From "Historical Novel" To "Novelistic History"

At present,the prevailing view is that the rewriting of Da Bo was Li Jieren’s positive approach to the mainstream ideological discourse.This thesis intends to make a comparative study of Li Jieren’s new and old versions of Da Bo,explore the artistic motivation behind Li Jieren’s re-writing with a holistic vision of the differences between the new and old editions of Da Bo,and analyze the gains and losses of artistic and cognitive values in the new version,in order to prove that the rewriting of Da Bo was not only influenced by "ideology",but also by Li Jieren’s consistent artistic pursuit of historical novel.Da Bo is a historical writing about Railway Protection Movement,which was first published in 1937.However,nearly 20 years later,Li Jieren rewrote it.The new and old versions show the holistic differences from "Historical novel" to "Novelistic history".The old version emphasizes "emptiness" over "history",which is a novel about history;The new version emphasizes "history" over "emptiness",which is a novelization history book.The objective truth of history content became the most important consideration of Li Jieren,hence it is necessary to study the incentives that the author pursues the objectivity and authenticity of history.In this thesis,the first chapter compares the contents between new and old versions of Da Bo,and classifies the two major differences: "historical turn" and "objective turn",then summarizes the features of changes from "historical novel" to "novelistic history",laying a factual foundation for the analysis of the following.The second chapter focuses on the reasons of transformation from "historical novel" to "novelistic history" in the new and old versions,which is influenced by both direct objectively factors and the author’s subjective creation pursuit.The third chapter analyzes and evaluates the gains and loss es of the artistic value and the cognitive value of the new version of Da Bo when the "historical novel" becomes the "novelistic history".And finally we can see that the rewriting is full of Li Jieren’s artistic exploration of historical literature and persistent pursuit of historical authenticity.