Chinese Writers' Poetic Imagination Under The Influence Of Witch Culture

In the 20th century, the modern and contemporary Chinese writers experience a transition period from the traditional culture to the modern culture. In the face of the primitive and mysterious witch culture that originates from the folk, passes through the ancient history and is never dying, they remake rational thinking and conscious cultural choice, and integrate the weird witch thought with the aesthetic thought of literature, making the witch culture exist in Chinese literature in diversified forms in the 20th century and carry a color of the modern times.This paper targets at, by researching fiction, a kind of narrative work in the 20th century, comprehensively illustrating the similarities and differences of modern and contemporary Chinese writers in their choice of witch culture, making an analysis of the diachronic change of the existing forms of witch culture in the fiction of the 20th century, and exploring the reasons why the with culture can exist reasonably in various covert ways in the modern and contemporary Chinese literature, and making a classified analysis and systematic inspection on the process of the modern and contemporary Chinese writers'participation in the construction of Chinese culture in the 20th century and creation of aesthetic experience of the modern and contemporary Chinese culture.The thesis consists of five chapters in addition to the introduction and conclusion parts.In the Introduction, the author analyzes the main reasons why the Chinese writers pay attention to and choose the witch culture in the 20th century, puts forward the basis for selecting the topic, makes a theoretical definition of the "witch", "witchcraft", and "witch culture", introduces the existing and relevant research results, and presents the frame of the paper and the innovative points.Chapter One probes into, from the standpoint of enlightenment, the Chinese writers'complex attitude towards the witch culture in the 20th century, that is, they were questioning and critic about it, and meanwhile attracted by it. It shows that the pioneers of the modern enlightenment are full of contradictions in their spiritual world, and modern Chinese intellectuals are quite perplexed when the literature enlightenment and the aesthetic needs of literature are entangled with each other. The interweaving of the repression exerted to the writer by the contradiction and the anti-repression of writers brings to the works thought-provoking art space and the unexpected depth of art.Chapter Two discusses the relationship between the witch culture and the culture selection and creation pursuit of the modern and contemporary Chinese writers who stay at the cultural marginality and are nourished by the minority culture that wears the primitive religion features. These writers strive to seek a path in the unique witch beliefs to reconfirm the national property, save the national culture, appease the soul of modern people, and heal the diseases of modern civilization. The representation of the local world with witch beliefs as its core is. just the superficial layer, and the deeper layer lies in exploring and constructing an ideal humanity form and existence mode. On one hand, the-call for the human nature and witchcraft rituals become an important channel for them to return to the nature and the era that "God Exists". On the other hand, they treat the witch culture as a cultural philosophy reflecting the world and life, and accordingly create a kind of mythical fiction art that lays emphasis on symbolism, meditation and expression of emotion. Their works shake off the restraint of the reason-dominating time and yield a poetic space for literature, and greatly enrich the cultural and aesthetic connotations for the literature in the 20th century.Chapter Three explores the relationship between the witch culture and the "God Making" and "Blasphemy"in the fictions of the 20th century, by making analysis of countryside theme fictions in 1940s and after the founding of the PRC, and the fictions concerning the revolution. In the political narrative fictions in the 20th century, the writers make "disenchantment" on the witch beliefs by affirming the ideologies that "Man is separated from God" and "Man can conquer the nature", which complies with the "Disenchantment" campaign of Chinese politicians to eradicate the folk religions. However, the witch beliefs do not vanish in the times of political disenchantment. In the narration of politics, the modern and contemporary writers display the complex relationships-both combining and dissociated-between witch beliefs and politics and revolution. On one hand, writers accomplish the god making and worshiping movements and build up a new political myth via collecting witch culture-related symbols and witchcraft rituals from the folk; on the other hand, the modern and contemporary writers are concerned about the complicated relationship between folk beliefs and rights and order, and try to break away from the superficialness and asperity of the political "Disenchantment" campaign. They note down the real religious beliefs of the people living at the foot of the social ladder, and reveal the significance of the witch beliefs which become meat and drink to the common people and are a mystical perception of the existence of life and a potential complement to civil rights. The witch and politics are related to each other in an ambiguous manner, which implies the complex relationship of control and anti-control, repression and exploitation, hostility and alliance between the official culture and popular culture, and between the government and common people in China's process of modernization in the 20th century, and records the characteristics of people's spirits, beliefs, and religion of Chinese local society in the 20th century. It is a precious spiritual archive different from the official history, and still carries great thoughts value and aesthetic value of literature.Chapter Four focuses on illustrating the inseparable relationship between "root seeking" and "witch hunt" of the seeking roots writers in middle and late 1980s. The seeking roots writers rebuild national self-demands on modernization without strictly abiding by the standard of Western culture, but rather by getting rid of the invisible control of modernization and introducing witch culture into the culture transformation and national self-construction. They not only perseveringly dig the effective quality of culture reconstruction in witch culture stating from the suspicion of the modernity of enlightenment, but also have rational criticism and contemporary reflection on witch culture on the context of enlightenment culture. In addition, the witch culture has a poetry and historical tradition, which stimulates the seeking roots writers to explore the artistic forms of fictions with great enthusiasm. They resort to emotional aesthetic choice on witch culture and make resurgent the mythical thinking or witch thinking preserved from the folk myths and witchcraft rituals, which brings a large quantity of local and marginal folk cultural resources to the narrative literature, produces fresh way of thinking and narrative means, and thus amends the increasingly narrow stereotype and the fixed way of thinking in the narrative of modernization within the political constraints, promotes the contemporary Chinese fiction to probe into the combination of the modernization and nationalization of literature, and boosts the literature innovation in the new era and the creation of a new free and open literature discourse era.Chapter Five firstly analyzes the relationship between "pioneer" and "tradition", and then shows that a batch of pioneer writers such as Ma Yuan, Can Xue, Yu Hua, Ge Fei, Lin Bai, Xu Xiaobin, etc. seek consciously or unconsciously the factors that spiritually tally with the thoughts of the modern Western literature in the witch culture which has deeply influenced them since their childhood. Inspired by the ancient and primitive witchcraft thought, the pioneer writers, via their description of prophecy, illusion, destiny and other non-rational factors, subvert the reader's everyday experience, and lead them to a surrealistic world filled with witchcraft where they can experience the common and non-rational elements which had been sheltered in a rational order. In the unification of rational and irrational creation of works, the pioneer writers step into a "critical state" that witches perform witchcraft. In the dialogue with the soul, they profoundly exhibit the exploration of the existence that had been shadowed by the popular language, the solemn inspection on the human's "real state of soul", and the search for a haven for the soul. Specifically, Lin Bai, Xu Xiaobin and other women pioneer writers portray the tragic escape and hopeless rescue of modern women in the male-centered society via the call for the returning of mysterious "witch". In terms of the narration of fictions, the pioneer writers dig innovation resources of literature in the witch culture, create the "multi-person narrative," "circular structure", "narrative trap" and other narrative means to express the survival experience of modern people and realize the effective linking between the witch culture and modern consciousness.The Conclusion part firstly states that the modern and contemporary Chinese writers'yearning and presentation of witch life forms plays a significant role in participating in culture construction, remodeling an ideal human nature, and building a human-nature harmonious world, and under the influence of witch culture, the modern and contemporary Chinese writers'inquisition about the mystery of the universe and life, construction of divine personality, resurrection of mythical thought, building of an imagery world, and creation of lyrical style make a difference in deepening the culture implication and upgrading the artistic grade of Chinese literature in the 20th century. Then it points out the value and significance to further explore the relationship between the Chinese literature in the 20th century and the folk religions and beliefs including the witch beliefs and the faith in Goddess Matsu in Taiwan, and the internal relation between the witch thought and artistic thought.