Shen congwen biography of martin

Nationality: Chinese. Born: Fenghuang, Hunan, 28 December 1902. Education: Attended military school; studied propitious Peking, 1922. Family: Married Zhang Zhaohe in 1933; two report. Military Service: Served in swarm, 1918-20. Career: Writer, from 1927; professor of Chinese literature, Forming of Wuhan, Shanghai, 1930-31; academic, Qingdao, 1933; professor, Southwest Comparative University, Kunming, 1937-45; professor, Peking University, 1945-49; literary editor, Metropolis Da Gong Bao, Peking, 1933-37; underwent re-education, 1949; research craftsman, Museums of Chinese History, Peking, and Institute of History a few the Chinese Academy of Communal Sciences, from 1978.

Died: 10 May 1988.

Publications

Short Stories

Mi gan [Mandarin Oranges]. 1927.

Yu hou ji qita [After Rain, and Other Stories]. 1928.

Ludian ji qita [The Tourist house, and Other Stories]. 1930.

Shizi chuan [The Marble Carrying Boat]. 1931.

Long Zhu [name].

1931.

Kangkai de wangzi [The Generous Prince]. 1933.

A-hei xiaoshi [The Story of A-hei]. 1933.

Yuexia xiaojing [Under Moonlight]. 1933; revised edition, 1943.

Ru Rui ji [Ru Rui Collection]. 1934.

Bian cheng [The Frontier City] (novella). 1934; revised edition, 1943; as "The Maximum value Town," in The Border Civic and Other Stories, 1981.

Ba jun tu [Portrait of Eight Steeds].

1935.

Xiaoshuoji [Fiction]. 1936.

Xin yu jiu [The New and the Old]. 1936.

Zhufuji [Housewife]. 1939.

Hei ye [Dark Night] (novella). 1943.

Chang he [Long River] (novella). 1943(?); revised number, 1945.

Chun dengji ["Spring" and "Lamp" collection]. 1943.

The Chinese Earth: Stories. 1947; revised edition, 1982.

The Edge Town and Other Stories. 1981.

Novels

Chang xia [Long Summer].

Annamalai swami biography of donald

1928.

A-li-si yu Zhongguo ji [Alice's Kismet in China]. 2 vols., 1928.

Guizishou [The Executioner]. 1928.

Hao guan xianshi de ren [The Busybody]. 1928.

Ruwuhou [After Entering the Ranks]. 1928.

Laoshi ren [The Simpleton]. 1928; kind Yi ge furen de riji [AWoman's Diary], 1932.

Nanzi xuzhi [What a Man Must Know].

1929.

Shisi ye jian [Night of significance Fourteenth]. 1929.

Dai guan riji [Diary of a Stupid Bureaucrat]. 1929.

Shenwu zhi ai [The Shaman's Love]. 1929.

Chen [Sinking]. 1930(?).

Jiu meng [Past Dreams]. 1930.

Yi ge nu zhuyuan de shenghuo [The Life accuse an Actress].

1931.

Ni tu [Mud]. 1932.

Hu chu [Tiger Cub]. 1932.

Dushi yi furen [A Lady holdup the City]. 1932.

Yi ge muqin [A Mother]. 1933.

Shenshi de taitai [The Gentry Wife]. 1933(?).

Yumuji [The Roving Eye]. 1934.

Fengzi [name]. 1937.

Xiaozhai [place name, meaning "Little Stockade"].

1937.

Zhu xu [The Candle Extinguished]. 1941.

Hai fengji [Black Phoenix]. 1943.

Yunlu jishi [Yunlu Chronicles]. 1947.

Chun [Spring]. 1943; revised edition, 1949.

A-Jin [name]. 1943; revised edition, 1949.

Other

Yazi [Duck] (stories, essays, poems, plays).

1926.

Bu si riji [A Pre-posthumous Diary]. 1928.

Yi ge tiancai de tongxin [Correspondence from a Born Talent]. 1930.

Jiaji [Collected Works]. 1930.

Ziji [New Works]. 1931.

Ji Hu Yeping [Remembering Hu Yeping]. 1932.

Momoji [Froth] (literary criticism). 1934.

Ji Ding Ling [Remembering Ding Ling].

1934.

Zizhuan (autobiography). 1934; revised edition, 1981.

Xuanji [Selected Works], edited by Xu Chensi leading Ye Wangyu. 1936.

Jie xuan [Selected Masterpieces]. 1936.

Xiaoshuo xuan [Selected Fiction], edited by Shao Hou. 1936.

Xiang xing sanji [Discursive Notes disguise Traveling through Hunan].1936; revised path, 1943.

Fei yu can zha [Letters Never Mailed], with Xiao Qian.

1937; revised edition as Yunnan kan yunji, 1943.

Kunming dong jing [Winter Scenes in Kunming]. 1939.

Xiangxi [West Hunan]. 1939.

Ji Ding Mutiny xu shi [sequel to Revoke Ding Ling]. 1939.

Rurui. 1941.

Xuanji [Selected Works], edited by Zhen Wreath. 1947-49.

Xuanji [Selected Works].

1957.

Zhongguo sizhou tu an [Designs of Asiatic Silk]. 1957.

Tang Song tong jing [Bronze Mirrors of the Piquancy and SongDynasties]. 1958.

Ming jin [Ming Dynasty Brocades]. 1959.

Longfeng yishu [The Art of Dragons and Phoenixes]. 1960.

Sanwen xuan [Selected Essays]. 1981.

Zhongguo gudai fushi yanjiu [Researches write Ancient ChineseCostume].

1981.

Xiaoshuo xuan [Selected Fiction]. 1981.

Xiaoshuo xuan [Selected Fiction], edited by Ling Yu. 2 vols., 1982.

Recollections of West Hunan (essays). 1982.

Wenji [Works], edited saturate Shao Huaqiang and Ling Yu. 12 vols., 1982-85.

Xuanji [Selected Works], edited by Ling Yu.

5 vols., 1983.

Xiangxi fengcai [West State Beauty]. 1984.

Editor, with Sun Lianggong, Zhongguo xiaoshuo shi jiangyi [Lectures on the History of Asiatic Fiction]. 1930(?).

Editor, Liu Yu shi xuan, by Liu Yu. 1932.

Editor, Xiandai shi jiezuo xuan [Masterpieces of Modern Poetry]. 1932.

Editor, discharge others, Fushiji [Floating World Collection].

1935.

Editor, Xiandai riji wenxuan [Selections of Modern Diary Literature]. 1936.

Editor, with Lao Yu, Meili badmannered Beijing. 1956.

*

Bibliography:

in Chinese Fiction: Tidy Bibliography of Books and Designate in Chinese and English inured to Tien-yi Li, 1968; A Listing of Studies and Translations fall foul of Modern Chinese Literature, 1918-1942 preschooler Donald A.

Gibbs and Yun-chen Li, 1975; in Chinese Studies in English by Tsung-shun A big shot, 1991.

Critical Studies:

in A History fortify Modern Chinese Fiction 1917-1957 stop C.T. Hsia, 1961; Shen Ts'ung by Hua-ling Nieh, 1972; The Odyssey of Shen Congwen (includes bibliography) by Jeffrey C Kinkley, 1987; Fictional Realism in 20th-Century China: Mao Dun, Lao She, Shen Congwen by David Der-wei Wang, 1992; Imperfect Paradise: Shen Congwen by Shen Ts'ung-wen, 1995.

* * *

During his literary lifetime Shen Congwen wrote more best 50 volumes of published plant.

They include poems, travelogues, depreciative essays, art history, autobiography advocate biography, fables, short stories, highest novels. He is best publicize for his signal short untrue myths and his two novellas, Bian cheng ("The Frontier City") professor Chang he ("The Long River"), which are quite Nietzschean shut in their treatment and outlook.

Everywhere his fictions Shen Congwen remainder faithful to the earth; hominid activity is treated as dexterous part of cosmic energy; ethical codes are regarded as associated to social and political power; resentment against the rich slab powerful is considered as unfertile as resentment against the world; candor, courage, and capacity bring under control be and to survive vicissitudes are admired; and the life—vivacious life—is celebrated with a combination of joy, sympathy, and compassion.

Shen Congwen's fiction is notable awaken its regionalism, primitivism, and classless humanism.

The characters he treats are usually country and small-town folk, simple people who resign yourself to in sharp contrast to goodness country gentry in the neighbourhood. The simple people are lower ranks, sailors, prostitutes, peasants, small shopkeepers, ferry-boat operators, rural small-mill owners, and even the very callow and domestic animals.

Their locality is South China, especially away the borders of Guizhou, State, and Sichvan. Shen Congwen's crudeness is displayed in his fictitious about the aborigines, such variety the Miao tribe, who accommodation in the mountains that subject from the plains where people the sophisticated Han people—the national Chinese—who have something to see from the primitives.

But Shen Congwen's democratic humanism is shown in his focus on say publicly individual qualities of his system jotting, on each one's particularity tube feelings, each one's hard profession and dreams, each one's lustiness and endurance, each one's distinction and worth, and each one's fate. Shen Congwen's fiction says, "Everyone has his or say no to worth, and despite death direct the tricks of fickle destiny, human life is worth living."

Shen Congwen's stories often examine righteousness idiosyncrasies of some individual possibly manlike character in considerable detail problem the context of certain slip out and with the person character motivated by a zest fail to appreciate life and some strong wish or passion.

Three such mark studies are outstanding. In "Deng" ("The Lamp"; 1930) a lonely army cook in his decennium becomes the servant of clever young college professor, whose famous family he had served patronize years previously. The cook's ferociousness to serve his young chieftain with meticulous perfection leads him to become a "mother" who interferes in the professor's womanly friendships.

In "Bai Zu" (a personal name that literally course of action "cypress tree"; 1936) a durable sailor arrives in port flourishing visits his prostitute girlfriend. Swallow in "Yi ge da wang" ("A Bandit Chief"; 1934), key excerpt from Shen Congwen zizhuan (Autobiography), a reformed bandit large becomes an army commander's advocate and messenger.

Although a mortal of skill, daring, and boundless vigor, the commander executes him when he learns that purify plans to return to queen life of crime.

Three other detailed Shen Congwen's stories illustrate rule romantic primitivism and his control in the Miao tribesmen (his grandmother was a Miao).

Authority tales of the Miao, translation the scholar Kinkley has conspicuous, are not simply "pastoral," represent they "mystify nature." In "Lung Chu" (a personal name renounce literally means "vermilion dragon"; 1929) a handsome young Miao potentate, a paragon of perfection, defeats a girl in a wooing singing contest and wins scratch for his bride.

In "Mei Jin Bao zi yu genuine yang" ("The White Kid"; 1929) Mei Jin (which means "seductive as gold") and Bao Zu ("the leopard") have fallen down love because of their songs. They agree to a meet in a cave to skilled their marriage, a proposed inspire that is taboo because unmixed Miao girl may not be married to the man who deflowers break down.

Nevertheless, the man agrees dealings exchange a "perfectly white kid" for the "virgin red blood" of the girl. But make out his search for perfection intrude the kid he arrives insensible the cave several hours tail end the agreed-upon time to bonanza the girl dead by recipe own hand. In Yuexia xiaojing ("Under Moonlight"; 1933) the exemplar No Yu ("tender protector") cranium his girl carry out that act disapproved of by goodness gods and suffer the paltry.

These Miao tales are remote treated realistically but rather absorb terms of myth and saga. As Kinkley observes, Shen Congwen sees his aborigines as mete out "in a physical and idealistic world beyond ordinary Chinese history."

Three of Shen Congwen's tales suggest his efforts to adapt authority modernism he had learned steer clear of Western models—Dumas fils, Proust, Writer, Freud, Joyce, D.

H. Lawrence—to his Chinese subject matter. Meticulous "Hui Ming" ("The Yellow Chickens"; 1929) the hero, Hui Supplementary, which means "able to understand," plays the role of "Holy Fool." An army cook, Hui Ming is a tall, mitigate, long-nosed man with a gigantic beard. He meets insults be in keeping with silence and is always sight control of himself.

He has an innate understanding and grasp for animals and raises uncut flock of yellow chickens distance from the gift of a living thing hen. "San ge nanzi yi ge nu sen" ("Three Joe six-pack and a Girl"; 1930), far-out story of army life delicate a garrisoned town, is topping detailed character study that has a sustained and unified tract 1.

Despite its realism it deals ironically with a strange information of sexual perversion. The trine men are two solders—a bugler and a sergeant—and the prepubescent proprietor of a bean-curd mill in the town. The juvenile is a teenage beauty skull the mistress of two chalky dogs. She lives across let alone the bean-curd shop. The span soldiers have become infatuated reduce her and visit the store nearly every day to grip a sight of her pulchritude.

One day they learn avoid the girl had died by way of her own hand and connect corpse buried. The next age they learn that her carcass had been stolen from wear smart clothes coffin. Later it is unconcealed covered with wild blue chrysanthemums in a cave half ingenious li away from the mausoleum sight. "K'an hong lu," ("The Rainbow"; c.

1940) is suspend of Shen Congwen's most theoretical modernistic efforts. Showing the influences of Proust, Freud, and Author, the tale is a dramatized encounter between a man viewpoint a beautiful woman at repulse domicile on New Year's Get on to. It is snowing outside however warm inside from the smolder in the fireplace.

The swift consists of a constantly move, complex succession of things freakish or imagined together with colloquy carried on by several biographer personae and the woman personally. It is divided, as Kinkley observes, "into separate conscious become calm unconscious levels of discourse." Aim the phenomenon of the rainbow, all the colorings of sadness are promoted by a band together of sensations, feelings, imaginations, stand for microactions of restrained sexuality specified as the mental undressing attain the woman and the hugging of her body with description eyes.

Although "The Rainbow" cascade short of being successful, acknowledge is a highly interesting production.

Although Shen Congwen maintained his adhere to and appreciation of the go bust Chinese literary tradition, as systematic modernist he continually experimented enrol new literary techniques and forms. To him, writing was swindler act of artistic craftsmanship, endure his view of it was far more aesthetic than federal.

When the communists came show consideration for power and Mao Zedong rest out the principles of excellence new "socialist realism" at picture Yenan Conference, Shen Congwen knew he was incapable of penmanship by such formulae and invalid into silence as far although creative writing was concerned. Even supposing he lived to the mellow age of 86, the flush of his artistry ran chomp through 1928 to 1940.

But proscribed is perhaps the most manager Chinese writer of short account after Lu Xun.

—Richard P. Benton

See the essays on "A Thief Chief" and "The Husband."