What is inner tradition?

"Shortly after the First World War, a new literary skill was quite popular. It almost completely prevents writers from meddling in their own works, making it possible in literature to describe fragments similar to inner life without comment. This technique was once properly called' inner monologue' or' stream of consciousness'. Today, the spread and infiltration of stream-of-consciousness literature around the world has had an obvious impact on other literary schools; However, there are still different opinions on the study of stream of consciousness, such as whether stream of consciousness is a literary skill or a literary style, what is the difference between stream of consciousness and inner monologue, when the literature of stream of consciousness originated and how it developed in the world, and so on, which have been puzzling the study of stream of consciousness.

the term "stream of consciousness" first appeared in the American philosopher William? In James's Principles of Psychology. The book expounds William? The most distinctive theory of James's psychological theory is that thought is compared to the concept of a flowing water and the concept of "confluence of consciousness". "It compares the objective state of consciousness moving like running water in human psychological activities to a vivid image. In William? After James, the word' stream of consciousness' entered the field of literature, which was used to refer to this kind of psychological description work that showed the conscious activity as a kind of' stream'. " It can be seen that the word "stream of consciousness" was not originally used in the field of literature. Then, before the emergence of "stream of consciousness", what did people use to describe "stream of consciousness literature"?

"Inner Monologue" is translated into English as "Interior Monologue" or "Inner Monologue", which was first put forward in Dumas' novel Twenty Years Later (1845). There is a similar statement in Gautier (1811-1872, French writer)' s The God of Sang Men. The term "stream of consciousness" has been widely used in British and German literary theories since its appearance, but the French have always refused to create the term "stream of consciousness" in French, but have always used "inner monologue".

It should be said that since human beings have their own ideology, I am afraid that there has been a mental and psychological phenomenon of "stream of consciousness", and there are memories, imaginations, and; Association, reasoning, guessing, etc. are confused with each other and move like water. In the description and expression of literature, methods and descriptions similar to stream of consciousness or similar to stream of consciousness have also existed for a long time. "Long before the word" Twenty Years Later "by Dumas and the novel" God of Sang Men "by Gautier appeared, Figaro's famous monologue in the third scene of the fifth act of Figaro's Wedding by the 18th century playwright Pierre Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais and the 17th scene of Squanananell's monologue by the 17th century comedian Moliere can be regarded as" inner monologue "

Contemporary American critic Robert. Humphrey defines stream-of-consciousness novels as follows: "Stream-of-consciousness novels should be regarded as novels that mainly explore a wide range of consciousness fields, generally all the consciousness fields of one or several characters. In this novel, no matter the structure, theme or general effect, it depends on the consciousness of the characters as the' screen' or' film' of description. "On this basis, Mei? Friedman judged whether the stream of consciousness is a technique or a form: "Stream of consciousness is a form of novel, just as' ode' or' sonnet' refers to a certain form of poem. Although' ode' and' sonnet' use some different poetic techniques, they still belong to the same category. Similar differences may be made between narrative novels and stream-of-consciousness novels. The difference in skills comes from two different ways of thinking, one is direct thinking, the other is dream or fantasy. "

Different ways of thinking have different skills. In the form of stream of consciousness, there are many skills that may be changed, among which inner monologue, inner analysis and sensory impression are the most important ones.

"In the inner monologue, everything appears in the form of the characters' clear and quite complete language, but this kind of language is not written as sound and book. Therefore, in the inner monologue, there are a lot of clear consciousness and sober consciousness, but few hazy consciousness and deep consciousness." That is to say, the inner monologue is more orderly and organized in its fluidity, and it is often an inner thinking, so the subconscious and instinctive reactions almost no longer appear in the inner monologue because of the restriction of people's rationality.

"Inner analysis is to summarize the characters' impressions and then put them in the author's narrative, so it will never be out of the direct control of thought and reason. It is somewhat like Freud's psychological field of pre-consciousness. " This method already existed to some extent in the works of Stendhal and Dostoevsky, but it was not until Henry? James's later works and Proust's "Memories of Time Past" were fully realized. As for the sensory impression, the biggest difference between it and the inner monologue is that the scope involved is different, and the sensory impression involves the farthest from the focus of attention. Sensory impression is the most thorough way for writers to record pure feelings and images, which transplants the effects of music and poetry into novels. In Ulysses, a passage describing the siren is a successful example of sensory impression. The purpose of recording sensory impressions is to reproduce purely personal impressions.

It can be said that inner monologue expresses clear and sober consciousness in the process of producing thoughts or impressions; Inner analysis only involves a small part of consciousness, that is, the language field. Because of the author's intervention, it becomes indirect and narrative-the author will never be refined to the point of completely disappearing. Similarly, sensory impression is only related to a small part of consciousness, but it is the farthest part from the attention center.

Although the literature of "stream of consciousness" existed long before the word "stream of consciousness" appeared, the method of stream of consciousness became very popular around the 192s. The most striking feature of stream-of-consciousness novelists in the 2th century is that they tried to tell the whole consciousness directly and dramatically, which is closely related to the prominent individualism and individualism in western philosophy, sociology and ethics in the 2th century, which urged literature to pay more attention to individuals and people's mental activities. At the same time, the development of psychology in the 2th century, especially the appearance of Freud's theory, provided enlightenment and theoretical basis for literature to express people's inner activities in a thorough and meticulous way. Such a historical environment makes stream-of-consciousness writers have such views in their creation: the important signs of human life should be sought in the process of their psychological consciousness, not in the external world; The inner emotional life is disordered and illogical; Compared with the logical and definite continuity in thoughts and feelings, its free psychological continuity is more typical.

Wang Meng is the first writer in China's literature in the new period to write novels by means of "stream of consciousness", with Buli and sound of spring as his representative works. Wang Meng admitted that he had read some foreign novels, but emphasized that he was inspired by Lu Xun's Wild Grass, and even consciously avoided the relationship between his "stream of consciousness" creation and western stream of consciousness literature. "Please don't think that writing psychological activities belongs to foreigners' patents. China's poems are particularly good at writing psychological activities. A Dream of Red Mansions is different from traditional novels precisely because of its psychological description." It's my consistent thought to attach importance to artistic association. I have this idea since I didn't see any stream-of-consciousness novels and didn't even know the term stream of consciousness.

I don't want others to think that my novel creation is only influenced by western stream-of-consciousness novels, so Wang Meng tries his best to find the origin of "stream of consciousness" in China traditional literature. The phenomenon of seeking the roots of "stream of consciousness" spread rapidly. Some people pushed China's stream of consciousness literature to the early 2th century, and emphasized its unique artistic origin: "Diary of a Madman is China's first stream of consciousness novel", "This novel has nothing to do with the stream of consciousness works of western modernism. ..... "Some people even think:" The Diary of a Madman is a novel created by the method of stream of consciousness, which has been fully exerted in the Diary of a Madman, and greatly enriched the content of this novel. "

Guo Moruo once said in the article Criticism and Dreams (March 3, 1937): "The focus of my article Can Chun is not to pay attention to the fact, but to the psychological description. The psychology I describe is a flow of potential consciousness. This is my extravagant hope of writing that novel. If we measure it by the scale of describing the facts, it is indeed without climax. If someone who has a little research on psychoanalysis or the psychology of dreams, he will certainly be able to see a kind of creativity and express another opinion. " In 193s, China literary world not only introduced and commented on the western stream of consciousness in theory and criticism, but also formed an attempt climax in creation, and a group of "New Sensation School" novel writers represented by Liu Nao, Shi Zhecun and Mu Shiying appeared.

It is one-sided to say that the emergence of China's stream-of-consciousness novels has nothing to do with China's traditional literature, and it is also biased to think that China's stream-of-consciousness novel writers consciously used the stream-of-consciousness method to create from the beginning. If there is a stream of consciousness factor in China's traditional literature, then "internal lobbying" is a major aspect.

"internal lobbying" was put forward by Hao Jing (1223-127). The so-called "internal travel" refers to the "external travel", which refers to the psychological travel, conscious travel, association and imagination. It is a kind of conscious activity that is not limited by external factors and transcends the order of time and space. It connects everything with the heart, including memory, association, imagination, concrete and abstract. This is very similar to the stream of consciousness, which is not limited by the characters, and can change the narrative angle and time-space order at any time without following the conscious activities of the characters. However, this is only an investigation of the relationship between stream of consciousness and China traditional literature.

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