浅析废名现象

一、The Influence of Ancient Chinese Literature on Feiming

The first point is that the grace of language in Feiming’s novels is the same with that in ancient essays. The genre of ode, which developed in Song Dynasty into semi-essay, such as Wang Anshi and Su Shi and further into terse and enlivened essays in Tang Dynasty, and this genre’s versatility, which may be seen in its ability to serve as both lyrical expressions and narrative statements, make it possible for Feiming to create essay-tinged novels. Another point is that ancient author’s writing for the outflow of inner feelings and experience also finds echo in Feiming’s works which form a somehow exclusive remote resort for the artist to be compassionate with himself, but not for writing and writing. Feiming’s article is like a circle, in which he was extremely negative but just this circle seems like the author’s inner being. It is just because of this that Zhu Guangqian held that the archetype of Feiming’s psychological state is an extreme introvert, which makes Feiming’s article inclusive. In this way, a master of nostalgic and idyllic songs modernly educated is expressing his profound poetic temperament with a terse style and eccentric and poignant words. If Shen Congwen’s works are sports of feelings as he defined them, Feiming’s are certainly more so, which is clearly shown in the stream-of-consciousness style, a style allowing the words to flow with the feelings of the heroes and which may be traced back to ancient Chinese poetry, especially those of Tang Dynasty, making some define his novels as the art of “Tang Cutshorts”.

Zhou Zuoren compared Feiming’s novels to literary works by writers belonging to the Jingling School existing in late Ming Dynasty, for both employed eccentric words and terse styles, which are based on the same trend of literary development-the same as the fact that the latter’s works are efforts to revolt against the monotony in the overall literary environment at that time, so, the former’s are efforts to save literature from the over elaboration with not enough composure in the period around the May-fourth movement, which, in Zhou Zuoren’s opinion, developed even into mediocrity and shallowness, with a somehow unfamiliar but far from artificial style. So-called: vulgar can not trend to steady and the rising of eccentric words and terse styles are all certainly, that Feiming made up the new literature defect with the graceful of article. But the problem is that at that time articles were for practical use, the prosperity of the nation, instead of literary taste, thus Feiming’s effort was largely neglected, with only a few attention from several individualist writers and the Beijing School. Feiming, a name signifying self-oblivion, is surely connected with the elevated lifestyle of Buddhism, but is not unrelated to the social environment and the cold reception of his works at that time. Although later he is acknowledged as his efforts deserve, at that time this stylist could only enjoy a lonely honor.

二、The Common Points between Feiming’s Works and Chinese ancientBrush Scenery Paintings

Feiming’s artistic style, in which settings and sceneries are not servants for activities of characters, vice versa, dovetails well with Chinese brush paintings which he treasured very much. “The meaning of life does not lie in its stories but in the narrative techniques in telling these stories”. Bridge as a novel is the unfolding of endless feelings and reveries in an almost fixed time and space, which makes it less a novel than a description of a brush painting, with the author as the guide, introducing to us tourists what are included in this painting. We see with the eyes of a boy named Linzi honeysuckles, wells, sunsets, cats, flowers, the Wanshou Palace, monuments and traditions like “sending bulls and street lamplights” and experience with him the exuberance of children in school and the two innocent girls and the distance-free company they form. This may be called a large picture of the joy of children. Another reason to call it a picture is that in pictures time and space are limited while in Bridge space is fixed and no time is shown by growth of children, what’s more, time here can only be described as “Childhood”. But also from the story of the development of the plot is static: simply the play of Xiaolin, Qinzi and Xizhu. Readers with the expectation to experience complex development of love would be disappointed.

The choice of main characters in feiming’s works , mainly young females, is similar to ancient Chinese novels; and their beauty, innocence, kindness, spiritually-inspiredness give them a tinge of goddesses free from worldly bondages, making them the very incarnation of the spiritual inspiration of the universe, which are not unlike heroines created by ancient writers, for example, outstanding ladies in Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio by Pu Songling and Ladies in Dreams in a Red Mansion by Cao Xueqin in which men are obscene while women are talented and spirited. But the ends for the ladies are different in Feiming’s works from the fate of ancient ladies’ aiding husbands and nurturing children and searching for great accomplishment deserving the title of highest status. Feiming’s style is neither realistic nor romantic, but not unrealistic or unromantic either. It is the combination of the two. Thus, he did not spent enough effort to describe the tragic fate of ancient Chinese women but from the perspective of the male described the innocent time beguiled by childlike games in refreshing natural sceneries, which is connected with his idyllicity and nostalgia. Though women characters in his works are innocent, most of them stick to feudalist teachings. Washing Mum has a mother respected when she chooses to remain single in widowhood but disrespected and feared when she allows a single man to buy vegetables in front of his house. The Story in a Bamboo Wood has the same plot in which the girl chooses to remain home though she desires to enjoy the joy of the festival for her mother can not go because she is a widow. Feiming described these with an easy grace in a seemingly playful mood. This is a scene seen in a window, as the Baudelaire’s poem quoted in this work shows: What is seen under the sun is forever less interesting with what appreciated through a window, a hole in which life is spectated like an elusive dream, hoping, fighting and struggling. This idyllic song is Feiming’s creation, not an authentic version of what is real in ancient China.

Though at that time Feiming’s novels are unique and though he expressed too much of Chinese ancient cultural tradition, he is accepted into the literary history with a place of his own. Why? First, there are modern ideas in his works got from modern education. There’s a haunting melancholy in all his works no matter they are about joyful events or sorrowful ones, a loss enclosed in the following poem:

When I left,

Willow leaves seemed so reluctant to send me away;

While now I return,

Nothing is there to meet me save the unrimmiting rain and snow.

The cause of the loss is surely an anxiety developed from the fading away of ancient civilization. So-called Lu Sun said, Dilute for Clothing and Lament Oneself Lonely. This is not possessed by ancient author. That is to say that as the modern Intel lecture, Feiming has the Sober-minded realism, although dose not hold high banner of realism publicly. Secondly, there is a sense of postmodernism in him for he discovered in the far from modernized China the guilt of modernity and severely attacked at it. If his realistic melancholy dovetails with the era around the May-fourth movement and ensured him a place in Chinese literature, his attack at modernity would find compassion from modern readers, making his works a resort for modern readers toiling in modern cities. There is any concilience with world civilization tide of modern people criticism. At the same time provide another project for Chinese Nation Remodeling national character―discover the never disappeared humanity and character beauty from the ancient civilization.

All in all, Feiming’s artistic career is a complex literary phenomenon combining the modern and the ancient culture.

杜永芳：青岛大学文学院。