One
Perhaps because of the unavoidable importance of Lu Xun in the history of modern Chinese literature, Lu Xun is a very striking presence in Shen Congwen's works. As long as we take a slight examination of Shen Congwen's works, we will find that among modern Chinese writers, Lu Xun appears the most often in Shen Congwen's works, occupies the largest space, and Shen Congwen's attitude towards them is also the most complex and difficult to understand. If we look at these texts about Lu Xun together, we will find that Shen Congwen's understanding and evaluation of Lu Xun are very unique. This may be an effective key to a correct understanding of the relationship between the two literary masters, who have long been at odds with each other, and at the same time, we can use this understanding to see through the deep problems related to such phenomena in the history of modern Chinese literature. Comparatively speaking, Shen Congwen's writings on Lu Xun were mainly published before the founding of the People's Republic of China, among which the two monographs "Lu Xun's Battle" and "Learning from Lu Xun" are the most representative, which most distinctly show Shen Congwen's two different evaluations of Lu Xun in different periods. In the article "Lu Xun's Battle", published in 1934, Shen Congwen went against his usual peaceful style, completely denied the artistic value and practical significance of Lu Xun's essays with a fierce attitude, and ridiculed Lu Xun's personality and bearing. Although Shen Congwen has always fully affirmed Lu Xun's novels, the denial of Lu Xun's essays has also been his basic attitude for a long time. The article "Learning from Lu Xun", published in 1947, marked a major change in Shen Congwen's evaluation of Lu Xun. In this commemorative article, he spoke highly of Lu Xun's contributions to academic research, novels and essays, and also expressed his admiration for Lu Xun's personality, which shows that he began to look at Lu Xun with a comprehensive vision, thus showing the deepening of his understanding. Later, his deeper understanding of Lu Xun was to a large extent based on this ideological foundation.
After Shen Congwen published his commemorative essay "Learning from Lu Xun" and his novel "Legend is Not Strange" in November 1947, he basically bid farewell to literary creation, and after the founding of the People's Republic of China, for well-known reasons, he turned to the study of the history of material culture. Although he has published articles since then, most of them are the results of his research on the history of material culture, with occasional sporadic compositions. Shen Congwen has a deep love for literary creation, and he has had several opportunities to return to the literary world, but he gave up for various reasons. Judging from the large number of letters he left at that time, he was still thinking about the issues related to literature, but in fact, he did not completely stop writing, and the unpublished writings he left behind behind were not a kind of psychological compensation for his own creation. It is worth noting that his understanding and evaluation of Lu Xun did not cease, and a review of his personal correspondence and other writings at that time, as well as his speeches and conversations with others after his return, we can find that he talked about Lu Xun in many places.
Interestingly, after the founding of the People's Republic of China, Shen Congwen's understanding and evaluation of Lu Xun underwent a second major change. This was evident in a letter to a young journalist dated September 2, 1951 [1]. In the letter, he talked about the need to read Mao Zedong's "Speech at the Yan'an Forum on Literature and Art", saying, "Marx or Lenin, Gorky or Lu Xun all have a profound poetic sense in their works. This is one of the most important events in cultural history. Mao Zedong's "Speech at the Yan'an Forum on Literature and Art" is not only "full of poetry" but also "truly thoughtful", so "the classicism of this document is far more important than Lu Xun's Gorky works." Shen Congwen juxtaposes Lu Xun with the revolutionary leader and the representative of the world's proletarian literature for the first time here. However, this change itself is an important piece of information, and Shen Congwen has consciously incorporated his understanding and evaluation of Lu Xun into the mainstream discourse system of the times, from which it can be seen that the "heresy" of Shen Congwen's literary thought, which is extremely individual, has disappeared to a certain extent. He began to re-evaluate Lu Xun by combining "literary" and "political" methods that were widely advocated at the time. What is commendable is that, on the whole, he did not completely use politics to dissolve the literary nature, so Lu Xun presented in his field of vision still has his real side, but compared with Shen Congwen's past views, he is not without regression in some aspects. The contradiction in Shen Congwen's thinking is also obvious, and when he discusses the issue of literature in this letter, he entangles the literary and political natures, presenting a complex mentality that is difficult for people to understand. He naively searched for the "profound poetry" in the writings of Marx, Lenin, and Mao Zedong, and compared Lu Xun with him. Perhaps he was trying to meet the requirements of the times, but he was obviously not good at all of the technique of using literature to compare politics that was beginning to be popular at that time, so this kind of analogy could only make Lu Xun overwhelmed by a kind of politics that demanded to serve reality, and could not show his true character as a writer. As for the fact that Mao Zedong's speech on literary and artistic issues is far more important than Lu Xun's Gorky works, it is obviously a political position, and in fact, there is no comparison between the two. This shows that the powerful impact from real politics has made it impossible for Shen Congwen to adhere to the principle of literary independence that he has always advocated. The main theme of the times of "politics above all else" inevitably affected Shen Congwen's views on literary issues.
When Shen Congwen wrote this letter, the whole country was vigorously carrying out a criticism of the film "The Legend of Wu Xun", which was the first national political criticism campaign against literary and artistic works after the founding of the People's Republic of China. In this letter, Shen Congwen revealed his feelings about this large-scale criticism movement, because he felt that "many people do not know about Wu Xun's person", and even a few people thought that this person was a character in Lu Xun's novels, so he advocated that we should read Lu Xun's articles seriously, believing that this phenomenon of "what are the advantages of Lu Xun's articles, and what articles I have never read carefully and seriously" is a manifestation of "the world is more agreeing with it and less serious", and seriously reading Lu Xun's articles "is a kind of test, a kind of study", so it should be promoted. In this sense, advocating the reading of Lu Xun's articles is obviously not based on literature itself, but out of the need to use literature to serve politics. All these show that Shen Congwen's understanding and evaluation of Lu Xun at this time was no different from the general political atmosphere at that time. The reason for this is obviously directly related to the fact that he attended the Revolutionary University for 10 months in 1950. Although Shen Congwen is incompatible with this kind of political movement that aims to transform his ideology by listening to political reports, studying political documents, and writing ideological reports, and although he does not fully understand the new social reality, and even has resistance in his heart, this does not negate the obvious impact of this ideological transformation on Shen Congwen. In a study summary he wrote during this period, he expressed his support for the concepts of "politics above all else" and "literature and art must be subordinate to politics", which cannot be regarded as a political statement completely against his will, and it should be noted that Shen Congwen sincerely hopes to try to keep pace with the reality of the new era. This summary was later published as a review article in Guangming Daily on November 11, 1951, under the title "My Study". It should be noted that this summary of Shen Congwen was written at the same time as this letter, and noting this may help us understand the role played by Shen Congwen's realpolitik factors in his high evaluation of Lu Xun.
The complexity of the problem lies in the fact that although we cannot ignore the influence of realpolitik factors on Shen Congwen's evaluation of Lu Xun, we must not exaggerate this influence, and he has not forgotten to examine Lu Xun from a literary perspective. In a long letter dated 19 November 1951 from Neijiang, Sichuan, to his wife Zhang Zhaohe, Shen Congwen said of his creative plan and some views on literature: "In particular, there is a sense of compassion for the achievements of people in the past from the perspective of literary history, and it has always formed a moving combination with it. From Qu Yuan Sima to Du Fu Cao Xueqin to Lu Xun, the situation is different but the same, the same is to have a sense of life and survival. [2] In Shen Congwen's view, compassion is an important factor in the composition of literary classics, and it is also an important yardstick he uses to evaluate writers. When he talked about Lu Xun before the founding of the People's Republic of China, he repeatedly pointed out the sense of compassion for life in Lu Xun's works and the profound poetry they contained, believing that this was an important factor in the reputation of Lu Xun's works. Therefore, in this letter, he once again talks about the sense of compassion in literature, or the sense of compassion, and connects Lu Xun with it, which is not a point of view that he has now. It is worth noting that Shen Congwen used to examine Lu Xun's literary contributions and his status only within a specific scope of the history of modern Chinese literature, but now he looks at the entire history of Chinese literature and ranks Lu Xun with the greatest writers in the history of Chinese literature, which is a major change that has never been seen before. Although Shen Congwen's literary orientation of Lu Xun did not go beyond the popular viewpoint at the time, and it may not have been influenced by political factors, Shen Congwen started from the intrinsic quality of literature, which is the sense of compassion in life, and it was still a unique literary vision at that time. Another change can be vaguely discerned from this letter: Before the founding of the People's Republic of China, Shen Congwen had always known and evaluated Lu Xun as a companion of the world, with a level-headed attitude, but now he seems to have given up this identity and posture and looked up to Lu Xun with a reverent attitude like an ordinary reader. This is evident from time to time in his letters from this period, and this intriguing change is clearly closely related to the atmosphere of the time.
After the founding of the People's Republic of China, Shen Congwen rarely mentioned Lu Xun in his published writings, and the inscription he wrote for "Shen Congwen's Selected Novels" in 1957 was one of the few exceptions. This anthology is the only literary collection that Shen Congwen has published since the founding of the People's Republic of China and before his comeback. When Shen Congwen talked about the influence of Chinese and foreign writers on his creative path in the inscription, he especially pointed out the important enlightenment of Lu Xun's works to him: "From "Chu Ci", "Historical Records", Cao Zhi's poems to the "Hanging Branches" song, I am happy to see everything. Since I was a child, I have read "Strange Tales from Liaozhai" and "Legends of the Ancient Times", and the short stories of Chekhov and Maupassant are being introduced by new writers, and the novels with the theme of rural memories started by Mr. Lu Xun are being welcomed by the majority of readers. [3] In Shen Congwen's discussion of Lu Xun, this is the first time that he has publicly admitted that he has been influenced by Lu Xun, and there seems to be something to be noted about it. Although Shen Congwen has repeatedly discussed the important influence of Lu Xun's novels on other writers in the past, he clearly did not think of associating himself with Lu Xun, and it is precisely in this regard that he shows his blind eye or avoidance of himself. Lu Xun's novels on vernacular themes are a profound renewable resource of modern Chinese literature, which has influenced many writers. Modern Chinese vernacular novels were formed under the dominant influence of Lu Xun. Examining Shen Congwen's creations of similar themes, it is not difficult to find Lu Xun's influence on him. However, perhaps it was the ideological themes and styles of Lu Xun's novels that were completely different from his own works, so that Shen Congwen could not clearly realize that his creation had been influenced by Lu Xun; perhaps it was because of the conflict with Lu Xun in terms of literary concepts and differences in political stance that Shen Congwen could not calmly face up to this influence; perhaps it was a combination of both, so that Shen Congwen always unconsciously strictly distinguished himself from Lu Xun. Obviously, no matter which of the above circumstances is attributed, it is impossible for Shen Congwen to say Lu Xun's influence on him. After the founding of the People's Republic of China, Lu Xun enjoyed an unparalleled lofty position by any other writer in the history of modern Chinese literature, and there were obviously both literary and political reasons. On the one hand, Lu Xun's tremendous achievements in literature are unquestionable and have been widely recognized and respected by the people for a long time; on the other hand, Mao Zedong's classic conclusions on Lu Xun and his advocacy of Lu Xun's direction mainly from a political perspective during the Yan'an period were further implemented into a wider range of literary and artistic practice as a literary and artistic policy after the founding of the People's Republic of China. It should be noted that Shen Congwen's understanding and evaluation of Lu Xun has been potentially influenced by real politics since the publication of "Learning from Lu Xun" in the mid-to-late 40s of the 20th century. After the founding of the People's Republic of China, this influence has become more and more externalized, and politics has become an extremely important part of people's lives, and everyone will inevitably be affected. Although Shen Congwen was not without confusion in the face of reality, he still tried to unify his pace with reality. In 1957, the People's Literature Publishing House organized and selected Shen Congwen's Selected Novels[4] marked a distinct mark of the times, and some researchers found that most of the chapters in the anthology were politically deleted and altered after comparing the old and new editions[5]. Shen Congwen's inscription for the anthology obviously meant to review his own creative path in line with the unique political atmosphere of the time, so his inscription and Lu Xun's influence on his own creation were in line with the logic of political life at that time. Judging from the unique political language of the time at the end of the inscription, the inscription obviously has the nature of a political statement, from which we can also see Shen Congwen's hidden intentions, acknowledging Lu Xun's influence on himself, in fact, is also acknowledging the direction that Lu Xun represents, and expressing his heartfelt support for literary and artistic policies.
However, the problem does not seem to be so simple. If Shen Congwen's admission of Lu Xun's influence on his creation is regarded as a purely political statement, it is obviously contrary to Shen Congwen's original intention. Behind Shen Congwen's political statement, there is still an outpouring of his true mentality. We should see that after a long period of painful ideological process since the 40s, especially after the ideological transformation after the founding of the People's Republic of China, Shen Congwen has a deeper understanding of Lu Xun than others in some aspects, and although his understanding and evaluation of Lu Xun have not surpassed the main tone of the times, he has never understood Lu Xun dogmatically. He still has his own unique understanding of Lu Xun's thought and art, and the central point of view when he talks about Lu Xun has never departed from the literary ontology that he has always emphasized. If it is linked to Shen Congwen's situation after the founding of the People's Republic of China, it seems easier to understand this. Although Shen Congwen repeatedly stated in his letters at the time that he had shifted from literary creation to the study of the history of material culture with the attitude of "people abandon me", he obviously could not forget his love for literature, and he often expressed the loneliness that was difficult to drive away in his heart through highly personal words and letters. The inscription he wrote for the anthology of his novels gave him a rare opportunity to review his creative path after the founding of the People's Republic of China. Although the inscription reveals Shen Congwen's indescribably complex mentality, there is still his heartfelt confession of loyalty under the main tone of his political statement, so there are both sentimental reviews and serious self-dissections, as well as his objective attitude when reviewing his own creative path. It is worth noting that Shen Congwen's discussion of Lu Xun's influence on his own creation in the inscription is certainly a statement of objective facts, but in fact, in addition to expressing a kind of self-affirmation in the depths of his heart, it is rare that he still examines Lu Xun from the perspective of literary ontology, so that he can have a deeper insight into the more essential Lu Xun as a writer, and thus better grasp the important role of Lu Xun in the history of literature. In the political atmosphere at that time, this undoubtedly showed the special features of Shen Congwen's understanding of Lu Xun.
Two
After the founding of the People's Republic of China, Shen Congwen had the idea of resuming the old profession of creation several times, although he failed to do so in the end, some of the words he left under the creative impulse can give a glimpse of some of his real thoughts at that time. Written in December 1959, Shen Congwen's long essay "How I Started Writing a Novel" is still true and credible in revealing the factors of the times and the psychological motivations for embarking on the road of creation. The article deals with Lu Xun's contribution to the translation of foreign literature and his influence on himself. He said that when he first began to study writing, he was puzzled by "the exemplary materials and writing rules and methods proposed in books such as "Novel Practice" and "New Poetry Method", which were popular at the time, but "the introduction of foreign literature led by Mr. Lu Xun and the Literary Research Association" "increased my understanding of the broad meaning of the novel and my lifelong yearning for this work"[6]. In his early years, when Shen Congwen was on an errand in the local army in Xiangxi, he came into contact with a large number of translated works, and this is self-evident for him to embark on the road of creation later. Perhaps it is precisely because he has received important inspiration for his creation from translated works that he has felt this, and he has repeatedly talked about the indispensable role of translated works in promoting the development of modern Chinese literature. Shen Congwen also proceeded from his own personal experience, and in this article he specifically mentioned the achievements made by "Lu Xun and others' introduction to Japanese literature" and the inspiration he received from it. It should be said that he had an objective attitude toward this, and behind this attitude, it can be seen that he sincerely recommended Lu Xun's dedication to the translation and introduction of foreign literature in addition to his creation. This article is the most detailed review of Shen Congwen's creative path after the founding of the People's Republic of China, the most in-depth analysis of his thoughts, the deepest and most tortuous expression of feelings, and the most personalized writing style. Through the political language embellished in the article, it is not difficult for us to find that in many respects it is in the same vein as his articles before the founding of the People's Republic of China, which makes this article show a little "heterogeneous" nature, which was a bit taboo at the time. Although Shen Congwen hoped that this article would be published, it was not possible because it was inappropriate at the time.
It should be noted that Shen Congwen's ideological anachronism has never been overcome after the founding of the People's Republic of China, and he still maintains a certain degree of uniqueness in his thinking, which obviously contradicts his desire to keep pace with reality. This contradiction is also manifested in his understanding and evaluation of Lu Xun, and when he discusses Lu Xun, he still has the same complex situation as before the founding of the People's Republic of China. In a letter to a reader in Anhui Province in the autumn of 1960, he said that "because of the lack of a clear class stance at that time, the ideological nature was not high, and the content was not very healthy." It is not difficult for people to see that Shen Congwen's words were insincere in the specific political atmosphere at that time. He went on to say that he "can only be regarded as a nominal writer in the new society," and that "among the writers who really have great talent and great knowledge, and who have made great contributions to the new society, are Lu Xun, Guo Moruo, Mao Dun, Lao She, Ba Jin......"[7] Shen Congwen's ranking of writers here is completely consistent with the "ranking" of writers headed by Lu Xun established after the founding of the People's Republic of China. Regardless of whether Shen Congwen really agrees with this "ranking list" of writers with a strong ideological character and after purification, according to his understanding and evaluation of Lu Xun, it is certain that he has no doubt about Lu Xun's position at the top of the list, and it should be said that this reflects his true attitude.
But that seems to be only one side of the story. Shen Congwen is an extremely confident person in his heart, although he repeatedly said that his works are "outdated" and "outdated" after the founding of the People's Republic of China, which obviously does not represent his true attitude, but it seems more appropriate to understand it from the opposite side of the words. In his letters and other writings after the founding of the People's Republic of China, Shen Congwen often expressed his positioning of his works in a different sense from the general sense. He sometimes talked about Lu Xun's creations, but he had the intention of pouring the blocks in his heart, which was exactly where his struggle lay in the specific political atmosphere at that time. In a letter to his eldest brother in March 1959, he was deeply saddened that "not many people knew what I had written" and that "it was a rather strange thing." In the letter, he said that when he first arrived in Beijing, "there are no 'professional writers' in China, and Lu Xun will never make a living by writing, let alone that there will be a 'Lu Xun Museum' near Baita Temple in the future." However, with his "serious efforts and unremitting efforts", he "became one of the first professional writers" [8]. According to his more explicit statement after his comeback in his later years, it should be "the first professional writer, the first professional writer"[9]. Shen Congwen has talked about his identity as a professional writer many times, and he is not without complacency about this. It is worth noting that when he talked about this topic, he mentioned Lu Xun at the same time, which seemed to be a comparison, which showed deep meaning beyond his words. In a letter to Daying in June 1972, Shen Congwen said that when he began to write, although he still did not use punctuation, he "used the achievements of Lu Xun as they were known at the time, and the achievements of the old Russian Chekhov and Turgenev, the French Maupassant, as well as the Tang legends and the Song people's vernacular novels, and 'must surpass them' as his goal, and nothing else"[10]. Not only had Lu Xun become the highest and only literary icon at that time, but his works were read to a considerable extent as political texts with indisputable authority. However, in Shen Congwen's view, Lu Xun's literary achievements were not unsurpassable, which was tantamount to a challenge at the time, which showed his extremely rare courage and anachronistic thinking. It is undeniable that he admires Lu Xun in his heart. But it is precisely because of this anachronistic thinking that Lu Xun presented in his field of vision is Lu Xun as a writer who has taken off his sacred aura, which makes him consciously not cater to the trend of the times to deify Lu Xun. At the same time, this anachronistic thinking shows Shen Congwen's confidence in his work. By reviewing his long-sealed literary path, he vented the loneliness in his heart in a subtle way. What should be paid special attention to is that Shen Congwen's anachronistic thinking, due to the strong assimilation effect of realpolitik, has also shown a mixed side of his thinking. It is not difficult to find that after the founding of the People's Republic of China, there were many irreconcilable contradictions between Shen Congwen's mode of thinking and conceptual form, and the same is true when examining his understanding and evaluation of Lu Xun after the founding of the People's Republic of China. In the article "Abstract Lyricism" written by Shen Congwen in July ~ August 1961, he made an unexpected epigram: "According to my thinking, I can understand 'me'." According to my thoughts, I can know 'people'. [11] Shen Congwen himself was a person who never stopped thinking, but in the face of Lu Xun, a particularly huge being, he may have felt a kind of pain and confusion that he was unable to handle.
Although Shen published a handful of works from the founding of the People's Republic of China to his comeback, almost all of them were articles in the style of the situation, and he had completely lost his habitual and unique style, but his letters and other unpublished writings at that time still had some personal characteristics and true feelings. His understanding and evaluation of Lu Xun also rarely had the opportunity to be published, but even in letters and unpublished texts at that time, they were only occasionally involved, and most of them were a few words, and these few words were often written in extremely obscure words, which often brought difficulties to people in understanding, so it was not easy to explore Shen Congwen's true attitude towards Lu Xun, which required attention to his actual situation and special mentality at that time. On the whole, although Shen Congwen's understanding and evaluation of Lu Xun during this period was deeper than that before the founding of the People's Republic of China, and in some respects closer to Lu Xun's true appearance, it still presented a complex and insoluble ambivalence.
Three
After Shen Congwen's comeback in his later years, he seems to have consciously distanced himself from literature, not only rarely published in writing, but also rare speeches and conversations involving literary issues. His so-called "comeback to the literary world" is nothing more than the re-recognition of his status as an outstanding writer by readers and the publication of a large number of his old works. He may have thought in his heart that there was no need to decorate himself with things he had barely written and too many appearances, which reflected both his deep loneliness and his confidence in his past work, and at the same time, it also showed that he was able to face the prestige of his later years with a detached attitude. However, we can still find his heartfelt enthusiasm for literature and his insight into literary issues from his few speeches, conversations, and few words. His understanding and evaluation of Lu Xun during this period also gave people new inspiration.
Although Shen Congwen rarely talked about other writers in his later years, and only a few words about Lu Xun, it can still be found that there is a subtle change in his understanding and evaluation of Lu Xun. If for a long time after the founding of the People's Republic of China, Shen Congwen evaluated Lu Xun with an attitude of looking up, then now he understands and evaluates Lu Xun as a companion of the world and with a level-headed attitude, as he did before the founding of the People's Republic of China. This change of identity is not unmeaningful, which not only shows the change in the political climate, but also shows the change in Shen Congwen's mentality. This makes it unnecessary for Shen Congwen to hide his true attitude through political statements, and it also makes him no longer need to express himself and affirm himself in a tortuous way by evaluating Lu Xun. Therefore, when he talked about Lu Xun, he no longer had any concerns, but came out with a real and frank attitude. In a conversation with the American scholar Jin Jiefu in June 1980, he acknowledged both the influence of Lu Xun's works on him and the fact that he did not like Lu Xun very much[12]. When it comes to the origin of Shen Congwen's dislike of Lu Xun, the conflict of literary concepts and the difference in political positions are undoubtedly the main reasons, but we cannot ignore the influence of personnel entanglements. In an interview with Ling Yu, Shen Congwen once talked about the reason why he and Lu Xun never met: "Ding Ling wrote to him, but he thought it was my pseudonym. What's more, I didn't write it, even if it's really my pseudonym, it's just asking him to find a job on his behalf, so it's worth writing letters and scolding people everywhere. [13] It seems that until his later years he could not let go of this matter. Jin Jiefu argues that, in addition to political differences, Shen Congwen "was too close to Lu Xun's estranged younger brother Zhou Zuoren, which may have been enough to prevent further understanding between the two"[14]. This kind of personnel entanglement has caused the two to never reconcile for the rest of their lives, which is thought-provoking. It should be pointed out that this kind of personnel entanglement has a latent impact on Shen Congwen's evaluation of Lu Xun's personality and bearing, which is quite obvious in his articles on Lu Xun before the founding of the People's Republic of China, and it seems to be revealed in his conversation with Ling Yu. But on the other hand, he was able to transcend this kind of narrow-minded personnel entanglement, and was extremely disgusted with others' unwarranted personal attacks on Lu Xun. In his later years, he talked to Ling Yu about Su Xuelin's scolding of Lu Xun, saying that Su Xuelin "complimented Lu Xun to the extreme for a while, and the following year he used express mail to denounce Mr. Lu Xun for ten crimes" and "scolded Lu Xun for being a 'thief'", which was "everything according to personal feelings", and he expressed deep dissatisfaction with this attitude, believing that "criticism should be 'true'" [15]. This attitude of being unfair to Lu Xun certainly shows Shen Congwen's honest, simple and solid countryman character and belief in life, and more importantly, behind this attitude, it shows that Shen Congwen deeply agrees with Lu Xun as a writer, which is consistent with his consistent view.
Shen Congwen rarely talked about Lu Xun's works after his comeback, and it seems that the only thing that can be seen now is in passing in the postscript written for the republication of "A Legendary Ability" in October 1979. Shen Congwen said in the postscript that his works were burned in mainland China because they were "outdated" after the founding of the People's Republic of China, and in Taiwan he went further, "The decree specifies that all printed and unprinted works are forever forbidden to publish any works except for all burning." He lamented that "this is a rare anecdote in history" and expressed a gentle irony on this anecdote: "There are many groups in China that study Mr. Lu Xun, and when they talk about the achievements of novels, they do not forget to cite "The True Story of Ah Q" as an example. If we really understand the spirit of Ah Q, in my opinion, in fact, there should be a number of cultural officials in Taiwan who hold the power of culture to deeply understand it. The implementation of such laws and regulations is the best proof of this. [16] In his 1931 essay On the Creation of Novels in China, Shen Congwen argued that The True Story of Ah Q was written with "witty taste"[17]. In his opinion, "on the one hand, due to the cultivation of humorous taste, the adverse effects suffered are very bad"[18], and it is easy to turn into a low-level harmonic gimmick, so he does not particularly appreciate Lu Xun's masterpiece, and he will not have a particularly deep understanding of the "Ah Q spirit". However, in his postscript, he used the spirit of Ah Q to compare Taiwan's cultural officials, which had a sarcastic effect to the point, and seemed to show that his understanding was not without changes. After the founding of the People's Republic of China, Lu Xun became one of the most important research objects in the field of literary research, and there were specialized research institutions established for this purpose, and countless people participated in the research, and the research results obtained can be described as abundant, all of which show that Lu Xun has become an indisputable classic writer in the history of literature. It should be said that for a long time after the founding of the People's Republic of China, Shen Congwen lost himself in the face of this "Lu Xun phenomenon" and to a certain extent, but what is valuable is that he did not completely belong to the unified ideological model that served the realpolitik, so he did not completely lose his unique thinking in his understanding and evaluation of Lu Xun. When Shen Congwen wrote this postscript, due to the relatively relaxed political environment, he had far fewer ideological concerns than before, so this postscript was not without the pleasure of expressing his heart directly, and it was easier to see the true state of Shen Congwen's thoughts. He mentions Lu Xun's literary achievements and his research in the postscript, although it is only a passing mention, but the mentality of indifference to this is not difficult to find, it seems that it can be said that he has gained a real self-confidence, realizing that he is about to become another huge existence, if you delve into the real state of mind of Shen Congwen in his later years, this may not be an unfounded speculation.
Looking at Shen Congwen's understanding and evaluation of Lu Xun, not only after the founding of the People's Republic of China compared with before the founding of the People's Republic of China, but also after the comeback compared with before the comeback, there are also major changes, the former change is obvious, and the latter change is implicit and not so easy to be noticed, it seems that it can be said that it is manifested through Shen Congwen's "speechlessness" of Lu Xun. Although Shen Congwen also had a few words about Lu Xun after his comeback, compared with his previous high evaluation of Lu Xun, it was close to "speechless", and he did not have such a high evaluation of Lu Xun after his comeback. This kind of "speechlessness" has a profound meaning, which reflects Shen Congwen's complex and unspeakable mentality. Zhu Guangqin wrote an article entitled "The History of Comrade Shen Congwen's Literary Achievements Will Be Re-evaluated" written during Shen Congwen's comeback: "According to the information on world literature that I have come into contact with, the only new Chinese writers in the world who have been recognized are Congwen and Lao She. [19] There seem to be two reasons why this article caused a storm at the time: first, Shen Congwen's status should not be elevated so high, and second, Lu Xun's literary achievements should not be turned a blind eye. Now it seems that although Zhu Guangqian's views are not one-sided, his evaluation of Shen Congwen is extremely insightful. It should be said that this is consistent with Shen Congwen's self-positioning in his heart, and he was basically in a state of "speechlessness" to Lu Xun after his comeback, which may have something to do with it. Noting this seems to be useful for deepening the study of Shen Congwen and correctly understanding the relationship between the two literary masters who have long had different opinions.
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Text/Wu Touwen
