Shen Congwen's relationship with the Taoist spirit of art

When I read a lot of Shen Congwen's works, for example, when I read his masterpieces such as "Border City", "Long River", "San San", "Xiao Xiao" and so on, I strongly feel that the kind of inner temperament and unique style inside his works are closely related to the Taoist spirit of art. This is actually not only a manifestation of Shen Congwen's personal character, but also shows another important cultural source of his style, which is a valid issue.

We have already explored the many causes of Shen's style. But to focus on linking him to the spirit of Taoist art, to raise the question, is clearly something new. When such a question is clear, the question itself has a logical force that guides us along its inherent direction to explore other aspects of the question.

After I came up with the idea that Shen Congwen's artistic style is connected to the spirit of Taoist art, I further thought about what aspects of his connection are manifested. This is actually the internal logic of his question itself, guiding us to further think about the three very important aesthetic categories in Shen's works.

? Shen Congwen's novels about western Hunan implement three aesthetic categories:

The first is "childishness", the second is "life", and the third is "divinity".

Shen Congwen wrote some of the most beautiful works, often children. For example, San San in San San, Cuicui in Biancheng, Xiao Xiao in Xiao Xiao, and the long novel Long River. The girls in "The Long River" have the same characteristic of being very pure and innocent, not polluted by any modern civilization, respecting their natural nature, and bringing a very warm feeling to their families and people around them. These children may have a broken family, for example, Cuicui's parents are both dead, brought up by his grandfather. But after reading the work, we feel that with the child's innocent attachment, the grandfather's heart is a great comfort, the whole family is full of a kind of harmony and joy.

To cite an example of San-San, she and her mother rely on each other to keep a mill, the childishness is fully expressed, she thought that the mill is their family, the mill is connected to the aqueduct is also theirs, and the fish inside the aqueduct should be theirs, so she always called her mother to drive away those unruly anglers, of course, her mother will not listen to her request, because the aqueduct is not theirs. not theirs. Whenever San-San comes to this time, she always brings a stool and sits quietly next to the unruly angler to see how many fish this young man has caught in the canal of their house. This description is obviously full of childishness and cute childishness. The work also wrote that the mother called San-San back to eat at noon, San-San always said I don't want to go back while walking home, Shen Congwen went on to write that, not to go back to where she went? She did not think about it, which puts the child that kind of innocence and purity fully expressed.

In Border Town, when writing about Cuicui, there is also a kind of divine stroke. Cuicui sits by the river in the dusk of the sunset and imagines herself, how to leave her grandfather to go far downstream. She envisioned leaving her grandfather and letting him look for her like a madman in a great hurry. On the surface, it seems that Cuicui wanted to leave her grandfather and go far away, but in fact, what she showed was her attachment to her grandfather, and her hope that he would be in such a hypothetical scenario because he was in such a hurry because he had lost her, reflecting her deep love for her grandfather. With this kind of pure feelings, without any secular considerations of a kind of attachment, with this kind of childlike innocence, the family is warm, is full of joy. This means that Shen Congwen wrote Cuicui wrote San San and other images of these young girls, not only to write a specific beautiful girl, but also in the performance of a belief is "childlike".

A child's heart is a kind of spiritual power to resist the pressure of the world. With a child's heart, the world is bright and the family is full of joy. Even when encountering unpredictable disasters, it can hold up a blue sky. In Shen Congwen's works, another important category is "life", which is a very important yardstick for Shen to evaluate social personnel. Everything favorable to life is beautiful and good, on the contrary, it is false, ugly and evil.

One of his works is also about a girl named Xiaoxiao, who, according to local custom, got married to a child in her arms. Marrying a child in her arms clearly reflects the savagery of local customs, which are inhuman. In such an environment, Xiao Xiao grows up. Unable to resist the lure of a young flower dog's beautiful song, she fell in love with the flower dog and became pregnant, which according to local custom, she had to be executed. But because she is pregnant, her mother-in-law's family and Xiao Xiao's uncle are inexplicably waiting for the final judgment of fate. Waiting and waiting for the child to fall into the ground in October, is a very beautiful boy. In the work, it is written that the heaven is full, the earth is square, the cry is loud, and the mother-in-law's family loves such a good child. What kind of punishment should be given has been put behind them. In this work, she has gained a chance to survive and resisted the oppression of barbaric customs by virtue of the inner strength of life itself. Life shows its miracle here.

Another very important aesthetic category implemented in Shen Congwen's novels on western Hunan is "divinity", which is actually nature in Shen Congwen's mind. In Shen's mind, divinity is in fact nature. He said that where the government is not in charge, letting the gods be in charge means that we have to listen to the nature of customs, and follow the law of nature to maintain the balance of the society and the stability of life. Of course, Shen felt y the divinity of this pure land in western Hunan, and encountered the challenge of modern civilization, the concepts of modern people came in, and the ancient customs began to disintegrate. He had some deep worries, but his creation is obviously trying to use his own artistic imagination to keep this pure, so that the divinity continue to play its due role.

So Shen Congwen later said that divinity has a premise, that is, a state of nature. When nature passes away, divinity dies. In Shen Congwen's works, all his efforts are to guard the power of this divinity, to maintain the beautiful harmony of life style in his mind, the life in line with the divinity is full of vigor. The life that conforms to the divine nature is full of vigor. But when the divine nature encounters a major challenge, it is brought about by the people with a deep sense of anxiety. From this we can see that divinity is in fact a philosophical elevation of the childlike heart of life, a higher category of aesthetic, moral, and value. But whether it is divinity, life or childlike mind, in fact, in Shen Congwen's place in the end is to point to nature.

The child's heart shows a strong inner strength because it shows a natural purity. Life, of course, must conform to its natural law. The divinity is also a state of nature that obeys a custom. Therefore, Shen Congwen's novels of western Hunan theme of the kind of harmony and serenity of a pastoral atmosphere, is closely related to this kind of Taoist concept of art under the guidance of the aesthetic category, and finally are pointing to a state of nature, in this process is also full of challenges.

Shen Congwen has another work titled "Mei Jin, the Leopard and the Sheep", which is about a legend. The story is about a legend, that the leopard and Mei Jin, according to local custom, after falling in love, have to go to a jeweled cave for a rendezvous. According to the local custom, the leopard must give a gift to Meijin, and the one he chooses is a sheep. In order to meet with Mei Jin, he had to choose a sheep in his mind the most beautiful sheep, looking everywhere has not been to his liking, he went crazy like from the village to find the village, there are old people very sad watching the leopard's actions, advised him to find a random sheep to meet Mei Jin, but the leopard always feel to find a lamb most in line with his heart. He found his way from the village to the outskirts of the village, and finally found a lamb on the road that was pure white as snow and to his liking. Unfortunately, this lamb has been injured, he took to bandage after rushing to the jewel cave, but in the process of searching for the time passed, when he stepped into the jewel cave that moment, the star of the beginning of the day is already bright, he witnessed Mei Jin holding a dagger into his chest, because Mei Jin thought the leopard negative to miss the appointment, did not come, in despair, committed suicide. When Panther witnesses this tragedy, he falls to his knees and picks up the same dagger by Mei Jin's side and plunges it into his own chest. It is a tragedy, and we are all of the opinion that the sheep is a doomed fate. It was the sheep that delayed this beautiful marriage between the leopard and Meakin. It can be interpreted this way, but it can also be played in another way, the reason why the leopard and Meijin, it is difficult to become a happy couple, mainly because his love for Meijin that love, beyond the ordinary people imagine the degree. That kind of love is sacred love, so he wants to find a comparable to the world's most beautiful gift. The best gift in the world is hard to prove in experience, the best probably has not happened, so the leopard in the process of looking for this gift, in fact, with his own struggle, this struggle to respond to the end of the day, is that he is close to Mei Jin's kind of love of the divine so a kind of love.

Divine love is tortured, Cuicui's final tragedy, in a sense, but also because she and Nuo's love has exceeded the world. Leopard and Mei Jin for this beyond the world of love, paid the price of life. We can imagine, if he said that a random sheep to go to the appointment, they may be able to become a couple. But this love of theirs no longer has the power to shake the hearts of the people that this tragic story ends with.

Shen wrote this work to tell us that this is the ultimate beauty, an ideal of love. At the end of the work, he said hopelessly that men and women nowadays no longer have such a pure emotion. Considering marriage and family, the first thing that counts is cattle and sheep, money, status and honor. And the beautiful body of the beautiful song itself, no longer have it before that kind of power.

This story shows that returning to nature and respecting the value of life, taking into account the charm of love itself, this ideal has gradually left us in the present. Shen Congwen's creation is obviously trying to keep this beautiful memory, whether it is a positive or negative example, and finally show a truth, in Shen Congwen seems to be in line with the natural is beautiful. Obviously, he proved the value of the Taoist attitude of aesthetic ideal life with his own creation. This understanding is from the beginning of reading Shen works to realize a problem, and then according to the internal logic of the problem, to further think about it, linked to the specific description of the work to explain, focusing on showing a meaning.

The pastoral style of Shen Congwen's western Hunan theme is closely related to the spirit of Taoist art in traditional culture.

Shen Congwen's pastoral style is closely related to the spirit of Taoist art in traditional culture.

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