Shen Congwen, the Sage of Literature

Shen Congwen (1902-1988), a representative figure of the Beijing School of Fiction, formerly known as Shen Yuehuan, was born in the remote and mysterious Fenghuang County in western Hunan Province, and was of Miao, Han, and Tujia descent. He enlisted in the army at the age of 14 after graduating from a high school and became disgusted with the darkness of the human world. After coming into contact with new literature, he traveled to Beijing in 1923, where he tried to enroll in a university but failed, and began to write under the pen name "Hugh Yun Yun" in distress. In the 1930s, he began to construct the "western Hunan world" in his mind with his novels, and completed a series of masterpieces, such as Border Town and The Long River. He examined the status quo of urban-rural confrontation from the perspective of a countryman, and criticized the ugliness of modern civilization in the process of entering China, which greatly enriched the scope of expression of modern novels in contradiction to the main generals of the New Literature.

Shen Congwen wrote more than 80 books in his lifetime, one of the most numerous among modern writers. The early collection of novels include Migan, After the Rain and Others, and Love of the Divine Witch, etc. The basic theme is already visible, but the two clues of urban and rural areas are still unclear, the description of gender relations is shallow, and the purity of literature is poorer. after the 1930s, his creative work has matured significantly, and the main novels in the collection include Long Zhu, Inn and Others, Stone Boat, Tiger's Nest, Little History of Ah Hei, A Small View Under the Moon, Eight Stallions, and A Small View Under the Moon.

From works to theory, Shen Congwen later completed his series of western Hunan, the beauty of the rural life forms, as well as the synthesis of the critical structure of the urban life forms with its counterpart, put forward his man and nature "harmony **** survival", the nature of the original, back to the philosophy of nature. The healthy and perfect human nature that "Western Hunan" can represent, a "beautiful, healthy and natural form of life that does not contradict human nature", is precisely the content of all his creations to be loaded. (Yu Hui, based on Qian Liqun's Thirty Years of Modern Chinese Literature)

About the Writer:

Shen Congwen (1902-1988), a representative figure of the Beijing School of Fiction, formerly known as Shen Yuehuan, was born in the mysterious and deserted Fenghuang County of Hunan Province, and was of Miao, Han, and Tujia ethnicity. He was enlisted in the army at the age of 14 after graduating from his elementary school and became disgusted with the darkness of the human world. After coming into contact with new literature, he traveled to Beijing in 1923, where he tried to enroll in a university but failed, and began to write under the pen name "Hugh Yun Yun" in distress. In the 1930s, he began to construct the "western Hunan world" in his mind with his novels, and completed a series of masterpieces, such as Border Town and The Long River. He examined the status quo of urban-rural confrontation from the perspective of a countryman, and criticized the ugliness of modern civilization in the process of entering China, which greatly enriched the scope of expression of modern novels in contradiction to the main generals of the New Literature.

Shen Congwen wrote more than 80 books in his lifetime, one of the most numerous among modern writers. The early collection of novels include Migan, After the Rain and Others, and Love of the Divine Witch, etc. The basic theme is already visible, but the two clues of urban and rural areas are still unclear, the description of gender relations is shallow, and the purity of literature is poorer. after the 1930s, his creative work has matured significantly, and the main novels in the collection include Long Zhu, Inn and Others, Stone Boat, Tiger's Nest, Little History of Ah Hei, A Small View Under the Moon, Eight Stallions, and A Small View Under the Moon.

From works to theory, Shen Congwen later completed his series of western Hunan, the beauty of the rural life forms, as well as the synthesis of the critical structure of the urban life forms with its counterpart, put forward his man and nature "harmony **** survival", the nature of the original, back to the philosophy of nature. The healthy and perfect human nature that "Western Hunan" can represent, a "beautiful, healthy and natural form of life that does not contradict human nature", is precisely the content of all his creations to be loaded. (Yu Hui, based on Qian Liqun's Thirty Years of Modern Chinese Literature)

About the Writer:

Shen Congwen (1902-1988), a representative figure of the Beijing School of Fiction, formerly known as Shen Yuehuan, was born in the mysterious and deserted Fenghuang County of Hunan Province, and was of Miao, Han, and Tujia ethnicity. He was enlisted in the army at the age of 14 after graduating from his elementary school and became disgusted with the darkness of the human world. After coming into contact with new literature, he traveled to Beijing in 1923, where he tried to enroll in a university but failed, and began to write under the pen name "Hugh Yun Yun" in distress. In the 1930s, he began to construct the "western Hunan world" in his mind with his novels, and completed a series of masterpieces, such as Border Town and The Long River. He examined the status quo of urban-rural confrontation from the perspective of a countryman, and criticized the ugliness of modern civilization in the process of entering China, which greatly enriched the scope of expression of modern novels in contradiction to the main generals of the New Literature.

Shen Congwen wrote more than 80 books in his lifetime, one of the most numerous among modern writers. The early collection of novels include "Migan", "After the Rain and Others", "The Love of God's Witch", etc. The basic theme is already visible, but the two clues of urban and rural areas are still unclear, the description of gender relations is shallow, and the purity of the literature is poorer. after the 30s, his creative work has matured significantly, and the main novels in the collection include "Long Zhu", "Inn and Others", "Stone Boat", "Tiger's Nest", "Ah Hei's Short History", "Little Scene Under the Moon", "Eight Charms", "The Picture of Eight Charms" and "The Picture of Eight Charms".

From works to theory, Shen Congwen later completed his series of western Hunan, the beauty of the rural life forms, as well as the synthesis of the critical structure of the urban life forms with its counterpart, put forward his man and nature "harmony **** survival", the nature, back to nature philosophy. The healthy and perfect human nature that "Western Hunan" can represent, a "beautiful, healthy and natural form of life that does not contradict human nature", is precisely the content of all his creations to be loaded. (Yu Hui, based on Qian Liqun's Thirty Years of Modern Chinese Literature)

The homeland, humanity, conversion,

Xiangxi in the thirties was also considered a relatively old world at that time, perhaps because of its history, but also because of its own unique geographic and cultural environment. And it is precisely because of its unique history, culture and geography that Xiangxi was able to mold such literary masters and artists as Shen Congwen. And also nearly make China's literary paradise in the thirties is no longer lonely. Shen Congwen for the country for the world to open up the ancient western Hunan, western Hunan also with its great native feelings and national tolerance to complete Mr. Shen and Mr. Shen's literary attitude.

In Mr. Shen's works, we can read a lot of imagery and multiple contradictions of sympathy and tolerance, is a deep longing for the homeland, the people of the hometown of the sincere and affectionate praise; is the high praise and eulogy for the beauty of human nature, but also on the hypocrisy and filth of the present world of the beauty of human nature's sympathy and retention; and even more on the death of the deceased's understanding of and respect for, that is an absolute conversion.

Shen Congwen, born in 1902, was a native of Fenghuang County, Hunan Province. His grandfather, Shen Hongfu, "at the age of 22 or so, he was a governor of Zhaotong, Yunnan Province, for a time. In the second year of Tongzhi, he was also governor of Guizhou." His father and uncles had all been soldiers, but had failed to make much of a name for themselves. Since his father was stationed in Beijing for most of his childhood, he was also neglectful of him. He often skipped school and traveled around his hometown, and as a result, he saw a lot of life and nature. As he wrote in "Autobiography of Congwen": "Just for the sake of being too wild in the daytime, I went everywhere to see, hear and smell: the smell of dead snakes, the smell of rotten grass, the smell of butchers, the smell of the earth kiln at the place where bowls are burned after being drenched by rain, although I can't describe it in words, I have to identify it but it's very clear. The sound of a bat, the sound of a yellow cow sighing when the butcher thrust his knife into its throat, the chirping of a great yellow-throated snake hidden in the earth cave of Tien-Chin, the faint sound of a fish poking at the surface of the water in the darkness, all of them, because of the difference in the weight of them when they came to my ears, I also remembered so clearly." [1] Yes, "even if people die and things are destroyed, the long ago past is no trace, only the smell and taste, although more fragile but more vital; although more illusory but more durable, more faithful, they still have a vague past to the memory, expectation and hope, they have almost no way to recognize the trace, strong and unyielding to support the whole giant building of memories. " [2]

When he was 13 years old, Shen Congwen, a "general's descendant", obtained his mother's consent to enter a local preparatory technology class. He could not learn any military knowledge in the class, but made friends with an old instructor named "Master Teng". This vine master seems to be a character from a narrow novel run out, really eighteen martial arts, all pieces can, no wonder the thirteen-year-old Shen Congwen, admire him exceptionally. About two years later, Shen Congwen got the permission of the parties involved, had to use the name of the additional soldiers, stationed in the defense of chenzhou (yuanling), four months later, and then put into huaihua. He stayed in this small township for only 16 months, but he saw 700 people beheaded. Later, he followed different units to Hunan, Sichuan and Guizhou. In addition to his military service, he was a police clerk, a tax collector and a custodial proofreader.

During this period of time (he was a frequent visitor to the boats up and down the Yuan River in western Hunan), Shen made friends with all sorts of people, such as military officers, bandits, private prostitutes, and boatmen. Thus, at a young age, he was already exposed to the lustful, depraved, and heroic side of the adult world. Among the many events he experienced were some that appeared to be very evil, but when viewed from another perspective, were expressions of the beauty of the human spirit. These events left a deep impression on him. Later, in "Autobiography of Congwen" and many short stories, he recorded those most memorable characters and events. For example, in Three Men and a Woman a young tofu store owner, after the death of the woman he had an illicit love for, dug her out of her grave and carried her to a cave to sleep for three days and three nights. When he was sentenced to death, he had no regrets at all and said, "It's beautiful, it's beautiful".

This period of wandering was very important to Shen Congwen's later writing life, not only because he could gain a lot of insights and stimulating experience, but also, and most importantly, it made him increase his sense of history and factual knowledge. At that time the Xinhai Revolution was in full swing and spreading throughout China.

In this way, little by little, through accumulation and deep thought, he began his artistic process of "emotional inflammation and its treatment". However, the inflammation of his poetic feelings was not stimulated by the turbulence of the current situation, but by the loss of human nature, and thus condensed into a pearl of strange and colorful art in a piece of neglected Mongolian landscape. In "Autobiography of Congwen", "Scattered Memoirs of Xiang Xing", and "Xiangxi" and other essays, it always makes us feel that Xiangxi is a mysterious and humanistic heaven and earth, such as "Biancheng", "Chenzhou", and "Huaihua Town" and other masterpieces, which are glittering with the strong local color of the original mysteriousness and peculiarities in the border area, and exuding the breath of the virgin land that is astonishing and intoxicating. Certain wild flavor rich ancient customs, several fossilized into the human mind, Shen Congwen does not write, I am afraid that future generations will be difficult to find the trail. At the same time, the mystery of xiangxi is also related to the special ethnicity. The history of "Chu" people's fantasy mood, must be nurtured in this environment, can grow into a moving poetry. If you want to preserve it, you also need this environment. Therefore. Shen Congwen to write, as he personally once said: "A person has a person's fate, I know. Some of the past will always bite my heart, and when I tell it, you think it's a story, and no one can understand how a man lives his life with a kind of mood when he is pressed by these hundreds of stories." To write about Xiangxi, to reveal the mystery of Xiangxi to the world, to retain the vanishing beauty of humanity, has become Shen Congwen's destiny, a destiny mission.

Shen loved the land and people in his hometown y, loved their simple and wild, but also not for the Confucian Taoist extinction of the wind, loved them like jade, but also not for the urban civilization distorted political simplicity of the beauty of human beings. He is so persistent and devoted to this simple beauty: "The place where our hometown is located, a person who learns history will know that it is the place where the 'Wuxi barbarians' are located. Even now, this place is still not attractive to people who grow up in the city. If an almost beastly simplicity of character is a saving of primitive national energy, and we are never very clever, clumsy in our plans, and always lacking in the flavor and conception of a man in the city, we need not be ashamed to have grown up in this wild and out-of-the-way place." [3]

The sad pastoral, the warm elegy

Shen Congwen's rustic sentiment, is a blend of rational choice and romantic mood, it describes the ancient style of simple, or God and man, half of the borderland characters, aimed at "for him to see this nation's higher wisdom, perfect character, with extremely special social organization, try to make a kind of goodwill record. " [4] This "record of goodwill" is opposed to the alienation and sinking of human nature in the semi-feudal, semi-colonial urban society he witnessed. From the trajectory of his life from the countryside to the city, he was painfully aware that "the noble character of the title of ownership, such as that of passion, bravery, and honesty, had completely disappeared." [5] This rational choice is not without reality and reasonableness, because it depicts the western Hunan, is the Han, Miao, Tujia mixed land, there is a special, retained the rich legacy of the clan system of patriarchal society.

Liu Xiwei called Border Town an "idyllic masterpiece" and "a jewel that will not be worn out for ages."[6] Yes, it is. [6] Yes, this is a sorrowful and misty human love tragedy, but in these human nature is good, sex from the natural crowd, can not discern the social system and civilization of the obstacles. He is full of primitive mankind's mysterious sense of misadventure and sense of destiny, nature arranged the fate of man, people without complaint, no ai to follow nature, melting into nature, composed of a form of life outside the realm, composed of an end of the song playing elegant human nature lyric poetry. The ancient rustic poetry is lost in the strong current of history, which makes the mood of the novel of the countryside, inevitably, "the voice is extremely soft, happy and slightly melancholy." [7] The rustic love is exuding earthy atmosphere, in the earth and social history interface, the writer's feelings have undergone qualitative sublimation, from the human nature of the melancholy into the social anguish and sorrow, so that the works of sympathy for the lower class workers in the tragedy of human nature is trampled on the spirit of the flickering precious democracy.

"Man is immortal, not because he is the only one among the living creatures who has left a prolonged voice, but because man has a soul, a spirit capable of compassion, sacrifice and endurance." [8] Shen Congwen is like this, sensing the soul of the Xiangxi nation and the depths of its history. In The Long River, it is even more obvious that the Miao position has given way to what American scholar Jin Jiefu calls a "localist" position. What the novel shows is the confrontation and conflict between the Xiangxi region as a whole and the outside world. The backdrop of the story is the Xiangxi Incident, which took place before and after the outbreak of the Anti-Japanese War. However, this background is faded out in the novel and only vaguely revealed in the dialogues of the characters. The "new life" is a symbol of the power of the KMT Central Committee, the security chief from the city is a visualization of He Key's power, and the "family member" of the boss is Chen Quzhen. Through the mouths of the characters, the novel makes different value judgments on the four forces involved in the Xiangxi Incident. Shen Congwen recognized the Miao uprising army. What Shen pursues here is "the 'normality' and 'change' of the lives of some ordinary people in this place, as well as all the sorrows and joys in the multiplication and division of the two"[9]. Here, "normality" refers to the constant way of living in western Hunan, which has remained unchanged for thousands of years, while "change" refers to the heterogeneous cultural factors that come from outside in the process of rapid social change. The narrative of The Long River focuses on the natural way of life of the indigenous peoples of western Hunan and their responses and choices in the face of life's great dangers. Whether it is the pure and innocent soul of Yoyo and its calmness and composure in the face of troubles, the strong temperament of the old sailor and Sanheizi in their desire to fight against the foreign forces, or the vision of the future political ideal of democracy and governance that springs up among them, all of them signify the life form of the indigenous people of western Hunan. He uses the "changes" of social history to reflect the "constancy" of autonomous life forms in the simple and quiet countryside, and writes in a comedic way about the psychological pressure of the "New Life Movement" of the political authorities on the society of western Hunan, which is a shocking and terrifying experience. The psychological pressure of the "New Life Movement" of the political authorities on the society of western Hunan is written in a comedic way, revealing the omens of tragedy, and shrouding the whole movie with a sense of historical mission in the face of the coming storm. Writers with the pure artist's old-fashioned enthusiasm, eulogize the resilience of simple moral beauty, eulogize a beautiful dream that will be lost.

At the same time, Shen Congwen from this "constant" and "change" in the feeling is not Lu Xun memories of his hometown, a kind of vernacular love works depicted in the "impermanence" of the ghost of the kind of "change". "Change". Lu Xun in the "hometown" this kind of work characters feel is warm after the sadness, while Shen Congwen from those lovely Xiangxi Miao people feel a long and melancholy warmth. If a person feels always in his own mind, then he will not feel like being in a stable and immobile cage, but will feel like being involved in endless leaps with the cage, striving to break out of the cage and reach the outside world, and at the same time, he is afraid of losing the tenth kind of hearing a sound echoing around him, which is not the echo of the outside world, but the inner stirring **** sound. Shen Congwen is in a kind of sublimation of human nature to realize this leap and **** sound. He found the conversion of the soul.

Sacred conversion

Kundera said, "history and personal life as light, unbearable light, as light as a feather, as light as flying dust, as light as something that will disappear tomorrow." Perhaps, Shen Congwen, is to understand this light will be so stingy life, stingy history of the slightest change. Even though "he had stayed in this small township for only 16 months, he had seen 700 people beheaded." He still wanted to turn this cruelty into the only beauty left in humanity. That is why the deaths and passings in his works are y moved by the writer's compassion and sympathy for humanity. "I don't believe in fate, I don't recognize the present situation, but I respect time." [10] Then the writer is also honoring the death of humanity and individuals brought about by events. The hero and heroine in A Small Scene Under the Moon both kill themselves with poison for love, and the moment they die, both still play and believe in this love and in eternity. This is the most sacred love and completion that is not falsely and unsullied. He did not like before and after a large number of writers, as a large number of writers, extremely graphic depiction of the pain and remorse of the dead, the text is simple and extreme and wave playful, the pen is accurate to no end, passed away also passed away.

The lamplight of a wanderer, who clings to and runs away from the world under that lamplight. The lights refer to the earth, and like an old story, warm and bleak ...... distant lights, but also like distant mountains, distant water, distant villages, distant trees, because of its far into pure poetry. ...... "It's like life, it's life. All I need is absolute conversion, to see God from conversion." [11] The terseness of life's passing makes the mood return to nothingness,, and the nearness of death turns life into a ship that has lost its rudder. Life is like electricity entering the dew, and everything becomes empty in an instant. The trajectory of an individual's life cannot be linked into a river that never breaks. "Xiangxi experience, in Shen Congwen's heart, finally ning into a kind of unyielding love, that in the depths of time old yellow love, that former purity and madness, in Shen Congwen's heart has also become a symbol of the folk spirit, Shen Congwen must be verified through the death of its value, even if the death, he has to watch over that buried how many years, tears and love of the river, that belongs to the All the memories of folk China will be turned into eternity because of Shen Congwen's death." [12]

And he, that is the ripples of the water mixed ripples, long ago with the previous gust of wind eclipsed, he is the rocky gap away from the slope of the orchid dahurica, long ago by the barren smoke and creeping grass to cover. Those years. The mountains and forests are silent all day long, the sunshine is long as scattered, the pool water is withered and desolate; there is no sail wind, because of attachment and disappointment, there is no rain in a straw raincoat, because of the memories and leakage.

Don't care what kind of high halls and houses he had in his life, as long as there is still an old residence on the winding alley;

Don't care how many treasures he used in his life, as long as there is still a fragrance of his words on the red dust.

In 1988, Shen Congwen died in Beijing and was buried in his hometown Phoenix. The side of the mountain city, the banks of the Tuo River, under the cliffs, a standing wrinkled stone as his tombstone and resting place. Mountain is the root of the mountain, the water is forgetful water, stone is the stone of three lives, tired of traveling to Shen Congwen, from here to draw the last sentence of his life, completed his sacred conversion.