Duet Of City And Revolution

The erotica description of feminine body, sexual desire, etc. in Mao Dun's early works named trilogy of Eclipse, Midnight and Creation, is listed in the top rank in New Literature in terms of quality, frequency and creativity. One the one hand, the erotica expressions in his early works can not be separated from the background of the present urban culture in Shanghai, corresponding to close attention paid to feminine body in that culture and well influenced by hedonism, aesthetic decadence and writers of Shanghai's style. On the other hand, while revolutionary sense, as a reflection of power, became the center of literal practice, Mao, a revolutionary, tried to explore the subtle relationships between individuals by observing the changes of feminine body before and after revolution. He retrieved present urban cultural resources while utilized feminine body and aesthetic symbol of petty bourgeoisie to reconstruct rational revolutionary orders, creating a picture of Eutopia. Therefore, under the double influence of urban and revolutionary backgrounds, Mao's works reflects thought-provoking complexity and multiple aesthetic value.In this paper, the author tries to touch and interpret Mao's early works in a new light, breaking away from the traditional ideology in Mao's research and jumping out of interpretative circle between New Literature and the national revolutionary process. The author will thoroughly explore peculiarity of Mao's early works with the intergration of various ideologies and cultural stands through mutual argumentation of macroscopical and microcosmic facts, contrast of theory and text, and combination of transverse and lognitudinal research, revealing Mao's exlosive writing strategy and Mao's contradiction in these special periods.