The Position and Pursuits of Intellectuals - Research by the Literature Research Association

Author: Shi Shuping
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2006-06-01
Features: Although there is a slogan of "For Life" serving as a guiding principle, the overall style within the Literature Research Society is diverse and rich. The major writers displayed distinct personal characteristics in both their literary views and creative works, many of which were detached from the banner of "For Life" as a form of realism. The overall creative style of the major writers was gentle and refined, reflecting the general tendency of the Literature Research Society in their rich personalities. This style was inherited and continued by a group of young members of the Society, represented by Jiangzhe writers such as Ye Shengtao, Zhu Ziqing, Liu Yanling, Feng Zikai, Xia Guanzun, and Yu Pingbo. They added a fresh and ethereal touch to the gentle style, which later came to be known as the "White Horse Lake School" literary style. This group of Literature Research Society members occupied a very important position in the literary scene of the 1930s and even became the main impression for later generations to understand the style of the Literature Research Society. However, the creative style of the Literature Research Society was not solely gentle; it also included some outliers. For example, writers like Lu Yin, Wang Yiren, Xu Yuno, and Zhu Xiang belonged to the passionate category. Unlike most "stationary-type" intellectuals of the Literature Research Society, these writers had no fixed jobs and lived in poverty and hardship, facing numerous hardships and ultimately dying young. They were wandering intellectuals who were closer to the bottom of society. Compared to other intellectuals with fixed jobs, they were more sensitive to the harsh side of life and more likely to express sorrow in their suffering. As a result, their works were filled with romantic passion, with the flames of life bursting from every line. They were considered the outliers of the Literature Research Society, with a style far removed from gentleness and closer to that of the Creation Society. Lu Yin was a rebellious and unrestrained female writer. Moreover, although Lu Yin also gained recognition in literature with her "problem novels," her style was completely different from Bing Xin's gentle and refined demeanor. Her works reflected the life struggles of women from the petty bourgeoisie. Bing Xin had "love" and salvation for the world, while Lu Yin, lacking a loving childhood, was filled with doubt and hostility toward the world. Her two marriages, which she despised as worldly, made her more aware of the inescapable of women in that era. Lu Yin was "a woman who was swept up by the 'May Fourth' wave and awakened from the atmosphere of feudalism." Her rebellious nature and skeptical spirit made her closer to the spirit of the time among the "May Fourth daughters" who ran away from home. As a result, she endured more spiritual suffering and tragically died in May 1934 due to childbirth complications. Her suffering in life and the tragic outcome of her death seemed to symbolize the price that modern women had to pay for their awakening. If in the May Fourth New Literature, Yu Dafu was a bold and straightforward male writer who openly expressed the suffering of love and sex, then Lu Yin was one of the earliest female writers to explore the suffering of love and sex. Although her novels were also labeled as "problem novels" and were seen as philosophical reflections on "What is Life," and although Lu Yin's struggle with the "problem of life" was "dressed in the clothes of love," the best example is her "Old Friends by the Sea." However, it is clear that Mao Dun's summary still had its starting point in the theme of "For Life." If we set aside this assumed creative purpose, we might see Lu Yin more clearly. The characteristic of her novels is that she mixed the suffering of love with her "philosophical illness," and there was no issue of who was wearing whose clothes between life and love. In fact, the suffering of survival was intertwined with the suffering of love. In other words, the suffering of love is an important aspect of the suffering of survival. Lu Yin wrote about the ambiguous attitude of the awakening women of the May Fourth generation toward love in a romantic and emotional way, expressing their confusion between reason and emotion, and their unspeakable suffering in love. Representative works include "Old Friends by the Sea," "Diary of Li Shi," and "The Suffering of Or." Whether in terms of the themes of her novels or her expression, or in terms of the experiences and fates of the writers, Lu Yin was an outlier in the Literature Research Society. Her novels were a romantic, decadent, and rebellious style, completely different from the gentleness of the Society, and were quite controversial at the time. Zhu Xiang was a strange figure in the Literature Research Society, where his rebellious nature and elegance were wonderfully combined. His rebellious nature referred to his personality, while his elegance referred to his creative style. The two were contradictory yet harmoniously combined into a talented poet. Zhu Xiang's rebellious personality was evident throughout his life. During his time at Tsinghua University, someone was hired to teach at Tsinghua, but Zhu Xiang declared, "I might as well teach him, he can't teach me?" and ultimately ruined that person's chance of getting the job. At the time of his studies, Zhu Xiang was so poor that he didn't even have money to eat, yet he still funded an irregular literary journal called "New Literature" to publish his translations and original works, but it was forced to stop after only two issues due to financial reasons. When he was about to graduate from Tsinghua, he strongly resented the rigid and pretentious rules of the canteen, which required him to check in for breakfast or be marked absent. Zhu Xiang deliberately rebelled against these rules and was ultimately expelled. In August 1927, Zhu Xiang went to Lawrence University in Wisconsin, USA, for further studies. His strong sense of national pride and his rebellious nature made him feel like a "lost in a flock." He left Lawrence University in anger when the French textbook called Chinese people "monkeys." In January 1928, he transferred to the University of Chicago, but the following year, he transferred to Ohio University because a professor suspected he hadn't returned borrowed books and he couldn't bear the humiliation. In September 1929, Zhu Xiang returned to China early to support his family and taught at institutions such as Wuhan University and Anhui University. Due to frequent unpaid salaries, his life became increasingly difficult. A child who was less than a year old died of starvation because there was no milk to feed him. The poet's innocent fantasies about life were completely shattered by the harsh reality. In 1932, Zhu Xiang resigned from his teaching position at Anhui University in anger over a trivial difference in the name change from "English Department of Literature" to "English Department of Literature." In the next year and a half, he wandered from place to place, earning a living by writing, and ultimately took his own life by jumping into a river due to poverty, illness, and mental exhaustion at the age of 29. Zhu Xiang's personality was marked by the pride of traditional Chinese scholars and romanticism, but it was completely out of sync with the real society, making his life a tragedy. Strangely enough, Zhu Xiang's poetry was full of elegant beauty, neither a furious and radical critique of reality nor a praise in harmony with the times, but rather "free from restlessness, desire, and the slightly exaggerated dazzling brilliance" of composure and elegance. For example, in "The Little River," unlike Zhou Zuoren's companion poem that contained a struggle against life, it interwove the beauty of rhythm with a very composed tone. Works like "The Lotus-Picking Song" and "The Lullaby" show that Zhu Xiang's poetry drew on the soul of traditional Chinese ci poetry in terms of form, with a strong sense of music, and gentle and warm content, making significant contributions to the development of Chinese new poetry. "In the writing of poetry, what is meant is that new poetry should not be separated from old poetry, only using a broader rhyme and line structure, and only referring to forms like the sonnet or other poetic styles, but using pure Chinese emotions to handle the words within the scope of traditional Chinese poetry and write his own poetry. The characteristics of Zhu Xiang's poetry lie here," "The author's calmness and subtlety place his poetry in a position of classical and luxurious achievement, far removed from the entire literary interest." Such a form and aesthetic made Zhu Xiang's poetry somewhat lonely in his time, but looking back, one would discover the distant charm in his beautiful and elegant poetry. And his exploration of poetic meter and rhyme made further contributions to the development of new poetry. P201-203