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Title |
Lightness and Lyric──The Aesthetics of Yuan Zhesheng’s Fiction |
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Author |
Liu, Nai-Tzu |
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Assistant Professor, Department of Taiwanese Literature, National Cheng Kung University |
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Abstract |
By the end of the 20th century, the development of Taiwanese fiction generally has become descriptively “lavish” which proved to be a difficult challenge for new generation writers. The new generation writers of “the 60’s” that has dominated the literature forum of the 90’s, mostly choose to elaborate too far on writing technique, style, format, linguistic and theme so as to compete with writers of previous generations who have established their names in this field. A few writers choose an opposite way, ventured out into a totally different area. Within this period, writers Luo Yichun and Yuan Zhesheng, respectively could be considered as the typical icons of these two poles of fiction writing. Yuan Zhesheng would be considered as a renegade when compared to other mainstreams in Taiwanese literature. His works doesn’t have the aesthetic format, the learning of writing techniques or the mimicking of works done by masters such as Chang Tachuen, Ping Lu and Luo Yichun. Nor does he express his interest in society related issues like writers Li Ang, Chu Tienhsin and so on. On the contrary, Yuan Zhesheng’s writing style shows significantly the technique of “lightness” whereas its aesthetics brings out the thickness of rich lyrics. What’s more to mention his scene management skills, the capturing of images, sparing and spacing, all within the field of descriptive writing style and lyric vision. In addition to these, his works include the conventional values found in contemporary literature, such as the reflection and examination of humanity and the sharing of general experiences and common predicament. These values once again has a chance to elaborate and prosper in Yuan Zhesheng’s writing. For these reasons, this study would like to use two aesthetic concepts namely, “lightness” and “lyrics”, to understand the core value and special characteristics of Yuan Zhesheng’s works over the past ten-year. Aside from analyzing the aesthetic techniques of the writer, this study will also attempt to explain the reasons behind the selection of technique, format, theme and content as well as the correlation between different factors. |
