Shen Congwen (1902- 1988) was born in Fenghuang County, Hunan Province (now Xiangxi Tujia and Miao Autonomous Prefecture). Formerly known as Shen Yuehuan. My grandfather was a magistrate in Guizhou, and my first grandmother was a Miao. My father joined the army when he was young and participated in the local armed uprising during the Revolution of 1911. Later, Yuan Shikai was assassinated. My mother, the daughter of a famous family, was literate since she was a child, which had the deepest influence on Shen Congwen. The remote geographical features of Xiangxi and his unique Miao, Han and Tujia lineages played an important role in the formation of his character. Shen Congwen entered a private school at the age of 6, and graduated from Fenghuang County No.1 Primary School at the age of 15. This is his last degree. 19 17 August, he entered the local indigenous troops according to local customs, stayed in the Yuanshui River Basin, and worked as a soldier, squad leader, secretary, document and secretary. In the counties of the Yuanshui River basin where the troops were active, he saw the toughness and ferocity of the "Xiang Army" and also saw Xiangxi, which is located on the border of Sichuan, Hunan, Hubei and Guizhou. 1922 (20 years old), after being exposed to new literature, he went to Beijing alone out of his inner yearning. After failing to enter higher education, I lived in Youxi Guild Hall (moved to an apartment in Yinzha Hutong after half a year, which was "narrow and moldy") to study by myself and started literary creation. During this period, he mainly published his works in Morning Post Supplement, Modern Review, Novel Monthly and New Moon under the pseudonyms of Shen Congwen and Hugh Yun Yun, and supplemented them with Jinghua Daily and People's Literature and Art Weekly edited by Hu Yepin. Yu Dafu's famous confide to a literary youth is 1923' s reply to Shen Congwen's request for help. 1926 (at the age of 24) published the first collection of works "Ducks" (including essays, novels, dramas and poems), and 1927 published the collection of short stories "Oranges", which began to emerge in the literary world. 1928 1, went to Shanghai. In August, at the invitation of Hu Shizhi, he graduated with the qualification of novel as a lecturer in "China College" and taught writing. This year, he also published a collection of novels and dramas, including the first and second volumes of the novel Alice China's Travels, Journals of Ruojun, collections of short stories, Nostalgia, Immortal Diary, Honest Man, After the Rain and so on. From 1929 to 1, he started to establish literary magazines Red and Black and World with Hu Yepin and Ding Ling, and joined the Crescent Society. /kloc-in the summer of 0/930, he was a lecturer in Chinese Department of Wuhan University. 193 1 1 October, Hu Yepin was arrested and imprisoned. On February 7th, Rou Shi, Yin Fu, Li Weisen and Feng Keng (also known as the "Five Martyrs of the Left League") were shot and killed in Longhua. In April, Shen Congwen ventured to escort Ding Ling and her children back to Changde, Hunan. This autumn, at the invitation of Yang Zhensheng, I went to teach at Qingdao University. 1in the autumn of 932, he went to Beijing at the invitation of Yang Zhensheng and joined the "Textbook Compilation Committee for Primary and Secondary Schools" of the Ministry of Education. During this period, Shen Congwen published a number of works every year, including novels The Diary of the Fool, Old Dreams, The Life of an Actress, novellas The Witch's Love, The Exchange of Genius, Clay Fighter Painting, Short Stories What Men Should Know, Fourteen Nights and Others, and Shen Congwen's Works. Two months later, when people were about to forget Ding Ling, Shen Congwen published the article "Remembering Ms Ding Ling". In September of the same year, Shen Congwen married Zhang Zhaohe. In June, 65438+the same year 10, Shen Congwen published the attitude of literati, which caused the famous "Beijing-Shanghai dispute". During this year, he also published novella A Mother, a collection of short stories, The Generous Prince and Scenery under the Moon. And edited the supplement of Ta Kung Pao Literature and Art in Beijing. 1934 is the most brilliant year in Shen Congwen's life. In June+10, 5438, after he returned to Xiangxi to visit his seriously ill mother, he wrote his masterpiece Border Town, and wrote many chapters and published short stories in his masterpiece essays, Travel Notes of Hunan (1936) and Xiangxi (1939). After publishing a series of novels, such as Shen Congwen's Novels and Shen Congwen's Selected Novels: 1933, the creation of left-wing literature has changed greatly. Hu Yepin, Ding Ling, Jiang Guangchi and other "early left-wing writers" withdrew from the literary world for various reasons (or were killed, arrested, died of illness, etc. ), and Zhang Tianyi, Sha Ting, Ai Wu and other "left-wing rookies" began to rise, and Mao Dun's novel creation also entered an explosive period. Like many writers such as Mao Dun, Shen Congwen's life also experienced violent turmoil after the outbreak of the 1937 Anti-Japanese War. 1August, 937, went south with universities such as Tsinghua, Peking University and Nankai, passed through Tianjin, Yantai, Jinan, Nanjing, Wuhan and Changsha, then returned to Xiangxi, and then passed through Yuanling and Guizhou to Kunming. He used to be an associate professor at the National The National SouthWest Associated University Teachers College and a professor at the General Assembly, Peking University, until 1946. After the victory of the Anti-Japanese War, he returned to Beijing and continued to serve as Professor Peking University. During this period, he still had novels such as Diary of a Woman and Long River, as well as short stories such as Housewife, Gentleman's Wife, Rukun (different from Rukun), Deng Chunji, Black Wind Collection and Prose Collection Xiangxing Prose. Since the Anti-Japanese War, Shen Congwen's relationship with left-wing writers has been deteriorating due to the controversy caused by many articles published in the literary world. In a series of debates initiated by left-wing writers, such as "theory irrelevant to the Anti-Japanese War", "Warring States Policy School", "theory against writers' politics" and "liberal literature", he was listed as a rebel almost every time, and his novels during this period were repeatedly criticized. 1948, Guo Moruo asserted in an unquestionable tone in the article "Rejecting reactionary literature and art" that he "has always been active as a reactionary". So, during the "First Literary Congress" held in July 1949, he was sent to the research class of Central Revolutionary University with Zhu Guangqian, a Beijing theorist, Zhang Ailing, a female writer in the occupied area, and a famous writer in the Kuomintang-controlled area, and he was sent to study in the autumn of 1949. He switched to the history museum. 1963, at the proposal of premier Zhou Enlai, participated in the compilation of the Atlas of Chinese History, and 1964 completed the monograph Study on Other Ancient Costumes. 1969 was sent to May 7th Cadre School in Xianning, Hubei Province to see the vegetable garden, and 197 1 was allowed to return to Beijing. 1980 to give lectures in America. 1988 died in Beijing.

On Shen Congwen's novel creation, Shen Congwen came to Beijing from the border town with a sacred "literary ideal". According to this ideal, he tried his best to maintain the purity and seriousness of literature and resolutely opposed the partisanship and commercialization of literature. In his novel creation, he mercilessly satirized and criticized the modern civilization in the city, carefully constructed a beautiful western Hunan world, and made his own unique contribution to the lyrical technique and pastoral style of the novel. Shen Congwen's novels can be divided into two major themes: "City" and "Xiangxi". As a "countryman", the urban theme is that he faces reality directly and focuses on moral criticism, while the western Hunan theme is his memory of the past after becoming an urbanite and focuses on praising his ideals. So naturally, "cold and warm" are two completely different colors. Similarly, it shows city life. Shen Congwen's novels, left-wing novels and neo-sensual novels show the same characteristics in "disclosure", but they also show great differences. Shen Congwen saw more moral decay and selfish greed behind modern civilization, and emphasized the vulgarity and meanness of intellectuals. The left-wing novels represented by Mao Dun emphasize social analysis and class criticism. Neo-sensory novels focus on the impression of feeling and the confusion of human nature. A large number of sexual descriptions in Shen Congwen's novels are most prominently reflected in his different attitudes towards the city and Xiangxi. Although Shen Congwen has lived in a big city and entered the upper class of the city since he entered Beijing at the age of 20, he is a respected intellectual. However, he found that the senior people in the city were suffering from "castration", and they wanted to love but were afraid to say it. Therefore, he would rather and always regard himself as a "countryman" than associate with the upper class of the city, and always look at the life of the city from the perspective of a countryman. In his view, the "wise men" in the city tied themselves with all kinds of ropes made by "civilization" and fell into a more uncivilized cycle, while the rural people always returned to nature and sought the harmony of human nature. In the description of sex in his novels, people of all colors in the city, especially the "high people" in the upper class, are always ridiculed in an ironic tone. Eight Horses is about the ugliness of eight professors, and The Gentleman's Wife is mainly about the ugliness of gentlemen and ladies. In "Border Town" and other works, it is entirely a compliment. The bolder Cui Cui asks for sex, the more pure and beautiful he thinks. Here, besides homesickness and nostalgia, the main reason lies in the role of reason. Shen Congwen regards sex as a symbol of human life existence and life consciousness. It is an important angle to observe different life forms and explore different people's sexual concepts, from which we can find different manifestations of human nature under different cultural constraints. As Ms. Su said, Shen Congwen's creation is to "inject the savage's blood into the decadent old clock of the Chinese nation with the power of words to excite him" (on Shen Congwen, Selected Works of Su, page 456, Anhui Literature and Art Publishing House, 1989). It is in this sense that the significance of these novels describing urban life to Shen Congwen lies in arousing the author's good memories and yearning for life in western Hunan through "urban-rural comparison". Shen Congwen's theme of Xiangxi vividly shows the folk customs of Xiangxi and Yuanshui River Basin with regional characteristics. Bai Zi (a monthly novel, written in1May, 928 and published in1August, 937) is a sign that Shen Congwen's novels move from naivety to maturity. It tells the love story between a sailor named Bai Zi and a woman who works as a prostitute by the Michael Chen River. Bai Zi often spends two months working hard on a boat in Chenhe, and then comes to reunite with her lover and give her the money she earned and the things she bought. And lovers always count the days, waiting for Bai Zi's return with deep affection and heart, just like a couple. Here, the author doesn't want to describe the character of a laborer, nor to whitewash an ignorant life, but to show people's living state, natural desire and vitality through the poetic discovery of human nature. Sasha Vujacic is one of Shen Congwen's most realistic works. The novel begins with Mix/Kloc marrying her husband who is 3 years older than her at the age of 0/2, and describes Mix's industriousness and simplicity and the innocence of young girls with more pen and ink. The story slowly reached its climax. When Mix was pregnant with a flower dog, the plot took a turn for the worse, and poetic romance became a life-and-death reality. The free structure of works, the description of customs and love songs make the novel integrate prose and poetry. His works, such as Dragon Ball, Mei Jin, Leopard and Sheep, and Quiet under the Moon, draw nutrition from folk stories, Miao legends and Buddhist stories, and are full of romanticism and local cultural characteristics. Border Town (serialized in Chinese Weekly 1934 1 to April. Shanghai Life Bookstore (published in June 5438+the same year 10) is the most representative work of Shen Congwen's novels. "Xiangxi World" is the epitome of Shen Congwen's ideal life, and "Border Town" is Shen Congwen's ideal "Greek Temple". In this small temple, there are not only his ideal characters and ideal life representing natural humanity, but also his ideal style representing natural nature. In these characters, there is a sacred glory, which embodies the solemnity, health, beauty and piety that have long existed in human nature and have not been eroded and distorted by modern civilization. In a brief contact with the second son of the local Zhangshui Wharf Group, Cui Cui allowed himself to sprout love and did not feel inferior. Even after hearing that the group had always wanted to beat her in-laws with someone who had a mill house and marry him, she didn't relate the news to her marriage at all. In her innocent and pure mind, there seems to be no concept of "match" at all. Therefore, in the author's eyes, her love is the noblest and most poetic love that transcends all secular interests. Therefore, it can be said that Cui Cui is Shen Congwen's "ideal figure", and he worships the gods of love and beauty. Equally noble, the two sons in the group, Da Tianbao and Er Laotuo, both fell in love with Cui Cui, but neither killed the other. Tianbao learned that Cui Cui was in love with his younger brother, and he voluntarily withdrew from the competition. It is difficult to understand that this ideal life is not just a romantic and warm love story, but a love tragedy. However, the author does not seem to feel sad about this tragedy. In the author's outlook on life (life and death), all this is a natural arrangement and the normal state of life. This is the case with local folk customs, and so should all living beings. In this primitive and simple world, there is no evil, no greed, even the most common envy of human beings, only kindness, honesty, chivalry and enthusiasm. For love, Nuo gave up the dowry mill and chose the ferry; Tianbao respected Cui Cui's choice and chose to leave in order to fulfill his younger brother. After learning the unfortunate news of his brother, Northon was heartbroken and ran away from home. Even Cui Cui's only relative, grandfather, abandoned the ship, leaving only a lonely Cui Cui. However, Shunshun, the father sent by Tianbao and Nuo, not only didn't blame her, but also came to take her home. Even the old soldiers who chased Cui Cui's mother came to take care of Cui Cui. This is the pastoral life of life, a life form that has not been distorted by modern civilization, the extreme of life form, and the expression of "divinity". This divinity is the combination of love and beauty. In the author's view, God, love and beauty are one and inseparable. In order to express this "extreme humanity", the author had to create an "absurd" artistic conception from the beginning: "From Sichuan to Hunan, there is an official road going east ..." Border Town ***2 1 section, each section is a round prose poem with lyrical style: slow plot, delicate psychology and beauty. In the works describing life in western Hunan, such as Border Town, we can see that narrative is narrative and lyric is lyric. The brushwork of prose and the artistic conception of poetry become the main body of the novel, and reality and fantasy, life and nature blend together with the development of simple stories. Perhaps, Shen Congwen inadvertently created his own ideal style: poetic lyric novels. The basic elements, such as the theme, the description of human nature and the imagination of life forms, which constitute the "Xiangxi World" are the contrast between the "Xiangxi World" and modern urban civilization. As we know, Shen Congwen's main literary contribution is to construct his unique "Xiangxi World" with novels and essays. Therefore, comparing with his urban theme creation is the most important content for us to understand his "Xiangxi World". The main purpose of Shen Congwen's "Xiangxi World" is to vividly show the folk customs of Xiangxi (the "Chu land" in a larger scope) with regional characteristics. As we said earlier, Shen Congwen's novels can be divided into two major themes: "Xiangxi" and "city", and his creation of Xiangxi theme can also be divided into "reality" and "homesickness". As for his realistic theme creation in Xiangxi, we made a special introduction at the junior college stage: "Influenced by Lu Xun's' local literature' with rural memory as the theme, it not only describes local customs, but also touches on some thought-provoking social problems." "rustling" wrote that the heroine was married to her husband's family at the age of twelve, and the little husband was less than three years old. Later, she fell in love with the songs of a quilt worker and a dog, and she became pregnant as a woman. So as usual, she either sank or was sold. Just by chance, she gave birth to a boy and was left behind by her husband's family. This paper describes the irrationality of marriage under the feudal patriarchal clan system. However, the author continues to describe Mix's consummation with her little husband. At that time, his son was ten and twelve years old, and he was busy marrying him a daughter-in-law six years older than him. This is even sadder. The victim didn't realize his tragic experience. According to the old genealogy handed down from generation to generation, she personally arranged this tragedy for the next generation. On the contrary, the husband is about the disappearance and disintegration of old traditional virtues, which is of course due to the decline of rural economy. In order to survive, farmers can no longer ignore the old traditions. Some women go out to do business, that is, prostitution to earn money. This is allowed by the husband. Because of the change of lifestyle, they lost the simplicity and shyness of peasant women. Not only the body is ravaged, but also the spirit is corroded. Even a numb husband can't stand it. He finally got his wife back. There is also "Niu", which describes the pain of farmers' exorbitant taxes. "However, in his nostalgic works, the concept of time and social contradictions are intentionally blurred. In Border Town, although people have different social status, there is no opposing class conflict, and everyone in the work is the embodiment of beauty. In Dragon Ball, Plum Blossom Leopard and Sheep, and Moonlight Scene, the author draws nutrition from folk stories, Miao legends and Buddhist stories, which are full of romanticism. Shen Congwen's sexual description in "Xiangxi World" and urban themes is most prominently reflected in his different attitudes towards sexual content. As we know, although Shen Congwen and other Beijing writers live in big cities and enter the upper class of the city, they are respected intellectuals, but they always pretend to be "country people", refuse to associate with the upper class of the city, and always look at urban life from the perspective of country people. Therefore, Shen Congwen always uses an ironic tone to ridicule all kinds of people in the city, especially the "high people" in the upper class. Eight Matu talks about the ugly behavior of eight professors, and the wife of a gentleman mainly talks about the ugly behavior of a gentleman and a lady. However, in his works such as Border Town, he completely adopts a kind of praise attitude. The bolder they ask for sex, the more he thinks they are pure and beautiful. The reason lies not only in nostalgia and nostalgia, but also in the role of reason. Because in Shen Congwen's view, sex is regarded as a symbol of human life existence and life consciousness, it is an important angle to observe different life forms to explore different people's sexual concepts, from which we can find different manifestations of human nature under different cultural constraints. But why does Shen Congwen think that the human nature of urbanites under the restriction of modern civilization is morbid, while that of Xiangxi people under the primitive ecology is sound? Maybe we can also ask: since the scenery and girls in Xiangxi are so beautiful, why did he have to come to that ugly metropolis? The answer should be self-evident. It was after he arrived in the metropolis, especially after discovering that the senior people in the metropolis were "castrated", that he realized how beautiful he had lost? Castration means "eunuch" and "eunuch". The so-called "eunuch temple" is the eunuch. Want to love but dare not love, even dare not say, therefore, Shen Congwen can proudly call himself a countryman, preferring to call himself a countryman. Therefore, in his description, in the face of surging sex, whether implicit or explicit, rural people can always return to nature and seek the harmony of human nature; However, the "wise men" in the city bind themselves with all kinds of ropes made by "civilization" and fall into a more uncivilized cycle. As Ms. Su said, Shen Congwen's creation is to "inject savage blood into the decadent Chinese nation in the old Mellon with the power of words and make him excited". It is in this sense that we can say: "In fact, these novels describing urban life are not completely independent of Shen Congwen, but always exist as a foil or a critical observation of the whole' rural narrative', that is, the' Xiangxi world'. "It can also be said that the significance of these novels describing urban life to Shen Congwen lies in arousing Shen Congwen's good memories and yearning for life in western Hunan. It is in this sense that we can also say that the life form of Xiangxi world written by Shen Congwen has both great rational elements and great imaginative elements. In the textbook, we specially introduced the writing reason of Border Town, and even talked about the image prototype of Cui Cui, which can also be found in Shen Congwen's prose. It should be said that many of Shen Congwen's novels are based on reality, but Xiangxi, which is located at the junction of Hunan, Guizhou and Sichuan provinces, is exactly what we now call the "old, young, marginal and poor" area. Is it really as beautiful as heaven as described by the author? Of course not. This is only the creation of literature, but also the charm of literature. So we say in the textbook that in this world (that is, "Xiangxi World"), Shen Congwen has actively extracted a life form that has not been distorted by the infiltration of modern civilization. The extreme of this life form is a praise of "divinity". And this "divinity" is the combination of "love" and "beauty" In other words, God, love and beauty are one and inseparable. Cui Cui is an "ideal figure" of Shen Congwen, who worships the gods of love and beauty. In order to express this "extreme humanity", the author had to create an "absurd" artistic conception from the beginning. The sentence at the beginning of the work: "From Sichuan to Hunan, there is an official road heading east ... just like the story we often heard when we were young:" A long time ago ... "Border Town and Shen Congwen's literary ideal." "Xiangxi World" is the epitome of Shen Congwen's ideal life, and Border Town is the concentrated representative of Shen Congwen's "Xiangxi World". Therefore, we can say that Shen Congwen not only regards Border Town as a "small Greek temple" dedicated to life ideals, but also enshrines his literary ideals in this small temple. In this small temple, there are not only the ideal figures he worships, but also the ideal life and style he yearns for. In these ideal figures, there is a sacred glory, which embodies the solemnity, health, beauty and piety that have long existed in human nature and have not been eroded and distorted by modern civilization. In contact with the only man, Cui Cui fell in love and made his heart fall in love with the second son (Erlao) Nuo sent by the local Zhangshui Wharf Group. She doesn't feel inferior. Even after hearing that the group had always wanted to beat her in-laws with someone who had a mill house to marry her, she didn't relate the news to her marriage at all. In her innocent and pure heart, there seems to be no "suitable match". Equally noble are the two sons in the group, Da Tianbao and Er Laotuo. They both fell in love with Cui Cui at the same time, but they didn't kill each other. On the same day, Bao learned that he fell in love with his younger brother and voluntarily withdrew from the competition. It is hard to understand that this ideal life is not just a romantic and warm love story, but a love tragedy, but the author doesn't seem to feel sad for all this. Perhaps this is the author's outlook on life (life and death). Natural forest protection encountered misfortune when it left, and it was too sad to send it away. Even Cui Cui's only relative, her grandfather, abandoned the ship, leaving only a lonely Cui Cui. In the author's view, all these illnesses are natural arrangements, the normal state of life and local folk customs, and all living beings should be like this. And life is like this, why do novels that express life have to be written according to artificial rules? Therefore, in the works describing life in western Hunan, such as Border Town, we can see that narrative is narrative and lyric is lyric. The brushwork of prose and the artistic conception of poetry become the main body of the novel, and reality and fantasy, life and nature blend harmoniously with the development of simple stories. This is the ideal style created by Shen Congwen: poetic lyric novel.