On Yu Dafu’s Revolutionary Literary Practice

In the past,the academic circles’ research on the participants in the revolutionary literary controversy mostly focused on the active Late Creation Society,the Sun Society,and the passive defense Lu Xun and Mao Dun,and did not pay much attention to Yu Dafu,who was also involved.In the eyes of the outside world,he existed as Lu Xun’s assistant in this controversy,and showed a "cold treatment" attitude towards this controversy.In fact,Yu Dafu’s peculiarities and specific practices in this controversy are worth noting.Combining Yu Dafu’s choice of associations before and after the revolutionary controversy with his literary creation and periodical practice during the controversy,we can fully see his participation in left-wing literary activities,and also see the process of his retreat mentality of "being a writer not a fighter" during the early period of the founding of the Left Alliance.Chapter 1 mainly looks at the uniqueness of Yu Dafu’s association relationship through the process of the three major associations in the revolutionary literary controversy in which he participated,and his thinking on revolutionary literature through the choice of associations.The separation from the Creation Society was the direct cause of his attacks in the controversy,but a detailed examination will reveal that the "Guangzhou Incident",which has been emphasized in the past,is not the most important factor in the break between the two sides,nor does it represent his "counter-revolution",and there is no fundamental difference in the positions of the three;The interaction with the Sun Society is ignored by the academic community in the past,the fact that Yu Dafu once joined the Sun Society can partially explain the reason why he was protected from the attack of the members of the Sun Society in this controversy,the Sun Society has a basis for personal friendship with Yu Dafu,and there are also emerging literary societies that want to use the shoulders of literary giants to consider the means,through Qian Xingcun’s evaluation of Yu Dafu,you can also see another kind of voice within the revolutionary literary camp,and Yu Dafu’s attention and support for the Sun Society mainly comes from his expectations for young creators of revolutionary literature;In fact,Lu Xun’s pessimistic and calm critical posture on revolutionary literature during this period was different from Yu’s fanatical and radical side,but his admiration for Lu Xun to a certain extent diluted his personal position and accepted Lu Xun’s thoughts,and presented a return to the literary field.Chapter 2 focuses on the differences between Yu Dafu’s literary concepts and actual creations through the creative and translation activities of the controversy,represented by the creation of the short story "The Lost Sheep" and the translation of Sinclair’s "The Art of Worshiping Gold"."The Lost Sheep" was written in 1927,when Yu Dafu was most enthusiastic about proletarian revolutionary literature,but compared with the political essays that reflected his radical social and political views,his novel creation obviously stopped at the writing of the story of the "surplus person",and his thinking on the current situation of social revolution and class relations could not be fully reflected in his novel creation,but presented a surprising sense of rupture.Sinclair’s "The Art of Worshiping Gold" is considered to be a classic of American left-wing literary theory,and although Yu Dafu’s translation of this article is mainly to defend Rousseau’s values and argue against Liang Shiqiu,it also objectively accepts Sinclair’s exposition of views on art and class,and plays a great role in eliminating the interference of conservative forces represented by Liang Shiqiu on popular literature.The chapter 3 focuses on several important publications founded by Yu Dafu,The People’s Magazine was the first publication he founded after leaving the Creation Society,the beginning of his cooperation with the CCP,and the People’s Magazine reflected his radical political enthusiasm at this time,as well as his thinking on the reasons for the failure of China’s social revolution,and the proposal of "peasant literature and art" was to once again reflect his pioneering nature after "the class struggle in literature;"Rushing Flow",co-edited with Lu Xun,is a carrier that reflects the convergence of his and Lu Xun’s ideas during this period,but the actual editing of the journal is handled by Lu Xun,so his color is lighter;The real embodiment of Yu Dafu’s phased ideological achievements in this period is "Popular Literature",popularization is one of the issues and requirements of popular literature,Yu Dafu captured the weight of this word and decided to create a journal to promote it,once again reflecting his advanced sense of smell.Although the concept of "mass"literature was proposed to counter the class literary monopoly of the creation society,it exposed his vacillation in the class concept class literature that he had previously firmly believed,and the lack of intervention in specific editorial work also showed that he was not clear or confident in the " Popular Literature" he proposed,and the long-term contradiction of this idea and the failure of running a journal directly led to his subsequent decline in the left-wing movement.Yu Dafu’s practice of proletarian revolutionary literature presents a surprising sense of twists and turns,and although he first captured the requirements of the times,he retreated when the times really began to turn.Originally supposed to be a left-wing fighter,he also participated in the activities of the CCP organization with such a radical and positive appearance,but gradually faded after a series of setbacks,and Yu Dafu’s tragedy can be explained by Guo Moruo’s writing: "His aggressiveness was not fully and properly developed,and that should be blamed on the times and circumstances."...