Paper Keywords: post-modern influence of Zhuangzi's fables
Abstract: Zhuangzi's allegorical way of thinking from "vessel" to "Tao" is an important way of thinking in China's ancient poems. It is interlinked with the postmodern spirit and has influenced the novel creation since the new period.
The word fable first appeared in Zhuangzi and * * * appeared three times in Zhuangzi. There are two sentences in the fable of Zhuangzi: "Fable 19, restatement 17, saying that the sunrise is in harmony with the sky. Fable 19, from the outside. " Every time I read Zhuangzi Tianxia, I find: "Zhuang Zhou was delighted by his style, and he spoke absurdly, absurdly, and without reason, and sometimes he was not arrogant and didn't see his eyes." Take the world as turbidity, not Zhuang language, prophecy as rambling, tautology as truth, and fable as broad model. "Academic circles generally believe that these two works were written by Zhuangzi's later school. Although it is mainly expressed from the perspective of form, the views on fables have begun to reveal the thinking essence of fables from the perspective of thinking, that is, "borrowing" and "taking fables as a wide range". Unfortunately, later literary critics paid insufficient attention to this. For example, Liu Xie's Wen Xin Diao Long was published in various scholars, discussions and emotions. As for "talking about pottery to soar", it emphasizes its rich imagination. Lun said that "it is based on theory" and is based on form, while "clouds argue and carve everything", also known as algae decoration, while Yin Zhi just showed his attitude in music. None of them have expressed their views on the essence of their fable thinking, but an article in Harmony and Concealment is like the following passage: "The vociferator, the concealer. Avoidant words imply meaning, while allegorical words refer to things. Yesterday, I went back to the club to save Teacher Chu, calling Maiqu a metaphor in the well. Uncle Yi begged for food from Lu people, and Ming Yu called more ghosts; Wu Ju stabbed Wang Jing with a big bird, and Chick mocked Gong Xue with sea fish; Zhuang Ji's excuse lies in the dragon's tail, and Zang Wen's book lies in sheepskin. The use of argot was handed down by Kyrgyzstan. The prosperity of great men is to cure the body and the other is to violate ignorance. Gai Yi comes from a powerful family, but in an emergency, he can make peace with her husband. There are eight hidden books in Han Dynasty, which were recorded at the end of Song Dynasty. "
What I talked about above is the problem of "concealment", which involves the way of thinking and technical handling of the article, and should be similar to fable thinking. Unfortunately, I made no mention of Zhuangzi's article. Zhong Rong, "Poetry? The preface talks about poetry, compares "xing", "bi" and "fu", and talks about fables: "the text has done its best but the meaning is more than enough, and it is also prosperous; Because things are metaphorical, they are better than others; Straight book, fable writing, fu also. "He talked from the perspective of luck, but unfortunately he didn't delve into it. Liu Zhiji, a great writer of literature and history, also told fables in the inner chapters of Shi Tong, such as the fifteenth, twentieth and twenty-fifth chapters, but only from the perspective of style. In addition to the stylistic form, there is another point that touches on the allegorical thinking like "Poetry": "This is not the Warring States Period." "Peng, but his speech angle is only a comment on the phenomenon of a hundred schools of thought contending in the Warring States period, and he has no intention of talking about allegorical thinking. The first, second, fourth and second chapters of Zhang Xuecheng's Literature, History and Tongyi talk about fables, but most of them are examples from the perspective of style and form.
It can be said that the absence of "fable" in ancient literary theory has become a common phenomenon. Among modern scholars, Mao Dun, Zheng Zhenduo and others have studied fables, but most of them discuss fables as a style. Mr. Chen Puqing, a famous scholar of contemporary fable theory, thinks that "fable is a story with other sustenance" in the History of Ancient Fables in China. Although it is also grasped from the perspective of style, its "other sustenance" has touched the essence of allegorical thinking. He further claimed that fable has two elements, one is story and the other is sustenance, which constitute the dual elements of fable, and its surface structure is story, which can be called. Well, this is by far the simplest and clearest allegorical thinking expression. But after all, he did not rise from the category of literary theory to the level of metaphysical thinking.
Personally, I think the thinking mode of fable is neither pure image thinking nor rational thinking. Its surface seems to be related to images, but its inner layer contains multiple rational factors. Under the explicit language cloak of the image, it pursues a potential language or superlanguage, which is not only a kind of implication, but also a poetic material and a rational spark. This way of thinking has been widely used in pre-Qin philosophers and influenced Judas in later poems. It should become an important category of ancient literary theory and even today's literary theory. To explain this problem, we must start from its source. In pre-Qin poetry, allegorical thinking was used earlier, and the most ingenious was when Zhuangzi was pushed. Therefore, it is of great significance to clarify the thinking problems in the fable of Zhuangzi, which is helpful for us to generalize and construct the theory from the perspective of literary theory. Because the relationship between language and object is essentially a thinking relationship, and the way of thinking determines the meaning and rational characteristics of language. As one of the language arts, poetry is even more so.
Zhuangzi is divided into three parts: inner part, outer part and miscellaneous part. It is generally believed that Zhuangzi wrote the inner chapter himself. In order to reveal the thinking mode of Zhuangzi's fables more truly, this paper intends to make a general investigation of the fables and their thinking modes in Zhuangzi, which will help to clarify some problems. Zhuangzi consists of seven chapters, such as Happy Travel, Theory of Everything, Master of Health, Human Life, Dechong Mansion, Grand Master and Emperor. They are all connected by fables. Mr. Chen Puqing counted 50 fables in the history of ancient China.
In fact, these 50 fables are the main body (inner chapter) of Zhuangzi, which entrusted Zhuangzi's main academic thoughts. Zhuangzi linked some argumentative words, thus forming a series of texts with heavy connotations. Looking at his way of thinking, the following points are worth noting.
(1) As far as "story image" is concerned, it is a set of systematic language symbols composed of composition and deformation rules, which brings a set of systematic cultural information and then transforms it into a set of symbolic images, which is full of rational significance. In this group of language symbols, the formation law is the thinking procedure of "object-image-meaning (emotion)-reason" The law of deformation is a kind of transformation, alienation or materialization. Such as the story of Zhuang. Butterflies or Zhuang Zhou only exist as a kind of thing (people are also a kind of thing), but when they enter the story, they become "images", and the process of the story adds "meaning" to the "images". Butterfly in Zhuang Zhou, or Butterfly in Zhuang Zhou, is obviously materialized. Another example is Scattered, Uncle Shan Without Toe, Wang Jian, Shen Tujia or Wood Without Material, and so on, all of which can be regarded as alienation (of course, not every story has materialization or alienation). It is precisely because of this formation law and deformation principle that language symbols can be transformed into symbolic images, which contain rationality.
(2) As far as "rational sustenance" is concerned, the acquisition of rational concept lies in the application of its model thinking (name-taking) style. Model thinking style can be defined as a kind of impure abstract thinking and impure image thinking, which contains some concepts and rational components, but it can't be without image. It is to extend the characteristics of this object and that image in the captured image and migrate them to other things. This extension and transfer is often accomplished through symbols, metaphors and associations. Taking the story of Zhuang Zhou's dream butterfly as an example, Mr. Chen Guying thinks that four important meanings can be derived: one is the meaning of Zhuang Zhou's dream butterfly (symbolizing the harmony and resonance between man and foreign things); The second is the meaning represented by the butterfly itself (Zhuangzi transformed himself into a butterfly to symbolize the innocence and freedom of human nature); The third is the saying that life is like a dream; Fourth, the materialization view, that is, the opposition between life and death is integrated into harmony, and the boundary between things and me is dissolved and integrated.
(3) From the unity of the above two, Zhuangzi's fable is based on the logical inference of objective images, but it goes beyond the objective images to explore the mystery of "intangible" (Tao) from the "tangible" world, that is, from "utensil" to "Tao". The "story (language) image" in the above table can be regarded as embodiment, and "rational (thinking) sustenance" can be regarded as implication. The former is the "implement" of the tangible world, while the latter is the "Tao" of the intangible world. Zhuangzi's fable is a high degree of integration and unity of the surface structure embodied by story images and the deep structure with rational sustenance as its implication.
(4) From the perspective of text creation and acceptance, it is an intuitive and introspective grasp of the whole, which constitutes a sudden breakthrough of the subject in the process of creating images or understanding. For Zhuangzi, this is a way to grasp thinking by measuring the unknown with knowledge, and then reaching wisdom (rational knowledge). Through the overall feeling of the known "knowledge" (object image), and then rational thinking, and then analogize the known "knowledge" (object image), so as to achieve "wisdom" (. For those who read and understand, as long as they understand the trilogy of Zhuangzi's fable thinking mode and grasp the law that the tangible universe (image) originated from the "invisible" universe (metaphysical Tao) in the overall intuitive observation, they will understand the realm that there is something in the Tao, there is a way in the thing and the Tao blends together. The fable of the change of Kunpeng is that Zhuangzi broke through the limitations of various images in the material world with the deformed Kunpeng, pulled them out of the experience world, spread his wings from the northern school hidden by the giant Kunpeng with literary imagination, and flew to the Tianchi where Dapeng soared, opening up an infinitely open space system and opening up a vast universe. In this vast new universe, you are given absolute freedom without any restrictions. Zhuangzi's "equality" refers to the tangible material world, and "equality" refers to the intangible world. His thinking work broke through the field of tangible world and extended the tentacles of thinking to the "intangible" world. It can be seen that Zhuangzi's fable can neither be regarded as a pure metaphor symbol nor as a fantasy of fictional facts. It is a whole display and embodiment. The inner chapter "sometimes it's not embarrassing to use absurd words, absurd words and unprovoked words." Reveal the great truth of life in the universe through artistic expressions such as fiction, deformation, absurdity, magic and ridicule. As a whole, the inner chapter talks about the way of "being sage inside and being king outside". How can we be a saint inside and a king outside? Zhuangzi is divided into seven chapters (seven subsystems). The beauty is that most discussions are linked by fables. In this way, "Zhuangzi" (the inner part) is an essay composed of dozens of short stories: carefree travel comprehends the highest state of life, and The Theory of Everything clarifies that the premise of carefree travel lies in the unity of human cultivation and the spirit of heaven and earth. If so, it leads to the book "Master of Health". Only by being good at fitness and letting nature take its course can we exist in the world carefree. It can't be used by the world, naturally because the inner morality is abundant and conforms to the universal spirit of heaven and earth, so entering the realm of "the unity of heaven and man" and the concept of "the unity of life and death" is for the "great master" only after completing the cultivation of "the inner saint". In the end, "governing by doing nothing" became a "foreign king" and naturally ended up as an "emperor". From the correspondence between the text (story) and the moral of the fable above, we can naturally know that Zhuangzi's way of thinking is fluent in style and disjointed in meaning, and express it by this.
If we look at Zhuangzi (the inner part) again, judging by the novel concept that is open today, Zhuangzi (the inner part) can really be regarded as an allegorical novel with the plot diluted by the image and full of artistic abstract beauty, and it is the crystallization of Zhuangzi's rise from concrete deduction of thinking to abstract thinking. Moreover, we found that later works such as Han Feizi, Lv Chunqiu, Huai Nanzi, Shuo Yuan, New Preface and Han Fu Short Stories all followed this path. There are traces of this way of thinking in novels about strange people and strange people. More importantly, this kind of thinking trace also extends to ancient prose in Tang and Song Dynasties, tang legends and novels in Ming and Qing Dynasties. Liu Zongyuan and Su Dongpo directly feel and express the life of the universe by fable. Strange Tales from a Lonely Studio, Notes from Yuewei Caotang, Jin Ping Mei, The Journey to the West and A Dream of Red Mansions all exude strong allegorical thinking.
Because of this, we can see that in the pluralistic literary pattern formed since modern times, the creative thinking mode of fable thinking is also everywhere. As far as novels are concerned, while studying their historical evolution, theoretical circles are used to discussing the relationship between social ideological trends and creative methods in terms of regions, genres and years, such as Mandarin Duck and Butterfly School, Shanghai School writers, scar novels, root-seeking literature, experimental novels, new realistic novels, novels of the late generation, realistic shock waves, writers in the 1960s and so on. This of course has its absolute discussion value. However, if we look at it differently, we will be surprised to find that in modern and contemporary novel creation, there is a Zhuangzi-style fable thinking mode that has always existed in the narrative text of the novel, and it is getting stronger and stronger today. Not to mention the works of modern Lu Xun, Xu Dishan, Fei Ming, Shi Zhecun, Shen Congwen, Lao She and others, even contemporary works emerge one after another. Han Shaogong's Dad is like a lock with many lock holes, which can be opened with different keys. Its language surface and spiritual connotation have a shocking effect, showing the thinking mode of "object-image-meaning (emotion)-reason", and completing the construction of the heavy connotation of the text. He later published "Changmaqiao Dictionary" in 1996, which was separated from his parents for more than 10 years. He simply connected short and pithy stories in the form of dictionary entries, creating and constructing a figurative abstract world. The connection mode of his perceptual argument is consistent with that of Zhuangzi. Jia Pingwa's Twenty Records of Taibai Mountain is also full of the characteristics of allegorical thinking. The writer injects some rational aura into this image, captures the flowing life and observes the fate of society, life and people. Its intention is not only in the story itself, but also in the deep layer of the story, so we can see the different meanings and complexity of the work on another level. So the novel "reality" is a layer of structure, and "emptiness" is a layer of structure. In fiction and fact, writers mainly use deformed thinking forms such as materialization, alienation and illusion. Gao Lao Zhuang, published in 1998, is a patriarchal society with Confucian culture as its pillar, a foreign culture different from China's traditional culture represented by Xixia, a "ranger" style in China culture with Cai Laohei as a metaphor, and a modern civilization represented by employees of the flooring factory. These language symbols are skillfully combined with history to form four cultural types, and three contradictory clues between China culture and traditional culture, and between modern civilization and China culture and heterogeneous culture are formed. They also try to create various mysterious images by means of approximate magical realism, and reveal the conflicts, collisions and integration of various cultural types in the social transformation period. This is really the writer's understanding of the overall grasp of social rationality. Shi Tiesheng's Me and Ditan is closer to Zhuangzi's prose-style novels with weakened plot. Through the story that El spent fifteen years in Ditan day after day, the novel realized the philosophy of survival and life: "The universe, with its endless desires, refined a song and dance into eternity. What kind of names this desire has can be ignored. " Jiang Rong's "Wolf Totem" reflects human nature from the wolf nature in the wolf culture atmosphere, and then indicates that human beings are doomed to some kind of self-loss, and expounds some grand historical views and values. Hint, another novel by Han Shaogong, is similar to Zhuangzi in layout, language orientation and metaphor, and communication between metaphysics, except that Zhuangzi talks about the consciousness of the world and Hint talks about the consciousness of globalization.
We don't need to enumerate them in detail. These three writers are very representative writers in novel creation in the new period, and they are basically active writers since the late 1970s and early 1980s. There is no doubt that their creative trajectory and mentality have been influenced by the times, but their works have always had a consistent creative thinking mode since ancient times, and the texts produced by this creative thinking mode are so heavy and meaningful that people can't stop. If we take Ma Yuan, Su Tong, Yu Hua, Hong Feng, Ge Fei, Zhao Yan, Sun Ganlu, Han Dong, Yang Lu, Zhu Wen, He Dun, Xu Kun, Bi Feiyu, Qiu Huadong, Liu Jiming, Shu Ping, Ding Tian, Zhang Mei, Dongxi, Devil, Qi Zhi and others, as well as 2 1 century, the narrative intentions of these novelists are mostly twofold. This arrangement and combination can disrupt the normal order of time and space, produce a huge leap in time and space, and also arrange the plot combination in disorder, and even distort and unreal people and things. And its purpose is only one, that is, it is not limited to the form in the superficial image description, but only to absorb its spirit, grasp the functional attributes attached to this thing and other things, and complete the correspondence with the "rational abstraction" of the deep structure. Therefore, for China writers, their ancestors are not the magic of Latin America (of course, the magic of Latin America also has something in common with Zhuangzi), but a consistent way of thinking to express the literary system influenced by the fable of Zhuangzi.