Chapter 62 Chapter 12 The literature of backwardness and "advancement"

Not long after the start of school, a notice was pasted on the door of our classroom that Dr. Tian Dewang, who had just returned from Italy, came to teach in the school and offered an elective course "Research on Dante's Divine Comedy" for the third and fourth grades. We were very interested. Seven or eight people clamored to vote. In the end, only three people registered. A few days before the class, one person withdrew. Only me and a male classmate were left. He said that he would also withdraw from the election. Delve into this esoteric classic.The head of the department asked us to have a sincere talk, saying that we should cherish the Italian literature professors who have real knowledge and meet the employment standards of the Ministry of Education at this time and place. talent.

When we came out, I begged them not to retreat.They compromised and said that they would wait until the date of withdrawing from the election passed, and then withdraw on the grounds of rebellion.In short, I was left alone with a teacher. It was mid-autumn in Wuhan in September, and the classroom that had just been installed with doors and windows, although it was the smallest one, was still bleak with cold wind. Mr. Tian is in a full suit and looks like a thin and elegant European literati. He was standing behind the podium and wrote some words on the blackboard. Later, he found a chair and sat down. I sat on it alone, and I only saw his shoulders. .After listening to the lecture for two weeks, I probably felt a little funny.One day the teacher said: "Since you have to walk from the girls' dormitory to the classroom, the distance to the teacher's dormitory where I live is about the same. Why don't you come to my house every week for classes? It's not so cold. My family has a simple population, only my wife and a child."

I went to ask Mr. Wu Mi, and he said, "You can try it, there are not enough classrooms. Mr. Tian's home is safe." Since then, I have climbed half a hillside to use my home, and I often have a cup of hot tea in class.Mrs. Tian is quite young, simple and gentle.Mr. Fu Shuotian, a male student, went to the Vatican to study theology. Before becoming a priest, he obtained a doctorate in literature before the victory of the Anti-Japanese War. He returned to China to marry a wife and have children.They also said that when they were in Leshan, in the "Hegel Studies" class taught by Professor Zhang Yi (Zhenru) from the Department of Philosophy, it was common for a teacher to sit and doze off all his life. What a scene it will be!

I remember it clearly.In that one-semester class, every teacher and student did their part.Teacher Tian really took me to read the important chapters of "Divine Comedy" seriously. Of course, like the focus of general literature courses, he spent much more time in the first "Inferno" than in the second and third "Purgatory") and "Paradise"), focusing on the beauty of poetry and rhythm and the power of imagery.In the second layer of hell, listening to the story of the lovers in the windstorm, Paul and Francesca, the poet Dante wrote: "For this. I mourn, like a dead person for a moment, unconscious, And lying on the ground like a dead body." In the future, I was able to understand the repeated sin and love in Western literature and art, which originated from various interpretations of "Divine Comedy".Teacher Yong continued to show various versions and pictures of his music brought back from Italy, which is impossible for ordinary classrooms.He is a rather reserved person and never speaks outside the book during class time.Strive to enrich the course content.

However, his dormitory is not big.Mrs. Tian holding the baby can be heard in the next room, but I am a girl after all, I have been acquainted often, and she will put the baby in Dad's arms when no one takes over.Teacher Tian often blushed and looked embarrassed, so I stood up and picked it up, and helped him hold the seven or eight-month-old boy while listening to the class.Later, Mrs. Tian put the children in my hands at five o'clock, and turned on the stove by herself to cook their dinner.Once, a classmate came to urge me to go to the class meeting. He went back and told everyone that he saw me sitting there with a child in my arms, the teacher was fanning the stove, and the teacher was still talking about "Hell" alone) I don't know which level of poetry and proses in the eighteen levels of hell were passed down as jokes at the time.

However, reading "Divine Comedy" for the first time was a fairly solid foundation, and it made me avoid a course of "Modern Russian Culture" taught by Professor Mu Langshan, which was a full-fledged hit at the time (I had already read the compulsory Russian culture). literature year).My insistence on reading "The Divine Comedy" is a big counter-current act. When many people are confused by fanatical political literature due to political fanaticism and inner depression, I have decided to take a simple path.I always believe that there are many ways to save the country.In the last year of university, I did not take "Modern Russian Culture" as an elective, but chose the remote "Divine Comedy".It has practical significance for my volunteering to study as a career.