The change of Lu Xun's creative style

1927 On September 27th, Lu Xun left Guangzhou with Xu Guangping and more than ten pieces of luggage. With panic and indignation, he passed through Hong Kong and Shantou, set foot on the land of Shiliyangchang on 19 10/3, and went straight to live in the concession. From the moment he set foot on Taikoo Wharf, as a "man without sea", the last ten years of his life were doomed to have an entangled relationship with Shanghai Beach, and he was doomed to fall into a complicated situation of wanting to abandon and stay, hating and loving.

Lu Xun's creative career was obviously influenced by the bustling ten-mile foreign field: he never sat under the locust tree to copy ancient monuments, nor chewed his soul when writing Weeds, and even gave up his successful memory and narrative style. Once he arrives in Shanghai, he can't write novels. In his letter to Xiao Hong and Xiao Jun, he said, "You can stop working now, but you can't settle down. If you leave your hometown and go to a place where you were born, you haven't had sex, that is, you haven't taken root in this land, which is easy to happen. It is common that an author will never write an article after leaving his own country. After I arrived in Shanghai, I couldn't write a novel. This place in Shanghai really couldn't make out with him. " [1] This passage reveals Lu Xun's predicament in Shanghai.

Dana emphasized in "Philosophy of Art": "You must have a certain spiritual climate to develop a certain talent; Otherwise, it will be aborted. Therefore, with the change of climate, the types of talents will also change; If the climate becomes the opposite, so will the types of talents. The spiritual climate seems to make a "choice" among various talents, allowing only certain types of talents to develop and more or less excluding others. Because of this effect, you can see the artistic schools in some countries in some times, developing the ideal spirit and realistic spirit, sometimes paying attention to sketch, and sometimes paying attention to color. The trend of the times has always dominated. Those who try to develop in other ways will find this road impassable; The pressure of popular thought and social atmosphere has set a development path for the artist, either suppressing the artist or forcing him to change course. " [2] This passage is very suitable for explaining what happened after Lu Xun lived in Shanghai. The Shanghai Concession in the 1930s made Shen Congwen's novel creation, and the Shanghai Concession in the 1930s also suppressed Lu Xun's creative vitality, forcing him to change his way and adjust his creative style to adapt to the spiritual climate of the Concession.

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There are many explanations for Lu Xun's failure to write novels in Shanghai and the new features of his later essays and A New Story. This paper chooses to explain it from the perspective of Lu Xun's discomfort or appeal to the cultural atmosphere of the concession. After living in the Shanghai Concession, some obvious changes have taken place in Lu Xun's creation.

First, the internal driving force of creation has changed from initiative to response. When talking about the reasons for the creation of the prose "Grave", Lu Xun said: "As far as I am concerned, there is still a little meaning, that is, I finally have a trace of life. So, although I know that the past has passed, I can't chase Nie, but I can't be so determined. I also want to curb the dross and build a new small grave. On the one hand, I will be buried with it, on the other hand, I will miss it. " [3] When Lu Xun wrote "Scream", it was because "I can't forget the loneliness and sadness of that day, so I still couldn't help shouting a few times to comfort the warrior who was running in loneliness and let him not be afraid of his predecessors." [4] As for the autobiographical narration of vagrancy, the prose poem of "Wild Grass" chewing the soul and the nostalgic prose of "Morning Flowers Picking Up in the Evening", these creations can be said to flow naturally from the river of life, and the reasons for their creation are completely in line with the "power of literature" expressed in his translation of "Symbol of Depression": "[5] These creations are inspired by emotions and are based on" the power of literature ".

But after arriving in Shanghai, most of Lu Xun's works are the products of passive coping with psychological state. When we look at the contents of the first collection of essays written by Lu Xun in Shanghai, it is easy to form an impression that they are all squeezed out. Among them, there are five replies and four prefaces. Three Essays by Bandits, Two Essays by a Certain Pen, Christmas greetings from Hong Kong and condolences and congratulations are the only four essays published after Shanghai 1927. But they are all made by cutting and pasting news, advertisements, announcements, etc., and they are encouraged. Taiping Song was written on 1928. "A Page of the History of China's Russian War" and "Physician" are also scrapbooks. Newspaper clippings are somewhat boring. Wu, a writer of Yuanyang Butterfly School, said that novels can collect materials from news stories in newspapers, and only need to find appropriate ways to connect the materials together. Lu Xun applied the creative experience of Yuanyang Butterfly School to the creation of essays and created a large number of essays. What is even more boring is that he also revealed his private affairs to the public: "Lu Xun's Enlightenment in Shanghai" and "Comments on Professor Gu Jiegang's" Pending Trial "(and Letter) are almost Shanghai-style shows. I really can't come up with "stuff", so let's talk about "Me and Zong" and list it in Lu Xun's Translation Bibliography to show that he has done a lot of things in literature. A few more articles are attacks or counter-attacks on the Creation Society, the Sun Society and modern critics. For more than two years, Lu Xun wrote these things. It seems that Lu Xun's artistic creation nerves have weakened, leaving almost a low-level "stimulus-response" composition perception. This is also the secret of Lu Xun's efforts to advocate that translation is more important than creation. In the atmosphere of concession, a person's pure literary creation failed, so he advocated translation. This makes people sigh that Jiang Lang has exhausted his talents. It is not that Lu Xun has really exhausted his talents. This is mainly due to his inadaptability to Shanghai's cultural climate, resulting in his poor literary creation. Liu Guangdi, one of the "Six Gentlemen of the Reform Movement of 1898", said: "It is a great regret for students not to go to Shanghai; However, it is a great blessing that the literati are not in Shanghai. " [6] This sentence is really appropriate for Lu Xun. Not only can't the novel be written, but the history of China literature has only become a beautiful plan. I think how passionate, thoughtful and talented Lu Xun was when he wrote Scream, Wandering, Weeds, Flowers in the Morning, and A Brief History of Chinese Novels. It is not easy to say I love you in Shanghai, so Lu Xun said, "I think living in Shanghai is always bad." [7] However, when Lu Xun gradually adapted to the spiritual climate of the concession, his essays were prolific. Although prolific, some of them are responses.

Secondly, the critical vision of Lu Xun's essays in Shanghai is getting narrower and narrower, and the ideological realm of his essays is not as broad as that of the previous period. Concession is a place where things meet and five parties meet. If you are fully involved and inclusive, you can gain a broad and tolerant vision and mind. However, if you have ideological prejudice or political extremes, then your mind and ideological realm may become narrow. Concession was originally dominated by British and American culture and system. However, due to the influence of studying abroad background and temperament, Lu Xun lacks a good impression on modern British and American culture and gentlemanly manners. "He always throws great contempt and hatred at the slave phase and' West Phase' of comprador literati who worship foreign things and flatter foreign countries. I remember once Mr. Cao Juren invited Mr. Lu Xun; Lin Yutang is also here. During the dinner, Lin Yutang boasted and said proudly: "Once in Hong Kong, several Cantonese people studied Cantonese as if they were speaking' Mandarin', and they spoke very enthusiastically; I spoke English to them, and they were afraid ... Mr. Lu Xun was furious. He patted the table and stood up and accused Lin Yutang:' What are you! Do you want to oppress our own compatriots with foreign words? ..... Let Lin Yutang make a fool of himself in public. At that time, I and a few friends thought that Mr. Lu Xun was right and sang with him emotionally, but I hated Lin Yutang's Xi Thinking. In my contacts with Mr. Lu Xun, I really have never seen him so angry with people. "[8] Anglo-American culture made him inaccessible, and Anglo-American behavior made him disliked. Anglo-American liberalism naturally won't interest him. This attitude towards Britain and America was revealed many times in Lu Xun's correspondence with people in his later years. 1927165438+1In a letter to Jiang on October 20th, Lu Xun said, "I seldom read British and American works and I don't like them very much." [9] In a letter to Hu Feng on May 1935 17, Lu Xun also said: "British works are boring (both the British and I are wrong). "[10] English people's attitude towards life and cultural interest are hard to compare with Lu Xun's temperament. There is another interesting thing. When Beiping Annotation Spectrum edited by Lu Xun and Zheng Zhenduo was about to go to press, Lu Xun wrote to Zheng Zhenduo in June 1934+ 10/1to discuss the distribution of annotation spectrum to libraries in various countries (except France, Spain, Germany and those who think they are gentlemen). [1 1] In Italy and Germany, when fascism is in full swing, it is reasonable not to give it away for the time being. Britain does not send it, just because it is a "self-righteous gentleman." "This also shows how much Lu Xun doesn't like Britain.

The ideological realm of Lu Xun's essays in the later period is not as broad as that in the earlier period, and there is a tendency of "consumption is small and thin" [12]. The reason why Xu Zhimo's poems are "consumed by small things" is because "I don't know which direction the wind blows", while the "consumed by small things" in Lu Xun's essays is the result of moving closer to external political groups. "Which power group you choose almost means choosing a group's way of life". [13] In the later period, Lu Xun incorporated his own creation into the cultural purpose and planning of the left wing, which led to more personal disputes and sectarian disputes in his essays, and gradually gave up his personal recollection writing style, that is, integrated the thinking of national character transformation into his personal life experience. The focus of Lu Xun's later creation has gradually alienated into a general examination of the nation and the individual and a self-dissection of the soul, which is the important mission and charm of modern literature.

Lu Xun has a high degree of vigilance against colonial consciousness. In his letter to Yao Ke on March 6, 1934,/KLOC-0, he said that some people boasted when introducing China's literature and art to foreign countries, and some foreigners also wrote books to distort China accordingly. He wrote in the letter, "Japanese reading chinese is easier, but their works are still mostly nonsense. After staying in Shanghai for half a month, they published a book, such as Roulette and Private Affairs, which made China look like a paradise for whoring and gambling. " [14] In the letter to Yao Ke on 24th of this month, it was also mentioned that westerners, because they didn't understand the history and customs of China, made a joke that "westerners painted China people thousands of years ago, but still wore pigtails and horseshoe sleeves" [15], and pointed out the importance of correctly introducing China's literature. His sensitivity to colonial culture also made him feel alienated and contradictory to the Shanghai Concession. Lu Xun has always enjoyed the free air of the concession and the cultural environment provided by the rational system, but he can't enjoy it with peace of mind. Lu Xun never completely denied the rationality of the existence of the concession, nor did he praise the status of the concession. Visible in the concession skeleton in my closet. This mentality is not suitable for creation, so Lu Xun can only find fault with the concession, trigger or deal with some useful and useless literary debates, and put forward "the weapon of art" or "the art of weapons" to express his views on the government authorities. Therefore, in terms of literary or cultural value, the realm of later essays is bound to be smaller, and it is not too much for essays to be regarded as "daggers and spears".

Thirdly, Lu Xun's early essays face the whole traditional culture and system; The later essays mainly vilify the bad habits and phenomena in the modern commercial society of Shili Ocean Park. The early stage is a grand narrative, and the later stage is a trivial narrative. In the early stage, it was anti-traditional agricultural culture; The later period is anti-modern business culture. Talent/rogue, helping leisure/helping leisure are the core vocabulary of later essays, and they are also part of the cultural characteristics of the concession. The later transformation shows the influence of concession culture on Lu Xun's creation.

When Lu Xun mixed his own figure into the concession in Shanghai, his creative mood seemed to be inseparable from the world. The old local creative road seems to be incompatible with the strange atmosphere of Chinese and western mixed in the concession. There seems to be no "iron house" to be destroyed here. People here seem to have a sense of self and don't need a spiritual mentor, because the strange scene presented by the concession itself has reached the extreme. Shanghai is not only regarded as a promising place for China's modernization, but also often accused of being the most morally depraved place. In literature, I am particularly worried about the latter situation. "1Left-wing literature since the 1920s has been attacking the failure of urban reality and encouraging people to struggle. Most writers full of liberal ideas fled the city and expressed their contempt at a distance. However, literature with official ideology is full of enthusiasm for praising and defending personal willpower that no one believes. Liberalism can be regarded as a way out, and the political intention of the novel can be regarded as another spiritual way out for Shanghai. One thing in common is that all searches are based on strong anxiety about the current situation in Shanghai. Among the advocates of realism, romanticism, aestheticism, symbolism and even nationalism, no one thinks that Shanghai can exist in this mediocre way. " [16] Both old and new intellectuals accused Shanghai of depravity, and the lower-level workers' sense of group resistance was also inspired by the agitator, and they were full of mixed feelings of love and hate for the city. Therefore, criticism is to everyone's taste, even if porn writers show explicit sexual desire, they will make serious criticisms and statements.

In the concession of Shanghai in 1930s, the national narrative of resisting foreign aggression was widely accepted, because the national concept of civil society was very strong. Stories of curiosity and privacy exposure also have a wide readership, because the miracle of the rise of modern Shanghai has created the curiosity and peeping psychology of citizens. For writers with national consciousness and artistic conscience, the more appropriate way is to criticize the bad habits of the concession. In this respect, Lu Xun inherited the way of criticizing the national character in the early stage, but this national character inferiority is mainly not the national character inferiority under the traditional autocratic system, but the inferiority under the modern concession business tradition and colonial culture. Due to the short history of Shanghai Concession, the bad habits of its citizens inevitably appear superficial and superficial, and Lu Xun's criticism is rarely frank. Due to the limitation of the target of criticism and the audience of essays, the style of essays is a bit "Shanghai style" and close to vulgarity.

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The influence of concession culture on Lu Xun's creation can also be seen from the style evolution of the text in the early and late stages of New Stories. The narrative discourse and style of the first three novels, mending the sky, flying the moon and casting a sword, conform to the stipulation of historical novels and strive to build a complete story. Even if it is glib, such as the little husband between Nu Wa's legs, it is because of the powerful enlightenment concept that the text is split. [17] The story of mending the sky (65438+) and "Running to the Moon" (1926 438+02 Xiamen) is consistent with his mentality of "the old battlefield is safe, the new garden is lonely, two soldiers are many, and the halberd falls alone" after the new culture ebbs in Beiping. The legendary rendering of revenge scene in Casting Sword is full of tragic heroic feelings. Compared with Water Control written in Shanghai, these three novels are quite different in content and narrative style. "Managing Water" adopted a large number of new terms in the concession, aiming at the abnormal cultural form of the concession and the corruption of the authorities, and its narrative style was also influenced by the flashy banter of the concession literature, reaching the Shanghai style of wanton indulgence and interesting. Later works, full of Shanghai-style jokes, are a bit of post-modern nonsense style and not serious. The story is deliberately interspersed with all kinds of naughty words that ridicule the real world and life, increase the point of view, and vent personal privacy revenge at will. A large number of pidgin dialects and common sayings in the concession are contaminated at will and tend to be kitsch. All these show that Lu Xun's works are influenced by concession culture and Shanghai style, and tend to be popular texts. "If a text resonates with readers, it will become popular. If a text is to be popular, its meaning must be suitable for readers to understand the words used in their social experience. Popular texts assure readers that their world view (discourse) is meaningful. The satisfaction of consumer culture is the satisfaction that people get from being sure that their interpretation of the world is consistent with others. " In Shanghai Concession, "humorous atmosphere" is very popular. [19] Lu Xun once criticized the kitsch tendency of "Shanghai School": "After I arrived in Shanghai, there was an amazing thing, that is, the fiction of news stories. No matter how miserable it is, it must be fun-fun in the sea. As long as it is out of power or suffering, it will always be ridiculed-fun ridicule. " [20] However, the narrative style of Lu Xun's later novels in New Stories just falls into such a stereotype.

Taking a large number of humorous words and plots in New Stories as an example, the interest revealed in the later works is profoundly different from that in the earlier period. Zhu Guangqian made a classic exposition of "humor" in On Poetry, and he agreed with Hysmans's assertion that humor is a joke on fate. [2 1] Zhu Guangqian distinguished two kinds of humor. He believes that "joking about fate" is an escape and a conquest. Playing the world with humor is biased towards evaders and being open-minded towards conquerors. An open-minded person understands the world in tragedy, and his humor is out of the deepest affection, so it is funny on the surface and painful in the bones; The comedian saw the innocence of personnel in the comedy, and seemed to think that this discovery was his cleverness and superiority, so he laughed it off and made fun of it. This humor sometimes becomes frivolous. There is compassion in the humor of an open-minded person, whose humor can be called "tragic humor". The comedian is a bit cynical, and his humor can be called "comic humor". [22] It can be roughly said that the "humor" in Lu Xun's early novels is based on deep affection, with funny surface, painful bones and strong compassion, which is a humorous and serious tragedy "humor". However, the novels in the later period of New Stories are a bit funny and playful, revealing the superiority and humor of frivolous spirit, and the "oil" and "humor" in comedy. The division of "humor" is what Lu Xun said frankly in the preface of "New Stories", "from serious to smooth." There are many humorous images in Lu Xun's early works, such as: Kong Yiji playing a joke on Kong Yiji, the storm's feeling that the old lady of nine pounds is "worse than the next generation", the true story of Ah Q's misdeeds in Ah Q's cartoon, the portrait of her husband dressed in ancient costume in Mending the Sky, the crow stuck in the river in Running to the Moon, and the hen shot by mistake the next year. These humorous images are roughly consistent with Zhu Guang. However, the "humor" in the later works of New Stories is somewhat glib and cynical. In the humorous and satirical narrative, Lu Xun gives us a kind of discourse pleasure with superior spirit, such as the battle between Zhuangzi and the dead, the search for Mozi at the end of the non-attack, the "capital of five treasures" in customs clearance, etc. This kind of humor is similar to the so-called "fun-loving ridicule" and "sea-like ridicule", and the "humorous" style of the later novels of New Stories is undoubtedly influenced by the concession. The extensive use of hooliganism metaphor and sexual metaphor makes readers get the expected reading pleasure. The novel caters to the consumption psychology of maritime citizens and their cultural imagination of the concession.

The first three articles of New Stories are more subjective. Whether mending the sky explains the origin of literature and human beings with the narrative of desire, or the self-description of the protagonist's ending and the insinuation of Gao Changhong's misdeeds in Running to the Moon, or the thrilling description of the revenge scene in Casting a Sword, it absorbs the narrator's strong life experience and has a strong individual life performance. In the later period, Li Shui, Cai Wei, who broke through the barrier, were either attacking or dying. Although some jokes and innuendos about real people and stories were randomly interspersed, they were basically stories of the "other" and lacked the participation of individual life experiences. This kind of "other" story telling is more extroverted, which is the result of the connection between history and reality, and lacks the depth of in-depth excavation. The themes of the first three articles are taken from legends and myths, and the last five articles are taken from history. Myths and legends such as mending the sky, flying to the moon and casting swords are full of fantasy colors, which vaguely interweave the life forms of ancient times with individual love and hate, and realize the depth of ethical narrative. In the later five novels with historical stories as the theme, history is used as a metaphor for reality, aiming at comparing, warning and criticizing, and extending the outside world and life. The reason is that under the old pagoda tree in Beijing and on the wooden floor in Xiamen, it is easy to integrate myths and legends with personal inner experience. In the concession of Shanghai, living in a three-story building, watching the hustle and bustle of life, or chatting with friends in hotels and cafes, it is difficult to have a delicate state of mind of self-examination and self-perception. The extraordinary prosperity of acousto-optic electrification in the concession also seems to inhibit the imagination of tracing the source. Therefore, the five novels in the later period of New Stories tend to tell the story of "the other" and allude to reality with history.

Nine years later, Lu Xun hastily resumed the writing plan of New Stories in Shanghai. The way he chose was the so-called Shanghai School, his adaptation and his obsequiousness. The cultural monsoon in Shanghai beach is so strong that even Lu Xun is influenced by it without exception. For Lu Xun, either he can't write it, or he has a Shanghai style in his hand. Zhu Ziqing said: "As far as I know, the so-called modern position can be said to be the position of' appealing to both refined and popular tastes', emphasizing the position of laymen or ordinary people and the position of being close to the people." [23] From this perspective, the later chapters of "New Stories" are different from his early works in modernity while secularizing.