On Beijing School and Shanghai School

Lao She is the originator of Beijing-style novels. His novels describe the life and customs of Beijing residents in a panoramic way, and are regarded as the source of "Beijing-style novels" and the symbol of Beijing culture. Lao She's novels show strong citizen characteristics and regional culture. The "citizen world" written by Lao She best embodies the "human landscape" of Beijing culture. Lao She used most of his novels to construct a vast "citizen world", which can cover almost all aspects of modern citizen life. The pillar of this citizen world is the three types of citizen images divided by the author with "culture": old-school citizens, new-school citizens and decent citizens. Lao She has been persistently describing "city and people", but at the same time he has been doing the work of "digging roots". No matter the early Two Horses and Divorce or the later Camel Xiangzi under Four Generations, he has been paying attention to the cultural criticism related to ethnic issues, and this criticism is through the "human landscape" of his works, that is, the panoramic view of Beijing citizens' daily life. Different from the method of class analysis of real society usually adopted by mainstream literature in the 1920s and 1930s, he always pays attention to the influence of culture on human nature and interpersonal relationship, which is what we call "Lao She's creative viewpoint" in this lecture. For Lao She, the division of classes or upper and lower classes in civil society is not the most important, but the influence of "culture" on human nature and interpersonal relationships, which is Lao She's basic creative viewpoint. This view not only determines the status and influence of Lao She's novels at that time, but also determines the uniqueness of Lao She's works. It is precisely because of his vulgarity, the "Beijing flavor" and humorous style of his works, and the language based on Beijing dialect that he was far away from the "new literary tone" at that time, which made him unique among modern writers and became the first person to express the fate, thoughts and psychology of the petty bourgeoisie in the social transformation process of "local China" in literary form and achieved great success. At the same time, it is precisely because he attaches importance to the influence of culture on human relations and human relations that his critical attitude towards China traditional culture is determined, and his criticism is different from others. For example, he criticized the negative elements of Beijing culture and even the whole China traditional culture by criticizing his best figure-the old-school citizen who is still a farmer in his bones. Lao She is a writer of wisdom and custom. Shen Congwen is an outstanding representative of "Beijing School Literature". "Beijing School" refers to a group of liberal writers who were active in northern cities such as Peiping and Tianjin in the 1930s. "Beijing School" is the successor of the tradition of "local literature". Their nostalgia for childhood rural life is the main reason for their pastoral style and lyric novel characteristics, and therefore they draw a clear line with Beijing-style novels. Beijing school refers to a literary genre, and Beijing flavor refers to a literary style. Beijing school has nothing to do with Beijing flavor, but two completely different literary concepts. Most of the "Beijing School" writers are the inheritors of the tradition of "local literature". That is to say, writers of "local literature" in the 1920s, although living in cities (such as Beijing), have no direct connection with the city where they live, but are mainly based on their hometown life background. For example, Fei Ming mainly wrote about the life of Huangmei in Hubei, while Shen Congwen took the life in his hometown of Xiangxi as the theme. Lu Ran also mainly described the theme of Henan, and Wang Zengqi, who was later called "the last descendant of Beijing School", also mainly focused on people and events in Gaoyou, Jiangsu. The only special one is Xiao Gan, whose works such as Dream Valley are mostly set in Beijing. However, this is because he is from Beijing and Beijing is his hometown. Moreover, his works are based on "childhood perspective", which is not contrary to Beijing-style works such as "local literature" in essence. Therefore, in the works of Beijing School, it is generally impossible to read "Beijing flavor", and even Xiao Gan's works do not have the characteristics of "Beijing flavor". Lao She is the originator of Beijing-style novels, but he is not a Beijing-style writer. The two biggest characteristics are its regionality and political inclination (that is, attitude). The attitude of Beijing School is represented by Shen Congwen's proposition, that is, the critical position of Shanghai School in a broad sense. Although there are essential differences between left-wing literature and New Sensation School and Yuanyang Butterfly School, Beijing School has the same attitude towards them, and its creation is also different from New Sensation School, Yuanyang Butterfly School and left-wing literature. Lao She and Shen Congwen are equally concerned about cultural conflicts in the process of modernization. Lao She's uniqueness lies in his understanding and performance of Beijing!