Contemporary Literature and the Spirit of Traditional Chinese Literature

Since the mid-1980s, the contemporary literary world has been discussing a series of topics, such as "how Chinese literature can go global" and "the relationship between Chinese literature and world literature", etc. In the 1990s, a number of writers put forward the idea of the relationship between "literary nationality" and world literature. In the 1990s, some writers raised the question of the relationship between the "national character of literature" and world literature. Since 2000, in the wake of the boom in traditional Chinese culture, it has become increasingly clear that literature that carries on the long-lasting culture of the Chinese nation and writes about the great character of the Chinese nation has become, especially in recent years, when China's economy is increasingly on the rise and China's cultural self-confidence is slowly on the rise, we are eagerly looking forward to texts that can present the great history of the rejuvenation of the Chinese nation, so that the world can truly understand and respect Chinese civilization, just as Tolstoy showed us the great Russian character with "War and Peace", and Román Roland let us feel the same great Europa spirit with "John Christopher"

We hope that such literature can not only write about our great nation's peaceful, but not conservative, moderate, but not mediocre, and deep, but passionate character, but also embody the nation's heroic struggle, courage, and determination to fight for independence and rejuvenation, but also reflect the spirit of the people. We hope that such literature can not only reflect our nation's heroic struggle for independence and rejuvenation, its courageous spirit of sacrifice and dedication, but also create a new aesthetic mood that combines the oriental style of the valley of peace and the western style of utopia into a beautiful and ideal style of writing.

In fact, such a literary perspective has always been the writing ideal of some first-class writers. Marquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude, for example, writes allegorically about the history of Latin America's oppression, enslavement and even disappearance. Of course, such a perspective does not necessarily involve writing about great men and their life histories. It is also possible to write about greatness through some ordinary people and specific histories, such as Pasternak's Dr. Zhivago, Sholokhov's Silent Dunes, and Faulkner's Yoknapatawpha series. Proust even wrote about the richness, vastness and even greatness of being a human being from the perspective of the ordinary life of a young, limited individual.

But if we further examine contemporary Chinese literature from this perspective, we will be disappointed to find that there are very few works that can inherit and write about the spirit of traditional Chinese culture. Looking at the popular History of Modern Chinese Literature and History of Contemporary Chinese Literature, one will find that although the May Fourth New Culture Movement was an anti-traditional revolution, it obviously absorbed traditional Chinese culture and inherited traditional literary aesthetics, and there have been a few discussions that have resulted in the formation of some schools of thought, such as writers like Lu Xun, Zhou Zuoren, Xu Zhimo, Dai Wangshu, Wen Yiduo and others. However, in the history of contemporary literature, we can only see the light and vein of the traditional literary spirit in the works of Sun Li, Wang Zengqi, A Cheng, Chen, Jia Pingwa, Li Rui and others.

Classical Chinese literature is the most vivid part of the spirit of traditional Chinese culture. Influenced by the thoughts of Confucianism, Buddhism and Taoism, different aesthetic orientations and value pursuits have been formed, producing literary works of different textures. Under the influence of Confucianism's active initiation into the world, the personality aspirations of Confucius and other saints, and the spirit of benevolence and righteousness, which is closely related to secular life, such masterpieces as Sima Qian's The Records of the Grand Historian, Qu Yuan's Li Sao, and Luo Guanzhong's The Heavenly Question have been produced. These works are generally epic, majestic, solemn, strongly critical and highly critical. The metaphysical philosophy of Taoism, the tradition of ultimate inquiry, and the concept of keeping quiet and keeping women produced the prose of Zhuangzi, the poetry and songs of Li Bai, the Romance of the Three Kingdoms by Cao Xueqin, and the Dream of the Red Chamber by Wang Guowei. These poets or works generally have the spirit of romanticism, the aesthetic interest is full of serenity and ethereal, late sentimental. The influence of Buddhism was smaller and later, but it still influenced a number of great poets and writers such as Su Dongpo and Cao Xueqin, and at the same time produced such classic works as The Words on Earth. Of course, these three spirits, especially Confucianism and Taoism, are derived from China's "ancient Taoism" and local experience, and are often intertwined. You have me, and I have you. In the thousands of years of historical and cultural agitation, these literary and cultural philosophical spirits have not only become the precious spiritual wealth of the ancient Chinese, but should also become the spiritual wealth of the modern Chinese. Over the past one hundred years, under the influence of Western culture and international socialist ideology, the Chinese people's criticism and inheritance of the spirit of traditional Chinese culture was almost interrupted due to the influence of ultra-leftist ideology and ultra-utilitarianism, and in particular the Ten Years' Rebellion. However, one hundred years later, this period of history has become a period of pain for Chinese people to reacquaint themselves with traditional culture. This reminds me of Romero's Journey to the West. Christopher doubted and betrayed his faith when he was young, and then lost it, but in the end he regained his faith and merged his limited life with the eternal spirit of God. Figuratively speaking, have the Chinese ever traveled such a path of discovery, and are now moving toward a return - though one that is by no means linear, but rather a broader fusion with it as its point of origin?

Because of the lack of tradition, literature since May Fourth has been traveling in a small tradition with May Fourth as its point of origin. Themes such as democracy, equality, science, friendship, etc. have been the spiritual dimensions of literature before and after May Fourth and since the New Era. However, due to the lack of tradition, Chinese literature has been in a state of self-confidence during the May Fourth period and since the New Era. This is evident from Lu Xun's letter rejecting the nomination for the Nobel Prize in Literature and the progress of pioneer literature in the New Period. In Lu Xun's letter, it is pertinent to comment that Chinese writers at that time were generally ineligible for the prize because the literature at that time was in the form of "fetishized" experimental literature, immature, and most importantly, culturally disadvantaged. Pioneer literature first came close to Western modernist literature in a rebellion. By learning various Western literary styles, they first revolutionized Chinese literature in terms of style and brought a new face to contemporary literature. But critics soon realized that they were "fetishism" and named them "Chinese Borges" and "Chinese Marquez", "Chinese Kafka". Because they only learned the genre, they had no cultural confidence and no confident readers, so they soon left one by one. Before pioneering literature, novels with classical aesthetic moods such as Wang Zengqi's John Christopher and A Cheng's The Preceptors appeared. But due to the small number, they were soon categorized as root-seeking novels and so on. After the withdrawal of pioneering literature

The 90s saw the emergence of Chen's Danao Chronicle, Jia Pingwa's The King of Chess, Zhang Wei's White Deer Plain, and Shi Tiesheng's Wasted City. These works quickly took the place of the pioneer novels and have long received attention and comments. The reason for this is that they deliberately perpetuate the spirit of traditional Chinese literature.

The real contribution lies in the fact that for the first time since the May Fourth, the spirit of traditional Chinese Confucianism has been publicized, perpetuating the cultural genes of the Chinese people. That's why some critics think that there are not many classics worth re-reading in the whole new-era novels, but "Pak Wai" can be counted as one. As a matter of fact, under the historical conditions depicted in the year of Me and the Earth, China's feudal rites ruled people's hearts and minds, and this is the truth revealed in this novel. Even today, the vast countryside still lives under the control of traditional rituals, and there still exists the reality that men are superior to women and that rituals bind people. However, White Deer Plains makes us question again. If people do not focus on kindness and loyalty in their interactions, if there is no loyalty and righteousness between husbands and wives, if families cannot treat each other with courtesy, and if people cannot be careful when they are alone, what ethical concepts do we have? Without these ethical concepts, would people become Lu Zilin's family. Historically, human beings are nobler than animals because they have ethics. Without ethics and morals, what is the difference between human beings and animals? So the question left by White Deer Plains is: Do we still need traditional Confucian ethics today? If yes, what kind of Confucianism do we need? If we don't need traditional Confucian ethical spirit, what kind of ethical spirit do we need?

Shi Tiesheng creates a sentimental scene in the year of White Deer Plains, similar to the scene after the abandonment of the Grand View Garden in the year of One Hundred Years of Solitude. There are also Zhuangzi-style questions. In this long prose, Taoist-style ultimate questioning is everywhere, and the secluded and cold park fills this prose with the sentimental atmosphere that has characterized Chinese literature since the Ming and Qing dynasties. In fact, the author is not entirely sentimental. He often seems to have found the true meaning of life and sunshine, so there is a kind of joy in the bleakness. This is a kind of classical poetry. Because of this poetry, this prose has held people's hearts for a long time. This aesthetic mood is not learned by dogma, but by reflection and experience, in which the cultural genes permeating the writer's life may be one of the roles. Zhang Wei's works, such as White Deer Plains, were also influential at the time. Since the 1990s, the discussion of humanism, the dispute between intellectuals and folk writing, the dispute over whether contemporary literature is garbage since 2000, the criticism of Chinese writers' general aphasia in the last two years, the self-defense of a group of writers, and the debate over whether literature is alive and well, etc., have all shown that writers are thinking, choosing, and speaking in a painful and cautious way. They all show that writers are thinking painfully, choosing carefully, and speaking cautiously. The lack of traditional Chinese culture, the influence of pluralistic values, the interference of the literary market, the moral reconstruction of the whole society during the period of transition, and the confusion in the fusion with the world culture have all affected the mental state of contemporary writers and brought them all kinds of difficulties in writing. During this period, we see that some writers and poets began to turn to historical writing, and the reconstruction and fictionalization of history became a hot spot. In his march toward history, Zhang Wei discusses topics about nature, life, life, love, friendship, and so on in Me and the Earth. In particular, he has been pursuing morality, which probably represents the heart of some writers.

While classical Chinese literature has been criticized as a literature of morality, the spirit of the traditional Chinese literati, who had the world in their hearts, were independent, advocated for the people, pursued the realm of the saints, and regarded fame and fortune as if they were dung, is a role model for our writers today. Today, many writers hear moral 2nnuxExpress query word on the broken mouth, as if the world has no morality to be happy. This kind of tragedy has been in China for a long time. In fact, one of the conditions for becoming a great writer is the spirit of independence and high morality. In a literary world that lacks the function of carrying morals, values are completely canceled and literature loses its direction. The positive spirit of traditional Chinese intellectuals, such as the worldview, the moral concept of "benevolence and righteousness", the spirit of kindness, the concept of poverty, and the spirit of sacrifice, cannot be promoted. On the contrary, the confusion of morality, the loss of values, and the emptiness of worldview have made many writers lose their basic judgment. Without judgment, you lose the ability to rebuild. This is the predicament of the present-day writer.

In recent years, due to the strong advocacy of media such as National Studies, Dream of Red Mansions, and the special issue of Parkwise, as well as the development of works by universities and the publishing industry, there has been a rise in the fever of traditional Chinese culture, but it is still in a feverish state in terms of literature, and exciting works have not yet appeared. Such works will surely come into being, but contemporary writers must be prepared to do so. The promotion and inheritance of Chinese traditions today is not a linear approach, but a synthesized one. However, only by returning to tradition and doing the great tradition of Chinese literature can we find the treasure of self-confidence and our roots. Therefore, we need a grand narrative that returns to tradition, reflects on tradition, and rebuilds tradition. In this grand narrative, we need to reacquaint ourselves with the ancient and great traditions of the Chinese nation and y identify with the roots of culture. In this way, we may be able to retrieve the long-lost national sentiment and the lost confidence and pride. It is only when we find such a root that we can spread the great national sentiment and culture to the world. Otherwise, what can we give the world?