literature.

The rise of this new aesthetic principle, on the one hand, is not limited to a style of poetry, it is also reflected in narrative styles such as novels, dramas, and movies; Like the participants of "literature", literature's pursuit of modern art exploration after the "Cultural Revolution" has been reflected in different degrees among the three generations of writers, old, middle and young.The older generation of writers is mainly reflected in the continuation of the modernist literary exploration tradition of the 1940s in the new era, such as the late Mu Dan and the still living Du Yunxie7 and other poets of the "New Chinese Poetry School" and writers such as Wang Zengqi, whose novels have been published one after another; Wang Meng A group of writers who grew up in the 1950s also created a number of novels with novel structures and techniques, which had a great influence in the literary world; while the younger generation of writers who grew up during the "Cultural Revolution" were similar to Western novels. Modernist art has a more inner emotional coincidence. They do not attribute this exploration only to the novelty of artistic expression, but to express the historical experience of a generation and the living experience in reality.

Beginning in the late 1970s, a series of novels by Wang Meng, Li Guowen's novels, Ru Zhijuan's short story "The Story of the Wrong Editing", and Zong Pu's short story "Who Am I" all showed new art by coincidence. Pursue.Wang Meng’s creation was the earliest topic that aroused widespread controversy in the field of fiction. In less than two years from 1979 to 1980, he successively published six novelettes and short stories called “cluster grenades”8. Taking the character's psychology as the structural clue, it adopts artistic techniques such as inner monologue, free association and symbolism.Although Wang Meng's exploration of the narrative style of these novels mainly comes from expressing his life experience of "eight thousand miles in his homeland and forty years of wind and cloud" in a limited space, the works have some expressive characteristics of stream-of-consciousness literature. It not only gives people a fresh reading experience, but also triggers discussions on stream-of-consciousness literature. In September 1981, Gao Xingjian's "Preliminary Exploration of Modern Fiction Techniques" was published by Huacheng Publishing House, which aroused the strong interest of many writers. In August of the following year, "Shanghai Literature" magazine published Feng Jicai, Li Tuo, and Liu Xinwu The correspondence of two writers has expanded the scope of discussion from the innovation of novel style and technique to the evaluation of the entire Western modernism, indicating that while participating in scar literature and reflection literature, writers of this generation have also begun to awaken their literary consciousness. .

Among the generation of young writers who grew up during the "Cultural Revolution", Zhang Xinxin, Liu Suola, Xu Xing, Li Tuo, Can Xue, etc. also published a series of novels, which aroused the attention and controversy of the critics.Compared with the writers who grew up in the 1950s, they lacked the optimism and self-confidence of the previous generation. The special experience of being inspired by fanatical beliefs and suddenly abandoning them during the "Cultural Revolution" created their sense of emptiness and loneliness. 9 Therefore, Their closeness to Western modernist art is not limited to the exploration of new forms of expression, but is more reflected in the struggle against reality and the thinking and pursuit of individual destiny.In "Dreams of Our Age", Zhang Xinxin expresses the pain of this generation with the unique delicacy of women, which cannot be replaced by others. The heroes and heroines in "On the Same Horizon" all saw the hypocrisy and fragility of traditional values ​​in the bitter experience of the Cultural Revolution, so they had to rely on their own efforts to fight and struggle, so the "Bengal tiger" became the hero's symbol: "It There are strong opponents in nature, in order to deal with them, the Bengal tiger has to become more vigilant, more flexible, braver and more cruel..." This kind of abnormal psychology just reflects the historical disaster left on the younger generation The scars also show their struggle against reality and despair.Liu Suola's novels take several students from the Composition Department of the Conservatory of Music as the protagonists. They are looking for their own lives and their desire to create music melodies, which forms a sharp conflict with the outdated and rigid educational system represented by Professor Jia. The novel tries to use musical It combines the adolescence turmoil of a generation of young people, the sprouting of individual consciousness, and the absurdity and nightmares they experienced in real life into the manic blood of this group of crazy young artists, revealing a more obvious emptiness With a sense of desperate rebellion.Can Xue’s novels embody despair, loneliness and irrational tendencies most resolutely, and for more than ten years, she has always adhered to her own narrative style, combining modernist language art with China’s living conditions, and has become the most persistent and struggling novel in contemporary China. The hardest modernist novelist.

After the "Cultural Revolution" in the field of drama, a new crisis occurred after the unprecedented prosperity of social problem dramas. After the excitement brought about by drama's participation in the transformation of social reality passed away, the staleness and solidification of drama literature and drama performance art the inevitable result.The earliest artistic exploration of dramatic expression began in 1979. Its biggest feature is to focus on expressing the complexity and richness of the human soul and inner world, and strive to open up multiple possibilities for drama to express human life. In 1982, Ma Zhongjun, Jia Hongyuan, and Qu Xinhua's "Heat Flow Outside the House" and Gao Xingjian's "Absolute Signal" (co-authored by Liu Huiyuan) were exploratory dramas with great influence. "Heat Flow Outside the House" uses surreal symbolism to contrast the heat flow outside the house with the coldness inside the house. The heat flow symbolizes the boiling life, and the cold symbolizes the selfishness and meanness of the soul. Selfishness and despicableness constitute opposite images representing different lives. "Absolute Signal" adopts the artistic principles of "virtual" and "hypothetical situation" of drama, breaking the fixed way of communication between audience and actors in traditional drama, through a few iron frames and chairs, coupled with the actor's Acting and sound effects, virtual trips typical of a moving train car.On the other hand, the work also breaks the old practice of "present ongoing" time structure of drama, and expands the so-called "present ongoing" structure into the superposition of three real spaces that express the characters' present, past and future imagination. Interlacing, thus disrupting the "chronological" sequence of traditional drama, resorting to psychological logic and the structural principles of polyphonic symphony.The plot of the novel is that a group of people waited for the bus to enter the city at the station with their own purposes, but after waiting for ten years, they discovered that the station was an abandoned station.Its practical significance is obviously very strong, but its form borrows from Western absurd dramas and absurd consciousness, reminiscent of the famous "Waiting for Godot".

The Chinese literary circle after the "Cultural Revolution" pursued the modern consciousness of literature. Although it was limited to the exploration of modern art techniques at the beginning, it soon showed the writer's holistic thinking about the contradictions in real life and the meaning of personal existence. Therefore, it It is inevitable to cause different views and even debates in the academic field.The evaluation of Western modernism became a common concern in the literary world in the early 1980s, and caused a controversy about modernist literature.From the flourishing of "scar literature" in the late 1970s to the criticism of the film "Bitter Love" in 1980; from the discussion of Western modernist literature in the early 1980s to the criticism of humanitarianism and alienation in 1983, all It shows the twists and turns and difficulties in the development of contemporary Chinese literature. After 1985, the trend of modernism in China has ceased to be a taboo, and modern techniques and modern consciousness have been generally accepted by the intellectual circles, and they no longer appear as heretics. Contemporary literary creation has thus gained a great deal of attention in terms of expressive art. quality improvement.