Between Traditional And Modern

Gunter Grass, the last Nobel Literature Prize winner at the end of the 20th century, on the one hand, his works give the suppressed post-war German literary surprises for his bold distinctive personality style, on the other hand, they also led to numerous controversies .as recognized as a writer who has political conscience and social responsibility, he often concerns with the social, human ethics, the future and destiny of human in his works ,and reflects on the disgraceful history of German. In fact, Grass's novels led to literary sensation not only because of the sensitive issues of concern, but more with extraordinary narrative skills ,they revitalized the German literature which had been in crisis of narrative at that time , at the same time , he set a shining example for the contemporary novels .this paper focus on four areas to explore that how Gunter Grass integrate the Serious realities and the fashionable modernity in his works, in other words, how he find a right balance between the tradition and modernity to achieve success of narrative.In the first chapter, the paper explore that Grass's novels inherited the narrative tradition of European novel, that is, vagrant story model, Grand historical narrative, Folk literature and fairy tale narrative. In addition, He also inherited the European novel tradition of narrative realism, that is, the linear narrative model : telling story, Pay attention to plot, arrange story process in accordance with the order of linear time and so on , description of the environment and shaping the typical characters are the Performance of succession of the traditional narrative realism, on the succession of the traditional narrative ,Grass is obviously different from the modernism writers and the post-modernist writers who desperately flaunt their "anti-tradition" . He has made numerous readers feel the charm of traditional narrative in the complex atmosphere of the Postmodernism once again.In the second chapter, the paper explore the narrative strategies in Grass's novels. According to the different materials, Grass often chooses different person to narrate, and each of his works has unique narrative perspective, he also extensively absorb modernism, post-modernist narrative technique such as repeat narrative, multi-perspective narrative , metafiction narrative and so on. they have strong modern style , Grass integrates the traditional narrative technique with the new story-telling approach , which make his novels have unique style and extraordinary charm.In the third chapter, the paper explore the narrative skills in Grass's novels. Symbol and metaphor narrative techniques make Grass's works inside huge and profound; grotesque and exaggerated narrative techniques make his works so bizarre, and they enhance the work interesting; irony and banter narrative techniques make readers savor writer's criticism and reflection of the reality and history in the atmosphere of relaxed humor. These techniques are not Grass's first, but he use the modern techniques to serve the traditional theme appropriately.In the fourth chapter, the paper explore the art of language in Grass's novels. Grass has strong language skills , and he is an outstanding master of the German language. There are many kinds of languages in his novels: the author use the straight forward language to make the readers look at the history calmly and objectively; Prose language added some poetic and artistic mood for his novels; disorganized and non-logical language force the readers to dig deep meaning behind the language, the languages in Grass's novels are so rich and varied that ,they reflect the writer's superb ability of control of language, they also show the tension of the novels.Grass always innovates based on the tradition, and also recreate on the basis of the "modern", so that, his novels didn't fall into traditional patterns, nor to the ultimate modern, Grass's novels show a unique narrative art because of his unique aesthetic taste, which laid the foundation of his important position in the history of the world literary.