Lao She’s Writing In American Chinese Literature History

Lao She(formerly known as Shu Qingchun)is one of the outstanding novelists of modern Chinese literature.His works show a diverse class of citizens,a strong atmosphere of old Beijing customs and culture,and a humorous Beijing-style language,which enrich the artistic characteristics of modern literature.In addition to writing modern Chinese society,Lao She’s literary world also contains world factors.In his early years,he went to the UK to be a Chinese teacher and read a lot of European literary works.The humanist realism style in his early works was to imitate Dickens’ creations.During the exchange and study visit to the United States,he completed and published Yellow Storm,The Drum Singerin English.In recent years,overseas sinologists have paid attention to the study of Lao She and his works in the world literature.This article selects Lao She’s writing in A History of modern Chinese fiction,The Columbia History of Chinese Literature,and The Cambridge History of Chinese Literature as research objects.These three works on the history of Chinese literature in the United States have been influenced by ideological trends in different times and present different views on literary history.I first combed Lao She’s writings in the three literary histories,presenting humorous,tender,and free patriotic writers in the North,Pro novelists,and "Lu Xun-style" critical realist successors.Behind these different images of writers are changes in literary ideas and literary history.Then,combined with the writing history of the three literary histories and modern literary research theory,the reasons for the different writers’ images are analyzed.Finally,I compare Lao She’s writing in the literary history of the same period in China from the four aspects of examining "modernity",thinking about "literature",reconstructing "history",and imagining "China".Characteristics,and reflect on the writing of the history of Chinese mainland literature.The writing of the history of Chinese literature in the United States focuses on getting rid of politics,and examines the development of modern Chinese literature from the perspective of literary aesthetic meaning.The changes in the concepts of "Modern","Literature","History" and "China" when writing literary history,on the one hand,are changes in literary concepts,on the other hand,they also indicate the update of the writing paradigm of literary history.Examining the changes in Lao She’s writing narrative mode in the three literary history,a paradigm of "open" and "tolerant" literary history narrative is suddenly on the paper.The open and inclusive literary attitude in the study of American modern literature provides an interdisciplinary and cross-cultural writing direction for the writing of continental literary history.