A Comparative Study Of Faulkner And Mo Yan’s Aesthetic Ideologies

Both Chinese and Western critics have demonstrated profound interests in theaesthetic ideologies of literary works. As the most significant writers of their times,William Faulkner and Mo Yan’s novels particularly deserve our study. This thesismakes a comparative research between the two writers’ aesthetic ideologies fromRomanticism, Realism and Postmodernism. The thesis consists of three chapters.Introduction makes a brief retrospect of Faulkner and Mo Yan’s literary careerand conducts a general literature review on the study about their works. Meanwhile, italso gives a brief account of the theoretical basis and layouts of the thesis.The First Chapter dwells on the analysis of the romantic elements in bothwriters’ works, including their poetic description of natural sceneries, their quoting ofancient myths and folktales, as well as their yearning and sympathizing for theinnocence of children.The Second Chapter deals with the aesthetics of Realism. Both Faulkner and MoYan set their pens on the daily lives of common people. Meanwhile, both writers alsoattempt to restore their homelands’ past history in the work. Moreover, the adoption ofrealistic aesthetics is best reflected in their relentless criticizing of the social evil.The postmodern constituents of Faulkner and Mo Yan’s works are discussed inthe Third Chapter. The two writers’ deconstruction of the traditional culture, theirexploration of the human beings’ loneliness, as well as the indeterminacy of their textstake on specific features of postmodernism literature.The Conclusion conducts a summary of the arguments, concluding that writersfrom different countries in different times can demonstrate the same artistic featuresthrough the inheritance of tradition, and writers of the same categorization can alsoexhibit distinct aesthetic ideologies through their innovations and trials. The tranquildescription of Yoknapatawpha by Faulkner and the intense delineation of GaomiTownship by Mo Yan are exactly based on this inheritance and innovation.