Understanding of Western Literature

As we all know, from ancient Greece to the present, western literature has evolved, although there are differences between nations and countries; But its development process and trend are basically the same. They experienced the development stages of the Middle Ages, Renaissance, Classicism, Enlightenment, Romanticism, Naturalism and various realism. However, no matter what era, how schools evolve and how complex works are, all literary works can't get rid of the following categories in content: the struggle between man and nature, the struggle between man and society, the struggle between man and man, and the contradiction between man and himself. Disease, death, friendship, love, war and loneliness are nothing more than life, old age and loneliness. However, in any case, it is ever changing. If you recognize it carefully, you are singing the same tune. With the evolution of human social life, it seems that writers of different times are singing the old tune, but they are all using new tunes and new singing methods. In this sense, the evolutionary history of a literature is also the evolutionary history of the development of human society. The difference is that the history of literature reflects the evolution of human understanding of things with literary works. The works of each era without exception reflect the depth of people's understanding of the universe, society and individuals in that era. As far as people's understanding of themselves is concerned, an obvious development clue can be found in literary works. The understanding of man in the Middle Ages was that man was guilty. During the Renaissance, man became the essence of the universe, the primate of all things, and "man" replaced "God". During the Enlightenment, after seeking liberation, people carried forward and emphasized the rational side of people. At the same time, people's feelings began to awaken and finally broke out in the romantic period. On the surface, enlightenment and romantic ideas seem to be mutually exclusive, but in fact, from the overall point of view, they complement each other. In the period of critical realism, it is another situation. This period focuses on describing people's position in society and exploring the influence and function of objective environment on people. In the twentieth century, people in literary works began to know themselves and pursue their own values. This new trend is closely related to the arrival of the information age. This is not only because the role of individuals is particularly important when knowledge is transformed into productive forces, but also because it is a subject that keeps pace with the times to create accurate "human intelligence" and explore people's internal activities and thinking laws. This is not only the task of natural science workers, but also writers who reflect real life will keep up with the pulse of the times and involve this aspect in their works. There are conscious and unconscious situations here.

Of course, we can't ignore that although natural science and literature and art can belong to the same era, they are constantly changing and their evolution is regular. In the field of literature and art, a new trend of thought, a new tendency, is far less easily understood and recognized than the invention and creation of natural science. The reason may be that the object of natural science research is the mystery of natural phenomenon itself, which can be proved by experimental means. Literature and art involve not only the understanding of things, but also aesthetic concepts. In a word, literature and art are restricted by human social activities. Therefore, historically, whenever a new trend or tendency appears at first, it will often be doubted, criticized or even rejected, and it will take some time to be accepted by the society. The performance of Onani in the history of French literature and the fate of 1874 French anonymous painter's exhibition in the history of art are the best explanations. Although today, when it comes to French literature and art, everyone will admit that Hugo's Mohist romantic literature and French impressionist painting have a great influence on the development of later literature and art. But at that time, only a few people saw and recognized its value.

Similarly, today, compared with traditional literature, western modernist literature founded in the 20th century also has obvious differences. The outstanding point is that the artistic effect varies greatly. Traditional literature often evokes "sympathy" or "* * *", while modernist literature evokes more "thinking".

There are many reasons for this effect, but one thing is obvious, that is, the ever-changing real life experienced by contemporary writers has never been experienced by writers of any era in the past. Today's human research achievements in celestial evolution, origin of life and elementary particles have shaken the old scientific and technological system structure. New scientific departments such as system science, thinking science and humanities are forming and developing. On the one hand, modern people's vision can be extended to the boundless universe of10 billion light years, on the other hand, the internal structure of basic particles as small as one trillionth of a centimeter. The stage of human knowledge synthesis has begun. In such an era, as a writer, his method of observing and analyzing reality will inevitably change, and it is impossible to stay in the old system. He must use an expansive, multi-level, in-depth analysis method suitable for the modern world to look at reality. And when he further shows the reality they have observed, he must find a new artistic method to adapt to it. We might as well review the history of literary development, and we can see that the birth of each school is based on the above reasons. Writers are no exception. Take Flaubert as an example. His original "Madame Bovary" was about 3600 pages, but in the end, eight out of nine pages were deleted. What is the reason? We know that Flaubert worships Balzac. On the one hand, he praised Balzac for his thorough understanding of his time, but on the other hand, he thought that the society that Balzac was familiar with had begun to collapse, so he advocated that it was time to "sing other songs". [2] So Flaubert put forward the argument that novel is a scientific form of life. So he abandoned the meticulous description of the appearance of things in traditional literature, tried to observe the internal contradictions of things most scientifically with the sharp eyes of anatomists, and then made an essential reflection of real life in a highly summarized and concise form. This is how Madame Bovary changed from more than 3,600 pages to 400 pages. Elena, the daughter of Marx, not only translated Madame Bovary into English and published it in London, but also spoke highly of the work in the introduction of the translation, thinking that "this wonderful power of observation and analysis, this proud form of combining scientific papers, this completely hidden personality of the author and the truth of all the characters." All this was novel in the imperial era. Saint Fu Pei, a famous French literary critic, also said that "some new symbols of literature can be seen from Bovary Mann: science, observing spirit, maturity and strength" ... Zola regarded Madame Bovary as a "new artistic criterion". It can be seen that a writer's understanding of the universe, society and people will develop to what extent, and he will grasp art accordingly. If we admit that content and form are inseparable, this situation is easy to understand.

So, what's the difference between modernist literature and traditional literature? As far as novels are concerned, traditional literature has more or less reasonable plots and distinctive characters. If it is a script, the conflict of drama is essential. As for poetry, apart from emotion and imagination, it also needs distinct and accurate rhythm and harmonious rhythm. The fields of painting and sculpture also need realistic images. It is inconceivable that music has no rotation and rhythm. But it is different in modernist literature and art: the plot in the novel gradually weakens and the traditional characters begin to blur. The representation of things has been abandoned more and more, the concept of time and space has been arbitrarily reversed, and symbols, metaphors and implications have been widely used in the new sense. In the field of fine arts, lines, colors and shapes are no longer just used to create vivid images, but to directly express emotions and feelings. Image flip. "Deformation", three-dimensional space becomes six degrees. Melody is no longer the life of the work in the notes, and the application of dissonant chords subverts the absolute position of classicism and acoustics, and the importance of rhythm is paid great attention to. From the relevant examples, this change did not happen suddenly, but gradually formed with the evolution of the times and society. We can see not only the differences between Madame Bovary and Balzac in plot and characterization, but also the great differences between Flaubert and Hemingway. Zola once pointed out that the modern novel formulas scattered in Balzac's masterpieces have been refined and embodied in Madame Bovary. The work of Hamming City is another matter, not just love.

The festival is simple and the language is concise, and the focus of the work has begun to shift to the emotions caused by the hero's experience. His A Farewell to Arms is the best example. His creative technique, which is extremely concise in appearance, is called "line drawing technique". Obviously, there is a big difference between line drawing and meticulous painting. As for the change of the concept of time and space in literature, "stream of consciousness" works can best illustrate this problem. For example, in Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury, time and space are completely reversed with the flow of the protagonist's consciousness. In the dark streets of modiano, the time sequence is constantly changing with the protagonist's pursuit of his past. In these works, the reversal of time and space has a realistic basis, which is natural and layered. Speaking of symbols, metaphors and implications, these techniques have existed since ancient times, but since the twentieth century, these techniques have been more widely used in works of various schools. In expressionism, surrealism, existentialism, the absurd, black humor and other works, they not only express something, a certain idea, a certain situation, but also express some emotions or feelings that can be conveyed by unusual language, and they are increasingly integrated with philosophical thinking. So it is often accepted by young people who are good at thinking first. In West Germany, the word "Kafka's situation" has become a special word to express that people are in a depressed situation where they can't control their own destiny. Similarly, "waiting for Godot" has become a substitute word for people to explain that people are in a daze and hope will never come. Perhaps this is the reason why the play was unexpectedly successful when it was staged in American prisons. Whether it is Kafka's Metamorphosis, Castle or Beckett's Waiting for Godot, this is not important, because literature and art in the 20th century pursued readers' thinking. And pure imitation can't achieve this effect naturally. The same is true in the field of fine arts. For the Norwegian painter Monk's Scream, the heaven in the painting is red and green, and the contrast between straight lines and curves is used to highlight the fears experienced by the characters. However, the characters in the painting are drawn by the painter, which has no sense of reality and is just a vague prototype. This human body, this scene and this color fully express the painter's cry of feeling the vastness of nature in loneliness and depression. This is very infectious to the reader's mood. Similarly, in the field of music, as early as in Debussy's works, he broke the routine that "melody is the life of music". Harmony is not divided into three chords, and dissonant chords can be mixed and matched at will. As can be seen from his Afternoon of the Faun, music began to break away from the pure music field that pays attention to form and turned to express a vague atmosphere. The more modern, the stronger this tendency is.

From these changes, we can see that since the 20th century, not only literature, but also other arts have been carried out under a creative program different from traditional literature, that is, "accurate description is not equal to truth". In other words, Aristotle's literary and artistic creation criterion of "learning from nature", which has ruled for thousands of years, began to waver. When talking about different ways of expressing things, the French painter Matisse said: "One is to express things truthfully. The other is to pass them on artistically. " This new creed is not only influenced by literature and art, but also by the art of drama performance. Brecht's theory of "defamiliarization effect" is a proof. In his opinion, if an actor plays Shakespeare's King Lear, he should firmly remember that he is only playing King Lear, and he must never try to make himself King Lear.

For this new modernist literature, we might as well analyze some of its outstanding characteristics.

First, traditional literature mainly describes the external objective world, focusing on revealing the contradictions and conflicts between people and society and between people. However, the modernist literature since the 20th century mainly reflects the inner contradiction of human beings and the spiritual world of human beings, which often appears in opposition to the existing material world, and at the same time shows the pursuit of personal value and the exploration of self-essence. The theme of this kind of works is often regarded as illusory, but what we actually see in these works is the expression of "self-awareness" such as self-analysis, self-knowledge and self-experience. The so-called "self-consciousness" is a form of consciousness, which has the essence and function of other consciousness. As stated in the article "My humble opinion on self-consciousness" [3], "self-consciousness" takes a self with feeling and thinking as the cognitive object, and it is the subject's cognition, feeling and evaluation of his own psychology, thinking, action process, content and result. ""self-awareness "is produced in the interaction between people. A person who is divorced from the crowd has almost no self-awareness. The emergence of "self-awareness" shows that in social life, people should not only know the outside world, but also know themselves, ask to know their position and significance in the outside world, and judge the results of their actions. When social life becomes complicated, "everyone's self-differentiation also presents a variety of situations. "It can be manifested as the contradiction between ideal me and realistic me, the contradiction between positive and negative aspects of realistic me, the contradiction between realistic me and historical me, the contradiction between self and self, and the contradiction between self and non-self. This kind of conscious activity of human beings is directly proportional to the development of social productive forces. People's awareness of their own existence marks the progress of human development, because this kind of exploration itself is an important topic for civilized people. Only when the society develops to a certain extent can this awareness be produced. This is why this kind of consciousness is stronger in modern society than ever before.

Second, traditional literature not only has a broad picture and a long space, but also reflects a wide range of society and a large number of people, involving not only one era, but even several eras. Modernist literature, however, has a narrow picture and short space, and the events involved are often days or even hours. It is highly generalized and comprehensive from content to form, but the work reveals the depth and breadth of the author's understanding of things, which is closer to the essence of things than traditional literature. However, this simplified form is often dismissed as "abstract" by people accustomed to traditional literature. However, we know that the main achievement of traditional literature is to reflect the real world like a mirror. Its observation methods for all the complicated relationships between people and society are basically intuitive, so what it can do is mainly to "describe" the world. However, modernist literature is not satisfied with describing the obvious contradictions in the real world, but requires a deeper analysis. It tries to explore life, human value, the future of human development and so on in the form of literature, and uses philosophical concepts. Therefore, although it uses a lot of symbols, metaphors and implications, it still cannot avoid the tendency of "abstraction". But this does not mean that this is a bad thing. When French poet Andre Britten talked about surrealism, he divided it into two periods, namely, intuition period and reasoning period. If we can get inspiration from it, it may be helpful to distinguish the different thinking stages experienced by traditional literature and modernist literature in understanding things. Because "abstraction" does not only appear in the field of literature and art, the trend of abstraction is unstoppable throughout the twentieth century, and physics is no exception. It is impossible to understand things intuitively. When Zhao Wuji, a French painter from China, visited Zhejiang Academy of Fine Arts, he once said to his students, "I don't want to tell you how to draw. I just want to change your view of art. Painting is not just a purely technical problem, it depends on how you observe the object. " Wang Naizhuang, a painter, pointed out in the article "Abstraction and concreteness": "In works drawn entirely from memory, there are often initial abstract factors, because abstraction is a high generalization of concreteness. There seems to be a saying in the theory of Chinese painting:' Painting a mountain is not a mountain, but painting a mountain behind closed doors is a mountain'. That's what I'm saying. Furthermore, with the passage of time, what is initially regarded as abstract will often become true in the future, because through abstraction, further intuition can be generated, and new intuition will become the starting point for further abstraction. 1949 Hideki Yukawa, winner of the Nobel Prize in Physics, said when referring to Einstein's achievements: "Abstraction is often just a way to simplify things, and in many cases, the result of simplification will produce a new beauty." Contemporary abstract painting probably best illustrates this point. As for the beauty of abstraction in literature, it is not obvious at a glance, but if it can make people think, it is enough to show that it is not nothingness.

Third, people say that literature since the 20th century is "irrational" and "absurd". This view may be caused by its use of "deformation" and "distortion". But the crux of the problem lies in: does "irrational" literature necessarily lead to "irrational" consequences? Facts have proved that, on the contrary, the creative basis of modernist literature is "thinking", and what it wants to achieve is "thinking". Here, "irrationality" and "absurdity" themselves become the means to arouse rational thinking. In this respect, Brecht's narrative drama theory can give us a lot of enlightenment. We can see that it is precisely because of the absurd artistic means of absurdity and black humor that readers can easily keep a certain distance from the events in their works, which is exactly the "defamiliarization effect" that Brecht pursued all his life. This has become a very common literary phenomenon in contemporary times.

To sum up, we can see that the consciousness and feelings of "modern people" have undergone complex changes compared with the past times, and their experience and understanding of life and their performance have new connotations. The arrival of "information society" shows the importance of information, knowledge and intelligence. Contemporary writers must accept new knowledge through their senses and thinking ability, and combine their unique imagination to create new artistic forms that adapt to the new living conditions and modern aesthetic consciousness. Writers must broaden their horizons and integrate knowledge from many disciplines, including philosophy, sociology, linguistics, physiology, psychology, psychiatry, mathematics and so on. Only in this way can we deepen and expand the literary field of exploring the mystery of life from different angles.

In addition, the creation of literature is inseparable from language and thinking. Due to the changes in human social life, human language is also undergoing corresponding changes, and literary language is no exception. In contemporary literature, we can see that formal sentence-making methods have been broken, punctuation marks have been arbitrarily cancelled and mixed; Sentences are infinitely shortened or consist of illogical associations; The transformation of word meaning and so on. From the traditional point of view, these language phenomena seem absurd, but when exploring the relationship between existence and thinking, we can open up a battlefield from the language field closely related to thinking.

As we know, how a writer analyzes and observes the reality and what kind of artistic form he adopts is of course closely related to the era and society in which he lives, and also to the development of the whole human mind, which cannot be separated from human labor. The ape brain became a human brain through labor and language. Labor promotes the development of human senses, and it needs the coordinated activities of various senses and reflects the whole. Language also urges the brain to summarize and think about various sensory materials through vocabulary, that is to say, human beings are gradually changing their cognitive ability in the process of transforming the objective world's labor and social practice. To be clear, social labor practice is the driving force of thinking development. The production level of primitive society is low, and people's ability of abstract generalization is also low. With the development of social productive forces, people's cognitive ability and analytical comprehensive generalization ability are gradually improved. In this way, people's exploration of the objective world and spiritual world is more and more profound and accurate, and closer to the essence of things. Therefore, in the future literary research, not only novel linguistics, but also thinking science research will play a huge role.