The May 4th Movement was the heyday of Zhou Zuoren's prose creation, and his prose collections included My Garden (1923), Book on Rainy Days (1925), Alisma orientalis (1927) and Talking about Dragon Collection (1. There have always been two styles: impetuous, intense, peaceful and diluted, and the artistic prose called "beautiful prose" by Zhou Zuoren can best express his prose personality.
192 1 In June, Zhou Zuoren published his famous work "Beautiful Writing", advocating "artistic" narrative and lyric prose. He draws nutrition from English prose, essays compiled by famous models and Japanese prose, criticizes the disadvantages of the times with vigorous and simple words, discusses literature and history, describes characters, and discusses the physics of human feelings, which shows the aesthetic pursuit of Zhou Zuoren's prose and is his unique contribution to modern literature. Representative works include Wild Vegetables in Hometown, Wu Pengchuan, Drinking Tea, Tea Food in Beijing, First Love, Flies, Birds and so on.
Zhou Zuoren takes "self" as the center, expressing returning to nature, obeying nature and enjoying life. Zhou Zuoren placed great emphasis on "the art of life", observing real life with an aesthetic attitude, discovering beauty from different angles and enjoying the beauty in ordinary life. For example, Drinking Tea is about the art of drinking tea, which is intended to be aesthetic rather than utilitarian: "When I say drinking tea, I am appreciating its color, fragrance and taste, not necessarily to quench my thirst, and naturally not to eat." "Wild Vegetables in My Hometown" writes the common wild vegetables such as shepherd's purse and Chinese milk vetch with great feelings. The vivid description of "Sanming tile" in Wupengchuan and the outline of tallow, carrot, white apple, small bridge, fisherman and Jiangnan folk customs all make people yearn for lingering. In his ears, "the chirping of sparrows" is also "the laughter of next spring".
Zhou Zuoren pursues the moderation and reconciliation of feelings in art, and expresses his inner feelings in a soothing and plain way. The "dullness" of Zhou Zuoren's prose is first of all the weakening of feelings. He yearns for leisure, advocates simplicity, dislikes fierceness and exaggeration, and especially hates posturing. Even writing "first love" is all about "one's own feelings are just faint yearning", and that girl Yang San "seems to be a girl with a pointed face, black eyes, thin figure and small feet, and nothing special". Finally, when I overheard that the girl died of cholera, "I felt unhappy at that time, thinking about his tragic death, but at the same time I seemed very calm, as if there was something in my heart."
Zhou Zuoren's prose is rich in knowledge and interesting. Zhou Zuoren learned both Chinese and western culture, which was both vulgar and elegant. Therefore, his prose can fully display all kinds of knowledge, use a lot of examples to discuss problems, explain things and express feelings. All kinds of knowledge and examples are quoted at will, which is convenient for both sides and can be used freely, but it is unique. For example, "Wild Vegetables in My Hometown" not only writes life scenes, but also quotes folk customs of children's songs and records of wild vegetables in ancient books in China. It not only introduces the shape, color and function of wild vegetables in detail, but also writes interestingly about how hometown people use wild vegetables. Zhou Zuoren pays great attention to citation methods. In an article, detailed quotations are slightly quoted and staggered; Or narrate the main idea, or record the original text, which is different from the actual situation, mixed with Chinese and foreign, widely used and quoted, and unique charm. Zhou Zuoren's prose is very interesting. "This so-called interest contains many things, such as elegance, simplicity, astringency, massiness, clarity, understanding, moderation and so on. , but they are all boring. " Rhetorically, he likes to use some vivid metaphors, likes to say irony, and is humorous and interesting. For example, bitter rain can take a boat in heavy rain and waves. These poems that ordinary people think are "bitter" are very interesting in his works.
His prose is good at blending spoken language, smell speech, Europeanized language, dialect and other important elements, forming a language style combining "shallow taste" with "astringent taste". His prose is natural, simple, concise and fluent, and Xu Shu is comfortable. He writes in letters, but there is no trace of carving, which is meaningful and interesting. As the famous writer Yu Dafu said: "Zhou Zuoren's writing style is comfortable and comfortable. At first glance, it seems rambling and too complicated, but on closer inspection, I think his words carry weight."
Literary quality is different from personal character. As for the personal character of Zhou Zuoren's composition, let's not talk about it for the time being. Just looking at his literary achievements and literary influence is also worthy of our commemoration. After all, he defined a new style for us during the literary explosion, which allowed us to express our feelings and promoted the development and progress of China literature.